Hair

Do you remember the Texas Mormon cult that was invaded and kids were carted off to foster care?

Consider the women’s hair — the stuff they piled on top of their heads, stacked up to around 3-4 inches’ worth of dead bodily protein.

Miles and miles of hair. Drains clogged with hair. Vats of Drano, at the ready to unclog drains on a weekly basis.

Gallons of shampoo. Kegs of it; water towers filled with shampoo.

One hour scheduled every morning for the washing, combing, roping, chaining, pinning, tying, taming, sculpting, nailing, and constructing of great edifices made of hair.

Chiropractic care for spines and necks needing adjustment due to the weight of baskets of hair.

Real-hair wig makers have got to have fantasies and dreams about raiding the compound, tainting all drinking water with powerful sedatives, then entering darkened rooms at night with scissors at the ready, carrying bags of hair ties to wrap around the long ropes and contractor’s garbage bags to hold the booty.

Pandemonium would strike the next morning in the women’s wing with the sound of weeping and wailing filling rooms and rushing down the halls like the flood of Noah.

But would there also be unspoken feelings of relief mixed into the stew of fear, shock and loss?

And what would they do with all that shampoo?

Sorta Like Dilbert

Working at Powercom was filled with many adventures when it came to company relationships and management of details that were to be attended to by almost every employee, in order for the business to run as smoothly as possible.

Each employee had a modus operandi when it came to certain procedures. The phrase I like to use for some of this is, “the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing.” And I might add that what the right hand knew about how to do it may not have been known, appreciated, or regarded as necessary by the left hand.

According to the top management (the right hand) at Powercom, the term for taking short cuts (by the left hand[s]), resulting in a domino effect of problems down the line, was called “horking.”

There are many definitions of the word “hork”, most not related to this particular use; but in the urban dictionary, this one fits the best as the “official” urban slang definition pertaining to the Powercom situation: “Horked: To be out-of-whack; to be destroyed; to be completely unworkable” (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=horked). When used at Powercom, the long-term, snowball, molehill-to-mountain effect of something so seemingly small at the outset, brought a special meaning to the word that could only be understand by those experiencing it.

Because I spent good portion of my day ensuring that the bookkeeping system was in proper running order, I wrote a number of email memos about the protocol that the president and I believed would result in the fewest problems down the line. Usually it was a response written in the bitter aftermath of horking. Upon reflection, I now know that these emails served more as a mode of self-expression than they did as a request for a change in employee behavior.

In hopes that employees (guilty or innocent) would actually READ the emails I sent (which, to this day, I still doubt), I would try make them at least a little interesting. My way of adding interest to written information was not to add to the email any National Geographic text, experimental research data, or the stuff of ancient science reel-to-reel films, but to throw in some humor – something that might encourage the reader to proceed forth to the next word in hopes of discovering something else to catch them a little off-guard.

Here follows one of my attempts to influence the left-handers in the office. By the way, I am left-handed, so I am not discriminating against anyone, lest I discriminate against myself. I knew full well that anything I directed to any employee at Powercom was likewise directed to myself, owing to the very likely reality that I was the only one reading it anyway.

When I speak of “it” in the following quote, I am referring to the protocol that I was writing about in that particular email.

Please note the following and abide by it for the benefit of Powercom and all of its employees, including yourself, even if you do not believe it is necessary:  DO NOT HORK IT.

WE DO NOT LIKE HORKING. IT MESSES UP EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING. IT CAUSES HEADACHES, NOSEBLEEDS, HERNIAS, ULCERS, AND ATHLETE’S FOOT.

DO NOT HORK…

…unless you do unintentional, self-inflicted horking. In this case, you will be required to fill out a forgiveness request form, which you must submit to the Office Mom within 30 years following the commitment of said horking. Upon receipt of this request, the Office Mom will return to you a response to your request within 30 years following the receipt of this request. Once you have received the response to this request, you will then be asked to attend a company review in order to defend your request in light of the response, after which the review committee will deliberate the request within 30 years following the end of the review. The results of the committee’s deliberation will then be submitted to Molly Koehler within 30 years following the deliberation. Molly, if she is still alive, will then return these results to you within 30 years following this decision, after which you have 30 years to file a rebuttal, which will result in the enactment of the same process as delineated above. By then, the world will have come to a fiery end and we’ll all be floating around with wings and playing harps. Or at least some of us will. Or maybe a couple of us will. Oh, well — let’s all practice wielding our pitchforks during lunch break.

