A Different Set of Rules

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   If I spent every day visiting all the places that I couldn’t enter before the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (I was born in 1948), except through the back door as a maid or a slave, I’d probably never die—at least not anytime soon.  That is why I engage in a project surrounding Martin Luther King Holiday weekend that brings me great joy.

Not only do I sashay my black ass (dripping with bling) through the front door of a former slave-owning or white’s only establishment at least once a year, but I stay in the best room they have to offer, order room service for breakfast, and get an 80-minute massage if they offer it.  Since MLK weekend coincides with my husband’s (WW—“White and Wonderful”) birthday, I walk through the front door of those former plantations with my arm wrapped around my white husband’s arm, a big smile on my face, and give a silent middle finger to the racists ghosts who surely must roam the halls of said establishments.  Because there is no way any god worth his salt would ever allow those unrepentant slave owners entrance into Heaven (are you hearing me Thomas Jefferson?), I am convinced their Hell must be tailor-made to watch an African-American making herself at home with sheer abandonment in their “whites only” environment.

I call this bitch slap to the haunted the FYRS-LWITBR Project, which stands for “FUCK YOU RACIST SPECTERS—LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE!”  My “in your face” rebel cry has nothing to do with the current owners (I do not visit the sins of their ancestors upon them so long as they treat me with dignity and respect), but I do take on the racist ghosts of their lineage.

Oak Alley Plantation on the Mississippi River in Louisiana |Trip Advisor Image

In the interest of full disclosure, my children think I’m crazy.  That’s because I’ve raised them to be color blind, and to my knowledge they have never suffered at the hands of racists, which makes me very happy.   Their friends are color blind (black, white, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Straight, Gay), as well, and have formed little urban families around each other to unite against the hardships and vagaries of life.   I am very proud of them, and I consider them all “my children.”

But my children and their friends have not seen what I’ve seen or experienced the hatred I’ve embodied.  They have never heard of The Negro Motorist Green Book which was in full swing the year I was born and lasted until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and they have never had to plan their travel around such a book just to keep from having their asses kicked (or killed) by men in white robes and pointy hats carrying burning crosses.

The Green Book was started by Victor Hugo Green (a Harlem mail carrier) in the 1930s and it would eventually cover lodging, eateries, and stores in every state in the USA as well as Bermuda, Mexico, and Canada that would do business with Negroes.    If there were no hotels that would cater to African-Americans (often the case), the book would list “tourist homes” that would rent the traveler a room or two for their journey.  The Green Book spoke volumes by “omission,” as the writer Justin Hyde has noted.   In 1949, no restaurant was listed in Alabama that would serve black people.  Justin Hyde in his article on The Green Book in Jalopnik underscored the fact that “Black motorists in those eras frequently kept extra fuel, food and portable toilets on hand to avoid stopping in unfriendly locations. Even outside the South, roadside motels and diners often wouldn’t serve black customers.”  In 1963 (one year before The Green Book was taken out of circulation), I was kicked out of a New Jersey hotel in the middle of the night along with a family (a lawyer and school teacher and their two young children) that I was the babysitter for, and we were forced to drive through the night to our approved “Negro cabin” in Maine.

Image from Wikipedia

INTRODUCTION PAGE OF THE NEGRO TOURIST GUIDE:   “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.”

The fact that President Obama’s 2^nd inauguration (talk about “living well is the best revenge!”) fell on the same day as the MLK holiday weekend and coincided with my husband’s b-day gave me the perfect excuse to engage in my “project” (not at the plantation above used only as an example, but at another glorious location in the South and situated on the Gulf of Mexico).

President Obama and Martin Luther King |image from thedvrfiles.com

As I stretched out on the beautiful “sugar sand” of a site where there once stood a private mansion that I could have only entered the back door of to make the beds and empty the slop pans, I meditated for hours on how far we had come as a Nation since the publication of The Green Book.   I watched the inauguration of our  magnificent 44^th president from my waterfront suite as I lifted a glass of champagne to the triumph of a man that we are lucky to have as a leader.  As I contemplated my own American journey, I joined President Obama in spirit to pray for the further emancipation of our Hispanic brothers and sisters, our Gay and Lesbian brothers and sisters, and the disenfranchised jobless families in our midst who need a helping hand.

Archival image from pattyhume.com

I am discovering, however, that even though we are in more “tolerant times,” one must be ever vigilant against the spirit of bigotry—especially amongst the religious—or we will be doomed to repeat our history.  Martin Luther King often preached about the complacency of white Christians toward the suffering of those who did not fit their cultural narrow-minded viewpoint (specifically the Southern Baptists).    I have read many of the multitudinous sermons preached by well-intentioned pastors in favor of slavery in the 1800s and then again against desegregation in the 60s and their arrogance and cold-heartedness grip my heart with horror.  Where would we be as a country if righteousness had not won the day?

