Pfunksfoolosophy

10. Sit in the park and people watch.

9. Watch my favorite movies in the comfort of my own home.

8. Daydream.

7. Get free samples from frozen yogurt, ice cream and other outlets.

6. Go to different locations for the same samples…heh. sneaky.

5. Play ball with kids.

4. Run through the sprinklers when it’s too hot to care about propriety.

3. Make watermelon shakes.

2. Make ice cream sodas.

1. Do absolutely nothing.

Today I don’t have the luxury of doing that. It’s a work day for me.

Hope you enjoy it. It’s mine, so if you want to use it, you sure as heck better talk to me about it.

My Soul is a Witness 

My soul is a witness

The biographer

The cartographer

Mapping out

The slings and arrows

Of a race’s outrageous misfortune

Of tenacious survivors

(that’s deep)  My soul is a witness

To the turmoil

Sweating fear

Lingering near When the blue lightsShine in my rearview mirror  My soul is a witness

To the crime and the grime

People just trying to survive

Living one moment at a time To the stinging tearsOf mothers waiting in rooms For boys just out of the womb

Trying to be men

Rooms with cold eyes

And colder hearts

Men talking down to them

Because they wear a badge

And carry a stick 

My soul is a witness

To the irony  of striving just to stay in one place

‘Cause we don’t want it gettin’ any worse.  My soul is a witness To the love and the longingThe joy of belonging

To this tribe of many nationsAll my relationsMaking love In chocolate brown

In sepia, mahogany

High yella, caramel

Ebony, redbone

Light bright-And sometimes white‘cause my soul can witness

In Technicolor

And black and white 

My soul is a witness

To profilin’

Devastatin’ Dozens playin’ laughter

And the ease of just being

‘Cause sometimes that’s all we have

When your soul is a witness

To a violent history

To a shattered past

When your soul is a witness

to misunderstandings written in your ancestors’ blood

Let my soul witness something new

Let my soul witness hope

Looks like my kid (the laddie boy) is turning a corner. After struggling with his ‘friends’ and their unseemly influence on him, it looks like he’s getting his arse out of his head.

Just spoke with him and he sounds like his old self. Funny, inspired and optimistic. It’s a rollercoaster ride when your kids are a certain age and I don’t envy anyone with toddlers or school age children. Still, once your kids have passed the adolescent craziness, you’ve got young adulthood,which is no walk in the park. Remember when you thought you knew everything? Yeah, the twenties. No one knows more than you. You’re ‘grown’ as they like to tell you. Hell to the NO, Bobby Brown! You don’t know jack doodly squat. You’re still finding out that life does not go your way sometimes, no matter how hard you work and no matter how positive you are…sometimes you’ve got to just slog through with your head held high. This is what I’ve imparted to my kids. We’re all gonna screw up, but it’s how we grow from those challenges.
You can raise your children the same way, with the same values and one of ‘em’s gonna think they know it all and they’re gonna screw it up. It’s their experience to experience.

Being a parent is tough because you’ve got to be mentally and spiritually strong enough to let go. This past month has been a real trial for me due to that fact. I’ve finally let go of the reins. The inclination to pick ‘em back up is powerful, believe me. Very powerful.

With so much happening in my life I can’t stand still. My feet need to keep moving me forward. My soul craves growth, so I can’t deny it. The lad understands that and he’s doing his best to learn to respect himself and others in a different way. He’s growing. I just need to keep adding water.

I know that a lot of my readers are looking for healthy recipes and trying to shed some unwanted pounds.

Personally, I like being a fat chick. I feel powerful and sexy, but that’s just me. I want to get back in shape, mind you. Once an athlete, alwa…yeah, maybe not so these days. That’s another blog entry all together. THIS entry is all about healthy, quick recipes that make ya happy and go a long way.

This one is my favorite for the summer months because you can add just about anything you want to extend the life of the salad. I give you:

ORZO SALAD

1 box of orzo pasta (nearly any brand will do, but I use Barilla pasta)

3-4 medium cucumbers, peeled, seeded and diced OR

3 English cucumbers, diced (English cukes are ’seedless’ and not waxed)

2 large red onions, diced

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1 8 oz package Feta cheese (you can use flavored Feta, like garlic and herb)

1 cup good quality olives, like Kalamata- I use a combo of Sicilian and Kalamata

juice of 3 lemons ( more or less depending on the size of the lemons)

2 T fresh mint, chopped

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (good quality…not pomace. Got it?)

2 medium cloves of garlic, minced (fresh, not that stuff in the jars. if you have that, throw it away NOW. I’ll wait)

Cook orzo according to package instructions. While it’s cooking, prepare the dressing. Combine the lemon juice, mint, garlic and olive oil and whisk until incorporated. It should be tangy and bright tasting, but if you feel it needs some more oil or juice, add it. Remember that the feta cheese has its own tang to it, so I wouldn’t add salt. The olives will impart a saltiness to balance out the cukes.

