In fact, I see the whole universe as a re-treat center...omg...omg...omg...what if it is indeed?

Anyway, I don't mean to confuse myself, just want to say that umm...I am already working on it, the creation of a wonderful retreat center just like the one my parents built back in the day.   You didn't know?   Oh.  My bad.  All my fault, I forgot to send out the memo that I am presently constructing a retreat center for everyone who might pass along this way and wants to drop in.  

Anyway, seeing as though my retreat center is still under construction (woman working signs are still everywhere) let me tell you about my parents' retreat center. 

Oh God. I missed that retreat center.  Oh, mom and dad...I wanna come home.

(Yike, where did that come from.  I am such a cry baby.) 

My parents' re-treat center is still standing there on the riverbank to this day...but right now, it's a re-treat center for monkeys and other sweet animals.  Someone who visited there recently mentioned that a monkey actually waved at him. lol.  I bet the monkey thought the guy was his long lost relative.

Okay, back to my parents' retreat center....er...not literally.

1.  It was sweet but smelled of food and mouth-watering baking...and if you look a little further back, you will see, me, me, me, a scrawny-legged, accident-proned, teenaged me, trying to make fudge, the very first thing I learned to cook.   Mmm, can u smell it.  Its so mouth-watering delicious even though it comes out all sticky like toffee.

2. My parents' re-treat center was a healing place for the whole world....and we were never out of visitors.  (Can u see me again in the back-ground, sitting at people's feet, lapping up each inspiring story? Oh, yes, I could never get enough stories out of our many visitors)

3.  In this retreat center, all were allowed to put their feet up and relax.

4.  There were no stupid, my-retreat-is-better-than-your-retreat rules.  My parents would never tell someone to take off their shoes...or how prim and proper they should be or how goody-two-shoes they should act when sitting on the furniture.   I mean, if you know Mother Earth, you will know my parents were similar.  I mean, Mother Earth never tells u not to pick too many fruits right?  She trust that you are picking the whole bloody fruit tree dry because you're in dire need not dire greed, right?  Exactly. My parents were like that.  I say 'were' because my papa is no longer here and my mother now lives in my sister's retreat center.  (lol, funny..that....wherever my mom dwells, a retreat center exists...and my children are benefiting enormously. They are always going over to Grandma for breakfast or just plain ol' loving.)

5. All were welcome at my parents' retreat center, black, white, red, vagabond, scamps, bums, king, queens and beggars.  In fact, my dad's entire work force consisted of the kinds that people would caution other people to avoid.  But daddy's kindness brought out the kindness in these men and women.  They were loyal and sweet and treated me like a princess. So there.

6. Oh, its not as if every experience in this retreat were great ones.  I mean, there were times when my cousins visited in their sophisticated shoes and treated me like I was the bumpkin of the pumpkin universe...but my parents never noticed...only noticed when I was mean to the snubs.

7. And yes, this retreat center did get visited by the occasional Up-to-no-gooders but ha, if they steal anything, my parents would practically beg them to steal more stuff.  Ya know, my parents' kindness were something I never understood until I was no longer living at their re-treat center.  I mean take this scenario....a bad guy tries to beat up your own brother....so your own brother defends himself and ended up breaking the bad guy's arm but instead of congratulating your brother, your parents softly tells your brother that he is in the wrong....and then they pay a visit to the bad guy....gives him money to take care of himself until his arm was fully healed.  I know. I know but u know what,  to this day, the bad guy is now a good guy and treated my parents like they were..um...oasis in a parched desert.  Go figure.

There was another time when a guy stole 888 dollars from this retreat..........but the very next day his wife brought the money back with the words...."it would be a sin to steal from people like you."  However, sweet universe of mine, my baby brother was not so forgiving...becuz the very next week he was on the coconut tree, the 888 bandit arrived and asked him to pick some coconuts for him and my little brother was like, "that'll cost you 888."  Lol.

U know what, I really don't think my parents knew the secret to life...just that they were born with kind genes...either that or goat bit them...or they fell from a compassionate tree. 

However, they made me see that if someone practiced loving rules in other people's retreat centers, the same kind of people will grace their home.........and mind u, there are times when undesirable guests did visit, but once they left (with a whole cartful of free groceries) we never saw them again.  Oh, I'm sure they wanted to come back but the universe probably figured out that I never wanted to see them again. Lol.  Its almost as if someone is not deserving to grace our retreat center, they would never find it again...even though the doors were literally wide open...