Today it boggles my mind that Christians who say they love Jesus are part of the Tea Party, but they don’t speak out against the racism that is so visible on their websites and from the mouths of their leaders.  I know that not all Tea Party members are racist but their silence is killing me.  The language of the Tea Partier is slightly different from the overt racist (normally doesn’t include the “n” word), but it is deceiving to the perpetrator because they see themselves as righteous:  “I respect the office of the presidency but I don’t respect this president because he is a Socialist, a Muslim, a spawn of Satan or Hitler (I’m searching for his hidden horns and drawing on his Hitler mustache even as we speak)” or “I don’t have a racist bone in my body, I just worship Sarah Palin, Fox News, and the Drudge Report who do”—said with such vehemence and so many times that it prompts the person of color to scream to the heavens:  “me thinks thou doth protest too much, Tea-bagger!”

Racist Tea Party Cartoon|image from politiskink.com

DEAR TEA PARTY:
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than
sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Even though we’ve come a long way, whenever I do a Google search with our President’s name, I almost vomit from the visceral racial hatred and disrespect that lashes out at me from the Internet because it seems that some of us are playing by a different set of rules, requiring others of us to reinstate “The Green Book” in order to survive.  This causes me great despair until I read the blogs of people like Frank Angle who wrote “On MLK 2013” (http://afrankangle.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/on-mlk-2013/ ) about the repentance of Elwin Wilson in 2009, a former Klansman, who attacked and beat a black college student in 1961 when he was one of the Freedom Riders trying to win the ability for African-Americans to travel across country via Greyhound and Trailway buses.  The black freedom rider grew up to be Congressman Joe Lewis.   Frank Angle included a YouTube video in his blog post of Wilson and Lewis’ exchange of repentance and forgiveness after 50 years, and it makes the viewer understand that there is a God, and one day we will all overcome our bigotry, our stupidity, our short-sightedness, our lack of grace, and our arrogance!

Photo:  George Burns| Harpo Studios

For years, Elwin, an admitted former member of the Ku Klux Klan, says he prayed that he would meet the man he attacked at the bus station. –Oprah.com

***

QUOTES BY MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

      “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.” – Martin Luther King, Jr

 

We’re ALL Gonna Die (sooner or later)!

Mayim Bialik and Kaley Cuoco||Chuck Lorre Productions||Warner Bros. Television

PENNY: “How’s your life?”

AMY FARRAH FOWLER:  “Like everybody else’s—

subject to entropy, decay, and eventual death.

 Thank you for asking.”

******

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  I just survived a “derecho” (pronounced duh-RAY-cho), and up until it slammed into my town last week, I had never heard of such a force of nature and had no idea that there was yet another thing out there in the great unknown that could reign mayhem and death upon my life when I least expected it.  At 10:30 p.m. last Friday, something that wasn’t a hurricane, or a tornado, or a cyclone started in Chicago at 2 p.m. and made a straight line of a squall of violent thunderstorms from Illinois to the Atlantic Ocean while traveling up to 85 miles an hour.   When Señor Derecho took out my electricity, my Internet, my phone land line, and all cell service, the last thing I saw was my weighted patio table bouncing across the deck like a bunny rabbit on crack while the deck umbrella and several hundred dollars of gorgeous plants got sucked into its vortex as if they were heaven bound.  After Sir Derecho passed out to sea, it left in its wake days of 100 degree temperatures, millions of people without electricity for seven days and counting, hundreds of trees uprooted, undrinkable water, traffic lights on the fritz, long gas lines, and multitudes of cranky residents.  The worst part of it all was that 17 people were killed and at least one canine was turned into a “frozen pop/pup” because in the hysteria of the moment the stupid-ass owner reasoned that tossing his Bichon Frise puppy into a freezer would alleviate the dog’s overheating problem caused by the unrelenting temperatures from Hell—proving once and for all that there is a fool born every minute.

Storm Damage/DC area||MSNBC/MSN.com

What the fuck is going on?  Last March millions of fish washed up dead in the Los Angeles area while last October millions of dead fish were found in Maryland, Brazil, and New Zealand.   On New Year’s Eve thousands of dead birds fell from the sky in Arkansas (of course, if I lived in Arkansas, I’d probably commit hari kari by taking a nose dive from the sky as well!), the honey bees have disappeared in droves, and now a huge section of Colorado has gone up in flames while most of the country suffers from its worst drought in years—threatening to destroy the corn yield in the middle of the country.

