In Memory of Robert J. Bastian

Robert John Bastian, Age 22, Korea (First on Right)

I'm not even going to try to memorialize my father in the way he deserves, but there are a few things I want to say on this, the tenth anniversary of his death.

Robert (Marble Head Murphy) Bastian was born in West Bend Wisconsin and later moved to Sister Bay in Door County, Wisconsin as a young child. He died from complications of a bronchoscopy related to small cell lung cancer and COPD (and other wounds to the heart previously discussed) on December 12, 2002.

Robert was the youngest of three, with an elder brother Bill and elder sister June, both of whom I remember very fondly from childhood, especially Aunt June and Uncle Art because they had a daughter close to my age and let me stay with them at their place up north in the summers and we had SO MUCH FUN!

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Robert's father, my "Grampa Erwin" was a farmer/heifer breeder in Sister Bay. I am not sure what he did in West Bend. Later Robert became Marble Head Murphy when he not only worked the farm but was an honor student and star football player (that's where the Marble Head nick name came in). He also helped run the retirement home in Sister Bay that my Grandfather's second wife Mertil brought into the family. It is now the Country House Resort in Sister Bay. A small cottage on the grounds was my first home. I would dearly love to still live there...if it even still exists. Then again, now that it's literally a tourist trap, ie "FIB-ville" ....maybe not. Of course FIB stands for ...um ...Friendly Interstate Boaters? ...Brethren? ...Beings? Either way, FIB certainly has nothing to do with the F-word, Illinois or the marital status of anyone's parents. No, no, no....

Dad's natural mother died when he was only six years old, and he spent some very unpleasant time with abusive relatives at that very tender age, but when Grampa remarried, Dad blossomed, He adored Mertil, who was a teacher and a truly lovely woman. Dad had cataracts at a very early age and wore glasses from about age four and was legally blind in one eye, as well as being left handed, which was greatly frowned upon in those days (he was born in 1930). Later, when he volunteered for the Army they wouldn't take him. When he was drafted for Korea that eye didn't matter though, and he had to serve a term there. He was nearly court martialed for refusing medals he earned in a nasty fire-fight after finding his friends wired together and burned to death, but he still didn't think it was right to get a medal for killing people. One of my first memories is of him throwing me under a car when a low flying plane came over our house--a good 15 years or so after he got back from Korea. He, as many, came back from war a changed man, and it took some work for him to get back to some semblance of normalcy. He never complained though. He never did. He was never sick, he never complained. When he finally did get sick it was with the big C...and even then he let Mom force him out of bed at 4am every morning because she didn't want to be alone, and he never said a word when she kept smoking on him, even though he knew it was killing him. He hadn't smoked for decades. He just sat in his recliner and turned up his oxygen until she fell asleep watching tv once her meds kicked back in, then he'd take a nap until 9 or so. He was so good to her...to the very end...even trying to grill steak for her, turning blue from lack of oxygen doing it. Then he got in trouble for spilling steak juice on the carpeted stairs as he huffed up the stairs almost passing out. It kind of sums up their married life.

I took over for four years after he died, so I have a pretty good idea what it was like. There has to be a very special place in heaven for my father. I read old letters he wrote before the war, before he was married, and I think...who was this cheerful, upbeat, happy, incredibly optimistic man? I saw some of that, especially when he was "in his cups" which was often on weekends off, but he sounded so different. SO different. Okay, I'm getting too introspective here. I'll never finish.

I think my father is the person who gave me such a strong sense of having my own moral...or maybe you'd call it ethical compass. I waver no more than he does when I feel strongly about something. Yes, we butted heads a little bit as I grew up, but that didn't keep him from being a loving and fun dad when I was a little girl. He taught me how to play football like a boy, and he taught me how to behave like a lady among the high society patriarchs and other ladies who resided at Peabody Manor in Appleton, Wisconsin, when Peabody Manor was still being run according to the wishes of George H. Peabody, the man by whose will and endowment it was created and funded for all the decades my father Administered there with pride and excellence. Now it has become a corporate shell of what George H. Peabody intended, and I'm sure he's spinning in his grave. But his Manor didn't turn into just another piss-smelling warehouse for the elderly and unwanted on my dad's watch! He'd have literally died first, and probably taken a few people with him. That is how strongly he felt about "quality of life" ...a term nursing homes throw around while hiring the dregs of the nursing and physician community to allegedly care for the human beings entrusted to them.

I am EXTREMELY proud of my father for all the years he resisted so much pressure, from State and from the Board, on the behalf of the residents he represented.I am proud that he allowed me to come to work with him from an early age and learn how to be a lady from some very great ladies indeed. I loved listening to their stories and learning how to knit and crochet and do all the things my mother ...didn't do with me until much later in life, after she was widowed, alone and friendless, at which time I became her full-time care giver for four years despite my own disability and having a child of my own to care for as well. Needless to say, my father's sense of responsibility was passed on to me, and I "burned the candle at both ends and several places in the middle" as my doctor warned me for all those years to my own detriment, and did my best to do so in good grace, despite the difficulty of our relationship throughout my life. I did my best for my mother and so did Dad.

I learned a lot about the kind of person I wanted to be when I was with my dad at the Manor with those wise and wonderful elder ladies, and I felt loved and wanted by them; and they felt respected and valued, as well they should. I realize now that he directed me toward those who had little or no family to visit them, so we were good for each other. They filled a void in my heart and I think his heart too because his second mother Mertil (he never called her a step-mother) passed away when he was a young adult, and he missed her greatly in his life. I learned from him and from them what a great tragedy it is in our society that we treat our elderly as disposable when they have so much wisdom to share. 

