I Almost WON!!!

"I could a been a contender".  I got all of the numbers, all six of them!  ...But dispersed over the fourteen tickets that I bought!  That was my "investment" for the chance at half a Billion or so that was up for grabs.
I think someone from Maryland bought the winning ticket.  My daughter lives in Maryland!  I wonder..hmm!
I wonder whether she would even tell me?
   There is something about money that brings friends out of the woodwork and you discover relatives that you never knew existed.
   Half a Billion isn't what it used to be.  It takes Romney a full two years to earn that much!  Of course I dreamt what it would be like to suddenly be kicked into the top 1% where 640 Million becomes a lousy 430 Million after taxes and I wondered whether I would resent that?  Maybe, I thought No one would win and next week it would morph into a full Billion Dollars!  That's real money!  And then I was dreaming like everyone who bought a ticket...    what would I do?
   I could certainly spend some of it.  My house needs a new roof and that would take some and I would like to pay off my daughter's student loans and get rid of those payments they will have for the next thirty years!  I don't want a new car.  I like my little truck and it has brand new tires on it.  My wife's 1989 Mercedes is in perfect running condition and she just had the oil changed.  I realize that I would have a difficult time spending the interest that would accumulate in just one day.
   I am amused when I read that some people would invest this money!  Like they want more!  When would it be enough?  It would be quite a challenge to give it away.  Some people would complain that they didn't get enough!  I remember the old "Millionaire" television program from the 1960's where every week John Baresfortipton (spelling?) would give away a million bucks to some poor deserving person which would just create a whole slew of other problems.  It is not simple.
    I wonder whether I should have prayed for the winning numbers?  Some people did this and even made deals with God, offering half to the Church instead of the measly 10%.  I am sure there was a priest or two who bought a ticket.  I like to think that God is busy and doesn't get involved with a numbers game. and if He wanted something I am sure He could figure out a way to get it.
    I am glad it is over and now I can get back to my garden and the reality of life.

I Wake Up in Pain

   I am lucky.  Put me horizontal and lay me flat and I will fall asleep.  Or put me in front of the television and I will fall asleep.  But I always wake up in pain.  My feet hurt and I cannot feel them, my hands hurt, throb and I can feel them very well, like shuffling razor blades.  Peripheral neuropathy, my collateral damage, a souvenir from my successful battle with cancer.  I go downstairs and feed my doggy, the 128# Rottweiler-pitbull-mastiff breed my daughter gave me. I don't need a home security system although his bark is far worse than his bite.  I don't think he would bite anyone but bad guys don't know this.  He is a big dog.  I make some coffee and take a vicodin and head out my backdoor
the hundred feet or so to my studio. across the stone bridge to my office.  The blood begins to flow, life ebbs into my feet and my hands are stiff and sore, so far unresponsive.  Tender to the touch.
   My new computer is so much faster than the old one, I sometimes wonder why I even bought it?
It can "multi-task" and I cannot.  I have a routine and each morning is about the same.  I check my e-mails most of which are junk and I check out who is blogging what?  What is important and what are people doing and what are they willing to say?  Then I check the news and I have to admit I like this aspect of my computer.  I get news from all over the world.  It is pretty complicated and sometimes difficult to sort out.  It is almost never what the headlines say.  There is always so much more to the story.  I think if voting were a life or death issue I would want to know a lot more.  I sometimes wonder if when we die, if we are really put before God what would happen?  What would happen if He said:
"Well, it was a gift! What did you think about it?"
   So I read the news and I am so thankful that I do not live in Syria and I remember that we had our own Civil War!  There is so much progress in the art of killing people.  We are still tribal people, not much has changed at all.
    I read about how our economy is supposed to be getting better but I don't see that happening around here.  The Stock Market went to 3000 yesterday, carried by the likes of Apple and the price of gold I suspect.  My little $5,000 in Steel Stocks is still down to less than $2,000 and I know that things won't get better for the average person until we are building things again.  Corporations are doing well, making the most profits in that last sixty years!  But we all know it is not trickling down.
General Motors is back to being the largest car company in the world but I know few people who could actually go out and buy one.
   There are debates tonight and I will watch them.  I am saddened by American Politics. This election process will cost billions of dollars and I realize that a regular person can never become President.  It is a lot of money and has to come from somewhere.  Somebody is paying for this and they will want something in return.  As the economy is theoretically getting better the issues have turned to "social issues" and they are talking about gay marriage and religion and all of a sudden I think I am in Iran!  Don't we have better things to do than lurk around bedroom windows?
   By now my feet are better and I feel as though they will hold me up and my hands are no longer the center of my being.  One last check on blogger ville and I am off to my bath!  Hot water in a bubble bath in a six foot one hundred year old cast iron tub!  Pretty lucky, thank you so much.  Then I return to my shop or my studio or my office or my garden or maybe the greenhouse!  I have so many choices!  And I am just incredibly lucky!

Chickens in the Bedroom!

     I am going to Portland today, about 120 miles from where I live, to pick up "my baby daughter"!  She is coming from Washington D.C. where she has just finished the Bar Exams!  "Oh, what bar does she work at?" a friend joked to me.  She should be a real lawyer now, women have come a long way.
    I remember the day she was born, about 26 years ago, my second of two baby girls, the loves of my life.
"Wow, how do you get to be a lawyer?" I am asked. " "How lucky you are!"  And luck has a lot to do with it, I admit that, but I have philosophies of education and ideas on raising children and I like to think in some small way that I helped, if in nothing else, then at least in opening doors and stretching the horizon.
   I am six feet tall and weigh about 200 pounds.  I am a big man and being in construction all of my life, I am pretty strong.  My baby daughter was about 17 inches tall and weighed about nine pounds.  I knew from the beginning that I could beat her up, that I had the power of submission.  I could spank her and yell at her, fill her with disappointments and defeat.  I never did that.  My daughters have never been spanked. I knew from the start that that only proves that I am bigger than they are, that I have power and they don't.
   One of the first things you learn as a school teacher is that you are a lot bigger than the kids.  It is not comfortable being eleven years old sitting in a little tiny chair and having a huge teacher hovering over you where the student has to strain their neck and look way up to meet your eyes.  The teacher should kneel, get eye level with the student and then, this really helps: talk to the student as if they were real human beings!
    It is amazing how that works.  Eye level.  Honesty. Real Human Beings. And, unless danger is involved,
not from a position of power.  An equal trading of words.   I listened to my daughters.  And I am a touchy, feely kind of guy.  When I wasn't kneeling by their side I was picking them up, holding them close, and, yes, just squeezing them!  When they would have issues or problems or concerns I would help them understand and itemize alternatives, this road, that road and the pluses and minuses to both, and potential consequences.
Very seldom and maybe never did I make a decision for them.
     They grew up in a house of routines.  Dinner was pretty much always at the same time. After dinner, after their baths, Jane would always read to them, always.  I grew up in a house full of books and so have my children.  Hundreds of books, bookshelves everywhere.  There is not a room in the house without books.
Our house didn't even have a television until they were over tens years old!  They were limited to two hours a week!  Bedtime was always a ritual too and always the same.  Eight o'clock.  I think this was mostly so Jane and I could have some quiet time, but always the kids were in bed by eight o'clock.  They were allowed to read themselves to sleep, so there wasn't a curfew there.  They just had to be in their rooms and quiet, reading or sleeping.
    Their rooms were theirs.  Their kingdoms, their private places.  We never, ever, entered without knocking
and given permission to enter.
     There is a lot more to this story!  Tomorrow I will tell you about my daughters raising chickens in their bedrooms!
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