Garden Woes

For some reason, I have a brown thumb this summer. The only plants that are thriving in my yard are the weeds. I did all that planting during the month of May… I’ve given everything a month to dig in and GROW. Sadly, I have to admit that my success rate is unusually low this year. My geraniums look stunted, the slugs have attacked my planter boxes on my front porch, the shrub border is sporting a brand new crop of weeds, and one whole side of my "fountain garden" is dead or dying. (The same plants planted on the other side of the garden are thriving. And it’s just a small area…a circle about 12 feet in diameter. I don’t understand how one half of it can be fine and the other half look like it’s been hit with "Round-up…")

 

   

My wonderful "salad garden" outside my patio door is looking really puny. Now, I thought I gave those plants the best that could be had as far as soil. I went and bought some of that incredibly expensive "Miracle Grow" stuff, mixed it with regular cheapo potting soil and some compost. NOT having a lot of success, though. The squash keep putting out flowers, which drop off and don’t produce fruit. I know the plants are really too small yet to be producing fruit, but why do they keep making flowers? My peppers look like hell. I decided to buy some more "exotic" varieties this year…like jalapenos and some little things called "sweet cherry peppers." Some of them have not grown an inch since I put them in. Some of them have grown, but the old leaves keep yellowing and dropping …the plants just basically look BAD. The only ones that seem to be doing anything are the good old sweet green bell peppers.

I decided to harvest some of my lettucelast night for dinner. It’s actually looking very good, and is at the stage where it’s just past what you would call "mesclun…" Not little baby leaves anymore, but not big and tough, either. Makes your mouth water, doesn’t it? Mine too. I cut some yesterday afternoon, rinsed it, patted it dry on paper towels, and put it in the fridge to "crisp" for dinner. Dinner time comes, I proudly whip out my home-grown bounty, flip back the damp paper towel I had covering it… And am greeted by hundreds of little bugs. Cold, slow-moving, but still alive little bugs, wriggling around on the paper towels wrapping my lettuce. Ugh! What’s up with that? Apparently, aphids don’t "rinse off" so good. They hang on for dear life. Hmm...what to do?  I had read somewhere that you’re supposed to soak home-grown broccoli in salt water to get rid of the insect life before you eat it…so, I dumped my greenery into a salt-water bath, left it sit for awhile, then pulled each leaf out, rinsed it individually, and dropped it into my salad bowl.

What a pain in the butt! Makes you wonder what the allure is to growing your own if it's so much bother. I guess you have a choice between eating pesticides from the grocery store, or eating bugs on home-grown. I guess the bugs are better for you, but the idea of adding that kind of protein to my diet does NOT exactly make me want to turn cartwheels. I wonder if Weight Watchers has calculated the points in a tablespoon of aphids?

Surprise, Surprise!

Well, well, well!  Remember that journal installment I just made reference to in my last entry?  I THOUGHT it was odd that it was getting so much attention from people who were not members of the journal community.  I was getting these ungrammatical, misspelled, mean-spirited comments...and then when I would search for the journals of the folks who wrote them, I would find they HAD no journals.  Where were these folks getting the information about my journal entry, I wondered?  Just from punching some combination of words into an AOL search?  Did someone who regularly reads my journal post a link on a message board or something?

Mystery solved this morning.  A commenter mentioned that she had found her way to my journal via a link from an AOL site--one that dealt with Former President Clinton's new book.  What?  They provided a link to my journal without asking me for permission?  Or even warning me that they intended to do so?  I gotta say...this pissed me off.

I have consistently turned down requests to be featured by various "communities" on AOL.  The editor's top five picks, AOL's Small Business Community, AOL Local something-or-other, AOL's Women's interest pages, or whatever...  I just don't desire that kind of "recognition" of my journal.  But at least all these "interests" have had the decency to ASK me if I wanted to be featured, and I appreciate that.  But, damned if AOL didn't just go ahead and provide a link to my journal anyway...and in a place where I probably would have LEAST wanted to be featured.  For God's sake, I haven't even read the book!  (I bought it, I'm working on it...but, since it's over 900 pages, it will probably be awhile before I have finished with it and am prepared to make any judgment on it that I would want to share with ANYONE, much less people I didn't know...)

