Toenail Clippers

As I gave Sweetpea, my little dog, her morning sniff walk, I passed the spot where the neighbor had placed their garbage for pickup yesterday. There on the ground was a package that had escaped the dumpster.

 

I know this is trivial, and I am chuckling as I write this but what I saw was a wrapper for a toenail clipper.

 

It was one of those packaging’s of hard plastic surrounded by a cardboard casing with the writing "Toe Nail Clippers" on it. Now that plastic, as you know, needs an industrial chain-saw to plow into it, and then it has a cardboard casing that could be recycled, but can't because it is attached to plastic. Thus, it gets thrown into the garbage. And, I've heard, so many people injure themselves getting into those wrappers that the hospitals have a name for it. I looked it up—not that I don't have better things to do, but curious. Those heat-sealed plastic wrappers are called blister packs or clamshells. 

 

According to a British study, over 60,000 people receive hospital treatment each year due to injuries from opening food packaging. It's called Wrap Rage or Package Rage. 

 

I didn't intend to talk about packaging. Staring at the wrapper  gave me a chuckle at how much people are alike with their physical bodies. We clip our toenails, and brush our teeth. We use soap and shampoo. However, while driving down the street, differences stand out in bold relief as people advertise their political bent diabolically opposed to another down the street. One house wants to make sure we know they are Christian.

 

We as people are funny with our similarities and dissimilarities. One might say that makes us unique or individuals, yet we beat each other over the head with our ideologies. Ideologies aka, belief systems.

 

I missed posting a blog yesterday. I don't think that is important, except that I committed to Tuesdays. Maybe I will uncommit myself. 

 

But then, I have another commitment: completing my Real Estate Licensing studies. I thought I only had three tests left, but then I discovered that buried below those tests was another section. So, yesterday, instead of blogging, I was knee-deep in the Federal Reserve System, Real Estate Investment, Trusts, Purchase Money Mortgage, Land Sales, Secondary Market—yes, more than you wanted to know. Me too. I don't know if I can pass my State Licensing exam because I began this study months ago, and I've forgotten what I read.

 

It'll come back to me. I need to be positive.

 

So, after breakfast and a walk, here I am, sitting down at my computer. And in my email, I found this picture. 

 

 "Consciousness Streaming Over Water," by Grant Pecoff. I love it. The Source gave me a moment of calm. And it gave me the nudge that we (I) need to stop getting frustrated over things we can't control and control the stream of consciousness that we can.

 

 

Husband Dear, Daughter Dear, Baby Darling, and I discovered Grant Pecoff, the painter, as we wandered away from our favorite Pizza place in San Diego, Filippis Pizza Grotto on India Street. It's been there for years, and it smells the same it did 20 years ago, for as you walk past a counter, aged cheese and salami hanging overhead waft their scent on all that pass beneath. Oh yes, and salted fish, I can smell it today.

 

A sign on the street indicated a gallery upstairs, so we wandered into Grant Pecoff's Studio, covered with brightly colored paintings and skewed buildings and docks. I was fascinated, and Pecoff was so nice. I have followed him since but only get notices now and again as he travels the world to paint. (What a life, huh? He paints, and his wife Layne writes.) That day I sat on his couch and read Layne Pecoff's book, Live Your Dream, (for young and old alike 0-5) to Baby Darling, then bought it.

 

Oh, if you are interested, Consciousness Streaming Over Water sells for $10,000. 

 

(Books are cheaper than paintings.)

It Takes a lot of Energy to Be Crazy

Long ago, I was a Dental Assistant. One day, the dentist realized the dentures he was making for a patient, who nit-picked at every turn, would never be right enough for her. So, although he had spent time and money taking impressions and such, he kindly asked her to find another doctor. (No fee was charged.)

 

 (Kindly, yes, although I could see veins swelling in his neck.)

He said his blood pressure would thank him.

 

Smart man.

 

This came to mind this morning when my daughter, who sells on Amazon, had such a customer.  “Help me,” the customer wrote, “cancel my order while I still have money on my credit card.” (Oh dear, the charge was already on the card. Should my daughter refund the money and swallow the 60 bucks she had already paid for the item?) The next day: “Where’s my purchase,” (Daughter gave her the mailing tracking number as her item was out of her hands and in the mail.) The next day: “Where’s my purchase?” (Doesn’t the mail service say, “Your mail may be delayed because of…you know what.”) Next, a notice came saying that item had been delivered. The lady said, “I didn’t receive it.”

 

Augh.

 

The postal service says that they use a GPS at the designated address to assure it’s delivered accurately. The lady gave my daughter a bad mark on Amazon. 

 

Augh.

