Happiness.....again

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning and yet, I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right? - Charles M. Schulz

My life is exactly that -no direction and no goal. And yet, I'm not sure if I am unhappy or happy.
What I'm sure of though, is that I hate people who's always happy. I have a friend who's always in the best of moods and laughs at everything --even at the funeral. Of her husband. (And I hate her more because she won't share whatever it is she's smoking.) I am seldom happy but there are a few things that tickles me once in a while. Like:

1. When I open my eyes in the morning and realize that I haven't died.

2. When I can get out of bed. (without having to coax my legs to move)

3. When I can go to the bathroom, and I mean, go without laxative.

4. When my gray roots are not visible, even if you have your glasses on.

5. When I am sure of the answer to the question: Do I need a man?

And lastly, I am most happy when I can say the word "menopause" and not associate it with wrinkled, dry prune.

Poets and Poetry

I'm sitting here with a glass of stale shiraz, it's 10 at night and I'm trying to read (and understand) Lowell's, The Pious Editor's Creed. So who's to say that Dan Quayle (or is it Kwell) or our kids nowadays can't spell? Maybe they read too much Chaucer or Lowell.

I du believe in Freedom's cause,
Ez fur away ez Payris is;
I love to see her stick her claws,
In them infarnal Phayrisees;
It's wal enough agin a king
To dror resolves an' triggers, --
But libbaty's a kind o' thing
Thet don't agree with niggers.

If you want to read the rest you can go here. Or you can buy my classic collection so I 'll have money to go on a trip, instead of sitting here reading dead peoples' poetry.

Happy to Tell Me?

Yesterday, I received a lease renewal letter for my apartment and I'm trying to understand what they mean by: "We are happy to tell you, that we can adjust the term to fit your needs."
Happy to tell me? That they will raise my rent to $10dollars a month, if I decide to continue giving them my business and sign a contract for another year, but if I opted the month to month basis only, they will raise it by $262.oo a month. Shouldn't they be saying, "Regardless that the unemployment rate is inching at 10%, we have to make you poorer by increasing your rent, and we know you won't be happy with this, so we're not sure if we should tell you that we're happy." I think I'm going to move in with Mark Boyle.

Just ranting...

H.L. Mencken said that there's no more depressing thing in life than watching your neighbor get rich. Well, I don't know of any neighbor getting rich, I don't even have friends who's rich --unless getting approved for welfare counts as getting rich.

Now I can tell you what depresses me: Watching everything go up--like, my rent. Followed by my blood pressure. Yesterday, I went to lunch with one of my friends and after we ate,we went walking around the Asian market. We browsed and gushed over the rising costs of food. "Oh my God, the price of canned squid and the dried sardines have increased a lot." We said it almost at the same time. Then she continued in her high pitch voice, "We need a new president." (My friends' high pitch voice is annoying but what's more annoying is when she says something like this.) I wanted to tell her that she can't complain because she didn't vote, but all I said was, "Before long, we're going to have to eat manna." My friend doesn't read the bible so she has no idea what "manna" is. I don't either. All I know is that it's what God fed the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai, way back when, after God found out squid is not good for you,--even if it's fresh and not canned.

Another thing that depresses me is when I can't remember the other things that depresses me. And I know there's a lot because I never get out of depression. Oh, now I remember, my rent.

Just Wondering...

I've read Genesis so many times but while reading Genesis 3 again this morning, the part where God cursed the snake (for telling Eve to eat the apple) and told the snake "on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat" I suddenly had to wonder: How did the snake move around before,if not on its belly since it doesn't have any feet? And what was Eve smoking, that she listened and got enticed by something that look like that? I dont know. But now my mind has more questions.

1. Why is it that men salivate over boobs and legs while women only gets turned on by cash and shoes?

2. Why is it that when a woman is having hormonal crisis, all she wants to do is kill anything that breathes and eat anything that doesn't move. The man simply withdraws and devour porn.

3. When a man goes out and gets something slow and young or red and fast (or both) people say he's having middle age crisis, but when a woman does it, she's lost her mind.

Lastly, and I wonder about this all the time. Whenever I pass by a building construction or roads being built or repaired I'd see a lone white man, the boss--the rest are wetbacks, Chicanos and Mexicans. Where's the other color?

To Be or Not to Be

Life is a series of choices, even choosing not to choose is a choice. The options are clear according to God. He has set before us life or death, blessing or cursing, "therefore choose life" He said. On one side there is the voice of safety, on the other side there's the whisper of adventure. Some people are adventurous, while others always choose the safe route. As Max Lucado says: Stay warm and dry for what you don't try and you can't fall if you don't take a stand.

