What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

Another day well spent with friends. Another outing with Tiffany and Jerry...always a good time whatever activity that involves! It was the Whitewater Olympic Trials at Charlotte, NC. Other events at the Whitewater Center this weekend included the Canadian Olympic Team Trials, the COPAC PanAmerican Championships, and the Americas Olympic Continental Qualifier.

There are LOTS more pics from the outing to still to post, but I couldn't wait to get up some preliminary shots to share before the weekend was over! The "embedd slideshow" feature from webshots is not the grandest...cuts off many of the shots, so you might want to click the link below to get a better view of the shots!

You plod along through life fulfilling your personal multitudes of responsibilities – you work, you run errands, you go home and work some more – maybe even work out for your own physical good instead of for everyone else’s demands,  you chill out in front of a boob tube or in a book, you go to sleep,  then you get up the next day and do it all again. On occasion when you can fit it into either your schedule or your energy level…or BOTH… you schedule a few hours for dinner or lunch, or even an entire day for some random recreation with friends you don’t have time to see NEARLY as much as you would like. Of course, you will PAY for that recreation time with extra hours of make-up time in the errand and work category, either before or after your digression from responsibility, but it seems worth the sacrifice…at least sometimes.

In quiet moments, you sometimes contemplate the possibilities for your future, which really don’t look so promising from your present vantage point. You realize your life isn’t exactly as you had once hoped it would be, but it is as it should be and you’ve learned to accept it.

Every now and then some sappy chick flick comes on the cable channel you happened to leave your TV on while you’re working on your laptop, or dusting and cleaning house or trying to juggle your bills and bank account, or sometimes while you’re just lying on the sofa being a slug for no special reason at all other than that you are convinced that you have earned the privilege to be a slug when you damn well feel like being one. You try not to get involved in the sappy love story on the TV because you’ve been around the block enough times to know that crap like that just doesn’t happen in real life. MEN like that just don’t happen in real life. And yet, in the closing scenes, you find yourself foolishly wondering, “Why can’t that happen to ME?” You shrug and chuckle at your own silliness in even considering such a foolish question – you remind yourself that such things just don’t happen in real life, to real people, like you. Then you get up and get back to work and to minding the responsibilities that you’ve shamefully neglected for 2 hours while indulging in some absurd female fantasy.

And then one day when you least expect it – not just because you’ve lost all hope for expecting it but also because you don’t even feel deserving to hope for it anymore – one day when you least expect it but need it most, but are far too proud to ever ADMIT that you need it – one day when you least expect it...

...something magical happens…

Has anyone ever actually SEEN Renee Zellweger's eyeballs?

In honor of Snugg’s birthday this weekend, the folks here at the Nuthouse Preserve have adopted a new cat, or rather, the cat adopted us. Kendall named her Pepper.

Living on a corner of several adjoining rural roads, where there is also located a fallen in barn of ancient origin, many irresponsible butt wads tend to see this as the ideal place to dump unwanted cats that they were too irresponsible to care for. For the most part, these cats and kittens turn wild and their short lives serve only as a food source for the local fox and coyote. Rarely does one venture close to our house, making Pepper the rare exception to the rule. She made friends with Kendall and soon made our front porch her new home. I told Kendall he could keep her ONLY if he earned the money to have her spayed and get her shots. I made her and appointment at the local animal shelter and was able to get her spayed, all shots, and a microchip for just $16. She spent the night recovering in Rascal’s large crate last night, and since arising this morning, is now lost somewhere in this monstrosity of a house. We have looked for her for over an hour and no sign of her. Hmmmm.

Well anyway, this is our present to you, our beloved Snuggs – a rare post from the Nuthouse and the gift of new life to an abandoned kitten.

PS - This was written earlier today. I thought I had published it already, but apparently not. Duh. Anyhoo, we didn't locate Pepper until around 6pm. She had snuggled up under a chest in Kendall's room. I would've posted a picture of her, but my goofy image host has gone awry again and tells me that I no longer exist. I'll post one as soon as they get their ducks back in a row, Snuggs!

 


I watched a movie recently called “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” The story centered largely around a Sioux Indian named Charles Eastman, and his work at Pine Ridge, South Dakota and events preceding and immediately following the Battle at Wounded Knee Creek. The movie touched upon the murder of Chief Sitting Bull, the controversial Ghost Dance as practiced by the Lakota Sioux, the Sioux’s refusal to sell the Black Hills, and the US army’s defunct attempt to turn the nomadic, hunter-gatherer Sioux Indian tribes into farmers on land that was not particularly suited to farming.

As with most video interpretations, the movie was somewhat inaccurate in the sequence and details of events, but it seemed the objective was not so much historical accuracy as it was to portray the feelings of the participants, the clashes of culture and the misunderstandings resulting from such, and how fear of differing cultures can lead to such senseless tragedies…not to mention the evil of trying to “control” societies that we fear by robbing them of their own history and traditions, the culture that makes them who they are.

The sad thing is that I think there were many truly decent individuals on BOTH sides that got caught up in this conflict, victimized by fear and misunderstandings. Caught in the middle of all this confusion was a quite remarkable man known as Charles Eastman (or, Ohiyesa, by his tribal brethren). Ohiyesa’s mother was a white woman, his father a full-blooded Sioux. And true to his heritage, he spent his entire adult life as a most remarkable intercessor between the whites and the Indians, seeking to take the best of best of both worlds and cultures and incorporate it into a new and better way in which both cultures could live together in harmony. The movie touched upon the inner emotional conflicts of Ohiyesa as he sought to build a constructive bridge between these two cultures.

That differing cultures will eventually clash is inevitable in the evolution of man. But I believe the ultimate purpose of such clashes is exactly what Ohiyesa spent his life attempting to do. EVERY culture, EVERY belief system, has buried within it, it’s own riches and wisdom that are unique to it. To reject it or to attempt to eradicate other cultures and belief systems in whole is to lose the opportunity for your own personal advancement and the advancement of your own culture. That is the stupidity of narrow-mindedness and fear.

In a sense, I see Ohiyesa’s/Charles’ unique heritage as a bi-racial individual as both his blessing and his curse – the same blessing/curse that presents itself to every bi-racial individual, regardless of the blended races. There is sometimes pain and confusion in conflicting loyalties, but for those very special individuals who are able to rise above this ‘curse,’ the prospects of the accomplishment of many great things knows no limits. May we ALL, regardless of race and culture, learn much from such incredible individuals.

Learn more about Ohiyesa/Charles:
http://www.worldwisdom.com/Public/SlideShows/SlideShow.asp?SlideShowID=3&SlideDetailID=1