Before cell phones could get reception for calls in the aftermath of Herr Derecho in our area, intermittent text messages made it through on my phone with “end of time” theories from the uber-religious to my heathen friends, from the old to the young, from African-Americans to Caucasians, from Hispanic carpenters to my Asian wig stylist, from rich to poor alike—telling me their conspiracy theories which they all concluded had to do with either global warming or God’s wrath.  No matter what their origins or beliefs, they all were trying to get me to buy into some wild tale about a sudden cataclysmic end of the world and write about it in my blog.

Photo by Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com

Grandma in her 80’s:   Baby, maybe you ought to write in your blog about how everybody laughed at that old preacher who said the world gonna end on May 21 and Oct 21 last year. Maybe he was right but his math was wrong.  Math ain’t my strong suit neither, and you know how we old folks can’t see that well.  Maybe he didn’t carry a 1 or something in his tallyin’.  Maybe we should not have laughed cause it sure seems like we all gonna die with all this mess that keeps happenin’.

ETomczyk:  Mama-Mama, I love you—bunches—so don’t take this personally when I say, yes, we’re all going to die at some point (some of us sooner than later, if you catch my drift), but that dude is nuts and just plain wrong.  That preacher man has been predicting the end of the world since 1994.  He’s in hiding now, in his multi-million-dollar Christian media empire, having suffered a heart attack, after receiving all those donations from saps who believed his lies that the world would end on the dates he predicted.  Because God don’t like liars, I can only guess that that creepy preacher had a heart attack not from regret about his false prophecies but from hearing God’s voice say: “Oh, hell to the no, false prophet Camping—HELL TO THE NO—sit down and shut up; I’ve had enough of your sorry-ass!”  I sent Rev. Camping a “get well” eCard the day after the last failed prediction that said:  “Cheer up, Rev. Camping; it’s not the end of the world!”

Peccator.com

My Asian Hair Stylist:  How are you my friend?  I think you should blog about the Mayan prediction because everybody’s talking about it.  You believe that stuff?  Sounds pretty good to me.  Mayans predicted maybe 1600 years ago that world will end on December 21, 2012.  Maybe Derecho a warning that we got six months to get our shit together.  What you say?  (Electricity just came back; you can come on by for styling of your new wig anytime.)

ETomczyk:  Hanging in there, Phi—how yu doin’?  My problem with the Mayan prediction is the obvious:  how can you trust an ancient people’s predictions about the modern world when they didn’t see the Spanish coming and the anihilation of their own sorry behinds?  That’s kind of like taking stock market tips from a fortune teller that is dirt poor.

Reenactment of Mayan Priests Ritual||Goodnews.ws.com

My Asian Hair Stylist:  Understandable, my friend.  But somebody told me that the Mayan Round Calendar refers to something called a “Grand Continent,” which they say is talking about North America. The Mayan message says, “Wind and Fire will take their sides on the Grand Continent, and then will return to meet in the middle.”  See—fire in Colorado, storms in the East, meeting together in the middle!  That’s one of the reasons I’m thinking of going back to Viet Nam, my friend, and take my chances with Trương Tấn Sang and the rest of those communist bastards because too much unpredictable shit keeps happening here.

ETomczyk:  You’re a trip, Phi.  I’ll think about blogging about the Mayans.  No promises though.

Husband (WW):  Hey Babe, you interested in seeing “Seeking Friend for End of the World” with Steve Carell and Keira Knightley when the electricity comes back on?  It might be something to use for your blog since I’m sure the Derecho trials of this week are blog worthy.  How about blogging what you would do with your life if the world was going to end in six weeks or six months?

ETomczyk:  Hey, White and Wonderful!  My readers already know what I would do, because they would probably do the same.  You and I would quit our jobs, gather our family and any friends that needed family and transport them to a bucolic location (probably Hawaii or the Caribbean), and we’d spend the remaining time enjoying each other with purposeful abandonment without distraction, guilt, bickering, or worry.  Remember that scene from the apocalyptic movie, Deep Impact, with Téa Leoni and Maximilian Schell as the estranged father and daughter?   Remember how they faced the tsunami wave locked in each other’s arms and died together in total peace—no fear, no panic, and no regrets.  I would hope that would be me after leading a life well lived for that short amount of time.

SEEKINIG A FRIEND for the End of the World||Movie Poster||Wikipedia Image

Brown Cat: You don’t know me but I lived in the house where the Bichon Frise was “frozen” and I’m texting you on the lam.  The Bichon’s name was Monique and she was my friend.  I only missed the freezer demise with her by a hairball—literally!   (I started to hack up a pretend hair ball until the master got distracted with cooling off Monique, and then I ran for the hills before he could toss me in frozen box with her). You see, he told the vet he was just trying to cool us off in the triple digit heat following the Derecho, but I know differently.  Master is a Zombie!  Blog about Monique—BLOG ABOUT THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE because that is what the signs of the times are telling us:  The Zombies are upon us and they are the idiots in our midst.  Look for the idiots and you’ll find the Zombies.  Start with the Tea Party and Fox News, and make sure you warn the people about the pseudo-intellectual, Dinesh D’Souza, because he is one of the top Zombie leaders.  WARN THE PEOPLES I TELL YOU—WARN THEM!

