Copper Chronicles

My new world is a huge pen of creatures to study, much greater than my small hen pen and four hens in Northfield, MA. That explains why there are so many more hazards to avoid and observations to ponder. I have been on edge for months. Not only am I observing the ‘pen’ and the creatures in it, I am IN the observation pen this time.

There are much more here than coyotes plus hawks – lions and tigers and bears- and Google that eye my comings and goings. There may be someone right now observing me and writing a blog about me and my activities. Oh MY!

I left off lately saying our human condition is why happiness eludes us. And, then there is that inconvenience we usually avoid talking about, death. My hens faced death bravely. Copper- my shiny happy friend- bore her suffering patiently. When I brought her to the vet to have her put to sleep (as there was no hope of her recovering that I could find), putting her to sleep took about an hour and a half….Are they calling a priest for last rites in there? Good grief!

My neighbors in Northfield volunteered much less calculated and expensive ways to end my favorite hen’s life. But, I fell for the great ‘bait,’ the idea that modern science can solve all problems, including dying. Often what scientists and drug companies are really doing- let’s be honest- is selling us drugs to induce in us a ‘sense’ of well-being. They are selling an illusion only (often.) I don’t like how much work it takes to sort out the genuine ‘good’ for you medicines and the ‘fake’ ones that just mask symptoms.

It’s just like McDonald’s ‘comfort food’ and Kraft macaroni and cheese. The illusion of ‘comfort’ and the illusion of ‘food!’ Shouldn’t food actually possess nutrition to qualify as food?? Isn’t that what the FDA does? And, the scientists who make addictive, food-like substances or work at the FDA, do they even like human beings? You’d think affection for your fellow human being would be Question #1 on the employment application.

Anyhow, the southern immersion is going great beside the people running the country behind the scenes which people are waking up to finally. Likely, the naysayers will accuse me of being paranoid. Someone may be observing you and writing a blog about you? People operating behind the scenes in Washington D.C.? Scientists creating questionable chemical substances that are bad for you but tell you they are good for you?

Well…Yah.

Y’all didn’t know that?

Today is freezing weather and snowy, so icy, slushy. Virginians aren’t terrific at snow to start with. So this storm- they got the worst of winter on steroids. If the power goes out, there will be weeping and mourning in the streets, as if the judgment of God were upon us. That is what the Bible says about snow storms anyhow. Not necessarily a judgment upon whom its snowed. But, a sign of judgment none-the-less.

Lyle is in my small apartment with me today. He doesn’t want to go out. He’s tried ten times and like a mom with a bored child at home I try to encourage him in any direction to keep him from getting under foot. My apartment has about 30 square feet of space to walk about. Cut that area in half and share it with an unpredictable animal and someone is bound to get tangled up (me- most likely.)

Lyle by day normally is out and about seeing all the business there is to see outside my door. He visits the neighbors who care for stray animals generously. He gets snacks. The lady up the road is mean and ornery. He spends time in her beautiful garden which she labors at compulsively. (I think he likes living on the edge.) He likes to observe the comings and goings of delivery vehicles in the neighborhood, who gets groceries. Another friendly neighbor offers him a treat, because he is cute.

But, Lyle can’t observe the on-goings in the neighborhood today because of the storm. So, he is observing me instead in our small apartment, which is barely fit for one inhabitant let alone one with a small lion.

I cooked beans today he wanted to see them. He played with a bean a bit. Not quite as interesting as a bird or a bug, rather dull really. A bean. Then I went to work on my computer, he was observing me there carefully. Technology is not so interesting to cats. But that is what’s happening in the tiny apartment.

Lyle is always first to the fridge, trying to buffalo me into doing his will and purpose which is to pull out a cat buffet. When I wash dishes, he is there. When I sit in my chair – he is on my lap immediately.

Poor Lyle, not much action in the tiny apartment today. For me, its kind of like Google ads following me around everywhere I go online.

Lyle is stalking me because he is a cat. It’s his nature to observe things and play with them. I am the only action in the apartment today. That’s his excuse…

What’s Google’s?

