Common Ground

Last post I promised to report on my visit to an eatery called Common Ground in Oneonta. It was very nice - beautiful decor, lots of natural wood slab tables and bench seats, quiet, nice music, excellent food. Like home-cooked organic gourmet. Knock your socks off delicious with lovely atmosphere. I'm sorry I didn't find them earlier in my visit!

I thought Twelve Tribes would be some kind of Native American Indian thing, but I must have gotten them mixed up with some other hippie enterprise along the main drag in Oneonta. This Twelve Tribes is named after the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Membership seems to involve a pretty major lifestyle decision. As I gather, folks who follow that way join what is essentially a religious commune. They pool their resources and live together in a community, and have several enterprises to generate income so they can make their way in the world. Everyone we encountered at the Common Ground was gentle, soft-spoken, and provided the best kind of service one may hope for in a restaurant.  I truly felt the spirit of love and service toward God and fellow man there.

One of my friends who got pretty severely burned by a separatist religious concern in the past has warned me and mine to be extremely wary of this religious group. I have taken her warnings under advisement.

I used to know an old fella name of Bob Ross. Not Bob Ross the oil painter, another Bob Ross. The Bob Ross I know reminds me of  a nature show I saw on PBS one time featuring otters and sea urchins. Sea urchins are like little ocean bottom animal versions of sand burrs or cockle-burs with hard, spiky, repellent exteriors. A sea urchin looks like a nasty little ball of of needles, something you would not want to mess with if you could help it. Otters have discovered, however, that sea urchins are tender and sweet on the inside, and love to eat them. The trick, of course, is to get past that spiky exterior. The mental image I have is of the otter floating on its back with a sea urchin on its belly. Bob Ross reminded me of those sea urchins, just as spiky and repellent as he could be in presentation. God Forbid that anyone should ever discover that he was actually a pretty sweet guy, if you could ever get past his spikiness. Quite a character, Bob was. I only tell this on him now because he has gone on to the Big Meeting in the Sky some years ago now. Anyway, Bob used to tell a particular story on himself in which the punch line or moral was, "Hell, I ain't afraid of nothin' I ain't about to do!"

That's sorta the way I view these Twelve Tribe folks - "I ain't afraid of nothin' I ain't about to do."

I found them pleasant, charming and attractive, and wish there were a Common Ground restaurant nearer to where we live, but my interests and situation at this time in my life in no way lead me to be remotely interested in joining a religious commune and handing over everything I've worked for. I appreciate the devotion of those who have chosen that way, but it is not my way. Live and Let Live, I say. I hope Common Ground is still there the next time I visit Otsego County, because there were some more things on the menu I want to try.

Meanwhile, if you are confident in what you believe, you don't have to worry about someone talking you into something else. If you're not sure, go find out! Be sure! If you are sure, if you are confident in whatever you believe, borrow a line from Bob Ross - you don't have to be afraid of nothin' you aint' about to do!

Flood Warning, Canadian County

I am in Fly Creek NY with my daughter who is due to bear her first child any day now. We know with 70% certainty, thanks to modern ultrasound, that it's a girl. Her name will be Mira. Don't know what name may be on standby if Mira happens to fall into that 30% category and emerge with a stem, but should that happen, he'll only have to wear pink for about the first year or so.

While I'm out of pocket my Dear Husband Steve stayed in Oklahoma to hold the fort down in my absence, and Holy Cow, he has his work cut out for him today - I just received this post from him via Facebook: 

     

     "Raining like a heifer pissing on a flat rock here. The BX (Broadway Extension) and Turner Turnpike are CLOSED. TV telling everybody to stay put. Mike DiGacomo (street super, OKC) has his barricades and storm sewer covers floating away. The 10" tree log path has floated past the sweetbush....pans and bowls all over the trailer. Upstairs bedroom in the house tarped and running into 5 gal buckets. must empty every 5 minutes. Muffin inside and pissed off. Cookie? well, good stealth to you! No cell phone signal, but we got internet antenna. Thunder in the distance (NW of Mustang) but none locally. leak in the studio under the East wall and door threshold. bear gonow.......an intense event."

KFOR weather has an interactive radar where you can enter an address and pinpoint your actual location. It keeps looking like the rain is going to let up, but it just keeps raining, and heavily.  Reminds me of a weather joke we have in Oklahoma - "Last time it rained forty days and forty nights, they got a trace in Guymon." Yeah, Mustang is nowhere near Guymon.

Both cats have wanted to be nowhere but outside since early Spring but Muffin ran inside this morning to escape another block-headed yellow lab who came around barking at Steve. It was a different dog from the one I described in my "Not All Who Wander" blog entry last month because today's dog was uncut, as compared to the old neutered male of previous mention.  So Muffin is inside, where he does not like to be, but which he finds less distasteful than going out in the pouring rain. Cats are so funny.  Cookie can usually find a discreet place to hole up and usually stays quite dry, thank you very much, but I bet she's wet today! I hope she's okay. 

The tree log path Steve mentions - we had done some clearing and reserved a couple of tree trunks for Truth, Beauty and Goodness projects. These trunks are actually 10 to 16 inches across, and we had cut one of them into 2 to 3 inch slabs to use as stepping stones in paths where the grass hasn't taken hold yet. One set of steps was about 12 to 20 feet from the sweetbush, the next one was about 50 to 75 feet from it, and the other path about 100+ feet from the sweetbush, so any one of those would be a significant washout!

Speaking of turnpikes being closed, before I left, I promised without fail that I would keep an eye ahead on the weather when I'm traveling, and if it looked very bad, I would hold my position rather than risk harm due to a weather disaster. This situation reaffirms that determination. That interactive map on KFOR will show current weather radar for any address you plug into it, so that promises to be an extremely handy tool in addition to local forecasts along the way.

Meanwhile, here in Fly Creek, it's only overcast. Cool central NY summer day. Misty's dog, Potato, rests at my feet, while we wait for labor to begin.

Stay dry and safe, everyone!