Another One Bites the Dust

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled Warbler to bring you our special presentation of The Winds of War. Please rejoin us next week when Warbler once again brings the mundane to your computers.

Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This

Do Your [Ears] Hang Low?

My cousin sent this to me (and 25 of her closest friends, so I'm not that special). I loved it so much (and I love Maya Angelou)that instead of trying to forward it to all my female contacts, I'm just gonna put it up here so that we all can enjoy it.

What I like best? Most of this is exactly what I think a life philosophy should be. And I'd like it to be known that I love rainy days (unless they're 20 below, then I don't go out and play in them), I was even tempered and assertive the one time my luggage was lost and I am the official Christmas Tree lights untangler cuz I think life's too short to get upset about stupid stuff like that. Besides, it's fun to slow down and watch the Grinch while you try to solve a puzzle like strands of lights.

Don't Break The Elastic!!

In April, Maya Angelou was interviewed by Oprah on her 70+ birthday.
Oprah asked her what she thought of growing older.
And, there on television, she said it was "exciting." Regarding body changes, she said there were many, occurring every day...like her breasts.
They seem to be in a race to see which will reach her waist, first.
The audience laughed so hard they cried. She is such a simple and honest woman, with so much wisdom in her words!

Maya Angelou said this:

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."

"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights."

"I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life."

"I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as "making a life."

"I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance." [I can only hope so]

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back."

"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision."

"I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one."

"I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.
People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back."

"I've learned that I still have a lot to learn."

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Please send this to five or more phenomenal women friends today.
If you do, something good will happen: You will boost another woman's self-esteem.

If you don't...the elastic will break and your underpants will fall down around your ankles!;-) Believe me, I didn't take any chances on MY elastic breaking....I sent it to a lot of special women I care for.

Mr. Sandman

Every week-end when my husband visits he buys me a dozen roses. Different colors, fresh from the grocery store convenient roses. I believe I may have told my husband that he should not get me roses for Valentine's Day as it's not something "special". Little did I realize, now that he's gone again and no Valentine's Day gift of any kind has appeared, that no roses meant no Valentine.

My mother-in-law sent us a card and gift. I don't think it's too hard to guess my stance on the Valentine's Day thing - but then, he doesn't read the blog and he's half deaf so perhaps I'm assuming. And you know what happens when one assumes...

So, in honor of having to give myself my own Valentine:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Did I mention
Love sucks?

Tomorrow I'll be making pink rice crispy treats for the kids. I will not be saving any for him.

Gentlemen, I hope you did better by your other halves.

Won't You Be Mine?

I,
of the never-ending,
infinitismal
vocabulary
am at a loss for words
whenever I think
of you.

Paula Glen
"Friends Don't Let Friends Write Bad Poetry"

Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime

Two days until Valentine's Day. A not-quite-blizzard gives one time to reflect.

There is at least one great love of everybody's life. Sometimes it's a first love. Sometimes it's baby love. Sometimes it's the best damned dog you've ever shared your life with. Sometimes it cannot reciprocate if your great love is music, mathematics or muscle cars. But it's there. We've all experienced it in some form or other.

Every so often, you meet the person who says "I married the great love of my life". Less often you get to hear that they stay married to the great love of their lives. Sometimes it can be the loss that makes the love so sweet. The romanticization of the past. Sometimes it is outside influences or a greater love of something else that turns good love into the bittersweet 'great love'.

As I peer through the heavy swirls of huge, ploppy flakes outside my kitchen window, I wonder, 'Do you ever stop loving your loves?' That's not as simple a question as it seems, is it? First, you have to ascertain: was it true love? And I mean true love in the literal, not overly romantic, definition of the word. Was it a love of the real person - who they were, who they are and who they may be? Did that love encompass respect, dignity, maturity and honest to goodness like? If so, and you really, truly loved a person, does time, betrayal or bad haircuts diminish that love? Hmm...

My first husband was a great love. He was not my first great love, but he was a great love, nonetheless. I think of him fairly often and remember him with fondness. Do I still love him? The woman I am now still loves the man he was then. But I have not heard from him in over a decade. I have no clue who he is or what he's like. I have no way of knowing if he's still an excruciatingly shy sweetheart of a man or a deranged puppy killer. But I still care about him. I want to know that he's happy and healthy and living a fulfilling life. I am too realistic to delude myself that I am still in love with a man I don't know, but I truly want him to have a lovely life - which he deserves. Does that mean I still love him? Of course it does. Does it mean I love others in my life less? Of course not. That's just silly. In many respects, it enables me to love others in my life more.

The poets and the theological teachings all tell us the same thing. Love is ageless and timeless. It isn't all about the brag and the bling. It isn't all about the lust and the passion (although, I must admit that's a really nice benefit). It's about whether or not you honestly, truly care about another human being. It does not diminish. It alters shape and form. It takes a different place in your heart and mind. It relegates itself to late nights on birthdays and snowstorms. It lets go and it hangs on. It just is.

The snow is getting deeper and so is my rhetoric. I still love all my great loves, each a little differently. Of course, the greatest love of my lifetime is stomping around the kitchen in his blue snowboots, ready to take on the world - or, at least, shovel the sidewalk when it dies down a bit. This one will always be an active love - in so many senses of the word. The other love is sulking in her room. My love for her will never falter - although there are moments in her teenage life when I have to work hard to make certain it never does.

I love love. I love it for its own sake. I love knowing it exists and that I'm able to do it and, sometimes, understand a very little about it. I love being the kind of person that lives for it. I love showing it. I love being in it. I love everything about it except losing it. And even that is sometimes necessary. Which makes me love it even more, now doesn't it?