Hello, Readers.

According to the WordPress.com stats, my blog hasn’t had any hits since August 20th. An internal bug rendered my Privately set posts vulnerable, and I can’t even know if the site itself has closed all traffic to my pieces.

So, it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything. Too busy searching and viewing video testimonials, from scientists and doctors and other health authorities, trying to both maintain safe distance from threat and to forewarn those I love.

But, now, we have to confront another force.

I’ll call this The Travesty of Integrity.

An article popped up, today, at MSN’s Firefox set of recommended reads. The title appears in the attached graphic. Did I read the piece? Nope. Call it revulsion; not, at all, interested. Not interested in finding out how to get the job for which somebody else is more qualified.

Why?

To my mind, we have entered a new low in social responsibility. Disengenuity; false representation; masquerading. Call it what you will. People are not not only attempting to fake out potential employers, but actually ENCOURAGING the action?

This reminds me of a phase of early childhood development called “pretending.” Very young children learn to mimic roles they observe being played out around them. They “play doctor”, “teacher”……..”superhero”.

And, among children, this is considered by psychologists to be normal. Helps form identity, and identification with adult roles regarded as responsible or achievable.

NOW — individuals are being taught how to skip all the steps taken beyond that phase and actually seek a job interview, expecting to contribute equally alongside those who have spent the hours, days, weeks, months, and years becoming either fully credible authorities or skilled at a high level.

Do we WANT a society led by charlatans?

Will we survive, ruled by them?

Because, that is what will happen. This generation of unqualified pretenders may one day hold our very lives in their hands.

Mark that.

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© 8/22/2021 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose name appears above this line. Thank you for respecting original material.

littlebarefeetblog.com

God won’t be reading this.

He’s too busy watching over his chosen few.

You know the type. Always “blessed”. Always proclaiming their countless blessings, to the world, specifically on social media.

Invariably, such blessings only qualify if they can be held in the hand, like, okay, say, the handle to the double doors of a converted Southern plantation, or the reins of a willing horse.

Sometimes, natural disaster strikes. Theirs is the only house spared. Another burst of thanksgiving, to the God who cares about them the most.

Being bailed out after stupid decision making, like surviving food poisoning after refusing to wash bagged big agra lettuce or successfully pooping after 48 hours of bareback riding? These, while qualified, rarely get any airtime; one mustn’t embarrass the God of All Creation, lest He be miffed and withhold future cloudbursts.

Somebody who loved so many and deigned to love me, too, provided what I’ve concluded is the meaning of being blessed by a God who is no respecter of persons. That person was Mammy Sweet, and she was my grandmother.

Mammy stayed home. She didn’t own a car. She didn’t have a driver’s license. While she was still able, she walked to Sunday morning meeting – down the block, left, then down the short hill to the church we all called the assembly hall because, English and Plymouth Brethren, the real church was the body of Christ according to Scripture.

When she wasn’t dressed for Sunday all day, she’d be up with the sun to put on her support hose, sturdy shoes, a cotton apron over her cotton shift, and be about the house and garden. There were rows and rows of vegetables to plant, harvest, can, and eat; there were roses and peonies to feed the bees, a plum and pear tree, and countless perennials close growing both near the trees and through the rock gardens out front. In winter, there was bread to bake, and rugs to braid, and clothes to alter or sew from scratch.

After a full day in sunlight, rest was defined by the rocker, near the phone, where she regularly called the family or wrote letters or prayed.

In her world, blessing was defined in small moments, undeclared and unobserved by anyone, recognized in silent smiles as the sun set through the criss crossing silken curtains. I like to think that, because she bloomed where she was planted, living a life of worship and work, she was blessed with length of days. In turn, those days provided the blessing for all who knew her, for every hour of her 98 plus years on the earth.

It didn’t matter who else knew. Her God saw, and was well pleased.

She read the Word, and held it in her heart.

Chosen? Maybe.

Favored?

Only God knows.

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© 7/30/21 Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, whose story it is, and whose name appears above this line. Be blessed, and know it. God isn’t just your Show And Tell story.

littlebarefeetblog.com

The drive south was almost welcomed, seeing as there still weren’t many places this pandemic-resistant girl could plant herself outside of home, sweet home. Thermograms were yearly, non-invasive, worth both the money and time. After assuming all the positions, and a nice chat with thermographer Judy, RN, about whatsoever was true and what wasn’t and how many friends had turned their backs, she reached into the Altoid box to present compensation. No small horror: was her recently replaced credit card truly missing??

Now, how many hours of brain wracking would it take to haul back and retrieve the last time that wretched piece of plastic had escaped her grasp?

With some meuwing and striving, she pinpointed: June 9. The drug store drive through – and, the skinny sack, with its new migraine autoinjector, package insert and, of course, those famous last words of the dispensing teller: “Card’s in the bag.”

(But, hadn’t she needed that package insert last week, only to come up empty?!)

Now, the required call to the bank, for a check of recent transactions. All familiar; all well. She’d be home in an hour, time enough to turn the house upside down.

Rifling through the receipt box for the umpteenth time, she was sure this exercise would be further futility until, two parts determination binding with equal parts go for broke, there it was: the drug store bag. Eagerly, she squeezed the base and popped open its mouth.

What emerged provoked a moment of delight powerful enough to obliterate the Delta variant.

No. It wasn’t the credit card. That, she would find in the kitchen, only moments hence, wrapped in, yep, the clear plastic pouch housing one cumbersome freezer pack used to keep the migraine injector frigid. No. This?

This was her precious – and, three week long lost – Kitty Mask.

The pandemic had created one fashion statement, and this had been it. Her Bonnie-made kitty mask – the favorite, with its silly smiling cartoon cats, bright sunlit liner, and yellow ear beads.

As if propelled, in only seconds she bounded toward the kitchen, honing in on the sack holding the credit card, too.

Ya hadda live in that house. Ya hadda get that everyone coped in their own way, and most never let on how dreary and even despondent life had made them. This was a two-fer. What was lost had been found – twice.

Carry on, little birds. May all your trips south be as bountiful.

Me-ouuw.

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© 7/19/21 Ruth Ann Scanzillo.