Advice from a Spirit, Italy Gets Robbed ... and Bob Tells A Story

Okay, I’m not going to go into that much detail ... suffice it to say that another dream (this one a gift from a certain guardian spirit who shall remain nameless) gave me instructions on how to stop the spasms and twitches in my lower legs.

The dream was actually an image of me acting in the role of – I’m assuming – a hair dresser.  Another very handsome man – who shall also remain nameless because he’s still very much alive! – was sitting in the chair in front of me, wearing one of those plastic sheets that barbers put over you so you don’t end up with hair cuttings all over your shirt.

The only odd thing about this scenario was that I wasn’t cutting his hair, I was gently applying oil to the top of his head with a cotton ball.  He said, “What is that?  It feels weird,” and I looked down to discover he had hair growing out of his scalp where he hadn’t had any hair at all a few moments ago.  I lifted his hand and let him touch his new hair, and he whipped around in the chair to gape at me with an expression of shocked amazement and astonishment on his face.  End of dream.

At the time I had the dream, I was in such pain you wouldn’t believe it – ongoing leg spasms and twitches so painful, I was unable to accomplish simple things like shuffling around the house with a walker ... I mostly just sat and suffered and kept taking more and more muscle relaxers which were making me dizzy, groggy and nauseous.

Because of the identity of the man in that chair, I knew exactly who had sent the dream to me ... and because of that, I’m thinking, “Okay, I don’t think he wants me to take the contents of the dream THAT literally.  ” (In other words, I’m sure the man in the chair would not have been all that amused, had I chased him around in real life threatening to apply oil to the top of his head with a cotton ball). 

I suspected I was supposed to figure out which oil I had been using in this dream – that way, I thought, maybe the underlying message would make more sense.

So I did a little bit of internet research on the few bottles of oil I had in the house at the time.  Some of it cooking oil, some of it fragrant oil, some of it spiritual oil.  I was researching my third or fourth type of oil, when I found it.  Used for strengthening and re-growing hair.  Then I read one of its other uses:  curing muscle pain and stiffness.  Enlightenment slowly dawned and I said, “Ahhh-ha!”

Like most homeopathic remedies for things, I anticipated that if this oil did anything beneficial for my lower legs at all, it would take time to build up in my system.  But I had grown to trust this particular spirit/guide, so, as soon as I identified the oil, I went and applied some, just to see what happened.  What was I expecting?  I expected that I would be using it as some sort of massage oil on my legs.  But I expected wrong.  I knew this spirit well, and should have known better.  (I have apologized to that wonderful spirit more than once for doubting things he tells me.)

The spasms and twitches stopped in their tracks less than a minute after my application.  Just with a cotton ball.  No massaging, no kneading of the muscles.  Just applying it.  The spasms and twitching and pain stopped – as though someone had flicked a switch.  My jaw practically hit the floor.  I was so not expecting that I stared at my own legs with the same expression that the handsome man in the barber chair had on his face in my dream when he discovered he suddenly had his hair back.  I said, “Wha ...?  How is that possible?”

But it was.  And three days later – as long as I keep applying it – I still haven’t had any leg spasms or twitches or pain.  This is, quite truthfully, one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me.

And may I now take this opportunity to apologize again to this really awesome guardian spirit ... publicly ... I am so sorry!  You would hope that at some point, I’d stop underestimating you!

Meanwhile ... now that I have a lot of my energy back ... I’m thinking up all sorts of things I can do to kill time until I see the neuro-muscular specialist.  Not sure which one to do first.

Bob telling a wonderful story about The Cowsills at Yankee Stadium in 1966 – and The Beach Boys setting fire to the locker room.  I could listen to him all day!




Finale, Eurovision.  Il Volo and Italy definitely won the popular vote – by a mile – but the jury in Vienna not surprisingly went with the politically safe choice and picked Sweden.  Il Volo won the televote by a wide margin - the "televote" being the vote by the public throughout all of Europe.  Needless to say, the howls of outrage are still going on.  But Il Volo turned in one heck of a performance ... as always, they were magnificent.  In any event – here’s their finale performance.

Journey to 1993: Edmund Spenser, Prophetic Dreams, Surprising Love Poems and Armin Shimerman's Quark

Thinkest thou I’ll tease the smile
of one so far and distant placed,
and self-protective, all the while
in public eye, to be embraced?
Methinks the man will soon be chased,
by one who seeks his visage fair
Not caring I, he lewd or chaste,
More wishing I be with him there ...
Me, 1993, “Good Grief”

An interesting day, reliving 1993.  Believe it or not, that was actually generated after having watched a VHS tape of an original Beauty and the Beast with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton.  They had included a song with the episode – but the song made me think of Edmund Spenser.  From what I recall, the song was about having loved someone forever.  THAT brought to mind a conversation with the awesome Armin Shimerman I’d had when a friend dragged me to a Star Trek convention across the street from Penn Station.  I forget why she was so desperate to go – some actor SHE was off the deep end over - but I liked Deep Space Nine, so said, “Sure!”  and went along with her.

I actually had a great time – very enjoyable.  And really enjoyed a brief chat with Armin Shimerman (who played Quark in that series) – and who is also one of the most gifted and well-read Shakespearean actors on the planet.  In that conversation, Edmund Spenser came up; I’d gone out after the conversation and bought a collection of his works.

Coincidentally, Armin also played a character named Pascal in the same Beauty and the Beast series; so this was an entire synchronicity of events happening here like a chain of dominos.  One thing reminded me of the next.  Watching the episode, I was reminded of Armin Shimerman who reminded me of Edmund Spenser who reminded me of his sonnets, while listening to a love song that reminded me of first loves that had felt like they went on forever, because I had never forgotten them.

With me so far?  So guess who who that opening love poem – dashed off without thinking, really, while this line of dominos was falling – was about?  I actually gave it the title, “Good Grief”, because I thought it sounded so ... silly and obsessive (considering that it was 1993 and I thought at the time that the man I had written the Spenserian inspired love poem about had disappeared off the face of the planet 20 years earlier in the early 1970’s) when I wrote it.