Pinned from Pinterest||funnycats4U.blogspot.com

ETomczyk:  Kitty, wait a minute—maybe the world is coming to an end.  When did you get opposable thumbs to text?  Oh, Sweet, Jesus!  What did you do with your owner?

****

I am discovering that there have been “end of time scenarios” since the dawn of the ages or since man realized how quickly and efficiently he could fuck up the planet and wanted to stop the world and kick off the undesirables.   If you’re of the Christian ilk, you’ll remember how Noah and God tried to do a localized end times scenario, but it didn’t take more than a chapter for people to start acting like fools again.  (The Zombies are us, I tell you!)  But I kind of think we’ll be here for a while—at least until we get the concept of “living” right.   Since I didn’t have any control over when I’d be born and probably won’t have any control over when I’ll die, I think I’ll just chill and enjoy today “sans” fear.  Besides, I don’t believe any person, now or then, knows when the world will cease to be as we know it.  Personally, I’ve decided to err on the side of sheer abandonment (live like my world is ending in six months all the freakin’ time), and be an outrageous expression of love, integrity, and joy because in reality one day in the future will certainly be my last.

My sister’s birthday is December 22^nd.   I’ve asked all the family to arrive a week before 12/21 because I plan to throw a party every single day like it’s the last day of our lives.  That way, if we go on December 21^st as the Mayans have predicted, we’ll all go together with smiles on our faces, good wine and food in our tummies, and hearts full of love and tenderness for each other.  Who could ask for anything more?

Used by permission from Dan Piraro|http://www.bizarrocomics.com

******

“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.”—William Allen White

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”—H. P. Lovecraft

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”—Mark Twain

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. . . The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day . . . We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. . .”—Charles Swindoll

 

The Kids Are Watching Us

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   Parents are constantly under surveillance.  We’re not being watched by the CIA or the FBI (well, maybe some of you are, depending on how crazy your behavior got in the 60s), but we’re being monitored by our children when they think we’re not looking.   Before you decide I’ve lost my mind, think about the last time you spent any extended amount of time with your grown children.  Didn’t you notice them staring at you—watching your every move as if they expected you to self-destruct before their very eyes, and for the most part, looking absolutely scandalized at you as they thought:  “Oh, my God, did you see that; have they lost their freakin’ minds?”

Image from forparentsbyparents.com

. . . Or:  “Oh, Lord Jesus, the Poor Rents—I knew all that pot-smoking from their college days would catch up with them sooner than later.”

Image from baby-cute.com

My husband and I were recently made aware of the scrutiny of our adult children in our lives when we went to visit our younger daughter and got lost at every single meeting point the entire weekend, even though we’ve visited the city multiple times.  Baby-girl was so mortified at our mishaps that she told every friend who would listen about our crazy missed exits and off-ramps.   I just know she is secretly checking out nursing homes in her area in case we show other signs of incompetence and brain fogginess, and she’ll be forced to commit us.

I blame last weekend’s mishaps on the fact that WW and I have lost our inner traveling compass.   For the past five years or so, we haven’t left home without an electronic GPS system, but we didn’t have one in the rental car and that’s where all the mayhem began.  We no longer know how to function on our own.  Without a GPS our instincts fail us.  We have lost our personal compass.

animalcapshunz.icanhascheezburger.com

Because I was “Oprah” long before Oprah was Oprah, I did what I frequently do and turned last weekend’s “lost in Minneapolis” debacle into an “A-ha” moment when a mother in a minivan full of kids flipped me the bird because she thought I didn’t turn fast enough.  (Who gives you “the finger” in front of their kids?)  My A-HA moment:  Losing one’s traveling compass is akin to losing one’s moral compass, so that when we’re stressed, fearful, or angry we lose our way as humans and crap all over each other.  But Houston, when this happens, we have a problem because the children are watching.  (Look out Oprah!) 

So this week, I reviewed the most uncivil acts committed by high-profile people (and some not so high-profile), and I sent them a short note with a picture of a particular type of child they may have influenced with their gnarly behavior.

