Snow falls and Good People...

It snowed here yesterday. I had an adventure. Busy stuff.

I went Christmas shopping, for though I am an Atheist, I still celebrate holidays for my own reasons. Christmas is, for me, a time of charity and being with family, for appreciation of the year passed by. My children and husband are not Atheists, I do not impose my belief systems on them, and this celebration of togetherness gives us good holidays. So anyway, I was in the middle of my final bits of Christmas shopping. It had started snowing a little when I got there, nothing big... what we folks in West Virginia call "a snowflake an acre".

I shopped for about an hour and was heading from one part of the store to the next, from toys to clothes as it were, and passed by the entry doors.

Holy sheep shit, there was three inches of snow out there! I hurried through the rest of my shopping and checked out. We headed home.

Now, I live a good 30-45 minutes from the nearest city. I live in the country and the small towns nearby are lucky to have a gas station. So shopping days are hours long trips. I left the store at about 4:00 p.m.

Our little car crept through the snow and slush covered roads, through bumper to bumper traffic, slipping this way and that. Between the city and my house, there are five mountains to crest. Oh yeah. Fun.

We start up the first mountain, and at the steepest part our little car started spinning. And not moving.

Now, I'm a strong willed, strong minded woman. But I'm not possessed of much physical strength. I can carry an arm load of wood or a fifty pound bag of potatoes, but beyond that... that's what guys are for.

We were stuck, with a line of traffic behind us. So, I got out and started pushing the car. My husband was with me and he got out to push too. We got to the top and hopped in the car.

Got stuck on the second mountain, we pushed it uphill again. We were barely getting the car to go. I'm pushing with all I have, cars trying to pass by us on roads now covered with six inches of snow. Snow and ice pelting into my face, me with no gloves and my jacket hood full of ice. My husband is to my left. I slide and hit my head and shoulder on the back hatch (the shoulder has a nicely sore bruise for my troubles). Then, someone is at my right and he says, "We'll get you up to the top. I'll help." I look over at him and a teenage boy, couldn't be more than 13-15 years old, in nothing but a sweatshirt hoodie, starts helping push the car. Once it got going good, I told him to go back to his car and get warm, with my thanks. He nodded and lagged behind. Crested the top, on we go.

Third one, stuck again. I got out and started pushing. (My brother was driving us in his car. I can't drive and my car needs an alternator. My husband's car needs a windshield and back glass, thanks to some vandalism. Doesn't something like that always happen near the holidays?) The car takes off faster than we expected and we couldn't catch up. Knowing my brother would wait at the top of the hill for us, we start walking.

An SUV stops in the middle of traffic and asks if we need a ride to catch up with our car. They saw us pushing it, knew we'd been left behind. The hill still had better than half a mile to the top and they say we'll freeze. We accept, more than grateful, because I was freezing, wet, my fingers and feet going numb. They drive us up to the top and offer to follow us through the next few mountains--they were going the same direction we are. We say thank you and go to our own vehicle with them following behind.

Ass holes abound and pass the people following us. With no four wheel drive, we have to keep moving just to keep moving. We start up the next mountain and get stuck, yet again. Damn it!

We get out, start pushing again. A man pulls to the side and helps my husband push from the back while I push from the open passenger door. A volunteer fire department worker turns on his emergency lights and also helps push from the back. This is the next to last hill. Only one to go; if we can just get over this one, we're home free. The snow is up to seven inches.

We get going again, and faster this time. My husband, the man helping him push and the fireman all fall back, but we can't stop. It's not too far from the top. I get in and at the little knoll just before the crest of the hill, we slide again. And I'm the only one to push the car.

Knowing it's a front wheel drive, I open the passenger door and start pushing. It was slow going, I'm only one small woman, but I got it up to the top. By this time, I'm shaking all over and even with the heater on full blast, I can't get warm. We wait for my husband to catch up and on we go. My brother says fuck this and takes the next hill, which has a nice flat and straight stretch before the ascent, at high speed for nearly eight inches of snow. This time, we don't have to push.

We finally get to our little one lane road and start in. But where we live, in a little valley between two huge mountains, we get drifts from both sides. There's over a foot of snow in front of us and it flies up over the windshield. We can't see. The little car won't make it. We can't get any further than maybe 50 feet from the turn off. We're stuck and no amount of pushing would make the car go.

Neighbors come by in their big truck and offer to help us get the car to the side where it wouldn't get hit by other drivers, and to take us and our things home.

What should have been a thirty to forty minute drive turned out to be more than 5 hours. We didn't get home until nearly ten o'clock. It was an adventure, but I don't want another like it in the near future.

But for those who helped us out, you have my gratitude. There are still good people in the world. I knew not a single one of those that helped us, but they helped anyway. They didn't have to. Four people who were strangers to me, thought enough of me and my family to help when they didn't have to. They deserve to be told about. These are a rare type of people in today's society. Out of hundreds of vehicles that passed us, only those four bothered. There should be more people like these in the world.

Hopefully, someone will read this and decide to be.