Give you a hint:  I just met him for the first time a week ago and nearly fainted on him.  Yup.

Anyway, I just found it today and grinned from ear to ear.  And thank goodness I hadn’t found this yet when I wrote him the letter I handed him!  Good grief indeed:  he would have taken one look at that and said the same thing; although hopefully I would have had the sense not to reprint it in the letter.

What happened today was that I located a file folder containing all of the pages from a journal I kept in 1993.  Most of it is wincingly ridiculous, but I found another very strange entry:  Wednesday, October 27, 1993.  I had a cold at the time and had taken a cold medicine that made me very groggy before going to sleep:

“Had a horrible sleep last night, which I still don’t understand; maybe it resulted from too many doses of Nyquil or something.  It was of being shot on the subway.  All I remember of it was a man with a gun.  He shot at me, and I fell off the seat to my left and landed face down on the floor.  Question rose in mind mind:  was I faking it, or had he really shot me?  I could sense him pointing the gun a second time at my back as I lay there.  Then I woke up, struggling out of a deep sleep.”

What makes that entry a little odd is that on December 7, 1993, on the LIRR, Colin Ferguson “pulled out his gun and started firing at passengers. He killed six and wounded nineteen before being stopped by three of the passengers.”  I recall even thinking, “I think I dreamed about this,” at the time – meaning, I heard about it on the news, and thought, “This sounds familiar,” as though it had already happened.

I’m not sure if I even looked it up in my own journal to check – just had the thought and let it go – but I certainly dreamed something that shared some of the details with something that actually happened.  Not sure what I was supposed to DO with that – start jumping up and down and crying, “There’s going to be a shooting on a train – somewhere, sometime - by somebody”?  I couldn‘t, obviously, which makes me always wonder about the value of what appears to be precognitive dreams like that.  Nothing you can do about it – just stand there and watch it unfold when it does, and brag that you’re psychic or something?  And I never rode the LIRR, so it wasn’t even something that impacted me personally – my dream took place on a subway, because that’s what I rode every day.

I also had come up with the most awesomely creative idea for a quilted triptych based on Spenser’s Sonnet #71:

I joy to see how, in your drawen work,
Your selfe unto the Bee ye doe compare,
And me unto the Spyder, that doth lurke
In close awayt, to catch her unaware.
Right so your selfe were caught in cunning snare
Of a deare foe, and thralled to his love;
In whose streight bands ye now captived are
So firmely, that ye never may remove.
But as your worke is woven all about
With woodbynd flowers and fragrant eglantine,
So sweet your prison you in time shall prove,
With many deare delights bedecked fyne:
And all thensforth eternall peace shall see
Betweene the Spyder and the gentle Bee.

As I read the idea, I definitely remember laying the entire plan out in my Quilt Journal at the time ... one of the many valuable, irretrievable documents that made up the creativity of a human life that Carbonite utterly and permanently destroyed in their Epic Fail later on.  To this day, every time I see the name “Carbonite”, I want to shriek:  don’t fall for it, don’t do it!  they’re lying!  They’ll destroy your life’s documents like they destroyed mine!!

Yes, the damage they did carries on to this day, that’s how far reaching their failure was.  And is.

In fact, the destruction of my Quilt Journal was so massive, I couldn’t even work up the energy to start a new one until THIS YEAR – and it has been, what?  Five years since they lost the first one?  Six?  And the paltry one I have now will never come close to the one they destroyed.

(Yeah, I know:  hold grudges much?) (Why yes – something that overwhelmingly destructive?  Yes, I do.)

Another Spenserian sonnet I fell in love with in 1993.  I had changed the gender of the piece – he had been writing about a woman; I rewrote it for a man:

Was it the work of nature or of Art?
which tempred so the feature of his face:
that pride and mischief mixt by equall part,
do both appear t'adorn his beauties grace?
For with mild humor, which doth pride displace,
he to his love doth lookers eyes allure:
and with stern countenance back again doth chase
their looser lookes that stir up lusts impure,
With such strange terms his eyes he doth inure,
that with one look he doth my life dismay:
and with another doth it straight recure,
his smile me draws, his frown me drives away.
Thus doth he train and teach me with his looks,
such art of eyes I never read in books.
Sonnet 21 by Edmund Spenser

I don't remember who I had in mind with that Spenserian re-write.  You would think it was the same long-lost (at the time) "first crush" who inspired the quick love poem that opened this entry, but I'm not certain of that.  Other than these beauties, 1993 seemed to have been a rather angry year:  in a job I hated, working for a boss I didn’t like, not happy at all.  The only pleasure I seemed to derive from the year was a burst of creativity that Carbonite completely destroyed all records of ... and some really nice poetry, thanks to a Shakespearean-loving Ferengi.  I wonder if I ever thanked him for that.

Clothes Patterns, Fabric, Neanderthals and Soul Mates

Had the most delicious swordfish for lunch – well, a portion of one anyway – I made it just like I would have made fresh tuna and let it marinate overnight, and it came out like melt-in-your mouth heaven:  marinated and then braised in wine, fruit juice, ginger, leeks, garlic and soy sauce, and the fish was so succulent it fell apart on your fork.  I have discovered I really love leeks, by the way, surprising exactly no one because I am a passionate fan of onions and garlic when I can get away with eating them and not asphyxiating anybody.  It has always seemed a shame to me that roots so heavenly and fragrant and delicious and healthy are the same roots which leak out your pores and have people backing away from you.

Back to the pattern creation:  to my surprise, I found two tops that had the back yoke like I wanted, so now I can make an attempt at reverse engineering them for my first try at a “made from scratch” clothes pattern.  Hadn’t thought of them because they (yes, both of them) had been in the “missing a button” box for so long.  Clothes are really poorly made these days:  you wear them once and buttons just fall off of them.  Found the buttons too, so may actually be able to wear them again, assuming they’re not too big for me now ... once I sew the buttons on, that is.

