Hells Gate II.....................by Julianna Rowe

 Hell's Gate II....9-2-2021 

Hells Gate I is WalMart.  Hells Gate II is Woodman's Grocery Store where items cost a bit less because it is family owned versus Corporation of China owned. But that also indicates a certain class of people that we all have seen on the People of WalMart video.  That being said:

I had finished rubbing various body parts with the people of Hells Gate II, checked out, and asked for a drive up number to have my groceries loaded for me.  

I pulled up under the loading area and waited.  My SIRIUS XM shuts down every time I pull into that area which causes me a bit of impatience so I then go into auto pilot reaching for my phone to check what I just checked minutes ago.  Not sure what that means just know it means something that has a psychological description for sure. 

I dont usually openly talk to the guys loading my groceries because often they are "special" and I feel its best to just let them do their job and not interfere. 

The young blonde man came to the car and asked to see the cart number the checker writes on the receipt.  I showed him and instead of walking five feet to what I knew was my cart, he walked back into the store then back to my passenger side window.  I put my phone down long enough to speak.

"Sir, I know that is my cart."  He smiled kindly and responded. I could sense this young man was different. 

"Yes maam but your number says 5381 and the cart says 5382. He continued. We have people pull up with no number trying to take carts of groceries with no proof so I went back in to see if there was another cart with 5381.  There wasn't so I knew this one is yours."

He spoke so kindly. I could sense this young man was different. His spirit was so open. I asked him if people try to steal food very often and he said no but it happens more often than you might think.  Then he went on to talk about how he was glad it was getting cooler and he couldn't wait for it to get cold as in winter.  Rare to hear a young man say that.  He said things settle down around there when its winter.  The kids just hang out and gather in the parking lot instead of close to the building causing trouble. He added that he could think of a lot of other things to do besides hang out in a parking lot." He finished his little chat with these words. 

"They dont know how precious life is and how the time they are wasting could be gone in a day or a week. " 

The words just popped out of my mouth with no forethought.  I told him my good friend was dying from pancreatic cancer."

He then replied to my painful moment by telling me.

" My mom died in 2016 of cancer, then my dad passed away eleven months later from cancer as well.  Dad had been fighting it but got tired and quit."

I expressed my sympathy and asked if he had siblings.  He responded yes he had a lot of family.  He stopped for a few seconds and looked at me as I had turned as far around as I could during our conversing and said.

"I bet you think I am twenty-five right?  Well I am forty one."  

I laughed and told him my son is forty one.  

I wonder if he weren't an Angel in disguise?  He had a genuine, caring, and kind, spirit that glowed. It is rare to come upon such a person anymore especially at Hell's Gate I or II.  I drove away from the loading area with tears falling from my eyes because my spirit was so touched by a stranger's sincere ten minute visit.  I hope his life journey is as blessed as he blessed me today.  Sometimes words cant express ......and this is one of those times.  

Snowing Money .......by bored and busy Julianna Rowe

I pulled this draft from the hollows of my computer-ville. I am working on a novel and needed to post so I cheated and pulled out an old draft.  It isn't snowing here in WISCO.  But it will be so just enjoy the money snow story for today.  Thanks!

Here we go again. Snowing and snowing and snowing in Wisconsin. If snow were money I would drive in it better. I would love to see green roads with little faces all over them. I would love to hear the crunch of paper faces under my tires.... Stuck in my windshield wipers...... hanging off my shoes...... slipping and sliding on the masses of green paper and falling down only to lie there waiting for an ambulance to recover me from the pain of money slipping away. 

We better find a way to re- industrialize this country from COVID because MaMa don't do bread! I am allergic to bread so bread lines are out. 

Not to mention Dear God some housing morons stopped putting REAL fireplaces in homes so there ya go again...no heat if worse comes to worse. Who will pay for the gas fireplaces dum-rums? No bread, no heat. And having to use stinky candles to see.... they stink. Everyone thinks they have to smell like something other than being used to replace the sun when it goes down.

 

No TV? Oh boy....I might be able to live with that one. No Computer....cant do it, nope.....nor can I survive without salmon. I love salmon.

I suppose I could paint a face on my exercise ball and talk to it like Tom Hanks did on that deserted Island. My ball is bigger than yours Tom Hanks....

