Open eyes, open ears

The cardboard box was the kind used to store books because it was small, perfectly square, and well constructed with a fitted lid that had her name written on it. Filly had been cleaning and had found the box under a pile of blankets, and her husband must have brought it home. She opened the lid and inside, wedged between pieces of wadded up loose leaf paper and news paper was a big chunk of granite.

Filly did not know why her name was on the lid and she did not know why the box with her name had this large granite rock. But she knew all about granite, from her deep geologic history cultivated over years of dealing with things that, like granite, were intrusive. The granite inside the square box was not perfectly square.

Granite was the most predominantly used material for building structures, and it was famous for structures like the empire state building and Mt. Rushmore. Because it was igneous, it was a “rock that filled in the gaps” so nothing escaped or was left out.

Filly decided that it was a sign that she was like granite, structurally sound, widely distributed (her writing) and formed by many processes that were considered intrusive, an analogy she thought was clever on her part.

Filly had been talking the day before to a lady at the ballet school and the lady who had a student at the school, who was home schooling all her children, said that it struck her that parents who send their kids off “to the Romans”, would obviously end up having kids who “thought and acted like Romans”.
To herself, Filly thought of the old “If in Rome, do as the Romans do” quote, and, like the homeschooling mom, had realized that she did not want to turn over the education of bright children, to “do as the Romans do” because “Rome Fell”.

Similarly Filly thought that if she was going to be around stones (or stoners) she would need to find the big gaps like igneous rock, and so she did. She had no intention of doing like the Romans.

Filly wondered if, before Rome fell, they felt a lot of “pride” in their “culture” even though it was immoral. She had seen a black garbage disposal truck that said. Texas Pride Disposal, and the innocent play on words made her laugh. She had seen another disposal truck that said “no dumpster left behind” which also made her laugh. No reason, just funny to her.

She put the lid back on the square box and stepped outside for her walk in the eighty seven percent humidity and ninety degree temperature at seven am. That much humidity was good for the skin, she told herself, like walking in a sauna. Most people did not like to walk in a sauna however, but oh well. She was gonna. Filly thought of the 100 mile race in Leadville later in the summer, that her son was training for. IF he could do THAT…
As she walked, quickly because it burned more calories since more effort was exerted, she saw a truck approaching that looked like a shrimp trawler on wheels.

The grey beaten up truck had poles swinging from an angle on both sides and various things stacked in the bed of different heights that were indistinguishable.

There was even a fake dog, like a grey German shepherd, glued to the side of the truck. What could someone find or catch in a net, from those who were not paying attention to their surroundings. A trawler carried a net and the Net was symbolic of the internet. Those catching things in “the net” were often unsavory and disreputable looking, if this truck was any indication. No sign on the side, probably undercover, hiding its true purpose.

Filly had noticed that there were trucks that were not resident owned, that “trawled” the neighborhood “trash” on the day that pick up happened. They would go early, right after people put out their trash and before the trash actually came. Smart way to recycle, Filly thought, because the trash people just threw things away. People threw out benches, lawn chairs, tables, umbrellas, bicycles, children’s toys, appliances and more.

Sometimes people would put a sign that said “not trash, for Veteran pick up” and sometimes they would have a sign that said “Free”, usually on an old sofa that had probably had pet debris on it as well as other bacterial residues that made them undesirable. The neighborhood was aware of the trawlers, and the trawlers, like vultures, provided a quick means of disposal for things that nobody seemed to want.

Thinking about trash made Filly think about the new Reacher book she was reading where he was in London and Paris and stopping an assassination with the help of a business companion Casey Nice. When he saw her, he must have thought “niiice”, because she was young blond and pretty, which made her name a great story line. She was the kind of person who was the moral opposite of the octopussy James Bond girl. The man in the Reacher book, Joey, who was protecting the assassin, was described as having hands as big as trash cans (trash hands?) and fingers as big and hard as soda cans, welded together…too big to fit in a trigger of a gun.

Nice apparently was an acronym for National Institute of Clinical Excellence, a British government health care organization on the website of PMC or PubMed Central. But in the book she was from the USA and Filly liked how the name was interspersed in the book, making the word “niiice” a parallel for all that was happening lol.

Clinical Excellence, on the one hand and Casey on the other hand, should both not depend on meds, and in the book the number of “pills” that Casey Nice kept in order to prevent anxiety, though insignificant, were not really needed, which she learned later. Discussion of the pills made for some funny parts in the book because according to Reacher, her “health” was already established by her clean lifestyle and was rooted in her belief systems.