There was this pattern I bought many years ago – a Retro Pattern from 1952 (Butterick) – which I just loved, although I doubted I could ever wear it ... big, full skirt, that wraps around from the back and buttons in the front, lined by double-edged bias tape that makes this wonderful, slimming line down the front ... and all of a sudden, my proportions are small enough that I can make it quite easily.  The plan was to shorten it dramatically ... no way was I going to wear the full length skirt you see here; I just loved that “Y” bias tape line down the center and the contrast “overskirt” illusion.

To give you an example of how I envisioned the shortened version – here’s another dress maker who had the same idea, although I planned to use  more contrast in the bias tape, but I did love how the dress looked – whoever she is, she did a gorgeous job on it.

So, I found some fabric in my collection that I thought might work, and started to cut out the pieces, WHILE hemming the sundress WHILE sewing on lost buttons WHILE layering We Can Fly in preparation for quilting it WHILE preparing Beautiful Beige for the applique work WHILE staring in dismay at my dishwasher.  (More on that later.)

It at least helped me begin to use up my fabric collection, which I really need to use up.  And while I was sorting through the bin of clothes fabric I found this amazingly lovely rose pattern, in either chiffon or silk or SOMETHING, a very light and sexy fabric ... with what looks like a muted grey/turquoise background ... (you’ll recall I had made the decision to reverse engineer a top in turquoise designed to match the moonstone ring?) and went, “Holy (bleep).”  I’d completely forgotten I had that before I went and bought the new fabric.  Need to measure it to see how much of it I have.

Unfortunately – it seems to be a veritable static electricity magnet, and it’s not even winter when static is typically an issue.  I had said I didn’t want it to cling – I hate the sensation of things that “cling”, drives me nuts – so I’m already trying to think of alternatives – i.e., like lining it, or using it as an overlay – that will minimize any static issues.

Also discovered I’d bought about 3 yards of a gorgeous fabric – heavy hand, brown with embroidery designs on it (also in brown, or perhaps black) – thinking:  I really need to find a beautiful dress pattern for this.  Don’t want to make it boring as a suit.  So I’m still cutting the pieces for the retro wrap around dress ... discovered I don’t have quite the full floor space for it, so it’s a challenge.

I’ve never eaten fiddlehead ferns before ... found some at the grocery store, and decided to try them – will sauté some up today and let you know how they taste.

C’era una volta
I suddenly realized that I had a counterpoint to the image of a soul mate as a Neanderthal ... the image I had of the two of us, roaming the grasslands together.  I loved that image when I first saw it; we’re such arrogant, self-righteous snots these days, we cannot conceive of our former selves in prehistoric times experiencing a full range of emotions, but that image showed me that we could and did.

The counterpoint was written recently; the experience of meeting someone for the first time that you’ve known and loved before.  You may not be bound together in this life, but you realize that it doesn’t matter – they’re still who they have always been, and you’re always connected with them at the soul level.  The reason I knew I’d hit the mark was that after writing it, I sat and read it aloud ... and discovered tears were running down my face.  Not of unhappiness; joyful tears of remembrance.

So, obviously, I’m working on that again, too ... I finally got the appointment with the neuro-muscular specialist, so I’m keeping myself busy until then.

Dishwasher:  I've had it installed for about a year and already both of the screws bolting it to the underside of the kitchen counter have fallen out - within a day of each other.  Just stared at the dislodged screws in amazement.  Now for the fun of trying to screw them both back in, thoroughly irritated that I need to do it.

Last:  Il Volo is now in competition for Eurovision 2015, representing Italy.  Their song?  Grande Amore, of course.  Today’s the big day.  And here they are, rehearsing – someone could probably fix their microphones before the finale – although the small imperfections in the rehearsal are why they have full dress rehearsals.  Can’t wait to see the final performance!

Moonstones, Passionate Love, Sewing Patterns, Vagabonds ... and Radishes

My yard work guy is out in the yard cleaning, raking, mowing ... and burying ... the plants I bought last spring – Korean Lilac, Rosemary – did not survive the winter, I’m sorry to say.  Considering they were buried under 10 feet of snow for the bulk of the winter, I’m not surprised.  Once the snow started, I couldn’t even walk through the snow (it was up to about my waist) to even check on them.  I’m thinking I should have transplanted them way ahead of winter, but never did before the snow started and the ground froze.  Besides one of those cheap planters I bought from Lowe’s started sagging the minute I put soil in it, and that didn’t help either.  It’s too bad ... I loved both of those plants, until they disappeared under mountains of snow and died a cruel death.

One of my new favorite rings ... a moonstone ... I’ve already received one compliment on it – at the grocery store of all places.

Moonstone Gemstone meaning:
Inspires and solidifies passionate love that will fly you to the moon.  Brings good fortune. Assists in foretelling the future, enhances intuition, promotes inspiration, brings success in love as well as business matters, offers protection on land and at sea. 

Loved that: “inspires and solidifies passionate love that will fly you to the moon”.  Not sure I needed a moonstone ring for that to happen, but couldn’t hurt.

Working on Beautiful Beige.  Have one of the two hands done; the violets and the golden cup done; now need the second hand and the violet leaves.  After that, adding a few more columns and appliqueing all of the pieces in place.  It’s actually looking really impressive.

I am also learning how to draft sewing patterns.  And why, you ask, would I want to learn how to draft sewing patterns?  Oh, no reason – sayeth I – except I’m different sizes and shapes depending on which body part you’re looking at, and ... NOTHING FITS RIGHT!  Other than that, no reason.