And what about a job? If the country collapses, what about a job? Nurses, car repair techs, soup servers, policemen, and grave diggers would all be good jobs to have during a depression... Come to think of it so would making booze....humm. (and no I am not under any influence at present even though it would read as though so) 

There's the infamous grainery at the old home farm (or used to be) where I kept all my life's treasures. Great place to makey boozie to get green faces so as not to have to eat bread and bloat up forever. 

OK so I am overworked and tired and couldn't think of a darn thing to write about. Can you tell? So I turned snow into money. Not bad actually. Money banks instead of snowbanks. Money-Man instead of Snowman. Frosty the Money-Man had a face like ole Abe Lincoln...with his greenback face blah blah blah. Hey, Money Plows! Skiing and snowboarding down money-hills. Snow is prettier depending on how you look at it. 

This "snow to money" is a bad idea because most people do not know how to save money and come Spring and Summer and Fall there would be NONE. It would all go away just like the snow does. Oye!

 So the country's financial situation better get ahold of itself because my idea sucks dirty canal water. In fact there is a delete button I should seriously be considering...right now before its too late. I owe you all a good one to make up for this one.

The Axe Murderer............by Julianna Rowe

I went to bed last night around ten pm.  I usually sleep quite soundly but there was a mouse on my mind that has taken residence in my kitchen making my two (rescue) cats prowl the area in trepidation, less the fear part of the word, and hoping to score a win.  My thoughts on the other hand were of sweet pets bringing me a present middle of the night.  So when I heard a knock on my outside door I freaked because I was already freaked internally mentally.  Wait, mentally is internally.  

Terror gripped me.  I grabbed my phone and readied it to dial 911.  I slithered out of bed in my short T shirt, undies, and socks due to cold feet and slowly walked to the door.  Why slowly I have no idea. I peeked out the peep hole expecting an ax murderer but it was a woman with her head down.  OMG I thought she was hurt and needed help or was she kidding me to get into my abode and steel my lap top and or TV and or the $60 in  my old black purse. I have nice purses just wasn't using one yesterday! I looked for blood on her head and neck but there was none. Who was she? So...without further thought I just opened the door in my shorty T hoping that would detour any thoughts of my  upcoming death by axe.  It had been a boring slow day anyway. 

To my astonishment there at the foot of her and my door was Bob.  My cat.  

I flung my disheveled hair back like I was a movie star ignoring my exposed under's and legs.... and exclaimed.  

"BOB!"

He heard his name, looked up at me, and walked in with a slight trot.  The boy cat had been wondering the lonely halls and dim dark doorways since about nine that evening when my granddaughter ran in to pick up something she had left over the weekend. How he escaped without me noting it bewildered me but he did, not to say he never has before but I always caught him in the act.  Oh sometimes I would let him walk as far as he wanted sniffing selected doors. I always wondered why just some doors. What would cause him to bypass other doors??

The cat savior lady told me she was just going to start at the first door and go knocking on each of eleven doors until she found his home.  Lucky Lady got lucky on number 1.  I thanked her and offered her a million dollars, as soon as my wish came forth.  We laughed, she left. 

As long as I was up and about I went to use the "rest" room saving me the usual two pm bathroom run.  Bob followed me into the "REST" room all the time watching my every move.  I sat down as predicted  and Boom, he jumped in my lap, reached his paws around my neck hugging me and kissing my face while I am attempting to gain control of the uppie (I roll my tissue from the top, not underneath) toilet tissue so I could get life back under control.  Obviously BOB was happy to be back home. And the other rescue Lucy was all over him greeting him like he had been missing  from our lives for days versus two hours.  It could have been worse like most things but it wasn't except for the shorty T shirt thingy deal.    The End.   Does Bob look like he cares??  I always save him!   And I should for I am responsible for Mr. Bob Benjamin Morrison Ogden.   (He has his own blog)

NO MORE SALT..........by Julianna Rowe

 

This is half of something. This is half of a union, a pair, a couple!
One white and one black. One salt and one pepper. Now I stand alone, really alone on a vast wooden table left to deal with life half-way.
Salt was sitting on the counter attached to me, pepper, at the side by a strong almost unbeatable, unbreakable force called a magnet. We were like twins, inseparable, where one went the other usually always went too. Silly huh? Not really....just look at me now. Poor soul. Not only standing alone now, but I'm black on the inside living in a white outer side! This is no good life anymore.

