Today is going to be exciting.  I haven't had a haircut since before Christmas--or if I have--I don't remember it.  I look like a straight stringy pitiful mutt.  No body, no curl, no nothing.  It just lies flat on my head.

I even liked it better when I went to the beauty shop and said, "Shave my head."  Chemo.  Hair falling out.  I had a pretty okay looking bald hair cut.

The beautician said, "NO!! I'm not going to shave your head."  But she finally gave in and did it.  I told her that my hair was falling out in clumps and I couldn't stand the suspense and wanted it over with. 

Better to have no hair than look like someone ran over you with a lawnmower.

So today, I'm getting a perm.  It may be a mistake--and if it is, I'll shave it all off again.

I have a couple of really nice wigs, but if you've ever tried to wear one, you know how itchy and sweaty they are.  I'm not going there.  Nope.  

What you see is what you get.  If the perm goes south and kinks or burns, I'll just shave my head again.

And wear a pretty smile.

I wonder how the hair-dresser is going to do this with a mask.

I'll find out.

Yesterday we started 1Corinthians.  The first nine verses are an introduction.  I always tell my classes that it is important to know who is writing the letter, or book, or Gospel.   

Because every writer has a style.  And that will show in the way they put words together.  Which affects how you interpret what they are saying.

For instance, Paul was highly educated.  He studied at the synagog in Jerusalem under the tutelage of the most renowned teacher--Gamaliel.

He is described as having a "thorn in the flesh" which may have been a physical disability.  He says about himself that he was not an eloquent speaker and we know that one young man fell asleep during Paul's preaching and fell from a second or third story window.  But Paul could write.  He was a genius as a wordsmith.  Sometimes lofty, chasing rabbits, but returning to the point.
  
Peter, on the other hand was uneducated.  A fisherman.  A man's man.  His writings are simple.  To the point.  Anybody can read Peter.

I am amazed by the fact that while Paul was imprisoned in deplorable conditions, he wrote.  And wrote.  Encouraging others even when he himself was in fear of his life.  He was beaten, scourged and left for dead one time.

The Jewish religion's leaders tried to get rid of him the same way they got rid of Jesus.  Paul was a threat to them.  But no matter what they did to him, he wrote.  And as a result, you and I can read his words.  And Peter's words. And John, and Luke, and James, and Jude and, and, and...what a blessing we have in the different writing styles of these men. 

So much fun.  Two of my favorites   (Becky Bacon and Rebecca Perkins) came to see me in the same week.   Any of my friends or family can come...all you have to do is change your own sheets.  I no longer have the ability to get fitted sheets on the bed correctly...or at all.

They both call my house "Janie's B@B.  They bring snacks they want to eat--because I don't cook.  And they know where all the silver and dishes and the coffee pods are.  Those are my kind of friends.  All I have to do is enjoy them.

Becky Bacon said, "I love to "not talk" with you."  That's what we usually do.  We know all of each other's stories and it only takes one word for one of us to look at the other and laugh.  We don't even have to finish the sentence.

I picked another pod of okra, and the stalks are bearing and blooming.  I'm afraid this may be my last year to try and plant a garden.  The weeds have gotten away from me.  We'll see if the plants or the weeds win.  If the plants win, I'll try it again next year.

I called the church expecting to get a hard time about something I wanted to do.  But no!!  I got full support.  I want to change the literature.  I explained that the lessons the staff chose didn't fit the needs of senior adults.

Why did I think anyone would object???  Oh ye of little faith.

It got changed.  With a smile.  Whatever I wanted was what they wanted.

I'm happy.

I went back outside last night at nine planning to enjoy the lightening bugs twinkle again.  Nope.  Not a single one.  

I waited and waited.  Nothing. 

It was a one night thing--the evening before.  Why?  Who knows.  I'm just thankful I was there when it it happened the night before.

Becky Bacon is here.  We are practicing distancing which is sad.  She is an RN and has been through the Corona wards in Tulsa in the last few days.

She is paranoid about it all because she knows how easily it transmits--and she isn't a spring chicken herself.

All of us older people are doing everything we can to keep from getting infected.  I had to go to Braums yesterday.  I had the attendant do all the touching when I inserted my Visa.  They keep disinfectant at the door.

