COMMON MATTERS

LESSONS OF LIFE

Haylee and Kinsey bounced into my house to show me their renderings of playdoh artwork.  They wanted me to choose whose was best.  Yeah.  Like grandmothers and mothers want to instill self-worth in one child by destroying it in the other. I was able to quell their appetites for a winning approval by telling them I am eclectic and love each rendition for its own distinguishing treatment of the art medium chosen.  Unh, hunh.  I did.  However, there comes a time when we must distinguish between ones work and place value upon ones efforts; don't you think?

Kinsey and Haylee wanted to earn some money to buy some new dolls. Haylee offered to dust, and even do laundry.  Goodness, she's only seven!  I told Haylee if she would vacuum my 8 by 10 rug, I'd give her a dollar.  Kinsey wanted to make a dollar too, so I told her to clear the floor and put away the books, before Haylee vacuumed.  Kinsey balked a bit because Haylee wasn't helping her pick up the three items on the floor.  I patiently explained how Haylee was doing her part for her dollar by vacuuming the floor.  They completed that task and wanted another.  So, I told them I want them to sweep my porch each day.  Haylee agreed immediately.  Kinsey balked again.  "I don't wanna sweep the porch."  I chuckled and said, "Okay, then Haylee can do it and she will get the dollar."  Kinsey whined, "but I wanna dollar, too.  I wanna get a doll, too."  I said, "then you will work like Haylee does so you can get your doll."  Kinsey whimpered, "I want the money, but I don't want to work for it."

Why should Haylee vacuum my rug and take my small bags of trash to the dumpster each day to earn money, if I give Kinsey the same amount for doing nothing?  Kinsey is five and can't quite grasp the compensation-for-services-rendered concept.  But Haylee is seven; she's well acquainted with math.  It wouldn't take her long to add up that her twenty times one does not make forty to be shared with her little sister who chooses to do nothing.  Fair is fair, after all, isn't it?  Perhaps not.

I saw a photo this week of President Obama sitting in front of a child who'd built a very high tower with Lego blocks.  Beneath Obama's awed expression was a caption of the president's exultation: "Wow, it looks like you've been working really hard here.  Now, I'm just going to take away some of your legos and pass them out to kids who have been napping all day."  What an illustration of our president's ideology and work ethic!  Friends, reduction of another's efforts, and taking away well-earned praise and reward, does not instill production; it destroys production and annilates motivation.  It robs a legitimate worker of the desire to work.  Why build if someone is going to take off half your building and give it to someone else?  Why paint, or sculpt, or create anything if everyone is going to get the same reward for less than the best effort?  If no one is a winner or no work is superior to anothers, why bother building a resume?

Oh my.  I think Obama has somehow infiltrated the mind of my grandchild.  Stop the presses.  How did he get into my home-schooled grandchild's head?  I looked up and realized my television had the POTUS making a speech in Cushing, Oklahoma.  That's it.  No more television in this house when the grandchildren are about.  What is crammed into the brains of my grandchildren will eventually develop into full-grown tumors of socialism before they're old enough to vote.  Here, our president was taking credit for an unfinished pipeline that did nothing.  He stands in front of his teleprompter taking credit for constructing half a pipeline which can do nothing without the upper pipeline, and for which he has done nothing to promote, and done everything to block.  How's a grandma suppose to teach a child to do her fair share with that kind of example?  I ask you, how?

Windmills, Algae and Chevy Volts

Our President's been jetting around the country pushing Chevy Volts like he owns the company and entertaining Britian's Prime Minister.  Seems like our president is feeling rather optimistic about our economy, too.  He's been bragging about the 8.75 percent unemployment.  Like 14-million folks on food stamps and Medicaid is something to crow about.  Next thing you know he'll be telling us how wonderful it is that our gasoline is less than 5.00 a gallon.  Or maybe he'll tell us we should be thankful, given the price of oil, that our bottled water has only doubled in price since he became president.  Or since he inherited such a debt from his predecessor that we should be grateful our national debt has only risen to 16 trillion dollars.  Trillion?  Did I say trillion?  Whew!

I love the spin our President puts on things.  He stands at a podium and tells us we all need to give our fair share to equalize the burden of life.  All the while he spends millions flying around the country using up jet-fuel to tell us how to conserve gasoline and energy.  Then he wants to add to our burden by increasing taxes on those who are able to create and offer jobs to the unemployed. Wonder how many raises will come to common employees as a result of higher taxes on corporations and their CEOs.  Oh, but maybe that's the plan.  Keep the unemployed beast alive and well-fed.  Soon the whole country will be supplemented by the government.  I just find it hard to understand exactly how Pres. Obama plans to supplement everyone if everyone is out of work and not making any money to pay any taxes.  Baffling.  Simply baffling. 

I had to laugh at a friend's comment on Facebook this week.  She wrote, "I believe in Cap and Trade"...."Cap Spending and Trade Obama".  She's from the liberal New England territory, too.  I'm thinking, no matter who runs against the sitting president in November, they'll be a better trade-in.  Then again, ya never know. I've heard more than one person say they are happy living off the government and unemployment.  They like being subsidized by the working man's tax dollars.  Some folks like getting paid for doing nothing.  Ask Obama and Harry Reid.  They get big bucks for not passing a budget, not fixing the economy, not developing a successful energy policy, not securing our borders, not signing bills that build the Keystone Pipeline or drilling for oil in our own country.