The safe side is not exciting, so quit that job, adopt the child, change careers, move to another city or another country. But whatever you do, make sure God is coming with you. There are 3 choices in life: Run, look, or commit. In my 53 years of life, it seems that I've spent it on running and looking and I'm bored with it. Commitment is big, commitment is scary, but it's never dull. We can choose to participate in the roller coaster where it can be nauseating or we can opt out and choose to watch the wheels turn from the safety of what's familiar. Take a chance--Columbus did.

Shock and Awe

It's Sunday morning and I just woke up to find out that my close friend has early stages of colon cancer. We have been wondering about her weight loss lately and now the blood tests has come back to confirm what we don't want confirmed. But God is still on the throne and still in control.
It's been a jagged edge week for me even without this news. When I am stressed, I bake and bake and eat and eat. And more so this week because I am afraid to leave the house because there's no telling when and where my car will dump me. After spending 827 dollars on it, the problem still exist! Ok, Lord it's your call.
I was supposed to take this to a friend yesterday but I ate it instead.Tried to make pintos - a childhood food, but can't quiet duplicate it. Reason why there's no picture of the finished product.Making rendang paste the hard way because I'm told that doing it with mortar and pestle taste way better than one from the blender.

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

These are real nurse anesthetists and because of Obamacare, they now have to audition with America's Got Talent. Here check them out.

Dear Anne Landers

This is a reprint. One of those letters to Anne Landers.


I would like to share my story because I know that a lot of people think of their lives the way I thought of mine. Sometimes you feel lonely and unloved in a marriage, even after 23 years. You feel as if there has got to be more to life, so you set out to find someone who can make you happy. You believe that you have found someone and decide he is exactly what you want . So you pack up and say goodbye to that 23-year marriage and all the friends you made when you were part of a couple. You give your children the option of coming with you or staying with their father. You live the glorious life for a few years and then a light bulb goes on in your head. You realize that you have exactly the life that you had before - the only difference is that you've lost your friends, your children's respect and best friend you loved and shared everything with for 23 years. And you miss him. You realize that love does not just happen; it must be nurtured through the years. You can not undo what has been done, so you settle for a lonely and loveless life with emptiness in your heart.

Ann, please print my letter so others will not give up something that is truly precious and let them know that they won't know how precious it is until they have thrown it away.

Heavy-Hearted in Philly

Happiness?

Now what about happiness? This is such an overused word and we don't even know what it is, because if we know what it is, we'd recognize it when it comes and be happy. Kant said something along this line: "Give a man everything he wants, and everything then will not be everything."

I understand we all have "days off" "down days" or whatever term you come up with to describe your inner ramblings. The other day, I was listening to this economist guy talk about happiness and he was coming from a secular viewpoint, not from a biblical perspective. Yet, he hammered a very good point. He said that people are "happiest" when they are virtuous. When we are more giving, when we're nicer to others and when we do the right thing and we don't have to look over our shoulder -afraid of being caught, we're happiest. Therefore, happiness should not be our goal, but doing the moral thing is.

There was a point in my life when I was so unhappy, almost unbearable even, but I got up every morning and accepted that it was my lot in life. I struggled through and God knew when I had enough, so He picked me up and carried me the rest of the way. And just as the unhappiness ended, so did the happy ones.

When daily life gets harder to discern or sort through, always remember what Solomon said:

"This is the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgement, including every secret thing, whether good or evil."

News you can use

I try not to complain anymore, because I'm just too tired to spend the energy on the negative, but Yeah, there are days when I just don't want to be Christ-like.
Even on days when I am not having a bad hormone day, this sight would get me cranked up to buy a gun. When I see kids wearing this, or rings on their noses, I want to hunt down their parents and discipline them....yes the parents. I definitely would vote for this guy to head the PTA.

Shine's Deli

When my friend Karen is in town we always go to this place called Shine's. It is a mini grocery store specializing in Mediterranean delicacies with a few tables and chairs if you want to eat in. Karen and I love the lamb kebob and we order this every time regardless that there's other items in the menu. The owners Naji and Nejat makes you feel like you're family, they always give us free tea and all the flat bread we can eat and all the lessons you can handle about anything there that you're not familiar with. I've discovered that I love Turkish tea more than Chinese tea, so I bought a bag and also a bag of beet sugar.