When I get Corona, it won't be from lack of trying to be safe.

The only bad thing is that some people give you flack and make fun of you for being extra careful, wearing a mask, and disinfecting.  Why do people make fun of people for being careful?   

Older people are free game.  Whatever we do, some people always make fun of us.  I hope it makes them feel better about themselves.  Becky Bacon says it is a shame thing--some people grow up in a culture where shame is a control mechanism and when they are adults, that's what they do to others.

Something happened that was special last night.  

It was nine o'clock and I walked out in the backyard with Squig for his last outing of the day.  And the sky around my back porch was literally lit-up with fireflies.  Everywhere. 

It looked like twinklers popping off and on.  I haven't seen a firefly in years.  I figured they were extinct from bug killers.

I couldn't help but think, we have a mighty God who can do anything He wants to do.  Even give bugs a flashlight.

I felt like I was a kid again.  But couldn't help but regret that back then, we would catch the lightening bugs and put them in jars.

Or when we were especially unthinking, pull their tails off and stick them all over us until we glowed in the dark.

Kids can be cruel. 

I sat down in a chair on my back porch and just watched the splendor of the moment and thanked God for letting me be there for the event.

The fireflies even came to where I was sitting to say "Hello."

It was special.

The virus is now rampant, but not killing as many people.  It is spreading among younger people who have the strength to endure it and don't have as many other serious conditions to acerbate it.  Maybe herd contamination will take over and all those younger people will get it, get over it, and then it will stop spreading??? 

We certainly couldn't go on the way we were.  Nobody had money to live through it except retirees.  People have to eat.  It was a question of do you get sick and maybe don't make it, or do you go broke and have no money to live on.

I think people voted with their feet.

I have a friend who is the accountant for a major city in Oklahoma and said that over half of the requests they have had for unemployment assistance were from unknown people who never worked for them.

Big opportunity for graft.  Which is sad.

I am in the group who has to be careful.  So I try.  But isolation has its consequences.  And none of them are good, except that I write more.  

I have been taking two "unknowns" out of my freezer every morning--where I have frozen a portion of leftovers and have no idea what it is.  After it thaws, I either eat it for lunch, or deep-six it.  It's a good time to do this.  So I don't have to go to the grocery store.  So far, everything has been good!  Meatloaf, Ham and pineapples, wild-rice stuffed peppers.  The up-side is I don't have to cook and my freezer is going to be clean--so I can start over filling it up again. 

David, my grandson (that bought my across-the-street house) smoked a brisket for Father's day and asked me to come eat with them.  Yum. 

It was a good weekend.  Rebecca Perkins came to stay a few days and left this morning.  She drove up from Dallas to see me.  And of course all the girls in my connection group were tickled to see her too. Becky Bacon is coming Thursday.

The question for the group on Sunday-- since the Bible says love people--was, "How do you love people you absolutely don't like."

They finally arrived at the conclusion that love is not a feeling, it is a behavior.  That it doesn't matter what you think, or what you say to them...what matters is what you do.  Be kind.  Don't argue.  If they need something, try--in as much as possible--to give them what they need. (Don't be a doormat, however.)

There are a number of people that I have to deal with (I can't get out of it) on a regular basis that I do not like.  Their behaviors and words are difficult.  I would love to write a list of appropriate instructions for them to follow on how to behave in public! They became adults without having absorbed proper adult behavior.  

I doubt any of them would listen anyway.

You don't get to choose who listens to you.

You might consider yourself lucky if anyone listens to you.

The question is, "Do you have anything relevant to say?"

When my grandmother moved from the farm to town, she couldn't give up some of the things she had always done a certain way.  Like frying chicken.  She went downtown to the chicken store, picked out a hen and had them remove the feathers, gut, and clean it for her.

Yes, there was a store right off main that sold and slaughtered chickens back in the forties--because Gran wasn't the only woman who thought that the hen had to be fresh.  It was a booming business, because older women wouldn't buy a chicken that was packaged for sale in the grocery store--they didn't trust the grocery store.  Eventually they had to give up on that because the grocery store was how all chicken was sold.  Hen houses went out of business.

Those farm women who were forced to move to town back then wore "House Dresses."  One piece, over the head concoctions that had no waist--so that they could move around and because they were cool.  Of course they had sleeves.  No self-respecting woman would wear a dress that had no sleeves.