What I was doing, though, was thinking back to clothes I’d worn throughout my life and really loved.  I immediately thought of two of them:  one was a muted light beige floral swing skirt dress with cap sleeves and a tie that tied in the back ... another was an emerald green dirndl skirted dress made of a nubby sort of fabric.  Long sleeves.  I looked beautiful in it, or at least I thought so – who cares what anyone else thought? – so when the book suggested I look back at clothes I really loved and try to recreate them, those are the two I thought of, right off the bat.  So I had been trying to find a fabric that inspired me.  Nothing.  I was only able to find cotton florals, or satin, or crushed velvet ... nothing that really jumped out at me.

So then I thought:  why not try to match the beautiful ring?  Next I looked up turquoise, green and aquamarine fabric and found all sorts of beautiful things to use.  Now I've switched my idea from a dress to a summery top to wear over jeans.  My idea was: 

I want French cuffs, for one; a V-neck for two, but not so plunging it’s obscene;  I want it to cover the tops of my thighs but not most of my legs; I want the material to be flowing but not clingy, or starchy or stiff.  I want it to hang straight in the back, like with those pleats from the shoulders, or from the yoke.  I want it to be classy and sensuous, but not provocative or tasteless.  I’m trying to design it in my head ... but I’m not a clothes designer on paper; I’m not a sketch artist, I only see it visually.  Is this all too much to ask?

Apparently it was, because the book said to try and sketch it out on paper first.  THIS should be entertaining.  I could see THAT sketch in my head, easily enough: “Stick figure with turquoise shirt.”  I’m sure I’ll become a true fashion designer with that memorable design, trust me.  (Why do I do this to myself?  Tackle projects that drive me nuts because they're so out of my skill set?)

Next comes the fun part of trying to measure body parts I couldn’t quite reach.  Nothing like twisting yourself into knots trying to run a tape measure down your own back, or across the backs of your own shoulders.

But while I twist myself into a pretzel, back to finding recipes that use all parts of the ingredients, I had purchased some fresh radishes to use in a salad, and discovered that radish leaves are an absolutely heavenly “green” ... why on earth did I ever discard them in the past?  They’re wonderful!  Note:  soak them a little more thoroughly before consuming them.  And I think they’d make a delicious pesto.

“Radish greens appear alongside broccoli and kale in a list of vegetables that contain high levels of anti-cancer compounds called sulporaphane indoles in the book "Healthy Longevity Techniques: East-West Anti-Aging Strategies," by Joseph P. Hou, Ph.D. A study published in the February 2004 issue of the "International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition" found that greens from wild radishes showed considerable free radical scavenging ability. Researchers recommend increased consumption of radish and other vegetable greens to promote antioxidant activity.  Radish greens contain as much as six times the vitamin C content of the roots. The trace mineral molybdenum is also present in radish greens, as are potassium and the B-complex vitamin folic acid. Add radish greens to your fruit smoothies, says Victoria Boutenko in the book "Green Smoothie Revolution: The Radical Leap Towards Natural Health." Their fiber helps slow the absorption of sugar from the fruit and their nutrients add to the nutritional value without adding significantly to the calorie count.”

So there you go.  And who knew?  I just have always loved fresh radishes.  When I was younger, Mom grew them in her garden – I used to rinse them off with a garden hose and eat them right out of the ground.  The best!  In fact, I should grow those.  Provided I don't kill them off, too.

Now I haven't said much about the pub show after Westerly ... this was not a public concert, this was a Cowsill family reunion and celebration, in a private room in a Newport, Rhode Island pub. Ninety minutes of the entire family singing for and entertaining each other and having a wonderful time.  Below, you're seeing a performance by Tim Brooks (a Cowsill cousin) who sings locally around Newport, singing "Vagabond", a song written by Billy Cowsill.  He's backed up by Bob Cowsill on vocals and guitar,  John Cowsill on drums and Del Cowsill (Billy's son, playing Barry Cowsill's bass).  Bob's funny opening remark, directed at the backseat driver musicians and musical arrangers among his many talented relatives, "Look, all of you Tim folks who know his voice who think you need to tell us how to play for him?  Sit down!" - cracked everybody up.  Enjoy.

The Cowsills in Westerly, Rhode Island ... Bill Yells at Me ... and I Finally Meet Bob Cowsill

Well, THAT didn’t work.  You know, you start out on a venture, thinking you’re going to have this nice, peaceful trip to a sleepy seaside town, and assume you’ll meet (finally!) your childhood crush, discover he’s as normal as everyone else in the world, say, “Gee, what a nice guy”, and come back home, pleased but glad to be home and getting on with your life.

As I said, well THAT didn’t work.

Instead, I came back to the hotel that night – still in something of a state of shock – and wrote down my first memory of the evening: 

“Oh, (bleep).  He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life.”

Okay, I was probably still a little dazzled maybe, but ... well, let me start over.

Once again, the concert was perfect.  Note perfect, pitch perfect, banter perfect, joke perfect, song list perfect ... those Cowsills have their act down to a science of perfection, really.  They’re that good.

But there was no official Meet & Greet after the show, so I’m now devastated for a second time.  To actually speak to Bob, I would now need to jump right in front of him or something ... and there was no way in hell I was going to do that.  Fortunately for me, other people had more courage than I did.  Stopped him to meet him, take a picture with him, chat with him.  I still am too terrified to try the same thing, so start walking away.  I’m halfway out of the tent when I hear Bill Cowsill’s voice.

No, it wasn’t Bill Cowsill himself – trust me, I’m not THAT psychically adept – but what I heard was someone who sounded just like Bill Cowsill saying in a loud, “I will brook no argument from the likes of YOU”  voice:  “Get back there!”

I’m sure whoever it was had no idea of the impact the sound of their voice and that particular command had on a complete stranger, but at the time, I jumped right out of my skin, turned around and went back to meet Bob.  Thinking back on it, dollars to doughnuts it was a Cowsill relation – so many of them were there – who no doubt would have sounded just like Bill.  But I wouldn’t question whether or not it was Bill Cowsill until later. 

