The Rapture Revisited

I know that millions of dollars and millions of words have been spent on last weeks rapture that wasn’t, but I’m not quiet finished with my two cents.

I have had lots of dates in my time and been stood up my fair share, but really…stood up by Jesus?

That goober, Harold Camping being Jesus’ self-appointed spokes man really had my hopes up that some of the most self-righteous people I know where going to go off to their just reward and leave the sinners like me the hell alone.

I’ve got this neighbor who professes to have the inside scoop similar to Brother Camping, and she has zeroed in on me since I am new to the neighborhood.  She spent the good part of an hour hinting around that I was going to be left behind if I didn’t change my wicked ways.

Sister Holy-Roller just assumed that she and I were on the same page of the Bible.  Her page reads like a punishing judgmental critique of the human race not the page that is more about love and acceptance and forgiveness. 

I tried to remember my manners.  She was, after all in my house, drinking my iced tea when she asked me if I was saved.  I told her that I was saved from bankruptcy, a lying husband and jail time when this house appeared out of nowhere and she was free to interpret that any she wanted. 

What I really wanted to say was, “Obviously, I have not been saved from nosy neighbors like you,” but I refrained. 

I’m ever more hopeful that Harold Camping had his wires crossed last weekend and his October re-launch date will beam Sister Holy Roller up to Jesus’ Stairway to Heaven on the twenty-first.

Please Jesus, don’t be a no-show.

Hugs,

Truth In Advertising

Maybe it's just me, but in my forty some odd years on the planet  I have heard many more lies than I have truths. I have had husbands lie to me, supposed good friends, the clergy, politicians, teachers, elders, family members and assorted other acquaintances. Hey I would be lying if I said I never told a lie.

Sorry George, but I didn't believe you either.

or that other George, but that's pretty much a given.


I know that it takes a certain amount of lying to navigate this world.  Little white lies as they are called, are mandatory if you actually want to have any sort of social life. So we cruise along on this journey, mixing just enough of the truth so we can feel good about ourselves and telling a little white one here and there to make our friends feel good about themselves.

What brought about this discussion of truth telling is a video that I came across. It's refreshing...Drink Up...  

Hugs and Kisses Ya'll

Squirrely In Big Thicket

It’s a great day in the neighborhood here in Big Thicket.  No gunfire and the head of the Humidity dept must have taken the day off so I have spent most of the morning simply gazing out the window.  I find it much more entertaining than gazing at the TV.

Right after I first moved here, I took an old bird cage and turned it into a bird feeder.  I just took the door off and hung it right outside the window of my office where I sit and peck at the keyboard while I watch the birds peck at their food and each other.

 Today the birds had a visitor show up for a place at the table. Rocky (isn’t that what you call all squirrels), decided he would break bread with his fellow neighbors.  I didn’t see Bullwinkle lurking around but he would have had a field day chewing on my un-mowed yard.

 When Rocky’s little brother showed up, the birds decided they would grab a bite somewhere else and left the pickings to Rocky and his friend.

After a while Rocky told his buddy to take a hike and he ate until his heart was content and his little tummy was full.

He gave me one last look and said he needed to go check his nuts.  I do have a number of pecan trees in the yard, so I’m assuming he was referring to a stash somewhere.

Well that’s my story and we have come to the end.

 The moral of this story is that some days you feel like a nut and some days you feel like bird seed.

Hugs,

Erasure Alert!

Don’t get me started.  I am seeing red.  Have you heard about the stupidity of the two Hasidic Newspapers who Photoshopped Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason out of the picture of the Situation Room during the Ben Ladin Raid?

One Orthodox Jewish newspaper, Der Tzitung and one weekly magazine, De Voch were admitting that both publications do not publish photos of women. In a statement about the controversy it caused, Der Tzitung said it follows this practice "because of laws of modesty” and that they do not print any photos of women because they “could be considered sexually suggestive.”

Well, Excuuuuuuuussssssssee Me!

Here is an open letter to the editors of the Der Tzitung and De Voch,

To: Misogynist Religious Zealots Nim Node Editors:

I feel sorry for you if can’t trust yourself or your readers to withstand the image of a woman so much that you are compelled to erase her from a photo that you want to publish in your newspaper/magazine.

How do you live in this world?  How do you restrain yourself in the presence of women? Let me guess. You blame women.  Ever since the story of Eve, you and your kind have been blaming women for causing you to sin and I for one am sick of it.  As I see it, the real snake in the Garden of Eden was under Adam’s Fig Leaf.

From the beginning of time men like you have played the, “Look what you made me do, card!” which has allowed you to shirk your responsibility for your own wicked behavior.  It is this sense of entitlement and blaming that has enabled crimes against women to exist from the archaic past to 2011.

In the name of religion, men have a get out of responsibility-free-card.  Women are inherently evil.  They tempt men.  They make you do what you wouldn’t normally do if women weren’t being women, according to your kind.

