So What Your Telling Me

So what your telling me is:

You would rather have a President who’s greatest achievement is tearing apart companys in America and sending the jobs overseas and a GOP who has blocked every jobs bill put in front of them.

You would rather have a President who won’t show you his tax returns and be up front about all his offshore accounts that he doesn’t pay taxes on.

You would rather have a President who has already said that they intend to cut funding for socialist programs such as WIC, Medicare, Medicaid, Disability.

You would rather have a President who is going to give the wealthest people and corporations more tax cuts than they already have so you can make up the difference.

You would rather have a President that is going to put more money in defense and military spending than the infastructure of this country.

You would rather have a President who is not willing to tell the American people the details of his plans for OUR country and just says trust me. 

You would rather have a President that dodged the draft with 4 deferments because he had more important things to do.

You would rather have a President who does not care about the poor and the middle class which most likely includes you.

I Don’t Get It !

I don’t get it. Why are there any, let me say again, ANY women voting republican? They are trying to limit your birth control, take away abortion and refuse to give you equal pay. Why would you want anyone in office who wants to take away your rights? Ok so you don’t need birth control anymore…other women do…your sister, your neighbor, your niece, your granddaughter. Don’t they need and deserve the same rights to birth control that you have had for so long? Are we going to go back to a time when women and girls are told to just keep their legs together? Are we?

You don’t believe in abortions…fine…don’t have one. But that woman who was raped and beaten and tortured for 5 hours can’t do it. She simply can’t do it mentally or emotionally. If you make her, how do you think she will treat that child? Are you willing to take total responsibility for the loving care and feeding of that child after it is born? Are you willing to take responsibility financially for the mental and emotional health of the woman you just made carry it? That woman who was on birth control and it didn’t work or wasn’t available because the right to have it was taken from her…what about her? She works 10 hour days and already has 4 kids to feed, her husband just left her and doesn’t plan to pay child support. Are your going to be there to help with child care? Are you going to help her with legal issues so she can get child support? Are you going to help put food on her table when they cut food stamps and the WIC program? What are you going to do to help? Or do you just not care because it does not involve you? It’s just not your problem?

What about equal pay? Are you so beaten down and broken by the male population that they have you convinced that you don’t deserve equal pay for equal work? Do you think that you sister, mother, aunt also don’t deserve equal pay? Are they not worthy? Or have they convinced you that since men are the head of the household they should get paid more than you? Really? Well lets think again of that woman who’s husband just left her. She is head of the household now. Doesn’t she deserve equal pay? Are men’s egos so fragile that they can’t accept that women are as good at the same job as they are? Well then they need for get some counseling for that don’t they? Sounds like they need to work on their self-esteee. It is NOT your job as women to boost their ego by patting them on the head and saying, “Yes dear you do a much better job than that silly woman…you do deserve to be payed more”.

It is your job to see to it that we as a people, a community, as a country don’t go back to the dark ages. It is your job to support other women and their needs. It is your job to keep women in American from losing ground that was fought so hard for. Are you up for it? I am.

As A Kid

Growing up in a small town in North Texas right next to the railroad tracks meant that our neighborhood had black, white and Mexican families in it. Just across the tracks, there were more black families than white or Mexican. I had friends on both sides of the tracks.

When I would play at my black friends houses I couldn’t go inside cause their mother wouldn’t let me. “My mama says you can’t come in the house.” When they played at my house they never came in. Not because my mama said or anything. They would tell me, “My mama says I can’t come in your house.”  I never understood that as a child. It took me until I was in my 30′s to get it because I didn’t see a difference in us. Oh I saw the physical difference. They had darker shades of skin, their hair was different, the texture of their skin was different than mine. But just different. My friends that were white and Mexican had different shades and textures of skin than too. Their hair color and texture was different. My friends hair that was red frizzy fascinated me as much as my friends hair that was black and kinky. So while I knew there was a difference, I loved the difference. The difference to me was good.