Obviously, if this memo was read, the information contained therein was too complicated and lengthy for potential horkers to read, comprehend, or, if read indeed, to be taken seriously, considering that the consequences of horking would be postponed for up to and at least 180 years.

I guess that’s why those emails didn’t work.

Maybe you, too, will read halfway through this post and give up. By then, it won’t matter. The consequences will not reverberate into the future some 180 years, although you never know. As far as I can tell, we won’t be around to care.

All I offer now is one final word of advice to you, which you are welcome to interpret in any way you wish:

DO NOT HORK.

……unless you do unintentional, self-inflicted horking. In this case, you will be required to fill out a forgiveness request form, which you must submit to the Office Mom within 30 years following the commitment of said horking. Upon receipt of this request, the Office Mom will return to you a response to your request within 30 years following the receipt of this request. Once you have…..

Oh what the “hork”!!!!! LONG LIVE HORKING!!!!!!!!!

Somewhere Close to Ecstasy

It’s a beautiful Thursday – a gorgeous spring day.

I’m home, listening to music, throwing laundry around (well, not literally), and just enjoying. I enjoy cleaning sometimes. I enjoy organizing my space, though you might not know it to look at it!

How simple can it be?

Sometimes the more I try to enjoy life, the harder it gets.

It’s actually rather simple. And the only reason I think it’s not is because I’ve believed for so long that enjoyment is the exception, rather than the rule.

Not that I’ve wanted enjoyment to be the exception! I just didn’t realize how simple it was.

It’s such a great day – I love my house, my garden, the flowers that the previous owner planted and the few I’m going to see if I can nurture to some semblance of health and beauty. Oh! I forgot! Flowers require care, but they still do their thing pretty easily with not a whole lot of nurturing or effort by me….

Sort of a metaphor, don’tcha think?

Like “consider the lilies, they neither toil nor spin…” Something to remember, and practice. And I’m still practicing. Interest concept. Practicing letting joy come into my life, instead of having to MAKE it happen. Practicing actually implies effort, something that I can’t do, but I keep at it until I can. The only practice involves remembering, and then letting it soak in until it finally becomes natural. Letting myself get THROUGH the frustrations – the feelings that come from just plain old living – instead of running away from them and trying NOT to feel them, and in that case, yes, it’s a practice. It can be considered “work,” even at the same time that it all yields a result: that of allowing oneself to play. Everything the opposite of all I’ve believed.

It never ceases to amaze me.

I’m listening to a radio station on the ‘net, and what should happen to come on as I write? “Here Comes the Sun” by George Harrison. No coincidence, that.

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it’s all right

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it’s all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it’s all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes…

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it’s all right
It’s all right

I couldn’t say it any better.

Dangers abound. I’m scared.

So our nation is getting hit with a big pandemic again.

How does the word “pandemic” differ from the word “epidemic”?

All this mass panic and the embarrassing (or reassuring) lack of evidence of same leads me to think that funny things are going on.

If not just sheer media-fed terrorism that we inflict upon ourselves, some suggest that this is a conspiracy. Could be. I don’t know. I think people will find whatever evidence they need to support whatever they believe.

No matter what, it makes me laugh. I apologize if you get this thing — I don’t wish to make light of anything you might get that could be called the swine flu, the bird flu, the raccoon flu, the armadillo flu, the koala flu, or the chimney flu(e).

Back to the pandemic vs. epidemic question.

I guess there are some criteria by which an epidemic “mutates” into a pandemic.

A week or so, I heard 100 people had it. In the U.S., I guess. Wow! Sheer, mass hysteria abounds! Schools are closing across the nation!

