Sunday, October 30, 2011

Round Three

I sometimes go for round three on entries on any given day, today will be one of them.
I call my mom at least once a week, I think I've talked to her three times this week.

I called her today simply because I almost always call her on the weekend.
She told me her plan concerning Thanksgiving: My middle brother is going out there on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving - the day before and whatever I can or will work in is cool with her.

Well I don't get the 23rd off and I am not necessarily concerned about being there for that, anyway. One of my uncles - who is eventually going to die of some sort of debilitating, horrible disease that he just found out about maybe 8 months ago and from all accounts will probably be dead within 2 years - sent me a friend request on Facebook. I don't know this man. He is my uncle but we have had 1 interaction in the last 30 plus years in an email conversation and that was it. This is pretty much the way my family lines go. Seeming isolationism, though my uncles and my dad all communicate daily or very frequently in private emails of which I am occasionally privy to - but since I don't know these people and the subject is usually foreign to me, I don't add to it.

Umm, the conversation is usually, btw, about Bach, Mozart, Handel, Haydn, Stravinsky, etc. I was brought up with this kind of music being played at dinnertime meals, but even as a little kid - I was totally into disco and then into rock. I liked some of that music, but I wasn't inclined to tune it in on a radio station, if, at the time, they even had such stations. I know there is at least 1 in the Phoenix area, probably that's it. Again, I don't search such things out, though I am not saying that that kind of music doesn't have it's own allurement in itself.

Well, I went to my uncle's Facebook wall since I accepted the request and saw my middle brother commenting on there. I did not reply. Instead, I went to my brother's Facebook wall - which he used to have locked out to non-friends but now, for whatever reason and only found this out today - is open to anyone to view (he removed me as a FB friend quite some time ago now after I decided I had had enough of his BS being directed towards me). The entire wall is about politics and his line of work and his presidency of the union he is "over". It made me gag, quite frankly, to read the rhetoric and brought to stark, clear memory the reason why I want nothing to do with him. His view of things is superior to everyone else's. The god syndrome. I am better than you, my thinking is flawless, listen and agree or I will unleash upon you.

It was nice to see all of that. Well it wasn't really "nice", just that my continued determination to block him out of my life until/if/when/probably never he realizes we all have opinions. We may not agree with other's opinions, but that doesn't mean, somehow, that that opinion is "inferior". Well, there ARE some cases. People that say the holocaust never happened or that 9/11 was made up by the government are bona fide fruitcakes are far as I'm concerned and any "opinion" stating as such will undoubtedly get full redress from me.

More interesting, since that is extremely old news and I don't see it changing anytime soon, was her statement about my oldest brother. She stated that he had come up with a reason why we don't get along and don't communicate with each other. I was all ears, what is it? If there is something I can do about - within reason of course - I have always wanted to get closer to my oldest brother.

She did not elaborate and started to go into something else - sorry, I want to hear this. What, I asked, is his formulation? Chris - my oldest brother - says that we have nothing in common. I mentally had a problem with this, but I said nothing and listened. Well, to elaborate, I have a problem with that kind of thinking because we are family, we are blood, that is certainly something in common, something extremely relevant, at least to me, in common.

Mother continued: he has his vehicle, my middle brother has his politics and I have my thing. My thing has always been church and religion, at least since I was 20 years old. I didn't know what vehicle she was referring to, he has always been in to motion of some sort, whether a mountain bike, a quad or whatever. He has some sort of Suzuki 4 wheeling vehicle that apparently made it into a magazine article and a sport that I know nothing about since mother didn't really know. I assume some sort of off-road racing. She further stated he has his cabin in the mountains.

I can't keep up with my oldest brother, he is married and between the 2 of them they are very well off. They will not be retiring in rags, squalor and want, I can say that for sure. I don't WANT to keep up with ANYONE, however, to be honest and seeing a lot of junk in my life that made me come to the conclusion long ago that that only thing of dire and great importance in this life is God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and redemption through the shed blood of Christ.

The point is that I imagine that whatever this vehicle is, he has spent a good deal of money on - he never goes at anything half-@$$ed. Case in point was his prior love for mountain bikes. He had several - the cheapest was $2,500. The most expensive - I think it was in the 6k range.
It gives me at least some idea of how, perhaps, I might be able to bridge the gap. The cabin in the mountains. I don't know about the vehicle racing or off road endeavors, but I am currently full fledged into getting a 5th wheel travel trailer ready for use up in the mountains, to be placed on my mother's property, which is fully 8 miles away from my brother's cabin, of which I have never been in but I believe I saw it when I was up there earlier this year.

A drive up to the mountains this summer to shoot off a gun (target practice, folks, target practice) and to see my mother turns into a desire to BE up there, at least some of the time, now seems to potentially have some other implications as well. I have time to give this some thought. My oldest brother goes up to that cabin year round, even in dead winter when it's zero degrees outside and there is a lot of snow on the ground. Yes, well if I had such, I probably would, too. In fact, I wanted to put my 5th wheel up there on my mom's property this winter, but when I heard her trying to tell me exactly where she wants it? No thanks. I will wait until she wants to go up there and tells me the location while the truck is there, maneuvering it into position. I am not paying for another truck to come up there to move it to her exact location that I undoubtedly will not be able to identify.