My father was a man of great humor, little false humility, and absolute honor, with one glaring exception, but The Bard himself often pointed out that even the finest of men has one fatal flaw. Dad wasn't perfect and he made that one great mistake--selling the home in Door County, but it was not his decision alone, and he was under a great deal of pressure to do so. That is all I will say about that.

Dad was a good husband and excellent provider. Mom was well loved, adored even, and so spoiled she didn't even know she was spoiled. Mark and I were kind of superfluous really unless needed for something. He and I used to joke that the cat my now-ex husband and I gave them in their older years was more of a child to them than we ever were. Dad went to the store daily to buy him pork liver. Not just any liver...it had to be pork liver...and that cat lived over twenty years! 

Murph and Sharon truly were a world unto themselves. They had few friends, and saw them only very rarely, except for a decade or so of partying on weekends up in Door County during their snow-mobile and later their motorcycle phase. It was the height of the "me" generation, for sure! Mom did play the hostess then, unlike at home, where from age 11 on, I did the "female" end of the housekeeping and child care duties, except laundry, which Dad did, because Mom was studying or worked part time ...and she had a bad back. I didn't know our family was unusual though, and I was proud of my mother. She was one of the original "nontraditional" students, and I am not sure I'd have returned to school after the Army if she hadn't set that example first. She flew through LPN school and passed the State Boards with flying colors while I was in Junior High. That was a huge accomplishment at that time, truly very rare. We were all so proud of her when she graduated. 

I still remember the look on my dad's face as Mom danced around celebrating in her strategically cut and shredded student uniform, showing off her new cap newly slimmed body (not that she was ever really big) during her graduation party, and I try not to be sad that my parents never attended one of my graduations...from High School, Army Basic Training, AIT, Nursing School Pinning or my University Graduation, which was kind of a big deal, since I was the first in our family to attain that goal. But everything was all about Mom in Dad once I was past age 12 or so. But in fairness, she was one hell of a nurse! The very things that made her a ...somewhat detached mother made her a very cool, calm and unflappable LPN. She worked most of her years in pediatrics of all places! Mark and I always found that more than a little ironic. 

Personally or professionally though, I never did find anyone who measured up to my dad. He was a great boss, a wonderful husband and the best father any little girl could ask for. I thought maybe I'd find someone like him in the Army, and I almost did I think, but things didn't work out given the way people move from duty post to duty post, and there were other complications where I was stationed and housed (officially) that left me absolutely no choice but to find an immediate civilian protector. Given I have my sons, in retrospect that relatively short-lived suffering was a small price to pay. 

At this late date I have pretty much given up on the hope of having, even for twenty years, anything near to what my mother had. The only person who's ever really come close to measuring up to my father in recent years is more than half the country away, and his mistress (I can't say master--he wouldn't like that) is the Marines....so, no competition Dad. You'll always be the standard by which all others fall short. If such a thing as reincarnation exists, I hope I have the good fortune to have you in my life again...maybe as a brother this time. Now THAT would be fun! I'll have to be very good and earn myself up some good Karma, because I have a feeling I was making up for a lot of bad in this life.

It's zero hour. I love you Dad. I miss you. I MISS YOU! See you soon.

Progress Sucks

During my very early childhood, an outhouse is what Gramma Hazel and Grampa Arnold (Mom's parents) had at their house outside Bailey's Harbor. Eventually Grampa put in plumbing and upside down light switches (but they worked) but my most fond memories are of the place before all the "modern trappings".  I am still deeply emotionally attached to that house, and not as a material thing, though I miss the smells of coffee, sugar and spices--Hershey's syrup and condensed milk--even the faint lingering scent of skunk so often there, but because like a human body it housed the soul of such unique and special family...a family made special by my Gram and the other people who grew up and lived there over the years, even me. I did a lot of growing up there. 

When I was small I saw that home as a giant magical music box. The tinkling notes inside were laughter and love and the warm comforting sparkle of bubble lights and tinsel on real Christmas trees every year. They were the haunting harmonies of three beautiful sisters and a still-lovely mother singing gospel songs to simple guitar chords; the blonde self-conscious young man trying to fit in, first in scouts, then as he played trumpet then finally finding his "voice" as he learned to play guitar with amazing, genius level self taught talent, having learned the basics from his elder sisters followed by hour upon hour listening to "Learn to Play with the Ventures."  

This small home cradled parts of at least four generations in times of great  happiness and heart-wrenching tragedy. It was a source of joy and guilt and fun and confusion and greatly important moments in life ...and most of all love, so  much love! Along with the fondest memories of my childhood I left the beginning of my life as a woman there and a recently departed dearly loved one who was not technically family left his mark there in a very big way and may even as I write this be visiting and remembering as fondly as I do. I hope he sees the place and us as we were then, but as long as that home stands it will hold a volume of memories far larger than the walls surrounding it. 

The day my own cousin used iffy means (had them prime the well pump with bleach to pass inspection) and helped my parents sell that home was the day I lost all faith in humankind. They promised my Grampa--they swore they would never sell it...that it would stay in the family. All my young life from the age of eleven as I played mother to my asthmatic brother while our "birth" mother played the free-wheeling hard partying teenager the reward dangled in front of me was that I'd eventually own "the cottage". I was so gullible.  

But that's not really what I wanted to write about.