And some of us are just living life as usual. In fact, I think most of us are. Who are these panicked people? I suppose many are connected with the medical industry. After all, that’s where many transmittable diseases get passed along. I go to the doc’s office with the flu, I blow my nose and touch the door handles, I rub my germy fingers through the pages of the boring hunting magazine, and I “womanhandle” the pen with which I write my check. Those who work in medical clinics would probably be justified in feeling a bit vulnerable.

But 100 cases? Head lice are pandemic! Ask me about early 2008! We finally risked our health by going to the medical clinic to get the only stuff that really worked. Prior to that, I’d invested a veritable fortune in a formula said to safely get rid of the critters that I faithfully applied to Benjamin and to myself. It didn’t work. But the (very expensive — thank God for insurance) medicine certainly did. Easily. Quickly. And relatively painlessly.

Anyway, I think most people, when they heard the news, felt a little concerned, but yawned and went on about their day, saying to themselves, “Yeah. I’ve heard that one before!”

That said, I hope you don’t get it. I don’t know any who have, though there have been some who thought they had something that might have been it.

And I heard also that they’ve “re-named” it.

I find it quite interesting to note the myriad views about medicine versus natural health care…and if anyone is prone to fear, both approaches play upon it. Unintentionally, I’m sure. Just as much as they can fan the flames of fear, they can also soothe, because they offer assistance and remedy.

In a forum that I frequent regularly, someone posted videos from natural health doctors and practititioners in opposition to the views of the medical establishment about this current virus.

In summary, medical cures were to be feared, especially vaccinations. It was believed that the vaccinations were just as harmful as the illness itself, or more so.

Logic tells me that if this were true, then wouldn’t there be a pandemic of vaccine-related illnesses, with possible long-term ill effects? The irony is that even if a vaccine is directed at a particular strain of the virus, there are other strains floating around in the atmosphere that one could fall victim to.

The natural health practitioners offer some good advice, no doubt. And so do physicians. I find, though, that the advice both offer can be almost, if not as, harmful as the illness itself. The stresses of life, and the stresses of having to pick and choose from the myriad possibilities and find the right one that will not maim you for life or kill you can be pretty darned frustrating.

And that’s what I find interesting about life. That there are so many choices. Different ones work for different people. What works for one doesn’t work for another. So we wander through all of this and wonder if there’s anything that works for everyone — and we wish there were.

Could it be this chaos is intentional — in terms of who we are and why we’re here? Could it be that this is some kind of game we’re playing to convince ourselves that all is NOT well? I mean, think about it. What if we were all really glorious, beautiful, joyful beings, and we decided that we were going to play a game of convincing ourselves that we really WEREN’T? How would we do that? If we were divine, perfectly powerful, perfectly clever, perfectly WISE beings, and we decided to create a play-place which we chose to forget all of that and orchestrate an amazing world in which the object of the game and everything about it was to fool ourselves — convince ourselves — that we really WEREN’T who we are — simply because we could — how would we do it?

We’d set up myriad illnesses with myriad ways to heal those illnesses, myriad approaches to living, thinking, and breathing, earning, eating, emoting, worshiping, creating, inventing, and then navigate our way through it all.

Some of us might get so frustrated with this whole system that we knew something was up. We might feel so bad about all of it that we tried this, tried that, approached this, approached that, sorted, experimented, read book after book, saw counselors and shrinks galore, and still found some of the same frustrations coming back at us again and again.

And what if those same frustrations and emotions were put in front of us for the express purpose that we dive into them — into the feeling of them — in order to see them for what they really were — and break free, once we discovered again and again, that they were simply ways to keep us from knowing our power and the amazing beings we really are? What if we created them for that reason?

Interesting to think about.

Just interesting.

I know y’all probably think I’ve gone way off my rocker now.

I look pretty much the same as I ever did. But I sure like finding new ways to think about the same-old, same-old stuff. I kinda get the feeling that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

But that’s me.

You Just Wait

I get a kick out of my son. He hates it when I do that — when I giggle at him as he behaves like a kid behaves. It’s a hoot and a joy watching this boy evolve and expand and blossom into the person he is. I love that element of surprise. What’s next?

I know, I know. “The fun has just begun,” you seasoned parents say.

