New News, No News or Nothing Special

August 23, 2022August 26, 2022 ~ Joliesattic ~ 4 Comments

Hey guys! I’m on a roll, lol. Two posts in one day?

Where do I begin?

The other day, I was doing my usual morning walk, however it was destined to be a short one, yet before that happened something caught my eye…

What happened here? A few too many maybe?

More on that later.

Lately, because of the heat and my age, I’ve had to either start out at the crack of dawn or substitute the treadmill or elliptical in order to avoid the sun. It has been a scorcher both while I was in Salt Lake City and at home in Southern California. The heat and sun has been very intense. My outdoor plants in Cali had withered and died completely as I was not here to water them while I was in Salt Lake.

What a sad state of affairs. It has cooled down some since, but the loss is depressingly sad. I hate when living things pass out of neglect and circumstances.

On my walks I get to ponder many things and yes, I’m still walking to my K-pop tunes, but I’ve since added some Keith Urban and other pop artists to my lists as well. I’ve decided, I love Pink. She’s actually a good singer. I love how Keith Urban seems to be tuned into the female psyche. He hits home with me all the time.

One day I was walking, airpods in my ear belting out one of his songs, I think it was Blue Ain’t Your Color or Wildhearts, and this construction worker in a hole on the street, stops to tell me I have a good voice. I had to take that graciously since I’m singing loudly to a tune no one else can hear but me. My father always told me never to deny a complement but accept them graciously, so I did.

I’ve also added some Elmer Bernstein and The Greatest Showman tunes, which I also sing loudly to.

On my walks, I meet other people’s animals and photograph them. I spot unique garden designs or beautiful fauna. I see sad things and dirty things.

Once I went through a cycle of photographing a good many roadkills. It was quite the week, all these critters jumping into harms way like that. Some things I see, I’d rather not mention.

Lately, I’ve spotted injured coyotes that disturbed me. One such coyote was busily licking his wounds before he was aware of my presence and ran off. I kept looking for it wondering if it had died and I had visions of it being consumed by maggots. A couple of weeks later I saw another coyote, only this one was lying on the ground and appeared to be dead, but upon my approach, I called out. It startled me when it jumped up and leapt away. He also bore a scarred gash on his flank. At first, I thought it was the same dog, but photographs I’d taken before proved me wrong. I’d wondered if someone was doing them harm or were there just too many males and there is a hierarchy battle going on. No clue. After I published the photo of the second one on my Instagram, someone from the Eastern Coyote_Center, let me know there was a Coyote Rescue.org probably in my area and there is, so I now have a number to call should I see that again.

CONTEMPLATION

These walks allow me time to contemplate many things. Life, my blogging friends lives, though I’ve not followed up near as much as I used to. It’s like where has my time gone? Why do I feel like I have no time? It is jam packed with so many things for some reason. I think of my family so far away and wonder if I’ve done a good job. Even if I haven’t, they love me and think I’m the best and cool. I’m grateful for all the love they give me. Thoughts. Some make me smile, some make me cry. I still miss my sister so very much. Our chats, her responses.

I discovered some of my best ideas for screenplays come out of my walks. At first, as these ideas came spilling out, I’d arrive at home 3-4 miles later, having forgotten what they were. Since then, I discovered my Notes App on my phone and started dictating my ideas to notes. At times you can see me having running dialogues with myself and my characters. That has been such a boon to my screenwriting.

Back to the beginning. As I said in the beginning, something caught my eye. I came across that big gash in the fence, off the road, in a business area. On the ground, was a hubcap and I immediately came to the conclusion that some drunk driver had careened into the fence some time during the night. It was a miracle he’d not gone into the ditch below. I shook my head and sighed then walked a few steps further and happened to notice a tree behind the fence, tipped forward and a large branch that had broken off in the direction of the dent on the fence.

Hmmm. Did I make a judgment error? I looked at it carefully and figured I had. It made me think. It was a tall eucalyptus tree and eucalyptus trees tend to have shallow roots, which seems odd since they grow so tall. Nonetheless, it reminded me of a time, some 40+ years ago when the same thing had occurred near my home at the time. I’d been away and upon my return, unbeknownst to me, we’d had an earthquake which jostled the tree across the street enough for it to become uprooted, falling onto my neighbors garage, seconds after their daughter had pulled out of it to go to work, no less! What a mess and a blessing Kathleen had escaped unharmed.

