What I wouldn't give for some of my mom's fried chicken...

I'm not quite sure what mask I ought to be wearing today as I type this. I've got lots on my mind. Much of it positive in nature. Some of it sadly negative. Other things just confuse and befuddle me as much as being ordered to play the good parts of "Helter Skelter" on bag pipes. I'll not go into any detail on that just know it is times like these that make me believe now more than ever that it is just like Ken Kesey said(I paraphrase) It's damn sure a wiggly world and damn it to hell because it won't stand still anyway.

Like the chubby kid from the neighborhood tells Edmund Gween in the locker room at Macy's, "Ain't it da truth, ain't it da truth."

I choose to view today and most of this week as a test that I know I will pass. It is what it is and am what it am. I could cogitate for hours on just why and how it all happened but that will not change the reality of the situation. I'm reminded of the old Buddhist lesson, just one of several I'm calling on today, about an injury caused by an arrow shot by another person. When this happens first we tend to the arrow lodged in our body rather than speculating on who made the arrow, why were those feathers used, how far was the arrow drawn back to give its flight enough energy to fly true, did the bowman eat a breakfast of grains or animal products? Not that these questions don't deserve to be meditated upon, but our first job should be to attend to the effect of the cause that was the arrow.

As I sit here on my lunch break I'm doing just that. I spied this today on FB(which I'm slowly giving up on) from Pema Chodron:

"A question that has intrigued me for years is this: how can we start exactly where we are, with all our entanglements, and still develop unconditional acceptance of ourselves instead of guilt and depression? One of the most helpful methods I’ve found is the practice of compassionate abiding. The next time you realize that you’re hooked, you could experiment with this approach.

Contacting the experience of being hooked, you breathe in, allowing the feeling completely and opening to it. The in-breath can be deep and relaxed—anything that helps you to let the feeling be there, anything that helps you not push it away. Then, still abiding with the urge and edginess of the feeling, as you breathe out you relax and give the feeling space. The out-breath is not a way of sending the discomfort away but of ventilating it, of loosening the tension around it, of becoming aware of the space in which the discomfort is

occurring."
(Taking The Leap)

It was just what I needed today and I'm thankful to a world that allows these realities to manifest themselves. Just one of the aspects of life that make it so special and to sound corny, just so darn neato.

Not wanting to bore others, just know, that by in the morning after seeing and being with Haidee, Carson & Isaac, listening to some music, reading a little, sitting and breathing a bunch, followed by the true pleasure of nocturnal freedom through dreaming, I will wake up having passed this test to a wonderful breakfast of soy milk, Wheaties, and fruit and I will be as happy as a clam.

Background info from the internet:

Why would clams be happy? It has been suggested that open clams give the appearance of smiling. The derivation is more likely to come from the fuller version of the phrase, now rarely heard - 'as happy as a clam at high water'. Hide tide is when clams are free from the attentions of predators; surely the happiest of times in the bivalve mollusc world.  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-happy-as-a-clam.html

Okay, so now I want to gripe a  little. Lots of folks have been referencing the stand of Chik-fil-A in regards to same sex marriage etc. My FB is filled with folks pointing out that they are eating there and others just as forcibly saying they never will again.

To put in perspective in the USA we have a long history and tradition of expressing our opinions with our purse strings. Boycotts fueled by indignation are as common folks unwilling to look at both sides of an issue or same sex couples/families strolling through Disneyland or Wal-Mart. For my purposes I'm not going to argue the issue although anyone that knows me probably can guess where I stand. I won't eat at Chik-Fil-A but that's based on being a vegetarian and even when I wasn't, just not liking how the food tasted. I have an old friend, intelligent as can be who has been around the world but will only eat chicken prepared at that franchise and it isn't just so he can drink a peach malt with it.

Look back at the Family Decency folks not watching ABC or Tipper not buying rap music or youth groups not reading Harry Potter or Caesar not eating lettuce or grapes and all those heroes that  ate at the lunch counters and wouldn't head to the back of the bus. There are just as many liberal causes that boycott to show others where they stand.

So riddle me this, Batman. Scroll down and tell me if you would eat at this chain of diners if they were known to have the very best chicken in the land. How would you feel if some folks weren't welcome there, but dang that chickens good. Or what if the money behind the business supports armed insurrection against all the blue states or gave all hippies free pudding for dessert. What would you do? I'm just asking and really wish folks would leave some sane polite comments. Is it wrong to deny funding to an entity that provides medical testing, family planing and a small percentage of the services are legal yet some think think they are immoral? Would you support a political action group that advocated rounding up all citizens that "look like" followers of one of the several branches of Islam? What if all members of religions that believed in, I'm not sure of the term, "retro Baptism" or maybe all the folks that don't dunk or sprinkle or don't play instruments or sing with an organ or let women provide the lesson or don't let blacks in the pulpit or handle snakes and drink poison. I mention those last two, not out of criticism of anybody's faith, but only because to quote one of the great wandering theologists from the streets of Austin, the curbs of the Guadalupe, "I got me a word for nat, I call nat f^&#ing crazy, nat what I call nat. Scare me hecka me. You seen Rayger?" 

Please scroll down and let me know what you'd do for good chicken.

http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/coon_chicken.htm      Some background about the historic franchise