We've been having several meetings lately about 'children of poverty', 'the defiant child', and those that are 'chronic', or victims of situations that are constant and beyond their control, thus outside influences and ways of life are the driving motivators of some of their behaviors... and some of them just lack love or a kind word...
I was thinking of this when I saw a fellow blogger had posted a pic of Yolanda from Ecuador:

It occured to me to post a pic of our families' other children, so here is our son "Isaias" (Brigham's age) and the girls "Marcella" and "Julia":

Isaias lives in El Estor, while Julia and Marcella live Quezaltenango and San Lucas Toliman, the village we stayed in when we visited them in Guatemala. That's grandma in the middle.
When my parents first started receiving pics of the girls as toddlers, I criticized them many times for wasting their monthly monetary donation and was a huge disbeliever that their packages ever made it out of the US. What a load of CRAP!
Finally, they decided to go see for themselves, but dad passed away, and Brigham and I went in his place. Naturally, google told me that we would be robbed, knifed, and all manners of unsavory things that had my nerves on end...and when we got there, it was a terrifying thing to see guns all over--in fact, I thought one man was trying to rob my son of his backpack at the Guat City Airport, but it turned out to be one of 5 of our armed guards protecting him. In the corner of the next pic, you can see a couple of them--right after this picture was taken, they drew their weapons and scared us--but they were pointing them at a scrawny little dog-- and they would have shot it had it growled at us! We were visiting a church up this steep hill--absolutely gorgeous country.
We had only been in San Lucas Toliman for a few minutes when we were ushered down into some local houses (pitiful shacks) and I immediately received a nice wave of shame when these kind and gracious tiny people drew us into their homes to display years of American photos, gifts, cards and letters that were pinned to the walls of their homes:
Here, we'd consider them merely sheds or worse--wouldn't even keep your lawnmower dry, constructed of a variety of materials: pieces of wood, cement block, tin, trash bags, and corn stalks wired together. Almost any room in my house was way bigger than their entire homes; a very humbling experience, and the lucky ones had most of their walls constructed of blocks, or a single mattress, or maybe a stove. This kitchen was constructed of boards and a garbage can to cook on:Many organizations rip you off/take your money and run. I can verify with my own 2 eyes that CFCA does NOT. We ended up having 32 people in our overall group, and there were many tears shed as these Mayan people cried with thanks that their children were able to go to school and receive dental/doctor care and extra food. You are never asked to donate more... unless you want to, for a birthday or confirmation, etc. We saw many programs being implemented by CFCA, such as well-digging, forestry, irrigation, laundry house, and the ancient but clean hospital. Here is Brig with the hospital director (remember that Brigham is very short!):

We were told that their limited stature was due to hundreds of years of bad nutrition (basically based on oppression by the invading Spanish). I am 5'1" and I could put my chin on the tops of the ladies' heads!
But here's the thing: despite the horrors of their existence and their lack of almost every possible 'convenience', the kids were just smiles and grins and the families were truly grateful and sweet. The majority of these kids receive LOVE.
CFCA boys watching us visit Lake Atitlan.

Peachy Keen

Hmmm. We were talking about the latest area crime...a 54 year old lady was the victim of a deadly hit and run and authorities are looking for...one of the 'Chas Manson look-a-like's' relatives. The vehicle was found, but not the driver... heard they'd had another party.... and as we are discussing this topic (maybe I better jog on the sidewalk/in the morning, not evenings!) Skinny Farmer Guy said he had some more peaches....I "stoned" 2 gallons for him (stoned--ha ha!) and he told me they were from the infamous LSD site. (Did I ever mention that 'Nuther Cop Buddy jmped on that criminal's back to bring him down...and that Cop Buddy had to work in that missile silo?)
Skinny Farmer Guy also showed me 2 more fruits--one looked like a small nectarine and who knows what the other was!?! Perhaps it had been chemically induced....
Maybe that's why he likes that Peach Wine...!

Pharmacuticals, Curls, African Babes

One morning when I went up by work, I remembered to grab my little plastic baggie of crystals that remained hidden under the sink. It'd been there forever, so it probably lost it's potency-- maybe I should mix up a new batch later today...

Mom can get Miracle Gro to induce numerous shoots/fronds/leaflets, all at freakizoid pace. Plants gone wild! Everything thrives for her; my stuff seemed to move at mediocre speed. Or stagnant speed—turtle pace.

