Okay, so I have been doing a study on relationships, and comparing being single to being hooked up, and / or married.
I have come to the conclusion that, whichever state we are in, we are institutionalized. If we are married, we must have this other in the house with us, most of the time. One or the other of the mates will require this. Sometimes both need it. Two become one, and then they go home and find out which one!
If we are single long enough, we get set in our ways, and do not care for anyone else in our private living space, for very long, at all.
Single has its advantages, though. The absence of children is quite nice, really. You put something down, it is there when you go back for it. The house is not always sticky. Or loud. Or looks like a shipwreck.
I have two adorable nieces that I get to see once in awhile, and they have both promised to bring me cookies when I get old... I'm set!
"Your own kids" may just very well be over-rated!
Consider; who is to say they will be worth anything? Some kids, no matter how many times you discipline them, nor what ways you use, are just rotten to the core. Who is to say you won't get one of them? Or what if it is eternally handicapped, and can't be of any use to you when you are old? Now you not only have to worry about who will take care of you, but who will take care of this other burden.
And if you get a real sweetheart of a daughter, or a model son, who is to say that they won't marry wrong, or fatally? That they won't keep the grandchildren away from you, just to spite you. Because these in-laws are really out-laws, and are not in fact anywhere near the model son or daughter that you contributed to their horrid genetic line! There is just so much that can go wrong!
Oh, but you need someone look after you when you get old!
Really?!
I have worked in a number of end-care nursing homes, back when I was in my teens, and I have never yet seen a patient who ultimately did not believe the child caregiver - his or her own child - was siding with the staff in collusion against the patient...
No, I don't really see the point. Children are a by-product of a relationship, and should be taken on those terms. Not to expect too much out of them, nor have them simply for someone to mow the yard for a few years. Lawn Care is ultimately much cheaper than Child Care!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Powerless
From 4:30 yesterday afternoon until 3:00 Am, Three Acres Plantation came to a standstill. By the time I returned and was apprised of the situation, around 7:00 PM, it was as hot as a barn in my living room, and suddenly I was teleported back to living just down the street from here, in my grand dad's old farm house, once again, just before dad and I installed that little window unit in his/my old bedroom, upstairs.
That sort of primeval Summer heat, and that rural quiet that I once knew here, as a child, staying with him and grandma in that same house, years ago. They never had any air conditioning, nor any indoor heat, except the wood stove.
In the evening, they seemed to fear the coming of something called Dark. This was night time, and out here, in the sticks, it gets very dark out here, very quickly. Everything had to be done 'fo Dark!', or it did not get done...
As Dark came upon me yesterday evening, I was sitting on my front porch, enjoying a little of the cool from the rains of the thunderstorm. Glenda, my cousin from across the street, has a dusk to dawn light on her phone pole, but tonight it was not working, at all. The inky blackness of that rural darkness fell over the yard, and only when you look up at the tops of the tree line do you see any ambient light from the horizon, giving you just a little bit of contrast... Just enough to see that there are trees, and that they are still there.
They had electrical lighting, but none of it was very strong, except for grand dad's reading light. That bulb could start a fire, all by itself, it was so bright, and blinding... The rest of the house had these dim wattages, which were little better than candles.
I had a candle lit last night, as well. One.
I keep one under the sink in an old mason jar, next to a cigarette lighter. I keep these things there for just this reason, and found them in the dark, by feeling my way along the kitchen sink... Two thanksgiving table candles from years ago. They are my emergency lighting plan here at Three Acres.
I light the taller candle, and set the jar down in the stainless steel sink of the kitchen, to sort of half way light up the kitchen, and the living room. Just so the house is not in that solid pitch black under-your-bed sort of darkness! You can see to get around, but that is all...
My iPod goes into the battery powered speakers from my lifeguard survival bag, and I have my milk and Dr. Peppers down in a great cooler full of ice that I drove six miles into town to get, in case the power was out all night. Ice cold milk for my cereal in the morning is as necessary as air!
