Suziecreamcheese Sings the Blues

I spent most of my life in academia. I went to college at the ripe old age of 17, graduated with a useless degree – unless I wanted to teach, which would have required grad school, and since I had been told all my life I was going to be a teacher just like my oldest sister, there was no way in Hell I was going that. I had grown up in a working class family with fairly middle of the road values, I wouldn’t have called my parents either liberal or conservative, they were just people who did the best they could for their family, their friends and their community. To this day I have no idea how they voted.

But I was a child of the 60’s, growing up near Woodstock, NY and fully embracing liberal values of free love, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Stuff your labels, I’m a person, treat me like an equal and not someone lesser (or better) because of my skin color or my sex. We HATED labels. College solidified these ideas for me, and working in a factory didn’t change them. I wanted the women in that sewing mill to unionize, rise up, fight against the men who held them down at home and at work. I wanted them to fight – never thinking that they had mouths to feed and bills to pay and couldn’t afford to lose their jobs for an ideal. Never mind that they most likely didn’t have the energy.

My second and third degrees solidified my isolation from the “real world.” Don’t think for a second that academia is not an isolated island in the midst of reality. As a professor, I can pretty easily tell which of my colleagues went straight into teaching and which ones worked in any other field.

Then I met the Bear. He was working at Harley Davidson, introduced me to his friends and watched as my head reeled from the culture shock. I’ve written about that before, and it’s relevant because I learned a lot from talking and listening to a group of people whose experience of life was so far different from mine.

I would hear them say, “Did you hear Rush today?” quite often. I had heard OF Rush Limbaugh, but never actually listened to his show. In my world, he was a far right nut case, someone to be derided and ignored except when he was saying something that might actually be considered dangerous to my world view.

I admit that I investigated this man only because I don’t like not knowing what people around me are talking about. I hate to feel uneducated or in the dark. So on one of my random rides around the area, because I was still trying to find my way around – and I didn’t have a GPS in those days so it was interesting at times, but that’s another story – I turned on talk radio. I listened with an open mind, as much as I could, because hey, this was Rush, the guy who had DittoHeads as fans and seriously? But I tried. And after a week or so, the strangest thing happened. The guy started making sense.

I didn’t always agree with him. His “feminazis” comments would set my teeth on edge, but there was something there. He had facts to back up his statements. He actually answered questions. And I started to respect him.

I learned today that he passed away. He was beloved by Conservatives and hated by Liberals. I expect the twitter-verse to be filled with glee at his passing, because the party of unity and all.

That’s the saddest part of all

When I was a kid, we lived on the next street over from the library – literally, we lived behind the library. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to live. I learned to read at a very young age, between my oldest sister learning to be a teacher and practicing on me (one of the few things I can thank her for) and my father working as a roofer, which meant he was home all winter and read to me to keep me out of my mom’s hair, I learned that books were magical things. My Uncle Bill had bookshelves all around the living room, my mother loved to read poetry (she didn’t pass that love to me) and my father read western novels. All of us were and still are readers.

We would go to Florida for two weeks in the summer. My parents would drive and I would co-pilot from the back seat, when my nose wasn’t in a book. (I never got carsick from reading, thank goodness!) I was allowed to check out as many as I wanted for those trips. The librarian and I had an understanding. She was a mean woman but she was afraid of my mother – most of the adults in my life were afraid of my mother, she did not mince words, nor did she suffer fools gladly.

When I was 11, I wanted to read Gone with the Wind. The librarian wouldn’t let me check it out, saying I was too young for such a novel. I went home, told my sister, who went to the library and checked out the book, then brought it home and handed it to me.

This same sister now lives 350 miles away, but we talk every week. One of the things we always talk about is what we’re currently reading. Libraries being closed hasn’t been a huge problem for me, Amazon loves me, but it was one of her social outlets. She’s a widow, and is often lonely. Going to the library gave her a chance to socialize with other people, and she looked forward to her weekly excursions there.

My library is finally open for browsing again. Yesterday, I talked to my sister and she told me about two books she has on order, that her library can’t seem to get in. I’ve gotten her hooked on Karin Slaughter, she’s gotten me hooked on the Faith Fairchild series, we seriously enable each other. Today I went to my library to return a book – if I own a book, it can sit unread for years, but give me a library book and that baby gets read and returned pronto. So I went inside because going into the library and smelling books and wandering about is a slice of heaven for me.

I normally limit myself to two books. It’s all my sister’s fault that I came out with three today. The two she couldn’t get were on the shelf and I just have to gloat to her that I got them when she couldn’t, because, after all, we’re sisters! (If you’re interested – The Whistler by John Grisham, The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben, and Broken, by Karin Slaughter. I already have A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter checked out, that’s the next in the Grant County Series)

Going to the library is a slice of normal in this currently crazy world. I’ll turn off the TV, curl up with a book and a cup of coffee, and forget about all the hatred, all the division, and all the other bad stuff going on. Maybe we all should read more and talk more about books and less about politics.

