It's Monday! YAY!

So I handled yesterday quite well, I think. :)

I baked and cooked and had an extremely successful day in the kitchen. I made the Portuguese Sweet Bread, I cooked five pounds of beef and froze three pounds, I made a big pot of chili and a dozen corn muffins, garlic roasted cauliflower and I even made a big bowl of turkey salad with the leftover turkey from last week. This afternoon after picking E. up from school I whipped up a BIG pan of bread pudding. I know, I know - for someone who rarely eats bread (REALLY!) I sure do discuss bread a lot! :) It's just been a bready week!

Thoughts about what to write today have been swirling around my head. As I do so often nowadays, I look to Lady GaGa for my extra-songy-smiles and today I need to give the GaGa some may-jor props. I just love the heck out of her. Today I read a quote of hers that I just loved. I will clean this one up a tiny bit...

"I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I’d fail. I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the f@cking deli without hearing or seeing me.’”

- Lady GaGa



So...Lady GaGa talks a little about revenge...also about justice in life. Life is not fair - that much is true. I have personally done what I can in my life to even the odds whenever possible. I have always considered myself a bit of a modern-day Robinette Hood. I like to take from the rich and give to the poor - or better, take from the dishonest people and give to the honest ones when the dishonest ones least expect it. As they say, "la vengeance se mange très-bien froide..."

I have often considered why people decide to choose gain for themselves rather than give to others. I give and I have taught my daughter to give to the point of serious personal sacrifice. I literally give until I can't give anymore and then I find another way to give - and now she's the same way. When she turned six she had me contact the Humane Society to hold her birthday party there. She didn't receive even ONE GIFT for herself that day from the people invited. All of her friends brought food, blankets, toys and donated money for the animals and she was completely content with that. This year for her birthday she has asked that she have a pizza party and a magician and she wants to invite all the children from the women & children's shelter and let them each leave with a present - that's what my 8-soon-to-be-9-year-old wants for HER birthday.

Personal gain has never been a goal of mine. "Don't mistake my kindness for weakness" - that's my mantra. I love being kind - but never mistake it for me being weak. I haven't had a very strong time of it lately, but overall in my life, I have had to deal with some pretty big things - and the result of it is that I am a damn strong girl. I am a cancer survivor - age 23, Skin Cancer...Malignant Melanoma, Stage II-III. At stage IV you generally lose something important... either a limb or your life. I survived that. Being a chunky girl all through elementary and middle AND high school. I survived the HELL out of that. I lost weight in college and even fought with an eating disorder and I also struggled moving from college to college and scrounging to find my niche before eventually graduating. I got my degree in English and a minor in Humanistic Studies and managed to pull a 3.5 my Senior year and an overall 3.2 for my final GPA. Of course, this includes the 1.9 I had a Sophomore when I was still struggling to find my place. I am no stranger to overcoming adversity. Life has never been handed to me on a silver platter - nor have I ever expected it to be. I started working when I was 15 with a special work permit. I didn't sit at home and kick back and be a teenager - like I could have - no one PUSHED me into working. I wanted the spending money and my dad supported my work ethic. And speaking of ethics - when I say I have a DISTINCT feeling about right and wrong, I need to add that it's almost to the point of obsession. When I feel a wrong has been done, my brain works overtime to figure out how to right the wrong. I have been known to stop at nothing until a wrong is righted. And when I have tried everything humanly possible and I still can't right the wrong, it actually pains me until I find a way to reconcile the wrong inside myself and learn to just live side by side with it - but even then I wait quietly in my little corner waiting to see justice prevail someday - with the patience of a saint and a small smile at my lips.

So as I grow as a person and mature I know at some point this urge to see all wrongs righted may change. I pacify myself with words of comfort from such incredible historical figures as Frank Herbert who said "Justice belongs to those who claim it, but let the claimant beware lest he create new injustice by his claim and thus set the bloody pendulum of revenge into its inexorable motion".

And Mahatma Ghandi who said "An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind".

Or even songstress Alanis Morisette...who put it simply "You live, you learn."



I mean, you never can tell when someone will take an opportunity to make a complete idiot out of you - I mean a REAL fool...like drag you out into the middle of an intersection and just humiliate the living crap out of you while everyone watches and you're just stunned into silence and submission. Until you can learn to live with the fact that some people will stop at nothing to further their own agenda - and SOMETIMES you can't do a damn thing about it, you too will be sitting in the same toxic waste that they wallow in. You need to rise above...suspend yourself in mid-air long enough to look down on them and give a little wave and slowly float above the slime and ooze until you reach a solid piece of ground that's neat and clean and ready for you to create your new safe place...your own private battlement again...where you can defend your castle's turrets and dissuade the enemy from even trying to hurt you in the first place. And you know, when all else fails, I tend to turn to the Bible anyway. There are some CHOICE quotes in there dealing with revenge. My favorite that I have found so far is located in Psalm 55:12-14 & 20-22.

"...If it were an enemy making fun of me, I could endure it
if it were an opponent boasting over me, I could hide myself from him
But it is you, my companion, my colleague and close friend
We had intimate talks with each other and worshiped together
in the Temple..." (vs. 55:12-14)

"...My former companion attacked his friends, he broke his promises
His words were smoother than cream, but there was hatred in his heart;
his words were soothing as oil, but they cut like sharp swords.
Leave your troubles with the Lord and He will defend you
he never lets honest men be defeated..." (vs. 55:20-22)

So, in summary, there's a time to get back at someone and a time to grow past that and realize that living well and being happy with who you are can be the best revenge. Especially when you suspect that the REAL reason they exacted their revenge on you in the first place is because they are so damned unhappy with themselves - so weak and full of cowardice that the only way they felt like they could survive is by making someone else miserable. Hot or cold, this way of serving revenge is always sure to satisfy the person serving it most of all.