I had to chuckle when the President was talking to a rally this past week and extolling the progress he seeks through alternative energy.  Windmills, algae-fueled cars, solar panel companies like Solyndra, the Chevy Volt (which couldn't sell even 10,000 models).  A man in the audience who was concerned about the rising gas prices, asked what he was suppose to do; he had a family of 10 children.  How was he suppose to fit ten kids in a Chevy Volt?  Obama's advice was to buy a Hybrid Van.  I'm next to positive that the man could hardly wait to get out of that rally and run down to the car lot and get himself one...why in the world didn't he think of that himself? Seriously, Mr. President?  If he could afford a 64,000 dollar Hybrid van, he probably wouldn't have to worry about the rising gas prices.

My question to the president is this: does he plan for truck drivers who haul our products and hybrids to market to begin using algae instead of diesel to fuel their 18-wheelers?  Are they suppose to pack our computers, furniture, clothes, lawn-mowers and barbeque grills inside Chevy Volts to transfer them across the country?  Michelle needs to whisper in Obama's ear: "Folks need their pick-ups and big SUV's to haul lumber, windows, tile and carpet.  Farmers need tractors to plow their fields."  Or does Obama plan for them to start hooking their plows to Chevy Volts and Hybrid Toyotas?  Can you just imagine?

Forget the Common Cold

I can handle that! It's the uncommon cold that drives me wacko!  You'd think if scientists can dissect genes to determine whether you're susceptible to getting cancer, they'd come up with something...anything, to get rid of a full-blown head and chest cold.  You'd think if they can develop a formula to change pond scum into fuel for cars, they could concoct a formula to keep your head from feeling like it's going to explode when you cough.  If they can build anti-missile shields to protect entire countries from being nuked, you'd think they could make a barrier to prevent germs from entering the atmosphere to unleash nuggie-havoc on a city.  I mean if they can produce a microwave that heats cold soup in thirty seconds, why can they produce a machine to cook a virus before it takes hold of an entire town?   

I tried my best to stay away from folks and avoid bugs and viruses this season.  I rarely shake hands.  Whenever I shop at Wal-mart I use their handy-dandy sanitizer wipes to clean off my shopping cart handles.  There's a certain barrier against illness if one becomes a germ-aphobe.  I almost did not go for dinner at my daughter's the night she said her hubby had a fever and awful cold.  (She'd been telling me how he'd worked all day in the cold with that fever.  We both shook our heads.  Men!) He's battled that cold for weeks now.  Looking back, I think I should have eaten my beans and hot dogs instead of my daughter's roast beef.

I first felt my cold coming on with an overwhelming tiredness.  I shook it off as leftover moving exhaustion.  I thought maybe I spent too much time in walking in the woods with my grandchildren last weekend.  When my tiredness gave way to a strange scratchy throat, I knew. I stopped kissing my husband hello and goodbye.  He didn't need my germs. Zicam does not work for me.  Gives me the shakes.  So I loaded up with pro-biotics, upped my intake of water, and made some chicken soup.  It seemed to do the trick.  I felt much better for two days.  I stopped taking pro-biotics, went back to drinking my coffee and believed I'd warded off evil.  I even announced my success on Facebook.  I went to my old house and finished packing my estate-sale leftovers for storage.  Woo-hoo!  I am woman! The next thing I know, a stuffy head shows up and a fever hit.  Then, nothing worked.  Dayquil during the day and Nyquil tablets at night.  A cough arrived with a vengeance.  Mucinex DM barely granted an hour's worth of sleep.  Hacking began; then wheezing.  Within 24-hours a full blown chest cold with all its usual gunk struck.  I got laryngitis. Bad laryngitis--the kind that hurts when you even try to talk. I bought a humidifier.

I coughed all night.  I coughed all day; I beat my chest to get the phlegm to loosen up.  My head feels like the NCAA basketball teams are tromping through it.  Thinking is nearly impossible.  I thought about my son-in-law who works in construction and sets his aches, pains, sprains, fevers and head-colds aside to finish a job--to keep a commitment.  I thought about my daughter and all the other mothers who get up and tend to toddlers, homeschool, and do the laundry when they are sick and dog-tired.  I thought about how so many soldiers stand guard all night with colds as bad, or pains far worse than I have.  Why am I complaining?  I guess because I can.  Hence, the column you read today. Forgive me.  At least I didn't mention politics.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

When I Just Don't Feel Like It

I tend to procrastinate.  How about you?  When I don't want to do something, I look around for a hundred other things to keep me from the task I least desire to tackle.  It can be writing out the bills (though I think that's just a emotional attachment I have to our money), or it can be cleaning out the car.  I find all kinds of excuses.  If I do manage to get started on something I have been postponing, I welcome interruptions.  Ever been like that?

