I love this photo... it says .......Pondering....... all over it. Photographer is Ralph Rankin. Met him at the art festival last weekend. He also does some wonderful work in pottery.
Maybe we should have a caption contest? Huh? Yeah? Leave your ideas in the comments. Somehow we or I will pick a winner. I'll even give a prize to the winner. Let's do it!
UPDATE: Get all your captions in by 10 pm Tuesday. I'll figure out some voting thing so a winner can be picked.
Sgt. Hook has posted... he is on his way home, after fifteen months in Iraq! Wish him well.
Sparrow's haiku topic for the week is: THANKSGIVING. Let her know what the day means to you. Deadline 10 pm tonight.
Today, I give special thanks for all of my family and friends, my life thus far and the confidence that our beautiful country will find the good path so that we all may continue to be blessed with a life unlike any other on the planet.
Thank you all for blessing me with your friendship and love.
Sunday morning I headed west to meet a friend at an outdoor art festival.
Around here, it's a good idea to stay alert for critters that might wander from the woods to the edge of the road. Deer, gators, bears and such.
The only deer I saw was a small white-tail lying dead in the weeds. Poor thing.
The deep ditch was about half full of water but I saw no signs of gators. This time.
I did see a wild turkey strutting his stuff but he was heading back to the woods, so no worries there.
About a quarter mile past the turkey I spotted something. It was an upside-down turtle, about the size of a big salad bowl, and his stubby legs were spinning like propellers. He was trying to right himself but he had nothing to brace against and all he was succeeding in doing was miring himself deeper into the sand. He couldn't even get a good rocking motion going to roll over. That turtle was going to be stuck there, upside down forever, unless someone flipped him over.
I hit my turn signal, eased off the pavement and stopped.
I'd had no prior dealings with big turtles. Well, except for the time one dug under the fence and made a hole about three feet deep in the front yard...but, that's another story for another time, perhaps.
So... I got out of the car and walked slowly toward the panicky reptilian critter... while keeping alert for snakes. I hate snakes.
The turtle's head was pointed toward the edge of the road, so I'm thinking that I should spin him around before I roll him over so he doesn't trot onto the asphalt and get splattered by the traffic zipping by at 60 mph. That would suck. Especially for him.
How did I know the turtle was a him?
I was about six feet away when I saw his head and all four feet disappear......ssshhhhwoooooppp. Sucked 'em right into his shell. Gone. And then, I saw it.
His skinny, pink penis was protruding from, well, where most pink penises are expected to be protruding from. (Looka dat. Did I manage to get a dangling participle and a preposition on the end of that sentence? Whatever. Could it be I just invented the 'dangling penis-ciple' ?)
Now I am in a bit of a conundrum you see, because I have nothing to touch him with. How am I going to move him?
I'm not going to put my foot where his head can pop out and clamp on my toe. That leaves the other end. The dangling penis-ciple end. OK, I think to myself, do it quickly. Boomp! Spin. Dammit. Not enough. Again. Boomp! Spin. Success!
Only now, the little pink penis is flapping back and forth like a metronome. Flap Flap Flap Flap. The bugger is waving at me.
I put my foot on the side of his shell and push to get him rocking a bit. He's surprisingly heavy. Rock Rock Rock, Push! Foomppp. It's done. Yay. He just lays there on his belly. No head, no legs. I wait. I back up. I back up farther.
Finally, the head and appendages begin to protrude. He stands up, looks around a bit, and I cannot help but notice... the penis-ciple is still dangling. Dragging in the sand. He stops. He stretches his hind legs to raise his back end and the skinny pink penis slowwwwwwwly returns to its hiding place. Then he ambles so very casually toward the ditch.
That's it, fella. You are on your own.
I get back in my car and make my way to the art show. It was a great art show. Not one penis on display, however.
I spent a few hours catching up on my blog reading. I'd been kinda feeling a little sorry for my stupid self. Not so much now.
Just in my small corner of our blogosphere, I am reminded that way too many good people are dealing with nasty medical treatments, disabling diseases, post-surgical recovery, surgeries in their future, family and friends away from home facing dangers while serving in the military, financial crises, jobs in danger, currently unemployed... on and on and on.
