In My Not So Humble Opinion
I'm very opinionated. And a little weird. Maybe more than a little.
No Horse and Two Saddles
I have two saddles in the downstairs bedroom. I’m going to sell them for my dad. He’s too arthritic to ride anymore.
These saddles have a lot of history in them. My dad bought these custom saddles from Wm Porter Saddle Makers in the 60′s. His butt sat on one, his wife’s butt graced the other. Anyone can buy a saddle from the local tack shop. But it takes a serious horse person to have one custom-made.
They worked with these saddles. Dad’s electrical contracting business kept him clothed and fed, but the rodeo kept him alive. He cut cattle, and was a heeler in team roping competitions. Margaret (I never called her “mom”) was a barrel racer. Many nights, I sat on the fence rail and watched as they, and their fellow Westernaires, practiced. It wasn’t a case of not knowing what they needed to do, but rather of joining forces with their animal. Once horse and rider understood each other, they knew they were ready to enter the ring a competitor, and exit it with valuable silver.
There’s a lot of silver in rodeo. Dad had so many trophies he had a cabinet built to house them, which shined brilliantly with dishes, cups, trophies and belt buckles. Soon, he was setting them on top and around, because he kept winning.
My dad was always bigger and stronger and truer than anyone I met. Perhaps it was my perspective at three feet, looking up at the blue eyes shaded by a cowboy hat, thousands of feet above me that made him look so great. Or because, now that I know him in adulthood, it is that he is even more strong than I ever imagined. He is true to his word, believes in standing up for what is right, and never turns his back on the ones who mean the most to him. He is the true American Cowboy, with or without a horse.
When he rode in the Rose Parade and the Mother Goose Parade, these saddles stayed at home. That was when he used his dress saddle, festooned with conchos and silver, and dressed up his horse with a beautiful blanket and even more silver. With a watchful eye down the road, my sister and I would sit on the curb discussing the merits of each float, the excessive volume of the bands, and whether Dad would be coming by soon. The watching and waiting could be unbearable. When he was finally in sight, we would nearly dislocate our arms as we jumped up to wave and scream for his attention. As far as we were concerned, this was His Parade.
So, here the saddles sit, waiting for a new home. I want to make sure that once they are gone, those days live on. For now, I think I’ll go climb on dad’s saddle for a bit, and ride one of the horses of my childhood. Giddap, Tubbs! Let’s take another turn around the corral.
Shut up!
Don’t tell me what to do.
Celebrities just love to tell the rest of the world what to believe, how to think and act. If it’s important to them, by gods, the rest of us ordinary folk need to sit up and take notice.
I would be less annoyed if all this celebrity cause-promotion was a tad less self-serving or hypocritical.
A very few cases in point:
Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
The Faith Hill Family Literacy Project
The George Lucas Educational Foundation
The Alonzo Mourning Charitable Fund
The Britney Spears Foundation
The Justin Timberlake Foundation
Garth Brooks Touch ‘em All Foundation
Mike Tyson Foundation
There are plenty of good organizations doing the exact same work as these foundations claim to do. Organizations that were there all along. But these celebrities and more, choose to form their own foundation. Why? Duh, to get their name on it. To give themselves another 15 minutes. It’s not to say their foundations (the ones that actually have money, that is) aren’t doing good works. It just seems to me that more good would be done by combining their celebrity and efforts with an existing charity.
Check out this story. Plenty of celebrities contribute nothing but their celebrity to the charity they represent, and many of them get cash and perks in exchange. Nice, huh? While they are telling us to send our hard-earned cash to the charity of their choice, they aren’t contributing a dime.
Oh, and Bigshot Celeb, I’m telling you now not to inform me any further about all the starving children, disabled homeless people, and how just $100 would make a big difference. Why don’t you put up and SHUT UP!
Professional Hit for Just $50
If you want a discount hit, you have to bring the victim to the pro. No traveling, stake-outs; none of that. The advantage, besides price, is that they keep regular office hours.
That’s what happened for me, anyway, when I put a hit out on my cat. It was a very difficult decision. I’ve had people berate me for interfering with god’s work. I’ve even heard “How would you feel if someone else decided it was your time to die, and did the same to you?” You know what, I’d be grateful. If I was already dying, and in the kind of pain she was in, I would love it if someone would end the suffering. Too bad that option isn’t available to humans.
Baby (that was her name) was nearly 18 years old. Siamese live a long time, but I never expected 17 years, 8 months, and all the days and hours that went along with being her owner.
I wasn’t really her owner. You don’t own a cat. You can’t even tell them what to do. She wasn’t your typical good cat. She was an independent animal in her own right. Baby had the absolute loudest meow of any feline I ever met. Car rides, though seldom, were her time to put that volume to the test. I think it was her equivalent of singing in the shower.
She liked to play fetch with bracelets. Her favorite toy was a catnip butterfly, which you couldn’t take from her without risking the flesh on your hands. She slept on my bed every night for the past 8 years. She loved the sun, and warm, and was delighted to find that warm came out of heat registers. When wasn’t content to just sit or lay on my lap like other kitties, she always had to climb up and sit on my chest so she could look over my shoulder.
Baby didn’t like many people. One night, before my husband and I were married, she ran across the back of the couch, smacked him on the head and kept running. That was the friendliest hello she ever gave.
She barely tolerated the dogs. The big one frightened her, and the little one annoyed her. I’m sure she would never have called either one “friend”, The big one, certain that Baby is still lying in my bed, keeps pulling all the covers off, just to make sure. They miss her.
I miss her. I have a hole in my heart that won’t be filled right away. She was a cool cat. We understood each other. Rest in peace, Baby.
What’s wrong with rainbows?
One of my favorite natural phenomena is rainbows. They are a bit of serendipity that calms my soul and fills it with wonder. For me, watching a rainbow from its faint beginning, as it builds to its full bright layers of hue, until it leaves the sky a little emptier and alone, is a spiritual experience.
I’ve never been able to take a good rainbow picture, but here’s some from the last rainbow I saw. I’ve seen better. You probably have, too.
So, what is not to like about rainbows?
The image of rainbows barely entered the picture when Jesse Jackson formed his separatist, political action group, the Rainbow Coalition. It was the original gay-pride flag that first flew in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade in 1978 that had already made the symbol stick. Wikipedia will bring you up to speed on this, if you want to take a look.
Someone yesterday said something to the effect that: rainbow=gay. Therefore, the colors on my blog are indicative of a sexual orientation. That is silly. Rainbows aren’t gay. Gay people can’t lay exclusive claim to rainbows. No one, not Jesse, or anyone who flies a rainbow flag, or puts a rainbow on their car, or buys a rainbow t-shirt for their little girl to wear owns the rainbow.
No one owns a rainbow. That’s one the best things about them. They are free for everyone, equally.
This is me
Lots of people think I have weird tastes. I take that as a compliment. Who wants boring, blah, beige and brown when there’s a great kaleidoscope out there? I revel in the strange, and adore the unusual. In my vocabulary, the words Strange, Weird, Unusual, and Odd describe good things. If an experiment goes awry, new discoveries are made. If a statue crumbles and falls, a new piece of art emerges. Some of my most successful endeavors have begun with the words, “That probably won’t work.” Genius is born outside of the box. Failure is a necessary step in the path to phenomenal success. And sometimes, the Strange, Weird, Unusual, and Odd are just there for my amusement.
Here’s a couple of examples:
- Fruitcake
- Natural (or man-made, I’m not sure) disaster
- My nephew (Yes, he did that on purpose, and yes, my sister will kill me for posting the picture)
I’m heading out to find some more strange and wonderful things. C’ya.