Maverick is dog reactive. We’ve been working hard on this for 2 years, at least. We’ve made some progress, I thought. We’d been able to pass some dogs on the sidewalk without issue, I could almost always get his attention away from the other dog and break the stare, and I was feeling hopeful that we were past the worst.

Then today happened. We went to the park, the paths aren’t great so I was picking my way through the snow when he decided to sniff, deeply, nose in the snow up to his eyes. It’s cold and my coat has a huge hood. I didn’t see the girl coming up behind us with the hound type dog. But Maverick did. He pulled the leash out of my hand and ran at the other dog, barking and growling.

No physical damage was done, I managed to get his leash and pull him back, the other girl managed to get her dog safely away. She was so nice, I kept apologizing and she kept saying, “it’s okay, he’s just being a dog.”

We went back to the car. I cried for ten minutes while Maverick panted happily in the back seat, seemingly quite proud of himself.

So it’s back to basics. We won’t go back to the park till this is under control again. We’re going to work hard on the “watch” command till he whips his head around to me whenever there’s another dog in the vicinity.

We’ll figure it out. No one said it would be easy, and if they did, they lied.

There have been coyote sightings in my neighborhood. Coyotes don’t like dogs, especially big dogs, especially when there’s a femaie in heat. Consequently, Maverick is confined to the house after dark until the Bear gets home. I told Bear that I supposed I could take my Glock along if I take Maverick out, but he didn’t think that me with a loaded gun and a dog who pulls like a tank was a good idea. Sometimes he has no faith in me. 🙂 (I would probably shoot my toe but we won’t talk about that)

So Maverick is grounded for a bit, from the park, and from his nightly outings. (He goes out before dark, it’s not that many hours that he’s inside).

I think I have enough booze in the house to survive this.

I have this weather app on my phone that gives me the weather for weeks in advance. It’s not really accurate past yesterday but none of them are, and this one is better than some. I look at the next two weeks for shits and giggles, as my husband likes to say. (This is a PA expression I never heard till I moved here, and it cracks me up still after almost 20 years) This morning it told me that next Tuesday, the 16th, we will get 24 inches of snow. And that the following Friday we will get another 12 inches.

Shoot me now, throw the gun in the lake and forget where you put it so when they pass that lovely law they’re trying to push through, you won’t have to register it with the government and pay a wicked amount of insurance. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, research HR127 – here’s a link for you https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/127?s=2&r=37. And pray you don’t have an ex who would make it impossible for you to protect yourself if that person was an abuser who just might come to get some revenge)

That aside, I don’t drive in the snow. The township doesn’t plow the paths at the parks. I have no issue with that, they have far more important things to do. Maverick, however, is not at all impressed with the inability to go for a walk. People do walk at the parks, resulting in frozen foot prints. Maverick doesn’t know the meaning of “walk slowly” and that mess is just a broken ankle waiting to happen.

So we’ve been housebound for a few days. He’s an attention hog. If we can’t find a way to run off some energy, he demands that I play with him, pet him, take him outside, do something NOW NOW NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m not sure there’s enough booze in this house.

So I’m counting the days till Spring and praying we survive till we can get our daily walks again. Keep your fingers crossed.

Well I can’t be responsible for what he posts but…………………Maverick has his own blog now

Hi, I’m Maverick!

Please go visit or he’s gonna be terribly sad.

And then I’ll have to give him treats

And he’ll get fat

and it will be your fault.

Okay

Thanks

Actually, that’s a lie, there’s one cookie in the kitchen and there may soon be none. I should be grading homework but I’m feeling singularly without motivation these days. I’ve been trying not to watch the “news” but one of my friends updates me with the latest “I can’t believe this shit!” daily. Maybe that’s why I’m not motivated to do more than eat cookies.

I guess I didn’t realize that hatred for one man would cause people to ignore all else and choose (well, I actually still believe the election was stolen, but I digress) someone to lead the country based entirely on the desire to remove him from office by any means necessary.

We’re hearing a lot about unity from someone who seems to think that impeaching the former president is a good idea, even though it has little support from most of Congress, it seems and looks like merely an exercise in “neener neener neener, we won and we can do whatever we want!”

People, we’re told, are starving, in this, the greatest country in the world (prove me wrong) but we’ve got the idiots in charge spending resources on this trial. And on a lot of other crap that just makes me go, “really?”

And I’m waiting for the supporters of that man to wake up, to start complaining, when things start going to hell in a handbasket. Will I feel sorry for them? Nope. Will I gloat? Only in private. Will I laugh my ass off? Again, only in private.


So I’m not motivated to do much of anything and that last cookie is calling my name.