I can still hear my grandmother say--as she threaded her treadle sewing machine--"I'm going to make me a new house dress."  And then she would sit down and get her feet to going on the Singer treadle.  I tried to use it once and failed.  My feet wouldn't treadle.

When Ken was overseas, she would call me (I was living with my folks a few houses down the street) and say, "Bring those two babies over here for lunch and eat pork chops with me."  It never occurred to me to help her with the cost--probably because I didn't have any money.  She was living on Social Security and an extra pork chop was probably a sacrifice.  I wish I could go back and tell her how much she meant to me. 

I got my mail-in ballot to vote.  For which I am eternally grateful--I don't have to go wait in line to vote.  But I needed an ID to send it back.  Couldn't find my drivers license to make a copy, and on top of that I couldn't find my Visa card.

So I did the job that every woman dreads.  I dumped everything in my purse out on the floor.  Receipts, junk, lipstick, keys, gum, and a zillion strange things.  No drivers license.  No Visa.

I am one of those people who receives change or bills at a drive through--and throws it in my purse.  No order.  No arrangement.  No system.  I never know when I am out of money until the attendant asks for money and I can't find any dollar bills floating around in my purse.   No wonder I lose things.

But there among the clutter--as I was "carefully" rearranging it all back in my purse--was an envelope.  I opened it.  It was full of bills.  I had gotten a check in the mail and gone to the bank to cash it and they wanted ID.  It was such a small amount that I had forgotten all about the bank envelope.

In the envelope with the cash was my drivers license--ID.  As well as my Visa Card.  Why?  What reason was there for my Visa to be in the envelope?  I have no idea.  It had been weeks since I had gone to the bank to cash the check.

I hadn't been anywhere to use the Visa so I hadn't missed it.  Just the license.

I'm glad the police didn't pick me up for speeding without a driver's license.  Not that I was speeding...but it would have been embarrassing to dump my purse out on the car seat to look for the license with a policeman watching the disarray.  He could have booked me for littering.

There are things to eat in places around America that are unique.  They just don't seem to be able to be copied.  Darrell Anderson had a place called Thomas's restaurant in Pryor Oklahoma.  He raised his own beef and when he cooked a steak, it melted in your mouth.  

When he was a kid in school, the Thomas's told him if he would work there for them and stay with it, they would give him right of purchase when they retired.  And they did.  He grew up cooking there--and whatever else was needed--and was able to buy a business.

Truckers coming from Dallas to Kansas City on Highway 69 knew the place.  Ever trucker in America knew.   Darrell knew how to cook.  Truckers would park across the railroad tracks and walk to the restaurant.  

Everyone in town ate there at least once a week.  I loved the vegetable plate.  It always had brown sugar breaded tomatoes, brown beans, hard boiled egg on lettuce and tomato and french fries.  And whatever else was on the stove that day.  And homemade yeast rolls.  Ohhhh...they were wonderful.

Darrell got Parkinson's and gave it up.  But in the mind of every citizen in Pryor, there is a memory of that place.  And Darrell.  He knew everybody's name.

I've found a new unique place to eat.  It's a hole in the wall in Jones Okla that fries catfish.  The catfish steaks are the size of a dinner plate and only one other time in my life have I eaten catfish to compare--down in the delta.

My daughter Pat told me about it.  "Go get a couple of catfish sandwiches for us," she said.  "It's across from the library."  Nondescript.  Delicious.  "UMMM."

Words are one of my most important resource at this point in my life.  Since I write, they are like spices in the kitchen cupboard.  You can't substitute pepper for nutmeg. 

Yesterday, I couldn't think of a word I wanted.  It was somewhere in my head,  tucked away in my memory--or I wouldn't have known it had gone missing.  Wouldn't have known it was lost. I go ballistic when that happens, when I can't find it.  If I didn't have that word in my repertoire, I wouldn't miss it. 

Compounded by the fact that I am the world's speller.  I went through a zillion variations of the word cupboard (first paragraph up there) before spell check could even make a stab at what I was wanting to say.  Cubbard?  Cubarrd?  Cubberd?  Cubhard?  It wasn't even in spell-check's repertoire.  I would never have started that word with a "cup"...because it doesn't sound like that when you say it.

