Had so much fun with this one.... Pepe is locally famous.... And if you go to a classic car show, you just might see one he's driven, worked on, or owns.
10/26/24
10/23/24
10/18/24
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR A FRIEND
How many people have come through your life to walk just a little ways with you?
My friend, let's call him John, was that way... Actually I became his friend at the same time I became the friend of his long time companion, let's call her Betty. Betty and John had meet over 20 years earlier and became good friends with each other over time. They outlasted many others who walked just a little ways with them, some who had passed onto The Other Side. When I met them, though they had never lived together, there had been blended family vacations. They had breakfast with each other five mornings a week, sometimes McDonalds, though his favorite food was peanut butter and hers is grilled cheese.
These two managed to support each other through so very much over the years. I personally came into their friendship circle late. He would say to me "Any of these guys give you a hard time, just let me know. I know exactly what to say." At that time I became a member of his (mythical) "harem" though he never was called to duty. Also, John was a dirty joke teller and I'm the only person in recorded history to turn one around on him and make him blush.
John had the rather common combo of high blood pressure and diabetes, and seemed to be doing well enough but then something rather unexpected happened to Betty. Long a resident of her part of Southern California, living with a daughter in her big house for a couple decades, Betty went to vacation with her other daughters who live in another state. We anticipated her returning for her birthday, last spring, and I was going to throw her a surprise welcome home party... So, though I had not talked to her in months, I started calling her to get the details about her return. And, well, it turned out her daughter decided it was time she stay in the other state, where her sisters could "share" their mother.
The way this was pulled off wasn't, as we say in the Valley, kosher, and it was news to John too. We all wondered how much she knew when she was driven to the other state in a vehicle quite full of her possessions to "visit." Upon the realization that Betty would not be back, John's medical condition worsened. He was a veteran and headed for the VA where he was put on dialysis. He went from no dialysis to dialysis three days a week. Into a nursing home - where he soon learned he was evicted - and all his possessions thrown to the street.
I had offered to go in and take out what he wanted.
Without hesitation he said he wanted his fishing rods, eight jars of peanut butter, and some rocks he hadn't finished tumbling. To me this meant that he was looking forwards to getting home and back to activities and things he loved. But the loss of the apartment meant that he knew there was no going home.
On a visit he said, "I've had more years than most people get," and "I just want to live long enough to get my 50 year chip from A.A." So Betty and I endeavored to get him that chip, a little early... We went and bought it... but he died before we could present it.
The VA had John cremated and in a box so fast, his poor daughter who had flown in from across the world had it in her hands on the flight back practically the day after he died. No funeral, no viewing... I tend to think the costs thrust upon us by the whole funeral business is ridiculous... but so was this.
So we decided to throw a memorial service for John, with Betty in charge, and she flew back in for an extended stay with her local daughter, after all.
We pulled it off, though it was unwieldy. Contributions of $175 helped us buy a little food. His daughter flew in. There were tearful moments, and silly-happy moments. One of the most unexpectedly beautiful but tearful moments was when a person got up and sang John Denver's Country Roads. It turned out that John's daughter had been named for the Shenandoah Valley - so she cried. Rambling Rose was John's favorite song.
10/15/24
10/12/24
SITTING IN THE PARK : BILLY STEWART
This one reminds me of my friend Gary who went to the park near the beach and fed the squirrels every day during Covid closures... Since then, once in a while, on a Sunday afternoon, I head for the park to sit with Gary and the squirrels. When I'm running late, I send him this song... I love old school soul ...
10/9/24
9/16/24
9/14/24
CARLOS CASTANEDA QUOTE from THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY
page 78-79 paperback
"I began my story, telling don Juan that the circumstances of my life have never permitted me to be introspective. As far back in my past as I can remember, my daily life has been filled to the brim with pragmatic problems that have clamored for immediate resolution. I remember my favorite uncle telling me that he was appalled at having found out that I had never received a gift for Christmas or my birthday.
I had come to live in my father's family home not too long before he made that statement. He (Don Juan) commiserated with me about the unfairness of my situation. He even apologized, although it had nothing to do with him.
.... He (my uncle) insisted over and over that I had to forgive the people who had wronged me. From what he said, I formed the impression that he wanted me to confront my father with his finding and accuse him of indolence and neglect, and then, of course, forgive him. He failed to see that I didn't feel wronged at all. Asking me to do required an introspective nature that would make me respond to the barbs of psychological mistreatment once they were pointed out to me....
I never had the opportunity to think about it, but my uncle must have talked to my father, because I got a gift from him, a package neatly wrapped up, with a ribbon and all, and a little card that said "Sorry."
I curiously and eagerly ripped the wrappings. There was a cardboard box, and inside it there was a beautiful toy, a tiny boat with a a winding key attached to the steam pipe. It could be used by children to play with while they took baths in the bathtub. My father had thoroughly forgotten that I was already fifteen years old and for all practical purposes, a man."
"I began my story, telling don Juan that the circumstances of my life have never permitted me to be introspective. As far back in my past as I can remember, my daily life has been filled to the brim with pragmatic problems that have clamored for immediate resolution. I remember my favorite uncle telling me that he was appalled at having found out that I had never received a gift for Christmas or my birthday.
