The Whistler's Dream

Everybody needs a dream...
Mine is to go to Oklahoma and play whistles for The Pioneer Woman. (Having been invited, not in a "creepy stalker" kind of way, for the record.) Heck, I'd play in a pup tent in the backyard for the joy of the cows and critters. What can I say? I'm a fan.
Everybody needs a dream...

Random Fluffy Foto!

Random Fluffy Foto!
Writing in bed, and Beka editing by ear. Really. The ear typed some letters. Really.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

TBT/PhotoPhriday/SillySaturday/StopItAlready!

Let's see... To fulfill my Fluffy Goodness responsibilities...

Throwback: Things I've used for Organ Shoes...

Oh yes... Oh yes, I did.
The longest-running of the group - known as "The Old and Busted..."
And the new member of the group - "The New Hotness."

One of these things is NOT like the others... Thank you to a special friend, who got me properly outfitted for some summer organ gigs.

And, there is a distinct possibility that these babies will be evolving sometime soon... perhaps something in PURPLE? Stay tuned...

Ok - on to PhunnyPhriday...


For some reason, our "girls" (Kira, then Ezri, and now B-Dog) always seem to give me "the look" when I'm driving - the look that says, "Are you sure Mom is ok with you driving this thing without her? I mean, you don't seem to do it all that well. It's a lot nicer when she drives. Are you SURE you have permission from her?..."

Yup. Every one of them.

Or is it just me?

Don't answer that.

And, for SillySuperSaturday, I leave you with this deep thought...


Have a spiffy weekend, my peeps.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Need vs. Want




"What do I want to do?"

"What does someone need me to do?"
--------------
"What would I love to do?"

"What would I love to do to meet someone else's need?"
--------------
"What instrument would I love to play, just for the joy of playing?"

"What instrument do I need to play, to cover a part, fill in, or otherwise help?"
--------------

I know these are really odd questions. I'm an odd sort of person, so no surprise there.

But I'm also realizing that questions like these have had an effect on how I've wandered around this world for the past 55 years.

(Ok - they might not have kicked in for the first few weeks of those 55 years. Frankly, I think the answer to "What do I want?" was pretty much, "Eat, sleep, poop, repeat." So, the questions kicked in later.)

(Just dawned on me that those first weeks may indeed have been the first time I could actually multitask. Wow.)

Anyway...

I'm still in the learning curve here - trying to figure out what I'm to do, where I'm to steer the ship, and learning how to try doors, finding mostly closed ones, and move on to find others.

My counselor, She Who Knows Stuff, has always challenged me with this... Instead of "What am I supposed to do?", she wants me to ask, "What do I want to do?"

And I have NO idea...

So, in true convoluted Calbert style, I'm trying to look one or two questions behind it... Why don't I have any idea why I have no idea what I want to do?

See? Convoluted.

And I'd venture to say that I'm not the only one. Jump in here, peeps, if you find yourself wandering too...

I realize that most of the time, someone will ask me what I want to do, and I'll either respond with, "What do YOU want to do?", or a hearty "Whatever." My boss (back when I had one...) will ask me what hours I'd like to work for a particular project, and I'll say, "Whatever hours you need me to work."

See what I do there? I always respond to "need," and not to "want." That undercurrent of response might be making itself known in big ways - contributing to this problem I have in discerning what I actually WANT to do when I grow up.

Oi. Convoluted to da max. Word to yo dysfunctional goldfish. Or hamster. Whatever you need.

The thing that made me start to notice this bunny trail of epic proportions? The fact that I'm a multi-instrumentalist. A musical Swiss Army knife, if you will.

I honestly can't say that I play a lot of instruments because I love each and every one of them, that I swoon with rapture upon playing them, and that communing with my musical muse in instrumental bliss is a truly magical moment in my life.

Besides, my muse is a mental hamster with a nasty attitude who gets joy out of leaving me twisting in the wind. Not the kind of little critter one wants to "commune" with.

I picked the saxophone in 6th grade band, not because I had a deep and abiding love for the instrument, but because it wasn't a clarinet (which my brother plays), and because, back then, pudgy boys who wanted to play the flute were considered "not normal," pretty much placing a bull's-eye on your tushy every recess period for the rest of your life. So yeah, saxophone.

