Gender: Female
Sign: Capricorn
Country: US
Signup Date:
04/08/08
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October 10, 2008 - Friday
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Road Trip! (Blogophilia32 & GBE57) - update
Current mood:  happy
Category: Writing and Poetry
Update: This are true stories with the following exception: the dog, Chewy, was a hound-type mix, not a bloodhound.
I screamed and covered my face when I saw the deer appear, seemingly from nowhere, right smack in the path of our SUVs trajectory. It was a stupid thing to do, but it was a simple reflex response. I'm lucky that my husband is so unflappable. He barely registered my panic. I would have swerved wildly and likely careened into the mountain abutting the road, but he kept his aim true and tapped the brake pedal, the essence of calm and control.
Through my arms, I saw the deer skid and do what would be considered a haunch turn on a horse. It pivoted and headed back up the hill. I'm not sure how close we came, but it seemed like mere inches. My heart was pounding. My husband pressed the accelerator without comment and reached over to squeeze my knee.
I couldn't relax the rest of the way, as we travled the I-5 to Canada. I enjoyed the scenery but my eyes scanned the road relentlessly. Good thing I wasn't driving or we would never have arrived. I would have crawled along for fear of hitting a living thing.
It's funny how different our reactions are. My husband is invariably calm and controlled in a crises. I am invariably undone. I have a strong fear-reflex. When we hit a patch of oil on the road, during a storm along the 101, driving the Oregon Coast line, I screamed. My husband calmly steered through it, all the while giving me a running commentary, "Brace yourself, Kate. We're crossing traffic. We're going to hit the mountain. Hold on, we're going over. We're rolling, honey."
I screamed all the way through it, hearing his voice as a distant echo. We came to rest upside down on a blind hair-pin turn and he began honking his horn, head resting on the pavement, covered in glass, me hanging above him, and he said, "Hopefully they'll hear me honking. It'll be okay, or it'll be over quickly and we'll be home." I remember it so vividly.
An on-coming car heard him and stopped, blocking traffic with flares, and the driver called the ambulance and police. We were bruised but okay. Our mini-van was totaled, absolutely, totally, completely.
We've had lots of adventures on our road trips, my hubby and me. We love exporing, and we understand that results may vary. Sometimes we hit the jackpot, finding hidden, historical treasures and quiet places of phenomenal beauty, other times we wander aimlessly. Always we have fun on our road trips, except for those few times when it's gotten hairy. A deer in the road, a rolling slam into a mountain. The important thing is that no matter what happens, you remember to keep your chin up! Sometimes it's all a matter of perspective. Even those scary moments can yield blessing. I often think of my husband's quiet acceptance that we might die helpless in our mini-van. He is the essence of the chin-up philosophy! :)
We once found a bloodhound wandering the side of the road, skinny and dirty. We coaxed him into the car, all floppy-eared gratitude; we pulled into a doggy wash, washed him, and took him on the trip. We named him Chewy, a ridiculous name, but he was always chewing on something. I think it was anxiety. He'd been abandoned. He'd been hungry. He never got over that, albeit he was a great dog; the most loyal and obedient creature. We loved him and his great big voice, his reddish gold fur, his nose-to-the-ground way of traveling.
It's been awhile since we've taken a road trip; I'm ready to put my bare feet up on the dashboard and go. I'd like to go back to San Simeon to tour Hurst Castle again. I've been there innumerable times, but I always want to go back, the scenery is gorgeous, driving along the 101 from Oregon through Northern California. Chewy is long gone, but we'll take our mini-doxie and head on down the road. She loves to get out and walk on the beach. She barks at the waves, feeling big and powerful, 8 pounds of protective instinct and German stubbornness. She thinks she's massive! :)
Some day I'd love to take a road trip to visit some of you. I'd love to visit Duchess and Chickee. I'd love to go kick back on Ileene's porch and meet her new dog. I'd love to give just Dale a great big hug. I'd love for Danny and Naomi to show me what's so fascinating about Wii! :) Maybe I'd stop and see Glen, Andrea, D.J. Myke, David, The Falcon or Tyler Myrth, or one of my newer friends like Lyd, Wildflower, Mia, Leah, or C.C.; the thought makes me smile hugely.
©Just Kate
This blog serves as my contribution to this weeks Blogophilia challenge (see below; click button to find out more), and The Group Blogging Experience Week 57, PETS (click button to find out more)!