In the past, men who blamed women burned them at the stake.  In some countries, where women are still considered to be property, it is permissible for men family members to burn their women to death who don’t conform or who have been besmirched by another man.

You may state that your religious beliefs are sacred and will be upheld.  Well, Bozo, your religious beliefs are wrong if they discount, devalue and approve of erasing half of the worlds population.   As Hasidic Jews, don’t you know how it feels to have someone want to erase you from the planet?  Shame on you.  You should know better.

Subsitu-Tooty Mom

Aunt Tooty was my mother’s sister.  She lived too far away to take my mothers place but she never failed to show up for the important events my father tended to forget like birthdays or a choir presentation.  She sent me cards for no reason.  Sometimes they had two or three dollars in them.  She called and asked me nosy questions about what I was doing with boys.

“Ida, did that boy, what’s his name, Eddie or Freddie ever ask you out?”

“No maam.  He’s going steady with somebody else now.”  I was sure she could hear my heart breaking over the phone.

“Well, then you have to move on.  Don’t be making cow eyes at him any more.”

“I don’t make cow eyes,” I whined instead of mooed.  I still made cow eyes at any number of boys but I wouldn’t admit that to Aunt Tooty.  They could have gotten the milk for free too if they’d only known.  Boys are so stupid.  Tooty was not.

“Don’t be in a rush.  Boys will chew you up and spit you out if you let them.”

“I would just like to have a boyfriend so I won’t be a freak.  I get tired of going places by myself.”

“You go to the movies by yourself?”  Aunt Nosey wanted to know.

“No.  Tina and I go together.”

“Do you have a good time?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”  Aunt Tooty wanted me to have manners, though god knows, where they were supposed to come from, I couldn’t say.

“Yes maam.”

 “Listen, Ida.  If you went with an old boy, you’d never get to see the movie because once a teenage boy gets close enough to a pretty girl like you, they sprout tennacles that are every where you are.  You’d spend all your time trying to push their tennacles away from you.  You know what I mean don’t you?”

 “You’re talking about them trying to touch you.”

 “Yes, in your feminine areas, Ida.”

 “Can we talk about something else, Aunt Tooty?”

 “Only if you promise me you will stay strong when you get alone with Eddie or Freddie.”
“I told you, he doesn’t want me.  He has a girlfriend.”

“Well, it’s his loss.  You are a beautiful, fun, sweet girl.  And you’re smart as a whip.  Any boy would be lucky to be seen with you.  Don’t worry your time will come.”

“You mean some day, my prince charming will come?”   I seriously doubted this, but I liked it when Aunt Tooty tried to cheer me up.  She did a good job mothering me over the telephone.

“Oh I’m sure you are going to have lots of Prince Charmings.  You just wait and see.”

I did wait and see. But Tooty didn’t get it quiet right.   Most of the men in my life turned out to be Prince Alarmings.  You know what I mean.  They were the kind of men you don’t take home to Mama.



Happy Mothers Day.

Long Island Iced Tea and Strumpets

Ok, now that the hupla has quieted down and my royal hangover is over, I can confess that my BFF, Lady Tina Tiny and I did in fact have a Long Island Iced Tea & Crumpets Strumpets Party to celebrate the Royal Uniting. 

We were also celebrating that we know how to make Long Island Iced Tea (LIT) and that we happen to have between the two of us all the necessary ingredients.  In case you don’t know about Long Island Ice Tea, I have included a how-to video at the bottom of this post.  I’ll let you figure out how to be a Strumpet* all by yourself.

The one good thing about returning to Big Thicket is my best friend Tina. Tina Fredricks and I were best friends all through school.  Okay she was also my only friend.  Tina and I were both shy and could hardly speak to another person but for some reason we could talk to each other and we did, all day long. This was before texting when we actually wrote notes on paper with pens or pencils and passed them to each other in class or in the hall.

We couldn’t have been closer if we had been born Siamese twins.   We did everything together including having crushes on the same boys and it didn’t matter.  There was no competition or jealously because we both knew the boy didn’t have a clue that we were alive.

Tina never left Big Thicket but we stayed in touch through the years and it has been really great to get to see her everyday.  Tina married a local boy after I left town and is still happily married to him. 

Robert Timothy Tiny, the oldest son of Ben and Louise Tiny, and no, to my knowledge no one in the world has ever called him Tim Tiny.  You see when he popped into this world forty something years ago, he came in at 11lbs and 5 ounces and everybody who saw him from the doctor to the nurses to his parents said exactly the same thing, “My God he is big.” And it stuck.

Tina who is now Tina Tiny is married to Big Tiny and they are one of those couples that I admire so much, even if they have those really dumb names.

As promised here is a strumpet giving you directions on how to make the "Tea".



Beware the Long Island Iced Tea:  It can set your Inner Strumpet Free!
Hugs,

P.S. *A strumpet is a loose woman first described by Shakespeare. A crumpet is a piece of cake served with butter or a person (or, collectively, persons) considered sexually desirable.  Either way, it's good to be a tasty little morsel.