Strange Things Afoot At The Trailer Park Of The Dammed.

Driven by Deb's most recent post, Husband's car problems, and the deluge afflicting Texas, I was intent on cleansing the Trailer of Doom tonight.

Was the whole place going to be clean, tidy, and ready for the banish/bless double whammy? No. No, it was not. But given everything going to Heck in a hand basket, I thought doing something was far better than doing nothing. I mean, this is a place where no longer having a kitten under the bathroom sink is a major improvement. We have odd standards here.

Five minutes before we started, I found the very first pentacle I've ever owned. On Husband's desk. Where it has never been before. I am very certain it has never been there before because I have not seen it in years and, frankly, thought it was lost.

Freakishness. The Desk does not appear things. It disappears things.

What to do? Wear it? Put it on the bike? In the car? In the house? What to do?

Why, whip out the pendulum and hold it over the choices above and see where it's supposed to be.

It is now tied to the horseshoe over the door. I suspect we have somehow agreed to MOAR WITCHCRAFT. I suspect Protective Guilt Trip Of the Gods. I suspect "Well, I didn't see that coming".

We'll see.

AHS - Coven Gives Me Ideas.

The primary one is that every witch needs a Spaulding. I should put an ad on Craigslist.

Brief Update.

New job is less-than-wonderful, but thanks to St. Expedire for making Annoying Co-Worker leave within a few months. I'll take what I can get, I suppose.

Vile Neighbors, on the other hand, are an ongoing issue that the landlord swears he'll deal with, but I sincerely doubt it, Even if he does, if he throws them out, there's nothing to say they won't come back and destroy things. These people are such trash that they're a landfill. In desperation this morning, I bought a St. Jude candle and lit it and said the little prayer on the back. The landlord did at least then text The Husband and say that he's told them any further issues will get them evicted. We'll see, but thanks to St. Jude for what I have to say was definitely swift action.

Now to find black mustard seed so that I can GTFO powder their miserable asses just to be on the safe side.

Those Who Know, Don't Speak...

...if only those who don't know would also not speak, we'd be in business.

See, while having coffee this morning, I checked out my usual websites. Among which is Fetlife. There's the feed...there's my friend, X, saying he looks forward to seeing this new guy at some event. Why does the name of New Dude seem familiar?

OH SHIT. IT'S MR. LEFT-HAND-PATH FROM A FEW YEARS BACK.

Mr. LHP and I butted heads most vigorously during one of my sad little forays into the Houston pagan community. He kept insisting that he knew this and that and the other about traditional, oathbound Wicca. But, of course, was not an actual, vouchable initiate.

Needless to say, my protests that if you are not an actual part of an oathbound trad, you do not know the oathbound stuff you're claiming to know and are therefore wrong, fell on ears firmly plugged with fingers and unicorns and white light and shit.

Now he's likely to be hanging out with people who are my friends, but whose minds are sometimes just a leeeeetle too open. Explaining to them that this dude is a moron and should be ignored posthaste is unlikely to garner anything but "Well, he's not that bad...". Which he is.

Oh, come on, you say. He's not hurting anyone. The hell he's not. If you claim to know shit that you can't possibly know, then you are a liar. Or delusional. In the one case, you should be shunned. In the other, either ignored or have it suggested that even the Dragonriders of Pern could probably use some therapy.*

This is why I refuse to have anything further to do with "the community" - the kinky one or the pagan one. Too much drama. Too much bullshit. Too many people who feel, rightly or no, that their lives are sad, meaningless, and mundane - and think that being a Dominant/vampire/Grand High Poobah Clergy Pagan/animal-human hybrid will make everything better. Especially if we mix everything together!

Yes, ladies, gents, and others. The day has come. The ocelot has turned into the kind of Old Fart who says shit like, "Y'know, that's great and all, but I really think they're taking this just a little too far."


*I kid you not - there were people in Colorado who really, truly thought (or told everyone they did) that they were Dragonriders of Pern. This despite the fact that they were one of the most out-of-shape bunch of weenies it has ever been my misfortune to slap eyes on.