 Week 32 Topic: Results may vary...bonus points (hard, 2 points): Incorporate a trip to Canada. (easy, 1 point): Include a Blood Hound. Final day to post: Oct. 13th, midnight GMT. *************************************************
9:00 PM
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125 Comments - 76 Kudos
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October 8, 2008 - Wednesday
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Guarded Eyes *open*
Current mood:  pensive
Category: Life
This is NOT a blog about politics. Please bear with me.
I'm gearing up to watch another debate between the presidential candidates. There's a lot of nasty stuff being flung around by both political parties. It's getting downright ugly. People don't just promote their point of view, they quite happily stand, with their big old muddy boots, right on top of the heads of the candidates. I simply cannot imagine having the ego-strength to choose to endure that kind of scrutiny. I would rather be SHOT than striped naked and laid bare before the people of the United States of America.
People are brutal. Which one of us does not have a secret? Which one of us has never done something about which we are ashamed? It blows my mind that people can ruthlessly pick apart others who are no more guilty than they. People who pretend piety while pointing their fingers at others leave me COLD. To paraphrase Christ, people in glass houses should not throw stones. Which one of us does not live in a glass house. Come on. You know you do, as do I.
That's not to say that we shouldn't JUDGE. We should. We make judgments every day about what's good and bad, right or wrong. Those judgments are part of life. But let's take a look at the word judge. The word judge means: To form an opinion or estimation of after careful consideration. I don't see the words: condescend, hate, ridicule, or bait.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I hold much of myself in reserve. It's partly due to the fact that I encompass so much contradiction, and I know it. I am: spiritual, base, dishonest, true, wise, impulsive, irresponsible, selfish, self-sacrificing, guilt-ridden, free, joyful, sorrowful, grudge-holding, forgiving, fearless, afraid... Well, you get the picture. I feel like I'm bound to disappoint people so I hold them at arms length. Just look at the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Every little personal shortcoming and mistake is scrutinized, mocked, ridiculed, and despised. And who is doing it. WE are. The same people that I might count on to give me a break, to love me regardless of my imperfections and contradictions. No wonder I'm so wary. It's not just politics, it's PEOPLE.
My friend Wildflower tagged me, and I didn't do the tag, because I couldn't figure out how to say anything new in that format, but in her tag-blog she ended by saying that she could easily be a hermit. I read that and I thought, me too. I could so easily be a hermit. If I didn't engage people, they couldn't hurt me. I'd never have to worry about disappointing them or being disappointed by them. I'd never have to worry how it was going to end, because let's face it, too many of our relationships simply don't last. I could just be alone with God and animals and books and me. I think I might be okay that way. I do.
I'm afraid to want anything from anybody. That's the truth. I'm afraid to stand up and say, this is me, because look at how we slaughter those who do: actors, athletes, political figures... We adore them for awhile and then we slaughter them, and we joy in doing it too.
I wrote a blog called Losing My Religion before my Unequivocal Kate site went down, and the responses on that blog amazed me. There were Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, and Agnostics all talking kindly and reasonably about faith. It was amazing. It healed a tiny piece of my heart. It really did. I am undone by kindness; it seems such a rare and precious thing.
One witheringly hot summer we had a doe and fawn stagger into our back yard. They were emaciated. I was a child and I cried, watching them. It was awful. My dad told me to be quiet. He said I was weak for caring and he sent me to my room, but I crept back out again when I heard the screen door slam, and I saw him go out behind the barn and get a bucket of water and some hay. I saw him set it where he thought I couldn't see it, and then he hunkered down against the side of the barn and waited for them to come. I watched from behind the curtain in our family room as they made their weary way, doe and fawn, too tired and too close to death to care that they were walking right up into the lair of a predator. They just wanted to survive.
For the rest of the summer, he set water and hay out where the deer could get to it, apart from the horses. I knew that I shouldn't say anything. I would have gotten in no end of trouble if I'd acknowledged it, and then he would have stopped feeding them and leaving water for them.
Looking back, I wonder what made my dad that way. He was an utter mystery to me. He lived behind guarded eyes and died without anybody ever having known him. It scares me because when I look in the mirror, my eyes are guarded too.
