Women, Let's Stand Together, but Not in Five Inch Heels

Okay they make clever cute shoes these days, but come on, Ginger Rodgers danced with Fred Astaire in 3 inch heels (maybe less) and looked elegant and sexy. We went to our high school Prom in 3 inch heels and danced the night away, but still ended up in sock feet, and our dates didn’t care.

I have been astounded at the shoes I see and the women who walk in them. Even women who can handle walking on their toes, walk pitched forward in 5 inch heels, and to me, that doesn’t look graceful.

 

This morning I hit the limit. While waiting at the car repair shop for a new rear wheel ball bearing replacement—glad it was the car and not me, I caught up on my women’s/fashion magazines. And here’s the clincher: Sara Wexler wrote about a $1,200 treatment to inject the feet with Juvederm or Restylane. This adds padding to the feet, and in 4 to 5 days the precipitant of this treatment would be comfortably back in heels.

Bosses encourage women to wear these outrageous shoes, according to Wexler, and she told of attending a wedding where she kicked off her shoes and a woman came up to her, Honey, that is for the under 15 crowd, she pointed to the teen-aged girls, we’re all in pain.

Why do women stand for pain?

 

Come on...

 

                       Do you find these attractive? And these are mild compared to some.
 

We used to be appalled at the Chinese practice of binding a baby girl’s feet so they would be in pain their entire lives, take cute mincing steps, and look appealing to men.

To top off the day I saw where the Republican party is hampering women’s rights—birth control and abortion for two.

What is this war on women?  And I see these shoes as representitive of restriction. Try to run in these shoes...lace them up the calf so they can't be kicked off if need be. This is handicapping women.

And if there is any man not in favor of women’s rights—shame on you. Don’t you have a mother, a wife, a sister, or a girlfriend that you love, respect, or at least care a little about? What about a daughter for God’s sake?

And women? I just shake my head.

We are powerful. We do not have to bow to convention or coercement—that  would be akin to sexual harassment.

There is a war on women and I count myself as one who will not stand for it.

I know women have had a long history of being repressed of not feeling good enough, but listen to a grandma, you have courage and strength you haven’t even tapped yet.

I rushed home from the car repair, got the pick-up truck and took it to another repair shop to have a mouse nest removed for the heater/air-conditioner fan, and I felt that there was an artificial world on the edge of my reality. But then maybe the artificial world is what we believe from women’s magazines. It would appear that none of those gorgeous women ever had to remove a mouse nest from their car.

I looked down to my feet—cowboy boots. Thanks God for cowboy boots…They look good under pants, have good comfortable heels, and are the best for the feet according to one osteopathic doctor I am quoting from my childhood. (The arch support apparently.)

I wear a refined version of a cowboy boot, cut off at the ankle, and a more modified heel. Don’t know how these would pass in the board room, not well I don’t suppose.

I'm a Rhinestone Cowboy

Not!

I’m a Turkey Wrangler.

I was singing “I’m a rhinestone cowboy,” as I was wrangling, though, does that count?

As I mentioned in the last blog, I am taking care of turkeys here on the “farm.”  The coyotes were taking care of them as well—having them for dinner, or killing and leaving them in the orchard. Two nights ago I solved the situation by wrangling about 100 turkeys into a small secure enclosure and locking them up for the night. For two days we haven’t lost any turkeys to coyotes, but yesterday morning—one dead turkey in the enclosure, today two—what is it with turkeys? If something doesn’t get them, they volunteer to croak anyway.

Now the chickens and quail—they are hardy, and are thriving. We get about 20 quail eggs a day. The chickens aren’t laying any eggs yet.

Think of the many Thanksgiving turkeys—wow, those farmers must really work at it. And turkeys being what they are, I believe if a coyote comes to the fence they would go and greet their doggie friend outside the wire—whoops, no head.

I think of the chickens I had in Oregon, Mille Fleur, Dixie, and Sir Winston. I kept them on clean sweet smelling hay in a little house with a hinged roof. When I replaced the hay they loved it so much they rolled in it. Dixie and Sir Winston were Mille’s children, and before we left Oregon Mille hatched three more baby chicks. What a woman!

Our amazing little Peaches dog, our poodle, is back from death’s door. Another “What a woman!” She walks on all four legs now, eats, drinks, and was jubilant to go in the car yesterday. I love my Peaches dog. For further details go to http://dogblogbypeaches.blogspot.com

For entertainment? Husband and I thought it would be a movie, but after giving The Seven Psychopaths the 15 minute test, we walked out—got a rain check, though, so we’re not giving up on movies. We thought The Seven Psychopaths might be funny, but it was totally gross—well, until we left. I can’t say after that. Being close to Halloween, the pre-views shown now are enough to make many a stalwart soul run for the waste basket. We did see one interesting pre-view of the upcoming movie Hitchcock.  In it I learned a fun fact: It was Alfred Hitchcock’s wife who read the script Psycho, and said, “Don’t kill your heroine in the middle of the film, kill her in the first two minutes.” And daughter told me it was the wife, too, who told Hitchcock to focus on the eye. The wife is played by Helen Mirren, a powerful actress to play a powerful woman. What a woman!