Sometimes it's easier to substitute another word and go on.  Cabinet?  But I hate it when I am stumped for a word and spell check doesn't come to my rescue.

I recently read a book that had hundreds of words in it that I didn't know.  That rarely happens.  It was so bad, that I got a piece of paper and started writing the words I didn't know down.  There were over a hundred of them.  I wonder if that author uses those words in everyday conversation.  I wonder if he thought there were people out there who would persevere and finish his book.

It wasn't me.  I gave up--I "went to the cupboard and got my poor dog a bone." And without that poem, I wouldn't have even used the word cupboard.

Jeanette made unleavened bread, bought some grape juice, and the class had the Lord's supper Sunday.  Probably didn't do it exactly the right way--if there is a right way--but it was very meaningful.  Jesus just said, "Do this in remembrance of me."  No instructions as to how.  None of us have been to church since January, and miss it.  We are still uneasy about the crowds.

Because......The rate of infection is going up again and everyone in the class has health problems.  One member is on anti-rejection drugs for a kidney transplant.  Two have been placed on blood thinners.  Two have diabetes.  One had heart surgery.  Breast cancer...on and on....

Moral:  If you live as long as we all have, something is seriously wrong with you besides old age.

But...we all are in good health!!!  Or at least we think we are.  Everyone feels fine and that's what counts.

We are doing the book of Proverbs.  And my mathematics background keeps cropping up.  So many of the Proverbs are "if--then" types of statements.  Like mathematical proofs.  IF..you do this...THEN...good things are the result.  But IF...you do something else....THEN...things don't turn out so well.

I taught math on a college campus for twenty years and tell my class that much of the Bible is mathematical.  There are two paths.  If you take the right one...then God will bless you.  If you don't, well, things aren't gonna' be pretty.

If 2+5=7, then 7-5=2  God has a PhD in Math and Physics.  He invented them both...."In the beginning."  We are just discovering what He already knows.

Publisher called me today.  There is hope.  The senior editor has the book and is doing her thing.  I think there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I told her I have finished three more books since I signed a contract with her and at this rate I'll be 120 years old before they get published.

Too soon we grow old.  Too late we learn.

She said it won't take that long for the second book.  I said that my time clock is ticking.

I don't care about anything but getting the stories out there.  Maybe they will help somebody.

In the meantime, I'll keep writing.  I'm writing my brother's story about his life in China as a medical missionary.  I've finished 73 pages.  I can't do more than one page a day.  It takes over 200 to really have enough for a book.  

I think my permanent headache is from thinking.

I'm living on Brahms junior deluxe hamburgers and chicken sandwiches.  It would help if I liked milk.  I could eat Cheerios for breakfast.  But I don't like milk.  I buy a quart of it and use two or three tablespoons to scramble eggs before I throw the rest of it out.  If it wasn't for brown beans and cornbread, I would starve.

I did grill an Ahi tuna steak with toasted seseeme seeds this week.  That is one kind of meat I like.  Anything seafood makes me happy.

Once again, I drove to Jones, Oklahoma for my daughter Pat to straighten out the problem I was having on my Mac.  She usually can help me by phone, but every now and then I screw it up so bad it has to be one on one.

One of the things I really don't like is the constant notifications telling me that I need to update.  I don't want to update.  I want everything to stay the same.  I just get comfortable with a process and Apple wants to change it.  Drives me nuts.

If I don't update, those pop-up reminders never, never ever go away.

The generations that have come after mine are in constant fluctuation.  Everything is changing around them all of the time.  They don't fix things, they discard them and get a new one.

We were raised to fix stuff.  Carolyn told me that she still has the toaster she got for her wedding, and uses it every morning.  That was sixty years ago at least.  I have a spatula that was a wedding gift that is my favorite utensil in my kitchen.  Stainless steel.  Not plastic.  Doesn't break, doesn't bend.  Still going strong after sixty years. When you need a rubber spatula, buy one at Williams Sonoma and you won't ever have to buy another one.  Becky gave me mine.

One thing this pandemic has showed me is how little I really need.  My kitchen cabinets are full of stuff I rarely use.  Nice to have it if I need it, but not worth the space it takes up. Black iron skillet is indispensable.  