I had come to live in my father's family home not too long before he made that statement. He (Don Juan) commiserated with me about the unfairness of my situation. He even apologized, although it had nothing to do with him.
.... He (my uncle) insisted over and over that I had to forgive the people who had wronged me. From what he said, I formed the impression that he wanted me to confront my father with his finding and accuse him of indolence and neglect, and then, of course, forgive him. He failed to see that I didn't feel wronged at all. Asking me to do required an introspective nature that would make me respond to the barbs of psychological mistreatment once they were pointed out to me....
I never had the opportunity to think about it, but my uncle must have talked to my father, because I got a gift from him, a package neatly wrapped up, with a ribbon and all, and a little card that said "Sorry."
I curiously and eagerly ripped the wrappings. There was a cardboard box, and inside it there was a beautiful toy, a tiny boat with a a winding key attached to the steam pipe. It could be used by children to play with while they took baths in the bathtub. My father had thoroughly forgotten that I was already fifteen years old and for all practical purposes, a man."
9/11/24
9/9/24
IMMINENT by LUIS ELIZONDO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW and COMMENTARY
I listened to this excellent book as an audiobook, after listening to a number of interviews of author Luis Elizondo via YouTube versions of radio programs. I always like it when an author reads their own work, which he did. I got a sense of the man's values and personality from all of this, and so I decided to hear the details not given on programs by listening to the book. Though he, as most UAP researchers, investigators, and experiencers do, experiences criticism, censure, retaliation and even revenge, Elizondo is entirely believable about his experience working for the Pentagon and the defense of the United States of America, after being in the military and participating in war. When he says thousands of reports by pilots have been made of unexplainable Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and that our Navy has evidence of Unidentified Phenomena that enters and is in the oceans, I believe it. I also believe our Presidents have since the mid 1950's been given some idea we are not alone in the universe. I believe it is possible that we have evidence of physical air ships and actual alien bodies, that some inventions are "reverse engineered." I can say that in this moment I doubt any of this will have a profound effect on my own life.
I encourage you to read this book and arrive at your own notions. Then I need to make a departure because I personally don't agree with Elizondo - or some others such as Linda Moulton Howe, whose Earthfiles podcasts I often listen to, that humans are ready for "full disclosure."
Elizondo mentions that some of his colleagues at the Pentagon told him to read his Bible and support the theory that "they" - the aliens of various types - are demons. This is the very reason I don't agree humans are ready for "full disclosure." Not because I agree or disagree that the aliens are all demons and not because I believe in "literal interpretations" of the Bible, which I do not. Rather it's because I've encountered those humans who do, in particular Fundamentalist Christians (who are as anti-Catholic as you can get in America) and seem invested in End Times, which they very much want to happen ASAP. (Not for nothing that Fox News, with it's Republican following, has taken on the reveal.) End Times; Even if it's bloody violent and millions die agonizing deaths, for not being Christian or the right kind of Christian, and the perpetrator is none other than Jesus Christ or God the Father. (Am I confused that the message was peace and love?) Some of these people have their plans for the End of the World scenarios ready, from hideaway bunkers and a years worth of food in the basement to their own ammunitions; we can fear that they take their inspiration from school shooters.
One time, a year or so ago, while at the library, I overheard a woman talking excitedly about a book and so I asked her what she was reading. She said her minister loved this book, and I ordered it, thinking it was non-fiction. When I received it I wondered what church and what minister was telling his members that this fiction book typified what would happen when Jesus came again. (Maybe the same ones who don't know Dan Brown's work is fiction?) I also realized she was delighting, salivating, at the violence that would occur, and that she would be saved from.
There are those who think the aliens are demons. Then there are those who've had experiences that science is trying to explain. Originally not particularly interested in UFOs/UAPs, the time came when Elizondo could not deny the information that was being shared with him absolutely meant they were real and the cover-up had been ongoing for decades. In his book, Imminent, Elizondo tries to explain how they might defy gravity while also maneuvering at tremendous speed and just how behind we are technologically.
Elizondo says that for a while he, his wife, his children, and their neighbors, saw green orbs that made it through their walls, and overall gave an impression that they were watching.
I thought of a long ago associate who had a strong meditation practice which she did in the evenings while living at home and caring for her mother. As a member of Self Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles, she had moved beyond her religious upbringing, which was Jewish. She told me she saw orbs (if I recall they were smallish and not green) come to her when she was in meditation. She asked her guru what these were and was given a mysterious non-answer, something like that, when she was ready, she would know what they were.
I also thought of the original Star Trek television series, which I saw after school as reruns. I recall hearing people say that actor William Shatner could not act, but hey, the program was low budget for some time and he once had to talk to what looked like a plastic globe with blinking mini Christmas lights, as though it were an alien intelligence trapped in there. (These plastic globes sat on a shelf and when the lights went out, that meant that the alien had died.)
We need to suspect our disbelief.
Science doesn't function to prove but to disprove.
Say it isn't so?
C 2024 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
9/6/24
9/3/24
EXPERIENCE FORTY-FOUR : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
What's the most romantic thing you ever did?
C 2018-2024 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
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