Green Green Green

Driving in to work is actually a pleasure. I drive about 12 miles, most of it at 65 miles per hour.It took longer to get to my job in Denver that was only 5 miles away but start and stop and 35 mph. I drive along with a view of the Bluffs that is the best you can get and the farmland that is -thanks to irrigation-the best you can get. When I lived here as a kid the entire end of the state was brown. Just brown. There was cattle, and some wheat and beans along the river, and oil and missle silos, but green seldom happened except in the little towns. Of course when I lived here there was no interstate so eveyone had to drive thorough the beautiful little green towns and get that wonderful feeling of restful green between brown.

When irrigation came-actually the year I graduated from high school-it changed everything. I used to fly over Nebraska a lot and I watched from the air the round circles of green show up that had never been there before-a central pedestal going around in a circle-wasted a lot of ground between circles-but stunning from the air. Nobody does circle here anymore-far more advanced. The valley in front of the Bluffs is green green green.

And every year the water board struggles to get enough water for everybody.

Beautiful

This is a stunning time in Western Nebraska--I'm crazy for the wonderful fulsome air crisp yet heavy, and the general sense of everything on the ground putting forth it's best last effort and flowers and grass and fields and lawns are dressed to the fullest blowsy overdone sexy woman mother earth hues.

In spite of ethanol ruining the vast magnificent 8 ft tall sunflower fields, volunteer sunflowers are in bloom everywhere. Alongside all roads, in cracks of tar and cement-they follow the sun and give off an aroma that can only be called "birdseed sunflower yellow". There are low lying corn fields with dew clouds hanging over them and the few cottonwood trees that follow the Platte look like elegant floating plants in a massive pond of white mist. The Bluffs which look like a city skyline needing only lights to make it so loom into sky so incredibly blue you can't believe you can't find that color at a paint store.

In spite of Republicans everywhere--Nebraska is beautiful.

Really--really SPITE

Life Changes

At work I take calls all day from people in Texas--good thing they don't read this because they think I'm "North Of Dallas" which --technically and realistically-- I am--a long way North of Dallas. This week the calls have been heartbreaking. Their lives have disappeared.Where there was a home and trees and flowers and memories there is now timber and iron looking like jackstraws and pick up sticks.But all the tears I'm hearing are getting to me. I cried when I got home yesterday. It is so horrible to hear it in the context I hear it. They are desperate and I am only slightly able to help (I do all I am allowed).Today an invalid woman was telling me how they thanked God thier power was only off for 4 days.And following that call a woman called from another state to say to cancel their accounts their house in Galveston doesn't exist anymore. They had beach home. Now there is just beach.

It makes my worries so tend-able. So easy--so who are you kidding wih this list of piddly crap?God has BIG THINGS TO TAKE CARE OF!

I wonder if Rappers and football players ever make that realization?

God has bigger things, he may take care of birds in the field and the lilies but the real thing about that is birds take care of themselves and flowers have gardeners and his time is spent on bigger needs.We should be able to handle things ourselves.

I'm sure someone will disagree, but no one will see this--so screw 'em.

Taking a deep breath

I have a new job. I really wanted this job.I have applied many times to this place over the last three years and finally got the call, did the training on the computer and had my first two weeks answering calls. Now--why the hell did I want this job? Oh--money and insurance and getting out of the house and feeling better and the girls are older and and and---I'm exhausted and I've already got a cold and oh man, why did I want this job anyway.

I can do this job--although the next six weeks are 6:30 am to 3:30 pm--deep breath-- and I'm a far happier person at 3:30 pm until 11 pm but that is my schedule. I have to get up at 5am. I can't even see at 5 am. I can't even feel my body at 5am. Oh well. I've already had a ball spending my first couple of paychecks.

I have some great character names, and great titles for books, I just can't actually sit down and write them yet--a few more months actually working at a job ought to get me over that crap though. I haven't been to church in 6 weeks because I've been too exhausted. I haven't done anything other than iron and read in the last six weeks. I've taken massive amounts of vitamins but I'm really tired.

I want to go to the Neb Democrats meeting Sunday--I went to the convention and it was great. I'm worried to death about the Sarah Palin out of left field choice--he only did that because Obama didn't choose Hillary and while I cringed at Obama's choice I thought he --Biden--was at least the same calibre as the rich Mormon McCain was sure to choose--and then McCain chooses this --flake. BUT She's A WOMAN! What part of A BLACK AND A WOMAN TICKET BEING A CAN'T LOSE TICKET DID OBAMA NOT UNDERSTAND?

Locally--Scott Kleeb is running for Senate and he is a powerful speaker and has wonderful ideas and he's a HUNK. Oops--I mean he will be a great benefit to our farming community since he grew up on a farm here and is a HUNK. Oops.I hate saying such sexist things really--but on my--he is a hunk. I have an Obama tee shirt (the TIME cover) and a Kleeb tee shirt. And Obama signs and Kleeb signs I'll put in the window on voting day but not sooner--this is not a very kind place to democrats.

I've got to make hundreds of Christmas cards again--and I only have after work time to do it and Phil wants the dining room table taken down so we can put a Grand Piano in the dining room to sell--oh well. I'll make them on the bed if I have too--a little glitter in bed can't hurt. (Glue maybe--but not glitter,surely).

I know no one is looking at these, but it makes me feel all warm to know I actually had the time to sit down and write it.