I've  been getting stuff out of my house.   Simplify, simplify.  I packed up all the zillion pieces of Christmas stuff last week.  I kept a ceramic tree that lights up.  I'll pop it out come December and say, "Done."  

Today, after more than nine weeks, the ladies who clean my house are coming--they were afraid they might expose me to the virus if they had it--which they didn't--but just in case, they quit coming for awhile.  

I can't push a vacuum any more, although I got it out and tried it the other day when I moved all that furniture.  I was able to run it under furniture that hadn't been attended to or moved in a long long time--and then I had to stop.

I got steroid shots with pain killers the day before I tried that for Bursitis in both hips.  Stupid day to try and vacuum because I wasn't hurting right that moment.  Sometimes I think I'm invincible.  You always pay for insanity like that.  I paid.  Advice: Don't do that.

Anyway...I can't wait for them to clean my house.  Actually you would think there would be a foot deep of dust after nine weeks, but no.  You really can't tell it needs to be cleaned.  One little old woman like me doesn't cause much dust.  And my house is air tight.  I've never lived in a house this air tight before.

I have kept the kitchen and bathroom clean--no problem.  So there isn't that much to do.  It's just that I know it needs to be done.  Even though there are three bedrooms and another bath that I never go in.  I could lock them off and never miss them.  Until Becky Bacon calls and asks if my B and B is available.  

Which it always is.  

I often "...entertain angels unaware..."  And try and keep the sheets clean for them.

The crepe myrtle in my back yard had never been trimmed or topped off before I moved over here.  Probably 20 years old.  A shaggy untamed mess.  

I called Ron, my do-everything-outside-in-my-yard-guy, and he tore into it Saturday, and got it trimmed up into something resembling what a myrtle is supposed to look like.  It is still so tall--twice as tall as my roof.  It's going to take a fifteen foot ladder (at least) to trim it down.  But l'll wait until after it blooms in August to have that done.

I am so glad that I moved across the street to this house.  I had a Koi pond over there and it required maintenance every single day. The filter was always clogged up.  The water had to run constantly.  Day and night.  Night and day.

Besides that, I killed a bunch of Koi through ignorance.  I turned the pump off.  No oxygen is not a good thing for fish.  I felt really bad.  Really, really bad.

I had almost come to the conclusion that I needed to fill it in, with dirt, but there was so much expensive rock work (I didn't purchase the rock--it was there when I bought the house) that it seemed a shame.

I sold the house because I couldn't bring myself to fill it in, and didn't want to mess Koi with ever again. Don't build a Koi pond.  They are awful to maintain.

But the main reason I sold the house was because it had a steep slanted driveway.  Don't get one of those either.  I now live in a house across the street with a flat drive and no Koi pond.

I am very thankful.  So are the fish.

When she was a little girl, my good friend Carolyn told her mom,  "I'm not going to do what you told me to do!!"

Her mother replied, "I can't make you do it, but I can for sure make you wish you had."

That's where God has us.  He can't make us do what is right, but He can for sure make us wish we had. 

So the book of Proverbs gives you the "Before," and "After."

It is a book of advice.  The good kind.

I don't know why people don't think there are consequences for the things they do.  There are consequences here on earth for the things we do, and also in the hereafter.

The opposite side of the coin is there are consequences for the things you do that are right.

I just want to be sure I am always on the "God side" of what I do.  I don't want the complications that come with disobedience.

Today, everyone wants to point out the exception to the rule for bad behavior, as if that somehow excuses it.  

Just do the right thing.  

I am not doing well this week on blogging.  I've been sitting on my derriere pushing furniture around with my feet, and it's caught up with me.  I moved a chest, my huge (Heavy) recliner, two tables and my ten ton stationary bike.

I got it done, but what was I thinking???

Every time I sit down today, I fall asleep.

Snail Mail.  It's all junk.  If I didn't get junk mail there wouldn't be any mail at all.

Same with e-mail.  For some reason that none of the computer gurus in my family can figure out, I am only getting junk.  All of the people on my contact list have been blocked.

And even though Ken has been gone for seven years, he is still getting mail--trying to sell him time-share in a condo in Florida.  Among other things.

