LIE TO ME

This week's song selection for Sing Along Saturday is Jonny Lang's Lie To Me. It's hard to believe Jonny Lang was only 15 when he recorded this amazing blues song. Remember to pump up the volume and to sing along like you mean it. Let me hear you rock the house!

Lie to Me

Jonny Lang

Lie to me
and tell me everything is all right
Lie to me
and tell me that you'll stay here tonight

Tell me that you'll never leave,
And I'll just try to make believe
That everything you tell me is true

Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me
Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me

Lie to me
it doesn't matter anymore
It could never be the way it was before
If I can't hold on to you
Leave me with something I can hold onto,
For just a little while won't you let me be

Anyone can see
That you love him more than me
But right now, baby, let me pretend
That our love will never end

Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me
Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me
Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me
Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me

Am I Being Too Snarky?

I just read a post on Facebook entitled These 9 Places in America Will Pay You to Move There.  I have to admit the title piqued my interest enough to check it out.

Here's Mildred's review of the 9 places, but please remember the following reviews are written by a transplanted Maineiac living on the Redneck Riviera with a HUGE attitude...that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it:

Tribune, Kansas - When Horace Greeley said "Go West, young man," was he smoking crack? Tribune has a population of less than 1000 people and after living in "Nub City," I think I'll pass on Tribune even though Dorothy Gail and Auntie Em hail from Kansas. I seriously doubt I could live in a state that was poisoned by the evil Minister Fred Phelps. Okay, I know he's dead now, but his followers are still lurking somewhere keeping the "God Hates Fags" philosophy alive and well. I don't wish harm on anyone, BUT one well placed tornado might show those idiots God's wrath for hate groups.

Marne, Iowa - They offer free land. Wow! Can you imagine how excited the 120 people who call Marne home are when someone accepts their generous offer. I wonder what people from Marne do for fun. Maybe they dream of moving to the big city of Tribune, Kansas. If you look carefully at the hay rolls in the picture, you'll see all 120 Marne citizens hiding behind them. The question is...what are they doing behind those hay rolls?

Curtis, Nebraska - Here's another booming metropolis having a population of less than 1000 people. If a frontier living fantasy is on your bucket list, this might be the perfect place for you to live. Just don't forget to bring your golf clubs so you can conquer Arrowhead Meadows Golf Course which claims to be "Nebraska's best kept secret" and beware of the cornfields and the children lurking within them.

Harmony, Minnesota - This town dubs itself as the "biggest little town in Southern Minnesota." Nearby attractions include Slim's Woodshed: Wood Carving Museum, the Amish Backroads Tour and Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum. I don't think I need to comment any further on this town with an awesome name. If it's good enough for the Ingalls, then it should be good enough for anyone who likes reading by candlelight and tromping through the snow to use the outhouse. Okay, so they have indoor plumbing now and electricity, but obviously what they don't have is a booming population.

Baltimore, Maryland - This is a great place to live if you're a Ravens or an Orioles fan, but Baltimore's real claim to fame is being a "truly filthy, over-priced, crime-ridden hole." Want to join a gang? Baltimore is a great place to call home. Unless you plan on a career at John Hopkins Hospital or want to attend Artscape's free art festival each summer, I think you should stay where you live now. Okay, so Francis Scott Key wrote our hard to sing Star Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry in Baltimore and Edgar Allen Poe hung out there, but Baltimore these days is a truly filthy, over-priced, crime-ridden hole. And nothing says "home" quite like some well-placed filth.

New Haven, Connecticut - They offer up to $40,000 towards college tuition. At Yale, that'll just about cover your books (for a semester), but the view from East Point Park is guaranteed to blow your mind. Rumor has it that New Haven's Sugar Bakery has cupcakes so good you'll want to slap your mama. It may be difficult to ditch the pretentious snobs in New Haven, so when in Rome do as the Romans do! Be a snob and enjoy New England Ivy league style.

Alaska - I have to admit Alaska is pristine and just as majestic as you imagine it would be, BUT unless you like a place colder than a witch's tit, I'd stick to the lower 48. Alaska offers programs to encourage veterans and live-in caretakers of the physically or mentally disabled residents to move there. Wow! I didn't know goofy Sarah Palin is looking for a caretaker. Isn't she a little young to be suffering from dementia? I wonder what the job pays and what the benefits are. Maybe she'll take you wolf or elk hunting from a helicopter to sport kill animals or dazzle you with her quick wit and superior intellect. Remember, you can see Russia from Alaska and when Putin raises his ugly head you might be able to mistake him for a wolf or an elk. I hate when that happens!

Colorado - Now, you're talking! Legal wacky weed and the Rocky Mountains is definitely the way to go, but you have to have a permanent disability to qualify for their down payment assistance program. I wonder if insanity or being fugly (fucking ugly) qualifies as a permanent disability. Colorado might not be the place for you unless you're a sports enthusiast. If you love skiing, snowboarding, white water rafting, rock climbing and mountain biking Colorado is definitely the place to be. Everywhere you go is a Kodak moment, so if you're a hermit or don't enjoy being awed by scenery, don't move to Colorado.