When my mother had a couple of surgeries my father hired a black man named Buster to mow our yard. My mother usually mowed it but she couldn’t do much of anything for several weeks after each of her surgeries.

The first time I saw Buster was coming down the road pushing his lawnmower and whistling. I was sitting on the porch and he asked if my mama or daddy was home. I went and got my mama and he asked if she needed the yard mowed. She looked at it and decided yes it did need mowing and if he would come back tomorrow she would ask her husband that night and let him know. He said he would and she asked how much and my daddy while not to thrilled with the idea of having to pay someone to mow the yard said yes. Well he said yes after my mama advised him she wouldn’t be mowing it until the Dr. told her she could so he would need to get out there an mow it himself if he didn’t let her hire the man that came by looking for work. That’s how I met Mr. Buster.

I don’t remember his last name if I ever knew it but I liked Buster, he was a nice man. I would stand at the kitchen window and watch him mow the yard. My mama didn’t allow me  to go outside when he was mowing because I needed to stay out of his way and because I might get hit with something the lawn mower slung out.

When Buster was done mowing I got to go give him a glass of ice water and sit on the porch with him until he cooled off. Some days we talked and some days he was quiet. I have not a clue what we talked about but I do remember I loved to look at his hair. He had little tiny coils of curls that were cut short and gray hair was all mixed up with the black. For some reason that I can’t fully explain, it completely amazed me. My mother would sit at the kitchen table and pin curl her hair to make little curls all over her head. I took at least an hour and her curls were not nearly as small and tight as Buster’s. He said his hair just grew that way and he didn’t have to do anything to it at all, that may be part of the reason I was so amazed.

Sometime as we were sitting there talking and I was examining his hair for the millionth time, my mother would come the screen door and say, “Leave Mr. Buster alone, he’s trying to cool off”. Mr. Buster would always say,”Ma’am she ain’t botherin’ me none, she’s being good”. Then my mother would say, “Well if she gets to pestering you with to many questions tell her to come in the house”. My mama knew I was just full of questions about everything and was not afraid to ask them. Mr Buster would always say, “Yes Ma’am I sure will”. But he never did.   

Buster was missing an eye. I don’t remember which eye but it really doesn’t matter I guess. As a kid I so wanted to ask Buster what happened to his eye. Did he get hit by something slung out by the lawnmower? Was he running with a sharpened pencil or sharp scissors? Did it happen in the war?

My mama told me she didn’t know when I had asked her and she told me not to ask Mr. Buster because he might not want to talk about it and it might make him sad. I sure didn’t want to make Mr. Buster sad, so I didn’t ask. I am 52 years old now and I still want to know what happened to Mr. Buster’s eye, now I’ll never know. I should of just asked. Looking back on it I really don’t think he would have minded.

As Always…Namaste

The Lady Down The Street

When I was a kid there was a very nice lady who lived down the street from me. I loved her name and I loved her. Her name was Aquilla which means Eagle in latin. Mrs. Aquilla Johnson and husbands name was William. Everybody called them Quilla and Willie. She was a nurse or a teacher, I’m not sure anymore, its been to long ago and really doesn’t matter to the story. Her husband Willie worked for the railroad. They were the friendliest and nicest people anyone could ever want to meet.

When I was very little they still had the last of their children at home and I could see them playing in their front yard from our front porch and from our kitchen window. I was about 5 years old and they were teenagers. Much to old for me to go play with but I did love to watch them play and laugh.

As I got older sometimes I would see Mrs. Aquilla’s grandchildren playing in her front yard but I was a teenager then and they were much to young for me to play with, but again I did love to watch them play.

When I was between the ages of 6 and 12 I used to go past Mrs. Aquilla’s house to go crawdad fishing. There was a place not far from her front porch that had the best and the biggest crawdads. You know the one’s with the red pincers that look like small lobsters?