I had my baggie of Miracle Gro to fertilize some of the many plants that greenhouse my room but it never seemed to do anything. I used it on lots of pineapple, plumeria, monkey paws, tamarind, elephant ears and other things pilfered during vacation. (If only I'd sent myself the coconut that was rooting...) but-- I'd rather use banana peels and organic stuff like fish guts than Miracle Gro, despite the smell...The problem? I haven't had any fish this summer, despite the fact that Brigg, Brett, and Shane caught over 20 5 pound catfish the other night on PEACHES, and threw them all back (whaaa).

I contemplated the Miracle Gro crystals, wishing humans could take it for hair growth-- wouldn't I love that?....SPROING! I would take it every day, just like a vitamin...SPROING!

I love wild freaky hair, the weirder the better (Many years ago during Christmas break, I tried the dredlock thing and went to a late night movie...a little girl coming out of the bathroom stall looked up at me and jumped. Sigh. I guess some people around here aren't used to it...I'll blog
about Nate and Bailey's 'getting beat up & bloody' incident later...)

This summer I'd cut off over 4 inches of hair allover right before Bailey's wedding and called mom bawling my head off... “I wanted C-C-C-CURLY hair, not WA- WA- WAVY! Curly LIKE A SPRING!!!” (Whaaa again. Sniffle.) I kept thinking it had too much weight and if I lessened the load via scissors, it would spring up like Shirley Temple, but it was just a wrong perm and I still can't get used to it... whaaa....so I added some blond stripes instead.

But I will never forget the time I was a little girl and all of us kids were with mom grocery shopping in Topeka. (This was back in the day when you didn't 'eat out' every time you drove somewhere-- you just bought a loaf of bread and a package of bologna...viola! Lunch was served, despite the disdainful curled lip!)

Here we are, ready to check out, all tired, whining, dragging our feet, probably begging for candy, when we became enamored by a little African-American baby seated in the cart ahead of us. It was a living dolly, with delightful boings of hair, curlylocks, very tempting to pull on them and streettcchh them out. We loved its hair and immediately began 'flirting' with and entertaining the baby, since it was quite unusual for us—no blacks in our tiny town-- and we grinned and smiled and made faces and played hide and seek with our fingers....causing it to laugh and flail its little arms...

My little brother was around 2; maybe I was in 2^nd grade? I began the whispered plea—whispered, but deliberately loud enough for my siblings to hear: “Mom, please can we have baby—like that? Mom, puuullleeeaaaassee.....look at its hair... will you have a black baby?” Immediately my 3 younger siblings took up the chant, pretty quietly, but GOD, did her face turn red! She tried her best to shush us and was probably wilting with humiliation as they clamored around her, pulling at her legs....“Yeah, mom—have a black baby, c'mom, please!” “Please have a black baby—why not?”

I can only imagine the faces of the other adults in line....trying not to snicker-- “Yeah lady, explain that to your little kids...why not?” Oh what a little rat I was...!

Tongue Pickles and Gravy Blue

I was slicing zucchini into lengthy slabs, thinking 'this is not julienne; what's it called?' We'd had the best cucumbers sliced similarly at a pulled-pork restaurant in Haleiwa—scrumptiously delicious.
The kids always wanted dill pickles on their hamburgers—not round, but the long ones--'you know, shaped like a a a tongue!”, thus “tongue pickles” became one of our household words which we still use today (not around regular people of course!). Another invented word was coined when we were admiring different paint jobs on automobiles and dreaming of what we'd buy if we'd win the lottery (fat chance—we never play), but we saw an SUV in an odd shade of blue—somewhat grayed down, thus “gravy blue” was born. And Tarzan, an old cat that wandered around the living room gently wafting his poker tail aimed toward heaven...the name Oreehole arrived... 'Oh Gross...!' He had a few dark butt crumbs under it's tail-- yes, disgusting but funny—perhaps this came from a movie and I just assumed the kids were clever....but I can't look at an Oreo cookie the same way!

To go on: I have always liked odd names; Brigham's new pet 'Fritz' didn't meet my creative standard—since it lives in an aquarial setting complete with river sand, rocks, my rat skull, and 2 succulents I bought, I thought it should be named something arid—like 'Mohave', or (since it's a Chilean Rose Tarantula,) a Chilean name—based on some of those ancient tribes that forced baby skulls into obloid alien shapes! But I guess a German 'Fritz' fits with South America, having hidden all those Nazis that hightailed it out of Europe, and Fritz does sit on top of his rock with one paw raised in a HEIL HITLER salute... and today I observed his ferocious attack of a cricket... he's a killin' machine!

And speaking of Nazi's...I went out to Flat Tire Farmer's house in the drizzle to pick a few climbing beans that he'd offered (+ sent on a grasshopper-hunting errand since Fritz ate his cricket and still might be hungry-- why am I collecting his meals??) and got to pick some of the coolest beans--some ranged from 8” to 18” and were a spectacular shade of burgundy!