Right now, I’m not into anything that I can avoid that puts terrible pictures in my head. I need my head for other uplifting things.

 

 

Thank you to my readers. I love you.

Foul Play

FIRST OFF, I HAVE A QUESTION:

Have you heard of Kickstarter?

It is a funding site for small start-up businesses.

I put my book, The Island, a journal there. Also on Kickstarter, I am pledging an on-line Travel magazine entitled, Nowhere. Projects are pledged, but it the applicant does not reach their goal, it doesn’t get funded, and Amazon does not collect the money from the pledges.

Kickstarter’s lovely people really really encourage applicants to make a video. Being the coward that I am, and not wanting to make a video (fool) of myself, I opted for a slide-show instead. It you want to see the pictures—of the people, animals, and places that populate my book go to:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theisland/a-book-the-island-a-journal

If you decide to watch the slide-show and only if you feel inclined, I would appreciate if you would tell me if the slide-show is too slow. It’s slow on my computer, but then, I have a slow computer.  Its infernal  “spooling” drives me nuts. But I’m working on the internet speed, not the nuts part--although maybe that's what I ought to work on.

Right now, regarding Kickstarter site, I feel like Mr. Cellophane—“they can look right through me, and never know I’m there.”

LIFE ON THE FARM:

As I was feeding turkeys this morning, I noticed a young turkey lying askew on the ground. “Dead,”  I figured. It happens, especially with fowl. I thought about the song that had been going through my head already, Mr. Cellophane, and how I felt invisible. (From, the play/movie, Chicago) I wondered how many others feel  invisible too. I thought about people and animals dying without notice. That doesn’t mean that their lives were meaningless. It doesn't mean they are not important. We never know in the fabric of the universe what thread holds everything together, or how many threads we need to do it. All of us, I figure.

As I prepared to enter the enclosure and retrieve the turkey’s dead body, another turkey came along and pecked her. She MOVED.  Slowly, like an automaton a leg lifted and fell.

Poor baby!

I took her to the garage—the hospital--where yesterday I placed a turkey with a broken leg into a box, gave her food and water, and this morning found her sleeping in her food dish. She appears to be thriving. The almost dead turkey now can now rest comfortably (if that’s possible for her). She will be neither cold nor wet, nor pecked at, and she will lie wrapped in a soft towel. I don’t think she will recover.

On top of everything, yesterday, I found that three “silky” (a breed) hens that the owner had put in a make-shift enclosure, were not there. Gone. The rooster was still in the enclosure, strange. One of the plastic crates the owner had used for a fence was scooted aside leaving a one foot square hole. There was no evidence of struggle, just rooster there, hens gone. White feathers were scattered about—evidence of foul-play.

Don't Mess With Big Bird

Did you see the Presidential debate? I didn’t, but I heard about Mitt Romney’s comment about liking Big Bird, but still wanting to cut PBS.

ATTACKING THE ARTS! I want to scream.

The American public responded!  Bless them. They tweeted  in favor of Big Bird 17,000 times in one minute.

Today I saw there were 10 million tweets for Big Bird. Yea Americans, now’s the time to say, “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it anymore!”

A cut to the PBS budget would hurt so many people,  yet not be a drop in the deficit budget bucket. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. On top of that, did you see the price of gas yesterday ? $4.59 at one of the cheapest gas stations in town. Think about it, who controls the price of gas? And who will get blamed for it?

I AM OUTRAGED!

Starting attacking my bird and my gas tank all in one day. Time for grandma to fight back.  Guess I ought to go back to a previous blog name, GRANNY SHOOTS FROM THE HIP.  What did you tell me Greg? Your grandma shot what off a fence post?

If I can calm down a bit, I will show you what I collected this morning—since I am talking about birds…

 

These are quail eggs.

The property owner here has moved about 100 juvenile turkeys, a dozen chickens and maybe 50 quail into various cages.  We don’t see them from the house as they are in the orchard, but when I go there they chatter to me.

 I have signed up to be the caretaker.

 It would have been nice if the builders had put the cages on level ground.  Maneuvering in and out cages over the incline is like visiting The House of Mystery where water runs uphill.

Finally this morning I got smart. When I opened the door to the quail cage I put a crate inside to barricade birds bent on pouring out like syrup out of a can. Yesterday I did the pin-ball game of pushing them back in, they pushed back.  I moved as fast as I could, yet they kept pouring.

So far, so good.  I haven’t lost any birds, and this morning we ate quail eggs for breakfast.