I have bizarre admission. I miss outdoor plumbing. Why? Why on earth, you might ask, would anyone treasure a memory of being a three year old and scampering out one last time before bed, in the frigid Wisconsin night, to the little shack with the quarter-moon carved on the door and two large funny shaped holes carved inside, one with a wiggly toilet seat kind of attached? Why indeed, given the next memory after balancing precariously on that seat to do my business, was running to catch up to the giggling (drunk) Big Girls who liked to scare me by shining the flashlight up into the winter-naked branches of the trees close to the house while making spooky hooty-howly sounds...which was made absolutely terrifying when The Dreaded Skunk actually did come out from under the porch. This sent Big Girls one and two running far faster on their relatively long legs than I could run on my little toddler ones while simultaneously trying to pull my pants up over my red and white keds so I wouldn't trip on my way back to the very porch from whence the Monster Skunk had emerged. When I did finally get up the single step porch and reach up to the handle it was locked! Apparently skunks are very good with doors because the Big Girls found it necessary to lock him and ME out! They then flew through the sunporch and into the house proper and turned off the porch light, leaving me screaming and crying and banging in abject futility in darkness so complete the sky looked literally like spilled milk to my eyes. Of course they couldn't hear me because they had also closed and locked both locks on the Big Door. And for some reason THAT is a happy memory. Maybe because everyone always laughed so much when they told the story and it actually involved me? I'm not sure...but it's a favorite childhood memory. 

Eventually I was noticed missing...before I was "got" by the skunk, exposure, or the Grampa Beast, which depending upon who you spoke to could be many things. I remember it being described as half wild-cat and half deer of all things, but knowing what I know now, that many animals in the cat and owl family (Gramma's nicknames were Hoot--and Spin, because they had gravel roads back in the day and she, like me, hated to drive slowly) ...anyway cats and owls can make over a hundred different sounds, so I'm pretty sure it was a large cat of some kind, especially since my dad said one walked along with him for well over a mile one night, and cats love to stalk potential prey. My poor dad was prey of one kind or another most of his life. Fortunately he seemed blissfully unaware of that fact.

Back to the outhouse thing...again...  During the night we used the time honored but ridiculously named honey pot, which in our case was just an old, battered ceramic cooking pot with a mercifully snug-fitting lid. It sure never smelled like any kind of honey I wanted to know about on the rare occasion I opened it up and used it. No wonder my Uncle Kelly decided it was easier, and clearly more fun, to use his "peanuts" to whiz through the pine knots in the bare flooring upstairs where we, the kids, slept...and water froze solid in about half an hour when it was below zero. He refused to tell me how to use peanuts to go potty and just laughed every time I asked too. He laughed at a lot of questions I asked... 

So why would I miss this outmoded system of elimination? Well, it's simple, really. Indoor plumbing was the beginning of the end of  Door County being Door County. That and paved roads. I'm serious. It was no better for the environment, because for the first several decades people who lived on bluffs just ran the liquid waste over the bluff and down into the lake, bay, stream or whatever, or they just ran their toilets into leaking, poorly maintained tanks, conveniently placed over their own wells, which they had pumped out as an emergency measure only. 

Clearly the bovine excretions, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides (which came along after I'd moved to the city...sorry Uncle Sam, you're not getting out of the toxic exposure thing on a technicality) weren't adding enough risk and fun to the already challenging game of genetic roulette going on in rural Door County (which I fully maintain was not of a level approaching that still "played" in the U.P. of Michigan and most of the rural deep south). To keep things interesting they had to add some eColi in there--just to add a more immediate thrill! Of course, the Realtors quickly learned to deal with this little bacterial "cocked dice" by carefully telling home owners how "in the old days people used to just prime the pump before the inspectors came with a little bleach down the pipes and at the test site...*cough*... Yeah, that bleach down the pipes, oh about this much here, using something like this, and this much right here, using, hey, look at this, I have just the little thing they used to use in my pocket here ...was just the thing to make sure that second water test was clear as can be so the property could legally sell without the expense of replacing the entire well."  There ya go...you can hold on to that if want. Clean as a whistle, for the number of gallons they'll pump up for the test anyway. I wonder if my parents ever gave a thought to the fact that the wife of the man who bought the cottage died of cancer a short time after moving in there. Mom always brought water from Appleton to drink, though I always drank the water at the cottage and loved it. I'd fill the jugs back up and bring them home with me. Apparently my immune system worked right at one time in my life...

The Country House Resort in Sister Bay, aka my first home...minus some square footage, the pools and  a LOT of nature. The yard was always far better kept than this. This looks awful! Grampa had a very green thumb and weeping willows, sweet peas, flower gardens, big white aderondak chairs set about in groups for residents, and far better taste in landscaping. This is just plain ugly...

The family farm in Sister Bay, which in my childhood was my Grampa Irwin's farm (Dad's dad), also had outdoor plumbing and was a working farm. It was another very special place from childhood, as was the Country House, which he owned then, and is now a Resort (too many stories) as was my Aunt June and Uncle Art's old house near where the Peninsula Players performed. I loved that old place. Aunt June cooked on an actual wood stove. It was awesome. SHE was the most unconditionally loving women I ever met aside from my Gramma Hazel and Mom's sisters, who I don't think I'd have survived childhood without...literally.

 At the farm my uncle Henry (well half uncle, my Grampa was on his third wife by then) jumped from the hay mow into a huge pile of oats for fun, even though we were threatened with everything, including death, if we didn't stop, and it really wasn't very safe, given the risk of suffocation when the pile was high. We made hay bale forts, caught huge barn spiders (well actually my Uncle Henry, two years my junior, caught them and chased me with them) and played hide and seek and "Castle" using the silo and windmill for towers and turrets. Once after a heavy rain Henry promised he wouldn't turn on the 'lectric fence while it was my turn to hide during hide 'n seek, so I shinnied between one of the sheds and the fence, so I was standing in a puddle with one of the electric fence wires pressed tight against my belly and my shoes filled with water,  naive 10 year old I was (yep...there's that gullible thing again). I had given my intentions away by making him promise a whole turn ago not to mess with the fence, so I believed I was safe. I never cheated so why would anyone else? Ugh... 

