Things I Should Not Be Allowed to Do, and What a Nostalgic Feeling

January 30, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

The Right to Bear Arms Shall Not be Infringed…

Hello Kitty supports the 2nd Amendment. Do you?

I need to stay away from my granddaughter’s coloring books.

I have to say I got the idea from a lovely website called Coloring Book Corruptions and it is funny. Hello Kitty with grenades and mortars and an M-16. Shame on me. I probably shouldn’t show her getting a contact buzz from a field mouse either.

Terrible, I know.

I remember how much fun I used to have with old magazines scribbling on the faces and making people look like they drooled or had snot all over them. Puerile and sophomoric, yes, I get that, but I need some kind of harmless artistic outlet. It’s cool that I’ve discovered one can do a similar thing with cross-stitch patterns, where you stitch samplers of skulls and knives and gory images with off color and pithy sayings. There are books out there with the patterns ready made, but before I buy those I’d like to experiment with a few of my own.

It’s been a long time since I really sat down and enjoyed some cross-stitch. That’s a shame because it can be relaxing.

Oh, yes they will.

I may have some time for such relaxing pursuits this weekend, as we are supposed to get a big old dose of the White Death here in beautiful Central Ohio on Sunday. Joy and rapture. I am not going anywhere in it even if I am driving a 4X4. What people don’t realize is that 4 wheel drive does not make you invincible. It gives you a bit more traction on snow, but it is not worth a tinker’s damn on freezing rain or ice. The last thing I need is to have something happen to Jerry’s truck. He’s rather cavalier when it’s my car involved, but if it’s his truck, that’s a whole different situation. I’m sure he wouldn’t be sitting around for a month waiting on it to get fixed.

I’m still waiting on my car to be finished. The last I saw it, they were repairing the decklid and the finish panel under the decklid that is beneath the rear fascia. The new rear fascia hasn’t been painted yet and neither has the decklid or finish panel. I am satisfied, however, that the small dent in the finish panel has been duly repaired, treated and primed so the back of my car doesn’t rust out from the inside.

My freaking out about whether or not my car is repaired correctly is worse than when medical people have to be patients in a hospital or doctor’s office. I’ve been around automotive repair my entire life and I am all too aware of what can and does go wrong. I see it every flipping day.

Nasty.

And yes, I have seen cars fall off of racks. This is not pretty, and in both instances that I witnessed, it was only the Hand of God that kept the unfortunate techie from being splattered.

Surprisingly, the vehicles usually aren’t that horribly damaged when they fall.

Unless they fall into something else…

I want my car back. I also want the White Death to go away, so I can not be as paranoid about my car once I do get it back. Only the White Death won’t go away for awhile yet. It has yet to fade to the snowbooger grey sticky muck. Here begins the February Funk, and it sucks ass.

Longing and Pathos, the Truth Behind the Masks

January 22, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I don’t generally admit to emotional weakness…but-

There are days in which the melancholy threatens to take over and I’m afraid that if I start crying I might never stop. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think it’s really a sort of mental catharsis that happens when I’ve repressed too much stuff or there’s just a back log of unresolved emotional detritus that I need to try to address and resolve- or at least name. Even though I navigate fairly well in the “world of normal,” I’ve got to love the Asperger’s/HFA/autistic disconnect between the feeling and thinking parts of my brain. If I can’t name it, I can’t deal with it- but the rational side of my head doesn’t communicate well with the nameless, wordless emotional side. Not at all. Don’t ask me to be rational when emotional has control. I lose whatever eloquence and reason I thought I had, as well as any words I thought I could use to express what I don’t think words can express.

In other words, I simply have to accept the disappointment and regret and that old favorite, guilt, that I live with, or somehow learn to get past all of that. It’s easier said than done.

There’s always the fact that I have absolutely no courage. It’s hard to say that but it’s absolutely true. I loathe conflict. That’s probably why I get taken advantage of so easily. Despite all the knowledge that feeding alligators only makes them bolder and hungrier, that’s exactly what I do. I know I’m being exploited in many ways by just about every person I have dealings with, but I don’t speak out against it because I don’t know how to do it without the emotional side of my head butting in and making me forget the perfectly rational arguments I’ve prepared in self-defense.

I’m reduced to whatever it takes for you (meaning anyone who’s not me) to shut up and stop making demands of me…except that it’s never enough.

