A Woman Scorned
I subscribe to a website called GoodReads.com, where I keep track of the books I read and get great recommendations from seeing what my GoodReads friends are reading. They also send me a newsletter a couple times a month, one a general newsletter, and one customized based on authors it sees me reading regularly. This morning, I got the general newsletter (which I actually do skim) and when I reached the end, I read this chilling poem.
Chilling?
When we lived in Kuwait, the first two lines of the poem were a reality. A first wife whose husband was taking a second wife set fire to the celebration tent where the women were celebrating. While the bride escaped, several lives were lost in a horrifying fire, fed by an accelerant.
Joan Colby captures the power and rage of the woman, scorned, in every culture.
A Woman Scorned
by Joan Colby (Goodreads Author)
A woman scorned sets fire to the tent
Where the new wife is celebrating.
Carves her name and yours into a tree
Then chops that tree down with her nail file.
Cages a bird and teaches it to speak
In a language where every verb is an obscenity.
Combs her hair with broken glass until
It glitters like a million diamonds
That you stroke until your hands bleed rubies.
Watches how you sit quietly near the water
While she poisons the tea she is about to serve.
Drives a team of black horses down the avenue
Of your lovers whipping them white as judges.
Climbs through the window that you forgot to secure
Wearing a burglar suit sewn of her eyelashes.
Picks a bouquet of jimson weed, hydrangea,
Lily of the valley, poison ivy, rhododendron
To prove the base and beautiful can both be lethal.
Paints graffiti on the wall of your Facebook
And for good measure stamps a letter with your heartsblood.
Enters your dream unbidden
Wearing the scarlet dress you once admired.
Paces up and down, up and down
Before your place of business.
Removes all the signposts pointing to
The street you used to live on when you were happy.
Ezekiel Prophesies to Bare Bones in the Desert
When I read a segment like this in the daily Lectionary Readings, I wonder what happens next? What a great science fiction/fantasy story this would make, writing from the point of view of a newly raised newly re-fleshed person – like would they have their former memories? Would they remember their deaths? Or would they come into the world with the blank unfilled minds of babies, but in grown bodies? Did the Lord God just revive them and set them on their way? We know he was making a point to the prophet Ezekiel, but you have to wonder . . . what came next?
Ezekiel 37:1-14
37The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’ 4Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath* to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath* in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.’
7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath:* Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath,* and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11 Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.’
Carnival Cruise Ship: Adrift in Mobile
Newest news out of Mobile via AOL News on the cruise ship that was disabled by fire and had to be towed into port. Exiting cruisers wore bathrobes saying “Never again with Carnival!” It just keeps getting worse.
MOBILE, Ala. — U.S. Coast Guard officials are searching for a missing shipyard worker after a disabled Carnival Cruise ship broke free from its mooring in Mobile, Ala.
Petty Ofc. Second Class Bill Colclough says a crew is searching the Mobile River for the man. He went missing after the ship drifted from its mooring Wednesday afternoon. Colclough was unsure of where the worker was when the ship became dislodged.
The U.S. Coast Guard tweeted that high winds are likely to blame for the Triumph becoming dislodged. The National Weather Service reported winds between 35 and 65 mph blowing through the area. Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen says the ship drifted and is resting against a cargo vessel.
The Triumph was disabled Feb. 10 by an engine fire that stranded thousands of passengers onboard for days in the Gulf.
Sunset Dolphin Cruise with Olin Marler in Destin
We did this same cruise with the same house guests two years ago, and . . . we never get tired of it. We don’t do it that often, and it is always fresh and relaxing.
We booked with Olin Marler Charters out of Destin. Fortuitously, we had a Groupon. It was so easy, buy the tickets online, call for a reservation, be at the dock at 5 p.m. for boarding.
Yes, it can be a crowd. Yes, you always have to know where you want to be and head directly there so you will have a good view, although people do wander. Yes, you have to hope that people who take young children aboard will be responsible and watch them like hawks. Other than that, these cruises are fun and easy.