I made the jump from tenor to baritone sax, and in high school followed in my brother's footsteps to contrabass clarinet. I don't remember if that was a choice of desire, or if I moved over because they needed somebody to play the thing. I'm glad I did, for the record, but still... Along the way I picked up piano, messed with some brass and percussion, and started my long relationship with bass guitar...

Because they were needed. Or because it might get me in with some cool kids, since they needed a bass player.

But choosing an instrument because I love it? I love the sound of it? I desire to play it? I actually can only identify two or three that I could say that about... Recorders, whistles, and ocarina. Also the bass, once I realized I was playing it for myself, not just because someone needed it. And the organ - I really love to play the organ... Even though, again, I started playing it to fill a need...

And the wind controller. But that's mostly because it sounds like everything and anything. The perfect instrument for someone who dabbles in ADD, but never went pro with it.

Do I hate the others? Not at all. The instrument I love in the moment is the one I'm playing at the time. I'm playing, and I'm filling a need.

There it is again - "Need."

And that, at the very core, might be what I'm plodding through right here, right now, four years into Life 2.0. I don't know how to answer the question, "What do I want to do?", because I've never been able to answer that question.

Certainly there's a balance here, peeps. In Kingdom life, we're to be servants. We're to look after other's needs, putting them before our own.

But...

I think my conflict comes about because sometimes it's easier to respond to others' needs than it is to admit and embrace our own. It's easier to flow like water into the cracks and crannies of others' needs, easier to respond in servanthood, than it is to be the ice breaker, charting a course, setting a direction, breaking through the barriers or navigating around the ones that should be avoided.

If we don't find that balance, we're forever waiting for a need to pop up, so we can jump in and help, but remaining in limbo ourselves. We never move, we never discover, and we never embrace a vision of what God might be calling us to.

We're not able to answer the question, "What do I want to do?"

And a valid variation on that question may indeed be, "What does God want me to do?" Absolutely.

But...

Without an ability to know our own desires, our own passions and interests, we're in "wait and respond" mode once again. We sit back, we wait for God to drop a direction in our laps, and then we move.

He's made it clear, for me at least, in this time, in this place, that's not how we're gonna roll. No Deus ex Machina. No golden couch from on high, dropping down to whisk me away to my next assignment. He's placed a new life in front of me, with almost limitless possibilities. It doesn't matter how old I am, or everything that I still drag around from my old life... He's asking me to look, to decide, to step...

And as I learned in the last week or so, sometimes He pulls the rug out from under me, taking away the structured, external part of my current existence that actually brings in some decent income, and laying bare the truth that I simply don't know how to move on my own.

I respond well to need. But I lack the inward discernment to find a path. And I guess in the harsh light of God's ugly clock, it's time to do something about that.

Can I admit that I'm scared? (I guess I just did...) I know what happens when I'm left on my own - the forces rally at the Eye Gate, I bow to useless idols, and I not only lose the battle, but I don't even resist. Perhaps I don't seek a path because I know I'll never have the resolve to walk down it. I'll find a comfortable bed of rot and filth, lie down in it, and wait for some external circumstance to come and rescue me, all the while talking about my "options," thinking of my "potential," and lamenting about "what might have been..."

But never getting up out of my bed of nastiness and taking a step in any of those directions.

I don't trust myself to find a path, even one God plainly lays before me, because I've disappointed myself too many times before.

Once again, I've been placed where there are no options except the ones I create or choose. Once again, Deus ex Machina has gone on vacation, and once again my Father says, "Pick a direction, and GO. I'll help you, either giving you momentum on the way, or turning you in a different direction, but you've got to choose, and you've got to move."

Will this time be different? Or will the Eye Gate remain open to whatever darkness walks in? Will the bed of rot become my resting place, until all the light I might have reflected is lost in gloom?

No, my Father won't allow that. He doesn't leave His kids crying in the wind, lost in the rot. I may sometimes feel alone, but I'm never abandoned. I may choose to close my eyes to the light for a time, but the light never goes away.

Child of the loving Father, the time is now. Lessons need to be learned. Steps need to be taken. And choices need to be made.

It's never going to get easier, though it might become a little less scary as you start to move. Maybe the hardest choice is the first one, the one that breaks the ice, the one that shifts the balance and starts to build momentum...

The choice that comes from the answer to the question -

"What do you want to do?"