Like I mentioned before, it’s been very hot and I might add, there has been no rain, nothing to soften the soil and loosen the roots, so I wondered if we’d had an undetected earthquake as can happen often in California. Another Hmmm

My point though, and what occurred to me in all this analyzation is how busy my mind was to create and conclude a story. One that fit my logic. It made me wonder about the stories we tell ourselves and the judgments we make about the world around us either through our own observations or the influences of social media or through educated (or uneducated) guesses based on information we’ve logged into the recesses of our brains and how we use it to see the world around us. Why?

It made me sad, because in our relationships with our fellow man, we do it all the time. What is even sadder is how we tend to justify these analogies based on our own life experiences and the preset filters we create.

I realize that it’s probably instinctual, as instinct has been key to man’s survival all these centuries. Yes, they were necessary back then, but how well are we using them now? How and why are we letting outside influences, through both peer pressure and social media vomit and scorn, skew our thinking? It’s like we’ve become lemmings or as we had in Colorado, prairie dogs that periodically go off to a mass suicide death. To be honest, who isn’t influenced by the world around us? Who hasn’t quoted Yahoo, or preferential news sources or a Twitter comment as if it were the holy grail? Oh, and Quora, who follows Quora? We are so easily manipulated. I’m no exception. I sometimes believe how much so and so loves his wife or doesn’t, then there’s this or that person being a total jerk. Oh, then how wonderful so and so is, look at all the humane things he does. Social media can be and is often tweaked to be a weapon. Isn’t that what a certain person was counting on when she filed her suit against her famous hubby? Hmmmm

When I was visiting my children in SLC, my granddaughter showed me how to manipulate my pictures, add sound and do all kinds of stuff on my phone. Wow! If she does it easily, think of all the other things we are bombarded with that may be contrived to tell a story “they” want you to see?

But, apart from that, what about the things we see in those closest to us, those that social media isn’t posting about? This contemplative thinking made me aware of how unfair I can be sometimes with those I care about. A friend once told me, that trust is like a mirror, once it’s broken, it can’t be put back together. That hits close to home. We discovered that neither of us trusted the other, but mostly me, him. He once said there were things, I didn’t know or what he couldn’t reveal yet, and my response was bullshit! (sorry) In the meantime, I won’t tell him what I feel, because it makes me feel vulnerable. Have I become jaded? Has my own past colored my present?

I know I’ve shared with everyone, in earlier, previous posts, some of my childhood and past. Not wanting to live in the past, I’ve tried real hard to overcome these and change for the better, but my kids tell me it’s my past that has kept me from seeing things honestly. I trust when I shouldn’t and don’t when maybe I should.

I think because of the past, I tend to want to see results quickly, otherwise, I run away. Prove to me now and I’ll be fine. Perhaps, that’s also why I doubt and put up walls to protect myself. Does anyone else do that? So, in the interim, as my neighbor revs up his snazzy Corvette across the street, making a boatload of racket and drowning out my thoughts, I’d like to say… In conclusion,

if … anyone that reads this post has been hurt by my doubts, I’m sorry.

Some things we just can’t shake no matter how hard we try and at 76, I just learned that. Is it too late to try?

In the meantime, remember too, forgiveness is divine. 😉😉🥴

Ferguson – Where Are You?

July 9, 2019July 13, 2019 ~ Joliesattic ~ 22 Comments

I’ve not been online for awhile.

I lost my dog.

I don’t know if the coyotes got him or perhaps the homeless that live at the bottom of the hill have him. They admitted to seeing him, but because their camps are booby trapped and Hep A is rampant in them, not to mention that the one at the bottom of our hill is a known meth lab and heaven knows what else is there that even cops won’t go in there.

I have no way of knowing if they decided to keep him. Soooo, I’m in a frump, majorly depressed. My kitty won’t eat and I’m afraid she may be next. She is 17, after all.

It amazes me how something so small can get into your heart and wrench it out. Chloe, our cat, has always behaved from Day 1 as though Ferguson was an inconvenience, an interloper and a nuisance to her. She was here first and he was so damn needy.

