Such a day I've had...

  In honor of World Aids Day, which was December 1st...PBS World showed a documentary on Independent Lens today called We Were Here.

http://wewereherefilm.com/


  I was at my neighbors today when it came on and I watched it and cried like a baby through the whole thing.  I didn't know I was going there today, thought it was tomorrow. So when she called me this morning I was still in my pajamas. I had fed the chooks and all the critters had been outside and were fed and watered. So it felt like I hit the ground running this morning and was about two and a half steps behind all day.

I hate it when that happens.  lol

 Anyway, I have been uber-emotional  for a couple of days....I finished the book I was reading by Julia Gregson called East of the Sun (very good read--recommend it)  and by the end of it I was crying...and a part at the end about her mother sent me down that road I try to avoid. That's what I was crying about as much as anything.  Then last night I read an article in YES! magazine by a writer named Susan Griffin (I think--it's not in front of me) but anyway, some of the things she was saying hit me square in the solar plexus and I could barely breathe.


So I knew I was in trouble when this film came on and I couldn't not watch it. Listening to these first hand accounts about the epidemic and how it was spreading like wildfire, about how nobody knew what was happening or how it was spreading or what to do......about the man who was in one of the first trials for a drug and how he dropped out because he couldn't take it, it made him so sick. His partner stayed in it though, and then , in the end, all the participants but him were dead.

  This is a really fine film and deserves to be seen.  It is such a poignant experience...I moved to northern California in 1975,  and although I did not live in SF (but 2 hours  farther north) I did spend a lot of time there. All through the 80's, when this nightmare began. It felt very personal to me.  It did then too.  I was telling a friend of mine today, that when I read Randy Shilts book "And The Band Played On" in the late eighties...I was furious. I was so angry. Today I was just incredibly saddened by it all...and so deeply touched.

 Oh...have you had those times when you feel like you are feeling all the sadness of the world?  I think about the sudden rise in suicides in India...of the wars and the fighting around the world. Of all the homeless and the hungry children and the missing and the runaways ...and oh my goodness.  There was a blurb on tonights news about donating gifts and $$ for Christmas for kids in the foster care system, and  they were reading some wish list letters from the children and it broke my heart...most of their wants were such simple things...things we all take for granted.

It's late and I should be in bed, but I decided I wanted to write a bit first and maybe get some of this out of me and onto the page.  Maybe I'll sleep better.

I'll finish this tomorrow...

***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~~***

  Okay, it's tomorrow. Feeling a bit better..not that I was really feeling bad yesterday,. but rereading that post, it sounds like I was.  It's a chilly day, 45 at 11AM, and I have showered and dressed and fed and cleaned chickens before that. Some dogs are outside and one little doxie is anticipating a car ride in a minute. I wanted to eat something fist, so had a small bowl of granola with almond milk. Now I can swallow down those 2 tabs I take every morning, Super B Complex and Vitamin D.  And a couple of aspirin.  

  I slept until 8 o'clock this morning, after going to bed a little after 1. That's pretty good for me. It was a good restful sleep too. And not terribly stiff and sore this morning.  Yay!  I'll tell you, this barely being able to walk crap is for the birds. lol

 So, I'm off to the farm store for a compressed bundle of pine shavings. I use it in the coop to deodorize and soak up excess urine.  Helps a lot to lengthen the time between completely changing out the straw (which, BTW, is almost 5 dollars a bale this year.)  We buy 4 bales at a time, so it isn't painful, lol, and that's about all we have the room to store.  It will last quite a long time. 

  It will be good to get out and about.  I think we are going to a potluck tonight for the 50th anniversary of a meeting in Litchfield.  That means I need to make something to take along.  

I'm thinking pumpkin bread will fill the bill.  I baked a loaf last night from the leftover opened jar of pumpkin I made pancakes with last weekend, and it needs to be used.  The Irishman has already eaten half of that one. lol

I'm outta here like Vladimir.  See you on the flip flop ...


Namaste.