There are other cruises. The others that we saw were all very crowded, people packed like sardines on little barge-like boats. We like a boat with a couple levels and lots of places where you can take photographs without having to crawl over anyone – or having people crawl over us! – to get a photo. This is our second time with Olin Marler, and I expect it will not be our last – it’s just so much fun.
We saw lots of dolphins. Dolphins are not so easy to photograph as they surface and dive, oh aaargh. If you want to see dolphins from our last trip, click on the blue hypertext in the first paragraph.
Also lots of seagulls and lots of sunset 🙂 Great times with special old friends from Germany, our sons have been best of friends for years, too.
This is the boat they took us out on, the yellow one:
Sunset is nearing:
Can’t get a good shot of the dolphins so might as well see if I can get something interesting with the seagulls and sunset:
When the sun actually sets, it gets cold quickly. We had a very warm day, maybe 80 degrees F. and it dropped almost immediately by 30 degrees. Fortunately, we knew this happens and came prepared this time 🙂
Great way to end a day, followed by dinner with the same good friends.
PGM: Proud Grandmama Moment
I took a wonderful photo at Easter, wonderful because I have the same exact photo at the same exact age of my son, holding up his Easter Egg exactly (or, oh pardon me, I can’t resist, eggsactly) the same way. There are just some little things that make a Grandmama’s (and Mama’s) heart sing 🙂
Because AdventureMan has worked so hard with him, little Q has been moved up to a more advanced class, and we are all excited about that. I know there are some who prefer to be the BEST in their group, but we always learn and achieve more when surrounded by people a little more accomplished and skilled than we are. We are happy he will be pushing himself to be a really GOOD swimmer!
When we pick Q up at school, all his little school friends say “Q – your BaBa is here!” LOL @ all these little kids speaking Arabic!
Stranger in a Stranger Land
. . . . And the land I am talking about is utility bills, water and sewage bills to be specific.
This month we got a very low water-related utilities bill. I say this in relative terms, for about a year, we have been paying huge bills, bills which, to my perception, seemed out of proportion with the water we have been using. AdventureMan called the utilities company and they explained that the averages are measured in certain winter months, and then you are charged for that usage.
So this time, I called, because I didn’t understand the explanation. A very patient, very kind customer service representative explained it again to me. They send notices, she explained, saying they are about to monitor the water usage, and your sewage will be charged accordingly. “We can measure how much water you are receiving,” she explained, “but we don’t really know what is going down the pipes as sewage or waste water (laundry, etc) or going into the ground, which is not sewage. So we measure intake during three – four winter months when people are NOT watering, and guesstimate (my word, not hers, this is a sort of paraphrase, even with the quotes) what your sewage rate is.”
It’s still a little vague to me, but just clear enough for me to understand that just when we should have been NOT watering the year before, we installed a large new planted area and watered generously while the plants settled in. We watered generously during the exact time we were to be not watering at all and using water conservatively.
For a year, I have been calling in plumbers and asking them to look for a leak, fixing every kind of water problem I could find, not understanding how we were being charged so much.
We saw a program on 60 minutes, a follow up to the “Lost Boys” segment they did years ago on groups of Sudanese men who came to the US as the Janjaweed marauded through there villages, killing, raping, destroying everything in sight. It showed their disorientation as they learned how things are done here; I feel their pain. I can identify with their confusion. My next monster to tackle is COX cablevision; they keep raising my rates, it is all totally arbitrary, and I want to find an alternative. Our son – and many others – have explained different avenues, but until you actually do it, it seems complicated. I like to understand what I am doing, and I am not ready to just throw up my hands and give up; I insist on understanding! There must be some rationality (except for Cox’s mendacious billing) and we will prevail!
But for now, through no understanding on our part, we did not water during the measuring months this last year, and now have a very reasonable water bill. Ahhhhhhh. Life is sweet.
