Mint Julep Oracle

This little essay was written in March of this year. It has become a lesson to myself that one never knows where Karma will take us all in June. Read more at Axios...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Saturday that he plans to honor the committee's "blue-slip" rule for the Trump administration's move to nominate Jay Clayton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Why it matters: Graham holding to this policy — in a clash over one of the highest profile districts in the country — would mean that Clayton's nomination would not be able to advance without approval from home-state Democratic senators, per the Washington Post.

Sometimes I write a perfect sentence or two. Just perfect in every syllable. Not often. But once in awhile. And then I find I have nowhere to put it. Sentence just hangs around. Has Trump destroyed the word perfect? But I digress. I wrote:

Ms. Lindsey dipped a manicured finger into her mint julep, held it up to the breeze and detected a seismic shift in the political universe. Belle's have such exquisite sensibility

Perfect. Maybe if I do the same finger wave with my morning coffee and the breeze from the hole in the floor, I can find out why hundreds of Russians are reading here again. And why, when I mention them, they all go away.

“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cruising for Containers - Ghetto Garden Fabulous

When you garden in a small area like a city garden, the terrace of a hi-rise building or an alley, you can gain or increase planting space by using containers. We have even developed a phrase for this avocation: container gardening. Yes, you can grow potatoes in a laundry basket. Perfect use for a busted basket.

If you go to your standard garden store and price containers, you may find them costly. I mean, it is triage. What do you want more? Exotic new plants or fancy containers?

So many choices in life. How stylish do you want to be? Some people like funk. Some people like glitz or techno. Or whimsy.

So I thought I would present you, cher Readers, with some creative, varied and unusual containers I have gathered from a glorious google tour of the NET container gardening universe.

Look at junk with a creative eye. Anything you have that will hold soil is a possible container. Use industrial horse troughs. Use those capacious old aluminum pots from the thrift shop.


Do not forget that you must punch holes in the bottom of any container you plant in. Do not drown the Petunias.

The Kitchen Fairy Garden below is one woman's answer to the Fairy Garden craze. Ghetto Garden Fabulous!

I think the choice of all white flowers of different textures and heights for all these old silver containers is the work of a gardener with exquisite taste and a sense if humor.

Signs of the Month - September 2014 - FUCK THE POLICE !

Given what's going down, I thought it was time this came 'round. 
                          
This post has musical accompaniment. See below. 

Look sharp below for the graffiti poster's sign. It is not immediately evident. The guns kind of get in the way. 

Off the Pigs! 

I have not had occasion to say that since the 1968 Chicago riots. Feels good. Real good. 

Setting a Boundary

I can be quite rude and I do not mind. I have no shame. Thank you God. Why am I so mean? Why are you so nice?

The Universe or God (take your pick) often arranges to flout me (teach me) in odd ways.

I have a Shrink. Doesn't everyone? In the 20 years we have been working together, she has given me a direct order twice. Those directions were: "Don't fuck him." and "Stay away from your family." She trusts me and she never pushes my defiance/anger button.

I come from an alcoholic Catholic family with sexual and mental health issues. I am one of the bipolar members who spent ten years drinking and drugging. I have no idea how normal folks behave. We, Shrink and I, spend a lot of time establishing boundaries and rehearsing boundary setting. We talk things over.

My Mother used to do sexual checking. Once she made me remove my underpants so she could check if I had sex, after she dragged me down the street and into the house by my hair. I was twelve and a virgin. Consequently, I do not respond to the feelings of humiliation or embarrassment well at all. Not at all.

I have been attending AA meetings since 1980. I do not go often anymore since my Sponsor died, but I still drop in occasionally to get a therapeutic dose of humility. Humility is not the same as humiliation. Folks are friendly and often come to say Hello if they do not know you.

So this woman asks me "How much time do you have?" People are proud of their time sober. I reply with an AA bromide "I have today. How are you?" The woman launches into a tale of her 30 years of spotless sobriety, never a slip, etc. etc. Then she starts telling me basic shit you teach to Newbies. And I had been coming to the rooms since 1980. And no one sane would lecture a Newbie like that anyway. We are trying to assist Newbies not scare or shame them.

I do not know why, but she pushed my humiliation button. I want credit for those years, even if I was slipping and getting drunk once in awhile. I was still learning. I still had a desire to get sober which is the ONLY REQUIREMENT for membership in AA. I know something about how to get and stay sober. I just stood there and listened, furious, humiliated and smiling. Smiling. I know, now that I have studied interpersonal violence, that she triggered me. I was overcome by a tsunami of shame.

I looked at her closely while smiling. A few lonely folks come to visit at AA who never had a drinking problem in their lives. They come for the fellowship and the coffee. They talk the talk but have never walked the walk. And this lady? One of them. Lady yammered on and I stood there. I had no creative response. I just left. And I fumed and paced for days. By the time I got to talk to Shrink, I was still upset.

When you first start setting boundaries, there is no way to be elegant about it. If you tried to set a boundary in my family, you got beat up. Or you had to beat somebody else up. So you do the best you can.

For a long time, I ran away. That was an awesome defense I learned from the Surrender Group. Works for most situations but not all. I needed a simple-to-get-out-of-my-mouth, reasonably polite and nonviolent way to say NO! Some thing I could get out even when triggered. Some thing that would not include endless explaining.

And Lady Shrink gave me the simplest and the sweetest boundary setter of all. "Mary," she said "Say NO THANK YOU." And the light dawned. This is an all purpose defense.

Saying NO THANK YOU and smiling (and leaving if necessary) works. The abuser has no comeback. What can they say? They just stand there.

No Thank You is so easy to say: polite, nonviolent and thorough. And I can usually get it out of my mouth even when I am furious, scared, humiliated, etc. And it works well with trolls who just want to argue and take offense at trifles. 

No thank you. I'm a Barbie girl, in my Barbie world. No thank you. You will drive them boundary banditos up a tree. Peace.