I know...I chose to put my journal on AOL, and I guess that meant I was giving up 99% of my rights to its content.  But there IS such a thing as common courtesy.  And it's obvious to ME that AOL chose to link to my entry because it would CAUSE controversy...just the kind of thing I was railing AGAINST in my last entry.  Like poking at a cobra to see if you can get it to strike.  Shame on AOL. 

Tell me, my friends in the journal community, am I being too sensitive?  Do I have a right to be pissed off about this?

Time for a Change

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my theory that the end of the Cold War had left a huge void in America: Those who needed to hate no longer had an enemy of the state upon whom to unleash that most negative of human emotions. I wrote that I felt Americans had begun to revisit racism and civil rights as ways of venting their inner demons. Lately, I’ve been giving some further thought to this issue, and I’ve come up with another theory. I still believe that racism DID experience a renaissance during those years when America drifted in a more or less peaceful co-existence with her fellow nations. But besides that, we raised up two new sources of evil to fulfill our need to hate: The President of the United States….and each other.

President Clinton became one huge, unfortunate target for the bottled-up hatred in this country. His intelligence, personal charisma, and political savvy propelled him into the office, but they couldn’t save him once the tide of public opinion was turned against him. Eight years of a mostly decent presidency were turned to dross by the relentless forces directed at him. In the end, he was disgraced, an object of scorn, a target of some of the ugliest derision I have ever heard directed at a public figure. I wonder, where were all those folks who are now insisting that Americans need to have respect for the "office" of the Presidency? Why didn’t Mr. Clinton deserve that? Was it because he cheated on his wife and lied to Congress about it? I don’t know….it seems to me that if we had shown one tenth the "respect" for him and his office that people are now demanding for President Bush, the "Monica" incident would never have been uncovered, much less dragged in front of Congress.

But apparently, it didn’t appease us enough to hate and vilify our own president. We had to start turning on each other, too. We had to debase political discourse in this country to the level of radio talk shows that display a sickening degree of rudeness, closed-mindedness and complete disregard for the opinions of others that do not line up with our own. We cultivated radio personalities who embarrass, ridicule, patronize, and just verbally abuse callers with opposing viewpoints. Over the air, to millions of listeners every day. I don't know which part of that bothers me the most: the fact that the hosts actually treat people like that on the air, or that SO many people tune in? It has gotten beyond out of hand. People not only listen to this verbal abuse, they emulate it. To the point where, when a liberal group decided they needed "liberal" radio talk, they completely duplicated the format, down to the rudeness and verbal abuse to the callers. It has become what we do, daily, in all forms of media—television and print, as well as radio. It’s how we communicate with people who don’t believe as we do. How terrible is that? And how ugly, and wrong!

It hasn’t helped that we’ve since acquired a new "National Enemy." It is an amorphous, slippery group of international thugs that we haven’t had much success in identifying, finding, and attacking. We STILL don't have a solid, undeniable target for our all-too-human capacity for hatred. We’re all over the map, now...in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, in North Korea. Some of us even remain mired in Viet Nam. And unfortunately, we still haven’t softened our attitudes toward each other or our political leaders. If there are people out there who are genuinely worried about the future of our country, this is what they ought to be worried about. We are eating ourselves alive, from the inside out. If we can’t learn to get along with each other, if we can’t learn to treat other AMERICANS with respect, if we constantly feel the need to tear down our leaders and drag them in the muck, how are we going to make it in the world? How can we expect the rest of the world to look up to us, to admire us, to desire this "democracy" that we want them to believe is the highest form of human government?

Last week, I posted an entry about getting past trying to lay the blame for the 9/11 attacks. I tried to stake out a middle ground in that entry…to NOT blame either the Bush or the Clinton administrations. I got enraged comments from BOTH sides of the political spectrum. There are still people out there who can’t read a positive reference to Mr. Clinton without foaming at the mouth.  There are folks who have a zero-tolerance attitude toward the current administration. I’ll even admit to being one of those…but that journal entry and the reactions I received to it opened my eyes, at least a little. We are too polarized in this country…too unwilling to compromise, too unable to acknowledge that there are at least two sides to every issue. This situation must change, or our nation will not be able to move forward effectively in the 21st century. "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me…" Henceforth, I am going to try to be more tolerant and open-minded in my own political viewpoint, and less vitriolic in my assessment of others’. It might not change a thing, probably won’t win any converts to my way of thinking. But, to me, it will be "walking the walk."