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Foto Friday / Saggy Saturday: Get Off Your Tushy Edition

Normally (yeah, like that word ever applies to any of the fluffy goodness around here...) the weekend post is humorous, usually involves Beka, and usually illustrates any number of ways I tend to put my human thoughts into her canine noodle.

"But it is not this day." (Thank you, Aragorn...)

I realized yesterday afternoon that something is seriously askew in my noodle, and needs to be fixed asap...

The discovery that I've lost all interest in getting out on my trike.

(Huge *gasp* from all 4.78 readers...)

I know.

This is a serious, serious, like, way serious dude, discovery. So hopefully some photo reminders will aid in kick starting my noggin and kicking a more "southern" region of my person as well.


This is right about when Big Blue became my ride of choice, posing ever so nicely here along with Vicki's Tour. One trike, two trike, red trike, blue trike.

Yup, she's a perfect fit.

Big Blue's first Rockford Ride...
I guess sometimes a long, seemingly endless winter, followed by a slow-to-arrive spring, topped off with a difficult life change and sprinkled with some deep, serious sadness will kill all sorts of things inside. I honestly didn't realize that it's already approaching mid-May, this weekend is the River Bank Run, and I haven't even had the trike off of the trailer to inflate the tires yet. No desire to.

Cedar Springs? Check.
This might be futile, but the only thing I can think of doing is looking through pictures, thinking about just how far I've come, and the places I've been... with my Big Blue.

Hello, Ada. Nice to see you!
There were "Ditch the Car" days, when I'd load everything I needed for writing and such onto the trike, take off and get where I wanted to go on three wheels. And it felt great...

"And I'm leav-in, on a Big Blue. Don't know when I'll eat Mu Shuuuuu..."
Those who know me well can guess what my destination might be...

Biggby at Celebration North

Biggby on Chicago Drive

Biggby on Fuller

Biggby Downtown
Yeah.

So reflections like these go one of two ways... they could sink me further down, for all that I've experienced and then lost; or they can remind me that there are more adventures to come...

Riverside Park
Musketawa Trail
Ravenna with Ezzie the Wonder Dog (who I still miss...)
Meeting up with a hottie on the Kent Trail
If I don't ride, if I just let it all go, how will I ever get back here?...

Mackinac Island, or as I think of it, Trike Narnia
There is my reputation to consider, too... After all, me not riding my TerraTrike is like Jared chowing down on McAnything...

The "Face" of the Rover... which means the Rover got dissed!
I'm part of a community of riders, and sometimes I don't imagine it's any easier for them to get their hineys out there on the trike than it is for me. We all have to get up, get out, and move. It hurts, it's frustrating, and it takes so much effort to even come close to where I'd been.

-But-

Trying the Rover prototype - May, 2010
If I remember where I started, four years ago...

Summer, 2010 - RoverLove!
Maybe I can see how far I've come...

Labor Day 2010
And that I really don't have that far to go...

Riverside Park - with an unconvinced Beka
To start again.

It's been a good ride, these past 4 years!
Important? Yes - both to my physical and mental health. To quote myself from a TerraTrike article in the GR Press...

"The surgery took the weight off, the TerraTrike KEEPS the weight off..."
So, on a sunny day like today, I believe I'll be out in the driveway, oiling the chain, pumping up the tires, and remembering that though Big Blue and I have been quite a ways together, there's many more miles ahead.

She's waiting for me...
To quote St. Bilbo of Baggins, "I think I'm quite ready for another adventure." 

Me too, B-man. Me too.

Besides, if I don't get in shape with Big Blue, how will I ever handle...

The Sportster??

"CHOM CHOM CHOMMMMMM!"
(That was dramatic music, in case you didn't recognize it...)
Thanks for joining us for a butt-kicking edition of Foto Friday, although I'm really living more in Saggy Saturday. Tune in next time to hear Beka say...

"Try dragging THIS around, trike boy! HAH!!"

Thursday, May 08, 2014

TBT: The Unclenched Hand (January 12, 2012)



In the "New day, same old crapola" department, some thoughts from 2012. I'm turning 55 in a couple of weeks, yet not that much has changed. Proof that once again, I'm not living with an unclenched hand. You too? Read on, my peeps...

I'm getting older.

I'll pause for the shock and denial of that statement to pass through you. After all, I'm Momma O's baby boy, youngest of my clan, with all the baggage that implies - how could I, the kiddo of the family, possibly be getting older?

