I complain…a lot. I struggle with everything. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful, because I truly am.
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What are you grateful for this lovely Tuesday?
I’m in total disbelief regarding the banning of books in this country. I just don’t get it.
I understand that children shouldn’t be allowed to read explicit materials. But banning books that have been used as teaching materials for as long as I can remember from school libraries is ridiculous! Why not consider the importance of what can be learned from a book? When I was a kid, I had to read books like Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and To Kill A Mockingbird. Those books have been banned in many school libraries. Such a shame. There’s much to be learned from such books which also teach kids to THINK.
Books are under attack in this country. Why are we allowing our legislators, and school boards to control what our children read? Isn’t that our job as parents? If you don’t want your child to read To Kill A Mockingbird, then by all means, don’t let him read it. That’s no reason to ban it so that no one else’s child can read it. Many of the books being banned are written by authors of color or LGBTQ+ authors. Many of the banned books are about racism, gender, or history. Are these people afraid that kids are going to learn something, perhaps from another person’s perspective? …that they will learn reasoning and communication skills or increase their vocabulary? Holy cow. Some school libraries are completely void of anything with substance!
There’s a simple solution to this problem. We all most likely agree that a 2nd grader shouldn’t be reading sexually explicit materials, such as Lolita or The Handmaid’s Tale, so leave those books (and similar others) to the public libraries. In school libraries, why not mark each book according to grade level and content. This way, the librarian will know if a second grader is allowed to check that book out of the library. For example, The Diary of Anne Frank probably isn’t suitable for a 2nd grader but a 5th or 6th grader would likely be able to understand what she is reading.
Also, parents! Stop being pussies about what your kid is learning in school! More harm is done to your precious demons when they’re constantly watching horror films and playing violent video games. They’d be better off READING! Consider perhaps reading those banned books with your kids and having discussions about the contents. Trust me, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are not what’s going to turn your child into a mass murderer. And reading books about LGBTQ+ identities is not going to warp your child’s mind or turn them gay or anything else. If your child is gay, trans, bi, etc., then that’s who they are, regardless of what they read or what you say or do. Harry Potter is more likely to spark your child’s imagination than turn him against your religion.
I’m afraid this is going to get even worse. Eventually, books are going to be banned in public libraries and bookstores. My advice: Get all the books you can now. Read them. Encourage your kids to read them. Learn!
Below is a list of some books that have been challenged or banned in various schools across the country. It is not a complete list. Get them while you still can! Most of these can be found on Amazon.
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Giver – Lois Lowry
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
1984 – George Orwell
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Twilight – Stephenie Meyer
Maus I and II – Art Speigelman
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – John Berendt
Malcolm X – Malcolm X
Girl, Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen
Hop on Pop – Dr. Seuss YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!
Fifty Shades of Grey – E. L. James
The DaVinci Code – Dan Brown
A Time To Kill – John Grisham
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
For Whom The Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Go Ask Alice – Anonymous
Different Seasons – Stephen King
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West – Gregory Maguire
The Devil’s Highway – Luis Alberto Urrea
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane
13 Reasons Why – Jay Asher
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Black Hawk Down – Mark Bowden
The Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank
The Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Critical Race Theory – Kimberly Crenshaw
Walter the Farting Dog – William Kotzwinkle
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson
The Pentagon Papers – Neil Sheehan
The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Forever – Judy Blume
The Perks of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Grendel – John Gardner
Call of the Wild – Jack London
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America: The Book – John Stewart
Shooter – Walter Dean Myers
I can’t. I say that a lot. I say that a lot because it’s true. I can’t.
I can’t do the things I used to do. I can’t do the things that made me, ME.
I can’t go hiking. I can barely walk to the bathroom. I used to go on backpacking trips with my Dad when I was younger. I put that on the back burner when I started my family, planning to get back to it when the kids were older. When the kids were older, I started having issues with my legs. Now I will never go hiking or backpacking again.
I can’t cook. I used to cook 3 meals a day. I love to cook! I was pretty good at it, too. I used to cook from scratch. Never mind boxed mac n cheese, rice a roni, or stuffing. I made it from scratch. Corn dogs? No problem. Pizza? Done. I loved to cook. At one time, I dreamed of opening my own pizza joint. But now, I can’t. These days, it’s hard for me just to make sandwiches or a microwave meal. It’s the moving around that’s difficult. You just don’t know how much you move around when you do things…until you can’t.
I can’t make soaps and bath products anymore. I had a home business at one time. I was making a name for myself. I wasn’t getting rich but I loved what I was doing. I had to close my business after 12 years.
I can’t do steps/stairs. I need access to a bathroom and it must be handicap accessible. I have to plan everything I do according to bathrooms and steps/stairs. Some places that I have to go, like the vet when one of my furbabies is sick, has a bathroom but no handlebars and the toilet is so low I have a terrible time! But when you gotta go, you gotta go.