“You just wait.”

I don’t think I’m going to wait. I’m going to enjoy what’s happening right now. Seems to work better that way. If I enjoy now, and the things he does that happen in it, well, I’m sure the future will take care of itself. Adventure? Most likely. Misery? Only if I let it be misery. Not that there won’t be times when I think misery is upon me, but I have control over whether or not I’m going to let the teabag of misery steep until the tea is barely drinkable.

I sat in my green recliner and watched the boy as he got ready for school. He’s not ready to inhabit his own bedroom upstairs — at night — far, far away from the presence of Mom, who serves as a stable force in the face of the apparitions that threaten to materialize out of the darkness or jump out of closets or hide around corners or peer from behind chests of drawers.

I remember when I was a kid, lying on my bed before fading off to sleep, deliberately making sure my arm was not hanging down the side of the bed, lest a witch reach out from the dust-bunny nether regions underneath and grab it. I don’t think I’d pondered what would happen after the claw grabbed my arm. It was just the idea of it. I knew there was no witch. But unconsciously I’d rather have tied my arm to the bedpost than have something to be scared about. It was the fear of fear, more than it was the avoidance of evil witches. And so it is with Benjamin. One day, he’ll stake his claim to his own private space. He’ll up and say, “Mom, I’m going to sleep upstairs.” Maybe not every night, at first. But it will happen just as naturally as so many things happen in his life, without the need for extreme parental policing of the growing-up process.

So, as I sat in my recliner, I watched as he pulled a shirt out of the chest of drawers I’ve stashed in a convenient corner of the dining room — an alternative to the laundry basket that was the centerpiece for an array of clothes randomly piled around it. I advised him for the umpteenth time to close the drawers. He stuffed his shirts (now you know where the term “stuffed shirt” comes from) back into the drawer and closed it. I snickered.

“Stoooop!” he ordered.

“I just think you’re cute.”

He carried his clothes into the living room, which was in full view of the chair where I was sitting in the corner of my dining room.

“Go away!” He wanted to change his clothes, and he didn’t want me to watch and laugh.

“OK. I’ll pretend I’m not here.” I laughed at my own joke and the absurdity of it.

“Stoooop!”

I got up and left him to his task, still snorting at the idea of pretending I wasn’t there.

“Stop that!”

I have days when the chaos and randomness gets on my nerves. But I really like the days when I see the whimsy of it. In the cache of memories I’ll have as I look back on these times, I’ll find the day when wet clothes of neighbor kids spun in the dryer after the water balloon experiment. The boys hopped around my house wearing long underwear, chosen from an array I threw in a pile for their choosing. The long john pants on short John kept falling down. We all giggled at the lacy V collar with the little flower at the point — Jake’s outfit. Queen Kelly reigned over her royal realm as the hem of my chenille bathrobe dragged along the floor beneath her.

I’ll remember how I sent the kids home when I caught them graffiti-ing the sidewalk with the spray paint I’d foolishly placed in the pile of junk I’d arranged by the curb for the city clean-up. I thank my lucky stars they had just gotten started. (What is it with kids and paint, anyway?)

I’ll remember the day I drove to Walmart to pick the kids up after they’d walked there to buy Pokemon cards. They raced to the car dragging with them a child’s basketball hoop, a dirty, matted stuffed dog about the size of your garden variety farm pet, and a container of sidewalk chalk (what a wonderful alternative to paint!), all carefully chosen from yards along the way (for the city-wide pickup), temporarily stored in front of the Hy-Vee grocery store.

I’ll remember looking around the crafts section at Walmart for a nose. Yes, a nose. For the dog they’d picked up from someone’s yard. I was going to wash the poor critter, but it needed a nose, to prevent the stuffing in the head from coming out of the hole where the original schnozz used to be. Unfortunately, Walmart did not have a nose.

I’ll remember picking up a baby bed mattress from a curbside junk pile to serve as a cheap alternative to a trampoline, thus preserving what’s left of the bed that Benjamin will one day sleep in again.

And the memories just keep on comin’.

