The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Discrimination, poor judgment and pride are alive and well.  My family is going through a crises, now, with my 34 year old niece who is in trouble with the law.  She's in a dentention center, awaiting multiple hearings for multiple offenses.  And, I've suggested hiring a forensic social worker to visit her twice a week and prepare a report documenting the reasons that drove her to do whatever she did.  In short, look at the family dynamics and make a case for dysfuction driving the bad judgment, poor choices and wrongful acts.

All well and good except my sister rejected it, outright, saying the social worker would replicate what the big, expensive criminal attorney would do, plus at $100/hour, why bother?  Why, indeed.  Because my niece would see, hear and "feel" someone in her corner.  Someone who would BE THERE in person to talk over how she was doing, what she was thinking and how "we" might proceed.  As in, "you're not in this alone."

But no, my sister's pride will not let her accept my help as we've not broken bread together for a long time, perhaps forever, and this and other factors make her reject the idea of hiring a forensic social worker for her daughter.  So sad.  Too bad.  Becasue, my niece will be the one to pay the price---with her life, her years, her tears. 

On a happier note, I found two passages from wonderful writers that illuminate the human spirit in verse.  My hat's off to them for bringing life and love to words unspoken.  Read, in the privace of bedrooms & gardens, inner thoughts and intimate sanctums. 


On this day in 1908, D.H. Lawrence (books by this author) wrote in a letter to his friend Blanche Jennings from his house in Derbyshire in England where he was living: "I am unwilling to leave this deck-chair; I refuse to swot; let me write to you then, me lounging here on the grass, where the still warm air is full of the scent of pinks, spicy and sweet, and a stack of big red lilies a few yards away impresses me with a sense of hot, bright sunshine. ... It is a true midsummer day. There is a languorous grey mist over the distance; Shipley woods, and Heanor with its solid church are hidden today; no, I can just see a dense mark in the mist, which is Heanor; but Crich is gone entirely. The haze just falls on Eastwood; the church is blue, and seems fast asleep, the very chimes are languid. Only the bees are busy, nuzzling into some wide white flowers; — and I am busy too, of course."


It's the birthday of best-selling children's author and illustrator Eric Carle, (books by this author) born on this day in Syracuse, New York (1929). When he was six years old, his family moved to Stuttgart, Germany, to be with their extended family, and so Carle grew up in Germany during WWII. He went to art school, then moved to New York where he said: "The long, dark time of growing up in wartime Germany, the cruelly enforced discipline of my school years there, the dutifully performed work at my jobs in advertising — all these were finally losing their rigid grip on me. The child inside me — who had been so suddenly and sharply uprooted and repressed — was beginning to come joyfully back to life."

Eric Carle has written and illustrated more than 70 books, including Do You Want to Be My Friend? (1971), The Grouchy Ladybug (1977), and his most famous, The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), which has sold almost 30 million copies.


He said: "We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important."