I had my roof replaced from the hail last year, and ever since then, every insurance agency in a fifty mile radius has been trying to insure my house.  Which is adequately insured by my daughter in law Stacy in Pryor.  She takes care of all of that.  I wonder how those companies think I got my roof replaced.  It was a total loss.  Baseball hail.  Tore up the decking as well.

Sunday we start a new Bible study unit.  We finished Romans--not that you can ever finish Romans.  We are going to do Proverbs.  Which I call the book of "buts."  If you do this.....but....if you do that....  Everyone should do what comes after the "but."

I forgot to post yesterday!!  Don't know why.

Today I got up at five and started moving furniture.  Got the sliders out and dug into it.  I have made a colossal mess.

I have way too many doo-dads.  And Becky keeps bringing me more every time she has an estate sale.  She knows the kind of stuff I don't need any more of. 

She brought me a printers block from the 1940-s or 50's with reverse Marine Corps emblems on it.  It came from a facility--probably at Camp Pendleton--where they made license plates for Marine tanks, trucks, etc.  I have no idea what she paid for it.

What am I going to do with that!!

I think everyone my age realizes that the things you have that you love, the next generation could care less about.  My solution is to give stuff away.  Any time someone admires something I have sitting around, I try to make sure they take it home with them.

I have one bedroom that now has nothing in the closet at all.

I used to have a garage sale when there was enough to make it worth the time, but no more.  I'm done with that.  Out, out, out is my new mantra.

Next thing is the paper work.  That is a huge problem for my generation.  We kept every piece of paper over our lifetime, because we don't trust the internet.  I've gotten better.  But not by much.  I need to light up a bonfire.

What a mess.  And what is happening across America isn't solving anything.  It is getting everyone's attention, but nothing positive seems to be happening.  Just destruction.  Burning.  Looting.  Nobody seems to know what to do.

I wouldn't know where to start solving the problem.  I'm willing, but unable.  I think the only thing I know how to do is to help the people I come in contact with.  And vote.  Every solution to civil problems ends up in the hands of the people we vote for.

Legislation?  But what?  There are bad people around who do stupid things and it's very hard to cure stupid.  It is always with us.

We would like to legislate morality.  Decency.  Fair play.  Equal opportunity.  So we pass laws.  That's the only thing a government knows to do.  But you can't always legislate those things.  Everyone has to agree to them--and do them.

Authority is always granted from the bottom up not from the top down, and you can't always control what people decide to do with more laws.  When people are mad enough they will defy laws.  Because laws don't always work. 

If someone doesn't want to hire you, they will find a way around the law.  Ignore it.  Go around it.  Break it.  Human nature is flawed.

The answer is in changed hearts.  And only God can do that.  Governments may try, but to change people you have to do it from the inside out----not from the outside in.  "Jesus is the answer for the world today...beside him is no other...Jesus is the way." Those are the words to a song.  Nothing else seems to be working.  Maybe loving your neighbor as yourself might work.  

I have recently become friends with a former "outside the law" young man.  He became a Christian and for seven years has led an exemplary life.  I absolutely am in awe of his life.  He was beaten by his parents, bones broken and finally dumped on the streets--as a child.  He still has problems with his eyes where his scull was broken and his sight damaged.  By a bat.

He is the hardest worker I've ever seen.  Will do anything to support himself to keep from living on the streets.  When I need something done, he is the one I call first.  He wants to work.  He wants to support himself.  All of the moral characteristics that I tried to instill in my own children, he has watched, observed others do, made a choice and developed on his own.  

And I have learned about Oklahoma's, penal system and been shocked.  The things he has shared seem impossible.  When you are arrested, you are assumed guilty, put in jail for sometimes a year or two before your court date.  If you can't meet bond--which most can't--your fees accumulate. 

Every time they bring you before a judge, you are charged court costs.  That's how we fund our penal system.  On the backs of the arrested--whether they have been tried and found guilty, or are just sitting in jail rotting.  You have no job, no home, no money, no car to get a to a job and nobody will hire you.

Climbing out of the place that you exist seems impossible.  If you have child support, the government charges you interest on those payments so that when you get out, you are in worse shape than when you were locked up.  And after all that, the charges may be rolled over for six months, a year, while you pay new court costs.  And the world assumes you are guilty because you were arrested.  I can't help but ask, "What are we doing to these people?" God help them.