If you haven’t kept up with recent Chronicles, the main character of the story is on a quest to find to make sense of the world, with the less obvious motivation of wanting to belong somewhere.

‘Not a home with a TV and MTV- that close kin to the Halloween celebrations growing up. A place with no hollow religious warnings of doom, where I am in trouble no matter what I do. A place free of Hollywood stars playing the supporting role to the ruling class. Where a thing or person IS what she/he/it/they/them appears to be. I don’t know if such a place exists. But, I am not giving up hope.

I found my way to Virginia, the home for ‘Lovers’ apparently. I don’t entirely know what that means. But, when an old lady at the local drive-through treated me like a prodigal child come home for dinner, I nearly burst into tears.

I wasn’t crying because I was eating at McDonald’s, that is only partly true. Neither was I crying because of the disorienting effect of being called “Sugar!” at window one, then “Ma’am” respectfully at the next.

I only wanted a quarter pounder with cheese, french fries and a milkshake, America’s comfort food, (so coined by that TV that I hate). A heaping dose of affection and respect- that I did not expect.

Was I a prodigal child come home for dinner? Or, a woman whose reached a level of maturity in life worthy of distinction and respect of her young peers?

I got a burger all right and a snapshot of myself that I have never seen before. A wake up call, perhaps. A little light of truth bursting through those drive through windows!

This episode reminds me of a friendly conversation at my college orientation. When asked about my parents, I said, “My mother was German and my father was Irish. The young man, recognizing the temperamental tendencies of such different people, retorted: “My God! That must of been very confusing!!”

“Yes,” I said. “My mother was very busy, rigorously doing everything that needed to be done like her life depended on it.” I remember stories of her neighborhood in Little Neck, NY, where she scrubbed the front steps to the house each day. So, they sparkled.

My father was a bit more relaxed. If the roof leaked over his office, he’d just put a soup pot on his desk and continued doing his crossword puzzle until he felt like fixing it. It’s fine! No worries!

Of course, this temperament is not true of all Irish people. But, being easy going to a fault explains why he could sleep in his toolbox at the construction site where he worked in Boston. (It was a long drive home to Marshfield, I guess.)

My dad pops out of his 30″ X 72″ steel vault bright and early and his crew shouts: “Mal!” my brother tells us- entertaining the family at holidays. “It was sort of like Cheers! when the beloved character ‘Norm’ walks in for a beer,” he says.

So, affection is a balm to one’s soul, a soothing antidote to the chaos –within and without. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” says Dorothy to Toto in the Wizard of Oz. This place will likely have it lions and tigers and bears, “Oh my!” But, the State for Lovers is starting to feel like home.

The problem growing up with a television (which replaced mothers in the home when I was young) is the non-stop non-sense that is funneled into the unformed, almost prescient, human consciousness. With all due respect to actors who portray characters who are truly heroic and to be admired, it should be obvious by now Hollywood stars make terrible parents.

Growing up watching t.v., I started to mimic naturally what I saw which is what children do. And to assimilate to the madness. That’s why when I’d suffer I’d look to the drug store. When I wanted comfort food which did not exist at home – because mothers were supposed to be working like men and leaving children home alone with the television– I ate at McDonald’s. And, it may be said about me, I live in a complete fantasy as do the Hollywood stars who went before me. Can I be blamed for that??

In most cultures before our time, mothers are revered as the defenders of the weak and helpless, children, the sick, and the oppressed. Men died in tribal skirmishes or all out wars by thousands to defend mothers and children. The sixties changed all that. Women were made to be confused about their value then, just like public schools are making children confused about their gender now.

To what end? Well, so the gods of the New World Order can sell us solutions to whatever problem we have. No moral restraints whatsoever! No mothers to protect them, children are ripe fodder for the beast I spoke about in Myths, Beasts, and Conspiracies.

Despite my horrible Hollywood upbringing, and the toxic swamp that is our current culture, I am grateful to find meaning in the madness. Once we identify what the madness is, we can be free from it. The madness is the lie: “We can do whatever we want! Who can say otherwise??”

