Time Passages by Carrie Ives (an original composition)

A blog I follow posed a challenge, and I was unable to resist the urge to follow through... all comments welcome, although this is a far cry from my usual soapbox article! Hope you enjoy!

Time Passages

He stood at the corner of the street watching for the signal to cross. His faded eyes had watched for signals throughout the ages and faithfully bore him safely through the joys of love and the trials of war. They watched the signs as his loved ones travelled down many roads of their own lives. He watched as the signs of the end came in the life of his loving wife. He learned through watching, the peace that comes with age.

Leaning heavily on the gnarled top of his birchwood cane, he waited with the patience of ages written on each line of his face. His shoulders hunched with the weight of the passage of years, but his back remained strong beneath his tattered woolen coat. White hair peeked secretively from beneath a well worn golfer’s cap that had seen many a day on the open green. And yet his hair skittered hesitantly away in the chilly evening breeze, afraid to be caught in the fast moving currents that could ruffle it from it’s impeccable place.

The signal came at last and his step into the street was strong. Committed with a strength that belied his narrow feet, clad in black leather loafers tied tightly to his soles. A snarling wolfish wind whipped his pants about his legs, but never did he falter in his steps. Crossing first one lane and then the other, he moved into the shadow of a building that darkened the street, never fearing the worrisome wind that whipped his coat about him, tearing at the three top buttons securely seated in their holes.

His crossing was unhurried and heedless of the impatient stares of the drivers waiting on his progress. The first he ignored, but to the second, with her impatient beep, he simply smiled a friendly smile and touched the brim of his hat as if to say, “You have a nice day too.”

The parking meter, perched precariously close to the curb signified his arrival at the other side. He reached out to steady his climb on the device for the steps on this side were higher than the rest, posing a final obstacle to his goal. A grace from deep within his aged bones bore him up and over that last hurdle as the cars rushed forward under their own signal to continue the journey.

A single dark green park bench, ornate and gaudy, beckoned him to enjoy it’s meager comforts. Hard though the wooden seat was on his thinly muscled rear, he sat, relieving his legs of the pressure to so hastily across the road. A tiring trek it was, though far shorter than most he’d made in his life. He sighed in reflection as he waited.

Moments passed and the sun slipped below the mountainous horizon and the natural light on the street began to dim. I watched him as he sat, waiting for what I was quite unaware. But slowly he began to fade from sight. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but as I watched I realized I was seeing the passage of a soul, leaving only his gnarled birchwood cane leaning against the building behind him and the skittering leaves that piled beneath the seat.

From the Mountains...

Dragon Lady

Reading can be a bad habit...

Believe it or not, I am seriously beginning to think that reading can be a bad habit. Of course anything that you don't take in moderation can become an addiction and can eventually lead to the bad habit of letting it take up much more of your productive time than it should.

But reading?

Who'd a thunk it?

Yes. And for me, it's getting there. Dear friends of mine know that I love a good book much more than a movie, so instead the newest release of movie, I often receive the newest edition from my favorite author. And I'm NOT complaining!! My bookshelves would be overruning if I ever put all the books I own in one particular spot.

I've been asked, "Who's your favorite author?" and the simple answer to that question would have to be 'All of them."

I would say that a good book is one that pulls me in from the beginning, but that's not always true. I can't think of a single book that I've NOT read simply because it was boring at the beginning. Eventually the plot starts to thicken and the imagination starts and before you know it, I'm as engrossed in it and can't put it down for fear of not knowing what happens next.

And that's it... that's where the obsession begins. I HAVE to know what happens next. The lights have dimmed in the theater in my head and the moving pictures are flowing across my mental screen. I can't just hit pause and walk away for a few hours. I simply cannot bring myself to do it.

Why?

It's like getting up and walking out of the theater just when you're getting into the movie. You don't want to leave because you spent the seven or eight bucks to watch the film and it would be a waste of money. Sure you could rent it later and watch it in the comfort of your home but it just wouldn't be the same. So, unless it's an emergency, most people will sit thorugh some of the most God awful films just because they don't want to admit that they wasted their money.

But a book? It's not exactly like that, now is it? Yeah, you might spend about the same amount on a paperback as you do on a movie, but the words will always be there. Unless of course your dog chews up the book or you drop it in acid or something... the print lasts and will be the same words ten years from now as it was the day you picked it up and read the back thinking it would be an interesting read.

What makes me say that reading is an obsession is just this...

As I said, dear friends often buy me books on holidays and this Christmas is no exception to that rule. YAY!!! And it doesn't matter if it's Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, Clive Cussler, Dean Koontz, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Anne Rice, Tom Clancy or Shakespear! Every author I have read rocks! And probably part of that is because I admire all writers and hold onto a threadbare dream that one day I'll see my own works in print. (Which is never going to happen if I don't send them to publishers... I keep telling myself this but I never follow through... sigh...)

Anyway, I digress. I got a new Dean Koonts, a new Stephen King anthology, and another who's name escapes me as I write this. (And I'm too lazy to get up and get the book from the other room.) And I've read them all already.

It's two days after Christmas day and I'VE READ THEM ALL ALREADY!

The concept of that may escape you because you cannot see the books that I'm talking about, but let me explain. I'm a voracious reader. I start a book and simply cannot put it down until I finish it. I've been like this since I was a kid.

Both my parents read when I was a child. Mom would fall asleep with her book, Dad could read a Louis L'Amour, watch a football game and listen to mom and I talk and never miss anything from any venue. And when I was in oh... second grade? They used to do their weekly shopping on Saturday. I was getting too big to put into the cart to ride with them, so they'd drop me at the county library and I'd be happy as a clam while they were gone for an hour or two shopping.