At the time, I just went, “Okay,” and turned around.  Went back to meet Bob, so I wouldn’t have to explain myself to Bill in the afterlife.  (“You know I THOUGHT it sounded like you, but then I thought ...”)  And waited patiently, looking down at my feet until the huge guy in front of me moved away.  And there was Bob Cowsill, looking at me, waiting for me to say something.

And you know, I probably would have been fine if I hadn’t made the fatal mistake of looking at his face.  That was my first reaction, the first one, the one I wrote down:  “Oh, (bleep).  He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life.”

I just froze, I think because I wasn’t expecting it.  That’s when I went ice cold and started shaking.  Oh, it would have been so much easier if he were --  there was one video where he described himself as “old and worn”, and I thought he was wrong then, but I didn’t realize just how wrong he actually was.  It would have been so much easier if he’d looked “old and worn”, but he didn’t.  He just looked beautiful.  A strange thing to say about a man’s face, but that was my first reaction.  Maybe I should say “handsome”, but my first thought, unvarnished and unedited, was just that:  “beautiful.”  He looked better at that moment than all his teenage pin-up photos from my pre-teen years.  I inhaled in surprise and went a little dizzy.

Picture it:  I'm a corporate trainer, can teach classes with 20-30 people in them all day long without even blinking.  In fact, I enjoy it!   Public speaking?  I'm fine.  People who know me would describe me as confident and outgoing.  But none of them would have recognized me, meeting Bob Cowsill for the first time and looking right into his face.

I immediately regressed to the age of 12 and started shaking like a leaf, to the point where he was now probably afraid I was going to drop at his feet like a stone.  I did manage to give him the letter, but my voice was shaking so badly, he had to lean forward to hear me.  He did take it and said he was glad I had finally delivered it.  Then he reached for my hand and discovered it was ice cold and trembling.  He looked at me, and here’s where he was probably thinking, “Uh-oh.  She is about to drop like a ...” and wondering if he remembered any of his EMT training, because he might have to use it.

Although, on a side-note, I’m not sure that would have worked all that well – imagine coming out of a dead faint and discovering Bob Cowsill giving you mouth-to-mouth.  Would have no doubt undermined all of his heroic efforts, having me take one look up at him and passing out again ...

But, fortunately, I somehow managed to remain conscious, and no doubt impressed him to no end with my witty repartee:

Bob:  Are you okay?
Me:  No.  Yes.  No.  Yes.  I'm sorry!
Bob:  (reassuringly, in a gentle voice)  You'll be alright.
Me:  (as though I've just been hypnotized)  Yes, I'll be alright.

Then he hugged me.

Me:  (5 minutes later)  Oh, GOD!  He probably thinks I'm an idiot!
Bystander:  (who photographed the show and witnessed the whole thing):  "Yup!  I sure would have, if I were him."

(The authorities will someday find Mr. Bystander's remains in the sand dune where I buried him.)

Finally.  After 45 years, I finally met Bob Cowsill.  Even if he does think I’m an idiot.  I’m okay with that.  And he is the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life.  Still.

Before I left for Rhode Island, I heard from a friend of mine.  We were discussing plans for me to pick her up at the Kingston, Rhode Island Amtrak station and take her to Newport for a memorial service.  At the time of this memorial service, I will have been at a concert in Westerly, Rhode Island – which is why I was picking her up in Rhode Island.  I get up the next morning and find a message from this friend.

She was trying to book the train, but then she read in the Amtrak booking page that trains in the northeast corridor might experience delays due to track work in Virginia.  She panicked, wanting to know what the plan was when she went through Virginia and got held up by track work.  Keep in mind that she is traveling from Boston to Kingston, Rhode Island, a trip of maybe an hour in length.  So she hasn’t purchased the ticket yet because she’s now afraid of what will happen when she goes through Virginia.  Not the train alone.  Her IN the train.

I just stared at her message and went, “Wha ...?”  Read the message again, just to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong.  Nope.  Hadn’t read it wrong.  Sat in front of my computer with my mouth hanging open in shock.

She’s afraid she is traveling through Virginia – going from Boston to Rhode Island.  Virginia.  O ... M ... G.  Just for the record:  she went to elementary and high school in Quincy, Massachusetts, and has no idea what or where the State of Virginia is.  They must be so proud.  As I said, I was just stunned.  Spent a good ten minutes trying to compose a reply that didn’t start with, “What are you, an IDIOT??”  Way to go, Quincy, Massachusetts School Systems.

Bad Falls, Bad Drivers and Really Bad Books

Another header.  I can see why they think I’m a fall risk – took one header into the kitchen counter a little while ago; just took another one the other morning – a bad one.  This time landed on my left knee ... and could barely move  I was so sore and stiff.  Didn’t break it – thank goodness – and am actually quite surprised that I didn’t, as hard I hit the floor.  But I was  absolutely miserable for the next few days.  In both cases, I stumbled over the left foot, the drop one, which I wasn’t able to get lifted up in time.

Finally got the brace the same day I fell ... and it does seem to be holding the left foot up, although as miserably sore and stiff as my left leg was at the time, I had no way of knowing if the pain was from the brace or the fall.  It is not the most flattering thing I’ve ever worn, that’s for certain.

I knew the first moment I saw it that there was no way that thing would fit under my new jeans.  I had the same reaction to this thing that I had when I first saw my awful haircut.  So now I not only have un-sexy hair, I have this awful contraption around my leg.  Could I LOOK any more pitiful?  No, I honestly don’t think I could.  Got tears in my eyes when I saw it.  And the gypsy curse continues, doesn’t it?

Went from a reasonably attractive human being with long, pretty hair to a sore, stiff, limping, gimping cripple who can barely move, dressed in loose, baggy jeans bulging unattractively on one side of one leg, while the other leg is atrophying to the point where her own physical therapist called her “chicken legs”, and who looks like someone took a weed wacker to her head – all in 1 month’s time.  How is that even possible?  Feels like I was just mowed down by a Mack truck or something.