He could obviously hear me as well as figure out my intentions. so he figured in his 8 year old wisdom, then was a super-funny time to turn the fence back on. The screeeeeeeeech that came out of someone's body before I got busy convulsing must not have drowned out the sound of electricity grabbing on to someone because my Grampa, by then well into his sixties, and quite the banty rooster of a man, flew to that switch from across the yard to turn off the juice and make sure I was breathing. Then Henry flew in another way entirely, and for once I didn't stick up for him. Sometimes corporal punishment is perfectly appropriate! I've had a "slight" electrophobia ever since, which went very oddly with my brother's electrophilia. I guess we balanced each other out, as we did in so many other ways. I really miss him. 

Another thing we did for fun was "shining bats" which was more fun when the whole gang of cousins came, usually around the 4th of July weekend. One of we littler kids (I usually got to, because I was the spoiled first grand daughter, I'll admit it) would hold a flashlight up almost against the barn, parallel to the boards, but not quite touching them, then one of the bigger kids would throw a small apple or something similar up in the air. The bats would use their sonar to try to catch the "prey" then not be able to pull up before hitting the boards of the barn. They rarely died...just got stunned. Children are cruel. But we also spent hours, until our fingertips were sore, cutting softened feed corn up for baby pigeons and we cared for more cats than we could count. I think taking care of the runts was  part of what made me want to be a NICU nurse. That and my brother of course, who was premature and had apnea throughout the first months of life. I took my turns watching him, at 7 years old, making sure he kept breathing as he slept, and gently rocking him to semi-wakefulness when he stopped for too long or got pale. 

Eventually when Grampa Irwin got indoor plumbing and moved into the farm house full time, after he sold the Country House, he had to make a mound system, which he hated and gave some lengthy "up yours" name, which I have since forgotten, and put on a very prominent sign facing a much-used town road.  I guess I come by my smartassness naturally, and from both sides of the family, though where mom was sharp tongued and snake like, Grampa Irwin was more jolly and only got into angry mode when pushed HARD. Then look OUT! Long fuse...extremely, extremely, extremely long fuse, but once it goes, dear Lord in Heaven look OUT! Bastian by blood thing. In fairness I must add this disclaimer: my father was hades on wheels, and off, as a teen. Speaking of outhouses, I recall something about an outhouse incident involving him and some friends that ended up in near immolation of Ephraim. What a shame that would have been. All that green and white paint would have gone up like WHOOSH! All those prissy weekend people would have been so upset. Actually it would probably have just sped up the eventual development via insurance payouts.

All Grampa's work on that mound, on his sardonic sign, and his beautiful poppy garden (yes, poppy flowers...great big red poppies that bloomed year after year along the side drive right next to the house) were for naught, though the line of tall poplar trees planted when I was little was a fantastic idea and nearly psychic, because years later the Sister Bay replaced the gorgeous old growth orchard that was right up against my Grampa's property with the village sewage treatment facility, practically on top of the house! DISGUSTING! Another precious memory gone to shit...literally.

I guess Sister Bay got the last laugh on him, or at least my Step Grand Mother Irene, his much younger wife, who survived him by many years and later sold the farm...thus putting her son Henry in much the same position as me, wondering why promises were made and not kept and what ever happened to parents leaving legacies for families. That's how our parents and their parents got THEIR starts in life. It's not a matter of expecting something for nothing (God knows I earned it) but our parents benefited from monies passed on from past generations with the understanding that things would be kept in the family, as well as living in the most prosperous time in American history, yet they, who were given so much and lived with every possible advantage, failed utterly to think beyond their own desires. They were spoiled brats. Our generation was the abandoned generation, the children of the "me" generation. My brother and I were ALWAYS afterthoughts to my parents. 

That is precisely what happened throughout the county, as the "me" generation, the younger WWII and Korea and older Vietnam era people just....SOLD OUT en masse. Orchards became condos. Family homes were bulldozed over and became resorts. Historical old deserted villages were destroyed with no thought at all to preservation so that Door County could become a quaint little weekend and vacation community for Chicago. Once enough artists and retirees had their feet in the Door they started taking places in local government, in places once held by familiar names for generation after generation. Even the once declasse lake side has become over-developed. We used to at least have that refuge, but now nowhere is safe. Big houses, resorts, campgrounds and cheap-built condos quickly deteriorating to slum status on the dirty bay side have driven the savvy tourists to the once-wild lake shore, so they can start the process all over again, until the sewage treatment facilities just cannot handle the load of the population and the entire peninsula just becomes one big suburban area from Green Bay to Sturgeon Bay and beyond. 

Even Washington Island isn't untouched. Nothing is left. Like ill-mannered children the FIBS have befouled their own little pool. How long until it's passed back to those of us who have loved it all along, to those of us born there? How I would love to live long enough to see those damned condos lining the drive to the Country House destroyed and blossoming fruit-bearing trees replanted there instead. It would be well worth living without indoor plumbing again.

Passing Thoughts... WWMS

When standing up and speaking one's truth, especially after years of suppression and/or repression, finding the volume control is often a trial and error process.





All volume issues aside, truth is still truth. 


Documents help. The more the better. Originals are always preferable.


It is difficult to know, until faced with the situation, if you are the kind of person who truly prefers an ugly truth to a pretty lie. 


The only shame is in not speaking the truth soon enough...for that, you have the rest of your life to regret.





Pretty lies often come with unexpected and inconvenient expiration dates.


There really is a world of difference between hating a living breathing human being and living in confusion and horror at what some human beings are capable of doing with full intent of purpose.


The actions in a person's life, great and small, career and personal, brave, weak and in between, speak more of a person's character than other peoples' imaginings. (Again, documentation is very helpful here.)