She knows. She hasn’t been eating and her usual sleep all day life pattern has been disrupted and she walks around looking for him. She goes in and out of rooms as though she thinks he will materialize from heaven knows where. I’m thinking she misses him too. Even though they generally didn’t get along, when night time came or it was cold, they’d call a truce.

It happened on July 2. I was out in the yard pulling weeds and planting to prepare for our big fourth of July BBQ and Ferguson came out to lift his leg on a plant I’d just relocated. Of course.

I hadn’t realized how the day had gotten away from me, so I said to him, “Oh, I’m sorry buddy, you need your walk!” I was working on a slope on the other side of our fence. So, I “jumped” over the fence to get his leash in the house, but turned and he was nowhere to be seen. I figured the little guy had gone back into the house or if he’d gone down the hill, he’d be right back up. But, he didn’t. Nothing. Poof! He disappeared.

I called out but he was nowhere to be found. He’s gone down the hill before on a number of occasions but he always comes back up within minutes. Little did I realize we would have an earthquake a couple of days later and it’s a known fact, dogs flee before quakes. I waited only a few before I got worried. I called and called, but nothing. My husband got home from work, my brother, who was painting the fence stopped and we all went searching. Within an half hour after my last sighting of him, the whole neighborhood was out en force to search. Another half hour later, the neighborhood kids had created posters to put up.

Range Rovers, Pick ups and Armada’s were cruising the streets for him. I was shocked at how quickly the neighborhood was mobilized. I told them they didn’t have to but they insisted. They said, “He’s family, we do have to!” Everyone loves Ferguson.

He was after all their favorite sidewalk sweeper. His tail was good for something.

Hubby and I had joked in Alabama that everyone in town knew Ferguson’s name but I bet not a one knew ours. Everyone always asks about Ferguson and I’d bet the whole of Etowah County is praying for him.

It is now going on four days. No Ferguson.

The first day, I went down the hill but heard screaming and profuse foul language. That prevented me from going further. As I said, the homeless camp below is a known meth lab, and that even the police won’t go down there. They say it’s booby trapped. It may be. My neighbor, Val and I went over to the other side of the railroad tracks with binoculars to see if we could see movement. We see our house clearly. (see photo) There’s so much brush and he’s such a little guy, did we really believe we’d see anything? We hope. We post signs along the way. We talk to everyone, especially other dog walkers. Some we know, some we don’t. We scan the slope for over a half hour. We later go to the cul de sac where the trail leading to those camps begin and ventured forward a little ways to get a different vantage. Never going in so far that we couldn’t be seen, of course. I’m guessing our husband’s would have had a coronary if they knew. By then, it was getting dark. We meet some people headed to the camp. They are well dressed but tell us, they have family there and they bring food and goods to them. We tell them about Ferguson and they promise to convey the message. We are out of flyers so we have nothing to leave them. Val gives them her number. I notice they have a small child with them, so in my mind I’m questioning the danger factor.

That night, Hubby and I hear the coyotes howling and growling. It was a big pack. I hadn’t heard them like that in months. I thought with all the homeless around that they had moved on. The likelihood of Ferguson surviving that was nil. I finally broke down and bawled, hubby too. Our hopes are dashed. How can something so little break our hearts like that?

When I took this picture in slo-mo, I found myself with two Fergs. I’d love to just get one of those back.

Day two, I spend most of the day on all my Social Media connections, posting pictures of Ferguson and the details of his disappearance. I get some feedback on what to do next and how to get the most of my postings. Friends and those in the know reassure me that as little as he is, he could easily hide and stay safe. I go to post more posters. I’m thinking, the Sprinter Station which is below us and off to our right a little ways would be a good spot to post something, since I knew the homeless often cross over the tracks at that juncture, but there was no posting permitted. As I turn away, a young woman saw the poster and shouted, “That’s “Woofy Boy”! I ask her if she’d seen him (while at the same time thinking, my dog already has a nick name?) and she said, yes. He was at their camp the night before, then turned to the other two men to get their affirmation, they agree but are not as sociable. I told her I was worried the coyotes might have gotten him and she said, “no, he was still there in the morning”.