Onward.  Nothing I can do about any of that now.  Well, other than bitching and moaning about it.

Started reading the novel I described earlier, The Demonologist (Andrew Pyper, 2013) ... the premise is that a professor of religious literature uses clues from Paradise Lost to find his daughter who went missing under mysterious occult circumstances in Venice.  Ahhh, Venice.  Unless it crops up later, the author has already missed one key connection:  he has a hallucination where he sees a herd of crazed pigs racing towards him.  Makes the connection between that and the story of the christian Jesus supposedly casting demons out of a man into a herd of pigs who then race into the sea and drown – which, when you think about it, was a pretty cruel and inhumane thing to do, really.  But that’s beside the point.

He seems to have missed the underlying foundation for THAT story, which historians believe came directly from the Eleusinian Mysteries ... where pigs were sacrificed - at seaside -  during the trip to Eleusis by the initiates.  Also a pretty cruel and inhumane thing to do, and again, beside the point.  However, the parable in question when it was written down draws a pretty juvenile line between emerging christianity and popular faiths in existence at the time.  Basically, a childish “Neener, neener, neener, our religion’s better than yours!” sort of thing, where they heisted the well-known Eleusinian tradition and stuck their Jesus into it.  The POINT is that the author seems to have missed that key historical link, and since the character in the novel is a Professor of religious literature – that seems like a key detail the character should have known.  And yet – unless he inexplicably remembers it later – he doesn’t.  Generally speaking, readers get a little perturbed when they know more than the author does.  And I still haven’t learned anything useful about Paradise Lost.  Or at least not yet.  I’m about halfway through the novel.

Still, nothing so far has convinced me of anything more than I already know.  If you believe in Quantum Theory, you already know it, too.  You do create your own reality, so if that’s what you believe in, they do exist for you.  If you don’t, they don’t.  It is that simple.

Meanwhile, the car has been detailed, and is absolutely gorgeous, inside and out.  All of the drips from the North Andover pine trees are gone; it’s been vacuumed, cleaned – even the tires were polished.  Smells wonderful inside – nice and fresh and clean.  No sooner had I pulled out of the parking lot with my gorgeous new car, a car stopped short in front of me because a stupid woman ahead of him hadn’t bothered to flip her turn signal, and just stopped and turned without warning – I had plenty of room to stop behind him - and did. 

And of course, some idiot in an SUV (naturally) behind me wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention either, and all I heard behind me was the screech of tires.  Fortunately, he swung to the left and just missed rear-ending me by half an inch – he stopped just as our front seat windows were side by side; I’m in the regular lane; he’s in the turning lane.  The look of shock on his face pretty much said it all – he hadn’t been paying any attention whatsoever and got caught (extremely) short.  I just looked at him with an expression of disgust.  Really?  I now have the world’s most beautiful car and you came HOW close to squashing both me and my car like bugs?  He just shrugged, “Sorry.”

There are far too many dangerously inept people who need to have their licenses revoked.  The stupid woman and the SUV driver are both at the top of the list.  It’s almost summertime now ... I’ll be willing to bet that both of them are idiot touristy beach people from Massachusetts, where learning how to drive properly is optional.

The two books I thought would be useful for my research for C’era una volta/Paradise Lost came in – was a bit disappointed in one of them and utterly disgusted with the other, to the point where I’m thinking of returning it as fraud.

The far more tolerable of the two was I, Lucifer (Corvis Nocturnum, 2011).  I’m all in favor of photos and diagrams where they aid understanding of the text, but I, Lucifer is slick, shiny and chock full of pictures, to the point where you take it the author assumed his readers couldn’t follow the text without pictures to keep them entertained.  In its favor:  it cited Michelle Belanger and her “vast personal library” as a resource (when I mentioned it to her, she said she had 3,500 books in her library).  Knowing her, I could assume her material was educational and knowledgeable ... she is the one who went and researched demon bowls at the University of Michigan for her encyclopedia, and is one of my personal resources for Sumerian deities.  And I will give him this:  he had an excellent bibliography at the conclusion of the book.  I wished for more text, less photos, if I could have had a choice.

The other, Lucifer, Father of Cain, is utterly ridiculous.  You turn the book over and get to read a “review” on the back cover from a mentally unstable woman named Joye Jeffries Pugh.  I’m not even going to touch her idiotic theories they are so ... distasteful and appalling.  All you have to do is Google the fool to get some idea of just how awful she is.

Point is:  that is not a good selling point for the book, and you haven’t even opened it yet.  “The true message,” she babbles helplessly, “Concerns getting to know God, the Creator, and His only begotten son, Jesus.”  So, this was NOT a study of the archetype, this was a book written for fundamentalist christians who’ll buy anything.  Pugh figured out just how to tap into this idiot market:  she bottle bleached her hair, gave herself a fake doctorate (she insists its in education from Nova University in Florida, but her idiocy is so pronounced, I have no idea how she got one unless she wrote up the degree  herself), and dove into apocalyptic books with wild and irresponsible abandon, insisting that a bad dream when she was a kid made her do it.  Why her parents didn’t haul her off to a child psychologist I have no idea, but they instead set her free to torture the rest of us.

Meanwhile, the author, a guy ironically self-named “Zen Garcia” seems to have written most of the book based on voices he’s hearing in his head.  He makes stuff up, and twists them into knots to feed his own demons.  It felt like I was reading – and that was only a few pages – something written and then endorsed by two of the most mentally and emotionally unstable people on the planet.  It was a  shudder-provoking experience.  Ugh.  And what knocks me flat is:  there are a myriad of demented fundamentalists in the USA who buy this retch-inducing awfulness without even blinking.

Hell, even John Milton would have blinked in horror at this book and then decided maybe writing HIS poem was not such a good idea after all ... as it appears his prime protagonist had already captured these two nitwits and their drooling readership singlehandedly.