“When Traveling Light Isn’t an Option”
I’m booking a flight, looking over all the details, checking it twice . . . with all the flights we’ve taken, we’ve learned, sometimes painfully (think tearing to the airport on D-Ring in Qatar at prime driving time, around 7 pm, when cars are bumper to bumper all the way to Airport Road, and we mis-read our flight time by two critical hours, ooh la la!) to check, and double check, and to write it down.
Because I’ve been a loyal frequent flyer, I normally don’t even bother looking at baggage costs, mine are always free.
Oops. Not so fast. Looks like something may have changed. 😦 I’m still an elite, but I guess not so special any more. And what is this? A baggage embargo? What the funk?
Actually, I tend to travel light, but I click on the hypertext and read the following, which I thought might be of interest to my friends in the Middle East, for whom ten bags is small potatoes . . .
WHEN TRAVELING LIGHT ISN’T AN OPTION
Traveling light is always ideal, but it’s not always realistic. The best advice we can give as far as minimizing fees is to pack as efficiently as possible and learn where it will cost you. Here is everything you need to know about quantities, extra fees and restrictions.
Before we get to all the nitty-gritties, please note the following general guidelines:
Up to 10 bags may be checked per passenger on flights operated by Delta and up to four total checked bags on Delta Connection® carrier flights.
We may limit the amount of excess baggage when such excess prevents us from transporting up to two bags per passenger.
Delta Connection carriers accept excess baggage on a space-available basis. If the baggage cannot be carried on the same flight with you, it will be transported on the next available flight.
Camera, film, videotape, lighting, and sound equipment will be accepted when tendered by representatives of network or local television broadcasting companies or commercial filmmaking companies. See Media Bags for complete details.
Additional, overweight and oversized baggage is accepted on a standby basis.
Bags that do not meet our size and weight restrictions will require special handling and additional fees.
It’s important to know that there separate fees for each limitation you exceed: size, weight and quantity. For example, if an extra piece of baggage exceeds the weight and size limits, it will be subject to three fees: one for the extra bag, one for exceeding the weight limit and one for going over the size restriction. Fees are charged for each additional bag, each way.
Some destinations may have additional restrictions as well. Please review the breakdown below.
Did you read that last paragraph? A bag which exceeds the limits can be fined THREE times???
AdventureMan said yesterday that if he never had to fly again (he does) he would be happy. It’s no longer an adventure, and it is no longer a pleasure. At the very worst, I used to be able to get a lot of books read, just snuggled in and minded my own business, but there is so much rage, so much scrabbling for those extra inches on the armrests, even for the sweet fresh air, that it has become like a university final, jumping all those hurdles to achieve your degree. Now that we all compete for overhead space (I’ve always love checking my bags and just having a purse with my iPad, traveling really, really light) because of these creeping and creepy baggage fees, the alienation just grows.
I fly with an airline which has one of the WORST reputations for their air loyalty program in the United States.
Christs Decendents
AdventureMan and I worked hard today, getting ready for our next set of house guests, so when he suggested the Seafood Platter Deli, oh Yes! Yes! It is one of my favorite places.
It’s the food. It’s the service. It’s special. They are ALWAYS so friendly, so attentive. They greet you like they are really glad you came in, and they take good care of you. Today, when the waiter brought AdventureMan’s scallops, he thought there weren’t enough (the waiter, not AdventureMan) and he brought us a couple bowls of their fabulous gumbo to make it up to us.
(Make it up to us?? Our meals were already fantastic! We brought half of the meals home to enjoy later!)
But today, we got there just in time. The restaurant was filling up fast, and behind us was a group of motorcyclists, all in their black leathers. Most of them looked about our age, maybe a little older, a little rough, a little used up – sort of like us. But motorcyclists. Shiver!
Oh. Wait. What is that it says on their jackets? Christs Decendents? And they are so quiet, so modest in their behavior, so well spoken, so kind to one another . . .
I was so intrigued I had to Google them when I got home, and discovered they are a Christian group of motorcyclists – it looks like they are allied to several local churches and have chapters other places, too. I never woulda thunk it, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I love it that I can still be surprised.
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