Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

September 27, 2006

Today’s announcements

Please pray for the mother of Ellie Braun Haley and her 83 year old Aunt Jane.

Carol, Sorry it appears as though I have dropped off the face of the earth. NOT so.  But I have been away on personal business to Calgary.

I may be out of touch for the next month. My mom took a fall last week, is in hospital and I need to be near her. She is 90 years old and has been living on her own with her 83 year old sister. Doctors have been doing tests for the past two months trying to figure out why mother's  legs are going numb and why does she have such pain.  The fall speeded everything up and they immediately ex-rayed her to discover that all along they have been looking in the wrong place.  They should have concentrated on her spine!  Her spine is a mess. She is finally receiving morphine (two different kinds) to help ease the pain. She also has a bladder infection.

Job opportunity

Also our part time girl gave notice at our cafe, Mythic Cafe, which is in the city and being run by Laurelei, my daughter...(Mythic Cafe.. in Calgary now needs part time staff, week days, no nights, no weekends.
IF YOU KNOW OF ANYONE NEEDING PART TIME WORK in the south end of
Calgary PLEASE CONTACT  SHAWN AT 403 342 5389 OR LAURIE IN CALGARY AT 
403 253 2060))   (Both my mom and the cafe are in the same city so I am
thinking I may just go there for the next while)  So life here is going
on hold for a bit!

Hugs
Ellie

shaley@telusplanet.net
>

Now onto the good stuff!

Today’s Queue Stories

~**~**~

A Stray's Best Friend by Ptolemy Tompkins

– Sent in by Mark Crider

Randy Grim used to be terrified of everything. Crowds. Unfamiliar
places. Strangers. Stressful situations. Everything, that is, except
dogs. He worked with them every day at his St. Louis, Missouri, grooming
shop.

Still Randy got a bit of a shock one morning years ago when he
discovered a bedraggled collie mix in front of his shop. "She was
pregnant, but so skinny you could see the outlines of the puppies she
was carrying. One of her back legs was lame. An eye was swollen shut. I
started stressing out. I wanted to help this dog, but I was afraid I
didn't know how. Then, with her one good eye, that dog gave me a look
I'll never forget. A look that said, 'I need you. Please don't turn away.'"

Randy didn't. "It was like something I didn't even know I had inside me
took over. Something stronger than my anxiety." He lured the dog into
his shop with some food. "I called Animal Control. They told me she'd be
put down. The Humane Society couldn't help, either. There was no place
for this dog to go."

Randy paid for Bonnie - that's what he christened her - to be treated by
a vet, and for an emergency Caesarean. Bonnie had an infection of her
mammary glands, so her 13 puppies needed to be hand-fed round the clock.
Randy bought 13 bottles of nail polish at the drugstore and painted each
puppy's nails a different color so he could tell them apart.

"As soon as I'd finish feeding the last puppy, it would be time to start
over with the first. I devoted every waking hour to them. My friends all
thought I was nuts. But in my heart I felt like it was what God wanted
me to do."

Randy found homes for Bonnie and every single one of her puppies. He
went back to work. But from then on, he noticed something. The city was
full of stray dogs. He would see them on the highway, peering out of
abandoned buildings, sniffing around Dumpsters. He began picking them up.

"I saw Bonnie in all of them. And a little of myself too," Randy says.

Randy is addressing a problem that increasingly plagues America's inner
cities - feral dogs. Not merely strays, but animals that have in part
turned back into wild animals. People get dogs to guard their homes, or
to train them to fight, then decide they don't want them after all. The
animal is let go, with no idea how to survive.

Today Randy rescues stray and feral dogs full time. He drives his van
through some of the toughest neighborhoods in East St. Louis, looking
for animals people have given up on.

"People think that once a dog's turned feral, there's no reaching it. I
understand what it's like to live in fear. I'm patient. If I keep going
back to visit a dog, one day I'll see what I saw in Bonnie's eyes that
morning. 'I need you.'"

And in a way, Randy needs them too. "When I'm rescuing dogs, nothing
scares me. That's how I know this is what God wants me to be doing."

Handicuff, a dog Collar with a Leash and a Lock. Very good story by Mike Firesmith but warning must be included.

