Mid-morning. You have
been playing with the cats before and after breakfast. Carol is reading the
paper and you are upstairs looking out the window and are thinking about doing
your exercises in a bit. You have nothing on for today but a phone conversation
with your financial advisor, Andy. Since you are seventy-and-a-half this is the
year you have to begin converting to Roth and/or to pay taxes on gains, etc. -
Amorella
0944 hours. This is about all I know.
Carol has been busy with this off and on for about a year. I have little idea
what she and Andy talk about but I listen in on another phone and am polite and
say hello and the like. Every once in a while Andy will ask me a question. I
assume it is his way of checking on if I am awake or not. I remember the first
time we met with him. It was after Mom died and we had some inheritance that
she had with Andy. All I was concerned about was that "Did we have enough
money to be able to get a cable box since I bought a HD ready TV in 2003 with
money from my teacher retirement (I had just retired). Andy never forgot that.
I
suppose he thought it was funny but all I was interested in was getting that
cable box, but it seemed pretty expensive to pay Time Warner for something I
wasn't really sure we could afford. Anyway, we got the cable box and I am quite
satisfied with its operation but not the price per month, which seems to keep
going up and up. We are hooked on cable though and Disk TV I'm sure has nearly
the same prices. We pay it and enjoy the shows and the DVR that comes with it.
About four times a year we have to talk to Andy. I mostly listen and try to understand-at-the-moment
(beyond the general) what they are talking about. When Carol and he talk on
stuff it is like me sitting in Advance Algebra class or one of Z's AP math
classes at Mason High. I understand math's usefulness and have great respect
for those who do understand its workings but the
working-it-out-in-the-head-or-otherwise is way beyond my level.
I
think it is genetic. Some people cannot do grammar for the life of them
(literally). I always had empathy for those students. Grammar has always been
easy and fun for me. I loved diagramming sentences in junior high and freshman
year of high school. Fun is the challenge of diagramming some of the sentences
in Paradise Lost. Very cool. Okay, I'm done. (I got started and couldn't
stop until now.) (1007)
You are questioning your purpose in writing
this down in the first place and are considering erasing and you are upset with
yourself because you think 'vanity' put it up here, some sort of pride in the
fact that you can't understand math, like math is somehow beneath your station
in life. Arrogance, and you don't care who knows it. Is this not correct? -
Amorella
It is correct at some level. A level I
don't like about myself. I won't deny what you write, but I don't like it about
myself.
1227
hours. I finished my exercises an hour or so ago; forty minutes instead of
thirty. I don't like broadcasting my weaknesses as I did earlier in this post
but I'll be damned if I am going to let my own 'crappy' self stop me from
writing these books. I will not expend energy on arrogance when I can let it go
through my fingertips. This is the only way (psychologically) I have found to
be free to write with Amorella in my head. Honesty comes first. People who are
dishonest and know it have to live with all that self-crap in their head. To each
herorhis own.
Sounds like more arrogance to me. - Amorella
I don't care, that's how I feel.
To each herorhis own, boy, I agree with you
on that. Be cool, dude. Post. - Amorella
2229
hours. Grandma's Story 12 is complete.
I agree. Drop in and post. - Amorella
***
Grandma’s Story 12 ©2013, rho, nfd
Grandma made herself comfortable sitting cross-legged on a sand
dune and began as the sun rose. This story takes place about twenty six hundred
years ago. This particular setting is routed in trade between Egypt and ancient
Ireland. The two young people involved are Princess Teah Tephi of Egypt and
Prince Eireamhon of Ireland. You can look them up in the Irish legends if you
like.
Eireamhon called Teah his princess. Supposedly, Teah Tephi was really the
daughter of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah. Zedekiah had allied himself with
the Egyptian Pharaoh Apries. Many Hebrews went with King Zedekiah to Egypt but
eventually the Hebrews were sent to exile in Babylonia.
The story told is that Pharaoh Apries hid Zedekiah's daughter Teah
Tephi, and she kept a title of princess to the pharaoh for protection. Whether
she was truly a daughter of Zedekiah, only her mother and old Grandma know.
When Teah left Egypt, she brought a few small stones from her
original home in Judah and locks of hair from her family to keep her company.
She was told her father had been driven into exile. She came to think her
father had died in the desert or drowned.
The stories always made Teah suspicious and this is one of the
reasons she didn't mind leaving Egypt one of the reasons she didn’t mind leaving
Egypt for Ireland. She felt she could always return to Egypt if she so desired,
not even her husband Prince Eireamhon was going to stop her.
On the boat that followed the trade routes of those days Teah said
to her husband, “I brought my Judah with me,” and she showed her husband three
small rocks. Her eyes widened with enthusiasm, “I will keep these. These will bring
us luck.”
The prince continued smiling, but secretly thought, he Irish will think
her a fool for bringing these stones from her homeland, or worse, they will
treat it as an insult to our Irish stones. Prince Eireamhon politely suggested,
“Put them in something so they will not be lost.”
Eireamhon wants me to hide them, thought Teah. I can tell when he
is lying through this tongue.
Once the two arrived at Tara, not to far from present Dublin,
Princess Teah was presented to the High King. “I have a present for you from my
own country of Judah,” she said. “This small stone is from the pillow upon
whose head of Jacob, our ancient patriarch who rested at Bethel. He was the
grandson of our first patriarch, Abraham. It was at Bethel while resting on the
stone pillow Jacob had his visions of angels.”
The High King appeared interested because Ireland too had its
ancient stones. He asked, “How big of a stone is this piece broken from?”
She stretched her arms to measure its size, about twenty-six
inches. She moved her hands in to sixteen inches, and then raised her right
hand above the other about eleven inches. Then she added, “It weighed over
three hundred pounds.” And this is a small piece of it."
The king cautiously continued, “Does this stone have power?”
“Since
Jacob dreamed of angels while sleeping on it,” said Teah cleverly, “it is
surely possible an angel’s touch is still within the stone though no one knows
for sure.”
The
king responded, “Perhaps we should construct a replica of the stone pillow and
strike the small stone to it so that the angel may move from the small piece to
the larger one.”
“This
is an excellent idea,” chimed the Princess.
When
the replica of the reddish stone was complete as carved, Princess Teah saw to
it that it appeared so very much like the original she once saw in Judah. In
great secret ceremony, the king struck the larger stone with Teah's stone chip.
“As it was a pillow,” the king decreed, “it will rest under the high king’s chair.”
Stories
create their own traditions. The replica sitting under the High King of Ireland's chair eventually found its way to the Scottish kings where it became known as the
"Stone of Destiny". More time passed and in 1952 Queen Elizabeth was
crowned in the chair with the same stone underneath. The Scots don't
believe this story, and I doubt the Irish do either. Some stories are beyond
belief. Only Grandma Earth knows the truth.
People can spend their lives making up
things,
And so miss the sweet songs the little
bird sings.
747 words
***
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