Drain the pasta and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Keep rinsing until you can run your fingers through it comfortably.

In a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients,crumbling the feta cheese into the mix with your hands.  If the olives need pitting, do that prior to salad assembly. Add freshly ground black pepper if that floats your boat. Refrigerate for an hour and serve with grilled fish or chicken.

That’s it. Easy, right?

Let me know how it turns out. Remember, this is just a base. You can add just about any fresh veggies that you like. I’ve also added hearts of palm to it.

Try blanching some green beans or asparagus and adding them to it as well.

***I’m not a huge fan of mint, so you might want to add a little more if you enjoy the flavor.***

Every day I walk around and communicate with folks and every day I wonder what exactly it is that drives me to do so; I mean, I am not a ‘people’ person.  Sure, I like to help people out when they need directions, but to be frank with you, I do it because I know that eventually they’ll leave me alone.

Well, I HOPE that they’ll leave me alone. Therein lies the challenge for today: Expectations. We carry around a lot of expectations. I wonder why…perhaps we’ve all been groomed to ‘expect’ that someone will say ‘thank you’ when you’ve held the door for them, so when they don’t, we feel absolutley slighted. It’s just ‘common courtesy’ isn’t it? We complain to our friends about it. Someone did something that wasn’t expected. Someone deviated from OUR norm. It’s funny.

Maybe we’re better served by appreciating rather than expecting. To my mind, expecting sets us up for disappointment, but appreciating allows us to experience the positive.  I don’t expect to wake up every morning, but I’m appreciative that I’ve been given a second chance when I do wake up. Sometimes I’m even surprised. That sounds fatalistic to some, but it’s not. Realistically speaking, how can we be sure that we’re gonna wake up?
If you thought today was your last day on earth, would you treat people any differently? Would you cut people more slack or less? Would you speak the truth, not to hurt another but to encourage? How judgmental would you really be if today was your last day on the planet? Would you love your family more or less? Would you mend fences?
What do you want from your fellow man or woman? Do you want understanding?
Or, like me…do you want to be left alone to eat as much ice cream as humanly possible?
Lots of questions only you can answer.

Foolosophy ain’t a science…

Let’s challenge ourselves today. Let’s see if we can discover something special about today.

I’d really be interested to see how grateful you are for what you have and for what you don’t have.

Here’s my list for today:

I’m grateful for the love of my family and friends.

I’m grateful for life.

I’m grateful for choices.

I’m grateful that I am able to see the positive side in most situations.

I’m grateful I can blog today.

I’m grateful for today.

I’m grateful for my job, even if I do crab about it.

I’m grateful that I’m not a victim, but a survivor.

I’m grateful for you, if you’re reading this.
Let’s see how we can promote gratitude today. One step at a time, one moment at a time…

Gang, I’m really trying to get my blogroll together, so please be patient with me…

There’s a lot more work to do to get me back where I need to be, so it’s going to take some time. In the meantime, I just wanted you to know that I’ve got a couple of online dates in the works and a show this Saturday night.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to upload my performance so you can get a laugh with your morning coffee.

 Until then, I’m gonna tell you a joke that my grandfather used to tell.

In a way, it’s a revenge joke and it speaks to our perceptions about stereoptypes.

Here goes:

Back in the old West when the railroads were being built there was a camp with a Chinese cook named Lee.

Lee put up with the cowboys making fun of him, pulling on his queue (the long braid) and all sorts of things that would have broken a weaker human being, but Lee just took it in stride. After a while, one of the newer guys spoke to the other cowboys and said, ‘You know, Lee is a good ‘ole boy. He really takes everything in stride and he’s never once gotten angry with us. Whattaya say we just leave him alone?’

The other cowboys agreed and the leader of the gang said, ‘Hey, Lee…you know what? We’re gonna stop messin’ with ya. And we’re awful sorry for our behavior.’

Lee never looked up from his dinner and said, ‘That’s okay. I guess I’ll stop peeing in your coffee.’

Ba dum bum.

There ya go.

A joke for the day.

As you all probably know, I hate the heat. I love the autumn and winter because the air seems cleaner and you can always put on more clothes. In the summer when it’s hotter than Hades, I’m at a loss. You can only take off but so much, so I wilt like an orchid. It’s not a pretty picture.

SO, when I have to leave my air cooled room, I take precautions to prevent overheating.

What do I do? My good pal Elaine turned me on to a cheap way to stay cool. Get the absorbent ‘filling’ from a diaper and sew it into a bandana. Soak it in some nice ice cold water and wear that bad boy around your neck. It’s loverly.

Try it…you might like it.