I open an unscheduled Dr. Pepper, and sit down to watch the flicker of the candle in the kitchen, from the couch in my living room...
Later, another breath of air on the porch, and the still deafening quiet of the after-rain. Black as pitch, everywhere you look, outside. My life is not this quiet. This is Ghost Quiet, where the souls of the past can be heard and felt and even seen, sometimes moving about, and I never have it this quiet out here, for that reason.
I have a photograph of one of those things, the White Lady Ghost of Avenel House, Miss Letitia Burwell... and I know that they are very real. She can be seen on the second disc of the official Avenel House Documentary Portrait of a Plantation 2009. Touch that link to see the Amazon site for it.
If I keep my driving rain CD on continuous loop all night long, I can sleep undisturbed... Tonight, however, there is only the deep, tomblike quiet of the country... the buzzing of some locusts outside, maybe, but in here, nothing at all... No power for the CD tonight. The occasional car going by, every few hours, can wake me if I don't have the CD going... I have not had my shower, and I am hot and sticky and this really blows!
3:00 AM. The kitchen light comes on, by itself. Just like I set it to do, before I went to bed... The house comes back to life!
Life has been restored to Three Acres Plantation, at last.
That sort of primeval Summer heat, and that rural quiet that I once knew here, as a child, staying with him and grandma in that same house, years ago. They never had any air conditioning, nor any indoor heat, except the wood stove.
In the evening, they seemed to fear the coming of something called Dark. This was night time, and out here, in the sticks, it gets very dark out here, very quickly. Everything had to be done 'fo Dark!', or it did not get done...
As Dark came upon me yesterday evening, I was sitting on my front porch, enjoying a little of the cool from the rains of the thunderstorm. Glenda, my cousin from across the street, has a dusk to dawn light on her phone pole, but tonight it was not working, at all. The inky blackness of that rural darkness fell over the yard, and only when you look up at the tops of the tree line do you see any ambient light from the horizon, giving you just a little bit of contrast... Just enough to see that there are trees, and that they are still there.
They had electrical lighting, but none of it was very strong, except for grand dad's reading light. That bulb could start a fire, all by itself, it was so bright, and blinding... The rest of the house had these dim wattages, which were little better than candles.
I had a candle lit last night, as well. One.
I keep one under the sink in an old mason jar, next to a cigarette lighter. I keep these things there for just this reason, and found them in the dark, by feeling my way along the kitchen sink... Two thanksgiving table candles from years ago. They are my emergency lighting plan here at Three Acres.
I light the taller candle, and set the jar down in the stainless steel sink of the kitchen, to sort of half way light up the kitchen, and the living room. Just so the house is not in that solid pitch black under-your-bed sort of darkness! You can see to get around, but that is all...
My iPod goes into the battery powered speakers from my lifeguard survival bag, and I have my milk and Dr. Peppers down in a great cooler full of ice that I drove six miles into town to get, in case the power was out all night. Ice cold milk for my cereal in the morning is as necessary as air!
I open an unscheduled Dr. Pepper, and sit down to watch the flicker of the candle in the kitchen, from the couch in my living room...
Later, another breath of air on the porch, and the still deafening quiet of the after-rain. Black as pitch, everywhere you look, outside. My life is not this quiet. This is Ghost Quiet, where the souls of the past can be heard and felt and even seen, sometimes moving about, and I never have it this quiet out here, for that reason.
I have a photograph of one of those things, the White Lady Ghost of Avenel House, Miss Letitia Burwell... and I know that they are very real. She can be seen on the second disc of the official Avenel House Documentary Portrait of a Plantation 2009. Touch that link to see the Amazon site for it.
If I keep my driving rain CD on continuous loop all night long, I can sleep undisturbed... Tonight, however, there is only the deep, tomblike quiet of the country... the buzzing of some locusts outside, maybe, but in here, nothing at all... No power for the CD tonight. The occasional car going by, every few hours, can wake me if I don't have the CD going... I have not had my shower, and I am hot and sticky and this really blows!