Gov. Jan Brewer Disrespecting the POTUS||File photo/Google Image

Dear Gov. Jan Brewer:  Rumor has it that at the Republican Party’s annual Flag Day fundraising dinner in Irvine, AZ,you gleefully posed with an admirer while recreating your infamous, classless and tasteless action against the President on the tarmac in Phoenix a while ago.  The back-drop pictures on stage were two oversized photos of your now slovenly act against the President with the words:  “You go, girl!”   Some say it was racist the first time you did it (I said it was a low-class way to up the sales for your book).  But I say, now that you’re taking your wagging-finger show on the road, it’s not only racist, but it is damn contemptuous of the Office of the President.   Get over it, woman, the intelligent, sophisticated, Harvard educated, “not-scared-of-you” black man won the election and does not ask “how high?” when you say jump.  That’s all she wrote, Gov.   I also read that you consider yourself to be a born-again Christian, so I thought, as a “sista in Christ,” I’d school you on the lesson you taught to the likes of Arizona’s “Bad-ass Baby, Clive Jr.” (picture included).   Baby Clive was watching your finger action and emulated your spirit which elevated him and you right up there to the top of the list of what Jesus would not do (WJWND).   Sista Jan, remember that scripture that says:  “Woe to you who cause these little ones to stumble”?  Yikes, wouldn’t want to be you when Arizona’s kids grow up!

Outhouse labeled as Obama’s Presidential Library that was painted to look like it was riddled with bullet holes and proudly displayed to a laughing, cheering crowd in Montana.||AP Photo

“Inside (outhouse), a fake birth certificate for “Barack Hussein Obama” was stamped with an expletive referring to bovine droppings. A message in the structure gave fake phone numbers for Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi “For a Good Time.” By Dana Milbank/The Washington Post

Dear Head of Montana’s GOP convention:  Wow, remind me never to visit Montana.  As a “Negro” and a woman, my ass would be grass!  Come on Repubs—have you no mothers, sisters, or female cousins?  Do you not have one black (light-brown) person in Montana?  And here we go again dissing our (your) President and his Lady in the most disrespectful way.  It’s like you’re itching to have a bunch of black people come to Montana and beat the shit out of you just to make you give the Prez some respect.  But then we’d be no better than you, so we’ll keep following the President’s gracious example and “turn the other cheek.”

I read that Congressman Dennis Rehberg and Newt Gingrich were on-site and neither one of them said a word in protest of the Outhouse.  (I wonder how they would have reacted if it had been them and their wives?)  You’re bullies—no more, no less.   Truth is that I have no idea what will happen to the lives of the people you stuck in your toilet (maybe you will get your wish, although I doubt it), but I do know that you’ve been responsible for setting back the education and citizenship in the family of man of Montana’s children by about 100 years because your babies are watching and learning from you.

Karen Klein, Elderly School Bus Monitor||AP Photo

“A widow of 17 years and a grandmother of eight, Karen worked as a bus driver in Greece, New York for 20 years, and has been a bus monitor for the last three years. Her duty is to ride in the bus with students, making sure that they behave themselves on the route to and from school for which she gets paid around $15,000 annually.” Posted by Charles Wuckland

Dear Pack of Thirteen-Year-Old Boys from Greece, NY who took it upon themselves to torment a sweet, hard-of-hearing Grandmother:  Now let me get this straight, children.  According to all the news reports, you said the following hateful things to a sweet old lady who had never done anything to you, except try to keep you safe:

Oh, my God, you’re such a fucking bitch!”

“You are such a fucking troll!”

(After poking Mrs. Klein): “Your reflexes are so slow, you freakin’ fat bitch.”

“You’re so ugly, you should commit suicide.”

“You don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they didn’t want to be near you.” (The worst part of these taunt boys is that Mrs. Klein’s son did kill himself ten years ago.)

And to all this Mrs. Klein replied as she was crying:  “I am a person, too. I shouldn’t be treated this way.”

***

Dear Parents of the 13-year-old future terrorists, Gov. Jan Brewer, the Tea Party, the Birthers, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Donald Trump, Fox News, Andrew Breitbart’s friends, the preachers praying “imprecatory prayers of death” against those who disagree with them (California preacher Drake says he’s praying for death of President Obama while another preacher has burned his body in effigy), and all the nameless haters and bullies like the ones who built the “Obama Outhouse Presidential Library:” 

Haters:  I give you your children.

  Children: I give you your teachers!

I am discovering that regardless of what the politicians and the news pundits tell us, it is not the economy, stupid.  It is our ability to remain a civil society in the midst of hard times and be our “brother’s keeper” that matters.  Yes, times are hard, but we’ll get through them if we stick together and don’t adopt the Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged attitude of the Tea Party, “I’ve got mine, too bad it sucks for you,” as the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush once wrote.  Where are our leaders (especially on the Republican side) who will stand up and say enough is enough?  I may not agree with your politics, but I regard you as a fellow citizen, a child of God, born with the right to exist, and I will listen to your “civil” discourse and treat you in the way I want to be treated.  Besides, some of my best friends are Republicans.