Regular green beans grew adjacent, so I grabbed a handful of those (in the meantime, stashing wet grasshoppers in my pocket), but the green beans were bizarre. Some were plain, some were green on one side and splashed with burgundy spots on the other, and some had burgundy flecks on both sides! How peculiar.. I thought I thought of Mengele?, the pea scientist, performing countless experiments on peas...these green beans probably cross-pollinated with the red ones...but I knew my brain was malfunctioning...Mengele, Mengel, Mendelsohn, Mendel...ahhh...For heaven's sake I'd nearly confused the atrocious Josef Mengele: Nazi Angel of Death, with Gregor Mendel: Scientific Monk of Colorful Pea Flowers!

Words, names, nicknames...I thought it amusing this morning that the gas station gal called my Skinny Farmer Guy exactly that. 'Hey, Skinny Farmer Guy...what pump you on...?' He'd brought over bags of peaches from a hay meadow—I told him that I'd pit them for his winter wine making, if I could freeze some...so I did 11 gallons. I gave him 17 shirts that I'd picked up for him too.

Padraic/Patrick-- I think the first spelling is cool...I was reminded of this when reading Angela's Ashes last weekend—and if anyone ever thinks their childhood was bad... read it.

and the names Oryx and Crake really caught my eye at Bailey's last summer...so I read that book on the beach during vacation (a Margaret Atwood tale—hey, she's Canadian!) I'd also read The Handmaid's Tale years ago/The Wanting Seed/Brave New World/etc. So what are these books classified as? I guess they are science fiction, but not like---say, Star Trek or something! Futuristic?

And talking about 'futuristic' and 'names', Bailey and I had poked fun about 'spidergoats' on an older blog from the website cracked.com and then I found this:

Only 20 weeks old, 2 sister goats warrant tight security because their milk is highly prized by the U.S. military. Their 70,000-gene chromosomes have been manipulated to include a gene from the orb weaver, a palm-size spider that spins the world's toughest natural material. Researchers are "growing" the spider's silk inside Mille and Muscade's mammary glands. These strands of silk, just 3 microns thick, are three times as tough as DuPont's bulletproof Kevlar. A woven cable as thick as your thumb can bear the weight of a jumbo jet. Once perfected, the silk will be used for featherweight ballistic vests, medical sutures and artificial ligaments. The goats represent a promising new avenue in the controversial field of transgenics, the science of splicing one species' genes onto the genome of another. Most efforts, including the recent news of a disease-detecting rhesus monkey (bred with a glowing jellyfish gene), focus on improving the characteristics of existing organisms...

While I am not going to blog on whether transgenics is ethical or not, it sure is fascinating and I always look forward to what goes on in the field of science. In fact, a TV show concerning the pale blue blood of hideous horseshoe crabs caught my fancy and stole quite a bit of my afternoon one day...

Its scary to read these books seeing that the described future is not so far off...in 8^th grade I took an old sci-fi short story book because I loved it and one of the stories talked about a light that would cut through skin...mwaaa hhaaa haaaa haaa haaa!

Lasers.

Sorry. I got way off topic...but don't the names Oryx and Crake catch your eye?....Onyx and Cake...

Ummm. Chocolate.

Nitro, Cat hair, Death by Paint

I'm very sluggish lately—perhaps the 105 degree heat index this week makes one's mind wander…I have several items to blog, but can't seem to think! Actually, to say that I 'think' may be a bit excessive—let's tone that word down a bit—I don't 'ponder'—that implies heavy thinking and I don't want to think heavily, since my shoulder is aching from trying to move my ponderous rock again and the term 'heavy' just makes me tired.

I don't brainstorm—that implies quickness and actual work… (my brain neurons might need caffeine?)….perhaps I just DAYDREAM. It's so oppressive and depressive—is that a word? Hmmm, since my thoughts wander from here to there…I shall call this DAYTRIPPIN, cause I never know where I'll end up!

So here I am, daytrippin', still tired from working yesterday 8:00 to 4:00 in the heat (after a jog) and probably still bedraggled from the day before at Paula's pool…suffering alloveritchy skin—sunburn, complete with the shivers…

Realizing that I hadn't mentioned my summer Thursday 'job' (donation of my time), let me begin: There's a tiny town a couple miles away that has an abandoned rock schoolhouse in deplorable shape. The upstairs is cordoned off (danger), and downstairs 2 huge rooms are filled with racks of all sizes and heights. No, de Sade fans, these are not used for medieval torture—they are clothing racks and plumb full of hand-me-down, garage sale items. Other available spaces hold shelves of old dishes/shoes/books! (Explaining why I've multiple copies of the classics sucking up space in my own home—of which Paula needed 9 of them to read the other day, thank you very much!)