Oh, the horror...

(and if nothing else proves that I'm the youngest in my family, the preceding dive into melodrama certainly does...)

So what? Age is something we all have in common - get over it, baby boy.

Really, I am over it. I didn't have much of a hump turning 50 a couple of years ago; I passed 52, the age at which my dad died, so that was a biggie. From here, then, the getting older thing really isn't an issue.

It's the stuff that goes with it that I take umbrage to. Specifically the aches, pains, creaks, groans and other strange sounds and experiences that hover around aging people like seagulls in a Wal-Mart parking lot. (Or is that just at the one in Sault Ste. Marie? Makes me think of "The Birds" every time we go there... *shudder*.)

(Of course, that makes me think of the scene from Mel Brooks' "High Anxiety" - the dark suit, the park bench, the BIRDS, the run to the dry cleaner's, the people running out... Now I'm laughing. Loudly.)

I watched members of my family age: My great-grandmother, who was so tough of an old bird that were she still around, she could still whoop my hiney without breaking a sweat. Honestly, somewhere along the line she HAD to have been an ancestor of Chuck Norris. Seriously. My great aunts and uncles, who slowed down gracefully and faded, each one of them still able to whoop my hiney without breaking a sweat or straining a muscle. My mother, who could and did whoop my hiney just with a glance...

(I tell you this truly - when I saw her laying in the casket, the expression on her face startled me... it was the same expression that her face bore when in church on a Sunday morning I was being perhaps a bit too boisterous and, as her eyes remained focused on the Pastor, her hand, on my coloring pad, was writing - in her perfect teacher penmanship - "just wait until we get home...")

(*mega-shudder*)

And then there was my grandmother, Wilma Ardra Carlton, who went by Ardra. Yes, my grandmother's name is a palindrome. Envy me.

Grams was a woman of faith and a woman of an open heart. She constantly taught us all the gift of giving, and I'm ashamed to admit that I learned the lesson way, way too slowly. In fact, the lesson is hardly evident in my life... yet. I'm getting there.

She rose before the sun almost every day of her life, often around 3:30am, to go downstairs to her restaurant and begin the prep work for the new day. She owned that restaurant for 28 years, open every day but Sundays and holidays, sometimes opening way early for the deer hunters, and she showed us all what faithfulness and hard work looked like. She was smart, savvy, and above all, giving.

She knew the lesson of the unclenched hand.

In fact, when and if some of my friends and loved ones from Oscoda (my ol' hometown) read these words, they'd be able to tell story upon story of Grams and her giving heart.

Where this story intersects with today is in my hands. Something that I share with Grams and my mom is arthritis and all the joy that implies. Mine has been showing up mostly in knees and back, since an early age actually, multiplied by weight, but I'm noticing in my later years that it's making its presence known in my hands. I love having things in common with Grams, but I was hoping to pass on that one...

Grams' hands were stiff - very stiff. At times, she couldn't close her fingers. What she did with those stiff painful fingers was magic - the work of her hands was blessed indeed, as was the work of her heart - but I saw her suffer. And I was hoping that my own hands would stay free of it, since as a musician I tend to be really, really protective of my hands. But the stiffness seems to be coming. Slowly, I'm thankful to say, but still there.

The interesting thing I'm noticing, and remembering from Grams' life, is this: Things get worse with clenched hands.

When I've been loom knitting for a while (though crochet is now the way I inflict my yarn addiction on the world, especially my niecelets around Christmas. Pray for them...), my right hand, the one that holds the tool, locks up and becomes sore (so does the left, the one that holds the loom/yarn). Too long without stretching and my right thumb stops being able to do its part. Too much of any activity that requires a closed or clenched hand produces pain and stiffness. If I'm playing wind controller and don't take the time to stretch my hands between songs or in places where I have a break, the fingers will lock in a curved position for a bit, and I have to carefully work them a bit to get them loose again. I don't seem to have that problem on bass guitar, for which I am grateful. As for whistle, the low whistles use a technique called Piper's Grip or "flat fingering" that lets me keep my fingers stretched. Thus explaining why I'm happier on the low whistles.

(More detail than you ever wanted to know - that's what I live for. That and Ramen noodles. Oh, and chicken. And beans. Like I said - more detail than you ever wanted to know.)