I kinda feel like that about our move from the old house to our new one.  I still have stuff to pack up and put in storage (for the next sale).  I don't want to store anything.  I don't want to have another sale.  But alas, I do not want to toss out perfectly good antiques and glassware either.  So, it is back to the walls of yesterday and the task of wrapping and packing and storing, or I toss it.  Not a viable solution.

My Texas granddaughters spent the weekend with us and they were thrilled over items I'd set aside for them.  They want some of what I have left over, too.  That is good news folks.  Only bad part in that good news is that they can't take it right now.  They don't have a place for it.  They want to wait till they move and get into their new homes.  My older granddaughter wants a particular painting I have.  But she doesn't want it till she has a dorm room.  Uh, that's four more years folks.  But I'm a sap, I will hang it in my house so she can have it when the time arrives for it to have a new home.  We really should have gone over to the old house and let them label the things they wanted to keep.  Didn't do it.  We were having entirely too much fun at the new place.  Procrastination is an art form.  It takes real effort to put things off that would better help me to do today.  Well, not too much effort.

On Saturday, we went for a walk in the woods.  We call it exploring.  Our explorations brought us to a very odd tree.  I'd never seen a tree with 6-inch thorns.  But there it was.  A tree covered in huge thorns.  Not just on its branches, mind you.  Thorns graced the entire trunk.  I wondered how in the world deer managed to walk through the trees unscathed.  It is definitely something I want to avoid if I am on the run--or walk, for that matter.  I pointed it out to the girls and told them to be very careful.  I thought it was the lone tree until we walked further into the woods.  That's when I found more "thorn trees".  Ever seen those things in Oklahoma?  What kind of tree is it?  I've searched but haven't found its name.

We followed the horse path through the smaller saplings to discover a couple of humongous trees which Oklahoma's winds uprooted recently.  They were felled in such a position that it made great fun for the girls to climb up and walk across like a tightrope.  I got the bright idea (much to my hubby's dismay), to clear out the brush beneath them and hang a rope swing on the higher trunk.  The girls and I want to make a secret (not so secret) garden back there.  That is our plan.  When I finish doing what I don't feel like doing...then we'll be able to do what we all feel like doing without a pinch of guilt.  I think it's all a matter of attitude.  Don't you agree?

Leap Year Proposal

We have an extra day of sorts this year.  In "common" years we only have twenty-eight days in February; this year we get 29.  In Scotland, Leap Year gives ladies the opportunity to propose marriage...a turning away from the common practice of men asking a woman to marry.  It kinda reminds me of when I was an adolescent and we had Sadie Hawkins dances at school.  It was the one dance in a year that girls could ask boys on "dates".  I hated that opportunity.  I was entirely too shy (yeah, me), to ask a boy to a dance and risk rejection.  So, I didn't go to the Sadie Hawkins dances.  

I wonder how many Scottish ladies long to pop the proverbial question and don't because of their shyness, or fear of rejection.  Is the tradition still practiced today? In America's current culture, it really doesn't matter whether they have a "Leap Year".  Girls have been asking guys out on dates for years.  I can remember when girls never ever, ever called a guy.  It just wasn't proper.  It broke rules of etiquette.  It opposed the status quo of life.  There was also a time when women weren't allowed to even sit on the front porch and talk with a guy without a chaperone.  They couldn't go out on "dates" without a chaperone.  Things have sure changed, haven't they?  

Seven-year-old Haylee told me that girls got married when they were thirteen in Bible times.  She announced that Mary must have been about that age when she had Jesus.  I thought of my fourteen-year-old granddaughter and shuddered.  I'd like to lock up all my granddaughters till they are about 25 years old.  At least by then, their brains would be mature enough to weigh information they receive and act upon it with a bit more logic and reason.  And hopefully a lot less emotion. 

It's funny when you think about how women are treated in the media.  Shrill, emotional, unreasonable.  It's okay to voice opinions and disagree with the status quo as long as we don't make waves to change it.  Yet politicians court women and write speeches with women in mind.  They appeal to our "emotions", our "whims", our "needs".  Mistakenly, they think we are all the same--that we think as one organism of whining, opining, suppressed gender.  Not so.  Just because some women want to take off their skirts and enter the corporate world, doesn't mean all women do.  Just because some women want to make as much or more than men, doesn't mean all women do.  Just because some women want to ask men on dates and pay their own way, doesn't mean all women do.  Just because some women want to fight on the front lines of war, doesn't mean all women do.  Just because some women are offended by men opening their doors, doesn''t mean all women are.

Some of we women like gentlemen.  We take offense to crude language.  We enjoy being homemakers.  We like baking bread and making beds.  We aren't all dreaming of bringing home the bacon; we like thinking up new ways to fry it.  We aren't interested in strangers raising our children and teaching them morals we want to instill.  We don't want childcare provisions, we want to provide for our own.  We want to pack our own lunches and be assured our children eat as we see best.  We don't all want to make proposals, we simply want to say "yes" when "yes" is our answer.  And we want the liberty to say "no", when "no" is our answer.  So, I propose that men let women be women and stop trying to make us all think alike.  We can't.  And we won't...whether it's Leap Year or not.