A long table and 4 volunteers receive or carry in sacks and boxes of donated items, spread them out and hang them up. All day long. Hour after hot hour. But it is FUN! It is an ADVENTURE! You never know what people are going to bring in…good books, Harlequin romances—yuk, antique dishes, or like the huge bag of expensive underwear that was so eye-opening and shocking to us poor countrified Kansans that our faces were red and we couldn't stop laughing hysterically…

By the end of the day, I usually have on some type of bizarre hat (if clean), several funky mismatched horrendously disgusting belts, and an atrocious pin or hideous set of beads or bracelets that were at one time considered hip, chic, or lovely (by someone). Halloween costumes are made from many of these articles…I like this place!

Did I mention that sometimes you will open a bag to discover dirty clothes & poopy baby diapers? Or clothes so white with cat hair, reeking with the stench of cat pee that it's immediately tied shut and thrown in the dumpster? C'mom people, don't bring us TRASH!… have some semblance of self-respect. Hell—now I have to run for the germicidal cleaner, ugh! Stained or torn items go into a trailer for the recycling plant.

So yesterday, I was discarding some old, pilled, 80's sweaters "You Should Be Dancin', Yeah!-' --(oops, wrong era; daytrippin again,) that NO ONE in their right mind would want—or perhaps I was saving some clueless soul from her worst fashion nightmare…when I found a tiny glass bottle, hmmm…I picked it up quick, because lots of little kids run around—mom's with 10+ kids depend on this place because a huge sack of clothes is only a donation of 1 or 2 bucks….And I stuck the bottle in my pocket since some lady asked a question. Last night I pulled it out and threw it to Brigg since I couldn't find my glasses and the text was as tiny as an ant's toenail.. (This reminds me of a line in a book describing the Farsi language—looks like worms f*cking—giggle)…

"What's Nitroglycerin Sublingual?"

"Oh my God!" Someone has lost their heart medicine! Thinking I knew the owner—a man that was supposed to move last week and had the phone/water/electrical turned off in his home. But the new place wasn't quite ready, so he'd spent the weekend without—and it has been HOT. He was at the gas station a few nights ago holding up the counter…ashen, and we tried to tell him to sit down in the AC and have some water… I jumped in my truck and drove to his home, then to all the gas stations, and restaurants, and all over town…finally finding his vehicle—and he said, "They're not mine!" Holy Crap. So at least I know that HE'S not going to die on me and leave me feeling a lifetime of horrible guilt! Hopefully no one else needs them… Copfriend asked if I'd actually opened the bottle—I hadn't—could be a vial of crack! But it's pills…

I had reason to be worried about this little man…years ago, in another little town, a tiny, plain saltbox house needed a new coat of white paint and I think 2 of us were paid $175.00 to do this. Back then, KS summers were usually 95-103 degrees for weeks on end, so the heat didn't bother us, but the fact that the little man that owned the house refused to go indoors—did. It was a sad situation—the couple had been together forever and probably in their 90's, when it was discovered that he could no longer do any type of menial task. You could tell he wanted so badly to work…we implored him to go back indoors and you could tell he wasn't trying to 'check up on us', but rather longing to participate and show his wife that he was still a caretaker and provider. She was as worried as we were, but her urging was also ignored. Finally she resorted to 'the cold lemonade trick'—insisting that we all come indoors for refreshment. This worked perfectly, but as soon as one of us tried to finish the job, out he'd go, and he was beginning to look pallid and gray. Should we just leave? We had to finish, as we had another job in another town the next day. It was difficult to decide what to do…we drank a LOT of lemonade that afternoon and evening and spent many hours indoors listening to stories. It was unnerving to get a call the next morning to inform us he had passed away in the night…I think I was 18 at the time, but looking back, we just should of left—but what did we know about bad hearts and old people and quiet pride?

So watch your friends and relatives in the hot summer sun and don't let them stay out so long... Guess I meandered over to a non-lighthearted topic…

And if you want to change your mood, you could always view the bizarre stuff on cracked.com, but its pretty gruesome stuff.

Easter Bullets, Sun Visors, The Alamo, Multi-county Criminals

Ok, odd story, then I promise I'll change modes...