I’ll talk for hours about things automotive, things I find funny, the weather, politics, whatever- but don’t ask me how I feel. Most of the time I really don’t know how I feel, and I don’t usually take the time to analyze my emotional state. I enjoy good intellectual, rational conversation, but, I try not to feel- much less talk about the whole vexing realm of feelings. It’s less painful that way. The really bad thing about that is that I really need to do exactly that- some old fashioned venting- but I don’t really have anyone available to me that I can trust with that kind of stuff. I don’t want to admit to such a depth of vulnerability.

There is a saying that denial is not just an old river in Egypt, but for me I think repression is a better term than denial. I know I have tons of emotional garbage that have accumulated for decades, but I have absolutely no clue how to deal with it. I know binge drinking and chronic overwork aren’t healthy ways to deal with it (gave up binge drinking years ago, the chronic overwork…eh, I still have issues with that at times…)

It just keeps piling up…

There are a lot of things I wish I weren’t too afraid to do. It’s not so much about seeking revenge or retribution. I have no desire to inflict the same aggravation I’ve endured on anyone else. As angry as I can get, (and my primary emotions are fear and anger) even if I have the rare opportunity to get retribution, it’s usually hollowly unsatisfying.

I know I can wish in one hand and shit in the other and we all know which one will fill up first.

I don’t want to disappoint anyone or reject anyone. I really just want to fade into the wall and leave as little of an imprint as I can- not offending anyone or intruding on anyone’s space.

Kyrie elaison – God have mercy. God knows I need it.

Maybe the reason for my recent fascination with the life and times of General George S. Patton is that he represents the exact opposite of someone like me. I think he had the ability to work through the emotional discord that has to result from the love of battle versus the love of life (or in at least some consideration for the self preservation instinct.) I don’t have that courage or that love of conflict, but in some ways I wish I did. I almost wish I could be more ruthless and staid instead of just putting forth a bland and unfeeling façade. I wish I had passion, but any passion I might have had withered away and blew off years ago. I’m not kidding when I say that living in the garden of memory is not only safer for me, but sometimes it’s the only place where I can really feel alive.

I wish I could be that ruthless, but in honesty, I can’t.

A Common Sense Guide to Household Warnings

January 20, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Hell yes, it’s hot!

Ever since that deal with some ass pilot suing McDonald’s over hot coffee, manufacturers have been going nuts with the warning labels. Now I’m all about household safety, but the things you’re most likely to get injured with usually don’t have warning labels.

The first warning I would hand out is that: Alcohol Complicates Everything.

I can say this not only as a former binge drinker, but as a frequent drunk watcher. I get to witness the consequences of drunken stupidity far more often than anyone should. I see how one could put the cat in the fridge (thankfully Isabel, when she was living, had a loud voice- and was none the worse for her few minutes of Arctic exploration, as she lived almost 16 years) or run outside doing the St. Vitus Dance in one’s whitey-tighties because one is out of beer. I’ve witnessed a grown man take a piss in a cat box, in a closet, and on more than one highway berm. I’ve witnessed a grown man do a lot of things that no one over the age of toddlerdom should do.

Need I say, “Don’t Drink and Mow, Shithead”?

(hint: yes I do!)

I am not completely absent from the annals of drunk and stupid behavior either, as I probably will never know if I was clothed or not when I answered the door to that hotel room to pay the pizza dude. I just know I woke up about 3 AM stark naked in a bathtub full of freezing water and a half-eaten Domino’s pizza on the ledge. To my credit, this incident occurred in 1993, and this was the last time I was ever really shitfaced, as in forget-it-all-drunk.

Even today, I like a very occasional glass of a decent Merlot every now and then, so I’m not on a mission to encourage people to be tee-totalers. There is a huge difference, though, between a small before-bed nip of wine and quaffing down a fifth of Wild Turkey in the middle of the afternoon.

Sharp things are pointy. Pointy things can draw blood.

I have to say I’ve been party to sharp things/pointy things misadventures. I’ve put knives through my fingertips and palms (not intentionally of course) and have had more than one losing encounter with a box cutter. I am not generally a “bleeder.” I don’t bruise easily. Some days I have to poke my fingertip several times before I get enough blood to feed the meter (diabetics know what I’m talking about here) for my sugar checks. So if I’m dealing with cutlery or other things with points or blades, and I see blood, I’ve probably inflicted a pretty decent wound. It will leave a scar, and it will take awhile to heal.

Normally I wouldn’t think twice about my own dogs. I respect the fact that they are the same species as the grey wolf, although dogs somewhere along the line figured out that the humans with their opposable thumbs and ability to cultivate crops and livestock could offer them a far more cushy existence than scavenging around in the cold tundra for rodents and carrion.

Dogs have 42 teeth. Clara’s (even at age 12) got a formidable set.

