Copy of Anita Harms Tellabration 11/8/13

Puzzles

                                          Possible Puzzle.

                                          Possible, too.

Impossible, but someday...

My daughter got me a puzzle to assure herself I wouldn't slip into Alzheimers.  It was a jigsaw puzzle of a beautiful Kinkade house that actually resembled one with which I was fascinated, right in the neighborhood. Since I tell stories, either original, paraphrased, but nevertheless memorized, and since I'm the storytelling group's secretary and have to take notes, remembering a month back, and report, and also, write and do a lot of research and self editing, I never got around to it. I thought my brain was getting quite a workout as it was.

But all that has changed, since we got Naia, my older gran-daughter, puzzles, and worked with her on them.
The second puzzle (last photo) was three years her senior, so after awhile, she gave up, and we did too.

I was too challenged by it not to return to it. When Naia saw me working at it again, she returned to her age-appropriate puzzle and succeeded, twice. We exclaimed, "Yay! We did it!" and "Give me Five!"

Yet I was, very quietly, rebuilding my own big picture...until it was done.

Now, I've got to find a proper table for the jigsaw puzzle.

Always a Way Out

The North wind rustled the maple leaves and blew against the dank, bleak Autumn sky.
Geraldine pulled her shawl around her arms, in an effort to keep out the cold wind.  She walked the courtyard during her leave from the State Hospital.  No one knew she had finally had it and was plotting a way out.
She thought her last review would qualify her for her final release, but the doctors sat seriously in the semi-circle of diagnostic desks, shaking their heads as they wrote on tablets and questioned her.
Had she seen or, at least, felt any Spiritual Presences?
Intent on being honest, she replied, yes, she had.
Had she heard any voices?
She replied, well, not audibly, but she felt so, inside, at a gut level.
Who were these voices?
Her late uncle, the psychiatrist.
What did he seem to tell her?
That from his perspective, where he was now, psychiatry was a young science and very limited.
This last observation drew major negative head nods.
Geraldine knew, as she walked the courtyard, that something was seriously "off".  She looked beyond the arbor.  Behind the trellis, she could have sworn she "saw" Uncle Paul Sunderquist.  He nodded his head and beckoned to her.  She rushed into his arms...or so, it appeared.
The interns found her in the courtyard, prone and lifeless.

Friend Face ThoughtSeries

Usually, I write something and decide to share, but this time, I friend faced and wrote my thoughts like a blog, one thought at a time. I got some surprising "likes" and "amen" commentaries, which were quite as good as my blogging thoughts, since there were women who really relate:

I'm feeling nostalgic today. Life was so simple then. After bedtime, I'd get up and go to the window when I heard the DDT truck go by, supposedly killing mosquitoes, and breathe it all in. That kept going on until Rachel Carson wrote her book, Silent Spring, impressing my Republican dad. But then, Republicans then were almost like moderate Democrats now. So, he was impressed that maybe they should stop doing that.

Yes, those were the days, my friend. We learned shorthand, not knowing its days of usefulness were numbered. Still, it was kind of neat. And we learned how to type as-fast-as-we-could to absolute perfection, on pain of death, which made me want to go to college, instead.

In those days, we girls were in the home economics class, learning how to sew, so our husbands wouldn't pay out so much money for store-bought clothes, which made me, again, want to go to college. (There were no male chefs teaching guys back then.) And we wore dresses and skirts to school, no exceptions. Our legs froze, but were willing to pay the price for being female. The only reason we were so willing was because it never occurred to us it was a "crock".

