Today I went to pay the taxes on my meager townhome shack; a yearly trip I always dread. I loaded up my cute little dog in my old Toyota, put him on his car cushion, and checked twice for my checkbook. Anytime I have to forfeit big money for something I don't want, I get a bit perturbed; today was no different. Especially since, for some unknown reason, my taxes are higher but my property value has remained rather flat. The weather is lovely: temperatures in the high 60's, sunshine, and no wind whatsoever. My drive up to the county seat was pleasant enough.

The assessor's office was full of people trying to pay up before the Texas Tax Posse rides in February. No one was in a very cheerful mood. I could hear complaining from all corners of the room, while patient female voices sympathetically explained facts and figures from the opposite side of the old wooden counter. After some delay, it was finally my turn. Feeling a little sick of paying out and trying to live on practically nothing, my mood was just as sour as my fellow property owners.

The woman who took my check was funny, kind, and friendly. Her hair was a bright blondish red, and her suit matched her cheerful mood. We bantered back and forth while she checked out my statement; we wheedled away the time discussing Joel Osteen, our neighbors, style and the beautiful weather. I strolled out of the tax office braless, wearing an old leather vest, a big hole in my Levi's, swinging this giant gold purse my cousin bought me, in old studded platform shoes; and I was happy. I had just been treated like a millionairre by a beautiful lady on a sunny southern morning. That's what I love about Texas: people that matter are as normal as hell; the ones that don't count (but think they do) are running around miserable with their nose in the air.

More Later....and I love you.

Maron Thomas, 20, is accused of killing his mother, stepfather, brother, sister, and two-year old niece near Bellville Sunday morning. He's in jail, and now he is formally charged, but my neighbors have all of their outdoor lights on again tonight. Of course, it was okay for them to try to take my security light down. What an insulting statement they made with that stunt. Remember this MESS?

Written in passive voice....but not by a passive writer....

An ordinary light can become a symbol for opinions both trite and ignorant. A light can wend itself into an object of politics, a signal of social class, and a beacon of power misplaced. In the wrong hands, a light can become a weapon for a crowd of buffoons; a meaningless discount on a larger and more problematic electricity concern. A single light can become a tool in the hands of cronies; an implement used for insult, not safety or comfort. But for a woman in the dark, the light is a guard. Glowing against the shadowey corners of the fence, lighting the walkway steady like a good friend; the beam beckons or hastens away. When driving, or walking up to the lighted area, one can look for the out of place candy wrapper, smoldering cigarette, or shadowy figure. Intuition has a helpmate in hand; the light is a partner against crime, against the knife, or a gun. But why should anyone care who doesn’t depend on the light? After all, a light activated by motion should be good enough for a woman coming home, or going out, all alone at night. It should suffice for the ‘underclass,’ or a person of questionable origin or heritage, an outsider. It ought to be good enough for such a woman and her child. All of this noise about the light ought to make one wonder, “How did we arrive here? What controversy or quibble has the light ensued?”

The gardening crew was out today doing our community lawn. It is my opinion, and I am sure most of you would agree, that using other people's money for your own benefit is not only unethical, but most likely not legal. I am not a lawyer, but I don't take other people's money for my own use. If I lay claim to an area of the garden, and I don't allow others to use or plant in that area, then it seems to me that I should get out there and work in it myself. If I hire the crew to work my personal garden area, then I should pay them with a check out of my own account---not one from the townhome fund. Furthermore, I should not use other people's money to buy anything for myself. It's a NO BRAINER!!!

I am looking at a pretty ugly situation out there.

Must Be A Fallen Angel

My weblog is going to suffer for a while. I just hope all of my regular readers will be patient with me and not slip away. I understand that I am not very interesting, but I want to thank you for sticking with me and clicking on my little ads. If you can hang on until March, I promise to get busy and write some things that are truly interesting.

 

And I do not fear to say that those who are held

Wise amongst men and who search the reasons of things

Are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves.

Euripedes from Medea 480-406 BC

So strange how empty some vessels. The disillusion after the rising climax, the denouement, and finally understanding your life has been devoid of liberty; and as light makes it exit stage left, your fear is such each moment is eternal, the clonging of an everlasting bell. How I see the straggling and struggling cars, puffing smoke into the city, checking the clock, and faces behind the wheel, and I wonder, "Are they afraid of what the next mile might offer?" A sudden burst of dust, the banging sound of crunching car, and a blood streaked road, quickly the falling action and no time for the dead to ask those critical questions; you simply deliver the bodies to the morgue and push the stroller to the edge of the road.

Those who search for the reason of things are considered iconoclastic, an agent of change, and troublesome and unhappy; this I know from my twenty-five years of travel.

Now you know the cause of my search, and who I really am, the source of my sorrow. I take a box of Wasabi from the cabinet and the cheese from the cooler. I fill a crock half full of red wine, and I look down into the crystal and find a fly floating in the fragrance of my grape. Angry, I unwrap the cheese and find paper towel clinging to the corners...but, I catch my reflection and I see I am bringing the sorrow on myself, and my smiling face reminds me of a leading question, and so I followed it for years. "Why do they want to throw you away?" I laugh at the idiocy of our modern world: Mary Kay makeup, p/b and jelly without the crust, Jack in the Box, and the petty moanings of the neighborhood gossips.

The wisdom some 2500 years old, and yet it is like new news. Justice will never be served, so there I go again: worry will follow, and eyes will search, suspicions will arise, and I will continue to smile.