Moving the Rocks on the Ledge

I got to work on time. I'm not where I was last Wednesday, but I'm still battling some fatigue. Not as much. I've got some dizziness as well. One ear is really ringing. So why one ear? I have congestion in my head, so maybe that's it. But wonder of wonders... very little pain elsewhere. Praise God! Dealing with one thing is way easier than a half dozen.

I'm job hunting. No, they didn't lay me off. In fact, I just got my evaluation and my job performance was 100%. However, he gave me an 85 for my attendance. Don't know why since I'm only out on vacations and if I'm sick. I've had a lot of issues this year with illness, but I use the sick time I'm allotted and I only get two weeks a year. And I usually have sick time to take so if I was abusing it, how could that be? Of course, this is the same person who can't figure out how to fix a paper jam in his printer.

I'm working on my outlook. I've been so busy feeling awful that it's pretty hard to see anything but gray skies. I watched some video's this weekend by Beth Moore. I've got one of her books and I really love it. She's a Christian speaker, and she's amazing. Anyway, I watched a video When Life has you Paralyzed. I have to say it was meant for me. I've also been reading a book called The Secret Place. Both have been what I needed to hear while I was sick.

I'm also about to limit my extracurricular activities to things that matter most. I am spreading myself too thin and doing things that do not push me in the right direction. That's got to stop. A lot of things are just excuses not to do something else. Mostly, I am trying to change myself and surround myself with the things that build me up. I realize that this means removing things.

There is so much that is empty in what we do, what I do. I don't want that anymore. It is making me unhappy. Some of my "fun" things are a waste of time and really going nowhere. Some things I think I have to do are boring and really unnecessary. Some things I'm doing out of habit are time stealers. And I don't like my job anymore.

So job hunting. Removing the bad habits. Stopping wasting my time on dead-end pursuits. Will I accomplish them all? If I can get one thing done, I suspect it would help with the others. We'll see.

I'm going to try a go to the Y two or three times a week. That's hard for me because I'm really tired in the evenings. It will cut into internet time but that's one of those dead end things so I'm trying to reorganize how much I spend there. I've done less mindless internet stuff this past week than usual. So, I've started. We'll see.

Writing is a priority. I'm working on doing more but not hard enough. Rather than talk about writing, I want to write. The blog may morph again soon or I may start a new one with a different goal. Lots of ideas churning around because I couldn't do much but sit and stare out.

The title I thought sums it up. I'll be posting the usual about Life here on the Ledge.

YIZKOR - Remembrance

Sunset today begins the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day set aside to remember the six million Jews who died as a result of the Nazi Final Solution. I care not what your ethnic or religious affiliation is nor whether you believe the Holocaust happened. I'm not a fool and only a fool could deny the evidence that came out of Europe in the form eye witness testimony and photos of  piles of bodies, mass graves, death camps and living victims. It happened.

It should never be forgotten.

It should always be the icon for what can happen when one man is allowed complete power over any nation or group of nations. When a group of people sell their very souls to that kind of person, this is what can and will happen.

It should not be forgotten.

I recently read something that pointed that the Jews were only the beginning and had Hitler not been stopped, the world population would have been radically decimated. He hated not only Jews, but dozens of other races and religious groups. The Jews were just his closest and easiest targets. His actions were stones dropped on water, rippling outward and his intent was for the ripples to sweep over the world. He and his henchmen murdered an estimated two million ethnic Poles, six million Soviet citizens, two million Soviet POW's, 1.5 million Gypsies, 200,000 handicapped and mentally retarded Germans, 5,000 – 15,000 homosexuals. One source said Russian deaths comprised 15% of their total population.

It should never be forgotten.

The toll in human suffering and loss is still, to me, unimaginable. To watch your parent or child be dragged away and know the horrible things they would endure would have been worse than death. To go into the showers in the beginning may have been frightening but imagine once the word got out what happened in those showers. Those who followed would feel abject terror. The moments when you were lined up naked along a ditch and facing a line of men with rifles must have been the most horrible moment of your life. And if your loved one stood with you, your torment would have been doubled or tripled.