A Little More Ranting

Can you tell I'm on a little hiatus with my business?  Don't have another event until the Fourth of July.  When I'm busy, it's like one or two journal entries a week.  Now that I'm home taking a breather for a few days, I'm on the computer for hours.  One or two entries a day.  All this stuff swimming around in my brain...why not spit it out here?  It's my journal, by golly.  Hope you all don't mind reading it...  :-]

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of political discourse in this country. I have to wonder if it’s more awful than it’s ever been, or if it has always been as it is. It’s been a long time since I sat in a US History class…but I remember reading about the "carpet-baggers" of the nineteenth century. A hundred and fifty years ago, without the technology we have at our fingertips today, should have been the political "dark ages." News traveled pretty slowly back then…neither candidates nor voters had access to up to the minute details of world or national events. That fact, I think, served political purposes better than having the information would have. They could just get up in front of a crowd of uninformed people and whip them into an emotional frenzy with meaningless, groundless political rhetoric. Wait…does that sound familiar?

So, what gives? Why is it that, with all the information we should have available to us, politicians still stand on the dais and spout meaningless strings of emotional buzz-words? And we in the audience hang on their every word, jump up and holler when cued, then run home and squander our votes on the basis of very few actual facts? We should be more advanced than that. Information is available to everyone in this country…or is it? Where does most of our information come from? From the news media. How responsible are they in reporting the facts? This question really frightens me. Because if you don’t look below the surface, you would take it for granted that the news media DOES report the facts. Really?

When I was in high school, I enrolled in a journalism class. We were told there were very strict rules as to what "news reporting" was. It was "who, what, when, where, and how." It was NOT "Why?" "Why" was editorialism. How much news do you see, hear, or read anymore that does not have a healthy dose of "why" mixed in with it? Dangerous, dangerous ground. It should not be up to the news media to draw conclusions about the motivations involved in a story, nor even to speculate about them. It’s their duty to give us the facts, and let us draw our own conclusions. Shame on them. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to change any time soon. Speculation creates sensation, sensation draws the audience, the audience pays the bills. We are being used, plain and simple. The public trust has been violated and shamefully taken advantage of.

Here is my question: Where do we go to get the unbiased facts? Is there an agency, newspaper, radio station, whatever, that will give us the news without any embellishment? In fact, I don’t think they know what "news" is anymore. "News" has come to be defined as anything that will draw an audience…like the stench of rotting flesh will draw flies. We NEED a source of unbiased, untainted information in this country. Unfortunately, I’m sure that only some of us will be interested in it, which is probably why it doesn’t exist. If anyone knows of such a source, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Belated Father's Day Thoughts

Father’s Day has come and gone, without being made note of in my life. My husband is not a father, and both of our fathers are gone. I completely missed it this year. In a way, that’s a good thing. Because now, it just makes me sad. I don’t need a day that’s all about missing my dad. I miss him every day, anyway.

When I read other people’s accounts of their cuddly, huggy, smoochy dads, I have to smile a little. My dad was certainly none of these things. He just was not a physically demonstrative man. Nor an emotionally demonstrative one. He didn’t hold us in his lap, enfold us in big, fatherly bear-hugs. But we didn’t need those things from him to know that he loved us. We were a family of six women….and Dad. He was vastly outnumbered…I really don’t know how he put up with all that estrogen flying around. But he was always "The Dad." He was the provider. He was the teacher. He WAS Mr. "Know-it-All." An extremely intelligent and well-read man, somehow making do with being the patriarch of a family of daughters in Post-World-War-II suburbia.

