Lashing Out

Style over the years seems to dictate to some women, how to look. Hems go up and down, shapes go twig or trunk, and make-up goes natural or neon. At the moment, and it might be only a moment, eye lashes and brows are the big fashion push. People are rushing to salons to get their eyebrows tattooed on and their lashes stuck to lids. Hair chic is no longer subtle; it screams, "look what I did". And that's all very well, but some of the latest trends go far too far. The other day in a drug store, I was lashed by the pharmacist who was offering advice. Her fake glued-on eyelid hair was so long that I worried she might get it entangled in her clipped-on hair piece that coursed redly, down one shoulder. There is nothing wrong with enhanced big eyebrows or even eye lashes, but when the length begs lawn mower please, that goes too far. Men also have their fashion dictates. Some of the hair styles that defy description are worn with mannish miens that say, if you don't like it, don't look. Sorry, but that is impossible, and you know it. When a young man's forehead cowers beneath a bang that rises six inches skyward and the rest of the hair spikes to the stars, too, it's a challenge to divert one's attention to his collar buttons. To add to the "do" are the rainbow hues. But, to each his own and personal expression reigns. That is the rule. Apparently. But don't tell me off-the-wall-style, isn't done to attract attention and comment about the individual's uniqueness. But then, if everyone was on the fashion "stage" who would be the audience? It is, therefore, not only amusing but essential that we have persons who go to fashion extremes for the sake of alleviating our day to day boredoms. The greats of the global designer world, when they hold their iconic shows, always add attention-getting segments that are more for trend signals than as wearable garments. The shoes are lethal ankle breakers, the fabrics are so complex and difficult to create more than once, the models so cracker snap thin that we all know it's pure fantasy, and we love it. Few women on our health conscious continent are unlikely, anyway,  to squeeze into  designs that hired immature fourteen year old bodies sashay down the aisles anyway. They won't fit the average form, no matter how many hours a week the hopeful women sweat themselves to "fitness" on a treadmill in the local gym. Be it eyelashes, brows, bony bods or Vitamin B, it's fashion and not going to last. But, it is fun to gaze at, and wonder why.

Secret Life of a Widow

A widow is envisioned as someone who sits in a corner wearing black from head to toe, weeping and groaning about how she misses her past life. She is seen to be quite helpless and mostly dependent. Often times, some think she must be visited and sympathized with frequently. She's the one poor soul, pitied when it comes to finances or home handy work. All of that nonsense can be tossed. A widow, or as I like to be called, a single, is simply a female without a man but with marriage experience. That's about it. Grieving is an option, but in my book, it's a waste, a waste of time and very good memories that should be valued and trotted out when you need a positive boost. Being a widow, and I have to say, I don't like the term any more than I did "married", "hitched" or "partnered", has no more dark moments than the life of anyone else. There are things to be done that some widows have to re-learn since half of their relationship who may have done them, is no longer present. There are many things to re-learn since you started out, perhaps decades before, as a bride, but you did them before you were wed, and you can do them again. Sure, the world has changed, but only from a technical point and that's not impossible to learn. Don't make the mistake of falling into the arms of your kids. They have their own lives to get on with. The first thing about getting into the technical world is to know that while all the terminology seems foreign, it isn't. And there is nothing hard about it. Believe me it is a state of mind that you have to conquer first, and if you could rear children, you can certainly enter the tech world easily. Open your mind and you're in. It's a lot easier to do your business on line that scrabbling around with a pencil on the dining room table. Your kids or grandkids will teach you in a jiff. The shift from having a partner who did half of the family activity takes a bit of time and a lot of patience, but it can be done. I didn't know how to fill the gas tank of my car because my Prince hopped out and did all that for me. Now, I can pop the hood and talk to my car service man with a tone of an owner, and he or she had better not try and talk me into what I do not need. But I speak with politeness and patience. It gains respect. When I am patronized, I side-step it and stick to the business at hand without sighs of helplessness and giggles of the mindless. I am not a toughie and never want to be, but I have learned that I own the same piece of sidewalk that everyone else has and that if I want to survive as a whole human being, I have to get out there and trot. Being an older widow alone, means protecting yourself by learning all of the safety features and knowledge about being alone and female. It's not hard and when you have done it for awhile, you can look at your successful self in the mirror and smile. You've come a long way lady!

Three Day Survival

Finally did it. My friends in this building, not a tower, tell me I ought to have a survival kit. Where I live is a rainy place that is often regarded even though I love it, as being too rainy and wet. I live only a few blocks from the centre of this small city within a city that is emergency equipped, but still, I am told I need to have one of these emergency earthquake kits. We live on a Pacific fault. I used to smirk and nod my head with no intention of getting a kit, but pictures of a recent earthquake that killed many people far south of us, made me change my mind. One photograph of a woman sitting in the middle of a major capital city in Central America, she, distraught and weeping, made me do it. She was in her night wear and had nothing, not even her handbag with her. There was no emergency truck near by and hoards of other people crowded the area looking frightened. She was obviously a well-kept woman ordinarily, but disasters care nothing about money or power or position. It was time for me to become wiser about natural disasters and their effects. I learned. I now have a small cardboard box with a three day supply of water, food substitute and among a few other things, a shiny blanket that promises to retain 80 percent of my body heat. This cardboard box is going to be in the compartment under my ground level patio barbecue even though they recommend you put it near your bed. Who thinks of grabbing a cardboard box in an emergency, especially if you are at one end of your place and the other end where the box is, collapses. I hope this emergency box can withstand freezing temperatures. In the winter time, we do have some very cold days even in the moderate temperate zone in which I live. I may have to make an adjustment and put my emergency box inside when it's below zero. I see in the kit, there are packages of water and food cakes that are supposed to keep me going for three days. They look pretty small. I am going to add to this kit and put some first aid supplies in, an extra blanket and sox, maybe a flashlight plus my meds. When there is a disaster and I can, I will naturally go for my purse. It's got my life in it: access to my financials, all of my personal health and ID records as well as a copy of my passport: things that make me a person in the eyes of the law. I do this regardless of advice that I should never carry such in my bag. Okay, you can travel around with a twenty and your driver's license only, but I am going to carry around what I need, not what you say I should, in view of  crime situations that might occur in less than one percent of the population. Advice! We get too much of that. So here I am, purse near, emergency kit under the patio barbecue, and I, realistically or not, prepared for the worst. Hoping it doesn't happen!

