Just shoot me now

As long as you love me
We could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke
As long as you love me
I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold
As long as you love, love, love, love me (love me)
I heard this heartfelt, amazing song on the radio.  I waited for the dj to give the artist's name....nada.
I heard this song again.  It hit me even more deeply the second time around.  I was at a stop light flailing for my phone with its very useful 'song id' application....got it!!  The phone app counted down from 10-0.  The amount of seconds it needs to id a song.  Light changed during the song.  I put the precious phone in a cup holder and drove to the stop sign.  Picked up my wonderful phone 'network error try again'  dammit!!!
Omd!!! (Oh my deity)  the song is on again, i'm not driving (husband is) he likes the song too!!  I valiantly pull out the recently redemed phone, (it id'd another song).  I put the phone near the speaker.  It started the countdown....then....jerkstore phone 'could not id song .....yada yada, put the phone nesrer the speaker ......' 
The dj prattles on about EVERYTHING but can't be arsed to give the information out about the flipping song, which now has me fully in its steely vise of lyrical love and hope.
Today, on the way to football practice.  The song comes on.  We ALL (yes even my 13 year- old son!)  We are all singing along....I decide to try one more time with the id feature.  The song is blaring, we're still singing along.  Drawing ever nearer the practice field, it happens song id actuslly id'd the song!!
As long as you love me - Justin Bieber feat. Big Sean!?!
My son shrieked....change the song before my friends hear this!
We were locked in a dreadful nightmare.  ALL of us love the song.
Here it is.....6:06 am, wide awake with....
As long as you love me
We could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke
As long as you love me
I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold
As long as you love, love, love, love me (love me)
Sigh......I can't get it out of my head.  I watched the video on my phone.  This is almost as bad as skulking around the nudie store, not wanting to be seen....powerless to stop its call.
Help me, omd, I love a Justin Bieber song! 
I'm not sure if it's legal to like one, sane, or a forgiveable offense.  I should be hiding in fear and shame, yet I'm putting it here, in hopes it might help others struggling with a similar situation.  I'm still in the stage of acceptsnce.  I am here for you.  If you or someone you love are struggling with song acceptance, leave a comment.  We can only make it through mutual support.  One day I hope to loudly admit this, but for now...I'll quietly post it here....
6:24.....and
As long as you love me
We could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke
As long as you love me
I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold
As long as you love, love, love, love me (love me)

Suckers

Standing outside the candyshop window looking in.
I see rows of jewels arranged according to color in bins. They glitter and shine.
I see multicolored balls spirals and swirls of color on standing displays. Rainbows made solid or swirled in cloud.
Bins of wrapped caramels and toffees, gleam in gilt wrapping. Salt water taffy in waxed paper, its gay hues visible still.
Display cases festooned with chocolates of all types, divinity and seafoam wait expectantly. The fudge is center stage.
I have to go inside.
Where is the door?
I see shoppers, laughing, smiling, talking, buying.
I smell the sweet aroma!
I hear the words.
I hear the jingle of the bell as the shoppers enter and exit.
Why can't i find the door?
I see so many people pass me with candy.
I ask them how to get inside....they just keep walking. Wearing their coats while holding their umbrellas. They don't hear me or see me.
One little girl skips away, leaping in a puddle, her red boots covered in muck, her rain hat askew, clutching her lollipop chasing her brother. They are gone.
I notice i'm wet.....how long has it been raining?

What do you see

I've been fairly depressed lately.  Everything and nothing.  At times it seems like the bottom falls out, no one understands me, no one can help...etc.  The more people try to help, or the more close they get the worse I end up feeling.  I'm not suicidal, just a general bleakness, loss, coming loss...a bit of a mess mentally...I took a depression quiz on psych central and popped quite positive, it all makes sense ...BUT i still pass on online sanity.  That should come as a shock (don't die now) to many of you....i digress....ok where this all leads in relation to the title.
A friend and I were video chatting tonight.  I was wearing some favorite jammies.  They have cherries on them and what I visualize are two bluebird friends or family (likely friends as there is no fighting) making the lattice crust on a cherry pie.  I imagine they are making cherry pies for a woodland gathering.My friend sees them eating the pie after its been cooled on a window sill.
It doesn't matter if either of us is right.  Nothing changes our differing perspectives on the pie.  These ideas are  what we surmize based on inferences from life experience.  I recently offered advice I didn't realize seemed flippant to 'get a teddy bear'.  I have spent hours and years of hours flooding poor Teddy with my sorrow, lonliness, fear, anxiety...etc, i've never touched him in anger.  He is my solace.  I suggested that solace to a friend.  This unknowingly hurt my friend.  I still feel bad about that.  Perception is a double edged sword or kris blade.  The wound is there and often worse than if I'd said nothing at all.  It is hard to watch a friend or family member hurt, yet all our heartfelt advice stings more.  Where I see goodness and succor my friend sees an entirely different scene.
I guess it all boils down into a willingness to view others perceptions.   A readiness to accept each of us deals with pain emotional and physical widely differently will help me, I'm sure.  Willingness to see the good in things, the wisdom and trust to know a friend won't hurt you and a friend willing to see her answers may not help at all, but she tries.  The willingness to comprehend that half full and half empty are in fact the same condition....it's just perception after all.
 
