1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)? Lately, it’s either a magazine or a computer/web design book.

2. What is your favorite novel? Kinflicks by Lisa Alther.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!) The Poison Tree by William Blake.

4. What is one thing you’ve always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read? The Bible.

5. What are you currently reading?

I’m taking up where I left off with my story about how Robert and I first met. When Robert met me in October 1980, my mother had been dead for about six months.

She died on her birthday, in the wee hours of Monday morning, March 10. She’d been in the hospital about two weeks and had been moved from CICU (coronary intensive care unit) to the ‘ward’ and in fact was due to go home Monday morning. But I got that fateful phone call about midnight. It was the night duty nurse. Said mother had taken a turn for the worse and I better get down there. I broke land speed barriers driving the 20 or so miles from our house in northwest San Antonio to Brooke Army Medical Center near downtown. They’d also called my brother, apparently, because when I stepped off the elevator, he was out in the hallway talking to one of the doctors.

My heart sank. I knew I was too late. The hall stretched out before me almost endlessly. And time stood still. My head reeled. My reasoning — in that split second it took me to exit the elevator and assess the situation — was that if Mother were alive, my brother would be in there with her.

The only thing I had to comfort me at that moment was the satisfaction of being right. Some comfort. I went in and stood quietly next to my mother’s lifeless body. Her suffering was over. So many years she’d fought a weak heart, emphysema, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis. No more pain, Mommy.

The next few weeks were just a blur. I really don’t remember anything at all. All I’ve got is anecdotal evidence that I indeed lived and breathed during the next few weeks. I remember visiting the funeral parlor and picking out a coffin and a grave liner. My mother had a favorite silk dress, it was a sheath with three quarter length sleeves. The colors were muted, mauve, lilac, dove grey, cream, claret. I also found a favorite pair of gloves, also dove grey. She was set. Her favorite outfit. I was pleased about that at least.

So the funeral was planned for Thursday. Everything was in place. Except my dry cleaning. I had taken in several outfits, one of which was a black wool suit. Everything else was ready Wednesday evening except the black wool suit. Which was the ONE thing I specifically asked them to be sure to have ready. Ugh! So I ended up wearing a navy suit instead. And black shoes.

And the weather was up to no good too on Thursday morning: dark, gray, rainy. The viewing was at 9AM, casket closed promptly at 10. And my fricking car wouldn’t start. Ugh. So I had to call a cab and go rent a car. By the time I showed up at the funeral home, the casket was closed.

The real fun began in the funeral car on the way to the cemetary. Mother would be buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetary, next to her husband, 2nd Lt. Carl Mueller. And of course, my niece turned to me and asked, “So, Joni, when did you find out you were adopted”?

My mouth gaped open and then shut, like a fish gasping for air. I was blindsided by that. “Well, right now, I guess!” was the only answer I had for her. Poor thing, she backpeddled to get out of that one, but to no avail. The cat was out of the bag. I was adopted. And to find this out on this day, of all days. But my adoption…. was so weird…. A blog for yet another day!

This is an appropriate poem, by Eugene O’Neill:

Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Away from here,
And I shall greet thy passing breath
Without a tear.

I do not love thy snow and sleet
Or icy flows;
When I must jump or stamp to warm
My freezing toes.

For why should I be happy or
E’en be merry,
In weather only fitted for
Cook or Peary.

My eyes are red, my lips are blue
My ears frost bitt’n;
Thy numbing kiss doth e’en extend
Thro’ my mitten.

I am cold, no matter how I warm
Or clothe me;
O Winter, greater bards have sung
I loathe thee!

Great Flash movie…. Hey Mr. Taliban, turn over Bin Laden. Daylight come and we wanna drop bomb….

Don’t ask me why, but I was Googling for mousepads on the Web, since e-Bay didn’t really have anything that interested me. I found this site featuring Satanic mousepads. (Elsewhere in the site you can find Satanic stuff for every room in your house and your car.) Boy, I’ll have my co-workers’ tongues wagging next Christmas with these goodies!

I also came across this review (8-track of the moment) of the album “Black Mass” by a group called Lucifer. Very interesting. I found the entire album via WinMX. It’s all electronic music using a Moog synthesizer. Here is a track called Incubus (5.3 MB mp3).

If you’re now all fired up about Bejus and the Beast, head on over to the Church of Satan. I read some of their tenets, and actually, they make sense for everyday living. Just follow these Eleven (Satanic) Rules of the Earth, and you should live a nice life. (Well, maybe except no. 11.)

The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth
by Anton Szandor LaVey ?1967

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3. When in another?s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.
7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9. Do not harm little children.
10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.