Ran over to get some ice at the gas station and take Bill some dbl Chocolate Zucchini Brownies, then stayed to shoot the breeze at the counter. Another guy was standing there too-- he joined in our conversation for a while; a personable cleancut, redneck-type man. I was trying quite hard to keep a straight face, for the Judy Garland singer/painter came in and I could hear “Dancing in the Moonlight” tinkling in my head... and redneck man was making conversation and wanting to know if there were any people around that 'talked weird'--we filled him in on LOTS of those!
Meanwhile, 3 little girls told Bill they liked his Hooters hat as they left; he blew up with: “It's a VISOR! It's a VISOR!”
He must get exasperated by evening, you know, soaking up so much stupid and all.
He proceeded to tell us that visors have always gotten him into trouble and his 3rd visor story occurred when he went to San Antonio to watch his son graduate from Air Force basic training a few years ago. (I could share in this experience, as I had also went there to watch Bailey do the same thing.) After the ceremony, you could ride the tram to the Riverwalk and visit awesome shops, eat at Joe's Crabshack, visit the lovely, low, live oak that sprawled all over and....go to the Alamo!

Bill's visor caused huge Texas Security men to surround him at the Alamo and oh, so kindly, tell him to take it off or leave. Bill, never the conformist, pointed out that the sign said “Remove Head Coverings”. He removed the visor, picture-framed his face with it and pointed out that the police COULD see his face THROUGH the visor, it was hollow, thus it was NOT covering his head, whereupon he replaced his visor. (Bill has long hair and a pony-tail, probably disliked by typical Texans!)
Eventually 4 Rangers insisted he take off the visor or leave; Bill pointed out the Arab that was inside WEARING A TURBAN that covered HIS head. Well, apparently turbans and the like are OK; (even though I jokingly/indignantly declared he could have had an Uzi under it or something! or like Cop friend later said—packing C4!) and Bill couldn't quickly think of a religious/cultural reason depicting a necessary visor, so needless to say he didn't visit the Alamo.

Cop friend called shortly after Bill's story to share his daily number of warnings/tickets/arrests. He works in another county and was talking about an individual that I knew...whose brother used to live with my sister. Of course this naturally led to the Easter Bullet Suicide Story:

It was Easter Sunday, probably in the late 80's & we always played baseball with the little kids in the front pasture at my mom's. This was a tradition and now broken by a phone call that came from my sister's then boyfriend, Devon. He'd stayed home feeling sorry for himself, having missed out on egg-hunting and a delicious Easter ham... My sister, BG, came back out of the house and told us that he was going to kill himself.
Immediately we jumped in my little Datsun to drive the backroads to a tiny, hidden town. There on the roadside by a little wooded area, was his vehicle. We could see a note inside, and for some reason, by Datsun key opened his door and we read a suicide note. We walked hesitantly into the woods, abruptly stopping when we saw his body slumped against an oak, hat over his face, gun in hand by his side....where's the blood? was he dead? what do we do?
We tiptoed up and then he moved, grumbly, scary, insisting that I leave and BG remain. I would not leave her alone with him ('he'll shoot her' I thought-- rocky relationship, etc). Finally I told him that I would let them talk together if he gave me the gun. He absolutely would NOT, so I insisted on the clip. “I'm not leaving her alone with you until you give me those bullets.” Eventually he removed the clip, showed me it was empty and I stuck the clip in my pocket and walked away. I froze when I suddenly heard 2 shots-- “What? Oh my God—he shot her, then himself!” but as I turned around, she was slowly walking toward me... “Go” she whispered, “just go—walk natural!” We kept walking but I was terrified sick and rigid as a board—kept thinking that any second I was going to have a bullet in my back—I could just FEEL it-- and the back of my knees were all wobbly. We were almost near the car when we heard shots again and we ran and drove back to grandma's as fast as we could, calling the Sheriff and Devon's family. No cell phones back then... (No suicide either.)

So I am telling Cop friend this, and about Bill's visor and Judy Garland, and about the redneck man at the counter, when he says “WHAT! You were talking to HIM?! He's one of the biggest criminals around! Always in jail!!!”
I was shocked-- “No way, I didn't think so; he didn't LOOK like one; no way; must be a really bad judge of character...I'd always assumed that person I'd heard about was wild and sleazy lookin with no teeth....are you sure???”
I was reminded that Thomas Crown looked nice too. So now I have met one of the 2 notorious Sever brothers.

Ahhh Ha! Ha! Ha!

Just came home from getting ice at the gas station...where many freakishly-odd folk go to purchase any random item for lack of something better to do...
Bill, running the cash register, having just dealt with a mental gal sporting a heavier beard than his own, says:

"I've about had it with this place...
I'm sick & tired of soaking up STUPID."

Yes, we have more than our fair share of crazies....turn to the trash blog!