The Enemy Within

Yesterday’s news of the shooting at Fort Hood was like a punch in the stomach.  There is an assumed safety for American soldiers within our country. That is a rule.  You sign up to serve for us and you are safe here.  Deal?  Yes that is the deal.  But yesterday someone who’s mind had flipped, took out his rage on his own.   All you can do is shake your head and shed some tears. The questions and investigations will come later, but for now all you have is WHY.

When the rules that we all understand and accept are broken, especially by one who is supposed to be on the same team, the betrayal is deep.  The enemy within, unknown until the moment of action, is the worst type because we are unaware of impending trouble.  Reminds me of the betrayal from Shawn Bryer. We give trust and we are paid back with destruction.

Remember when we read fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood?  There were lessons there, teaching us as children that not everything is as it seems.  Be on the watch, listen to your instincts, be slow to give blind trust.  I know that when my kids were little I found the stories to be a bit scary for little ones and I looked for stories that were nicer. Jan Brett’s Mitten and Winnie the Pooh.  Both great, but perhaps I didn’t focus on teaching my children to watch out because the world can be scary at times.

I am not an advocate for distrusting everyone, but I am an advocate for using your instinct and if you think something is off or not quite right, make note of it. Don’t just give it the benefit of the doubt because of the position or job that person has in the community.  We need to turn our radar on and tune into what is going on around us.

take a chance

Yesterday morning the universe lined up to give me a sign.  I picked up the laptop to discover that the power cord had been severed, exposing all the little wires and was useless.   No connecting though facebook or blogging or email.  The battery had run down as well, so everything was dark.  Done.

Tea and knitting instead and then a short walk of the dog before work. Then back out again, in the car and down the hill towards work and I saw the tire pressure gauge lit up, indicating a potential flat. So directly to Palmers, here is the key, a quick check on the pressure and Yup, the tires are low.  I left the Scion and walked the rest of the way to work.  Grounded.

I didn’t need more than that to see that I was going to be a turtle for the rest of the day.  No reaching out, no zipping around, my office was my shell and I wasn’t going to put my head out to wait for then next event to tell me to stay put.  Be grounded is a basic lesson of life and have patience.

I am a strong, perhaps silly at times, believer in the universe (God) giving us a heads up on things. He speaks to us everyday, if we are listening.  I am not talking about voices in my head, just the subtle signs in life.  If I am paying attention, and roll with it, everything seems to go smoothly. If I see the signs and signals, and then ignore them, then it is alike a big ol’ 2×4 right up-side the head and trouble hits.  I had a sneak peek at my work email the night before from the assistant Dean at Extension, expressing some concern about my writing style on a new blog I have started for work and in his closing, there is an expectation of a “conversation” about how to write a blog for Extension.

The higher-ups at work  have been talking with me about social networking and doing a blog, facebook page and twitter for Extension.  The Dean has drawn up the proposal for the project, shopped the idea around.  I would increase my overall time with Extension to full-time instead of the current 75% and would then spend half my time social networking and the other half continuing work on the AgrAbility grant doing farm safety.

This has been a long time in the making and the increased income is pretty well needed at this time. (when is extra income not needed?) The opportunity to write in this style, and GET PAID FOR IT is huge for me, the dyslexic who is writing. The irony is not lost.   But the flip side is my fear of starting the job and doing what I do, the way that I do it with a bunch of editors that don’t see the benefits of my style.  The criticism of my writing, my wonky wording and most importantly the openness of my words, is a flash back to high school, mostly Milton Academy,  where I tried to write in the way I was told is the correct way to write.  I hated trying to figure out what the teacher wanted me to say so that I could pass the class. Proctor Academy helped me with this and basically saved me.   All the lysdexics out there know exactly what I am saying. You can not pay me enough to go back to that place of frustration and feelings of being the world’s biggest stupid head.

So today my task is to find balance and courage to speak my truth and offer to them ME. The way I write, the openness of my thoughts and the intuition that I will not be damaging to Extension, because I like Extension and I believe in what Extension does for Vermont.  I am not conventional.  I am simply me, and if my blog stats indicate that I am doing well in this format, then I should be fine.  They need to take a chance on me, and I in turn will take a chance that they will get it and I will take a chance on them.  Fingers crossed, here’s hoping.  And thank God for spell check!

Joyce the Scrapper

Who would have thunk it, I am cheering for the Phillies.  Why?  Because they are playing the Yankees in the World Series and I love to hate that team.  In all fairness to the Yankees, they are a good team.  But I like the underdog.  The scrappers in life that have the odds stacked up against them and they prevail.  Plus I am a Red Sox fan and therefore there are simply two right choices in baseball, either my team or the team that beats the Yankees.

Scrapper is a great word for one that is a tenacious fighter, doggedly maintaining until they succeed or die trying.  It is the baby that comes into the world with a loud cry, not a whimper.  It is the little kid that keeps falling off the bike, scraping her knee, but finally learns to ride.  It is the three-legged dog that loves to run.  They simply have more heart than most.  And the irony is that scrappers don’t see themselves as such, because they strong down to their core but don’t really know that about themselves.  Scrappers are not fearless, they are full of fear and yet keep trying in spite of it.  I have known some folks like that and I admire them tremendously.