Dear Repubs (yes, I’m singling you out because I don’t recognize you anymore, and I used to be a Republican):  Don’t give me that childish excuse that the Dems said awful things about President Bush (since when did two wrongs make a right, children?).  And don’t even try to give me that teenager’s excuse that everybody else is doing it, and you can’t control certain elements of your party.  Tell that to your god, because People, our kids are watching and they are going to “lose their way” just like us!  If we don’t hurry up and change our compass to due North, we’ll save the economy and leave the country to a bunch of fat and sassy racists, terrorists, homophobes, misogynists, and heartless cretins.  Are you listening, Mitt?

 

(“Suffering from disgust of grownups?”)||Piclac.com

***

      “When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.” Samuel Johnson

“The uncomfortable truth is that if we are to solve the difficult problems we face as a national community, we must act affirmatively and with courage and clarity to reclaim civility in the public square. Civility is quite simply the glue that holds us together and allows us as citizens of a representative democracy to dialogue with each other.” Cassnadra Dahnke, Tomas Spath, Donna Bowling (Institute For Civility In Government)

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”—Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Black Don’t Crack

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  My birthday is coming up during this next week and I suddenly realized that I’m getting old—really old!  Two days ago it seemed as if I were in my twenties; dreaming twenty-year-old thoughts of grandeur (I was going to change the world for the better along with all the other Jesus Freaks of our baby-boomer generation). . .

1960’s Time Magazine Cover

Now I’m more than disillusioned by the failures of a movement that changed my life, and I can’t even sneeze without peeing my pants or take two steps without my ass exploding in a cacophony of farts, no matter how much I “pinch and hold.”  (Dairy, thou hast become my sworn enemy!)

Image from jokesprank.com

Last week I spent a lot of time having a very interesting discussion with people all around the world (online and off) about whether there was a devil (see last week’s post: “The Devil Made Me Do It”).  It was stimulating, spiritually enlightening, and mentally invigorating.  This week my mind has turned to addled mush as I try to comprehend a news article about how soon my children and their friends will be able to know that I’m within a mile of their vicinity by my “distinctive smell.”  Because, apparently, the older one gets, the riper one becomes, and wherever an old person is, his or her smell lingers forever and a day and is distinguishable from every other age group’s smell!  Think:  Nursing home smell.  Holy Mary, Mother of God!

Elderly Woman by Mary Cassatt||Wikipaintings

“Wait a minute. There’s something unusual about the subway seat you just claimed. It’s awfully warm, and a peculiar odor seems to hover in the air nearby—a stale, musty odor tinged with something as acrid as mothballs. You know this aroma: it’s ‘old person smell.’”  ‘Old Person Smell’: Study Confirms You Can Recognize Age by Scent, By Ferris Jabr||Huffingtonpost.com

What is this smell the author is talking about?  Is it the smell of death?  When does it start?  How much time do I have before my children have to start hosing me off before I can enter their homes?

Well, screw last week’s blog!  Right now I could care less whether there is a devil or not—I have a more pressing issue to deal with.  I cannot get old and start to stink!  Yet, next Sunday, if I haven’t fainted dead away from the sheer horror of it all, another candle will be added to my birthday cake, ratcheting me closer to the finish line of living and toward an unfathomable, unearthly B.O that I’ll take to my grave, apparently!  Is it because I believe in a theology that marches me to the grave first and then onto resurrection at some point?  Would this “old people curse” still make its claim on WW and me if we got recycled, instead?

Horrified, I asked my husband, WW (the smartest person I know), if we could incorporate reincarnation into our theology and return in another life as something—anything—that didn’t have the potential of becoming Pepé Le Pew in our golden years?

 Warner Bros.||Google Image

But WW (White and Wonderful) just kept on playing with his new iPad and barely looked up when he answered:  “NO, absolutely no reincarnation theology—don’t start getting crazy on me in your old age.  I’ve just gotten used to your Lucille Ball zaniness in this life; I can’t imagine having to survive your antics in another life!  And besides, speak for yourself, ‘pale face,’ I don’t plan on stinking—ever!”

Crap!

I don’t know what WW is so bent out of shape about.  Reincarnation simply means “reentering the flesh.”  I wouldn’t mind a do-over in life in spite of WW’s reticence.  My husband was born white and male so the deck has always been stacked in his favor.  I’d come back so much wiser and richer and take the helm with the people holding the power and the money, and see what it’s like to start off life “ready to rule.”  I wouldn’t waste my time with gnarly people or shit that didn’t matter.  And I’d take better care of my body from the very beginning so that my old age would be free of disease.  In fact, maybe I’d come back as a scientist and eliminate this “old people funk” that’s been discovered by Johan Lundström of the Monell Chemical Senses Center who, IMHO, should have used his smarts to determine whether there is really a devil and come up with a plan to eradicate mayhem and chaos from the Earth rather than giving me something else to be mortified about as I get older.  Then we wouldn’t have had horrific “devil” instigated massacres in Syria this week, “devil” inspired zombie cannibalism stories freaking me out so badly I can’t sleep, and a “devil-led” Fox News 4-minute, blatantly false, attack ad against our President—dropping the illusion that they ever were “fair and balanced.”  (Talk about something smelly this way cometh!)