Peace & Love, y'all
~E

Should I or Shouldn't I?

I've had a couple of people tell me "you really shouldn't say this or that on your blog in that way" for different reasons. To that, I say...

I am who I am and I will not pander to anyone for anything. I like me, for the most part. I'm not hard to get along with, I'm not snide or rude. I'm sarcastic and firm in my opinions, but that doesn't mean I feel others should see only my side. I'm comfortable with the fact that some people will not agree with me.

One comment here on my blog, said by a friend with only my best interest at heart, said I shouldn't say something because it might make me seem hard to work with. Well, I'm not hard to work with if people are reasonable. And talking about a personal thing (not even with someone in the writing field as it were) that bothered me, and would bother anyone in that situation, shouldn't effect how an editor or publisher should see me. If that one, tiny bit out of everything else on here is a deal breaker, then so be it.

I am who I am.

Why must we pander to others to be considered easy going? I am a passionate person by nature and can't help my own sense of self from coming through if one gets to know me. I don't--and won't--revise myself to make others see me as what they want. My personality is set in stone. Sorry.

So here's the question. Do we, as people, feel so much that approval means success that we have become a lying bunch of pseudo-selves to gain what? Money? Who needs money, really? There's nothing in this world we can't do without, except food and water--and really, if we weren't such a big bunch of pussies, we could get those without the assistance of modern convenience. What are we so afraid of? That this one, or that one won't "approve"?

Fuh-uuh-uh-uuck that.

Does that make me hard to get along with? No.

Does it make me a better person? I'd like to think so. Especially when people think you have to be "this" way to make sure your ass doesn't end up in a sling.

But, but... Daddy! The sling is just so much fun!!!

Peace & Love, y'all
~E.

sex & sexuality

Hehe. Bet that got your attention, huh? Now, as you may have figured out, we are going to talk about sex today, but not like you probably think. I'm making my comments not for shits and giggles, my friends. This is a serious post. Sorry.

I'm so sick of people treating sex to different extremes. There's the: Sex is like the plague! extreme. And then there's: Sex is just a thing. Have a lot of it with a lot of people.

My view? I think sex is personal and intimate. I think this world was a lot better of a place when people thought sex and sexuality were best left where they should be: behind closed doors.

Opinions on sex vary and have varied in society for years. It's gone from something to be discreet about, to something shameful and nasty to something all people should indulge in with anyone they wish. And we all wonder why disease runs rampant.

Way back when sex was something special that happened after you were married is strangely the same damn time period when people had some fucking respect for themselves. I don't know about anyone else, but my worth will not be measured by how good a lay I happen to be.

I am worth more than how fuckable I am. I have standards. I have respect for myself and my body. I've been fucking the same man since I was 15 years old. Maybe I was too young to have sex. I dealt with the consequences. I am raising my children with their biological father, so I figure my choice in partner was pretty damned accurate... even if we were just kids.

I think discretion with sex is a needed thing. Can we stop acting like it's nothing? Are our children nothing? Didn't think so. Strange, though, how we treat the very thing that creates a child with such flippancy.

Sex is not just another thing to do. It is not a cure for boredom. It's a naturally occurring phenomenon between two people that is wonderful and can have wonderful results (You know... like having a KID!). But, unless we want brothers and sisters having children together, we must stop acting as if sex is just a meaningless act. Want me to prove it? Fine, mother fucker, fine, as someone once said.

Woman A has spontanius, wild, drunken sex with man A. Woman and man A use no protection. Man A and woman A never see each other again. Baby boy is born to woman A.

Meanwhile, Man A goes on to marry Woman B. They have baby girl.

Woman A marries Man B. Man B decides to adopt baby boy so his birth certificate no longer has a blank line after "father's name".

Baby boy grows up. Becomes man C.

Baby girl grows up to be woman C.

Man and woman C both go to same college.

Man and woman A were too drunk that night to remember who they procreated with.

Man and woman C fall in love, get married and have children.

Now, does this sound like responsible people? No. Does it sound realistic? Hell yeah, it does. It's sad, and it's sick, but fucking true. And what about all the adopted children? Think about it. There really are only so many people in the world and unless you are having one night stands in another country...

Being responsible doesn't mean making sex shameful. But teaching our children to respect it for the beautiful catastrophe it is might be a good thing.

I tell my daughter that her body and virginity are treasures, precious. I'm teaching my children that sex comes with responsabilities. They are not too young to know what sex is. They understand the mechanics of it, and the results and risks. I firmly believe that my kids will make the right decisions.

But then again, I bet my mom thought that too.

In an age where young girls think desirability means looks and wildness, "Just how far will she go, I wonder" I fear for our society. I fear for our children. And our future. Why? Because as little as sex means now, imagine how desensitized the next generation will be.

I don't remember a time when you only fucked who you married.

I don't remember a time when a grown man still felt fear if he thought his daddy was going to catch him touching a kid the wrong way.

I don't remember a time when sex was special.

I don't remember a time without AIDS.

I wish like hell I did.

Peace and love, y'all. I hope.

~E.