One of my parents’ strictest rules when we were growing up was that we were all to be treated exactly alike. There was to be no favoritism at all; there were no dance lessons, or piano lessons, or sports teams, nothing that would pander to (or enhance) any of our individual talents. If an activity couldn’t be done by the entire family, it wasn’t done. To be fair, Dad was trying to put all of us through Catholic school on his salary alone…so there really wasn’t the money for any extra-curriculars. But I always got the impression that my parents were afraid that if they acknowledged that one daughter showed a talent for something, it would somehow be shortchanging the rest if they officially encouraged it.

Lately though, I’ve gradually become aware of an inkling…that I might have been my father’s favorite. I was the only one of us five girls who resembled HIS family, and not my mother’s. Pictures of Dad’s younger sister were VERY reminiscent of…me. (Or was I reminiscent of her…?) I was skinny as a rail, where the rest of my sisters tended to take after my mother’s plump, Hungarian heritage. AND, I had the same birthmark as my dad…a little fleshy bump on the top of my right ear that made me look like I was ¼ elf. Much was madeof that birthmark when I was a little girl, and the fact that I was probably the purest "Baldwin" among the bunch of us. When I was little, I thought that was only talk…

Now that I am older, and he is gone, I can see that maybe, just maybe, he had a softer spot in his heart for me than for the rest of the girls. I think he’d deny it to the death…but it may be true. There are some little clues… As we got older, the folks would just fork over checks on birthdays and anniversaries. They had no idea what we liked or needed as adults. But, I remember…I would get stuff like a set of knives and a knife block…or a chip and dip set…or a fishing pole.  And inevitably, I would hear, "Your dad picked that out for you…" And then there was our arrival in Oregon…when we moved out here because I couldn’t stand that my family had left me behind. We pulled into their driveway, after our long cross-country trip, with all our possessions and herd of animals in Little Pepe and a rented moving truck. My dad DID NOT cry. I can count on one hand the times in my life when I saw him fog up. But there were tears in his eyes and a catch in his voice when we jumped out of the car and went to hug him.

And, during his final illness, we all did our best to make him comfortable, to do the "nursing" things that none of us ever thought ourselves capable of doing. We had to set up his tube-feedings, make meals that we hoped he could/would eat, dress the infection that he had developed at the site of his feeding tube, deal with his bedsores… One day, my mom said to me, "He likes the way YOU do it" when we were talking about some aspect of his care. I was proud, humbled, devastated, and fiercely determined to do the best job I could…all at the same time. Which is actually a pretty good summation of my entire lifetime relationship with him.

Dad is buried on a little hillside, in a cemetery outside Eugene. If he was there, he could see the foothills and the mountains to the east, where he used to fight fire as a summer job during his college years. And he could watch the RVs leaving town on the most-traveled route between Eugene and the ocean he loved. But he’s not there. I don’t know where he is, but he’s not hanging around some marble orchard. I GO to the cemetery, I put flowers on his grave, but I don’t feel him there.

THIS is where I feel him:

Whenever I walk on the beach, there seems to be one seagull, all by itself, who will sit and watch me approach…stay for the longest time, and eventually fly when I get too close. And I say, "Hi, Dad!" Because I really think it IS him. Saying, "hi"…letting me know he’s okay, wherever he is.

Thanks

Lately, I seem to be writing in a more political bent.  AND I'm starting to get comments from people with opposing viewpoints.  I think this is GREAT!

There are a lot of us here in AOL journal land.  From many walks of life.  From all areas of the country.  I have learned SO much by reading these journals.  Learned about the differences between us.  Learned about the similarities that exist, in spite of the differences.  I haven't had a lot of friends in my life...haven't really had contact with too many people outside my own little emotional bubble.  Being a part of the journal community has been a broadening and enriching experience for me.

One thing that has impressed me, is the capacity of most of us...well, at least the little group whose journals I read, and who read mine...to step outside ourselves. To make every attempt to understand and sympathize with what another "journalist" writes.  Whether it be a relationship issue, an emotional one, a practical one, or a political one.  We try to lift each other up, every day.  Try to impart positive energy through our computer keyboards, across the phone lines, and into the hearts of the people we read and write for. 