But I digress.  When I did a little bit of research about reincarnation, I realized WW had reason to be concerned.  I discovered that one is not assured to return as a human on a higher plane (richer, thinner, smarter) and much depends on karma.  One could come back as a Fox News anchor or as an insect which means one could be destined to go through life stupid as all get out or squished by something as delicate as a child’s sandal on any given Sunday just because one was considered to be “icky.”   Either way, I’d be screwed.

Image from faniq.com

Since karma is a bitch, I just know given some of the stupid choices I’ve made in life (I was not always the charming person you’ve grown to know and love); I could easily come back as a really scary looking bug:

Grasshopper (Vietnamese)||Google Image

. . . or too small a bug to keep a donut hole from crushing me to death.

 

Joanhascheezeurger.com

Or, horrors upon horrors, maybe the smell issue would become all invasive because of my ungrateful complaints, and I’d come back as something 100 times smellier than an aging Baby Boomer:

joanhascheezeburger.com

SWAT!  SQUISH! RETCH!  WTF!  There goes Eleanor’s recycled life and all because she didn’t want to own and “rock” a mature old-age smell—vanity thy name is Eleanor.

I think I’ll leave well enough alone, be grateful for what I have and the God I love, and trust that I will be able to grow old gracefully and in my right mind (maybe I’ll add another shower in the evenings).  And maybe, just maybe, when I finally do die, I’ll discover that “who” and what is “beyond the veil” is so fantastic, the thought of recycling back to an Earth with a Devil, brutal despots, wannabe zombies, crazy-ass terrorists, and Fox News won’t interest me in the least bit.

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I am discovering that part of my blessings from God in this life, of which there have been many, is that he’s included me in the Black Don’t Crack club and given me a heart that easily loves in spite of the fact that I was born a poor black child in the “mistake on the lake” city, currently nicknamed, “The Cleve.”  (Translation of ‘Black Don’t Crack’:  An urban legend that African-American skin doesn’t age as quickly as Caucasian or Asian skin due to the melanin that seems to have caused us problems in so many other arenas in life.  Go figure!)

Case in point:  old Asian? Caucasian? lady in her 80’s

Image from onemansblog.com

The African-American singer and actress, Lena Horne, in her 80’s

(no she hasn’t had any face lifts)||lifestyle.allwomenstalk.com

I’m just sayin’. . .urban legend or no, some of that non-crackin’ mojo got bequeathed to me and I will be eternally grateful!

So I may take on this alleged “eau du elderly smell” as I get older—God didn’t promise me a rose garden—but by God, I’ll still have the skin of a twenty-year-old when I die and the heart of someone who loves deeply and profoundly—that’s got to count for something when the younger generation scrunches up their noses and exclaims:  “Peeeeeuw, Grandma”!  Right?

Happy Birthday to me!

The Author:  Old, really, really old, and getting older by the day

“Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened?” —Jennifer Yane

“I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”—Woody Allen

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” —Mark Twain

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Hello—You Did What?

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  Over the course of my 63 years of trying to leave my mark on this planet, I have done some really idiotic things.  When I made those dumb choices, I knew better at the time, but I just didn’t stop and think.  By God’s grace I haven’t broken anything on my body, killed anybody inadvertently, or started a gang war, but I‘ve come close to doing all three.

At the moment I’m trying to leave this planet better than the way I came in so I’m really trying to get my act together.  I’m pretty well set on not starting a gang war (limited access to fiery rhetoric and nefarious characters), or killing anybody (my kids are no longer the “you’re getting on Momma’s every last nerve” teenagers who coincided with my menopausal passage of “who in the hell turned down the air conditioner,” so I’m good on that front and we are all safe), but I’m still a little rocky on the potential of breaking something in or on my body and never, ever being able to recover from it.   I feel as if I am the Academy Award winner of things that make my husband and friends stop, scratch their heads, and exclaim:  “Now that deserves a ‘WTF?’ award!”

You know you deserve the “WTF?” award when. . .

…you insist on buying sushi from the Mexican teenager at the second-rate grocery store (“because I love it so much!”)  on a hot summer’s night, and you get parasites that take you eight months to get rid of.

Google Image/The Master Cleanse.com

You know you deserve the “WTF?” award when. . .

…you insist on wearing death-tower heels because you can’t bring yourself to tell the truth about your height (actual height = 5ft; exaggerated height with stiletto heels = 5ft, 5in), and your chubby ass bites the dust every other month by taking a spill down any given set of stairs.

wire image

You know you deserve the “WTF?” award when. . .