The fun of the now is what makes them great memories. Re-runs, played on the TV screens of the mind. Artworks, rendered on the canvas of the heart. The feelings of them, preserved from the past and played forward into the future, ever available in the now. Shaping the sculpture of life, carving out perfection.

Meanwhile, I’m putting the spray paint cans where they can’t be reached. I’m not convinced the kids are ready yet to say, “I think I’m going to leave these cans alone.” In this case, I’ll wait.

Thoughts on Love

This is a beautiful perspective on soul mates and love. There are just times when it’s said so well I can’t add a thing to it.

It was written by Dov Baron, whose other insights can be found at http://www.dovbaron.com/category/relationship

Enjoy. — Mary Jo

Beloved Soulmate
—————————-
At one time or another we have all feared love, bolting the door and refusing to let it in.

There have been times when we have craved love and when a thin malnourished version of itself sneaks in through the back door we hold on too tight.

Fearing love and craving love are two sides of the same coin…

Both can have us holding on to someone or something so desperately that we squeeze all the life out of it.

When you learn to love yourself you will embrace love, even knowing that its encounter may wound you. For love itself cannot wound; only the illusion of love paid for with currency of self respect leaves us wounded and emotionally bankrupt. From this bankruptcy of the heart many try to quit, swearing off love, rather than swearing off the illusions placed upon it.

There are also those who have been wounded and they learn; they know these are not the wounds of the weak; these are the wounds that empower us to return to a deeper place of love. For the potion with which we bathe and heal the wounds of love’s encounters is a rich distillation of self and mutual respect.

Only by learning to love yourself can you truly recognize love when it arrives at your door. However, without knowing and embracing self respect, true love will remain hidden from you as the greatest mystery of life.

To know love, we must take a chance at love. Love is the baptism that has and that can, if we let it, cleanse the heart, soul and mind of all its illusions. However, what the mind and body combined call love can also be the author of illusion.

To truly know the depth of this life we must be willing to engage in the adventure of a lifetime, knowing that love has the power to crush us under foot and at the same time raise us on the wings of angels to the heights we could have only dreamed.

Love is the rain that falls on the dry seed of our soul; it fertilizes and nourishes that which has lain dormant in the desert of fear. Through love we learn to question our limitations so as to express our soul’s purpose.

To truly love we must rid ourselves of the fears that keep us silent and lazy.

We must never settle for a mere scent or flavour of love; we must not settle for the idea of love. For the true heart, the true soul has both patience and courage, for they know love is the holy grail we all seek, if only secretly.

So have patience, because waiting for love gives you the time to earn the gift of true self love without which you would never know that depth that is a soul love shared.

To find, recognize and embrace your beloved you must become the beloved.

To become the beloved you must be able to be-loved. So let love in through the front door, by first remembering that you are a gift from God whose worthiness of love is inherent, for at your essence, love is what you are.

Live and love with courage, Dov…

I Couldn’t Have Said It Better

I received this inspiring newsletter in my email today. It might seem to go against everything we have been taught — perhaps not on purpose, but just by osmosis and, well, it’s kind of what everyone thinks. What everyone does. We all seem to want to rail at the injustice and fight it. The perspective I’m sharing here goes in the opposite direction, and requires a little bit of effort (at least for me it does!). I’ve enjoyed railing, on some level. But it hasn’t gotten me anything but more to get teed off about.

So I’m trying something new.

When they speak of intention, basically, they are speaking about what you desire. Like things you might pray about, if you are a praying person. Things you might wish for, if you are a wishing person. Things that are the opposite of the things that you don’t like. Because when you don’t like something, it’s because there’s something that you actually really like and want.

When they use the word “manifest,” they mean that the stuff you want really shows up. If you want joy, it comes. If you want a nice vacation, it finds its way to you. If you want a better job, or some extra funds, or a better relationship, it shows up. It means that YOU deliberately choose what you want to have happen in your life and YOU have the power to bring it about. That’s manifesting. Seems a bit pie-in-the-sky. Most of us think that pie-in-the-sky (not sure how pie in the sky is really all that great — I’d rather have pie-in-my-mouth) is just not possible. But why do we want it in the first place? Why DO we have desires? Is it all some cosmic joke that the things that feel good to us feel good? Have you ever considered that the stuff that feels good might just be YOU guiding YOU to better things, instead of you deceiving yourself so that you will just be disappointed?