It should never be forgotten, by any race, ethnic group, religious group, or nation. Carve the memory of it in your heart, mind and soul. And tell your children to remember.

God help us all if we forget.

For More Information:
* http://www.yomhashoah2013.com/index.html
* http://www.ushmm.org/
* http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/ihrd/comment_post.php

Unknown

The shutters of the day are drawn and night arrives. I'm about to turn in myself. I'm tired as usual but I had a bit longer period today where I didn't simply collapse from exhaustion. Maybe a couple of day off helped. I managed to get the shopping done and that's a plus. I hate shopping.

One more day off and I go back to work. Stand to reason that being away from the job would help. I think the job is exacerbating the problem. I wish I could just stay home but the bills won't get paid if I don't. I saw an amusing graphic of Tweety Bird on someone's Facebook page that said, If I had one dollar from one million people I'd be a millionaire. I never thought about it quite like that. I could start a fund raiser. With my luck I wouldn't raise enough to buy gum.

I couldn' think of a title... either too tired or I just don't have the imagination tonight.

Good night, sweet prince, wherever you are..... 

A Little Action & Adventure... in My Dreams

It was a dark and.... wait....no, no, no.... it was a gray and chilly day that dawned over S. Indiana. The air nipped at the exposed skin of my face. No use swatting it away. O.k., where's the 70 degrees and sun I was promised?

I got to bed later but I slept later so I balanced out. Dreamed like crazy the last several nights and while you may say, "So what", dreaming is crucial to proper sleep. Last night's was particularly vivid.

An Explosive Getaway

I was in some sort of facility with half a dozen folks, two of them men. We couldn't get out and there were what looked like a couple of dozen cells along one wall. In the center of the room was a moat like structure with a big block "room" with a barred top in the middle of of this mote area. A man was inside and he couldn't get out. We were trying to escape.

I don't know where the dynamite came from or who set the charges. My impressions (its a dream remember) was the guy in the block room did it. Anyway, on the outer wall opposite the cells and mote area were all these red circles drawn at intervals along the wall, each about the size of a quarter. As I understand it, each point is where there's a charge just large enough to blow a small section without sending tons of cement block shards into the room. (No I've never blown anything up so, I don't really know but figured we'd find out). There were enough points that the whole wall would blow out.

We only had a few minutes left. This guy looked at his watch and said run, we did, hiding behind an area that was shielded by another wall. The thing blew and we headed through the opening and outside. My next concern was how this guy was getting out of the box but the instructions seemed to be every man or woman for themselves cause that's what I did.

Apparently this cell area is not easy to escape from by "window". I find myself hanging over a cliff, half dozen other people hanging on below me. I ask where ?? is. No I don't catch his name. But he was the second man in the group. Someone below me kind of pointed and I thought they meant he was in the body of water that ran below us along this cliff. I asked what was in it because it looked choked with dead weeds and was a coffee brown. Someone said, "It's a mote." I'm sure I probably rolled my eyes.

I was looking for a way down the cliff when the guy from the "box" appeared and, of course, he nimbly climbed down to the bottom and studied the problem. It was too far to jump. On the other side I realized was a sidewalk with a low wall running along mote side. Farther down I saw a bridge that joined the walkway and lead away from this "castle". Do not know where that term came from but that's what came to mind.

Our "hero" moved along the edge of the mote and we followed. I don't know how we all climbed down but probably the same way he did. He walked alone the edge of the mote and stopped where there was a concrete piling about halfway across the mote... within easy reach of a jump. A tiny dot in a sea of brown sludge. I did not relish falling into that and besides, we didn't know what else was  in there.

Just like a deer he hopped to the piling, and then to the walk on the other side. He was smiling and saying, "Come on. It's easy." All I saw was an area about the size of a large dinner plate. I don't know what I did but I suspect it was something like staring at him and and saying, "Really?" The next thing I knew I had jumped and reached the sidewalk.

I woke up.

And this is always how I always got my ideas before I got sick.

Y'll have a nice day.

A Fine Fit