Top Thirteen Twitter Don’ts…
Must share article about twitter don’ts saw on divacat’s tweet. I violated most mentions.
Boring weather comments, and well just plan boring, etc.
But thank goodness I nevered tweeted potty habits.
“How Do You Silence a Rooster? Well, Other Than a 12-gauge?”
Breathing. A rather quiet activity. Then you wake up in the middle of the night and hear your sweetly sleeping husband’s breath going in and out, in and out. After that, sleep runs from you far as Moscow. Hard to get mad at him for just breathing, but in the stillness — it’s LOUD. Drives me batty. Politely, I poke and prod to get him to stop breathing. Well, stop breathing loudly.
Why does something so unnoticeable during waking hours glare as the searing pain of a splinter in the silence of the dark? Take the rooster’s crow.
There used to be a rooster in town. Now he might still strut this earth, I just don’t hear him. I miss him. Don’t know if his owners do. Don’t know if his used-to-be neighbors do. Don’t know what resulted in his demise. Maybe swift sword of city ordinance or just a swift sword?
Now people do dreadful things to silence roosters. Some quiet a cock’s song by voice box removal, some snip tongues (both terribly cruel). Castrating the poor fellow doesn’t work. Capons still crow… albeit a much higher pitch. Still a few invite the offending rooster into the house for dinner. Yes, welcomed inside for a finger-lickn’ good meal. But last time I checked, roosters possess really large, really taking-care-of-business talons — hence no fingers to lick. Uh oh, Mr. Comb.
Now some have silenced crowers placing them in tiny covered cages. While dark, they think it is night and stay mute.
My feathered nemesis is never silent those nights I waken, tossing and turning, the amplified volume of my breath leaving me sleepless. That arrogant cock shrieks loudly; once, twice – even a third time.
That maddening rooster. There’s no denying that once I’ve woken, sleep runs far past Moscow. Deep rest flees rapidly towards Tokyo. My mind tumbles with all that’s unsaid, not mended, not atoned. A 3 a.m., quiet riot.
As easily I slip into fret and denial, the rooster can’t help but crow. Battened down, dark and tight as a tick in some cage; the second sensing light, he gloriously cries. In the silent tomb of a small covered box that stubborn, fowl creature feverishly anticipates dawn.
My husband can’t stop breathing. I can’t stop waking in the middle of the night.
Roosters crow all the time. We just aren’t listening.
Only in the quiet of early morning light does the pure brilliance of the cock’s cry penetrate every cell. Grabbing in, grasping on, and never letting go — all the way down to the tiniest fibers of your purple-painted, neatly manicured, constantly-striving talons.
Though deepest dark presses down some nights, the sun breaks free each morning.
He’s calling all the time, you know.
Anticipate the dawn.
Thought for the Day.”You’ll always be…”
If you always do
What you’ve always done,
You’ll always be
What you’ve always been.
Josh McDowell
“Spending Days Hanging Out in a Parked Car.”
Parked cars and jump ropes. Lifelines really.
Often I pull into my driveway and sit. Sometimes the radio plays, sometimes not. I leaf through a magazine. Sometimes I eat a bowl of cereal. Watching for birds at the feeder or looking at the peeling paint on the garage, hours pass.
It just started happening. Drop kids at school. Come home, turn car off and vegetate. My sanctuary. A SUV terrarium keeping sanity and moisture in (good for aging skin); problems outside.
Then school schedules a weeklong break and my refuge turns interstate mobile; except now, children drape the seats. Bathroom stops. Loud music, movies. Car seat turf wars.
Then the one stop too many.
I should have listened to that little voice. Don’t stop now Jamie. You are 55 miles from destination. Battle worn, sleepy and still sore from morning’s boot camp, I pulled over.
We bought snacks, pottied, settled back into car and WHAM. Wham! Wham!
Try as I might; inexplicably, the driver’s door would not shut. Five minutes of ineffective slamming passed. I looked to the door. I looked to my children; I looked at 55 miles.
“Let’s roll.”
Funny. Obtaining highway speed, an unlatched car door strains to open. Wrenches away at you, actually. The upside was absolute silence fell over the car. And I always envisioned driving a doors-free Wrangler.
Then my brilliant son said, “Mom, a jump rope.”
Flying along, my hand about the handle the other clenching the wheel, he hands me a beautiful $1 impulse purchase bought the day before to pacify a whining child. Holding the rope lassoed to the door, my teenager rather water-skied for the next 50 miles.
Even the clamor in the car approached its usual din when young ones realized mommy was not going to tumble out of car into a lifeless clump on the turnpike.
Life is never dull. The unexpected abounds. Money disappears, job security disappears, and then you hear killer whales have appeared in the Gulf of Mexico.
These days you deal. You look at unlatchable doors; shrug your shoulders and roll. Part of us craves asylum, but human spirits wither in hermetically-sealed environs. Life in sanctuary works for an endangered Rusty Blackbird, but for you and me, thrill and passion slowly drain away.
Who knows why sanctums spin loco without warning? Maybe it’s just the wrong perspective. One appeared impenetrable; one frightening. I guess spending your days hanging out in a parked car is truly terrifying. Abundant living comes with trust – white-knuckled or not, doors wide-open and asphalt rushing under your feet at 80 miles per hour.
Sometimes all you can do is trust a $1 piece of twine. Or recognize the miracle that it patiently lay waiting in your car in the first place.
The Sun is shining.. The hills are ALIVE..
”
Saw this on Maddow’s tweet this morning. And too good not to share…
After all the sun is FINALLY shining here in Madtown, why not break into song at a train station?
Kind of like Thriller meets Julie Andrews…