Mark Crider

Mark@cccoating.com

~**~**~

 All Grown Up Now

Mike Firesmith

A week or so ago an old friend of mine and his wife stopped by after a trip to out local amusement park. They were sunburned and tired and they had just parted company with their daughter, Terri, who was going to make her way back to Troy Alabama where she is going to college. Terri and her boyfriend were going to dip down into Florida and hit the beaches before heading back. I haven't seen that child in a while. All grown up now. Sigh.


Yeah, the title gives it away, don't it?



So John and Tammy were up visiting Terri for her birthday in April and Terri had to go back to work for something so Tammy, mother that she always is, decided to put some laundry away. In the bottom drawer of the dresser were not sweats and socks and that kind of sports equipment but sex toys, handcuffs, and a dog collar with a leash and a lock on it. Tammy called John to come look at it and that was all they could do for a few moments.


A confession here: I'm having some problems wrapping my mind around it myself. My first memory of Terri is at her sixth birthday party where she loaded me down with birthday cake because I showed up with some weird ass CD that she wanted and John had sent me after. I couldn't sleep that night for the sugar buzz. She was all child like and innocent and I just cannot picture, no, let me be honest, I don't want to picture her handcuffed to a bed, much less wearing a dog collar with a lock on it. I can imagine her doing that to a guy, or even a girl, even less.


This is, of course, pure and unadulterated hypocrisy on my part. When I was twenty-nine I got caught banging my nineteen year old girlfriend when her mother showed up unexpectedly one early Saturday morning. It was bad enough as it was, to be caught in that position, but she caught us because my girlfriend lived downstairs, I lived in the apartment above hers and we were in my bedroom. Her mother heard us from the driveway. She hammered and hammered away at the door but we didn't hear her. It wasn't until things had quieted down a bit before we realized we had company. Up until the point we realized that her mother was trying to tear the door down it had been a very memorable morning. Well, it still was, just not as positive memories.


No, there was no hardware involved, but that's beside the point. The woman I was with was nineteen and I assumed at that point in my life she was old enough to know what she was doing. Damn. Rephrased: She was mature enough to realize the consequences of her actions. And she was. But when it comes to someone I knew when she was a little girl, all of a sudden nineteen seems really young. And the sex toys? Please, I'm just not ready for that right now.



Okay, here's how I feel about the entire situation. The woman is nineteen, living free of her parents, going to school, making damn good grades, and she is old enough to pay rent and hold down a job. I cannot imagine trying to talk this person into believing that there might be anyone out there who should advise her on what she wants to do with her body, or with whom to do it with, or for that matter how to do it. I took a deep breath and told her parents that, knowing full well the last time I ventured that piece of advice to a parent, I was damn near killed for it.


They've invested a lot of time and effort into getting Terri where she is today, as far as school goes. They've also tried to make sure she's been able to choose her own way. But this is a bit too much. I swear, this is an exact quote from Tammy:

" Mike, you've been in the Army, you've been an atheist, have you ever seen this sort of stuff before?"



Whoa. What is it you think I was doing in those barracks, ma'am?


As funny as it was I just could not laugh. I tired to explain that this might just be the results of Terri trying out new things and it might be a passing fad with her, like dyeing her hair pink or something. ( Or it could be she is into S&M and that is what gets her rocks off but no way am I saying that to these people)


I told them this: You cannot do anything to influence your daughter's sex life except make her hide her toys better. That is actually a thought. What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is no one, no one, else's business as far as sex goes. Terri is an adult. She is intelligent, capable, and inasmuch a nineteen year old can be, she is sane. Don't bring it up unless you're just dying to embarrass the hell out of her, and yourself. But if you do bring it up, brace for the fact that she might not be ashamed at all, and you better be prepared to face that reality. It is, after all, her bedroom, her body, and her choice.


After they left I had this odd feeling that I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear. I didn't ask them what they were going to do, and they didn't offer anything that might lead me to think they would go one way or another. It's got to be disconcerting, and it is even to me, but I still remember her as a little kid missing a tooth or two.


Maybe we should accept a couple of concepts here: (1) When we first wanted sex is when the next generation is going to want it to. What we did to get it is what they will do to get it. (2) Maybe if we treated sex a little more normally than treating it like we'll die if we discuss it with out kids they wouldn't have to hide how they feel about it.