Does anyone believe that to be true anymore?

My happy days with the hens are long over. However, I have Copper’s example of courage and duty, and discipline in the face of great trial as sign post – or ‘North Star’ one may say – in case I get lost in this new place called “the South.”

I am not typically a big earner of cash. Cash is handy. Money in this world does seem to answer most material concerns. But, it’s the immaterial things that concern me- the elusive ‘happiness.’ But, rarely does anyone gives you cash for asking questions. I’ve grown to believe unless I am contributing to the GDP in some significant way, I am irrelevant.

This mindset is a bit less so in the South. Here people seem like a big family. People treat each other with kindness and respect – even affection. In the minute and a half I was at the McDonald’s drive-through, I went from “sugar” to “ma’am.” The elderly mother figure in the ordering window treated me like a beloved grandchild come home for dinner. The young, black woman in the next window treated me like an aged-woman, worthy of respect, for being a woman, I guess.

This troubles me because I have never thought of myself as ‘beloved’ by anybody before. Neither have I ever been a person worthy of distinction because of my seniority (except at Dunkin Donuts where the 13 year old serving coffee gave me a ‘senior’ discount.)

Whoever I thought I was before seems a little less relevant. My object of leaving New England was to continue living my brave, new life somewhere where lower contributors to the GDP may find refuge. I didn’t expect to find affection. I felt like crying which is strictly “verboten” in German families. The tears somewhat waned in the face of a big burger, fries and a milkshake from Grandma.

This opens a whole new set of questions, like: What is a woman? If I get to be distinguished just for my biology, it seems prudent to know why, so I don’t disappoint anyone too terribly.

I always thought women were useful to tell men to stop doing the stupid things they are doing. Hence: “WO MAN!” Then there’s is the ancient meaning of woman, Wo(mb)man or – hu-man with a womb.

It seems the social agitators demanding equal rights for woman forgot that bearing humans into the world and then guiding them continually like a North Star, from the stupid they may endeavor, is already a full-time job. Perhaps that is why they contribute less to the GDP. Right?

If we forget women’s forever contribution to the world, who will raise the future employees of the world? The television? What I am trying to say is: If there were more mothers celebrated for being what they are by nature, we’d have less stray children crying in the McDonald’s drive-though. And eating burgers and fries to comfort themselves.

There’s seems to be a great conflict, two competing ideas that twist through our culture and our beings as well. In the Copper Chronicles, a repeating theme is quest for meaning- to learn things- and to explore. I mean, to know things that matter.

The blinking lights of social media are very stimulating, like coffee. But, having my heart beat in an elevated state, then seeing thousands of images (mostly peppered with sales pitches), is not particularly helpful to this pursuit of meaning.

I mean, who’s idea is it anyway, to subject human beings to steady sources of mostly meaningless stimulation, then sell them things??

Jean-Luc Picard’s Next Generation Star Trek crew experience this phenomenon. An alien ship introduces the crew to a new electronic ‘toy.’ After everyone gets addicted- and hypnotized essentially- the alien species begins to take over the ship.

There’s an unhealthy subliminal message twisting through our media and my being- ‘one that creates confusion and desperation. So, one feels like Humphrey Bogart hacking his way out of the jungle while lost on his ship, “The African Queen.”

That message is: it’s ‘Just Us.’ There’s no such thing as truth, or God, or Justice. We are accountable to no one. That’s explains why the world is chaotic. People in power think they can do whatever they want. Who can say otherwise?

Is it Justice we want? Or is it Just Us? And we would like to continue doing whatever we want? I watch Star Trek, I don’t want to be hypnotized and infiltrated by alien species! And, as for Humphrey Bogart, his real character in the story steals the missionary’s wife, I believe. Then rushes out in the jungle with her and the two get swallowed up by it, never to emerge again…

Hollywood makes the two characters tragic heroes, of course. You can do anything in Hollywood! ‘An industry devoted to selling complete fantasy: where we can do whatever we want!

Who can say otherwise??