So. This newsletter I’m copying and pasting here, below, talks about this. Think about it. Give it a try for a while, whenever you think about it. Even if it’s just one little thing, or two. I’ll try it, too.

What could possibly go wrong? Let’s change our worlds together by visualizing it as everything we want it to be!

My Intention for today is:

I Intend that I am holding a vision in my mind of my Intentions having already manifested.

Where Did the Time Go?

It’s beenawhile since my last post — how the great whitewater of life flows… and let me tell you, the rocks that come along…

Wait a minute. It’s time to put this all into perspective.

I’m learning to shift my attention. As I understand the Law of Attraction, what I pay attention to is what’s going to happen, over and over again. That’s a very simplified description — there’s a lot more to it than that. But sometimes it comes down to HOW I look at things and, yes, WHAT I look at, what I pay attention to, what I chatter about in my head, what I gripe about, what I obsess about, what I fight.

So on Saturday, on a long weekend with kids — what I have come to call the perpetual party at my house — I was not feeling real welcoming of every little imp that set foot inside my door. It would seem logical if I simply said, “Sorry, the house will be empty of anyone but you and me, Son,” but I knew that whether imps were here, or chimps were here, or elephants were here (well, maybe that’s an exaggeration), or none of them was here, I’d still kinda feel not real lovely. Not horrible, but just not lovely. I’ve had horrible, and this wasn’t it.

But nevertheless, it certainly added to my “lovely” perspective about things.

Here’s the scene. Imagine yourself in it.

You’re sitting in a chair, reading. You have a house to straighten up, but the book beckons. Just plain SITTING beckons. After a long time of having a hard time sitting without feeling like you must get up and DO, DO, DO and not sit until you have gotten it all DONE, you have finally learned that it’s NEVER going to get done, so why are you spending half your life doing things that are never going to get done, and then regret that you didn’t spend more time DOING the things you would have done when you got all the things you didn’t want to do, DONE?

So you’re sitting there. Reading. Spongebob chattering on the TV with no one watching. Furnace kicking on and off during an early spring chill, you covered in a blanket.

Your darling blond son comes downstairs from where he’s been playing with three of his friends. (Upstairs: his room and the room north of it, a nice, big area at the top of the stairs — a kids’ playground that, you’ve decided, is not going to be a decorator’s haven, simply due to the existence of CHILDREN that frequent it. No use fighting what can’t be controlled. Too much pain, agony, energy. Life is supposed to be fun.)

He says, with enthusiasm only a kid can exude, “MOM! LOOK! We’re PAINTING!”

He’s wearing tight blue gloves. You don’t have any blue gloves. Not bright, shiny, medium-with-a-hint-of-green blue…WAIT! Those aren’t gloves, that’s PAINT!

Ohhhkaaaaaay…

“WHAT are you guys DOING?”

“We’re splatter painting, Mom! Come look!”

“Where?”

“On some cardboard, come look!”

Up the stairs you go.

In a nice little collection, on top of something — a set of plastic drawers, maybe — you don’t really notice — of paint bottles. Tie-dye paint. Acrylic crafter’s paint. A lovely little artistic palette of spontaneity.

There’s the cardboard, duct-taped to the wall. A work of art, due for transport to the Smithsonian Institute. Or maybe it’s a mental institute for mad parents.

After a lecture on ASKING before one uses one’s parent’s prized possessions (not just for the benefit of the Son, but the Friends), you really try to pay ATTENTION to the fact that the paint is on the CARDBOARD only.

Soon thereafter, as you are going from one place to another in the house, trying to regain your sense of equilibrium and sanity in your lovely haven you call a home, your son bounces up to you and says, “Mom, can we splatter paint the walls?”

“NO!” The word thunders across the house creating a rumble that rivals the feeling that one gets when standing near railroad tracks.

“Pleeeeease? Can we? Can we? Pleeeeease? Aww, come on, Mom!”