The only thing that would give me pause regarding my own dogs is their reaction to strange or unauthorized human activity in their space, and even then, the fear in that situation would not be for my own person but for the blood stains and gory mess left behind on my property. I do have some concern that should I drop dead in the house alone that they may decide to consume the 145 or so pounds of rotting carrion that my carcass would provide. However, if I’m dead, will I really care if I become doggie dinner? I doubt it.

Now I don’t have pit bulls- my girls are primarily herding breeds (GSD X Malinois and GSD X Chow) and Lucy is not a herder at all but a harmless bulldog/beagle mix who just wants attention and doesn’t care who it comes from. But I will agree with guns and dogs as home defense. I hope to never have to utilize either for self defense, but it’s one of those situations where when you need something and it’s not there it could be the difference between life and death.

Now I know why the local Buick dealerships have defibrillators in the service department waiting room.

‘Lizbeth, I’m comin’ to join ya!

Self-Restraint is Not One of My Strong Skills, and Isolation is Good for Me (and Everyone Else!)

January 14, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m having a currently shitty run so far this year. Never mind I’ve been bloody sick with the screaming snots since New Year’s Day and sleeping every moment that I possibly can manage to- when I’m either not at work or hawking up snot. The past two weekends I’ve not bothered to move much beyond my bed.

There is no way I’m calling off for spewing snots, because everyone else (conveniently) already has. I think the guys around here call off for hangnails, zits and even excessive vaginal sand, as wussy as they are.

As long as I can somewhat remain vertical and I’m not puking or having a hate/hate relationship with Montezuma, I will function, even if it is by being jacked up on cold medicine and Sinus Plumber spray. It sucks. At least I did finagle a 10 day antibiotic script, and the sinus infection part of it is starting to clear up. The green snot is going away anyway. The clear, and brown, and bloody snot is still stringing along though.

This stuff burns like hell, but breathing is worth the burn!

Then to add a fantastic steaming hot turd to the top of this phlegmy mess is that I got rear-ended in the Target parking lot last Wednesday. I’m sicker than hell, strung out from another stressful short-staffed day at work, it’s 3º below zero, and then some foreigner rear ends me. I can only imagine the vision of the she-behemoth-bitch-beast that jumped out of the driver’s door on that fateful evening. The only good parts: a.) wasn’t my fault, and the other guy’s insurance (yes he had it) has to pay, and b.) the other vehicle was an SUV and has not even a mark on it.

The bad news? I was in the Corolla and my rear bumper fascia is toast, and the left quarter panel and decklid are damaged. It’s about $2500 worth of aggravation and God only knows how long to get it fixed. I’m consigned to driving the truck (no, a 2010 Tacoma 4X4 is not a bad ride at all) which is not so bad except the interior smells like a dragon’s colon thanks to Jerry using it as a smoking lounge.

Jerry also has no sense of vehicle interior feng shui. I found loser lottery tickets from 2011, various food wrappers from a variety of establishments, including Taco Bell and Waffle House, Pepsi Max cans, used Kleenex, a flannel shirt, an NRA ball cap, and assorted flotsam and detritus. I’m sure he will love the fact that I douched the whole interior really good with lavender Febreze.

I guess I’m just not supposed to have anything nice.

I’m sure this poor foreign guy and his wife probably thought I was some sort of snotting, rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth bitch when I got out of the car. Even though his English skills weren’t the greatest, he was shoving that insurance card at me with the quickness. It probably didn’t help that I refused to move the car until I at least called the police, (and apparently the word “police” is pretty high on the list of words taught in ESL classes… because the guy was really freaked when I said, “I’m calling the police,”) who conveniently won’t come out in inclement weather unless you have to call the squad.

I could have feigned injury, but then I would have been transported to the same hospital where the (hot, but clueless) male nurse in the exam room called me Mildred and asked about my diarrhea, and I would probably rather be dead than experience that particular medical facility ever again. That, and I really don’t want to end up paying for a meaningless and aggravating trip to any ER unless I am near death or already dead, and not just suffering from the screaming snots and the fuming anger that accompanies having to deal with a trashed car. Ironically, any other time in beautiful Central Ohio there would be cops and fire trucks and squads and sirens galore, unbidden, stopping traffic for miles for the least of fender benders, but apparently not when it’s 3º below.

The moral of the story- only get rear ended if it’s a bright, sunny day!