…you refuse to read directions about anything (be it “how to run the new washer and dryer to how to work your new iPhone) because your arrogant attitude in life is: “How hard can this shit be!”

Clickipedia Image

Because misery loves company, I decided to do a sample study of all the other people in the world who could be nominees for the “WTF” award and out of thousands of recent candidates (it seems I’m not alone), I chose four, that in comparison, made me feel so much better about myself.  (Now you understand the fascination with reality shows—the dumber they seem, the better we feel about ourselves.)

“WTF” NOMINEES FROM FAR AND WIDE

#1.  You know you deserve the “WTF?” award when. . .

…you try to open a bank account (in Brazil!) using a fake ID with the picture of one of the world’s best known actors, Jack Nicholson (Oscar-winning star from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” ”As Good as It Gets,” and “Terms of Endearment”),

AP Image

…but you look nothing like Jack Nicholson!

AP Image

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#2.  You know you deserve the “WTF?” award when. . .

…you tell your Fox News audience that The Lorax, written 40 years ago by Dr. Seuss, is a liberal “anti-industry” message.  Lou Dobbs said recently that he had “a story you won’t hear anywhere in the liberal national media . . . it involves Hollywood trying to indoctrinate our children.  The President’s liberal friends in Hollywood (are) targeting a younger demographic using animated movies to sell their agenda to children.”

Lou Dobbs, you are in the lead for the “WTF” award, especially if our children grow up to pillage and sack the Earth in the name of industry and consumerism.  Of course, you won’t have to deal with the results because you’ll be dead.  But not to worry, our children can simply go and inhabit the Moon colonies that your pal Newt Gingrich plans on building once he becomes president.

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss/Wikipedia Image

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#3.  You know you deserve the “WTF?” award when. . .

…you’re Disney World, the land where “when you wish upon a star; makes no difference who you are,” and you put together a fat-shaming interactive campaign for children at EPCOT (Habit Heroes) that pits “righteous” characters such as Will Power and Callie Stenics against enemies such as Snacker, Lead Bottom, and The Glutton.   In a place where all children are supposed to feel safe while their dreams come true, Disney and its partner in crime, Blue Cross/Blue Shield ambush and shame any child sporting a little “jelly,” while giving the skinny-meanies in their midst another bullying tool.  That’s after they all run the gauntlet of Disney’s advertising of “Satisfy your sweet tooth at Storybook Treats” or “Wake up with treats like freshly made funnel cakes and delicious waffle sandwiches,” as the writer Mary Elizabeth Williams so accurately illustrates in her article, “Disney’s Fat-shaming Fail.”   (Have you ever tried to get a healthy snack at Disney in between the caramel apples, pizza, ice cream, deep-fried hot dogs, French fries, fudge, giant cookies, forced-air baking bread smells, etc?)   Sheesh!  Disney, heal thy self!

Handout image via AFP – Getty Images

“You want to promote good health (Disney)? Start by looking at your own sugar and animal fat-laden menus.  And go on by respecting children of all shapes and sizes.  Because they’re the ones who trust in the mouse to see them not as Lead Bottoms and Gluttons but as princesses and pirates.  As beautiful.”  Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon.com

(Three weeks after HabitHeroes.com was launched, it was taken down for maintenance and the exhibit was closed.  No word from the Mouse as to its return.)

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#4.  You know you deserve the “WTF?” award when. . .

…you are Rihanna and spend $23,000 to fly your hair stylist from NY to London for a “hair emergency” because you go for a swim and a sauna and can’t get your weave untangled.

Rihanna/Google image

Matted hair/waiting on the stylist to arrive

Rihanna, you actually win this week’s “WTF” award because people in the know tell us that the weekend hair extravaganza was not an anomaly.  It has been widely reported that you spend $22,706 a week getting your hair done.  (Man, I need your hair stylist’s job, and FYI—that hair stylist saw you coming.)

Rihanna/Google Image

“The waste of money cures itself, for soon there is no more to waste.” ~M.W. Harrison

I am discovering that I am not alone in the “idiotic choices” department.   We all do stupid shit—it’s called being human—and to survive and grow from these foibles require the ability to look at the person in the mirror, humble ourselves, admit we’re acting the fool, and change our ways.  I am also discovering that to whom much is given, much is required, and corporations like Disney have to look before they leap when dealing with our children’s precious psyches, and people like Rihanna need to go on sabbatical to Somalia for three months out of every year just to get their heads (or weaves) on straight.  In any case, we all need realigning every once and awhile.

It helps when someone loves you in spite of your foibles

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Thanks to Jeff Foxworthy for the hysterical concept of “You might be a Redneck if. . .” that informed this blog.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.