I think that, from time to time, we all feel we are "spending too much time online," and back off for a little while.  But the community is always there for us to come back to when we are ready.  And, I've got to ask...what's wrong with being involved in other people's lives?  What's bad about sharing with people, and having them share with you?  For the truly introverted among us, and we are legion, this is the deepest level of contact we have with other people.  Or am I wrong?  Am I the only person in the world who feels she really NEEDS the communtity of the other writers here? 

At any rate, I just want to say "Thank you."  This community is about sharing, and being THERE for one another.  And about ranting, and listening to someone else's rants, and understanding where they're coming from.  And for listening to the views of people you have become close to, in the unique way of the online relationship, and accepting those views as part of who they are, but not ALL of who they are.  So that there is a way to still be friends with someone who will not necessarily vote the way you will this November.  Can we keep this up?  Can we be polite and respectful of each other, even though we may not agree on everything?  This is what I value about the people I have met in this community.  And this is what I wish the rest of the world, or at the very least, the rest of our country, could be like. 

Get OVER it!

<Citizens United — a conservative lobbying group whose president, David Bossie, Mr. Clinton writes, helped to foment the Whitewater scandal — bought advertising time in several markets during Mr. Clinton's interview on "60 minutes" to argue that the former president was responsible for failing to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.>

This just makes me want to break something.  Politics are a hopeless string of lies in this country.  There are no such things as honor, accountability, telling any truth without spinning it to make one's own party look good, and the other party look responsible for ANYTHING bad.

What bothers me is, the Conservatives now want to blame Clinton.  And/or they declare that blaming the current president would not be showing the proper patriotism or "respect" for the office of the presidency.  I see...only Republican presidents are worthy of respect. 

I am of the opinion that NO president was responsible for what happened on 9/11.  Certainly not Bill Clinton, who had been out of office for nearly a year, and a lame duck long before that...unable to properly conduct the duties of his office because he was dealing with a constant stream of Republican attacks every time he made any move in any direction, personal or political. 

But neither is George W. Bush responsible for those attacks.  NO ONE, no matter what the 9/11 panel tries to dredge up, or whom they attempt to blame, had a clue that Al Quaeda would plan and be able to pull off such a spectacular example of modern urban terrorism.  Now we know.  Let's go forward.  Let's grow up and try not to pin the blame on anyone.  Let's let today be the first day of the rest of our lives.

I think Mr. Clinton might have made a big mistake releasing his book before the election.  I don't think he realized that he continues to be a lightning rod for Conservative slander.  He won't be doing the Democratic party any good by allowing the Right to dredge up all the old garbage about him and fling it in Kerry's way.  No amount of bad news coming out of Iraq, or stories of the Bush administration's collusion with the energy industry, or tax cuts for the wealthy, seem to be able to attract the attention of the American public away from the sensational roasting of Bill Clinton by the Conservative loudmouths in this country.  Yet another not very attractive example of human nature....  

 

Another Weekend...Another Event

We were back in Astoria this past weekend, doing an event called the "Scandinavian Midsummer Festival."  The weather was gorgeous...no rain.  In fact, it might have even been a little TOO nice.  When the weather is nice at the coast, people flock to the beach, and little local events like our festival suffer, attendance-wise.  But we did well in spite of the poor attendance numbers.  In fact, we may have been the only really palatable food at the event, so I think that helped.

Our booth was placed outside the exhibit hall, because we have to use propane for our cooking appliances (don't want to kill off the patrons with carbon monoxide...)  I love doing events at county fairgrounds.  So far, we've been to about a half dozen different ones.  They all seem to be in various states of slightly seedy disrepair, owing to the chronic lack of funds they have to deal with.  Most of the buildings are right out of the thirties or forties...  Anything built after the sixties is considered extravagantly updated.  Walking around the fairgrounds is like stepping back in time.  

Many of them have "Master Gardens," which are planted and maintained by the County Extension Services.  The picture above was taken in the Clatsop County Master Garden, which was a few steps away from where our booth was located.  It wasn't huge...maybe the size of a typical suburban back yard.  But the flowers were wonderful.  How great is it to be able to do the work you love in this kind of setting?  I haven't made any money yet, but this weekend was definitely an example of why I do what I do!    