I think we're all a little bit like my dad, full of darkness and light. We're capable of great kindness - so that we care for the hungry and thirsty - and we are capable of great meanness - so that we ridicule and mock presidential candidates. Can't you see it? Can't you see it in the way we behave as a society? I'm not the only one that's full of contradictions; you are too. Every bit as much as me.
So how does one learn to trust in a world full of untrustworthy people? How does one know whether they'll be met with open arms or a clenched fist? I can't figure it out.
I look around and see see kind, intelligent people acting horribly, as they gleefully slander the presidential candidates and joy in their every stumbling, and I wonder when they'll turn on me.
I feel like that doe and fawn that I saw when I was a girl, only I thirst not for water, but for KINDNESS.
6:59 AM
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113 Comments - 68 Kudos
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October 6, 2008 - Monday
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Moment of Truth (Blogophilia 31)
Current mood: happy
Category: Life
I was standing in the kitchen last night, wrapping the remains of dinner in plastic when my husband came in from snuffing out the last embers of our big bonfire. I love these cool, crisp, clear fall days where we can work outside and enjoy a fire surrounded by trees wreathed in the beginning brilliance of autumn.
"Greetings," he said as he pulled off his baseball cap and bowed. I rolled my eyes, laughing at him as he kissed my hand. The beautiful day spent outside had left us both feeling unreasonably happy. It had been a day to cherish, for sure.
As the kids tumbled in, singing silly songs and smelling of woodsmoke, my mind flashed back to a time in recent history where I'd been lost and had nearly let go of my marriage, of this beautiful family that I've been blessed with, and I realized that I didn't want to let one more moment pass absent a heart of gratitude. Somehow I had lost track of the goodness of my life. Perhaps I'd taken it for granted.
I had an epiphany standing there in my kitchen; that was the moment of truth when I realized that I don't want my life to be anything other than what it is.
Smiling at the realization that I was happy and blessed not in retrospect but right at that very moment, I opened the refrigerator and pulled out a jug of apple cider, pouring a glass for each of us. We made toasts, my husband, children and I. Toasts to autumn, to laughter, to family, to friends, and even to our dogs! Laughing, my husband lifted his glass and said "Bottoms up!"
Week 31 Topic: That was the moment of truth...
bonus points
(hard, 2 points): Incorporate wrapping something in plastic wrap.
(easy, 1 point): Use an outdated greeting.
Final day to post: Oct. 6th, midnight GMT.
Bonus Clue:
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Currently
listening
:
Still the One
By
Orleans
Release date: 1990-03-12
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7:00 PM
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87 Comments - 74 Kudos
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Unhappily Deleted *UPDATED*
Current mood: happy
Category: MySpace
**************UPDATE*****************
I've decided to stay at this page which is back up and running - fully functional - as of this morning. I have always loved it here. The funny thing is that I learned a lot through the process of going to Unequivocal Kate, and then losing it. One of the things I realized is that I have nothing to be ashamed of in what I write here. While I still maintain that not every person in my life needs to know every piece of me, I'm not sure it applies here. The things that I write are core to who I am.
There's so much more that I want to say to you all, but I'll simply say that I love you guys and I appreciate you. Thank you for being my friends. Thank you for your words that wrap themselves around me like the warmest of hugs. Thank you for accepting me in all my vast imperfections. Here I am. Here I'll stay. I'm no longer anything but Just Kate. Much love to you, my friends. xoxo
I feel unaccountably sad this morning, because my Unequivocal Kate site has been deleted. I don't know why. I did not break any rules, and I received no warning beyond the glitches I've been having for two weeks now. There was a part of me that kind of expected it simply because the glitches were so severe and went on for so long, still I'm sad, and a little bit angry too.
I honestly don't know where to go from here. Do I start ANOTHER page, so I can blog without censure? You folks followed me once, but I can't imagine asking you to follow me to another page for a second time. Do I just GIVE UP?! I feel so discouraged.
This page is glitching too. I can read and write messages, albeit my in-box looks crazy, and I can apparently blog, and post bulletins, but I can't read your blogs. I don't know if it will resolve eventually or go down like the other page. : (
I love blogging so much...
I simply don't know what to do, my friends, so I'm asking for your advice here.
Much love, Kate
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Currently
listening
:
Make It Mine
Release date: 2008-09-02
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12:00 AM
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131 Comments - 114 Kudos
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