“Is he still there?” I ask

“I don’t know, I haven’t been there all afternoon.” The guys were getting impatient and walk away.

“I can go check and call you, your number is right here” and she took the flyer with her.

“Call me” I shout.

She tells me to “wait there” and I do.

It was all I could do to stay rooted and wait. I waited and waited, but no call. Finally, I get a hold of hubby and he says, “What should I do?”

“I don’t know”. A few minutes later he’s scrambling down the hill. A few minutes after that, I too am heading up the path, police or no police.

I stop at the first camp which is camouflaged like a military dugout. Invisible to the eye. I only knew it was there because I heard them talking. I shouted out. The guy inside gruffly asks who I was and what I wanted. I told him.

He responded with, “No, I haven’t seen it!” Sweetly, I tell him I have a flyer.

He says, “Don’t come in (as if I would), I’m coming out” A few seconds later, he appeared. He was a big bruiser. He took the flyer and said, “Oh yeah, I did see it, but he’s gone now” give me the poster and I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

So, I go back on the trail, and I come across a young man swinging a golf club and all sorts of things are going through my head. My heart is about to pop out of my chest and I’m wondering what in the hell am I doing? Shiiiiit, Do I keep going or do I talk to him?

I talk to him, all the while watching that club, then I notice a golf ball. Both, viable weapons. He turns and walks with me and tells me how Ferguson was stationed by his tent but that he wouldn’t let him touch him. He tells me that he didn’t push it because it was getting dark and he didn’t want him to run off and get eaten by coyotes and that Ferguson was still there in the morning. I thanked him.

The young man and I keep walking until I finally run into my hubby who is talking to a woman other than the one I’d seen earlier, who was also friendly and promising she’d keep an eye out. He also never went into their actual camp. Mind you, none of these people look like your typical homeless, except for the young man with the club, maybe. We pointed out our yard above them and the young man said, “If I catch him, I’ll take him and “throw” him over the fence”. Hubby says, “you can knock on the door, that’s okay, there’ll be a little reward”. We thanked them for their kindness and left. There are probably six or eight camps, I could not get close enough to photograph the others.

Day three is the fourth of July and still no word. Hubby says, I’m gonna go down and check. I hand him some dog food and treats. Some time later, he comes back and says, they were not nearly as friendly today, except the lady.

Day four, I hear screaming and yelling again. There’s a disturbance below, so we stay away. The women swear like sailors, but this time I hear men. Something is going down and we want no part of it. We go to the animal shelter hoping maybe someone has turned him in. We give them all the info and at first they frown wondering why we delayed coming to them. I told them the above story and they understood. They admitted they’d seen all our online postings anyway. We explained how we had hoped “they” would have gotten hold of him and brought him to us. The Humane Society told us they are inclined to believe the homeless will keep him as they generally do. They tell us it happens all the time.

I start getting texts and emails from people wanting us to get a police escort and search warrants to go in there. Hubby and I are not crazy about that idea. For one, we already know their reputation and they now know where we live. If they are as rough as they sound or are reputed to be, there could be ramifications for anything we do aggressively. My brother in law, in a puffed up display of ignorance says, “you can’t let them bully you like that, holding you hostage in your own home” and going on about showing force etc. etc. Of course, he doesn’t live here and I wish it were that easy. I will however talk to the police and ask them what they think is the best course of action.

Day five, I don’t know what else to do. Folks, I live in Oceanside, California. If anyone knows anyone out this way, let them know our situation and hopefully, we can get Ferguson back.

A part of me is angry Ferguson took off. I mean, how could he do that to us or to himself? He had it good here. Is he hungry, cold? Have they tied him up? He would absolutely hate that. He always slept between Hubby and I and when I crawled into bed last night I instinctively reached out to ruffle his ears and stroke his little frame. What were you thinking little buddy? Was it because we’ve had company? Did you feel neglected with all of us busily working? Was it the earthquake? WHY?!

His Backstory:

This was our first look at this little guy. He was sitting like this on our stoop for two days on a hot, summer day in Alabama.

I put water and cat food in a dish and kept telling him to “go home”.