After salt fell off the the edge of the counter and died a big smashing death, I knew it was over. The life I had known for years was over. I could see the person that shoved her off the edge was upset. Standing there gazing at salt trying to figure out a way to put her back together...sort of worse than humpty dumpty or scrambled eggs. There was no putting salt back together. So I watched the lady sweep her up and drop her into a big white bag and that was the last time I saw salt. I have an empty spot now. Its right on my side where she used to be attached and sit every day, every month every year.

The lady that accidentally killed salt was talking to someone. She was saying, "OMG, I hope those weren't a wedding gift, or maybe carried some sincere sentimental value. What if they belonged to the deceased Grandmother, or they might have been a gift one of their children walked a mile to a store with only a few dollars they'd saved for months to buy a Mother's day gift for!"

That lady carried on so long I started to think she might know I had feelings. Nawh, impossible. Salt is gone and I will have to find a way to move on. I have some other friends on the counter. A large brown wooden grinder and some new fangled plastic (probably from Wal Mart) with big salt inside it. When they turn the top it makes noises and then salt like my old friend that got pushed off a cliff counter and smashed into a thousand pieces, comes out the top. The new salt is OK, just not my cup of salt is all. I will adjust to the loss. Not so sure that lady will. She was more upset than I was and salt wasn't even hooked up to her. I think she was just a-scared the people that owned salt and I might be upset. She still isn't over it. It's been a few months now and today when she came to our home, she sat me on the table and took some pictures of the missing salt. I'm fine, she isn't!!

Spirit is Carried on by.......... Julianna Rowe

I read an obit on facebook about a nice lady that passed away like everyone has and will.  When I came to the line, "Her Spirit is carried on by...,"  then came the names of the survivors. I was impressed yet horrified.  Yes horrified!  Obviously I have carried on a few Spirits from my passed on people.  And some of those so called Spirits were great and some not so great.  The great ones, spirits that is, seemed to have an eternal fight with the bad ones.  And in this family there are no mediocre spirits.  Either horrific or wonderful.  Fight and drama even though done quietly. No Maury Povich or Jerry Springer by any means.
(I try to stay away from all of them that "My Spirit would be carried on by..." who act with such drama.) Oh we do have a Mr. and Mrs. Nancy Grace.  Everyone guilty!  Where did that come from? Certainly not my side of the cells.  We have no judges.  Oh I forgot, we have judgers who haven't evolved yet.

Love, hate....no in between.  Of course not me. 

Our cells contain: Western frontier town murder in the 1800's, insanity in the 1800's, rich farmers all the way through the 1990's,  alcoholism, depression, giving, comedians,  and one policeman.  Good Bad like most families.  We had no Rockefeller's, no politicians, a few good athletes, a couple "Carny's,"  as in carnival tent travelers, (omg) one moonshiner in the 1930's that spent some time in Levenworth,  a couple Nascar drivers, no literary scholars, no teachers, many female crotchers, hum, crocheters, ha, I cant spell that! Knitters, embroiders, sewers, artists of the drawing,  a tax evader, and a lot of maids. We do carry on the creative spirit for sure.  Hell of a background of which I have diligently tried to overcome, evolve past, move on from, hide away from, run from, learn from, accentuate the positives of, all of which is a work in progress.  Cells have memories.  I say they, my ancestor's, had a camera and took videos and placed them in their "Carry on-ers" brain cells and or vagina's and penis's for future turn on turn offs.   Might not be so funny.  I heard on talk radio that one of our brain cells, yes I said ONE is identical in appearance to ONE Universe.  There is that word infinity again.  Eww eww.  Too big for my cells to grasp.  We could each have over a billion Universe's in our brains.  I said it was too big.  Oh and all with camera's trying to trick us.  Some of those brain cell Universe look a likes lift us, some try to bring us down.  It's no different than the show Survivor.  And I would have gotten kicked off quickly!  I'm good!  I'm not "done" yet.  I might add there are a LOT of beautiful and strong women in this family.... 

Laters 

The Umbilical Cord in Eggs?.........by Julianna Rowe

 

I don't know what it is with me, chickens, roosters, and eggs lately? Certainly there are more important issues like when will women have equal rights.   And will the Pandemic ever end. 