I can’t clean the house the way I used to clean the house. One day each week, the house was cleaned. Everything you do to clean a house was done in a few hours that one day each week. Now, I have to split things up. I do a chore or 2 every day because that’s all I can do. And it’s not enough. Closets and cabinets need cleaning. Clutter needs to be organized, donated, or thrown out. I just can’t.
I can’t mow the lawn anymore. Dad and I used to take turns on the rider. One of us would mow and the other would use the weedeater. Our yard used to be so pretty! We got compliments all the time! Now I can’t mow because the vibration would jar my bones something awful and I know this because I used to have a vibrating foot massager and that alone made me hurt so bad I gave it away! I can’t use the weedeater because I can’t walk without aid.
I used to take long drives. I’d drive to my sister’s house in Illinois or go to the big city of Springfield and hit the mall! I used to go out with friends; to the movies or out for lunch. Nowadays, I can’t go anywhere. I can barely get in and out of the car – and it’s getting harder. The seat just doesn’t go back far enough and it’s hard (and painful) getting my legs in and out. The family doesn’t understand why we (Dad and I) won’t come visit. They say, “We’ll come and get you,” but it’s the same difficulty and pain whether I’m driving or if I’m a passenger. Throw in a 4 or 5 hours drive and I think they must be out of their minds!
I know I need to focus on what I CAN do, and I do, but it’s not much. I can write in my blog and in my journal. I’m writing my cookbook. I have two other books in the works. I can do puzzles and crafts like diamond paintings and paint-by-number. I can still make jewelry, although I haven’t done it in a while. I can crochet. I can read. I can listen to audiobooks. I can still drive. I can think for myself. I can do crossword puzzles and word finds. I try to keep my mind active even though my body is not. I try to stay positive but it’s hard when you can’t do the things you want to do.
How do you reinvent yourself when you really don’t have much to work with? Where do I go from here? My life sure as hell didn’t turn out the way I envisioned it. Now what? What do I do now that I can’t be the me I used to be?
Joe Biden is too old? Give me a break. We have a Vice President who can take over if anything should happen to him. That’s why we have a Vice President. Why is Biden too old and Donald Trump is not? There’s only 3 years difference!
Some say we don’t have a gun problem. I call bullshit. No one wants to take away your damn guns, so give it a rest. I’m all for the right to own a gun to protect your home, family, and possessions. I get it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone in this country has the right to own a firearm BUT not everyone is responsible enough to own one. Lock your guns up. Keep them away from your children. Don’t allow anyone to have access to your guns. Be responsible. Don’t solve your problems with violence! We need to do something about the mass shootings we have nearly every day in this country. Do you know how many mass shootings there have been this month in the US? Do you know how many shootings there have been since January 1st? Take a look here!
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of this Trump bullshit. Lock him up for God’s sake and throw away the key! If you don’t want to do the time then don’t do the crime! And yes, he DID do the crime(s)…we all know it. Why should he get away with it? You might be on the warpath now about Hunter Biden, blah blah blah. Well, if he broke the law then he should be held accountable, too. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW! Trump seems to think he can do anything he wants regardless of the Constitution, regardless of the LAW. Why the hell would you want him as President AGAIN?? Mark my words, if he’s elected again, we will never get rid of him. He wants to be a dictator! He will turn this country inside out and our lives as we know it, will never be the same.
Do you use Walmart’s curbside service? I do, because I’m disabled and it’s easier for me to have someone else do the shopping. The hard part is unloading it when I get home. My biggest complaint is that some of the shoppers don’t know how to shop. For example, last week I ordered a head of iceberg lettuce. What I got was a flimsy, airy head of lettuce that was so void of substance that I was lucky to get 2 single-serve salads out of it. One time I got a bell pepper with rotten spots all over it. Another time, when I went to unload my groceries, I found the bread crammed into the trunk organizer with a huge bag of canned goods. Grrr…. I just wish they’d take more care when shopping and loading. I know it’s just a job to them and not a career, but it’s important to many of us who can’t go inside the store. I need this service!
I was working on a jigsaw puzzle last week, and I was shocked to find that the outside pieces weren’t very distinguishable from the others. I mean, some I could tell were outside pieces without a doubt but there were too many that had flat edges that weren’t outside pieces! I love a hard puzzle but geez, I like to be able to tell the difference between the inside pieces and the outside pieces! Oh, and then when I finally got the outside put together, there were several pieces that didn’t interlock because they had flat sides so the border wouldn’t stay together!
I finally got to meet my youngest grandbaby! He doesn’t travel well, not even the 15 miles to come visit us, so we stopped by to see him. I hadn’t done this before because my son’s house has steps, front and back. I really can’t do steps, but it was too hot to stay outside so I put my big girl panties on and hoisted my fat ass up the steps. They aren’t little steps either. They are deeeeep! If there hadn’t been something to hang onto, I’d have never attempted it. I suffered afterward for it, that’s for sure! Anyway, Elias was in a happy mood so I got him to smile. His big brother, Hudson, who turns 5 on September 1st, is very proud of his baby brother! He was also proud to have a broken arm – yep, not even 5 yet and he broke his arm doing flips or some shit in the house!! But it wasn’t a serious break I guess, because the cast came off after just a couple of weeks.