My friend Joyce is one such individual.  And she will hate that I am writing about her because she was born in Brooklyn.   But Joyce is a scrapper.  She is also one of the best darn cooks around.  I have traded her a cashmere scarf for a Bouche de Noel at the holidays.  She is already starting to freak out about it, but I know that she will rise to the occasion and make good on it.

Joyce dealing with some stuff that has gotten her down, upset her and has her questioning.  But this is what I know about Joyce.  She will not give up and she will plug right along, head down into it all.  She might not notice that we are all cheering for her.  In fact,  she will be working so hard on moving forward, one bit at a time that she will not notice all of us admiring her will to keep on her path of what is right.

She is in the 5th game of her world series and behind 3 games to 1.  She has the home team advantage and the fans are supporting her all the way.  She will win this one and move to another day to win two more after this, in their house.   She will forgive me for making the analogy of her being like the Phillies , given that she is from the Brooklyn.  Besides, her team moved to LA.

And now a slam on the Burlington Free Press

I love reading the Sunday news, generally the Burlington Free Press,  the New York Times or the Wall Street Weekend Journal. I get the local paper to be up on what is happening around the state.  I generally know what is going on, because I read the Free Stress daily and I watch the local channel 3 news.  I am a regular news junkie.

I was pretty pissed when the NYT Sunday paper went up to $6.50!  But it has all the goodies in it, the Travel section, Fashion, Great book reviews and always buried after pg. 6, Section A… the real news.  The Wall Street Journal smushed both Saturday and Sunday together but there is a great Op ed, well worth the 2 bucks.  Much thinner and more readable on a short morning.  The NYT takes me a couple of hours.   I get the paper because I am a creature of habit and enjoy grabbing them after church, heading home to my favorite chair, coffee by my side and I peel through the papers, layer by layer, sections strown all over the floor.  A perfect Sunday morning in the making.

But this morning, I was really disturbed by what I saw in the local Burlington Free Press.  The paper chose to do an editorial and place it smack on the front page, on a topic that is not news:  ” The Two Faces of Shaun Bryer” .   There were no new details to the case, no new news.  In fact, it was a regurgitation of the same story, already told to the point of redundancy about the local Morrisville teacher that has been arrested and charged with child molestation on former students.

We as a community are trying to move forward, and bringing this story back up, with no new details, only tells a second story of how perhaps the Free Press is really struggling to keep its readers.  After all, much of our news today is through the TV or the internet.  Subscriptions to newspapers are declining,  Business in tough economic times affects the amount of advertizing that is done, papers get thin.

But to water down news coverage by putting up an old story is hurtful, to the community trying to heal, to the families of the victims and most importantly to the paper itself.  If the paper does not work on good news worthy stories, more folks will stop buying it.

Happy Halloween

6.9 Billion.  That is what Americans reportedly spend on Halloween each year, making it the 2nd largest spending spree for a holiday.  But I haven’t spent a thing this year and I am feeling a bit bummed about it. Not because of lack of shopping, but because no one will come to our house in the boonies nor do I have my peeps to dress up and take out.

When I was little, I remember dressing up as Pooh with a plastic face mask that was tough to see out of and had a slit at the mouth for breathing, making it hot.  It is my first memory of Halloween.  I went with Anne Annie and she walked me to the neighbor’s house and stood at the end of the walkway and waited for me to go up and knock at the door.  It opened and Mrs. Fisher acted all surprised and dropped a piece of candy in my pumpkin bucket. 

When the girlies were little dinky-doos I made their costumes. I would head off to JoAnne’s fabrics and find the material, a pattern, then sit down at the dining room table and construct the costumes.  One year I made both Emilie and Lulu  bumble bee suits.  Lulu refused to wear the outer yellow and black striped tunic, and so she went as a black fly.  Black leggings, black turtle neck, little black wings and black pipe cleaner antenna clipped onto her hair clips.   The best costume ever was the Holstein cow I did for Emilie the year before.   It was recycled into a rabbit two years later for Lulu and became part of the dress up collection.  Lulu’s best was a snow-white costume, which also became part of the dress up collection.

I love the idea of children being able to dress up and go into the night, up to neighbors’ houses and knocking on the door,  practicing the first little steps of being in the community.  Really the first time a child is encouraged to go up the walkway with parents waiting, learning how to initiate an interaction with “strangers”.   They get a positive reaction and they learn to be social. The night and the costumes giving it that magical feel.

I miss being all a part of it, watching the kiddos go up to the door and the excitement of the treat they get, sorting and counting all the candy after wards as well as being at the door and opening it up to give a treat and see all the fun.   So I think my task today will be to either find a family to go around with tonight, or to find a family or place  where I can help give out candy.  Or maybe I will head off to a Halloween party at the VFW or some such place.  But it ain’t the same, grown-ups dressing up and getting sloshed and stupid.  I think I will go back to plan A and find some fun.