Can all of life be summed up with bluebirds and cherry pies?  Is it just a matter of how we are wired to see things.  Do we even truly have a choice or will deep down we suffer in not being true to our hardwired idrals?  Is my life less meaningful because I'm failing to enjoy all of my world?  The guilt robs me of freedom, the weight of the housework robs me of energy (before I even start).  How clean is 'clean enough', how much can I attain?  I'm not sure.
I am however happy even in my depression seeing two things create something I adore! (Cherry pie!)..even if my vision is flawed.  I still see the building of the pie, not the destruction.
I will try to see the world and my friends in it as all different, not mraning to hurt me.  I hope they will grant me the pass to be a flawed human and never forget I mean no harm or flippancy.
On a side note...there was a greasy spoon stop on the greyhound route from to Chicago to Cedar Rapids.  It was in Rockford IL.  On the way back to IA I would get off there, have a slice of pie with coffee and a smoke then reboard the bus.  I was hiding depression by convincing myself the pie was great.  It wasn't;  what was special and great was feeling freedom.  Or at least a reward for the pain.  At the time, I just looked forward to it.  No questions asked, one good and petfect thing.
So, are these birds in the photo (hope I attached it) eating the pie or making it??

Southern Lives 1

The jam cake

When you have relatives (or had) who cook well....there is competition.  LOTS of competition and hurt feelings.  If you preferred one aunt's biscuits over another it was fine if the other aunt was nowhere to be seen.  If however both aunts were at the same dinner, both had made biscuits and they were sisters....have mercy!  Even Jesus himself would be at a disadvantage trying to save you!  One Aunt made amazing biscuits, the other Aunt, her biscuits made me very sad but she made a fabulous jam cake.  First Aunt, made terrible jam cake despite heaven's biscuits.

I remember eating Aunt #2's biscuits and crying because they weren't Aunt #1's biscuits.  That did not go over too well.  I also remember eating things from each of them that left me teary eyed because they were sooo good.  No one made rhubarb pie like Aunt #1!  I recently found a pie lady who makes a similar one...similar enouhg to make me almost cry those memories so long buried come flooding back, granted I only spent a few short years (about 5) around those tables, but they made such an impression.

This is however the story of the jam cake that wasn't.  When we left Kentucky and moved to Florida, somehow my Grandma lost THE jam cake recipe.  She called Aunt 1 and asked for her recipe, then called Aunt 2 and asked for her recipe.  I asked why she was doing this, her answer. "Aunt 1 makes a terrible jam cake, but Aunt 2 makes a wonderful jam cake”  She kindly explained that if you asked for one of their recipes you had to also ask for the other to avoid hurt feelings.  This seemed silly but made sense.  I still use a similar tactic today in various aspects of my life.  I digress….

So she got both the recipes, she made conversation.  The second was mad because she called the other first, Mama explained alphabetical order and she just did that.  I didn’t get to talk to either of them for more than one minute.  The cost of phone calls were very dear then and we couldn’t afford very many. 

Mama got off the phone……..

I waited…

And waited…….

Weeks went by, months, years…..I continued to ask about The Jam Cake.  WHERE WAS IT?!?!!  WHEN, WHEN, WHEN, was it coming???  She had mixed up the recipes and didn’t have the heart to call and tell them she needed them again?!  What???  All the drama and southern subterfuge (niceties) for NO jam cake?!  I asked her to make both and then we could decide.  "That would be a waste of money"was her reply.

The consolation was a Johnny Cake with one of the Aunt’s chocolate sauce recipes on it.  That was NOT the right chocolate sauce recipe.  Plus the unsweetened cocoa powder had weevils in it.  Apparently one cannot store cocoa powder in an aluminum tin from late 60’s to mid 80’s without wildlife moving in.  I recall the lid had rusted shut. 

I want biscuits