Jack’s Pack, is now only a pack of 3. As you may know, we lost Honey Bear in July. It’s been extremely quiet around the house. Honey was very vocal and the others aren’t – except for BobCat when he’s playing with his toy snake. He walks around the house with it in his mouth, meowing as if he’s calling the others to come play. But it’s still quiet. If I were able-bodied and younger I’d consider getting a kitten. Kittens are so much fun to play with and to watch! When they get older they don’t play much. BobCat is still pretty young; around 3 years old I think. He was a stray and outside for a long time so he didn’t have toys nor did he know the joy of playing. He’s making up for lost time now!
I’m still chugging along on my cookbook. I’m now trying to find some of the recipes I missed so I can include them and last week I was working on my Granny’s recipes. Oh boy, what a mess. One of her bread recipes is incomplete! There’s only a list of ingredients – and she left out how much flour to use! There’s no oven temp or instructions so I have to figure that out if I want to include it in my cookbook! Back in her younger days, she worked in a bar/restaurant and she made some salad dressings in large quantities; her recipes call for #10 cans, gallons, and such. These recipes I will have to break down because most of us don’t want gallons of dressings sitting in the fridge taking up room or going bad! Unless you have a super large crowd to serve, it would take a long time to use it all up! Anyway, I’m hoping to get organized to the point that I’ll be calling on my volunteers to test recipes! If you’d like to volunteer, be sure to let me know in the comments!
Well, that’s what’s on my mind this morning.
Last week was hectic. After losing my Honey Bear to a tumor, BobCat decided to get sick. He had a fever, and the sniffles, snorts, and sneezes. Our vet can’t see him until Wednesday BUT BobCat is feeling much better. He’s eating and drinking, using the litter box, and the sniffles, snorts, and sneezes are down to a minimum. So, my stress level is slowly coming down.
Last week, in the midst of trying to give Honey Bear a few days of feeling better, I made a run to Walmart for a curbside pickup. I was getting mostly canned cat foods with gravy, and pouches of broth and gravy, to entice Honey Bear into eating. On the way, MODOT (Missouri Dept. of Transportation) was working alongside the highway, on the left side. They were spraying weeds and unwanteds on the right of way and on the fence line. There was a State Trooper parked keeping an eye on things. I thought to myself, remember to watch yourself on the way back. Simple enough, right?
Well, I have a disabled placard for parking hanging in my car. I have a bad habit of just leaving it hang from my rearview mirror, which is against MO law. So, I took it down, having a feeling that the patrolman would pull me over, sure as shit. Thinking ahead, you know?
On the way back, I saw the patrolman first and I slowed down. MODOT was just ahead of him, still spraying. I didn’t want to get in the way of the sprayers so I moved over to the left, which took me over the center line just a little. Next thing I knew, the patrolman’s lights were on and coming up behind me. I thought, surely he’s not coming for me. I pulled over to let him pass…and he pulled over right behind me. Shit Fuck Shit, I said out loud to myself. What the hell did I do?
The patrolman was pleasant and asked for my license and proof of insurance. I handed those items to him and I asked, “Did I do something wrong?” He replied, “You’re not aware of what you did?” I said, “No, sir.” He told me that I went over the center line of the highway and asked why I did that. I said, “Because I didn’t want to get in the way of MODOT.” He very nicely informed me that MO law requires that a vehicle slow or stop when there are oncoming vehicles before moving over the centerline. In doing what I did, I caused oncoming traffic to have to move onto the shoulder. I’m thinking to myself that it wasn’t my fault the oncoming traffic moved over. They were far enough ahead that they didn’t have to do that. I didn’t say that, because I’m not going to argue with a patrolman! I told him, “I should have known better. When people are testing for a driver’s license, anytime you cause another driver to do something he wasn’t going to do in the first place, they flunk you automatically.” He nodded in agreement, and said, “Hang tight, I’ll be right back.” He walked back to his patrol car and after several minutes passed I thought, “Shit. He’s writing me a ticket.” I wanted to make fun of his Dudley Do-Right hat and his sissy boots but I didn’t want to get shot. Haha!
He came back to the car, handed my license and proof of insurance back to me, and explained to me that MODOT had reported that people were doing exactly what I had done and were afraid there would be an accident. They asked that the highway patrol send someone to keep an eye out. He was very nice about the whole thing. He sent me on my way with a warning. Boy, was I relieved! I thanked him and told him it wouldn’t happen again.
I think it helped that I have never had a ticket in my entire life, not even a parking ticket! I had only been pulled over twice prior to this, once in California and once 30 years ago here in Missouri. Having proper insurance and driving a car with updated plates with no red flags helped as well. That’s probably why it took him so long! He was running my license, insurance, plates, the whole nine yards.
I drove away wiping the sweat off my brow. Thankfully, I have a funny story to tell about how I fucked up instead of a ticket to have to pay. I’d never hear the end of that!
Being Aunt Debbie 