Wyoming - This state might be the most peaceful place on Earth...low population, no honking cars or cursing pedestrians, but they have the highest rate of traffic fatalities in the country. Perhaps they should stick to riding horses. In Wyoming, you can leave your door unlocked and the keys in your car and not be murdered in your sleep and your car will still be where you parked it the next morning, but never leave your horse unattended! Are people really that wonderful in Wyoming? Here's a place where everyone is a cowboy or at least dresses like one and your children can ride to school on their horse. Hey, how backwards can Wyoming be? Jackson Pollock was born and raised there and look how he turned out.

A-S-S-H-O-L-E

Here's a catchy little number for your Saturday night enjoyment. It'll stick with you like a freshly picked booger. Let's all sing it together...are you ready? Here we go...a one and a two and a three...

CREOLE LADY MARMALADE

If you've been up all night and need a little something at 5:30 am to keep your motor going...

Does God Read Blogs?

[Reposted from 2010]
Bonjour God! Let's have a little chat! I respect each person's right to believe and to worship in any manner they feel most appropriate. I also respect the right of each person to modify their beliefs throughout their lifetimes as they grow, learn and become more enlightened. For many of us, religion was introduced to us as a child and what we learned from that exposure was what our parents and religious leaders felt we needed to know of God and the mysteries of life and death. Most important, I respect anyone's right to non-belief...a life free of rules that everyone breaks because THEY ARE SINNERS! Okay, so life can't be completely free of rules, but it can be free of some of the senseless guilt and shame.

As children, we were expected to accept certain things that can't be explained because "God works in mysterious ways" and "when God closes one door, He opens another." Questioning God was frowned upon and if a person harbored any doubts, that person was expected to do so in silence. God wasn't a topic of debate! Some people developed a deep faith as they grew up and it has given them great comfort at times of sorrow and loss throughout their lives. Some people believe God answers prayers and that He never turns his back upon His faithful. They believe He never gives anyone more than they can handle. Those people seem to be able to accept anything that happens without questioning it. And then there's people like me...

What I learned as I grew up was that "God" has many faces and names throughout the world. As a child, that confused me. Perhaps that confusion acted as a catalyst for my exploration of various religions without finding one that truly fits. You see, I've always fallen short of allowing myself to believe in the existence of loving, merciful God who allows some of His most faithful to perish in pain and suffering. I have no problem believing that some greater force than myself is responsible for life as we know it, but I'm afraid that's where it stops. I simply can't give that credit to some supreme all-powerful being who allows the unpredictable acts of Mother Nature, the epidemics that sometimes scourge mankind and all the other major boo boos everywhere like wars, accidents, disease and hunger just to name a few? Why would a God, any god allow those things to happen?

I've really tried to envision some omnipotent being sitting plugged into a gigantic database that constantly oversees all things everywhere throughout the entire universe and it quite frankly blows my mind and makes me laugh. I know what many religious people think and say about people like me. Trust me, I'm not writing this so any of you will leave me mini sermons on the virtues of Christianity and the need to be saved. I'm just having a momentary hard time watching the news and wondering if a merciful and loving God is alive and well and living on the same planet I call home then why is this planet in such peril? Surely, there isn't some obscure Bible verse that says blessed are the nitwits for they shall inherit the Earth.

Logic and reason has always kept me from finding the essence of God because for me the concept of God is anything, but logical or reasonable. Taking a leap of faith to me is like walking off a cliff and expecting not to plunge to my death. Throughout my life whenever I've had questions regarding various aspects of the Bible, no one has been able to adequately give me answers that make sense. For example, if incest is wrong and most everyone knows it is, then explain Adam and Eve and how the world was initially populated without telling me it's JUST a story. NO! NO! NO! The word of God is infallible and who are we to say that anything written in the Bible is JUST a story? It seems like there's no real consistency in God's plan except doom and gloom. There's too many loopholes and excuses for God's complacency and absence.

I've always been a "show me" type of person and quite frankly, I've never been shown any proof that God truly exists. I've been told to just open my eyes and to look at the world around me. When I do that, I gain no enlightenment. The majority of what I see makes me sad. I don't know exactly what it would take to turn me into a believer. The parting of a sea perhaps? World peace? Eradication of disease and hunger? All I know is whatever it is, it hasn't happened and I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen. To the world, I say, "c'est la vie!"

Sometimes I feel awkward when in the company of religious people because I have nothing to contribute towards their Christian fellowship. Sometimes I don't know what to say when someone asks me to pray for them or for someone else in need. It's an uncomfortable feeling at times being the odd man out. I never seem to have the right words to let anyone know I'm with them in spirit and thought, but that I feel praying is a bunch of hogwash and a waste of time. I can only imagine telling that to someone and the reaction I would get in return. Instead of an intervention, people would plan an exorcism for me. Get your bells and holy water together! We're giving Mildred an exorcism! Now, that's what I call fun!