 

There are worse crazies than those two women, but I ask, Do we say, "They can’t help it," and thus excuse the behavior?

 

I had a friend who had an incessant need to talk. I loved her anyway. We both had little kids, and after they were asleep, my friend and I  would stay up all night talking. At about four in the morning, she would have expended her load, and we would talk about meaningful events in our lives. The trouble was, we’d be dead tired the next day, and the kids were going strong.

 

We lived in separate towns, so our visits lasted for days. As I got older, I got smarter and went to bed earlier, but then I missed the 4 to 8 a.m. talks.

 

I know, we all have our idiosyncrasies that are only idiosyncrasies to others, not ourselves. 

 

We find that many lives have not been easy. There are traumas and abuse at every turn. Dr. Gabor Mate’, a psychologist who treats addiction, says that most addictions can be traced back to early childhood trauma. And that trauma can be inadvertently caused as it was in Dr. Mate’s case. Mate’ was born in Hungry at the time Germans were about to invade. His mother called the Pediatrician and said little Gabor was crying a lot. The doctor said, "All the babies are crying. They are picking up their mother’s worry.” Mate’ grew up to have an addiction--and overcame it.

 

As parents, we try to raise our kids to be healthy, thoughtful, caring people who think for themselves. Whoops, many parents want their kids to be better versions of themselves. We tend to pass down what we’ve been taught.

 

Then there is school bullying, ridicule, shame, the need to be top dog, get good grades, and never fail. 

 

And then we grow up and hear that some failure is inevitable. We learn from failure. (Hey, Musk’s rocket ship hit the launching pad in flames yesterday—back to the drawing board.) 

 

Long ago, I read an article about people called Indomitable. Those individuals had suffered untold hardships (like some refugees) and come through as exemplary adults. 

 

How does that happen?

 

What gives some people the resilience to carry through? 

 

When I was studying the horse’s brain, I learned that abuse can cause the Corpus colostrum to shrink. The Corpus colostrum is the bridge between the two hemispheres of the brain—it contains the wiring that allows one side of the brain to talk to the other side. People are different from horses because their Corpus colostrum is more developed so we don’t need to be trained on both sides. Perhaps, though, abuse or trauma shrinks the bridge for both man and beast.

 

One horse that had been abused by a man in a black hat developed a fear of black hats. It’s strange the connections that are made sometimes. Probably that’s one reason early traumas are so hard to track down.

 

If brains are altered, can they get back the pure spirit they were born with? 

 

There is so much we do not know and so many errors to be made.

 

The Native Americans knew this and said we would understand if we walked a mile in another person’s moccasins.

 

Even my little dog, who used to love going with me in the car, now has some apprehension. It began with bottles rattling in the trunk. No, it started when a firecracker hit the sky beyond our back fence the moment I opened the door to let her outside. That sensitized Sweet Pea to loud noises—like bottles rattling. When she experienced the truck bumping into another vehicle, that cinched the deal.  

 

However, I figure if she learned that behavior, she can unlearn it.

 

And so can we.

 

Now we are afraid of catching a dreaded virus, we’re afraid of dying, we’re afraid of other people, we’re afraid of being breathed upon, and we can’t get together with friends and family. And even going to the grocery store is a pain in the neck.

 

You see, FEAR is our greatest enemy. Yeah, I know, I am repeating myself.

 

Fear has made us sniveling images of our former selves. My thought is, perhaps we pumped up this virus because we feared it so much. 

 

This flu is is severe, I’m giving it that. However, I learned today that for under 20-year-olds, the recovery rate is 99.99%; for 20-40 year-olds, the recovery is 99.8%, age 50, 99.5%, and 95% for people over 70.

 

Good news, huh?

 

Of the ones who passed on the the Happy Hunting Grounds, their health was already severely compromised. 

 

We’ve had other severe influenzas that didn’t shut down the world.

 

We’ve had people in times past die of the flu (I’m sorry.) And now the media won’t leave it alone. Now they scare us with flu variants. 

 

What if—stay with me here—what if, instead of being off-kilter and afraid, we erase thoughts of Covid19 from our minds?

 

Would this pandemic wither up and go away as other flu's eventually do?

 

I don’t know. 

 

I’m going to stop talking about it. 

 

That’s impossible.

 

Well, I can stop writing about it.

 

That’s possible.

 

But before I do, let me tell you I was blown away by Dr. Simone Gold, a board-certified emergency room doctor who spoke about the Covid19 vaccine. By definition, it is not a vaccine but an “Experimental biological agent.” You might give this video a look-see. It’s the best I’ve seen and heard.

 

 https://lbry.tv/@Arkeadius:a/nwnw20210114:c