Now, you consider yourself a rather creative soul. You really are not a huge fan of the flat brown paint that covers the walls and ceilings in both rooms up there. You’ve thought of painting it anyway. And, on some level, you think how much fun it would be to splash paint on walls and express oneself artistically (almost) at will. Might even look kinda cool. Especially if you happen to be a kid.

But NOT TODAY!

“No! Maybe some other time. We’ll talk about it later.”

You don’t realize that somewhere inside a 9-year-old’s mind, the 5-position switch: (“NO – “MAYBE” – “WE’LL SEE” – “DISCUSS” – AND “YES”) skips from the “NO” setting to the “YES” setting. Like when you turn a switch too far ’cause you were in a hurry and used too much force.

(I think you know where I’m going with this.)

And so, after some puttering around, shoving kitchen dishes from one counter to another, filling the sink with dishwater, adding dish soap, and then going back to the chair, you have now migrated to the living room.

“Mom! This is great! Come here and see!”

What NOW?

You make your way up the stairs. “See what we did, Mom?”

There, on the wall where the cardboard used to be, is a larger work of art. On the walls are hand prints in browns and blues. Color, color — aimed at the wall, for sure — after all, these aren’t two-year-olds who have no aim at all. Nevertheless, there are stockinged feet, and paint that disobeys the laws of intention, and the collateral damage that comes from the strike in a war on plainness in a child’s playroom.

Like the mattress of the bed he doesn’t sleep in.

And it is the paint on the mattress that escalates a different kind of war that has nothing to do with paint.

Then there is another lecture, with gulps of breath and hands on face and rubbing forehead: “What did I do wrong? How did it all come to this?”

There comes a bucket of water and rags.

There comes the announcement that, after the pizza is eaten, everyone goes home.

It’s not real pretty, but to be honest, it’s not that ugly.

Because:

1. Things are things. In my house, I decided that long ago. This is the advantage to having things that don’t cost a lot. Things that can be covered, things that can be replaced, and things that are not as important as those who use the things.

2. It’s upstairs. No one has to come upstairs. The ceilings, the walls, the floor can all be repainted.

3. It’s a mattress. It can be covered with a mattress pad and a sheet.

4. Is having a stroke a better option than being upset, then just letting go? I don’t think so.

5. I can deal with it later. There is always later.

6. The kids are here. They are not in a shelter, or on the streets, or out throwing bottles, vandalizing, getting vandalized, bullying, or getting bullied.

They are kids, living spontaneously, in the moment. Not something I do very well.

The biggest trick for me is to learn how to find the balance between letting kids be in control of my home, or me taking back that control in a way that leaves us all feeling pretty good about things. Having fun without destruction and disrespect. Being kids without being berserk. Respecting boundaries, without setting up prison walls. Being firmly loved into lessons, rather than punished into rebellion.

Actually, it’s pretty much about me feeling good about how it all comes down — and knowing that as I choose how that’s going to happen, they will feel good, too. I am not a dictator. But I also have the right to ask that I, and my house, and my possessions, be treated with respect, while also holding an attitude of, “Things are going to happen, kids will be kids, and it’s the joys and love in life that are most important of all.”

They will learn all of the rest, because they are good teachers.

Marketing

When I think of marketing, I think of hog markets. I think of a bunch of pigs in a pen, snorting and grunting, herded together as they prepare to become a chop or steak or burger. “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.”

The world is a market. Ideas, methods, pencils, thumbtacks, hair, eyeballs, mice, grass (you pick the kind), wind, air…just about everything is “sellable,” a commodity of some kind – or becomes a part of something that people buy and sell.

There are some things that I don’t think are commodities. Like ear wax. Toenails. Dust. Some weeds. Fog. Leg hair. Why, even they are the inspiration for a related commodity. Ear wax drops. Clippers. Vacuum sweepers. Roundup. Lights.

I know what you’re going to say now: “Mary Jo, for heaven’s sake, get a life!”

I’m really going somewhere with this, I promise!