Back to the Umbilical Cord of the everyday egg. I like eggs, but when I crack them open and that milky looking wirery squibbly fertilized umbilical cord presents itself off the yoke in my frying pan I get woozy. So, I do the right and good thing and take half the shell I have just cracked open and use it to splice off the " unbili -cord," while using the other half of the shell to scoop it out and into the sink nevermore to be seen. Then and only then can I eat it. I even went so far as to purchase a dozen organic fed "chicken eggs."

You know what I mean, in great hopes there may be less or no umbilical cord. And I paid $4.60 cents vs $1.59 cents for regular eggs both of which have the same white milky fertilized umbilical cord looking at me from the pan. I know, duh. 

My friend Peter, whom I shall blog about at some point, says I am Obsessive-Compulsive Neurotic. I am not, my Mother is! LOL 

Why would anyone want to eat something that came out of a Chicken's (ass).  If the Chicken had sex, I don't think they make love, then that same egg would be-holden a little chicken...eeewww. Call it what you will, I cannot eat the unfertilized or fertilized umbilical cord of a "chicken egg." Now if I scramble it quickly and its out of site, that works on occasion depending on my mood of course. Neurotic....no way.

So be happy, be safe, be WELL and don't eat umbilical cords.....not chickens, not any okay?  Good.  We're good.    Later's

"The Dyslexic Writer," Me!

Dyslexia is a shitty thing to have to live with. It comes in many shapes and forms.  I could go into depth but there is no need for that.  Simply put my brain gets scrambled sometimes when I visually look at something.  For instance the name Johnson might appear to me to be Stanley.  Bad example but hope you get it.  Fractions were a living nightmare.  And English class was even worse. My brain just could not understand passive voice, certain punctuation, and most of all sentence structure.  It looked like scrambled eggs.

It started around 4th grade where I couldn't keep up in class.  The teacher would talk to fast and only a few of his or her words were retained. Big blank spots.  I would try diligently to do my homework but I couldn't.  My mother would continually say, "What's the matter with you?"   Well I didn't think anything was until I heard that about a zillion times along with my teachers saying I could do it but wasn't applying myself.  They called me lazy. (I am the farthest person from lazy)  Each year I sank further into lack of self esteem.  I was a pretty young girl so I fell back on that.  How'd that work out for me you ask?  Not-so-good, with low self esteem nothing works out so well.

High School!  Lord the load got heavier each year in all areas.  I was made fun of in my classes. Once by a teacher, he was the Social Studies and he taught Drivers Ed as well. I forgot his name but never will I forget his face, who made me stand at the blackboard and draw apples and then erase one so I could see the answer.  Humiliation!  I started to skip school A LOT.....It was the only way I felt I could save myself from the pain. 

Why am I writing this?  Because I love/loved to make up stories and write books.  But I lacked the Grammar skills to do so.  I was not a wealthy person so I lacked the funds to hire editors.  I tried nursing homes asking for folks who may wish to feel useful again to edit for me.  I tried assisted living homes and college students for a nominal fee.  I did and do online learning and discovered I was and am the Queen of Passive Voice sentences and run on's. The words then and than stump my buns every time.  I have Word so that helps quite a bit. 

My mentor of 41 years told me if I ever thought of publishing I better have someone edit my punctuation.  Okay!  Again embarrassed as well as I thought of the hundreds of people that read my chapters who might be wondering were I learned to put so many comma's in. 

One of my clients is a Linguistics Professor who told me to blow everyone off and write like I write.  If you don't like where my paragraphs and comma's are.....just read the dang story anyway because I am pretty darn good at coming up with interesting stories.   My English teacher, Mrs. Covington, who resides in the heavens is probably rolling over and over but is jumping for joy at the least for my attempts at entertaining people with my wild imagination.  (A lot of the tales I tell are true even though I mark them as FICTION.)  You have to guess what is and what isn't. 

Thanks for your understanding.  God forbid I don't wish to be made fun of at this age for Dyslexia!
Been to that rodeo before.  Oh, I now have an editor from the UK and two novels on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble online.  As well as three more ready for print. 

Famous People with Dyslexia? 

John F. Kennedy, George Washington, George Bush, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Henry Winkler, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Jay Leno, Anderson Cooper, Cher, Steven Spielberg, Justin Timberlake, Tim Teebow, Keira Knightley Jamie Oliver, Leonardo Di Vinci, Tom Cruiz, Walt Disney, Jim Carrey, John Lennon, Guy Ritchie, and Me.