How other people's lives are touched by those actions speaks as well.


Very bad things, once done, cannot be undone by good deeds or service to mankind, but they don't hurt either.


The road to "hell" is not paved by good intentions, it's paved by evil deeds.


Going to church is not necessarily a detour off the road to "hell" ...and vice versa.


Lying to one's self is an exercise in futility, but that does not seem to stop a whole lot of people from doing it.


Few moments are harder for any loving child than the moment they find out their parents are not the perfect beings we have imagined them to be. This is especially true for extremely sheltered children. (This is part of the reason I do not believe in sheltering children. It is a terribly painful realization to find out the world is not as black and white as we were told it was, and that what Dad and/or Mom opined is not always gospel...unless they are Theologians, I suppose.)



The above does not mean we should not strive to make the world as gentle a place as possible for growing children. Just keep it real, or else when they get to Basic Training or Quantico they'll have their brand new shampoo and favorite bra stolen and some black chick will get vaseline all over their curling iron just for kicks. It's not fun being the only one asking where the "bubbler" is while everyone points and laughs.


Video games are good brain therapy. That's my line and I'm sticking to it. So are most Medical Centers where patients with brain injuries are treated and where Neurosurgeons are trained, oh and the US Military uses them for training pilots. Not only are they good for problem solving on the fly, but almost nothing beats them for enhancing fine motor speed and coordination. Yikes, where would my brain be without all those hours of Tetris, FFXI and FFXIV? Lumosity is boring... 


Books are wonderful, especially Fantasy, but not to the exclusion of the above.  


Balance is everything.

I Miss You Mark

I'm reliving your last days with you. Re-reading your blog entries. Good old Machopoodle. You never did tell me where that name came from. I assumed it was a cartoon or something you invented with the girls. You were the only magic in their lives. 

Gone too soon... too soon from our physical lives, 
                but your magic  lives. 

Your music lives. 

You live 
         in our hearts
            in our souls
               in those eternal places.

 Lit by yours, the brightest of lights, finally freed.

We miss you every day. 

We love you every day.

We feel you in our lives every day.

No one will ever separate us again!

Blessings upon blessings upon blessings to you and your girls who you watch over so carefully. Ever the good and faithful father. May they always feel your love in their hearts as I do.

Much love and more, forever, 

Sissy

For you, Mark. By Robinson Jeffers, who died fifty years ago, this year...and also had a fondness for poodles, which came up just as I was writing the above.  *smile*

I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
That is to say,
Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
But not as a man
Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
Stripping for the race.
The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
Of certain fictions
Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
And expand with pleasure;
Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
That’s gone, it is true;
(I never miss it; if the universe does,
How easily replaced!)
But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.
I admired the beauty
While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
I wander in the air,
Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
Touch you and Asia
At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
And the glow of this grass.
I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
For a love-token.

Obama Has a MANDATE--Time For Him to MAN UP!

I swear to Goddess, if President Obama squanders this opportunity, and pulls yet another "I'm going to be nice to the republicans and then maybe they'll be nice to me too" stunt like last time, I'm going to lose whatever little I have left to lose!

Rumor has it he's considering a REPUBLICAN for Secretary of State when Hillary retires (hopefully to begin her run for 2016). If he thinks this is going to earn him any respect from the thugs, dullards and tealaban extremists in the GOP he is sorely mistaken. The first thing the effing tea-tards said on election night was just more of the same "our way or the highway" bullshit. 

The GOP efforts to make voting nearly impossible for voters in the "swing states" were not just obviously desperate but also inhumane, given so many of the people they targeted were elderly people of color who had taken a measure of pride and pleasure in the tradition of going from church to their polling place. They went by bus to vote together in fellowship with the physical and emotional support of their friends. To intentionally take that small pleasure away from them and then to confuse them with ever changing laws and threats, then actual physical confrontation and intimidation at the polling place, was just despicable, but those voters faced up to it ALL, often after standing in line for hour after hour...many past midnight after standing in line all day long, just to vote. How many more votes would have gone to Obama if voting had not intentionally been made so intentionally confusing and difficult--nearly impossible--in areas known to have voted "D" in the past? 

How many hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people had no choice but to go home to care for children or elderly parents, or return to work...you know that thing so many MORE people are doing now with OBAMA as President, despite the best effforts of republican politicians to keep employment numbers down prior to the election? How many were just plain physically unable to stay in line that long under those conditions? How many believed that they had to leave when told ILLEGALLY at their polling places that they had to and just didn't try again? In other words, how well did Karl Rove's tactics actually work? Clearly not well enough, but how many were successfully intimidated or confused? 

And we can't forget Romney's efforts to purchase the companies that supply electronic voting machines in Ohio prior to the election (how'd that work for ya, Tagg, ol' buddy? Bet you really want to beat on the President now, boy, don't ya?). Then there are all the BILLIONS of dollars spent by all the anonymous donors, as well as those "respectable" Vegas casino types--the Shelly Addle-brains who you just know came by their money by completely honest means and have NO ties to the "unsavory Vegas underworld" even though that's exactly how they make ALL their money. Then there are they hard-working, self-made, honorable men, the Koch brothers, who INHERITED their fortunes, the good old fashioned way. But they're not "takers" like people who expect to get actual health care when they pay for health insurance! Heavens no! I've gotta hand it to Karl Rove though. In the end, by intent or not, he fleeced them all, anonymous and notorious alike, of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, with absolutely NO return on their investment, unless you count losing a couple seats in the Senate, when they thought they'd take OVER the Senate, and also losing several seats in the House, AND, horror of all horrors, ensuring a record number of FEMALE Senators and Representatives! To use a line from someone I think I used to know, I can honestly say that Karl Rove is Turd Blossom numero uno, my veddy favorite turd, in my personal shit parade!