Imagine

All these questions and answers making the rounds in Journal Land… I’m going to answer one that nobody has asked: What song do you think best expresses your personal philosphy?

This song has been in the back of my mind for much of my adult life. Years ago, I was a starry-eyed, steadfast member of a Pentecostal church. As time went on, though, I became aware of the fact that the Christian right was NOT all about God. Much of its time and energy were invested in beating "the other side" over the head with their interpretation of religion. Not just the godless unsaved, but other brands of Christianity that they felt did not follow the correct path (theirs) to salvation. I wanted to love God, but ultimately, I knew I didn’t belong among a bunch of people who used what they felt was THEIR special relationship with the Almighty, to belittle, threaten, and sometimes take violent action (abortion clinic bombings) against those who did not believe as they did. And so, the words of Lennon’s song began to play in the back of my mind…increasingly loudly as the Christian right became more powerful, more vocal and more violent. Imagine there's no heaven...It's easy if you try; No hell below us, Above us only sky. Imagine all the people Living for today...

Recently, the tune has become even louder. What a mess the world is in now! The entire Middle East is an explosion waiting to happen. Half the African continent is involved in civil war or genocide. The Balkans crackle with barely concealed violence. India and Pakistan are constantly on the verge of coming to nuclear blows. North Korea is rattling its saber. Central America has roaming bands of rebels who annihilate entire villages full of peasants. Name a corner of the world, and there are people killing each other for political gain.

And the United States of America, arguably the most powerful nation in the world, which has the power to be a HUGE source of good, to promote peace and understanding (notice I didn’t say "democracy") in the world…chooses NOT to. Instead, reeling from an unprovoked attack on our own soil, we take up our guns and bombs and go wading into the general area of the world from which we believe our attackers sprang, and start killing people. In light of our complete inability to uncover the WMD we claimed we were going after, there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was purely an act of revenge (I won’t go into the other possible political rationale behind it…). "An eye for an eye." There are those who STILL argue that the attack was justified, if for no other reason than to demonstrate to the rest of the world that you’d better not even think of messing with the United States. Really? What does such an act of revenge produce? Does it produce peace? Or just a higher stack of dead bodies?

While everyone around me was donning their red, white and blue garb, waving the stars and stripes from every possible orifice, banning French fries, belting out "I’m Proud to be an American" at every public gathering of more that five people…Lennon’s song played a little louder in my head: Imagine there's no countries; It isn't hard to do…Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion too. Imagine all the people Living life in peace...

I love my country. I love the sheer, beautiful expanse of it. I love the history of our long and difficult climb toward guaranteeing freedom and dignity for EVERY citizen. I love it when we try to inspire the rest of the world to value human life. I love it when we open our doors and embrace "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free…" I love the great men and women our country has produced. I love the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, crafted with such care and diligence by some of the greatest minds this world has ever known.

But I can’t condone using our flag as a weapon to bludgeon the rest of the world into compliance with our beliefs. I can’t rally behind it when it is used as a standard to lead our young men and women into a war tainted with race hatred and the lust for revenge. I don’t believe that is what "patriotism" is about; but if it IS, I want no part of it. In that case, the world would be a better place with NO countries. NO boundaries. NO flags. Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You may say I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one… I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one.

 

Okay Now

I'm better now.  Thanks to all you who sympathized with my melt-down. 

I don't know whatever posessed me to watch those old videos on a day when I was already standing on the edge of the "bummer abyss."  It's the oddest thing; sometimes, when I get in those moods, I purposely do something to push myself over the edge.  I always feel physically like crap for a day or so after one of my "drowning" sessions...  But I also feel cleansed. In order to deal with the losses I have faced, I just push them to the corners of my mind, where they are not directly in the way of my everyday functioning.  But they tend to stagnate a bit, and the odor they emit begins to insidiously creep into my conscious mind.  Until it starts to taint everything.  From time to time, I just have to cry...turn the emotional power-washer loose on myself and blow it all out.  And then I'm fine for a few more months, when I have to do it again.

I should be okay for the rest of the summer, I think.  I needed to get this all out of the way before I got into the busiest part of my season, where I can't afford to let things get me down.  As if I can really control it (LOL).  It's nice to THINK I can...