Disorder, Chaos, Orthotics and Pride

Trying to get my life organized.  I’m off to the orthotics people to test a leg brace tomorrow; suspect it won’t be the right one and I’ll need to have my leg molded for the permanent one, which will take another long period of time to get back - and then need to drive up to Portsmouth again to get it.

I’m getting my car looked at tomorrow.  Too many things all at once. Getting the car detailed on either Tuesday or Wednesday, can’t remember which one.  Have physical therapy one day next week; can’t remember which day.  I have an appointment calendar somewhere; can’t find it at the moment.  Have been wasting fabric and time screwing up the applique portion of Beautiful Beige; can’t seem to get it right for the life of me.  Have no idea why things are so chaotic at the moment; it feels like New York City and The Cutting Room all over again.

I thought I would have a leg brace by now; I don’t.  So I’m back to needing to struggle my way around Westerly, Rhode Island without one next weekend.  Just like New York City.  And how well I remember the physical problems I had after New York.

Meanwhile ... ahh, the fun of researching ... I realized that at some point I would need to get some background on Milton’s belief in the character of Satan to begin with.  Since I pay next to no attention to that particular character, one way or the other, I went and read up on what various groups of people have to say about him ... and if that wasn’t a messy and confusing collection of opinions, I can’t tell you what is.  You have christians squealing “Eeek!” and running around in circles like chickens with their heads chopped off, and you have satanists squealing “Yay!” and making him sound like the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel.  Was actually hoping for a more rational, reasonable, unemotional approach.  Origins?  History?

I eventually looked up various books written on the subject, and ordered two of them – my interest was in the historical background of the concept, not the generally hysterical fear or glee that some people get themselves bound into knots over ... those people you end up feeling (somewhat) sorry for, as it must be awful to live your lives in such fear all the time.

My own thoughts on the subject?  He exists for those who believe he exists; for those of us who don’t, he’s irrelevant.  And the character is more of an archetype.  You create him in your own mind because you’re told to when you’re too young to question it, or because he meets a need that is already inside of you to begin with.  Or, as Milton himself wrote:  “The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

You want to run around being a serial killer, you invent someone who propels you into it, because you need to. 

The Luciferians are another breed altogether – they don’t buy into the Satanic thing; they do believe in the Morning Star being; one of light and radiance.  So, as I said, there are a lot of different thoughts on the subject; and trying to wade through all of it can start your eyeballs rolling around in your head.  You start looking for individual threads to start untangling the mess.  Not an easy task, believe me.

I did know that the concept is believed to have originated with both the Zoroastrian concepts of dark and light that infiltrated Jewish tradition during their Babylonian exile, and in a confused mistranslation of references to the “Morning Star” (hence the name of Lucifer – Bright Star, Morning Star, etc.) which seems a rather inappropriate name for the being eventually saddled with the “root-of-all-evil” moniker.  And that christians took this and literally ran with it ... they absolutely adored the concept of an entirely evil creature to hang their dark, shameful sins on.  That wasn’t me, the Devil made me do it!

So how did this being – whose brilliance was so intense that he was named after a bright morning star, and who even resided in the heavenly realms long after ancient scrolls were incorporated into the Torah – come to personify the changes in people’s beliefs that transformed a being who was a brilliant denizen of the heavenly realms to a being who scares the (bleep) out of people and yet makes them do horrible things?

And which version of him was Milton looking at or envisioning, as he wrote Paradise Lost?  The beliefs of Milton’s time had their own flavoring ... the beliefs of the American fundamentalists today may not match Milton’s.

I may have missed something in all of those pages, but it seems like his big crime was “pride”.  Really.  Pride?  That’s what did it – that’s what precipitated the gigantic “fall”?  Do you have any idea how many people on the planet are guilty of the same thing, if not worse levels of it?  Hell, the asshole who cuts you off on the highway and the woman too fat and lazy to wheel her shopping cart into the shopping cart bay are both guilty of the same thing:  the underlying belief that their needs surpass everyone else’s needs – at its most basic level:  pride.

Everyone knows someone who believes that they exist at the center of everyone else’s universe ... which is another form of pride.  People who post their opinions as standards that everyone else should aspire to – yet another form.  Your local gym is packed to the walls with people admiring their own physiques; everyone knows a manager who practically oozes arrogance out of his or her pores.  Let’s face it – the whole planet is practically waterlogged with people who have the same issue that Satan  supposedly did:  a seriously overinflated sense of themselves – and that includes the a lot of the same people I mentioned above who are running around flapping their hands and squealing “Eeek!” at the very mention of his name.  And this was his big crime?  It almost makes you laugh, when you think about it.

My favorite current example of overweening pride came from (naturally) an American fundamentalist who witnessed the devastation caused by the earthquake in Nepal and tweeted:  “Praying 4 the lost souls in Nepal. Praying not a single destroyed pagan temple will b rebuilt & the people will repent/receive Christ.”

The revulsion that tweet generated was global, because it was such an evil thing to think – much less say out loud – and, practically dripping with arrogance, horrified and disgusted just about everyone other than other American fundamentalists.  I don’t think even “Satan” has ever been credited with a quote that awful.  So congratulations to the Santa Clarita, California author of that – for surpassing the big bad guy who supposedly experienced a great “fall” for even less arrogance and pride than that one tweet evinced.  Everyone has been hearing how California is running out of water.  And yet, you don’t see the millions of Hindus and Buddhists tweeting that obviously his beliefs generated a terrifying drought in the State of California, so he should come around to their way of thinking, do you?  Ought to tell you something, right there.  Insufferable pride.  In his case, a nauseating degree of it, and an utter lack of compassion his own deity would have found horrifying.

Needless to say, I look forward to doing a bit more research into the subject ...