Muffining

Here it is a Sunday morning and the visiting offspring or that of it, yawns into your kitchen for a day of mayhem. Nothing cures mayhem more than something-to-do. Put the youngsters to work. Make muffins. Don't take the "bought" ones out of the freezer no matter how much you paid for them. They can never taste as good as what you will make today. Into a big bowl, and put the kids to work  on this, the lumpy ingredients: chopped nuts, apples, raisins or whatever they can invent, into the muffin-making bowl. If you have a big crowd or one that has a huge appetite, get two bowls going. if your young cooks want chocolate chips, so be it; skip some of the sugar. Into the bowl have them toss, I cup of flour, I tablespoon of baking powder, the magic addition of salt to make the former ingredient work. Tell the kids that baking is chemistry in action. From a half cup of sugar to almost none or use syrup if you wish for half, add the sweetness. A quarter cup of butter, the real thing, not the other one full of additives that never tastes as good. Toss in an egg. Stir it all up and slowly add, while mixing, the wet ingredient. I use powdered milk which is already in the bowl but use whatever kind of milk works for you, and there are many.  Stir and stir and stir. The kids love this part.  Lastly, pop in the lumpy bits: apples, nuts, raisins, strawberries, blueberries lemon zest whatever you have chopped up and on hand. Could even be bacon and cheese.  Oil the muffin tins, fill them not quite to the top and put the pan into the oven for about 15 minutes, give or take. The children will be watching the home-made treats, slowly rise and brown. They can make a contest with the timer as to when they will be done. It might prove that the oven door can be just as exciting as the device screen they spend too much time on, and which hopefully, all good grandparents have insisted is in the basket by the door where they will reside until departures take place. If you do the latter, you are being a good grandparent, never mind the grumbles. It's your house! Experts say that young ones spend far too much time on screens. Back to the muffins. When the time is up, give the tops a bit of a push on top to make sure they are at the springy stage before taking them out of the oven. When you do, give the pan a tap upside down over the counter and the muffins should fall out.  By this time, you have had the children set the table and filled the glasses with milk or juice or water and it's hot muffin eat up the yummy stuff time. No need to put the butter out. Your young cooks are reminded that it's already in the muffins. Of course, only our  best junior cooks can taste the butter in the muffins! You'll find that nothing brings a family closer together than sitting down at table eating what it cooked together. And all that fun, isn't on a screen.

Legal Murder

Having just finished Engel's book, Lord High Executioner, I can honestly say that my former opinion about legal execution, holds true. It behooves me to think that there is justice in juries, judges and the general public believing that killing another human being is, in any way, morally right and just. There is no form of execution that is not painful. If you think so, do some close research. Not even lethal injection is necessarily painless because, as all inflicted medications, sometimes the method experiences unique errors. There is something deeply disgusting about one human life killing the life of another, even with legal reason. In fact, to me, that makes it all the more horrific considering that those doing it, have the excuse of the law behind them, to set up a cold,
 planned death with witnesses and locations and methods that include the participation in some way, of  the individual who is to die under the jurisdiction they deem to carry out. History as told in Engel's book, gives ample background of the interest, salacious or not, in executions as a method of punishment for crime. Ancient ways of putting criminals to death were grim spectacles with attendant picnic baskets, revelries and general celebration. Some of the so-called crimes were the theft of something as insignificant as theft by a poor, starving child of a piece of bread! Even today, legislation, cold-bloodedly insists upon witnesses, medical participation and media coverage of executions. Galleries of press, relatives and invited persons are and or were, set up in institutions to add proof in visual satisfaction, that the event is or was duly carried out. To believe that, as in some opinions, misled as they are, incarceration is more expensive is incorrect. Execution can cost upward of over a million and a half dollars, considering all of the formal documentation and legal requirements. It costs much less to keep an offender in jail for the rest of its life. Fortunately, in enlightened countries, executions have ended and to me, that indicates their level of intelligent human decency and compassion over that of vengeance in the name of the law. In the first place, obviously and evidently, most legal punishments other than fining, are not deterrents. To think so, is simply and logically, ridiculous and wrong. Incarceration is the worst kind of punishment. The latter removes the one element that makes us truly human. That element is freedom. It is the freedom to chose how, where, when and with whom we associate and operate. If that freedom is taken away, all that is open to us as people on earth, has disappeared and we are lost. In prison, from what I read of those residing there, choice is eliminated almost fully, from the prisoner's life. That must be the ultimate punishment and thus, naturally, the best deterrent.

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