Why this all hit my radar this morning is wrapped up in today's Daily Audio Bible podcast, in the reading from Proverbs:

"Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything your land produces. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with the finest wine."
Proverbs 3:9-10 (NLT)

Brian Hardin, the voice (and heart) of the DAB, commented on this, asking us what if this becomes an opportunity to open our hands and experience freedom? What if, instead of clenching and hoarding and worrying over our wealth, we open our hands and give it all over to God? What kind of freedom comes when we know He is in control of it all and we can just let it go?

Freedom comes by being obedient to God, and not just paying our 10% so that He will bring all sorts of prosperity and goodies into our lives. (Sorry if I offend by this, but I do believe that the phrase "prosperity Gospel" is an oxymoron. Just sayin'.) Obeying God is not playing the lottery or dropping coins into a slot machine, expecting a payback. "I did my thing, just like the rules in Your book say - now gimme, gimme, gimme!"

In obedience we acknowledge that He owns everything - all we have and all we are, by the fact that we offer our best, our first to Him above all. Even when we can't see how we'll put food on the table or keep the lights on. When we can't see how we'll put gas in the tank or find somewhere to go to earn anything to buy gas with. We clench, we hold, we buckle down to survive and endure. We dig trenches and foxholes and we hold on to the little we have, because that's all we know how to do.

There has been a lot of clenching going on in our house lately. We've gotten ourselves into some very deep water, very tight situations, and no hope on the horizon of digging out.

Actually, let's dispense with the royal "we" here - I'm clenching. I've gotten us into deep water. I don't see hope on the horizon. Not wallowing in pity or blame or regret - just truthfully admitting who the "free spirit" in our family is (to use a Dave Ramsey term...).

So I grasp, I tighten in anxiety, I wring my hands over worry and regret and frustration...

And wind up with closed, locked, painful fists.

There's still no hope on the horizon, at least not from my limited view; there's no resolution I can bring with my small power, and my feeble efforts can't move the mountain before me.

There's a little too much "I, Me, My" in that preceding sentence, don' 'cha think? Me too...

In my unfaithful, faltering, infrequent pursuit of Tai Chi, I'm learning not just poses and postures, but a new way of movement, at least for my stiff ol' bod. In Yang style, the form I'm learning, the hands remain open, not stiff, with the thumb extended - the "tiger's mouth" (the space at the base of the thumb) is open. The hand is soft, not rigid; the fingers relaxed, not stiffened. When the hands need to close, to make a fist for a punch or another movement, they are able to do so because they are relaxed. When that movement is complete, they open and become relaxed once again.

"Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything your land produces."

Grams knew the freedom and blessing of the unclenched hand. So did my mom. So does my wife, who models a servant's heart in everything she does.

So Lord, I confess a clenched, painful, stiff hand, and the clenched, stiff heart that goes with it. All my grasping, my holding, my keeping back - even from You - is wrong. I'm creating more frustration when trying feebly to relieve it. I'm causing more insecurity when I should be letting go. I'm creating instability while trying to find solid ground, because I'm looking at the wrong things.

Come and take Your proper place, Father - the head of all I am and all I have. I open my hands, Lord. All I can see and all I can figure out screams at me to close and clench, but my own wisdom is, as always, flawed. Holy Spirit, close my ears to screams of desperation, and open my eyes to Your freedom. When I get rid of it all, when I open my hands and put it all in Your hands, then I'm truly free. The problems I've created, I confess them and ask for Your forgiveness. Remind me that the solutions are Yours to reveal - my job is trust and obedience. Help my resolve to give You the first and best of it all, and to leave the rest with You too, guided by Your wisdom and Your economy, resources that You can use according to Your perfect will.

My hands are open and relaxed. And all that they held is Yours.

You too, dear reader? Even as I read these words from 2012, I think of a number of brothers and sisters who are being forced to learn the lesson of the Unclenched Hand. Father of Light, give us grace, mercy, and hope - as we open our hands, fill our hearts...

Tuesday, May 06, 2014

The Whistle, The Wonder, The Bathroom


Alright, sometimes I truly drove my mom nuts.

I note the total lack of shock or surprise at this revelation. You didn't think I'd notice, did you? Hah.

The shock may come in when you learn that the statement "Sometimes I truly drove my mom nuts" isn't in reference to anything in my childhood, or even my turbulent teen years - It's actually about an event that happened years after Herself and I were wed.

