This morning my dogs have provided me with the first smile of my day. I fed them, a lab and a mutt, in two different rooms, as is necessary to maintain familial peace, and came in the office to check my email. I kept hearing this moaning from the lab. Finally I got up and went out to see what was going on. The mutt had the lab trapped between her dish and his and wouldn't let him go past her to the other room. He outweighs her by at least 30 pounds, but she is the queen bee. Poor guy. Have I taught him nothing about the correct pecking order of the sexes? Or maybe I have taught her too much.

I cook at our house, almost every night unless we go out, and my husband takes it for granted. I call him when it's ready, even put the food on his plate, so maybe, my little mutt just follows my lead. No one eats until I'm ready. Interesting thought.

Come to think of it, even my two horses get in on the act. When it's time to eat, the mare kicks her stall door and nickers toward the house. The gelding just paces around waiting. When I go down, bucket in hand to feed, the mare insists on eating first... squeals, kicks, etc. The gelding waits. Later in the day when they are together, she will clean up any hay he left, and he lets her. She is the boss. Recognize a pattern here?

In defense of my own husband, I will point out that with his money, he is tight and secretive. I am not supposed to know how much he has or where it is. That's a joke. Of course I ferret it out. But he still thinks he's in control. I don't tell him I know the facts.

Life goes on.

Sunshine Rider

Sometimes when someone writes I read it with disinterest. Sometimes I relate to it and respond. Gheko, when I received your comment I was truly moved. Yes, I'll try what you suggest and perhaps it will make a difference.

Sunshine Rider

What does love mean? When do we know it’s missing?

For years I have wondered if love is something you are born with. That is, the ability to love, or is it something you learn along the way. Love bothers me. It overwhelms me with its power. When it is missing, it is such an angry void.

Let me begin this autobiographical tale by stating that my husband has a daughter, I have a step-daughter, who is now 13. Her father and I began our relationship when he was still married to her mother, though they had been separated for a year. His daughter was not quite three years old. Old enough, I was to learn. Realizing the depth of our feelings for one another, my husband began legal divorce proceedings against his wife, and we were married. He continued to support her fully, and she did not return to work until her daughter was almost ten. But she was not a woman to be dealt with lightly. From the beginning she instilled in her daughter a deep hatred toward me. I was evil, bad, I had wrecked her home and marriage, taken her daddy away. This woman has never spoken to me in person. If I call the house, she hangs up. If she calls our house and I answer, she hangs up. For the ten years of my marriage, she has never spoken to me. Her daughter must speak to me because she spends time here, but all conversation is abrupt and cold. The child eats the food I prepare, plays with the toys and wears the clothes I buy, but has never said Happy Birthday to me, given me a gift at Christmas or any other time. Her father is an affectionate man, demonstrative and emotional. He can not change the situation, nor does he try to. When she is here, she ignores me and cuddles with him. When we are in a restaurant, she sits next to him. When I try to interact with her, she answers rudely, with hostility. In the summer she spends several weeks with us. I organize trips, excursions, special adventures, but she has never said thank you.

I have two grown children and four grandchildren. They are the joy of me life. My youngest son lives near, and his children are with us a great deal. He loves my husband, and has a special relationship with him. They are friends who talk and do things together. The rest of my family also loves my husband, always including him in anything we do and always remembering him on birthdays and holidays. I thought perhaps this would be an example that his daughter would follow, but it didn’t work. When my children and grandchildren are in my house, when we are doing things together, when I am attending school events with them, I feel such intense love for all of them sometimes it moves me to tears. I want to have that feeling for my husband’s child… I try… I have tried all these years, but after her school events she ignores me, speaks only to her father, and I am left the outsider. Now another Christmas has come and gone. We celebrate on Christmas Eve with the whole family. I cook a large meal and the kids open presents. My step-daughter spends every Christmas Eve with her mother. It has been a hard and fast rule, so the big event here at the house doesn’t include her. On Christmas day she comes over. The rest of the family have gone, but she opens her presents with her dad and me and then we go to family or friends for dinner. We come home and she and her dad play until bed time. Then next day she and her dad go shopping for things she wanted but didn’t get. What is wrong with this picture?

The joy and laughter my family and I share on Christmas eve, is lost to this child. She doesn’t see her father toast the season and our friends joke and play with the little ones. She arrives when there is no one left but her dad and me. To her, she is the only important one on the day when we are none of us as important as Christ. Somehow she has written herself out of the family. Her mother has created this little alien child who visits her dad six times a year and has no idea what happens in his life the rest of the time.