I have also learned from being born on my parents' retreat center....that in every good guy there is a bad person and in every bad person there is a good person.   You don't agree?  Well, next time u are drowning, and a bad guy comes to rescue u, tell him to go away and wait for a guy u considered 'good.'   Yike, I could tell u a few true stories but those are tales for another day.

Savvy?

Uh huh, me too even though I am high on madness once again.

Hugs and smiles and may you one day grace my divine retreat center with your divine presence becuz your presence is the best present.

What makes something sacred? 

Well, um, our thinking can sure make everything takes on a sacred shape but that doesn't mean its sacred, right?   Right?  Right?

Yike. No answer.

Okay, fine,  let's see if my current heroine knows any better...


So there she was, front row seat and all, this very fictional, smart-mouth Missy and know-it-all-diva heroine of Amy's novel in progress.

 And Miss Heroine  is listening to him, Mr. Hero speak to a room-full of people and as he talks, Missy is busy in her head, working overtime to eagerly drink in all his weak points, feeling smug each time she thinks he said something that proved he didn't know everything....er...but that was only once...er...half of once...okay, truth be told, she isn't exactly sure because she never even heard the beginning of that last paragraph because this little irritating prototype rat, oversized hybrid brother of Mr. Hero who is sitting next to her kept on distracting her with  the most annoying whisper every five minutes or so and the latest one wheezed out was. "Would you like to be intimate friends with me?"

Some nerves!!!!   The bloody little twerp of twerps-

And the thing is Miss Heroine hadn't intended to be in front row seat with this little annoying rat, had found the perfect seat in the back row, next to this handsome greek figure who was giving her sweet, sweet attention and just as the conversation turned to steamy, Mr. Hero appeared and beckoned with one finger for her to follow him.   And like some stupid, little puppy with no life, she followed him and took the only remaining seat in the front row he indicated. 

Well, it was too late to change her mind because as soon as she realized he wanted to keep an eye on her and babysit his little Dudley of a brother, it was too late for he had already began to speak.

What awful nerves, the bad pig!!! Oh!!! She fumed.  He was so going to pay big time for his arrogance.   

So naturally, Missy's been seething the whole time, waiting for an opportune moment to get back at him.  She's busily glaring at his little oversized rat of a spoiled brother when something he said caught her attention.

"....isn't that what makes everything profane in this universe of ours?"  Mr. Hero pauses for effect.

Everyone laughs at this point but Missy, all impulsiveness, did no such thing and instead stuck her hand up in the air.

"It's not time to ask questions." Little Annoying brother of Mr. Hero supplied the obvious in another loud irritating whisper.

Oh God, too late.

Mr. Hero is slightly taken aback and then something that appeared suspiciously like laughter took rapid birth in his eyes.  "Yes? You have a question?"

"Yes.  No.  Um...you're wrong." Gulp.  "Everything is sacred."

  "Everything?" He lifted one thoroughly amused eyebrow in query. "And ‘everything' encompasses exactly what?"

Dry swallow.  "Everything, everyone, actions, inactions, emotions-"

He was clearly surprised.   "You considered what Hitler did as sacred?  And how about that pedophile on last night's news who sodomized and killed a five year old?"

Oh, bummer.  Miss Heroine and her blabber mouth, runaway tongue, now how the hell was she going to get herself out of this little...er...huge jam without losing face?  And her face is indeed getting redder by the minute because instead of going on with his boring speech, Mr. Hero is waiting for an answer.

Can anyone help her out?   If you were writing this book and you wanted to save your heroine's face, how would you get her out of this jam?

Don't forget, you don't have all the time in the world, Mr. Hero is waiting for an answer.

Should we let the gloating bastard win?  I mean, he has won so many bloody rounds already!!!

Should she say, "um, you didn't let me finish that question...I was going to say, everything  is sacred and everything is not?" Would that cut it?  Would he see right through her lie that she never intended to add more to her "everything is sacred" line.

Damn. What a dilemma.   How are we going to get Miss Pagli out of this red-faced jam? What should we have her say that will make Mr. all-knowing-bastard and his rapt audience look at her with awe...instead of amusement and other unnamed horrors of this universe?

Yike.  What a dilemma indeed.  Or is it?

LMAO