The book limit for a weekly checkout was seven, although I could normally talk the librarian into letting me have an extra one because I'd already almost finished it in the hour I waited for mom and dad to return.

It started with The Black Stallion. And then Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Then it moved to more series from more writers. Each week I got at least seven and by the time Saturday rolled around again, I was often rereading some of the weeks allotment. And this pattern continued for the rest of my life, although I no longer go to the public library, I simply read the books online or find lots of an author that interests me on ebay so that I can continue to read.

Voraciously reading!

Some people read fast and comprehend nothing of what they ingest. But I do. When I start reading, it's like the author is speaking to me from the pages and telling me the story that generates the movie behind my eyes.

And... I'm sidetracked again...

Why is my reading an obsession? *shrugs* I don't know. But I do know this. A new book in my hands will make me stay up until the wee hours of the morning and then sleep until afternoon the next day. That's not particularly healthy. I mean it might be ok if it happened only once in a great while, but that's not the case. And in truth, the only way I can control it is to NOT pick up new books. Or sometimes I substitute my writing for reading, as you can see from this blog...

Strange obsessions these... but obsessions still the same...

Obsessed in the mountains,

Dragon Lady

School System Strikes Again!

Of all the cocamamie, dumb bunny things to do!! OH MY GOD!! Our school system here has lost their everloving mind!!

Public school just let out for a full two week break for the Christmas holiday. TWO FULL WEEKS! People plan their vacations, they go out of town and for ONCE the scheduling actually MAKES SENSE!!

The last day of school was this past Friday, on the 16th and they weren't supposed to go back until the first Monday in January (on the 5th.)

Nice.

Even.

Great to take vacations...

YEAH RIGHT!!!

We had a little bit of snow earlier this year, back just after Thanksgiving. And the roads were icy so they called off school... the smart thing to do since we don't want our prodigeny riding home in dangerous conditions.

Ok, that is a bit of an exageration because when they say 'ice' we're talking about a minimal skim that MIGHT be on one particular bridge, on one particular road that doesn't get sun in the afternoon..ok? Truthfully it's not a big deal, but they take safety to the extreme right on into stupidity sometimes... but the efforts are for our kids, so we tolerate it for the most part...

So the kids missed a day of school.

I'm going to reminesce here a bit to add a little bit of clarity on why I'm so angry about this situation...

When I was a kid we used to be assured that we'd miss at least a few days through the winter for snow. The school board had enough sense back then to anticipate that and arrange for extra workdays for the teachers throughout the year. That way if we DID have snow days and had to make them up in order to make up work in that semester, the teachers would just sacrifice a workday and there was no problem.

But in the past few years, we don't get much snow through the winter, if any at all, and no longer does the school board see it as necessary to plan for missed days. Personally, I think that theory needs to be reexamined considering I can't think of a place in the world were you can guarantee that there will never be anything happen to make someone lose time at school. I don't believe that it's physically possibly to guarantee that and think that it's pretty arrogant of us to believe that there will never be any missed days throughout the year for whatever reason... but that's beside the point...

Remember how I said that they no longer plan for snowdays? Well, here's the evidence of that idiotic way of thinking. Dare I call it stupid? Yes. Failing to plan for ANY days off is a mistake and it doesn't matter WHERE you live. But here in the mountains, the kids missing a single day for bad weather is a given, even if we DON'T get the snow we used to.

They didn't plan for the missed day... and yes, I'm getting to my rant and rave here... lol

Back to vacation... two full weeks... yes... joyful... we are happy...

But now I see a note on the school website that the kids will have to go back to school on the FRIDAY before they were supposed to just to make up that one day.

and I reiterate.... Of all the cocamamie, dumb bunny things to do!! OH MY GOD!! Our school system here has lost their everloving mind!!

Suffice it to say that I'm NOT making my child go to school that day.

On principal alone.

It's one thing to make them make up a day that they failed to schedule, but to have to come back from a scheduled vacation three days early because of it is out of the question.

Are we going out of town? No.

Would we like to? Not really.

But that's not the point!!

There ARE families that are taking vacations.

There ARE families that need every day of the full two weeks to enjoy their holiday.

And now, because of this required make up day, those same families will be driving on what is notably considered the worst travel day of the year... January 1st... just to get home so that their kids can 'make up' a snow day...

It's not that the school system is 'making up a day' at all.... they are cutting the Christmas break by THREE days in essence. And they are jeopardizing lives by doing so.

Sometimes the idiots that make decisions that are 'in the best interest of our children' don't have a clue in the world about how much their decisions ARE NOT in the best interest of all involved.

Am I taking this to an extreme? some might think so, but the fact of the matter is this... this IS extreme. This is rediculous and it's unfair and unnecessary. And to put the icing on the cake, does anyone know WHY they need to make up this day?

I'll tell you why... because of seat time. Not because they might miss a test or need to catch up on their work... no... the semester of learning is over already. ANything that needed to be learned has been covered and final exams were given...

Seat time... that's all... The school won't get it's funding from the state if every child enrolled doesn't get enough 'seat time' in the classrooms... it has nothing to do with the learning process AT ALL!!

It's idiocy. It's rediculous. And while some might consider me a bad parent for not following the 'rules' on this one, but there is a time and a place to draw the line... and I've drawn it for my family on this one.

School board... get your act together and start acting with some sense... or get out!

Pissed off in the mountains!

Dragon Lady