...even though all that money of his ensured that I got so many robo-calls throughout the campaign that I just stopped answering my phone completely and checked my messages every once in a while. I have to reluctantly give the Koch bros SOME credit too. They did buy and then re-buy Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker who successfully confused Wisconsin residents by NOT reinstating "Obama Care" and in doing so KILLED who knows how many people who COULD have received free cancer screenings. But since when has the death of American citizens mattered to republicans, especially the Tealaban, when there is politicking to be done? Walker refused to enact Obama Care so Wisconsinites had no idea for the most part what it's supposed to do other than cause the end of the world if they were FoxNoise viewers. *Sigh* I miss Keith Olbermann. Rachel is getting on my LAST nerve with her snarky ageism and constant ragging on gay issues. ENOUGH already! I mean seriously, my brother lost his LIFE in part over that issue, and even *I* have had enough! 

Even the Koch brothers have limited powers though. Wisconsin stayed true blue for Obama! They were able to pay out enough to retain Paul Ryan's spot in the House so he can try to grasp on to what's left of his manhood and "honor" (as IF he ever had any even BEFORE allying himself with a flip flopping, lying VULTURE like Romney) by playing the obstruction game (again) with the budget process (AGAIN) as head of the budget committee. I almost hope he's stupid enough to try it, because that will assuredly lose the GOP even more seats in the 2014 mid-term election now that people are on to them! 

Forgive the vulgarity here, but if I'm to be completely and totally honest, I really, REALLY hope the President's balls are not in his beloved wife's purse, because I would love to see Obama do a flying squirrel right on Paul Ryan's face. Put that on pay-per-view and the deficit would be GONE with a nice tidy surplus to spare! 

Ubran Dictionary Definition of Flying Squirrel (provided so all may enjoy the visiual image evoked above)

1.	flying squirrel	263 up, 103 down
	Stretching your scrotum and balls over a person's face, and laying your penis on their forehead, resembling a flying squirrel with its arms spread. Done properly, this will cover the person's mouth and nose completely. To create a good suction, make sure your balls are warm before proceeding. Injury can occur if the person was sleeping and wakes up being suffocated by your massive nuts and sac.

Ohhhkay... I just got my ab workout for the day. The idea of a flying squirrel on that smug, smarmy, self-satisfied, smirk of his is just so............ Oh this is getting painful....but laughing feels SO good! I haven't relaxed in MONTHS! 

Another note of humor about this whole thing, aside from the abject failure and waste of billions of dollars, which spells the defeat of "Citizens United" and victory for "WE THE PEOPLE" is that Karl Rove (aka Herr Rove, who has dual citizenship, aka the Big Boss of Cross Roads GPS-(the anonymous GOP Political Money Funneling Operation), aka the self-styled Machiavelli of the 20th AND 21st centuries, aka TURD BLOSSOM-W. Bush's pet name for his favorite advisor--read election fixer) has finally totally lost his effing mind! He is saying that President Obama won this election because of DEMOCRATIC efforts to suppress the vote! Hey pot, the kettle called and it wants its BLACK back! Is that rich or what?

I was so sure right wingers lived in Fantasy Fifties Land, but maybe it's just Forever Opposite Day for them, where truth is a lie, and vice versa. Women can't get pregnant by "real" rape, which is easily differentiated from "fake" rape, only lazy people are takers of government assistance, no one needs Social Security or Medicare, only zygotes and the occasional fetus require protecting and once they are born and breathe on their own they are on their own and we can all wash our hands of any responsibility for them, even if we require, by LAW that they be born, people born rich deserve to be and people born poor like being poor laborers and don't dream of anything better for themselves or their children, other than perhaps serving as cannon fodder for rich old mens' wars for profit, and absolutely no one dies from lack of health care. Hey, I think I'm on to something here... Our "Fantasy World" theory was all wrong! I must immediately report this to our Communist Commander, Doctor Ernesto "Che" Guevara (who never really died when our CIA set him up, ambushed and murdered him in cold blood for telling the truth about our involvement in Vietnam, and who was given a cyber penis implant with which he is to this day fathering commie children with Jane Fonda and a thousands strong harem of genetically enhanced super-women, one of whom is hiding President Obama's real birth certificate and college records in an "undisclosed location"). This obviously changes everything!

Seriously, the loss of the election and his own money and that of his donors has driven Rove over the edge. He says, "The Democrats suppressed the vote by making people not like Romney." Okay... He goes on to say we did that "...by bringing up Bain." He has forgotten it was Newt Gingrich, one of his own who originally brought that gem up, not us. So, while it is not attractive for me to get so much enjoyment out of Turd Blossom's despair, I have to admit I am enjoying it, and very much so. 

I am enjoying Herr Rove's misery on behalf of every man, woman and child who was maimed and killed in the two attacks that happened on 9/11 that President Clinton's transition security staffers ran around "with their hair on fire" trying to warn "president Cheney" and W. Bush about. Unfortunately, the president and VP were too busy taking dictation on new energy policy from BIG OIL executives to bother with trifling matters like national security. In fact, Bush decided to take Clinton's security measures down a few notches and assigned his own black-sheep brother as head of security for the twin towers in NYC. That Bush clan really is big on nepotism...and some other -isms. 

