Once Upon a Time....

On a misty Spring day in March, I was just 15. Riding home from a church service along backroads with my parents. It was a misty grey day, cold, and lonely in the way that only Spring can be lonely. The green leaves on the branches of trees, tiny and barely there, so tenderly green that I ached inside with the very delicate beauty of them. And what was I doing? Gazing out of the car window wondering what it was like to really be loved and to really love...

So let's skip ahead a good 34 years later. On a sunny Spring day in my 49th March and the leaves, the tiny green leaves, so tiny and barely there, glimmering on the trees in the sunlight, so lovely they make me ache inside. And what am I thinking?

That we know nothing at 15 when we think life will be over when we've reached 30. That love is far more than anyone ever dared try to explain to me. That loving is more complicated than the sciences of nature and man put together. That sex can be far better and far more disappointing than you'd ever imagined when hormones were raging and emotions tumbling about like puppies in your soul. That spring comes again and again and is always a most welcome wondrous thing. That love does too.

And that this too shall go on and on...

Faux You or God Bless You!

Do you realize, on a day to day basis, how very many 'faux' things we come across? Plastic made to look like patent leather, fake fur to resemble the less politically correct real thing, fake smiles when a heart is damned near breaking, Tofu-rkey, faux taters, faux leather, faux friends....Oh the list goes on and on and on.

Why all the need to have faux anything? Why not just have the real thing and be done with it? Why do vegetarians, folks who claim that meat makes them sick want a fake piece of veggie meat? I mean, wasn't the point of vegetarianism (or is it veganism, forgive me for not being up on the correct terminology, being a carnivore myself I can't keep it straight) to not eat meat? Like the lo-carbers (and I have been one of these so no arrows being slung) desire to have faux potatoes or rice made from cooked cauliflower. Actually both are rather tasty, but it's the term 'faux taters' and 'faux rice' that bothered me no end. I couldn't have the real thing and in the case of rice at least didn't even want the real thing, so why go for faux?

And while we're at it, showing our age and unpolitical correctness, what is the deal with calling the inserts 'falsies' when faux breast might be more appropriate and certainly more up to date? Or is that just getting too freaky for everyone?

Faux you!