Personally, I think those people who never have sex except in bed, with the guy on top, the lights out and at night might just need a little more therapy than someone dressed in a dog collar with a lock on it.


Take Care,
Mike

~**~**~

Poetry Section

~**~**~

A GLANCE

C. J. Wylie

What of this

you miss

In a glance

thrown to the wind

Your sight is caught

by a passer-by

Who wonders of you

from a far

Unable to whisper

a word of silence

on lips xarressed

in love.

C.J.Wylie  2006

artjwca@yahoo.ca

~**~**~

'PERFECT FLIGHT'

C.J. Wylie

What of this

to find

but a bottle perfumed

in oils of mist

Tantalizing the senses serene

In modesty given

the neil lifted

To tears of delight

Is the soul risen

in its perfect flight.

C.J.Wylie  2006

artjwca@yahoo.ca

~**~**~

 WITHIN ITS FRAME

C.J. Wylie

Tis' this I see

before me

words written

to find their meaning

And awake the emotion

of what is felt there

in your self being

Can its' meaning be analizes

into submission

Or is there to many worlds

within its' frame

Discover yours

and let it rest

for another.

C.J.Wylie  2006

artjwca@yahoo.ca

So that you know I do have poetry folders for sale with some of my poetry writings, which some are alot longer in verse. They are water proof and each one comes signed and dated by me and there is a gold Masters Pebble seal on the front cover. The cost of them is 22.00 dollars plus shipping.

I made it easy for interested persons to pay. They can simply pay through my PayPal account. The email for it is: moneyflowstome@yahoo.ca

Once they have made payment they can send me their mailing info. and once I verify their payment so that I send it to the right place they will receive very shortly a very unique rare poetry folder signed by me. Of course it will be signed in my pen name.

It is okay to let people know my email address so that then can send me their mailing info.

Thank you very much my friend and I shall get some more poetry off to you as soon as I can.

Jeff

THE SECRET Unveiled 
  http://thesecretpays.com?233

My Home- Masters Pebble-The Humanitarian People

Come for a visit and sign my guest book.

http://myweb.ecomplanet.com/MAPE9783/

Readers Feedback

Mike Fireside's Law & Noise gave me a laugh I sorely needed today!! I always seem to get the screaming child either following me through the store, or worse, the kicking, screaming child seated behind me on a long flight!

Thanks for the laugh Mike!

aro

Senior Writers

Chief writer: Sharon Bryant

Chief researcher/historian: Hartson Dowd

Agee, Vance; Apted, Violet; Baker, Kathy; Batt, Al; Berry, Nell; Blaine, Pamela; Boda, Ginger; Booher, Paula; Buhagiar, Victor; Cassady, B.J.; Costner, Joan Clifton; Cavalera, Robyn; Crider, Mark; Dees, Mary; Deming, Barb; Doherty, Maria;  Dowd, Hartson; Dowd, Helen; Gilbert, Robert, Jr.; Gold, Ron; Goodier, Steve; Grisham, Mary-Ellen; Braun-Haley, Ellie; Harris, Kathy Anne; Henry, Linda Ann; Hunt, Sharlett; Hymes, Christina; Jacobson, Gary; Kiser, Roger Dean; Kerens, Claudia; Kevin, Tim; Jenkins, Pamela; Liles, Norma; Lily Jodi Flesberg; Lock, Joyce; Marlor, Janice Bumbalough; Mazzella, Joe; Meeks, Carol; Mizrany, Mary Carter; Morris, Deepak; Ojeibge, Georgewaters; Petry, Dianna Doles; Roberts, Susan; Shiveley, Debra; Shaw, Bob; Sims, Richard; Smith; Michael; Streidel, Saskia; Swarner, Ken; Vaknin, Sam; Verhoeff, Jan; Walker, Bill; Walker, Joe; Warner, Gordon, K; Walsh, Sue; Weymouth, Barbara J.; Whirity, Kathy;

Wainland, David; Westerfer, Clara; White Robert;

Storytime Tapestry Staff

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Thelma Hartselle - Co-Founder, Moderator

Clara Westerfer – moderator

Bob Johnston - moderator