I’m sure my family is sort of pissed at me too because for the past 2 weeks I’ve felt too shitty to make the trip up there. I also don’t want to share my mucoid maladies with anyone up there, especially Dad, who gets sinus infections and pneumonia easily enough anyway. This weekend I probably won’t either, even if I am feeling better, because I’m sure Jerry might like to use his truck for something. I know it sounds bad because I really do miss my granddaughter, but going up north every Sunday is a bit of a pain in the ass, and usually costs me money I’d rather not have to spend. This weekend I might just lock myself in my room and troll for new reading material and enjoy my DVR’d episodes of Brickleberry. Isolation might be healthier for me and for anyone who might surround me for awhile anyway.

I hope so. Because I’m rather despondent at the moment.

Granted, Jerry works at the body shop that is going to be (someday?) fixing my car. The bad part of this is that it’s winter and there’s been ice storms, so every body shop in a 50 mile radius is booked at least 6 weeks out, and this isn’t getting done anytime soon. Technically I can drive my car the way it is even though it looks like shit, but that could make things more complicated to fix, and I really don’t want to screw with it until the other guy’s insurance adjuster approves all the (proper) repairs. This car is a 2014 with less than 10 K on it, and they aren’t going to get away with a half ass job. I didn’t ask for this shit and it wasn’t my fault. I need my car back the way it was before Julio or whatever his name was saw fit to ruin the ass end of it.

When Being Right Isn’t Popular, and The Truth is Hard

January 7, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I would have loved to have met President Reagan. I would also have loved to have met General George S. Patton.

I have a love of historical non-fiction that I’ve not been able to indulge nearly as much as I would like to. However, I just finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II’s Most Audacious General, and have been intrigued by not only Patton the man, but also by the bureaucracy and dare I say it, ineptitude, that surrounded him.

Granted, Patton wasn’t a man known for diplomacy. His famous address to the Third Army on the eve of D-Day (according to today’s effete cultural standards) would have to be considered quite politically incorrect and would get at least an MA rating for the language he used. All the more reason for me to really admire the man.

The truth can be hard. The truth can be ugly. The truth can be as graphic and cold as the image of greasing the treads of tanks with our enemies’ guts. The truth is the truth even when people don’t like you when you point it out. The truth is the truth even when it runs afoul to the personal wheelings and dealings and schemes of those in high places.

We need a man like General Patton today. Someone (unlike me) who doesn’t have a 24-7 view of the lead dog’s hind end. I can’t (for a moment) imply that I am the fearless voice of anything. I’m doing good to not freak out just getting up and getting through my day.

I can only hope and pray that someone with conviction and guts and the audacity to stay on the truth track even if he’s the only one on the truth track will (somehow) land in a position of leadership. The only problem with finding people of conviction is, that even in his day, Patton was seen as brash and over the top. There are some who believe that his death in 1945 as a result of a car accident was actually an assassination, and that Patton was conveniently eliminated by the powers above him because he didn’t fit into the Allies’ post war plans. It is well known that Patton didn’t trust the Soviets (a distrust that was well-founded) and he had a greater disdain for Communism than he did for the Nazis. But history has proven him correct in many ways. Perhaps if the right people had listened to what Patton had to say, much of the strife of the Cold War could have been avoided, and Stalin wouldn’t have gained so much power following World War II.

Another hard truth is that history is often told by the winners.

I have much admiration for Winston Churchill, but I always thought the Brits sort of got the short end of the stick.

What would have transpired in the post-war world had General Patton not met with such an unfortunate end? Would he have been able to change the course of the latter half of the 20th century, even in some small way, and if so, would it have been better or worse?

Would confronting Stalin have led to a hot war with the Soviet Union that would have promised to have been as bloody and drawn out as the conquests of Germany and Japan? Or would it have led to a very different post-war landscape in which Eastern Europe would not have suffered under Communist oppression for forty years? Would the Brits have gotten a better deal when all was said and done?

What if (as some historians pose) FDR had passed before the fated Yalta Conference in which he conceded so much of post-war Europe to Stalin? Would Truman have been a better negotiator in that place, given that he was in better health and was a sort of plain, no-nonsense kind of person?

I know that I can’t change the past, but I think it’s important to learn from it. There’s way too much repeating the past and appeasing going on in this world (I need not mention the abomination that is the Obama administration, but I just did…) even though history has proven that feeding alligators only makes them bigger and hungrier.

Sometimes, as Patton said, (referring to the Germans and Japanese,)”The quickest way to get it (war) over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo.”

There is no negotiating with despots. The only way out of a bad situation is through it.

Too bad no one seemed to listen to Patton when he said, “I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood.”

We know Obama won’t listen to the hard facts and the truth of history, and his pandering to the despots and terrorists and thugs of this world will cost how many gallons of blood?

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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Month: January 2015