"Tell me more..." I hear whispered from literally twos of readers.

Well, it was not all that long after I began playing the whistle... 

In my defense, I will mention that I've always played the low whistles, not the little ones that (in the wrong hands, which mine at this point certainly were...) are capable of peeling wallpaper off a wall. Low whistles can be played in such a way, but you really have to be determined to do some damage to pull it off. And that's just way too much effort, really.

Anyway, I was in the honeymoon stage of becoming a whistle player, which meant they went everywhere with me. And I mean, everywhere

Also in my defense, is it my fault that my mom's downstairs bathroom had great acoustics?

And, since the defense hasn't yet rested, isn't it actually admirable that someone who is learning a new skill is so dedicated to it that the thought of wasting 5-10 minutes in a useless activity like, um, reading... well, that's just wasting time that could be put to better use, like working on that new skill.

Seems perfectly reasonable and responsible to me, your honor.

You'd think that my mom would also see the wisdom in this, be delighted that her young adult baby boy was continuing to pursue new things in his musical life, and would enthusiastically enjoy the sound of whistling in her home.

And you'd be wrong. Oh so very wrong.

How do I know this? Because I could hear, quite clearly, when my mom hollered down the stairs to my beloved, "Is he playing that horn in the bathroom again??????"

The queen was not amused.

I don't think she ever quite "got" my connection with low whistles. And really, I can't blame her... Over my life, the poor dear had seen me pick up and play so many different instruments that she probably learned to not get attached to any of them - she never knew if she'd ever hear it again, so why bother?

I say with some pride that at a lot of band concerts, my mom not only would not know which groups I'd be playing in, but would have no clue what instrument I'd be playing in the aforementioned groups.

I'm fancy like that.

Hee hee hee.

I do think she finally accepted my new-found love of the whistles... She knew full-well that after her funeral, at the luncheon, I wouldn't be sitting and chatting with the folks - I'd be off to the side with my whistles, playing. That's how I expressed my loss and my feelings - I played.

So that's alright. 

Now kiddos, let's leave my mom's bathroom, and move on to a question we all can "sit down and ponder."

See what I did there? Hee hee hee.

So, I asks myself...

When was it that I stopped playing the whistle in the bathroom? When did I stop so loving my new relationship with this instrument, that I don't just carry one around and play all the time? 

Where did the joy go?

What other things are there in my life that I was so thrilled with, that they were with me wherever I went, and I'd engage with them, anytime, anywhere, not caring who saw, heard...

Or hollered down the stairs about them.

Forget things for a moment... 

Where was the point that living in Life 2.0 became so routine for me, that I stopped living in the wonder of all God has done for me in these past four years? How have my eyes been so darkened by the mundane that I fail to be astonished by the gift I've been given?

When did I stop playing the whistle in the bathroom? When did I stop doing Tai Chi moves in the grocery store? When did I stop dancing to the "Save Big Money" song in Menard's? 

(No - I'm not going to explain that last thing...)

When did the wonder of being a redeemed, forgiven, ReBorn personhuman, bearer of the Image, who's had his entire story rewritten, stop being the main theme of every waking moment of my life?

Where did the wonder of it all go?

When did the grey of the Mundane become the color of my whole life?

When did I stop seeing the amazing gift of each day, and start thinking of "the daily grind?"

When did I start listening to the well-meaning, but still loud, voices hollering down the stairs? 

When did I stop playing the whistle in the bathroom?

How about you, dear reader? Have you found yourself leaving behind things that shouldn't have been left? Have you walked away from the One who loves you most? 

Have you stopped playing the whistle in the bathroom? Like me, it's time to pick it up again, whatever it is, giggle like a little kid, and play away... 

'cause our Father loves it when His kids do that!

"But I have this complaint against you. You don't love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen from your first love!"
- Revelation 2:4-5a (NLT)

Friday, May 02, 2014

Funny Foto Friday... The Thoughts of Beka

Tough week, tough month. Lots to figure out. And some crap to write through and get over.

In the meantime, we turn to someone whose view of the world is much, much simpler. We'll look at her world from time to time, to remind me that yes, it really is just that simple.

Take it away, B-Dog...

Thank you, Beka.

And thanks for joining us for another Foto Friday. Tune in next time to hear Beka say...


"What the heck was that thing over my head? What did it say? 
I CAN'T READ!! But I can shred underwear..."