Tag: Mystery of the Reality

It came to pass that Momma and RIP Daddy took vacation, back to Momma’s place of birth, where things were not always what they seemed or even explicable, at times.

The baseball game was always a Right of Passage, separating the Men from the Boys, that you must endure (word chosen to relay Daddy and Momma’s poor attitude) at least one night of their vacation on the ball diamond or they may not be invited to the

Bonfire which could happen any moon lit night on whatever beach was chosen by the organizers, but kept secret to the last-minute (kind of like the Raves in Toronto where kids get on a bus with windows covered in order to keep the location a sworn secret from helicopter parents, who inevitably turned in to snow plow parents, as their kids mature). It was no normal game with teams.  Each person came up to bat, like live looping disco music and the guy with the most home runs for the night won. Lucky for Momma she was so bad they didn’t use her as a catcher or an outfielder.  She could not hit or catch a ball to save her soul but it was not for naught – at least Momma gave her fellow players something to laugh about.

Somehow the subject of ‘remember whens’ turned to the night Starlight hit the ball out of the park.  Like a winged angel, she seemed almost airborne as she passed the bases, her long blonde pony tail flying behind her.  At home base she collapsed in shock because all these years and all those times up to bat and she hadn’t come close to connecting, before that night.

No one knew what happened to Starlight.  She had not been home, must be over thirty years now, the players all agreed. They all pondered and wondered what life had rolled out for her because everyone has their ups and downs, no doubt about that.

All of a sudden, from the players at the picnic table, there were gasps and excited voices, ‘Look, look out on the field. I don’t know if you can believe this, but I am told it was like a white light bathed the field.  There was, Starlight at bat. She connected with that fastball and sent it out of the park, over the trees to an unknown destination, and made her famous run once again, pony tail flying behind her, around the bases, home safe, to a cheering crowd.  And as quickly as the show started it ended, leaving all the players, Momma and Daddy as well, in the dark once again and speechless.

What had just happened?  Was Starlight still alive? Had she astro traveled when she heard the reminiscing?  Was Starlight a Starbright in Heaven twinkling down upon them and thought that it would be fun to once again entertain them with a home run?

Please, if anyone can figure this out, let Momma know because it drives her crazy not being able to come up with a logical explanation.

And you know those Right Wing, Born again, No-Booze for Youse (but still fun) all-related-to-you-somehow-types never would talk about it again.  No, they all took the Fifth Amendment.  It was, like erased from their memory bank.  But Momma knows…. it still haunts them.

It was an old house, a sad house, a dilapidated house, sitting high up on the hill, the doors sagging, the glass panes broken.  Sometimes, when we were out for a walk, Momma and I would pass by and I would beg her, ‘Tell me that story again. Momma’.  You know Momma.  She loves spinning tales.  I have long ceased trying to separate the Fact from Fiction because we all know how strange the truth can be.

Many, many years ago a middle-aged couple moved from the city to our home town, bought a piece of land on the hill, built a house with the mountains behind them, the ocean in front of them.  They appeared gentrified and uppity to the local folks, as well as reclusive, so no one knew much about them, where they came from, if they had children. No, no one knew.

Somehow Mr. and Mrs. Uppity lived among them without blending in, which was unheard in this part of the country, where the neighbor’s knew if someone cut a tree down on your property on the second concession, without your permission.

It was like an invisible fence ran around their property that shielded the privacy of the Uppities and kept the locals out.  Sometimes you’d see the locals just standing on the road, staring up the hill, saying, ‘It’s a strange, strange world, we live in, when you may not even know who lives beside you.’.

Time passed. Mr. Uppity went to his  greater reward.  And Mrs. Uppity?  No one knows what happened to her.  Did she run away in the middle of the night? Did she head to the mountain for a stroll, take a wrong turn and become disoriented, entrapped forever in the deep, dark forest? Is Mrs. Uppity somewhere in that rambling old house, like down in the cellar, scrounging for potatoes, harvested the past fall or  up in the attic, digging through trunks of memorabilia? 

Or… was Mrs. Uppity from outer space conducting an experiment to understand human relationships, like marriage?  Was she one of ‘them’, in human form? Did the space ship come and ‘Beam her up, Scottie’, to report to the Space Alien Commander and Chief, once Mr. Uppity died? And could it be the Extraterrestrials that hold parties in the lonely mansion on the hill? What is that Momma? I never heard of Extraterrestrials before.  Later, Jakita, I’ll tell you what I have heard and saw, later.

Finally after many years, the locals scaled the invisible fence and peaked in the windows.  The supper dishes were on the table, dinner still on the plate, as if Mrs. Uppity left in a hurry. The closets were full of clothes, the beds made meticulously. Like here one moment, gone the next.