I've read some wonderful books THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY is delicious love story in every way, and then THE LITTLE BOOK which took the author since 1974 to write (thereby giving hope to all writers who say 'one of these days') is a gem of social comment for this day and age only it takes place mostly in 1900's Vienna. A time travel that makes me love that genre even more. And lots of good mysteries and one about Mary Magdalene that made me laugh and think (okay--it's not a mystery-but a fictionalized account that says Mary became a boy and was the Apostle John actually --too too fun).

I didn't make my church group meeting--I was too sick--so I've been elected President again.
They never learn

OH! I forgot--we did take a Saturday to make a small excursion to the Agate Fossil Beds National Park! It was so absolutely wonderful--these coil, spiral shaped things they found that one man thought were some pre history tree roots but ended up being the holes of prehistoric prarie dogs--wild! And the bones--fossils--just laying there in the dirt! And we got a cookbook at the gift shop and I started reading it only to find out it was written by the woman who wrote NOTHING TO DO BUT STAY and THE WEDDING DRESS which I have on my book shelves! It is Pioneer cooking--wonderful stuff--I actually found out the beef stew I make is the pioneer Irish Stew--right down to putting the meat in a paper bag to shake with flour and seasoning!

Okay--long enough--especially since no one reads this anyway.

Readers Digest Version Of Summer

Annie was chosen to make a trip with a band to Europe next summer and she got a good job and begged for money from people and it looks like she'll be able to come up with the $6000+ FOR THE TRIP.
Alyssa is jealous, won't even try to get a job and manages to get money out of friends and Annie all the time. I'm truly surprised--I really thought the oldest would work and save money and the youngest would never make it. I'm agog.
They didn't go swimming much--teenagers get so blase--or is it just stupid?
Phil was sick most of the summer,and I finally--FINALLY--got a full time job just as school starts.

Life is good
but not perfect.

Rough

This has been a very hard four weeks or so. My husband has had a very bad scare and the girls and I, too. It started out ---well like everybody with kids--one was sick and throwing up and vomiting so much she couldn't even catch a breath and so he took her to the emergency room that night--and they sent them back saying stomach flu. We KNEW that. Any way--she got worse much worse quickly so this time I went back with her to the ER and Phil stayed home and cleaned up the mess by washing the sheets and clothes and that involved going up the stairs to her attic bedroom and going down stairs to the laundry room--several times. Then he came to the ER as well. They gave her an IV and put in stuff to stop the vomiting and diarrhea. We went home at 7AM the next day. Phil had an appointment for his blood pressure and he said he didn't feel like going and besides he'd sprained his ankle--and indeed the whole foot was horribly swollen. But he changed his mind and went. And they took him immediately to the hospital, and immediately to surgery for a massive blood clot in his leg. A good thirty inches of clogged whatever--almost to the vena cava. It had been throwing off little bits for months--maybe years--and making him cough a lot--he felt like he was just clearing his chest--but that isn't what it was.

The surgery took about five hours. My friend and pastor sat with me though the whole thing. The waiting room had a huge glassed in area of live birds. We watched the birds and talked and talked and she knit and I paced and finally the Dr. came out and said his foot may never stop being swollen but he now has a sort of umbrella shaped thing in his vena cava that will stop the little or big pieces from entering his lungs or heart or brain.

I went home and cried and cried. I couldn't sleep. I nearly lost the man who had made life bearable--made life funny and taken care of me and my kids and my kids kids for twenty eight years! Next morning I was there as soon as I could get there leaving the oldest to take care of the youngest, I visited with him for a few minutes but I felt horrible so I said I'll go home and rest but on the trip back to our town I passed out and the car went off the road and I called 911. They came and I'd thrown up all over and I told them I'm diabetic and they took my blood--my blood sugar was horribly low I refused to go to the hospital so they gave me a horrid sugary drink--took my blood sugar again and left. I barely got home before I threw up again. I was so sick, and my youngest was so sick and I talked to Phil and he was vomiting and had diarrhea and then the girls called the 911 again because they couldn't get me to respond and I was taken to ER and given an IV and stuff to stop the vomiting and so on--and got home again just when the oldest got sick.

It wasn't flu--it was food poisoning.

Oh--and our toilet broke and we had no toilet for many hours until a new one got put in.

So anyway--here we are-- a month from all that---thinking life is great and good and damned if my husband didn't go for his final check up and the sonogram showed the leg has a gigantic blood clot again. Despite taking the non clotting medication--he has another surgery on March 26th.

I have spent a great deal of time praying and pleading and hoping and wishing for every thing to go well for just a while--you know--just a break from crap. But no.


Even my pastor who is also my best friend can't believe the stuff we go through.
I'm just telling ONE thing that happened. You wouldn't believe the ALL of it.

I oughta write a book--but who'd believe it?

"In America"

Oh, don't expect any kind of movie review here. I just bawled my way through it. I'm Irish to my bone marrow and a bleeding heart as well. Could I cry more--could I waste half a box of anti viral Kleenex more? I've painted crappy places and put on happy faces for kids and watched as people I love die and people I don't love get richer and meaner. I've been Irish. I complain. I'm as black an Irish as there is. Can't you tell? Haven't you read this blog? Could I complain more? I'm Irish. And I've just bawled through "In America". For God's sake rent it and weep! The O'Begley's daughter in modern America. I'm still painting crappy places and putting on smiling faces and I'm going to be 60 in a very few weeks. You don't stop being Irish. And I'm still --here.