I get lots of marketing emails (spam) in one of my Yahoo mail accounts. I’ve closed down at least one email account because of too much spam. I read some of the spam emails, however, and many are a result of something I’ve subscribed to or expressed an interest in. What I notice about so many is this trend: they go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on

STOP!

about their product for paragraph after paragraph as if the reader was going to take the time to process the original intent: “Buy my product,” said in 45 different ways, in 15 paragraphs, leading you to a website that displays a video (that automatically starts up) that gives you 25 reasons why you should check out the 54 more reasons on the web page that tell you, in 20 paragraphs, why you need to subscribe to their newsletter, which further gives you 95 reasons why you want to return to the website that will give you 28 more reasons why you will DIE if you don’t purchase their program for only…

This feels familiar. I think I’ve talked about this before.

I guess it’s something I notice, and instead of pressing the “delete” button, which would probably save me a lot of time, I sometimes take a look, and I read about how you can find out about the thing that they are going to tell you about when they get done telling you about how you can learn about the thing they are going to tell you about when they finally get done telling you about how you can get that thing for only …

It wouldn’t bother me as much, perhaps, if only a few did it, but almost all of them do.

They have all climbed upon the marketing bandwagon that I call “cliffhanger marketing.”

And then it makes me wonder if there’s anything at the bottom if I happen to jump off the cliff.

There’s no such thing as a sample. “Just give me a test run of your product.” Oh, wait! That’s what the cliffhangers are, the alleged “test runs,” the samples. The samples lead you to the edge of the cliff where you hang.

I guess that’s mostly true in the world of ideas. If you share your entire idea, you make nothing. If you give people a teaser, they’ll want more.

So tell me about it, give me a little sample, and then LET ME DECIDE without all the cliffhangers!

Life is a cliffhanger, by all means. We get a sample of something, we try, decide we like it or we don’t, and then go on and try something else.

And to be honest, most of the stuff I do try, if I have really waded through all the cliffhangers and actually jumped, aren’t as awesome or wonderful as they have been advertised to be. Not that they aren’t life-changing for someone else.

The most life-changing stuff I’ve found to date has been unequivocably inexpensive, or even free.

Not that everything has been dirt cheap, but relatively speaking, the things that have really worked, have been just pretty darned good deals.

It could be that those who promote the less-expensive ones know that they have something that really is life-changing, and they would rather help people change lives, than make lots of money. They believe that the satisfaction and joy that comes from hearing great things from people who’ve been inspired by the product or service is far greater than the money.

And the money that comes because so many appreciate it is good, too.

No, I do not believe in selling one’s service or product short. Dirt cheap can sometimes mean inferior. But not always.

There’s a balance. Saying that what I have to offer is worth something, for the knowledge that I’ve gained. But there’s also the gift of appreciation for what I have gained and what I want to share with others.

Overall, though, it’s a matter of discernment and choice. It all comes down to what really works. And after many emails promoting newsletters that promote websites that promote videos that promote more videos that promote a teaser product that promotes an even bigger commitment to an even more extensive and expensive product that I don’t want to live without…I now appreciate those who offer what they offer and trust that I am smart and wise enough to decide whether or not I want to buy.

That’s not a hog market at all.

Desperation does not entice me. Confidence and brevity does. Sell the darned product, trust me, and leave me alone. Thank you very much.

Spelling

I’m a pretty good speller. I also like to cast spells (just kidding), but right now, I’m under the spell of my son’s spelling words. Third grade. You know, I don’t remember what I was learning when I was a third grader. But was I really learning to spell words like “absence,” “coarse,” and “population?” Maybe — but something tells me not.

The funny part is imagining Benjamin having a discussion with one of his friends, using some of his spelling words. “Yes, I think I’ll go over to the acreage and put some liquid fertilizer on it so that the population of the proper soil nutrients will be restored, so that I will have success in my effort to preserve the integrity of the soil.”

I guess the word “acreage” made me chuckle.

Those are not easy words! How many of you can, just off the top of your head, spell the word “absence,” anyway? Can you spell “mischievous,” and can you say it correctly? I learned in fourth grade as I was reading, that the word is pronounced “MIS-chuh-vuhs,” not “mis-CHEE-vee-uhs.” Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.