Over the years, things happened, no one will lay claim to.  The dishes were all broken and flung across the floor. The furniture has been ravaged whether by the Two Footed or the Four Footed, who knows? All the locals can say for sure is that it has been said every few years on a moonlit night, the lonely  mansion on the hill is flooded with g;owing lights.  Sometimes you can hear music and loud voices coming from the open windows.  Then as quickly as it started, it ends abruptly, and the very silence can deafen you.

We never knew what to make of it, Momma told me.  No one could figure them out in life so it is a sure bet, we don’t understand them in death.

What a strange story Momma.  I got to tell Gen, Ruby, Tigger and Babby about the lonely mansion on the hill. We’ll wrap our heads around it and figure it out.  I promise.

Now you know, because I keep you informed, Momma has your average or maybe just above average knowledge of computers because, well, she is a Baby Boomer.  What else can be expected? However, when it comes to Cloud Computing or Cyberspace application, poor Momma is at a total loss and admits the Millennium Generation are miles ahead of her.

Still, although it is beyond Momma’s pay scale to fix computer snafus, at least she can recognize a problem and run with it, because as I have said in the past, she is Quite Contrary. Please do not tell her it can’t be done because, she will turn to me and roll her eyes. Then behind the very backs of the advice givers, she will go ahead and give it a whirl.  The important thing is  Momma gets up, and dusts herself off if she falls flat on her face (again).  Come to think of it, she is just like me!

If you are asking for a ‘for instance’, we will start with a blog.  Many good souls told her stay out of the Blogging Swimming Pool.  Who could be interested in the interpretation of life through the eyes of a Hog Dog (me) or those Cool Cats who are street urchins, without grace or manners.  They asked legitimate questions, like:

• Do you know how to write code? Well, no.
• Do you know about Plugins? No, again.
• Do you know how to customize (I’ll learn), optimize (Is there a plug-in for that?) or categorize (Aren’t all girls are born to do that)?
• Can you create tags so Search Engines find you? Uh, what happens if I don’t?  Oh, no Visitors to the Site?  I’m on it because Tag, your it or your out!

Then there were the fear mongers who let Momma know she was inviting trouble.  The hackers would be relentlessly attacking, the Spam Bots would be mushrooming in an attempt to take over time and space.  It seems there are so many unknowns that you must have your gold  or silver or ivory inlaid sword with a heat-treated serrated blade to run a thorough surveillance.

Even though we have the most recommended plug-in for Spam, we have had our share of the absurd.  Comments that have 50-75-1000 links to nefarious businesses that sell products  from A to Z.  We never knew there were so many types and colors of shoes in existence. Then there are the players and the well, not G-Rated sites.  It is all good. That is what delete is for.  Still there were those treasures among the trash, sincere readers who would send a comment or ask a question about a post. Then one day it stopped.  No more Comments – no one was pushing links, sending a ‘howdy’. The silence was deafening for a blogger.

So Momma contacted her Spam Fighting Comment Plug-in Team.  They were perplexed but gracious. The Millennium Staffers tried to make Momma see that their plug-in was just dandy and proof positive was she was getting no comment spam.  Momma is not easily convinced so she sent her own proof. Even those in her social network, vetted by Google, over the years, were sending comments that did not reach the dashboard. Meanwhile the questionable unknown origin messages somehow crashed through all barriers in place and landed in her email, not even in her spam folder.

And then, a miracle. One day Momma went in and by George, she had Comments. The good news now is that we very rarely get those comments with a thousand links anymore.  Slowly but surely a handful of Comments are making its way to our Blog. We do not know if the Anti Spam Gods relented, the Millenniums drank the Koolaid or if Momma, in her ignorance, did some unwitting deed to jump-start the process.  All we know is the end justifies the means….doesn’t it?

So Bloggers, if you want feedback, there is always hope.  If you look at the sun and squint your eyes just so, you will see a the light.

The Comments you long for maybe hanging about in Cyberspace (or possibly caught on the top of a tall Douglas fir-tree) and  may someday make a crash landing on your very own Dashboard! So drop us a line. Give us your analysis. The Hot Dog and Cool Cats are waiting!

 

 

Now I know previously Momma has brought up her Father-God-Rest-His-Soul. It is high time to explore her Mother-God-Rest-Her-Soul’s influence and driving force in her life, even to this very day.

It goes without saying, that parents ‘In the day’, could do no wrong, like Saints, they were, says Momma. The tactics used to turn children in to law-abiding citizens was totally circa the 1950’s.  That meant Grandmama made the decisions about the children’s lives, and just punishments, while Grandpapa pursued his job, his passion for the Masons or any other esoteric or earthly interests that may bleed into this life or the next.

Momma had a dilemma for which she thought needed guidance from above, so she prayed to God for an answer.

