THE WORLD IS ALIVE October 29, 2013

….with the sound of nature. A song that’s been sung for a thousand years. This world fills my heart with the sound of nature. My hearts wants to sing every song it hears.

Oh, boy, I really got going this morning. The roosters in the Kalaheo hillside were out in force. I’ve heard roosters only crow when they’ve been awakened by a light. One sees a light, wakes up another rooster-who probably hasn’t seen the light- and pretty soon the scattered flock is chiming in, sounding up, and joining the chorus.

If that’s true, we woke them first. That’s a switch.

They don’t write letters to the Forum complaining. Guess I’ll have to do it for them. I stand staunchly on the side of the rooster. Turn out the darn lights. Probably some drunk coming home late.

I think I’m lucky I live in old Hawaii. Surrounded by lots of open space. Cleanest, freshest air. Green hillsides full of cattle, horses, goats. Birds a twitter- when twitter was a sound and not a space in cyber. “The sound of cattle mooing is a comforting sound,” my neighbor once said. I like that. Once a bellering mama cow, trying to  give birth, kept the entire neighborhood up all night. We were all relieved- and  delighted- when a healthy happy baby boy plopped out at  glorious sunrise in a grassy green pasture.  His mama was vey proud,.She licked him dry, and soon he was up and on his wobbly feet slurping breakfast.

We named him Sunny.

He lived a short fat life of luxury. Free. Fed. Watered. Loved. He gamboled. Then we grocked him to fullness. His parting was swift. Painless. I won his liver. Oh, my, does anyone remember the taste of grass fed calf liver? You have’t lived.

Soon at a little ladiys’ afternoon party-back when I was doing ‘little lady’- the right red or white stemmed wine glasses, little fingers coiled, hair coifed, beef liver pate on a porcelain plate-a  darling feral piglet, in broad daylight, invited itself in. I was proud of my guests. Not one of them fainted. We fed it crackers and cheese, it had such a soft little piggy snout, and soon trotted off to find his mama when she snorted.

And you want to talk about bird noise in the morning? Back in Transpac days with a rollicking frolicking drunken fleet of drunken sailors-boys and girl-awoke hungover to the max in Lahaina and those blankety blank  mynahs, at least a zillion of them in the Monkey-pods hastened all us hung over morning after nuts quckly to the  bar at the Pioneer Inn to ease the pain. Pushing through the crowd of groaning staggering mankind I threw rocks at the trees and swore. When I was racing with my husband I could swear in fourteen languages. Sailors swear.

I’m getting better. I only swear, under my breath, at Kauai Rooster haters.

I will defend, to the death, the rights of sleep deprived roosters, to crow.  So there.

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numerology October 17, 2013

As a devout non-believer, you’d probably be surprised to know how many ‘believer friends’ I have. Religious? Many and varied. Astrologers. Tarot Card readers. Spiritualists. Love them deeply. Pal with them often. None of them attempts to convert me and all are tolerant of my non belief.

I don’t attempt to non convert them, either.

Was an honorary Jewess for a day at a Jewish friends’ house last Passover. I love Matzos.

Do you know there are 313 religions and denominations in America? Many quite lovely. A few, certifiably insane. I’m very unfond of the fundamentalists, but that’s okay, they are very unfond of me.  We have a mutual unfondness.  I’m reminded time after time  imemorial, that I’m going to that hot spot. A place I don’t think exists, but know to spend all eternity in their heaven with them would be he**.

I like the idea there are four Gods. A benevolent God. A distant God. A critical God and an  authoritative God.  I’d prefer a benevolent God, just haven’t found one. Actually I think I’d prefer a Goddess.

So what’s that to do with numerology?  In my life, for the past few weeks, I’d have managed better had I been quadruplets. Everything seemed to be happening all at the same time.  All of them priority items. Must be dones. Now.

Has this ever happened to you?

It took effort, it took stamina, it took several sitting downs with myself to figure how to solve the problems. In what order? What was top priority today would be on the bottom of the list tomorrow. My new book, Children of the Extinction, ended up sadly on the bottom of the list every time. I miss them.  But I get closer every day.

Well, one of my best friends- I adore her-explained that because I was a Leo-a sensitive and Mars was in retrograde whaatever that is- I was in for a roller coaster ride. Big time.

Retrograde turned out to be a  real astronomical observation. Mars appears to be going backward in the sky, if you’re a sky watcher.  I don’t think that made me feel better.

She also believes in numerology. I think they go together. So we sat down and went through all the numbers I have.  SS , two checkings, one saving.  driver’s license, debit card, phone, birth date, name, and when we added them all together-since it was a 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9-it complicated things,  She wouldn’t let me pick a number, any number, so we added all the numbers together, factored them down, and ended up with a nine.

According to her, nine is the height of vibrational frequencies? It represents success, intellectual power, inventiveness, influence over situations and things. I’m supposed to recognize my own internal attributes and extend these abiilites out into the world to make a positive influential difference.

I liked that better than the Mars retrograde thing.

Being a creative writer, imaginative, fun-loving,  tolerant, I’ve decided to try the numerology trip for a week. Wanna join Me?

AIN’T BETTEJO NO MO’ October 9, 2013

No ‘mo. Ain’t Bettejo no mo’.