Sometimes she would be sittin’ on her front porch and I would wave and say hi as I went past with my slimy bacon and twine  in one hand and an old rusty coffee can in the other. Yes, this was back in the day when coffee still came in tin cans and not plastic.  Sometimes we would talk  a minute and sometimes one of her children and grandchildren would be there and she would introduce us all to each other.

Now one of the reasons that was my favorite crawdad fishing hole might have been I felt safe being close to her house cause I knew she was sitting on the porch watching me. Another might of been that she had homemade cookies quite often. Mostly I just liked her. I just like this woman. I didn’t know her well but there was something about her that made me feel so safe and cared for.

I remember one day I was going by her house  and she was fixin to leave. She had the big gate open that led into her side yard. They at some point when I was little had put a tall fence around their whole property and also enclosed their garage with the fence. I remember standing at the kitchen window,watching  as the fence was being built. They were having it built because someone had vandalized their brand new car. 

Well I happened to be going by her house that day when she was opening the gate and I saw kittens, about 10 of them and cats, lots of cats. I called to her and asked if I could come in and see her kittens and she said sure. So I walked in and a lot of the cats and kittens freaked out and ran when they saw me. I thought they were just wild and not used to anybody except Aquilla and Willie.

This one little kitten had its back to me and I scooped it up. It was purring and letting me scratch it neck and ears. I rolled it over and rubbed its tummy and it purred and purred.  Mrs Aquilla smiled as she watched and I smiled at her. I kissed it on its nose and it purred even louder. Then the kitten opened its eyes and went bat shit crazy. It made a horrible noise like I was killing it and started hissing and scratching and trying to get away from me.  I grabbed it with both hands and held it away from me so it wouldn’t get my face. Mrs. Aquilla looked as shocked as I felt. She ran over to me and took it from me and put it down. The little thing kept looking back at me as it ran, all the while hissing and shaking like it was afraid I was coming after it.

I was afraid that Mrs Aquilla was going to be mad at me for scaring her kitten so bad, even though I didn’t know what I did and even though I knew she had been standing right there and saw that I hadn’t hurt it in any way. I was so sure she was going to be mad at me. I started to cry. I’m not sure if I cried because the kitten didn’t like me and had scared me as bad as I had it or because I was afraid that Mrs. Aquilla was mad. Or all of the above.

She came over to me and hugged me and told me it was OK and that I should go on home and get my mama to doctor my scratches because she had to get to work or she was going to be late.  I hadn’t even realized that I had any scratches. But I did. On my hands, arms and face. When I got to the house my mama ask what had happened and I told her. Then I wondered out loud why the kitten had acted like that and why the other cats were afraid of me. She said probably because they weren’t used to anyone except Aquilla, Willie and her grandkids. I thought that made sense. Sometimes animals are afraid of what they don’t know.

A few weeks later I was down that way again and saw Mrs. Aquilla on her front porch. She waved and I waved. Thinking that I might get a chance to see the kitten again I walked up to the porch and sit down. I asked her if I could go in her side yard and she said she didn’t think so. I ask why. She said that she didn’t want me playing with the kittens because she didn’t want me to get hurt again. Well that made sense. So I asked why she thought her cats and kittens were afraid of me. She said she didn’t know. But that felt like she wasn’t telling me the truth. You know what I mean? Like she knew something I didn’t. So I asked if the cats just were not used to kids. She said, no, that wasn’t it, her grandkids played with them all the time. So I pushed it and asked why when it couldn’t see me it acted fine but when it opened its eyes it got really scared and I didn’t even do anything to it. She smiled and we sit for a few moments not saying anything. Then she told me in the nicest way she knew how and I could tell she didn’t want to tell me. But she told me and I’m glad she did. She told me she thought it was because I was white.

I thought about that for a minute. Would my cats be afraid of her because she was black? Maybe. I didn’t know.

She told me that she didn’t know if her cats and kittens had ever seen a white person because they rarely got out of the back yard. There was a 10 foot tall wooden fence and while I had seen a cat or two come over the fence from time to time. She was right, it rarely happened.