Besides, Bush was very close with Saudi royalty so surely we were safe. For the record, I find the rumors that he was gay friends with one of the princes just silly. In Saudi culture men hold hands and kiss on the lips, and homosexuality is not only not accepted, they deny its existence. In the rare (they say) instance someone is caught or reported in a compromised position, an investigation is done, bribes are paid, and if the family cannot pay, the ONLY "treatment" for it is death, usually by very public beheading...of the big head, just to be clear. Bush and Saudi Prince Bandar played with names and their families were SO close, he was called Bandar Bush, so obviously the Saudis posed no threat to U.S. security (paraphrasing Bush here) "It don't matter what them-there egg-heads at the FBI and all them other fellers a-tryin' to int'rupt us when we was meetin' with our friends making nucular pol'cy was all in such a lather 'bout...I'm prez-a-dentin' and they kin jes' wait!  Hey! This fake accent thing is pretty easy once you ease into it a little bit. It's kind of like talking with beer and pretzels in your mouth at the same time after you've had a couple Xanax and a snort or two of coke. Speaking of which, hey Laura...where's your purse?" 

And apparently Cheney had cause, several millions, perhaps billions, to agree "not to worry overmuch about security." And if the worst did happen, it would be a great excuse to make the neocons happy and invade Iraq and make some money for Cheney's friends at Halliburton who were still paying him a million bucks a year (on the books)...for doing what, one can only wonder... 

Mmm hmm, I'm enjoying Turd Blossom's misery because I know it's shared by ALL the people who thought they'd be making BIG BUCKS on the next big war(s), be that in Iran or Syria or Libya--or HELL, maybe Romney, since he has universally been called "Bush on Steroids" had a little TRIFECTA of his own in mind! It worked for Dubya, didn't it?

So yes, for every military family who has lost a loved one, or cared for someone who came back "different" than they were before, mentally or physically, oh do I celebrate Karl Rove's misery! Words cannot begin to describe how much so!  As I see it, without Rove, all their suffering would have never happened; two wars for nothing but profit would have never happened if Rove's twisted machinations had not turned an election into a selection by the United States Supreme Court in 2000, which installed G.W. Bush in our White House, and kept him there four years later by voter purges and hacked paperless voting machines like the ones Tagg Romney sold to the state his daddy thought was most vital to his efforts this time around--OHIO!

This isn't about hate, it's about some degree of justice and maybe a little bit of retribution for all the hundreds of thousands of people who are dead at the direct order of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove and a whole list of neocons and war profiteers too long to list here. More than that it's about sheer gratitude that it's not going to happen again. If Romney had found a way to steal this election I think, sick as I am, my heart would have just stopped in my chest and that would have been the end of it. "The disturbance in The Force" would have just been too much for me. 

This beautiful child looks so much like my brother whose soul was murdered long before his body ceased to breathe. I miss you, Mark. I found this picture completely by accident, seeking a picture to decorate my "gratitude" paragraph. I am so grateful for the gift of your life, and the magic and music you brought. You were so much farther evolved than the shallow beings surrounding you. I feel your love around me every day, and I know you are in a far better place. I look forward to seeing you when my time comes. With utter love... Your sister, the Michelle who always loved you and would die rather than harm you. Never tease a weasel, or the weasel will teasel you. 


The death that was waiting around the corner had Romney been elected was so unthinkable I went sleepless--even more than is usual for me--for months prior to the election. The lives that would have been lost, of our own and of those in whatever nation(s) we invaded for profit, was unbearable, and would have required a reinstitution of the draft. Of course the rich would have been protected. They always are. And Mormons always have been, so as in so very, very, VERY many things, from the mundane to the esoteric, Romney would have had no grasp at all of the ramifications of what he was ordering done. 

Talk about the right wing bubble... Romney World is a bubble within a bubble within a bubble. It's like a giant olympic bathtub-sized bubble within a bubble, stacking Russian dolls style...and the tiniest one on the very inside is Romney. That is how insular his existence is. I think he was actually relieved to be able to crawl back inside Romney world and not have to interact with all us creepy "real" people anymore. 

I am also very happy for the planet, which would not have borne the onslaught of those of the Tealaban who are still clinging, vast climate change and documented and unprecedented accelerated melting of the polar icecaps that is turning New York back into New Amsterdam, to their denial of science. The atmosphere would have been little more than a black cloud of fossil fuels. Sure, the sunsets would be  pretty, but no one would be breathing. And oh...the oceans...our life's waters...

Our beaches without government regulation. Government is NOT ALWAYS BAD!

Most of all I am celebrating something that, once learned, will not soon be unlearned:

When we the people get off our asses 

and stand together,

 no amount of money and corruption 

can keep us down!

I heard someone actually compared the choice in this election to God vs Satan, with Romney being God. What kind of WARPED MIND does a person have to have
to look at that lying, smarmy, insincere face, and see GOD?
Then again, look at the things people have done in the name of THAT God over time.
Ugh...my nieces are being raised Catholic.
Holy Pope on a golden toilet.
Nothing like a nice Inquisition to convert the heathens to Jesus.
No wonder He wept.

NOW WE NEED THE PRESIDENT 

TO DO SOMETHING WITH THE POWER 

                WE JUST GAVE HIM!

In the Immortal Words of John Lennon...

NO MORE COMPROMISES! REPUBLICANS DON'T SPEAK COMPROMISE WITH THIS PRESIDENT! IT'S TIME TO SHOW THEM THE ANGRY BLACK MAN THEY ARE ALL SO SHIT-THEIR-PANTIES AFRAID OF! 

I lived with a bully for twelve years. 

Standing up and showing NO WEAKNESS is the ONLY way to deal with bullies. To bullies compromise equates to weakness. We cannot afford it. It is the path to FAILURE! President Obama has a MANDATE FROM THE PEOPLE. WE HAVE SPOKEN!  

IF HE HAS TO SHOVE THAT DOWN JOHN BOEHNER'S 

and certainly MITCH McCONNELL'S VILE THROAT, SO BE IT! 

LET THEM CHOKE ON IT UNTIL THEY TURN AS BLUE AS THIS TEXT!