Writing this entry? I pretty much don't finish entries all at once when I am not under a time limit. So, I was motivated: I found my brother's company email address - all I have and wrote him a request. I found that email under an email my dad sent me - almost 7 years ago. Yup, I had an email from my dad, from late 2005, that was addressed to all kinds of people including my oldest brother - who even then, at the time, was not speaking to my dad and still isn't to this day. I am copying and pasting it below:

"Hello oldest brother:

Long time no see or speak. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Easter and whatever else I have missed (making up for lost time).
My purpose in contacting you is for some potential help.
Don't worry, I"m not asking for a loan, lol.
I recently bought a 5th wheel travel trailer and am intending on placing it on mother's property.
She wants it placed where you had your rig placed when you guys were staying there before you had your cabin built.
I guess she doesn't go up there until May and I want to get the thing up there earlier than that, by several months anyway.
In fact, I like snow and the cold to some degree, especially if I don't have to live in it but can visit it.
So, I am wondering, when I get the projects done with this trailer (new wallpaper, bed mattress, fix a leak in the roof, new microwave, carpet, etc etc etc), would you know the location that she would want it placed and would you be willing to either be there when I have it delivered (I neither have a pickup at this point or a 5th wheel plate on a truck, so I am relegated to paying someone to take it up there) to determine that location or perhaps mark it out?
I was going to wait until May when she goes up there, but I will have this trailer ready in no more than 2 months and I am pretty sure that I will want to start getting out of this hell-hole they call a town much more often than I have been for the last 8 years or so.

If this is something you would rather not get involved with, I completely understand but I thought to give it a shot, anyway.

Please give my regards to Linda, haven't seen you guys in a while, though I could have sworn I saw Linda out on a lawn chair, sort of behind a cabin, just off the forest road when I was up visiting mom not too terribly long ago. Dunno, not exactly sure where your cabin is!

ben"

That was my email. Why not? Leave politics and religion out of it. I am trying, that's all I can say. I have not seen my oldest brother since 2 Christmases ago, so going on 2 years now.

Not much more here. Kid came over asking to walk one of the dogs again, this time with 2, much older individuals. Never saw them before. Kid lives 3 houses down, I have known him for pretty much the entire time I have lived here, so I can at least fairly well trust him. I handed him a postcard sized invitation to our church's fair/festival thing this coming Saturday. Large family and poor. The entire thing is free, including food, drinks and prizes as well as games and bounce houses. Then I handed him Coco on a leash. They came back quite a while later and asked for Duke. Not too much later and then wanted Prince. Showing the dogs off to their family, he says his parents like the Danes.

I got nothing done on the landscaping today and I don't feel bad about it. I will undoubtedly be out there tomorrow afternoon, spending and hour or two in the dirt, working away.

G'nite.

ben

Church

I seriously did not want to go to church today. I was pulling out of my driveway still feeling sluggish apparently from getting up too late this morning. I was not in a good mood. I got to church and nothing changed about that. The service began and I was still quite out of it and really was contemplating just leaving.

Nothing against the church or the people, I was just not into it today, at least at the beginning.
That attitude didn't change, either until at least 2/3rd's of the way through the service. I don't even know what's going on, I just woke up groggy and I am still having trouble with it now. But, I know that sleeping in too long always does that to me, and certainly sleeping in until 7:00am is WAY too long. If there is any added benefit to the sleeping in, it is completely outweighed by the feeling my body has all day long.

But I was spiritually challenged today. Sometimes, I hear a message and wonder if it was just for me. I know my need to get more involved in the church, but to be honest, I thought I was doing well to just get back INTO church. But it's not enough. I know that from my walk with the Lord, not because somebody told me. The daily prayer? I could have gone at least twice if not 3 times this week and I made internal excuses not to go to any of it. Wednesday night service? Well I have a better reason for not going to that: I am going to bed at 8:00pm now on weekdays - well actually I have started to go to bed that early on most night regardless if it's a weekday or a weekend night.

But this week? I'll consider trying to go. If I have to get up and leave early, well I hope no-one takes offense at it, but that's where I'm at right now. Prayer? I have to promise myself to make at least one of them. I haven't promised myself that yet - I am still in the "consideration" stage. When I make a promise to myself, I do not like breaking it. Breaking my word to my own self? How lame is that? I'm trying, that's all I can say.

I called my son about today's appointment. No answer. He just called. He said: "I thought we were going to do that next weekend". I didn't get on his case, but he asked me for this, I didn't ask him. I know what he said: it was for today. In reality? Where my head is at right now? Good thing to put it off anyway. He has a friend - his age/18 - whose baby is apparently dying. 2 years old. He and Caleb's friends are taking him to the fair today to try and cheer him up.

I simply encouraged Caleb in the Lord: if the Holy Spirit speaks to you to pray for him or even the baby, listen and act. So, this appointment is put off until next weekend. Not a big letdown, again, considering how I am feeling today.

What else? I sat in church today and quietly prayed for all of my neighbors involved in this ordeal that is going on between us. "Love they neighbor". Mostly prayed for 350 man. No, not that he would die and go to hell, but that he would come to find the love of the Lord and that somehow, someway, this whole situation could be changed by the power of God's love. I believe in that, so much so that I feel kind of stupid for not praying about this a long time ago.

Since my afternoon is now free, I am going to force myself to go outside and putter around with the landscaping stuff for a while. Nothing grand, just puttering. Maybe that will clear my head.

ben

Sunday 10/30/2011

Look out, here comes Halloween!
Lol.
I totally woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
I woke up in the middle of the night and was awake for a couple of hours (at least).
I then fell back asleep and didn't wake up again until 7:00am. Head groggy, I had
to force myself to get up - versus the desire to just go back to sleep.

Well that threw off my entire morning. I was going to get up early, drink some coffee and then go outside and do some work on the landscaping. Instead, I am sitting here trying to wake up enough to be able to go to church this morning!

I don't have anything else right now. Church and then purportedly meeting up with my son for whatever it is that is coming - no idea really.

Later.

ben

 Sunday - early 20 minutes until departure time.  I don't much care for delivery on Sundays for it takes a while to get security to the ...