Nice’s new role on the job did not prevent her from being proficient, in spite of her inexperience, and she was “Casey at the bat”, pretty much batting a thousand only she was thinking “Astro”. Reacher often compared the physical punishment he exhibited, using his fists or elbows, to the aerodynamics of a baseball bat so the name Casey aligned with his baseball thinking.

Reacher liked using famous baseball players as fake names for himself which he did in another book pretending to be a Yankee Baseball player Aaron Ward, which was fun. He also, in one book recognized that someone was calling him for help because the code was Juliet Romeo, he deciphered as being the initials of his name Jack Reacher. In the previous book Filly had read, the two opium funded druggies, were two bad guys code named Romeo and Juliet. Both men, though, were in love with drugs, not people. Sad, Filly thought. No reason to commit suicide in either case. Better to stand down, and start caring. Caring about something other than drugs.

Casey also stood with the law, even though she was state department, and Reacher said all police do not like Government, including US Police and world wide police. He told her that the reason she took anxiety meds was because she did not trust her “people” but in contrast, men in the army, DID trust their “brothers” which was very confidence inspiring. Reacher told Casey to join the army.

The many layers of this story were so very interesting.
AI got involved in mirroring the story as well, posting a list of books to read, that, according to Filly’s interpretation, told a story about the story, which was what created the layers…kind of like giving a artificial narrative of the book she was reading. Deciphering the artificial narrative actually gave information.

One other thing in the book, that Filly could relate to…was the the name of the bad guy Kott, which also meant King of the table and had to do with arm wrestling. Filly had seen mirroring with her own life regarding Armstrong as a name, because she had beat a guy arm wrestling years ago. She thought it was funny… and had seen that mirrored in Hawaii five O with the name of one of the characters. He was not the king …not hardly. lol

As she walked on, through the hot humid streets, she saw a lady, kind of barrel shaped, walking down the driveway, across the front of her yard on the street, up the sidewalk, and across the yard back to the driveway, in a square. Over and over. What was bizarre to Filly was, not only the small square she was walking, but also that, from a distance, her head looked like it was put on backwards because the back looked like the front.

The lady also walked sort of robotic like, with her knees coming up too far, making each step look a bit precarious, balancing the weight that protruded from her midsection. But Filly also was walking to lose weight so she dismissed that weirdness as just a way to attract attention. All the people in the world who wanted to improve themselves, were all partners in life, choosing to do something constructive instead of just being a couch potato.

The lady must be doing her walking, which was good, but Filly had not seen her before even though she had passed this way many times before. She was walking in a SQUARE. She thought about that…for a bit.

OHHHHHH NOW Filly knew what that meant. Square was an acronym for “Software quality Assessments and Recommendations”. Filly had written about how AI needed to be repaired and if life were like a big quilt, the patches over bad parts needed to be for the whole quilt, not just one part. The patches were the “square”. The lady walking in a square was letting Filly know that her “patches” were being evaluated and tested.

On another level, Filly had written that she was a “circle” for squares. A circle patch had no wasted fabric. No sharp edge where things could come undone. And most of all, no need to “blend in” because the places that were weak or bad, needed to be obvious, not hidden. A circle, not a square, could ZERO IN on the problem. Admitting flaws, and then fixing them, (instead of hiding them, or overlooking them because someone was paid off to look the other way, like people in the Reacher book were doing), was good business Filly thought.

Filly continued walking past the lady walking in the square of her front yard. Filly’s mom had a quote she loved that said “bloom where you are planted”. And at that moment, Filly saw a flower peeking out of the concrete. Filly knew she had been “planted” by God and she knew that no matter what, even if she were planted in a sea of concrete, she was going to bloom. There was always a crack, a door, a light, when all seemed lost, and that was where God lived. In the hopeful places…in the places where people could bloom.

When she got home, Filly sat down on the chair and was watching “when calls the heart” when little Mister came up to distract her and Tater. He wanted to watch Lion King 2 and Filly and Tater were too engrossed in “When calls the heart” to pay attention to him. So to get her attention Little Mister put his finger in one of Filly’s ears and then walked around and put his finger in her other ear, while laughing and asking her to get the lion King 2 movie. Filly laughed but reminded Little Mister that the movie was at his mom’s house. He got a snack instead.

God always responded to things Filly thought. She was not surprised, and even smiled, when she picked the bible verse for the day, “and he took him aside from the multitude and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit and touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven he sighed and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened”.

Reacher saw how the circular “patch” worked. It was different. It was effective. His ears and tongue were opened.