The Goat Woman

It is odd how things happen sometimes. Yesterday, I went with my mom to a doctor’s appointment. While we were sitting in the waiting room, I picked up the only magazine near by, which happened to be a "People Magazine". The magazine was a few weeks old, but I was just killing time, flipping through the pages. I don’t normally read "People". Toward the back of the magazine there was an article on a woman named Kaziah Hancock who paints pictures of soldiers who have died in Iraq. Apparently, she felt such sorrow for a family who lost their son; she wrote to them and asked for pictures of him so that she could paint his portrait. Now, she has several other artists giving their time and talents to do other paintings of soldiers. I did not have time to read the whole article, but this morning I looked her up online. I was quite impressed with her paintings, but more impressed by her compassion and willingness to give something to the families of fallen soldiers. You know what a fan I am of Michael Fay and his soldier paintings. Kaziah’s paintings are quite good too, but scrolling down through the gallery on this website is very sobering. It is worth the time to see her website.

The name of her site, Kaziah the goat woman, sort of threw me. It reminded me of one of my wacko neighbors in Northern NM who would make some moonbats seem normal. I have mentioned some of my neighbors in prior posts. You remember the area where we lived had once been a Buddhist commune of people called "Hermanites" - until Herman the Guru slept with several of the wives in the commune. Also there was the neighbor, L. Wiseman, who changed her name to L. Wisewoman after her divorce. One neighbor, in particular, we called "the goat-woman" because she had a herd of goats that she kept. She said they were good pack animals for hiking. She was quite horrified that we used our goat for Jesse to practice her "goat tying" which is a rodeo event for girls. In a very haughty voice, Sylvia the goat woman asked, "Do you think your goat likes being tied?" We just answered yes, but did not tell her we were planning on eating the goat after rodeo season.

I almost did not pause to look at the article because of my association with the crazies in NM. Do not let the website title confuse you. This woman seems to be someone who wants to show her love for our troops.