Isn’t he just the cutest? We learned later that he’d been wandering and scavenging around town for months after a big tornado hit. If you check the date on the photo, it’s been almost exactly 8 years we’ve been calling him our own and now he’s gone. He’s gotten gray around the face and shoulders since then. My hubby loved it when he’d drape his head over his arm while snuggling in. See the gray?

Initially, he wouldn’t let us touch him, so my sister and I sat in our driveway and talked to him until he let us near enough to get him but he just rolled over and let me pick him up. My sister is an animal whisperer so I begged her to let me have first contact because I was in love. Even so, we did our due diligence and searched for his owners with ads in the paper for two months. We put up posters everywhere and hit the vets and shelters, trying our best to find them. His teeth were nearly rotted out, he was wormy, flea ridden and dirty. We checked for a chip and got him his shots and dental cleaning.

When I’d get home from work or anything where I was gone no more than two hours, he’d do a crazy “happy dance” and run all over the house with his butt looking like it was going to get ahead of the rest of his body. When he peed, he did so with his back legs up doing a handstand and the first time he found four objects he wanted to christen, he did so without ever hitting all fours, turning on his front legs only, in one full swoop. The first time he did that, I laughed so hard I thought I’d pee my pants.

How can I be soooo sad?

Because that little scamp is and can be a a little dickens, like a child, he burrowed his way into our hearts and it hurts.

Ferguson was the first dog my hubby ever had and he didn’t think he’d like him, but he bawled harder than I did at first. Even now, the tears fight their way to the surface unbidden. Who couldn’t have resisted that face?

At his first vet visit, the vet guessed he may have been around two years old then, which I doubted because of the condition of his teeth (I’d been a human dental assistant and that didn’t make sense to me) but then he was also malnourished when we found him. He pranced like a show dog and heeled like a well trained dog. That’s another reason for believing that someone ought to be missing him. At the time we didn’t know about the tornado websites, but a friend did and she helped check those out. Nothing. In fact my friend was even more determined to find his owners while I’m secretly hoping she doesn’t. Yeah, he wormed his way in real good.

These are some of our memories:

This was the picture we used on the posters and ads to find his owners. It was this picture that someone saw and told us he wan’t a long hair Chihuahua, but a Papillon. The vet thought he might have Chihuahua in him but a breeder said, no. He’s all clean here. Initially, he had a limp, but with good nourishment that went away.

Here he is taking a breather under our car or by a tree on our hike in Colorado. This little guy had more stamina on a long hike than my grand kids. When he got tired or cold, I’d put him in my shirt or backpack. He loved going on walks.

Sign? What sign?

Okay. I’m done.

He loved our tranquil walks at Noccalula Falls in Alabama and hikes in the Sawatch Mountains of Utah and Park City.

He loved taking over our bed, even in this cushy hotel room with lots of pillows. You’d a thought he’d paid for it. lol

Daddy’s tummy is just right and this hammock at grandma’s is pretty cool too.

A special day on the beach with mommy.

Day 6 – I spend all day putting up flyers, talking to people and visiting the police department and talking to Sheriff and Code Enforcement.

The police department photocopied flyers to hand out to those officers that work that area. They definitely do not recommend we go down there because of diseases and such, plus most of them are on drugs, tend to be erratic and other hazards related to that. They recommend I call Code Enforcement. I call Code Enforcement to get an address but end up leaving a message.

I talk to people at the Sprinter (rail station), who I know will ride by the area in question and they are awesome and say they will keep a lookout.

I go to another station and see the Sheriff congregating, so I talk to them and they take photos of my flyer and say they will gladly keep an eye out.

I leave flyers at businesses nearby and they hang them up. They are agreeable.

Code enforcement calls back and tells me they can’t hand out flyers. I tell the lady that’s not what I’m asking and she sounds like it would be a major inconvenience to accommodate me. PLUS… she tells me that I could get fined for putting up all those flyers and… get this, a lady who put up flyers for her missing child was fined and not allowed to do so!!! Welcome to California. I talk to her a few more minutes and before I hang up she says she looks forward to seeing me. Wow! Maybe, I’ll be the one in jail.

Well folks, all I can say, is it’s in God’s hands now. Ferguson wherever you are, we love you and miss you. We hope you are safe.