3:00 AM. The kitchen light comes on, by itself. Just like I set it to do, before I went to bed... The house comes back to life!
Life has been restored to Three Acres Plantation, at last.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
EARTHQUAKE - First Thoughts
Okay, a little before two, we had an earthquake here at Three Acres Plantation. My first since taking up ownership of the property, and hopefully my last! Things like this never fail to remind one Who actually owns your property (hint; it ain't the County, nor the State, nor the Federal Empire of North America!)
Approaching Scorpio
Well, the Fall in the air is the signal of the Death of Summer, which completes this activity around the 24th of October, as we enter into Scorpio. Scorpio the scorpion stung Orion to death, for killing Taurus, his equally-stubborn friend... and in his death throes, Orion crushed Scorpio beneath his feet... or something like that. It is sort of like the Beowulf story. Beowulf dies killing the dragon. The theme of death while gaining personal retribution. Really a perfect ending for any Scorpio.
I am Scorpio, through and through. Like most Scorpios, it interests me that people can so easily read up on what I am really like.
I am the more magnanimous one of which they speak... The Golden Eagle, or whatever. Too much self esteem to be a self-defeating depressive Gray Lizard and to little regard for my opponents to be a true Scorpion Vindictive... My detractors always seem to end up Fired, In Jail, or Dead from Natural Causes...( or car wrecks!). Apparently people who don't like me are not very nice people, at all, anyway!
I enjoy watching the Karmic Cycle. It is my very favorite channel for reruns!
I am Scorpio, through and through. Like most Scorpios, it interests me that people can so easily read up on what I am really like.
I am the more magnanimous one of which they speak... The Golden Eagle, or whatever. Too much self esteem to be a self-defeating depressive Gray Lizard and to little regard for my opponents to be a true Scorpion Vindictive... My detractors always seem to end up Fired, In Jail, or Dead from Natural Causes...( or car wrecks!). Apparently people who don't like me are not very nice people, at all, anyway!
I enjoy watching the Karmic Cycle. It is my very favorite channel for reruns!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Death of Edward Hardwicke, Dr. Watson
Click on either picture.... So now, on this 20th of August, a day before the third anniversary of the death of my own father, George Alton Wills, at Duke Hospital, I find out about the passing of Edward Hardwicke, whom I so enjoyed as Dr. Watson in the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series...
I have a fan letter from Mr. Hardwicke, handwritten and everything, just like Watson would have written it! It was in a response to a fan letter I wrote him after the death of Jeremy Brett in 1995...
Edward Hardwicke died on May 16, 2011. His portrayal of Watson is not to be missed, and while I have all 42 of the original Granada TV series on VHS tape, I one day plan to have the $300 DVD box set of them, as well!
Friday, August 19, 2011
The Last Day of Summer Camps
It seems official now. School will be starting again, very soon. The Y camps are at last at an end, and the weather up here on Tom Cat Ridge is actually quite enjoyable, in the evenings. Nice long walk in the front field, this night. Getting ready to contemplate the rest of my remodeling on the Big House, the 80 foot singlewide of Three Acres Plantation... Hearts of Space tonight... The show this evening promises to be a good one... DESERT SOLITAIRE. Steve Roach always has some good stuff. Slow, quiet, darkened theatre sort of drones and so forth...
I hope we get more of an Autumn this year, than last... We went from blistering heat to freezing cold, last year, it seemed. And we are due for a spectacular leaf change, as well. Not since I filmed the Blair Leaf Project in 1998 have we had anything even halfway decent! And that year was fantastic! Yes, we are so overdue up here, on the Ridge, and the Blue Ridge, in general!
I hope we get more of an Autumn this year, than last... We went from blistering heat to freezing cold, last year, it seemed. And we are due for a spectacular leaf change, as well. Not since I filmed the Blair Leaf Project in 1998 have we had anything even halfway decent! And that year was fantastic! Yes, we are so overdue up here, on the Ridge, and the Blue Ridge, in general!
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