Problems? What problems?

 I don't have no stinkin' problems!

I woke up this morning to the horrific(1) news of a massive tornado tearing through the heartland. When I was laying in bed, waking up slowly, my constitutionally cynical mind was worrying about a bunch of little things, blowing them out of proportion and fretting all over the place. Once the sun was up (do you worry more in the dark? I do. Every monster is scary and huge in the dark), Capt informed me of the monstrous storms and I was thrown into an immediate mix of gratitude and shame for having worried over now mouse sized inconveniences.

Here's what I do have: A solid house that's all in one piece, warm and dry. Food in the pantry and refrigerator. Clean running water, dependable electricity, and a reliable car that can get me where I need to go. My children are all safe and housed/fed. I have the medication I need to keep my body and brain  working properly.  

I don't know why there are tragedies that hit so hard. I now that we live in an imperfect world where weather does whatever it does and while there is a demographic that likes to blame Mankind of All Bad Things(2), ultimately We are not the ones in control. What a big ol' ball of arrogance to think We are. Weather will do what weather will do. I am right now waiting for the climate change folks to point to the tornados and shout "SEE! Worse weather!" when really, the only difference between now and like 300 years ago is that we have cameras and internet to tell everyone about it. We have dense population points, and fancier possessions that make the damage costlier. 

So yeah. Right now my heart hurts for all those people who've been so severely affected by these storms. All my problems are not problems. I do not have problems. I have a few minor inconveniences. I am not having to deal with the uncertainty of not knowing if a loved one is alive or not. One of the first things I did was shoot out a text to my sons to check on them (no, none of them were in the path of these storms, but it's a Mom thing.). 2 of them answered, the 3rd is probably at work and can't.

I don't know why I forget about gratitude, and why I let little things balloon into big things. I don't know why bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, other than life isn't fair. I am sure some of the people who's lives have been blown up by a tornado are good people who, in the estimation of humans, didn't deserve what happened. 

I live near an area that was devastated by a tornado a couple of years ago. Lots of people died. The community rallied around the families affected and houses are being rebuilt, families are healing, but there's still a nervousness about big storms. One of my sons lives in that town, and he said a lot of people were nervous last night. 

Pray for the people. Pray for the first responders in those small towns, answering calls involving their own family and friends. Pray for the search and rescue people, hospital systems being overwhelmed by mass casualties, infrastructure workers repairing power lines, people who need heat, all of them. Pray that people who will try to take advantage of the situation will by stymied, thieves and grifters will be foiled. It is such a long-term and complicated situation.

Ok, there. Writing it all down is a necessary catharsis. Here is a pretty picture:

1.horrific is a word about which I have very strong feelings. It is vastly overused, and for events that are....welp...NOT horrific. I was told once of a person who was "subjected to a horrific search at an airport, because they were Brown.". I asked "Oh mercy! Were they hurt? Were police and hospitals involved? How long were they handcuffed to the hospital bed and pistol whipped??" I was truly concerned. Nope, they were pulled out of the line and patted down, and their luggage was opened up and searched. That was all. Hardly horrific. That happens to me every single time I am in an airport because I Look Like a Potential Threat. Horrific is the accident that put my son in the hospital for months, the one where his car was approached by medics with a body bag because they didn't think anyone could have survived it. Horrific is a wedge tornado that rips across 200 miles of the heartland and kills possibly 100 people. Horrific is a completely avoidable famine in Afghanistan. It is not a word I use lightly.

2. I suppose in the grand scheme Biblically, it *is* Man's fault going back to Adam and Eve opening the box of Sin and disobedience to God, thus having God throw Man out of Eden and letting us suffer consequences, but that's a whole 'nother post for a whole 'nother day,

'Tis the Season

 Here we are, Early December (the 6th, of 2021) and I'm feeling, I dunno, procrastinative (if that wasn't a word, it is now. I just adverbed a verb. and verbed adverb. Nothing like grammatical gymnastics to get the mind juices flowing).  It's a cool, but not cold, day. It's cloudy but not raining (yet). I'm up, but not productive. The dog is staring through the front door window, sucking in his cheeks and wanting to be fed. I'm sitting on the couch, alternating between looking at the dog, whining about wanting to sit in the hot tub yet doing nothing to facilitate that, pondering which leftover to eat for lunch, and wondering if I will finish one or two of about 297 projects waiting in the sewing room. They're mostly short little ones and if I got a few knocked out at least something productive will have been accomplished. 

The most likely scenario for the day will be couched in optimistic words like "planning" and "research" and "design work" but from the outside looking in, will look more like "sitting on the couch with the TV on low and occasionally getting up for a beverage".

With the exception of the sewing room and, to a lesser degree, Capt's office, the house is pretty much in good order. Friends were here for a couple of days and a Panic Cleaning 3 hours before they arrived means things are put away and surfaces are clean. God invented doors so we'd have a place to shove shit out of view, but I have been (somewhat) diligently been trying (in my own limited way) to put some sense of order to the place. I'm still struggling with the trials of combining 2 large households into one small one, and my inherent sense of "don't get rid of anything that might be useful one day, even if I know I'll probably never use it" causes useful-yet-not containers and jars and boxes to accumulate, then the psychological pain of throwing them away happens and causes double mental quandaries. 

Just the other day Kroger had pineapples for 50 cents (about to be too ripe) so I bought 4 with the intention of making some delicious pineapple jam. I have jars, Sure-Jell, sugar, all the things, and...plenty enough other things to do that I do NOT need to be making jam, especially since WE DON'T EAT JAM. And yet, soon (possibly even today) I shall prepare and can 10 (approximately) pints of jam. CHRISTMAS GIFTS! You say! Yes. right there with the 20 pints of berry jam, 4 gallons of assorted jalapeno preparations, not to mention the shipping costs of heavy glass jars containing sticky stuff upon which the post office and UPS frown. Clearly I didn't think this through very well. Oh! I know! I'll make 1/2 the pineapples into jams and the other half into dehydrated! I love dehydrated pineapple! Problem solved.

Speaking of Christmas gifts, that reminds me I need to box up stuff for an assortment of relatives and get them mailed off. Goodness knows I have boxes and I've saved all the bubble wrap from a year's worth of online shopping. (refer to previous statement about saving stuff that might be useful) I'm recycling, which is Virtuous and Cost Effective.

So yeah. Christmas Spirit is off to a sputtering start, like a lawnmower that hasn't been cranked in 9 months. The cat approved of the decorated tree, the intended gifts have accumulated on the back porch along with the boxes and all those square plastic nut containers that make amazing storage for the RV (and give Mom something to save for me). Also jars both purchased and acquired (also from Mom), and liquor bottles that are pretty enough to put honey in, should we ever get around to harvesting it from the beehive. I promise you, every time I save a thing it's because I KNOW it's going to be eventually useful. In the back of my head I also know one day my sons, who by virtue of being men, will not be interested in going through my shit after I die and will probably just sell the house fully loaded to the highest bidder. 

Also, I realize this post is a little bit rambling, but it's one of those days where everything in my body is hurting and I just want to sit here and wish the hot tub would come to me instead of me having to heave myself off the couch and walk the 10 yards outside to get to it. I know that sitting in it, amongst the blooming hibiscus and steam, will be restorative and gift me with a few hours of pain relief and productivity (possibly even involving pineapples and sugar). There. I talked myself into it. Y'all have a good day.