Civilized?

I was reading Deb's most recent post, and thinking about being civilized.

My boss has suddenly taken a dislike to me. I have ideas why. They're boring and are more about her being mad at her boss than anything else. The neighbors where the Baba Yega Trailer used to be are rapidly becoming a pain in the ass. The neighbor across the way's literally mangy dog* and his belligerent refusal to put her on a leash is becoming an even bigger pain in my ass. Never mind his refusal to put on a shirt while in public and the subsequent lowering of the aesthetics of the Trailer Park of the Damned.

What is my reaction to all this?

The desire to start taking people's heads off with a katana.

Now, I ask you - what on earth are They thinking, that They want some crazed, only half-civilized creature whose general reaction to others being mean, rude, and/or unreasonable is to re-start the Cult of the Severed Head in front of her trailer with the aid of Quickcrete and cinderblocks?

I somewhat doubt this is what is meant by Mysteries.


*I feel bad for the dog. I also do not need my dog getting it.

Wherein The Ocelot Gets A Student.

As of last Monday, I am training again. One student. So far, nothing but pluses to this:

-All the moniez are belong to me. Also, cash.
-She can tack and untack without me standing there and monitoring everything. She does the tacking in about ten minutes. Correctly.
-It's her horse. Which means no huge financial investment on my part.

In other news, Jeebus Grandma-In-Law sent the Husband a link on Facebook to an "ex-Wiccan" who found Jeebus after the fundies she kept dating kept getting scooped back into the brainwashing - I mean, loving arms of their families. Yeah. And JG-I-L wonders why I don't want to spend massive amounts of time hanging out with her (never mind that if I had massive amounts of time, this place wouldn't look like two single, straight, male constructions workers live here) - could it be that I get tired of hearing about her religion, how mine is wrong, etc. so forth?

It's tempting to tell her I converted and then call her at all hours telling her what Jeebus is telling me:

"Jeebus just talked to me while I was on the can. Does it totally wig you out when he does that to you, or does it stop being so weird after a while?"

"Jeebus says corn is awesome and one of his Dad's best ideas and so you better get over that idea that you're allergic to it and get to noshin'."

"Jeebus says it's OK if I'm still Wiccan because 'Thou shalt have no Gods before me' just means his Dad just doesn't want to see it. It's like 'don't Ask, Don't Tell'."

Heh.

What A Witch Really Wants.

While talking to my brilliant & kindly HPS today about the Summary Shitcanning from The Barn and whether I want to teach there at all assuming the one student they told me I could still have comes back from a sabbatical, she said, wisely, that as far as long-term goals, it sounded as though I still need to decide what I want.

I know what I don't want. I don't want any more crazy - not dumb & crazy, not brilliant but crazy, none of it. I don't want random dressings-down, insane horses I'm afraid to put my students on, or bizarre business plans.

In short, unless someone is ridiculously stable (LOL SEE WHAT I DID THERE), I don't want to work for anyone else again. I don't want to have a big barn with a lot of show-oriented riders and eventually have to hire someone else to do what I can't  (I never showed high level, and it's been twenty years since I jumped anything taller than two-six).

I don't want to have so many lessons that it starts to feel like an assembly line, or so that rescheduling is almost impossible, or so that my hypothetical horses never get a day off.

I don't want to have to depend on teaching for a living - it's too feast-or-famine for my Scottish financial comfort.

I want a small barn - five schooling horses and no more than ten boarders, some of whom may or may not take lessons. I want to cater to adults who don't care if they ever show. I want a few kids who basically become equine slave labor through their teens. I want boarders who are there to ride, not to try to throw the latest training sensation at everyone else or allow their ill-behaved spawn to run wild through the barnyard. Hell, I don't even care if they ride all that much, so long as someone cares for and interacts with their horse.

Of course, the next question is how the hell I make this happen. Time to consult the oracles.