Am now the proud owner of the most beautiful ring – a rose quartz in the shape of a teardrop, which means, according to some site which I have forgotten to credit:  “Innocence. Will help you to link with the confidence of your inner being and be grounded with the earth.”  The rose quartz is supposed to attract love, so the combination of the two should ... attract love, but enable me to retain my innocence, which almost sounds like a false impression of unbroken virginity?  Okay, maybe not such a good interpretation.  And okay, I feel neither innocent, confident in my inner being or grounded at the moment – but wow, does it ever look nice on my finger!  Let’s hope I don’t break the nail again, shall we?  Breaking nails right and left does not do a lot for my confidence – in either my inner or outer being.

But maybe it will attract the perfect lover, who doesn’t care that (a) my innocent and confident demeanor exists only in my ring, (b) I have dirt on my shoes (well, I am ‘grounded with the earth’, right?), and (c) my nails may or may not be broken?  I like that possibility, let’s hold out hope for that one.

A Small Break Between Road Trips and I Muse About Leeks

Things I would love to see:  recipes where little or no part of any ingredient is discarded.

A good example:  told to consume much more fish than I had been, I was making a cod chowder.  Correct that:  I did make a cod chowder.  And I had actually cut the recipe out of Prevention Magazine (February 2015, page 85, one of the components of their article on the Scandinavian diet), so you would think that they, of all people, would have considered using all parts of the ingredients they had in the recipe.

Nope.  The recipe instructions called for me to only use the white and light green part of a leek ... and for those of who don’t know – the leek is a large vegetable.  I had a leek with a good 8 inches of dark green leaves well beyond the white and light green part of it.

My first question was:  why am I not using the whole leek?   Look up leeks and you’ll find they are extremely healthy vegetables, filled to the brim with all sorts of health benefits.  And here these people were suggesting I toss a good 8 inches of vitamins, minerals and fiber into the garbage?  Why?  Not going to “prevent” much of anything in the garbage can, is it?

I stopped what I was doing and looked leeks up online.  Yes, I absolutely could use the whole leek, the greener parts just needed to be cooked longer, that’s all, since they’re a little tougher than the lower portions.  Then they’re just as delicious and nutritionally beneficial as the rest of the vegetable.  Cooked the green part a little longer, and the chowder is absolutely delicious.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit there are parts of ingredients you are not going to consume.  Example:  the top of the carrot.  Excess fat.  Bruised sections of vegetables or fruits.  But what can you do with them?  Replant them and grow more?  The non useable parts of vegetables, a compost pile.  But what about other things?  Fish bones you’ve removed.  Chicken bones.  What can you do with other parts of food you might discard?  No, I’m not suggesting you save it all and stink up the kitchen ... would just love to see ideas about using every part of something you’re eating and actually needing to discard precious little.

Well, my new specs have arrived ... I never mentioned those.  At the same time I shuffled by the jeans section of Walmart’s a post or so ago, I also happened to wander by the Optical Shop and spotted the exact frames I was looking for – was actually stunned to discover that the same frames which cost $300-400 in an optician’s store were at least a fifth of that.  Tripped over myself buying them, and went today to pick them up.  And later discovered that the boot cut version of those same straight leg jeans that fit so well had since arrived.  Very productive day, obviously, as far as jeans and glasses went. 

Before all of that, though, I had gone to physical therapy.  Therapist was not pleased at the way the visit to the orthotics office had gone – said they were being “cheap” by trying to fit me into their stock, as opposed to spending time making the brace molded for my leg.  The orthotics office coldly told me if he had a problem with their suggestions he could call them directly.  THAT side of things did not make for a productive day.

Finally got the ball inflated and have been spending time doing crunches, butt lifts, rolling back and forth and keeping my legs centered, the whole works, all the while wearing 5 lb. ankle weights.  Will let you know if I accomplish anything with this new regimen – I’d better, for as long as it took me to inflate that stupid ball!

Spent more time with C’era una volta and the annotated Paradise Lost.  The reference to “Siloa’s Brook” baffled the hell out of me.  Supposedly, it means the Pool of Siloam, a well known site in old Jerusalem, and also the site of a Biblical fable about a blind man being made to see, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how this connected with the “fall” Milton was introducing to his readers, or even to the story of “Paradise”.  Nothing like getting stumped on Line 11, is there?

Also spent time re-reading the horrific story of the triad patriarch ... since ol’ Abe there seems to lie at the foundation of all three branches of one particularly overly zealous religious overgrowth, taking up valuable space in the Torah, the Quran and the Bible.  What a horrific story that is ... and no one (and I mean NO ONE!) thought to question any of it?  Instead, all three of them waste an enormous amount of pen and ink (or quill and ink, that’s how far back their attempts go) trying to make sense of that story ... “What it REALLY meant was ...”, instead of just saying, “This is the most horrible story I’ve ever read, why am I paying even a modicum of attention to it?”, the way most intelligent, morally sane people would.

The guy rapes the slave, pimps his wife, lets his wife beat the pregnant slave until she runs away, lies, cheats, is perfectly willing to slaughter his own son .... it’s reads like the horrifying story of a textbook psychopath.  But noooo ... I’ve read more ridiculous “interpretations” of the actions of that one psychopath lacking even a fiber of moral backbone than I can count, written by so-called ‘theologians’ from all three threads twisting themselves into logical and religious knots trying to do it and holding this guy up as some sort of beacon of honor.  And not one of them had the wits to think, “What deity in their right mind would condone all of this?”  Stand apart from it, and that’s how it reads:  like a horror story too awful to imagine, guaranteed to give you nightmares for days on end.

That seems to be the true starting point of any “Paradise Lost”, considering you now have three awful global threads of belief trailing after the guy like toilet paper stuck to his dirty shoes.

Found a novel where the protagonist – a professor – tries to free his daughter from the underworld by interpreting Paradise Lost – swiped it up for $.01 ... not so much interested in the storyline as much as I am on the interpretation, however fictional it may be.

So ... I may be back on the road in 9 days.  Yes, I have completely and totally lost my mind.  I still don’t have my leg brace; and I’m considering doing this again?  Well ... stay tuned.