Tackling Social Media

September 1, 2016September 2, 2016 ~ Joliesattic ~ 15 Comments

I live far from my family and keep these links open to stay in touch with them, or so I tell myself but even so, I sometimes wonder why.

I wonder why I really want to see my family members in their various morphing stages when after reading some of their comments, I’m thinking maybe I’d prefer to disown them altogether and wonder how I can.

Several years ago when I first logged onto social media, I thought it would be a great way to keep in touch outside of handwriting them a letter. We are several states away and for awhile it was marvelous. I got to see what they liked and we’d talk and it was great. Then, things changed. I’d comment on some of their pics and controversial extrapolations, but found myself crossing swords with them and that’s fine, it was friendly. It wasn’t however, something I wanted to do on social media. I’m an eye to eye sort of debater, I want to look you in the eye when we disagree. You can see far more that way than by words alone. As it is, I unfriended grandson #2 because it was just too much. Every other word began with F—!

When grandson #1 begins postulating on various topics be they political, moral or religious, which he often does, I wondered how at the ripe old age of 16, he thought he could be an authority on anything. Unfortunately, the child is gifted with high intelligence and has a knack for being eloquently verbose.

Today, he legally grows Marijuana, yet I can see him one day … becoming the president of a large pharmaceutical.

His younger brother on the other hand may be singing the same tunes only far more discreetly. He seems responsible and polite and he’s not afraid of hard work.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Cuttin’ wood in Moab

He’s a diplomat. He seems to pretty much say what you expect him to, in other words he has all the makings of and could become a politician. Perhaps he’s better equipped to be president because you really don’t know what’s going on in this kids head. At the rate this country is going, I suppose he’d probably do a better job.

Will they grow up and turn out alright? Perhaps, but the transition is too painful to watch. Look at all the ex hippies that are heading major corporations now. Some actually became president and some are teaching our kids.

I will say this. When I talk to them (the grandkids) one on one and in person, they seem like very nice kids, but on social media… Yikes!

Their younger two siblings are so far doing fine. My grand daughter has begun filming her own little five minute shorts. Her slightly older brother is shy and seems to be staying out of harms way. He see’s his older brothers and seems to be taking a lesson on how not to be. One, of course, never knows until they are all grown.

The same for my grand daughters. On social media, for awhile there, they for all appearances appeared like hussies! I know, the word is dated but it fits. Their pictures all came across as provocative, impudent and superficial. In other words slutty. I wondered then, do I even want to know what they’re all really doing?

Then, my youngest second grand daughter, an unwed mother, does this twerking thing in front of a couple of boys, shows pictures and videos of herself in various situations and wonders why she keeps getting treated badly. She has no clue? One day I hope she will wise up. I hate seeing her hurting, she’s truly a good kid.

Her older sister, still posts a ton of pictures but does them beautifully.

She’s become a responsible mom and many of her shots are well done.

As for the next cycle of grand kids, who knows? I think they will be fine. For some reason, my first two were very lenient because they said I was too strict.

My son, the former Marine does not feel the same way. His children so far are doing fine, but they are still young.

As for me and my own social media presence. I try to keep it simple. I “like” and “share” what I find interesting. I try to avoid politics because, first of all, IF you judged my grand kids by what they post, you might wonder about them, so you can’t believe all that you see or read about a person by what is posted.

Social media can be manipulated way too much and too easily that is for certain.

Am I for Trump or Hillary? I won’t say. Both fall short tremendously and both come across as idiots no matter how you slice it.

I remember as a child, I wanted to read the Bible but really didn’t know how to go about doing it, so I decided one day to just close my eyes, open the book and let my little hand point a finger to the page or verse I’d start at. In this way I’d be letting “God” direct where I would begin. (That’s not how I intend to vote, but I did give it some thought). Eeek!

Whatever happens at this point, in any event, is in God’s hands anyway. I do believe that He is in control and will determine the outcome whether we think it’s right or wrong. I think everyone in this universe has his/her part to play and whatever “they” do is predestined for a time to work out His ultimate plan. Like people in the past, we will probably never see the end result of that plan, but it never hurts to pray for something better.