...ewww, that's going to clash with Boehner's fake tan in a very bad way.

He has ONE chance to set the tone for the next four years and he'd better do this righ...correctly!

He's got nothing to lose, no next election to worry about, and the people are behind him by over fifty percent, which is huge for a second term prez in recent history. 

BRING THE HAMMER DOWN ON THOSE TEA-BAGGING S.O.B's and BRING IT HARD. Donald Trump wants a revolution? Fine by me! Army training sticks--it's one thing I haven't forgotten. I'm DONE with these rich bastards thinking they run OUR country, and pissing on the people protecting them in the process! I don't think they have that many private contractors out there just yet...and I don't think all of them would fire on US anyway! 

Money isn't everything to everyone...just republicans!






...and some people's ex's.

Part and Party to Rape

I was tempted to approach this subject on tiny cat paws, as quietly and gently as possible...but the subject of rape has no gentility to it, so talking about it in a gentle, careful manner is meaningless. That is especially true if you know someone, love someone, or happen to be someone for whom this is not just a "subject" but a reality in the most real of ways.

As one of my favorite TV-newsie persons likes to say "first a little housekeeping."  Just to make things clear, personally, I am very much pro-life. I am also "I-would-give-my-life-to-save-it" pro choice. This is not at all unusual. I always count my sons first when counting the many blessings in the mixed bag of blessings and curses that is my life. I found out just how pro-life I am, for me and mine, when I dealt with an unplanned pregnancy and could have had a free (truly free--not paid for by tax dollars free) abortion. 

I had a 5 year old already and was in my final year at University and was commuting hundreds of miles per day on many days doing Public Health work in outlying counties. Continuing the pregnancy meant I would be beginning my job search in my seventh month and my marriage was already well on its way to doom. It all seemed insurmountable, and since I'd been doing volunteer escorting at the local clinic where the crazies had been getting increasingly threatening, the owner and staff had offered me free services. As it turned out, the baby shower and biggest gift basket of baby supplies, along with the most heartfelt congratulations came from those same people after I realized that convenient or not, I was already in love with the little potential being inside me. People who work at reproductive care clinics don't hate babies. They care deeply for women and children; they don't want to see unwanted innocents brought into the world to be neglected and abused. They see the world as it is, not as they wish it could be. 

Then there's rape. Clearly no one's thinking of the women here, so let's try a different tactic. Surely you all have a female relative. Surely you would want to destroy, bodily, anyone who assaulted a woman you loved in that way. Stop and think now. Would you, personally, want to be the one to tell her she must give birth to the child of that rapist if she became pregnant? If she were your wife, would you want to live with her for nine months knowing she had the child of her rapist growing inside her? It's not realistic. Can you even begin to imagine the real-life ramifications of this kind of legislation in this nation? Just watch the suicide rate climb...male and female alike. Seriously, imagine the father of a ten year old girl forced to watch her belly swell day after day as he remains powerless to kill the piece of human excrement who did that to his innocent daughter. Then imagine some turd blossom like Todd Akin saying " well, it's my understanding that if she got pregnant, well....she wanted it." SHE'S TEN YEARS OLD! And please don't tell me it doesn't happen. I have personally taken care of the child of an eleven year old in little Green Bay, Wisconsin. It happens!

Ten Year Old Gives Birth

While the female body does not have a way to "shut that whole process down" [in cases of rape] as Todd Akin, Paul Ryan's partner in legislation, so stupidly stated, emotions can and do change the hormonal atmosphere in which the human zygote, embryo and fetus develop. We are only beginning to understand how that atmosphere, including recreational alcohol and other drug use, as well as prescribed psychoactive and other medications so many young women take now, permanently alters development. This is called teratogenesis when it causes cancer and mutagenesis when it causes deformity/mutation. This can result in something as minor as a heart valve malfunction to a trisomy disorder such as Down's Syndrome. I won't launch into a whole science lecture here, but the science is truly fascinating. 

Admittedly those would be extreme examples and not the usual case. My point is that only the woman who has been raped should decide what she does if she becomes pregnant. Any other way dealing with the situation in a very real way continues the assault. I can prove that logically. Rape is the act of forcing ones sexual will upon another human being against their wishes. Legislation forcing women to carry to term and deliver the zygote --> embryo --> fetus --> eventual baby of their rapist is an act of forcing the sexual will of a bunch of people, most of whom are men, on a class of people, all of whom are women, against their will. This, by definition, is rape! By conspiring with the rapist to continue to act against the will of the woman whose physical assault has already been begun by the original rapist, every person who votes for "no exceptions" legislation is part and party to the crime of rape by continuing the physical and emotional assault upon the body of the victim against her will.

This is not an extreme or "out there on the fringes" idea. If you sit for a minute and think...just cogitate for a moment and it will make sense to you...even the most extreme of you, if you are honest with yourselves. You don't have to say it out loud. No one can read your thoughts, and you know it's true. God already knows it, so you're not sinning by admitting the truth.

What I want to discuss, finally and most importantly, is the fact that only a pregnant woman knows what she should do if she becomes pregnant, especially by rape. A woman who is healthy and has a loving and supportive network of family and friends may carry such a pregnancy to term, as the most purely good, Christ-like and loving young lady I have ever known did when this very thing happened to her at a very tender age. She carried the baby to term and made a couple very happy parents of a beautiful, talented child. That is the ideal, of course. She turned something tragic into the greatest of blessings, and it took the heart of a lion to do it too. That is how she healed, and it wasn't easy. Not everyone agreed with her decision, but it was hers to make. That is how she regained control over her body. Another woman may make a different decision, but whatever the decision is, it is the most vital part of the healing process for that woman, so that she may progress from victim to survivor!