The Blue Girl Rose is blooming in the yard... this is the bush that sombody gave to my mother, and ended up in my front yard. I posted about it before but nothing too important...Last night, I went to some darned seminar about 'wellness' products... a network marketing thing. A friend of mine is involved in it, and they just wanted to 'share' it with me. I listened to several motivational speakers telling me all about how wonderful everything is... I don't know if you've ever been to these things... but here's the rub...
They stand up there and tell you about the miraculous effect of their products in their lives. Just to let you know, the products include magnets in your shoes, mondo expensive matresses{with magnets included in the stuffing} some machine that makes hexagonal water {?} special air filters, dietary supplements, red-wave lights, and every other silly thing you've ever dreamed of. Then a bunch of people stand up and tell you how all these wonderful products have cured their MS, diabetes, back injuries and general malaise. Then the speakers come back and tell you that they make no medical claims, even though they just did.
Then they tell you how as a GOOD AMERICAN you are almost OBLIGATED to be a successful network marketer... (even though the company itself is based in Japan, it's still evidentlyvery much AMERICAN to spend your money on things made in other countries.) Then they make some amusing plays on words, then they tell you how stress is killing us all, and how they're soooo happy to SHARE (for a price) this OUTSTANDING SUCCESS PROGRAM with you so that you can have lots of money and spend all this time with your children (family values is a big marketing tool for this bunch) etc, and so on and so forth, and would all the Special Guest please stand up so that they can give you an application and a small plastic bracelet, at which point I felt a hand on my back pushing me out of my seat, whereupon I informed someone that if they didn't remove their hand from my back they were going to draw back a bloody stump and we'll see if that magnet in your shoe cures that...
Now, I'm pretty open minded. If my next door neighbor, or my cousin, or someone I actually knew was cured by strapping a magnet to their butt... I might be impressed. But I'm sitting here in this room, invited by someone who is telling me what a wonderful, successful and healthy life they're leading, even though I know for a fact that they've been laid up fighting the flu for the past 4 weeks. And on the other side of me, is some guy I've just met, telling me what a wonderful, successful and healthy life he's had since begining these products, even though not 30 minutes ago he was talking about these awful migraines he's had for the past 2 weeks... (I'm thinking the magnet headband might be giving them to him...) and scattered throughout the room are dozens of people who keep telling everyone how this WELLNESS program has helped them sooooo much, and, quite frankly, they don't look well... I mean, maybe they are well, I certainly don't know. But what's the point of being well if you look like you've got one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel? Quite frankly, given a choice, I wouldn't mind being on deaths door, as long as I looked good.
After all this, I did a truly American thing, and went to a bar to have an alcoholic beverage and a good rant to any poor soul in hearing distance.
And now, I have to clean the house...
And this final pic is the only hybrid tea rose I have here in my yard... Someone gave this rose bush to my mom as a gift, and then she gave it to me... so, here's Blue Girl... even though I think it's more lavender than anything else... pardon the dried edges to the petals... she's in a very exposed area and I think the wind dried her out some...