How in the he**

Can the gov’ment tell

I ain’t Bettejo no mo’?

I take Mondays off. Don’t do Saturday or Sunday go- to- meeting – day- I’m a non believer, as you know-but I do need a day off . Monday’s my day.

Rise  with the sun. it seeps through my skylight-I sleep under a romantic canopied mosquito net tent and my jungle house lights up about 6AM. I’m usually up at 4AM. Love to watch my house wake up. It’s an indoor/oudoor organic life- filled house. As much outdoor as indoor. Fragrant. Soft to touch.

On Mondays I feed my hungry, noisy zoo. Whinnies. Barks. Parrot screeches.  Meows. Then have a cup of green tea and a box of seaweed which I share with my grown up puppy, Boots, who snuggles in luxury on a faux fur throw on one of two large couches in the doggie room. That room glows Camelot pink even on the grayest day.

Finished with breakfast I soak in a hot bubbly and dress up. I mean really dress up. Clothes, real shoes, Shaiimar.  The works. Tuesday through Sunday I wear sweats and boots and a broom and a rake.

I unveil my Toyota and saunter off. Feed the swans at the Hyatt. Shop in Koloa or roll off to Lihue. This was to be a big city day. I would meet my friend and Editor, Kimo, for lunch, trot down to the Art Gallery and admire ‘The Essence of Bettejo’ a  portrait  by my friend, the artist, Carol Ann Davis.

I’d also pop into the DMV to renew my driver’s license, which was about to expire. I love the guys in the DMV. The light’s a little dim, but my eyes adjust.

I stand in a short line, approach the clerk. Find I need a birth certificate, marriage license-two-one from a long ago marriage I prefer to forget. To make a long story short: I then discover I can’t get the needed documents because I don’t have a driver’s license. It expired, remember? That’s why I needed to renew it. Passport?  I needed an ID to get one. An identity card? I needed an ID-which I didn’t have- to  get an ID.

What?

Visited the Gov’s office. Darling secretary. No answer to the quandary. Missed my lunch. Drove home , shaken, with no identity. Well, Costco knew me. Macy’s knew me. Even Debbie Orsatelli  at BOH knew me.

Would my chef’s hat know me? Or crumple? Would my shillelagh bark me in the shins? Would my Vitamix  bite? How’ ’bout my animals?

Had a space alien jumped in my body overnight? Couldn’t it have  found a younger, prettier, smarter body to possess? Lots of them.  Lost. Scared. I was driving without a license.

As It turned out everybody knew me. Nobody bit me, hit me, dissolved on my head.

Even Boots knew me. My dogi’s smarter than the government.

Uncle Sam? You’re a royal pain in the three- letter- word.

YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL October 3, 2013

These are ‘magic’ words and they can apply to anybody, anything, any time.

Try them on.

I have a very dear friend.  She doesn’t resemble Kate Middleton. In fact she’s kind of dumpy, frumpy. So? Once she confessed to me, slightly out of context, “Nobody ever told me I was beautiful.” She didn’t sound sad. Or deprived.  She just made a statement.

I replied, quickly, “That’s awful. You have the most beautiful turquoise  eyes I’ve ever seen. And your hands are incredible. Long slender fingers and you use them like scepters.”

It was true and I think I made a friend for life.

Somehow word has got about, mostly by men-whose minds I simply cannot fathom-who think  there’s something narcissistic, about a woman thinking herself beautiful. I thought how awful it would be to be their wives, or daughters, or sweethearts. Doubtful they have one of those.

Trust me on this one, there’s nothing wrong with delighting in your looks. Make the best of them. With such beautiful eyes and gestures my friend could conquer the world. Make a feature of your best features and be proud of them.

This same type of male mentality-and it seems to be all too common in some- not all -circles, has a fit about a woman thinking well of herself. As if it’s some kind of a sin. I heard a woman take after one once with this thought, “I have a healthy ego and high self-esteem. Does this bother you?”

She told me he never spoke to her again. I told her she was lucky.

Yesterday in Long’s drugs, standing in front of me in line, was one of the most beautiful little  boys I’ve ever seen.  He was dressed cute and he had a toy giraffe in hand. He also had the wildest, most generous Afro I’ve ever seen. His beautiful mother had her hair pulled tight and his father had a smile as big as all outdoors.

“You’re beautiful,” I said.

“What do you say?” his mother querried.

“Thank you, you’re beautiful, too,” He answered

When I told him I had a horse, a dog,  three cats, and Macaw who famously flew the coop, he was all ears. He told me he loved animals, and had cats and dogs at home. They were animal lovers. There was an immediate bonding. We  left the store happy.

Now there’s a kid that’s being raised correctly. I’ll bet he loves books, too.

I think even animals respond to a reminder they are beautiful. Ari does. When he’s in a slump, i ponder, “What’s up beautiful?” His head comes up. His ears perk. He doesn’t try to bite me.  sometimes he has a grumpy attitude. He was abused as a young horse and deep inside I  think he never forgot.

When he collects himself and snorts around, he stops traffic. Even when he’s muddy as a pig. He loves to roll in the mud.

Maybe the men I wrote about, were abused as kids?