She said that when animals see something new that they have never seen before they don’t know if it is going to hurt them. I assured her that I would never hurt her cats. She said she knew that, but the cats didn’t know that and it scared them. She said that some people were like that too. We talked a little more and then I went home and talked to my mother about it. She told me that what Mrs. Aquilla said was true some people didn’t like other people because of the color of their skin.

I think about how my mother said “they didn’t like other people because of the color of their skin”, Mrs Aquilla said,”they were afraid or others because of the color of their skin”. It’s both really.

It was strange to me at that time and still is to this day that skin color could make such a difference in the way an animal behaves toward someone.  It has helped me to a certain degree understand prejudice and bigotry in the human animal. It’s all about fear of one kind or another. Until we humans sit down and get to know each other and find out how we are more alike than not alike we will always be afraid of and judge someone who is different than us. It is a natural instinct that at one time in human history helped preserve us and keep us safe from those not like us.  Those not like us who might want to take what we have or harm us in some way. But it is an outdated instinct for the most part. It is now doing more harm than good to the human race and we need to evolve past that.

Why don’t we all make a point of getting to know someone that is different than us in some way? Be it race, religion, politics, gender, sexual preference, etc…. Why don’t we see how we are more like them than not like them? You might be pleasantly surprised and just might make a new friend. Or it might turn out to be a total disaster. But don’t give up. Nothing you do in good spirit is ever in vain.

As Always…Namaste!

Mrs. Aquilla and Mr. Willie I want to thank you for being my friends and helping to mold my perspective about people who are different than me.

A Lot To Think About

So as my title says I have had a lot to think about the last few weeks. FB has been going crazy with the whole CFA thing. Myself being lesbian will not be eating there.

This whole thing has brought up a ton of issues for me. About half of my friends support CFA. Half!!!! Wow! Who knew?

Most of them for some reason think this whole thing is about free speech or they say they do. Could be cause that’s what CFA, the media and their conscience is wanting them to believe. Some are just ignoring the part about CFA supporting hate groups. If they don’t look at it to hard and in the full light of day then it won’t be true and they can have that chicken sandwich and not feel to bad about it.

Some I know are caving to peer pressure. They wouldn’t want their friends, family, boss, co-worker, the guy down the street or the woman they don’t know across town to know that they secretly don’t really care if gay people have the same rights. They think it is really only fair that they do. But what will people think of them if they actually stand up for what they believe in?

I know that some probably actually believe “what the Bible says” and they believe gays are bad people in some way and should not have the rights that “normal” people have. Well all except those gay people who are their  friends and they are really very nice people who they enjoy being around and talking to. But all those other gays…well their gross and if I agree that my gay friends should have rights then those other gays will get them too. We wouldn’t want that. I mean if they get the right to marry what’s next? Being able to marry and have sex with your dog? I actually know someone who said that last part. But not to my face.

Some people are just to damn lazy or afraid to make a choice one way or the other. They won’t even stand up for their own rights and they are sure not going to stand up for someone elses. Two of my lesbian friends will still be going to CFA. One tells me that she just loves the food and the other well…she says that they treat their chickens well. Truth is both of these ladies don’t feel they should be treated well and have never taken up for themselves a day in their life. They just let life happen to them.

What really amazes me about this whole thing is the so many of those supporting CFA have said  to myself and my wife that they love our relationship. They say that we have one of the best relationships they know of. That they can see the love that we have for each other and our children. Many have said that they wish they could have such a relationship.

So I am amazed and saddened  that those people, those “friends”, who have admired my relationship so much would support a company who wants to see that kind of relationship stopped.  A company who believes that kind of  relationship should not have the right to exist.

If someone came up to them and said I have this great product here and if you buy it then 20% of the cost will go straight to a hate group to help stamp out homosexuality in this country. Most of them would say no. But because this guy, Mr. Cathy is saying it’s about family values, Biblical principles and free speech it sounds much better. Plus they get a very tasty chicken product out of it. Amazing what conscious denial with let you promote.