Do you ever think that we are one big mistake? I mean all of us, homo sapiens, in general.
Could we be rejects from another galaxy? The trash of the universe and beyond? What would this planet be like without us?
We are basically greedy and destructive. What have we done to make our home better?
No, I am not a tree-hugging hippy.
I simply do not understand the huge amount of misery that continues to grow exponentially, with no end in sight.
Isn't our government in a multi-gazillion dollar deficit? How can they keep writing checks for grossly huge amounts of money to give to the already grossly rich and why do those checks not bounce? Where does the money for those checks come from?
They can't be getting it from my account. Trust me. Besides, if I wrote a check from my account when it was in a deficit state, I would then be charged more money as a punishment for daring to do such.
Am I stupid? (Don't answer that too harshly, please.)
I have a friend who is an owner/partner in a manufacturing company. 40% of their business is supplying to the U.S. automotive industry. My friend's business was the low bid on a recent contract for a much-touted new vehicle. They did not get the contract because that particular U.S. auto-maker is taking a chunk of bail-out money to Korea for production. Out. Of. The. Country.
One of my brothers works for Dana Corp. They are another huge supplier for the automotive industry. My brother told me that his facility has been laying off production workers every week for the past six weeks. He is, not surprisingly, concerned about his own job and his family's future.
Hundreds of teachers in Florida got laid off this year.
A friend in Kingston, N.Y. (retired from the Postal Service after 33 years) said the Postal Service is looking at laying off 16,000 employees. First time in its history.
And, answer me this... WHY do so many people act like the economic sonovabitch crisis just started happening YESTERGODDAMNDAY???
Anyone who has been reading my sorry excuse of a blog for more than a year (wonders never cease), know that the manufacturing company I work for has been going through turmoil for a long time. Last November 30th was the first lay-off in the current economic downslide. Then, again, in early February of this year. Then... we all worked 32 hour weeks this summer.
We went back to forty hours a week in September.
Our biggest customer is a major manufacturer in the ...wait for it... COMPUTER CHIP INDUSTRY.
My department welds for the aerospace and oil industries. Not enough to make up for the other dickwad department or our company's owners who have wet dreams about sending even more of our work to their lovely facility in SINGAPORE. Where our biggest customer (the computer chip dickwads) are opening their very own NEW FACILITY.
Out. Of. The. Country.
My employer has never ever ever announced ahead of time their decision to lay off more employees. Until this week.
First, they are extending the Thanksgiving holiday, meaning a short paycheck unless we want to borrow from vacation time accrued for next year. No thanks. Same thing for Christmas. Happy New Year.
The lay-off will be sometime before December 22. Because, ya know, we need to get LOTS of work done for them before they can excise anyone from the payroll. Office staff will be affected, also. Just a little top-heavy there. Something like two or three office people for everyone of us blue-collar schmoes.
All employees who might still be working here will be back on the 32-hour work schedule for at least the first quarter of the year and more than likely through the first half. With a strong nod to another lay-off if things don't pick up quickly next year. Get right on that, ok?
I forgot to ask if this means the owners and investors will forgo their usual quarterly and annual bonuses. Yeah, right.
You are probably getting really tired of reading about the instability of my work environment for the past year and a half. I'm tired of writing it.
I have no idea if it will hit me this time or next or not at all. They refused to give numbers.
I did tell one of the managers that, if it gets me, I will take some sadistic pleasure in knowing that they will be left with some of the laziest, sorriest, cheatingest poorest excuse of employees in the hemisphere. He almost chuckled.
My brain feels like a pinball machine. Ya know...Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!
Dozens of ideas bouncing around at the same time and nothing reaching completion.
The new venture is progressing at a pace that would frustrate a friggin' snail. Supplier issues and errors mean I will probably miss the benefit of my products being available for this holiday season.
The venture products? Coffee mugs, t-shirts and what I am calling 'Frame-ables'. The details involved to get this organized and working are what have kept me occupied. More like overwhelmed.
However, I am determined to do it and do it right.
Just wanted to touch base with those of you who keep checking in here. I have not forgotten any of you. I hope to have something worth posting very soon.
Breathing together in coordinated rhythm. Making room without thinking. Seeing through each others' eyes. Standing alone together. Sharing your pain. Living your joy.