When I was younger, I yearned to fit in with everyone else. I wanted to be able to see what they saw

and feel what they felt. Now, fitting in is about the last thing I want to do. Tolerance for heathens everywhere would be nice. Real heartfelt tolerance of anything different would also be nice. Instead of preaching and passing judgment so quickly, shouldn't everyone be living proof of what they believe and desire in others? Shouldn't people lead by example? Don't just talk the talk! You need to walk the walk! All I know is that life has taught me that compassion and true empathy plant the seeds of brotherly love so much quicker than negativity and judgment does. And in my garden, my paradise the seeds of love have been planted long ago and the weeds of nitwits are pulled up quickly before they can firmly root and spread.


Note to self: Mildred, stop writing posts/revising old posts when you can't sleep! You tend to ramble!

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE - PART X

Are you still with me? If you are, then you've reached the moment of the big reveal. From 1975 when my daughter was born until about 2 years ago (2016) my daughter always believed  her father was Kenny Rowe. I never for one moment thought he was an actual possibility. All one had to do was do some simple math. That's why we have fingers and toes! For my daughter to be his, she would have had to have been born prematurely at about 7 months. Have you ever heard of a 7 month old fetus weighing over 9 lbs? 

I'm to blame for this lie and do take full responsibility for telling it and for letting others tell it. You see, way back when I was still in Chipley before I came back to Pensacola to give birth and I told Kenny I was pregnant.  But before I could tell him it wasn't his, he beat me to the punch by assuming that he was the father.  Instead of setting the record straight right then and there, I got my ass bent out of shape when he jumped in before I could tell him and he beat me to the punch by expecting me to get an abortion. I guess his initial reaction about my situation pissed me off and I just let the whole thing ride and let him continue to believe a lie. For the longest time, I thought my secret would never come back to bite me. I thought my secret was safe and that I was protecting my daughter when in reality all I was doing was taking the easy way out by protecting myself from dealing with the truth.

Like most lies, they may not catch up to you at first and sometimes they never catch up to you, but anyone with a conscience eventually feels guilty for telling a lie especially when it's a huge lie. At that point, any honorable person will decide to finally do the right thing if they can. Sure, I felt pangs of guilt over the years, but I wasn't ready to do the right thing until a few years ago. About the time I decided to come clean, I also decided to do some genealogy research so my daughter could at least have a more complete picture of the gene pool that created her. Before that all she knew were all the kooks on my side of her tree.  Doing genealogy research has been an on again off again project of mine for about 20+ years and include being related to many of the Salem witches, Laura Ingalls Wilder, several passengers on the Mayflower, William the Conqueror and thousands of weirdos and misfits that have given me a certain flair.

Telling my daughter the truth was difficult, but I did it without making any excuses for my deceitful behavior. I did what I did many years ago and it was wrong. Period! I was then faced with an entire new set of decisions to make. I figured tracking Donnie down would be relatively easy, but that wasn't the case. Doesn't Murphy's Laws state "nothing is ever as easy as you think it will be?" For the last two years I've chased a "ghost." At some point, I thought "maybe he's dead," but if that was true, there would have been a record of his death and I couldn't find one. 

When I started my "project, I had my daughter do a DNA test through Ancestry.com to give me a place to start my search. Until very late on August 10, 2018, I wasn't able to connect all the dots that would lead me to finding Donnie. Up until then I found plenty of people who showed up as DNA matches for my daughter, but the closest match I had to work with was a couple first and second cousins. Those people never responded to my request for help filling in the blank spots on my daughter's tree. Go figure! I guess on August 10th all the stars and planets were in perfect alignment because I finally located him. The Donnie Arnold I knew long ago is Martin Eudon Arnold. A couple details I discovered made me laugh out loud. The first was that he lives in a place I lived about 30 years ago. It really is a small world when you get right down to it! The next thing that amused me was that I found out when I located him that his birthday was on August 11th...the very next day. Happy birthday, Donnie!

As I dug deeper, my amusement turned into a really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I discovered out he had gotten married in 1973.  OMG! Was he married when we had our little brouhaha in Panama City Beach?  The answer to that was no. He had gotten divorced the month before I met him in August 1974. I guess I was both his birthday gift and celebratory freedom lay that summer.  He did however manage to get his ex-wife pregnant after they divorced and she had a baby boy a month after my daughter was born. He also got married in 1988, but his wife died in 1991. Since that time, he appears to have remained single or at least never married again.

Now, I'm faced with what should I do next. Should I do nothing and just be content with handing my daughter all the info I've found or should I rock Donnie's world by contacting him with a "hey dude, remember me and guess what we did?"  I think my daughter deserves an opportunity to know her father if he's open to that, but I definitely don't want to hurt her by throwing her to the wolves. I have a letter written and saved on my computer, but I don't know who I should send it to. Should I send it to his two adult children and let them be the bearer of good tidings and joy or should I bite the bullet and send him the letter? I'm not usually this indecisive, but then again I've never been in this situation before.  Any advice anyone wants to toss my way will be deeply appreciated. I'm seriously running on empty. I haven't had a normal sleep pattern for a long, long time. I feel anxious whenever I start thinking about this and I just want to put this behind me once and for all, but I can't do that until I do something...and hopefully that something I ultimately decide to do is the right thing for everyone concerned.  I used to keep an 8-ball on my desk at work for situations that required decision making. Maybe I should dust it off and consult it now!