And Now…For Something Different

I think, I will, “…Stop Talking” and share some photos.

 

 

Off-Roading Into Hiking

I realized I haven’t blogged about Puppy and Dog in a while, nor have I posted pictures. This is mostly because Puppy is really a dog now…and his antics have become rather repetitive or un-camera ready. So until then…

This started off as off-roading, to get to hiking trail. 18 miles of off-roading that is. You’ll notice that in the pictures you have a “hilly” road. You will then notice that you have pictures near the top of the hiking trail. You will also notice that there are no “cliff” like pictures on the off-road part, nor coming back down the off-road trail. This is because I’m severely afraid of heights and was not only clenching my teeth, but also had one hand pressed to the side of my door and the other gripped tightly around my seatbelt. What I call cliffs, Husband calls hills. We will never agree it seems!

While I saved most of my whining and shrieking for inside the 4Runner as we continued on, cliff after cliff, I did manage to save a few shrieks for when the over-grown branches of trees and bushes smacked me in the face or scrapped my legs, or bugs buzzed past my ear during the hike. To Husbands comment, “We don’t have to worry about black bears or that I’ve lost you!” Very funny

that's probably not good...

yes...not good at all...

well....waiting is in order...literally

moving again...past the minor "issue"

hiking trail

hiking trail

Because I can't resist a good tire/car shot!

This Can’t Be Comfortable…Photo Essay of Puppy’s Past

Last night Puppy graduated, and although it’s like your child graduating kindergarten, no one really cares but you, the parent, it was still pretty cool! So in honor I’ve dug up a few photos from Puppy’s past…hopefully, after my rather depressing post on the American dream, this will make you all smile or laugh, or…go out and buy your own puppy.

 

What Has Become of the American Dream?

It looks like the end of the world, at least on a part of the street. A street in America where the American dream has taken on new meaning….to most.  

A builder ran out of money and everything just stopped. The houses have been sitting, half-built for over two years.  

Mike, a guard with whom the bank, as the builder foreclosed, is getting paid $10 an hour to sit and deter teenage vandals from removing items from the nearby model homes.  

Mike informs me that the company actually charges $25 an hour, but he only sees $10 an hour of that. He complains about eighteen year old boys taking the other shifts (it’s guarded 24/7), when he feels they should be going to college and ‘leaving the mindless job to an old uneducated man like myself.’ Mike thinks the bank pays out about $300,000 a year to guard these empty homes.  

I am told as Mike shakes his head that the homes are infested with bees, scorpions, black windows, black ants, and at night the entire ground of gravel moves as all the cockroaches crawl about. He says he sits in his car for the most part.  

These homes were the American dream…someones American dream. The plaque for the type of floor model it is still mounted to the left of the front door.  

The American dream has been freedom, homeownership, cars, education, vacations, the list can go on and on. Is the American dream turned into being able to put food on the table, to pay the bills, to pay rent, to keep your job, to keep your home, your car? Do American’s feel going to college will serve them well if there are no jobs when they have graduated? 

A lot of Americans are angry, frustrated, disappointed, and worried. We are returning to college, if you are lucky enough…job interviews, negotiating our debt, our electric bill. But for what? What are they struggling for? What will be there at the end?  

obviously the post office had more faith than the builder

 We had flooding in Nashville, Tennessee and we hear more about Haiti and how they need help than we do in Tennessee. We are in conflict about healthcare and immigration. Are those things important right now as we Americans go through this economic pitfall? Are they some of the cause of our pitfall?  

Pictures do not give the emotions and feelings of what it is like to walk through a neighborhood with houses, manicured front lawns and come upon the end, it just stops.  

And please don’t get on be about “well America has it better than most countries.” Sorry I don’t live anywhere but America, so THAT is what I’m talking about here. 

This was going to be someone’s home. Did that person buy another home, did they lose their jobs, did they move out-of-state, did they give up on life, on being American and reaching their dreams? What’s it like to live next door to the sadness of an abandoned and unfinished house?  

I write this because I don’t think I can tell you anymore what the American dream has become. I too am lost, frustrated, angry, and confused. Are we going through the motions because we don’t know what else to do, or why we are even trying to overcome this?  

When will American turn around, head back to someone’s version of the American dream. Will that dream be different now? Will it be the same? Will it even be possible? Who do you know that is living the American dream? As there are people doing rather well still in all of this. 

Older folks are saying that during the great depression they had to reuse bath water, and things of the like. So are we supposed to look at our “depression” as not a depression at all. Is simply losing our internet access equal to reusing bath water? Does it have the same mental and emotional affect?  

Has the American dream changed? Or has America changed our dreams?