What really really amazes me is that I have a few right-wing Christians as friends. How did that happen? I don’t know. I really don’t. Crazy right. But these people say they love me and my partner. They love the interaction we have with each other. Which is to say they love our relationship. But they say interaction. What ever helps them sleep at night. I am sure they try very hard to deny to themselves that we have sex. And they are totally against gay relationship and gay marriage. But they love our interaction with each other.

I’ve been trying to figure out how I should feel about this. It was very deeply saddening to see so many people line up for CFA it was even harder knowing that some of them were my friends. How does a person come to grips with knowing that people who they thought were friends are giving money to a company that supports organizations who promote what they call “Family Values”? Hate is not a family value, trying to take others rights away just because the religion you chose says its wrong, is not a family value. Dress it up any way you want but it is still discrimination.

By the way I don’t believe the Bible does say that homosexuality is wrong. My views on the Bible and Homosexuality are for the most part addressed in the following link. Watch the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQjNJUSraY

Your religion has no right to be in my government. The United States in not a Christian Nation and was not founded as such no matter how much you want it to be and no matter how many times you say it is. Please check these out. http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmFPfEYRZF8&feature=related

I have every right to have the same rights as you. How dare you try to tell me that I shouldn’t have those rights , try to make a law where I can’t have those rights and how dare you pretend to be my friend.

I would never want anyone to be discriminated against.

I guess that’s how I feel.

As Always…Namaste

Why?

Why did I start this blog? For me. Yes…that’s right…for me. Not for you. If you get something out of it great. If you think I am full of it…well that is great too. Cause sometimes I am.

You might think from my first post that I am some spiritual woo woo type person that is into all this weird stuff. Sometimes I am. From some of my posts to follow you might think I am some pissed off redneck from Texas. Sometimes I am. Most times I am somewhere in between.

So as I said I started this blog for me. Let me explain. I am on Facebook and as always there are many differing opinions from many different people on there. Some of which are my friends who I don’t agree with. So instead of being rude or combative on FB I decided to start this blog where I can say how I feel. They can come read it or not. I will post it on my FB page to let them know it exists.

I may rant on here. I may laugh. I may even be all woo woo spiritual that post who knows. I sure don’t.

I hope you like what you read and if you don’t please don’t post rude comments to me, I will just delete them. If you take issue with something I said let me know in a nice way or go start a blog of your own and rant over there. But let me know about the blog so I can go see what your saying about me.

As Always….Namaste!

Namaste Y’all

The word namaste has different meanings for different people. For me it means I see the divine soul within you. At least I try to. I try to see the perfect soul within you. It does not matter what is on the outside. How you look. How you act. What you say. I look for that which is within you and I hope you will look for that which is within me.

 None of us are perfect. That’s why we are here. I believe that we are striving to be perfect. God, Goddess, Source, whatever your word is for your spiritual higher power or connection. We are striving to be that One’s definition of perfect or complete not our definition. Complete is a good word for it. Complete within ourselves. Because when we are complete within ourselves we do not have to look outside ourselves for the answers, for our guidance, our approval, for our love. It’s all right there. Within us. Because if we are connected to Source, we are content. Content because we have all the content. We are in a state of  Contentment.

That does not in any way mean we won’t still want that from others from time to time. We are human. But we won’t need it, crave it, have to have it to be….

I wonder sometimes how long we will have to be on this earth in order to achieve this total Contentment, this connection to the One. If we had it right now could we move on? I would hope that we could, but maybe there is more here to learn than just how to be whole within ourselves.

I just know that once we learn the lesson of Contentment we will have all that we need and so much more. We will stop grasping for that which is outside ourselves to make us happy.  We will totally and very simply be Content and our focus will be on helping others to become that also.

As Always…Namaste!