Then there is the secrecy. Recently my husband’s job took him to Hawaii. I want to go too. We bought my tickets… but my husband said, “don’t tell >>>>>.” I asked why. He replied that he hadn’t told her he was going yet. In fact, what he had done was to tell her he would take her, and had not told me. I am crushed. He takes her to school every day. They have that special time together. He had told her she could go.

I love my husband. I long ago gave up trying to love his daughter. She is the child of his youth, the child of his first wife, not my child. I certainly care for her and want her to be happy. I have sacrificed my own feelings many, many times to keep her relationship with her father a good one. In the early years of our marriage it was my money that bought her all the things she wanted. Now her daddy can afford to. Every Christmas I realize the loss of the love I wanted to share with this child. I realize that the harm her mother has done seems to be irreparable, and I mourn my loss, and the child’s.

My seniors are reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. For those of you who remember the book, in Chapter 2 the Director of the Hatchery orders that the eight month old babies be brought into the room. Bowls of vibrant roses, as well as children's books with pictures, have been placed at one end of the room. The babies are set on the floor and permitted to crawl to the books and flowers, where within a few minutes loud sirens explode and an electrical shock is administered. They are conditioning the babies to dislike books and nature. My students are all horrified. The girls often physically react, crying out, objecting, declaring that they will not read this book, no matter what I say. Of course, a huge discussion ensues involving the use of satire and parody to educate people about their philosophy. Still, many of the girls demand to be given another book to read. I must make everyone promise to read at least the first three chapters and listen in class before they judge the book. It seems this is the first time that any of them have considered the possibilities involved with genetic engineering, cloning, asexual reproduction, etc.

I must say, that it is with relief that I witness this rebellion! What if they didn't rebel? What if they just accepted these words, as they do rap songs that denigrate women, and movies that promote violence as the order of the day? Still the question of their ability to see the connections in literature to life bothers me. It takes lots of leading, lots of pushing, to get them to see that Huxley foresaw free love, foresaw recreational drugs, foresaw a society of complete conformity, a world state. He shows them the consequences. I hope they see the connection. It frightens me to think that these same kids, next year, will be helping to choose a president, or senator, or mayor or councilman, and may not have read what the man or woman has said or written.

We say that teaching higher level thinking skills is one of the objectives of education. Yet we let the media educate our students with sound bites of their favorite candidates. The media is thus given enormous power to influence voters. Will my students remember Brave New World? Will they be able to read for themselves and analyze each candidates positions? Will they fight against becoming controlled masses manipulated by Washington lobbyists and the Fox news network. I certainly hope so. Feel good drugs (Soma in Brave New World) are already a part of our daily lives. I guess feel good politicians is just the next step.

Sunshine Rider

I've been considering the word, sister, and decided that it has so many meanings that perhaps if we consider, each meaning will bring a memory. Of course, there is the birth sister, the one who is your dear friend and your worst enemy. The one who sends you her last twenty dollars, but lies to your children, or husband, or parents. She is the one person your don't have to pretend for. If you feel generous, she knows, if you feel bitchy, she knows, and sometimes she is the recipient of these feelings. It is hard for me to think about my sisters. One I have not seen in five years, and the other is just barely returning to my world, cautiously testing the waters to see if she is ready to expose herself.

But there are other sisters. The first time I heard a hospital nurse referred to as a Sister, was in Adelaide South Australia where a dear friend had been bitten by an Australian brown snake. It is a very poisonous snake, so it was questionable for a while if he was going to make it. When the nurses came in he would always smile and call them sister, cooperate in every way, and seem to let down when they left the room. He was raised during war, and to him, the sisters were true Angels.

Then there are the Mormons, whose women refer to each other as Sister. Living on a ranch with a difficult husband and two small children, they were my nearest neighbors, and they reached out their hands to me when I needed friendship and comfort. I went to church with them, to "Women's Relief Society" on Wednesdays, and shared in their collective canning and preserving, sewing, or reading sessions. They were an important part of my survival in a place that was lonely. I never joined the church... couldn't accept Joseph Smith's various experiences and teachings, but I came to accept them as true believers, women for whom the word sister had real meaning, not just figurative meaning.

Of course, there are sister cities, sister hospitals, sister states, and you can fill in more here. One of my neighbors, defending another woman whose opinions were particularly abrasive to me, said, "Well, she is a sister and we need each other." My mind said, "Not me! I don't need her!" And hence another idea of sisterhood. But to me, girl friends are not sisters. They are partners with whom I participate in life's spectacles, good, bad, and indifferent. I need them.