Memorial Day Memory

I woke up "naturally" today, but shot up, because I always want to walk down the hill to see the Memorial Day Parade. 
I tend to think about the soldiers in my family, and even wrote a poem about them called the "40th Anniversary of Two Soldiers", regarding my dad and my brother, on an earlier blog.  Now, it would be the 45th Anniversary.  The latter died in Viet Nam's TET Offensive, and my dad probably died of a broken heart, even though his death was attributed to cancer and other causes.  My mom observed that veterans tended to die earlier, even after surviving the war. 
But there was one meeting I had with my dad a couple years before he died, where I had the privilege of hearing about how he was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked.
As for my mom and her family of three boys before my time, they were preparing to head for Hawaii to join my dad. But she shrieked in horror when the radio announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
Dad had dressed in white to preside over the Sunday Service, as chaplain, when he heard what he thought was target practice.  He first thought it rather odd that the army was conducting target practice on a Sunday morning.  He didn't have to wonder for long, as he found himself flat on the ground in the middle of a strafing. He was, after all, dressed up to be a good target.
After the attack was over, he was assigned, graves registration officer. There were, undoubtedly, others. One of his more noxious observations was the increasing odor that grew worse day by day.  This is something the Cinema can never share in their war movies.  He had to identify slain soldiers, sometimes, with only body parts. And some, shot down in planes, were pretty much returned to the dust, so they had to look for dog tags and other kinds of identification.
There was, consequently, a list of casualties. Mom was informed by someone that they had looked at the casualty list, and her "sweetheart was not on it".
I was eventually able to see a documentary of this event on television, and later, a movie.  But the documentary hit me pretty personally, as it was so real. And if Dad hadn't survived it, neither would have I.

Joe Btsplk - a reprint from days gone by

Introduction - someone posted something about "thought forms" on "Friend Face", so I remembered what I'd written years ago.  The point of this is, "what you focus on expands", and this is a reprint:

I think my love of reading began when I was about ten years old and heard stories from the Tomahawk Public Library that inspired me to take out books.  I was able to laugh with delight over comics of Pogo, Peanuts, and even steal Mad and Al Capp comics from my older brother's room.

Al Capp, the creator of Li'l Abner, had also invented some other characters, one of which was Joe Btsplk.  He was a jinx who carried a dark cloud over his head, and everywhere he went, car wrecks and other unfortunate events took place, just because he happened to be around.

I hadn't thought of Joe Btplk until recently.

It was when I came to a realization one night after I had spent some time talking over some unfortunate events with our Creator in the privacy of a nearby park, that I came back after blowing my nose and smoothing my feathers.  I looked out the window that night, and it came to me.  I could visualize a "cloud" of electrical energy in the form of minus signs.  This "cloud" was something  for which I was responsible.  It was hanging in the air.  It was almost tangible. Wow, did that hit me!  What I was doing - expressing myself in a negative way -  was being revealed to me as something which was actually counterproductive.  There it was.  I was just like Joe Btsplk!

Years ago, my traditional, yet metaphysically-minded late dad and I attended a church where a fellow pastor of his spoke.  Dad was so impressed with the message, he called and told him.  It was about how the Israelites spent forty years in the desert (that means a "critical period" or until completion) and took such an incredibly long time there under Moses, because of what?  "Because of unbelief!"  This fellow pastor repeated that phrase several times throughout the sermon.  It seems the Israelites spent a lot of time complaining, carrying on, and telling Moses how much better they had it back in Egypt in slavery, and on and on, adnauseum.  This unbelief (you remember the Joe Btsplk "cloud") had actually delayed and deterred them from their goal of reaching the promised land within a time period that was more to their liking.

Sure, they had faith.  Otherwise, the account wouldn't be there, but the other side of it (for you and me of little faith) is to develop more faith.  It takes learning, a little stumbling, practice, and an awareness of the lesson Joe Btsplk has to teach us.

Since Ma Bell and General Tel

Ma called me on a Swiss Cow Bell,
Now, Moms call kids on a cell.
Used to call folks on the phone.
Now, "Leave a message at the tone."
Used to get the operator,
Now, punch buttons, wait till later.
Once checked to see if I had mail,
Now, I click my dail-e-mail.
Checked the bookstore for a book,
Now, I may look in my Nook.
Watched a few shows on TV,
Now, have many cable "free".
Teachers typed out purple papers,
Now, they copy with no vapors.
Used to thread the film projector,
Now, the DVD's effect-or.
Use to pass our notes in school,
Now, they have a texting tool.
Thought you'd left your schools behind?
Friend-Face classmates are online.
Seniorhood's not really boring,
When you're gaining quite a following,
On your blogs and network threads,
Are a bunch of talking heads,
Some annoyed, so then, "unfriend" you,
Just like school when couldn't stand you.
Most are gracious, have flip-flopped.
Respect, forgiveness hasn't stopped.
And if you write a silly Haiku,
Someone there may even "Like" you.