Apparently God had mud slide victims in South America to worry about, or an earthquake in Nepal to attend to, so He assigned the responsibility to his good servant, Grandmama.  Now, Momma would have liked her mother to sit on the edge of her bed, take her by the hand, discuss the pro’s and cons of the situation, tell her what to do. Not Her-Mother-God-Rest-Her-Soul.  She delivered a Tsunami, with circular motion sickness that left Momma unable to hold up her head or even move a finger without a corresponding needle darting to my brain, rendering her flat on her back. Not so cool, Grandmama.

At this point Momma would have taken any cure from the pain, even if it left her with six blind eyes, tumor growths or a list of symptoms too numerous to include.  (NOTE: Warnings you hear from television advertisements selling FDA approved prescriptions).  Momma had reached a level of acceptance. She knew the lay of the land.  If you go to a doctor, after you have had a severe disease attack your body and report a new symptom, e.g. like you are growing a second head, the doctor will look at you, with a straight face and say solemnly, ‘With what you have been through, that is to be expected’.

Okay, okay, message delivered.  She understood.  Momma never told me what the dilemma was that she needed help with.  She can be funny that and many  ways… (LOL). Still, Momma was on it. She would accept and follow the advice.

However Grandmama was not finished with Momma yet. The veils that a living person can not normally penetrate, had been removed and Momma says (hey, I was not there) she was given the pleasure of seeing the wide expanse of heaven, with a particular stone wall, made of small rocks and semi precious gems of glittering shades of pink quartz and grey granite.

For the first time since Grandmama’s death nineteen years ago, there she was, dressed in a brillant red dress, trimmed in gold, (befitting a true Leo), with  a plethora of bright colors in the background.  Grandmama was suspended from the ceiling, in the left hand corner of the bedroom, talking in a concentrated, guttural voice, telling Momma she was to write about ‘The Mystery of the Reality’.  She indicated Wonder Boy would somehow explore it further, have a better way to express what the world should, must know.  But hey, ……I’m just the messenger, don’t blame me, I can only report Momma’s  vision and lay out the game plan,as it was told to me.

Momma did tell me her doctor said she must have been experiencing delusions or delirium caused by any number of nefarious conditions. But, get a grip. What does a doctor, who never even met Grandmama, know? Exactly!

Therefore the journey is underway, exploring the past to take us to our future. Hope it is what you meant, Grandmama. Over and Out.

Till we meet (one day).

 

 

 

 

Jakita

A few years back Momma told me we were going on a trip, to the land of her forefathers, deep in the country, where forests hide fields of dreams and sometimes even black bears.

I was not expecting to like it so much, being an urban suburban myself, but hey, I admit, I was smitten.  The grass was so long and green, the mountains high, the ocean waves so inviting.  I could sit on the top of an easy chair, taking it all in, staring out the bay window hour after hour, without blinking. It made me curious, tell me

more.

Momma’s great great grandfather’s family actually left the majestic Kintyre behind and traded it in for the beauty of another peninsula in the  New World, with very similar scenic views.

Their new home hugged the bay to the south, the majestic mountains to the west, the ocean to the east and the dense woods to the north.  Years earlier the settlement had been named  ‘Dark Capes’ supposedly because of the massive cliffs that jutted in to the Bay. Those on board the ships from the crew to weary passengers saw the massive, menacing cliffs on shore, wave carved and shiny black, from the tides rolling in.

However there was another story (isn’t there always) about how their settlement got named.  It would seem that a Captain that manned a ship from the ‘old country’ had a beautiful but wilful daughter that went to sea with him, after the death of her mother. Unfortunately kids were expected to do as they were told in that era. She refused to conform to her father’s authority.  Although forbidden to befriend the crew, she fell in love with a lowly deck hand.

The Captain pleaded with her to desist, to no avail.  With the fear that the rest of the crew would spot a weakness in him, the Captain felt he had no choice except to throw his beloved daughter and her lover overboard. Say What? If they reached the shore, they could live together happily ever after.  The story goes that they never made land. At least, in a community where everyone knew everyone and their business to boot,  no one in the new world ever claimed to meet the live version of the Captain’s daughter or her Lover.

However, it is said, even today, when the bay is calm, the ghost ship returns with the Captain, her Father, periscope in hand, searching the water and the beach beseechingly, for his daughter.

Although, Momma never saw it, she was told, when the wind whips up the white caps on the waves, the Captain’s daughter and her Lover have been spotted by the locals, walking back and forth on the sandy beach, their Dark Capes flowing behind them, as they wait for Father to have a change of mind and return.  But when you look again, it is already too late. Have they melted in to the shadows to become one with the Dark Capes or have they found shelter in the cave, as they wait patiently for their ‘ship to come in’?

Wow, that is hard-core, they practised tough love to the extreme in those days, Momma!  It is sadder than our Sophie Alert.  No Daddy can be that heartless…can they???  Don’t tell me stories like that again, okay, Momma because I can’t handle the truth….or even old wives tales…..