tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91909843331152754412024-03-14T01:14:22.799-04:00The Back BurnerReflections of a Kitchen WitchUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger258125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-34076016404952222082020-04-02T18:59:00.000-04:002020-04-02T18:59:35.684-04:00SuperpowerBlow the dust off memory of words long unused<br />
Be honest, if only in the night of quiet<br />
Where ragged breathing echoes in heated touch.<br />
<br />
Feel your way through the dark<br />
Who is the counselor to the therapist?<br />
What dark queen of the dead counsels me?<br />
<br />
Gray night haunts the living, echoing in anxiety and bitterness<br />
As I seek to comfort the lost when they cannot buy sustenance<br />
And avoid the landlord; no quarters under the cushion.<br />
<br />
The world turned upside down, gone crazy, lurching from chaos to crisis<br />
Yet delicate blossoms of pink mock the eerie cry of children at midday<br />
And the clean sands of deserted beaches.<br />
<br />
I reach and amid the rubble of memory<br />
Words pour out, not mine, but good<br />
And once again I feel humbled by the call.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-42334150524771382002019-11-06T00:04:00.000-05:002019-11-06T00:04:39.920-05:00These things come in 3'sThis morning we lost our oldest cat, age 12, Firedancer. He was born in our home to Marmalade and Bear. A friend sent these wonderful pictures tonight. Note, his ears weren't open yet. And yes, he was the color of a Crayola Crayon.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sO7rftjCw-Q/XcJTQAcHF3I/AAAAAAAA_dk/a6baDojbEqQIiFdD-tO0TBmty0M50OVeQCEwYBhgL/s1600/received_411576509796655.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="720" height="208" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sO7rftjCw-Q/XcJTQAcHF3I/AAAAAAAA_dk/a6baDojbEqQIiFdD-tO0TBmty0M50OVeQCEwYBhgL/s320/received_411576509796655.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Firedancer with Lugh</div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OMRvTEzDvGk/XcJTT9BWMSI/AAAAAAAA_dY/VcuQ0ao_lTEfQxDwAQRczfsp8HMlc65OgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/received_1198915806977590.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="470" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OMRvTEzDvGk/XcJTT9BWMSI/AAAAAAAA_dY/VcuQ0ao_lTEfQxDwAQRczfsp8HMlc65OgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/received_1198915806977590.jpeg" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Firedancer with Lugh and Lucy</div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rLNlDG8qyQI/XcJTT6trOQI/AAAAAAAA_dc/tq8Puaj4J0cHfJ7dsqIGqRgWQz5HTdvmACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/received_2641382989285525.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="470" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rLNlDG8qyQI/XcJTT6trOQI/AAAAAAAA_dc/tq8Puaj4J0cHfJ7dsqIGqRgWQz5HTdvmACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/received_2641382989285525.jpeg" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Firedancer with Lugh</div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-13735631449079095262019-10-29T23:41:00.000-04:002019-10-29T23:41:07.979-04:00HeartbrokenPhaedra took a turn for the worst and died about 8:30 this morning in my arms. There are no words.<br />
<br />
And to make it even worse, we have sadly made the decision to send Tully across the Rainbow Bridge tomorrow. She most likely has FIP and has passed from the dry type to the wet. She is beginning to suffer and it is time to let go.<br />
<br />
I grieve.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-17000957928171001372019-10-26T23:40:00.000-04:002019-10-26T23:40:17.689-04:00And she is eating!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gLikjhh1HNA/XbUP8Qx48kI/AAAAAAAA_VQ/cpO_ijzUTc8gWiSX7TqeRaK6qNZsE3OnACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/received_580282672709678.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gLikjhh1HNA/XbUP8Qx48kI/AAAAAAAA_VQ/cpO_ijzUTc8gWiSX7TqeRaK6qNZsE3OnACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/received_580282672709678.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
Phaedra is about 8 weeks old. She wasn't interested in food earlier today so the vet gave her a supplement. Her eyes are very irritated, so after washing them, she still can barely see. Neverthless, we just washed her face, I offered her kitten formula. Five syringes later, she is full and has fallen asleep. Looks like she is going to be fine.<br />
<br />
On a sadder note, I have a furchild with FIP. I strongly suspect she will be crossing the rainbow bridge soon. Tully is only two, so it is heart breaking.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iDtuG3zBnqg/XbURLRhmTXI/AAAAAAAA_Vg/rdAeafziavoMJIWE-ESP6UptthVxtNJnwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_20191026_172829892.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iDtuG3zBnqg/XbURLRhmTXI/AAAAAAAA_Vg/rdAeafziavoMJIWE-ESP6UptthVxtNJnwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_20191026_172829892.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-23547812327586624612019-10-26T18:58:00.000-04:002019-10-26T18:58:36.341-04:00I am a humble servant of the Lady Bastet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-4-UiJIA4U/XbTKng2j6XI/AAAAAAAA_U0/q8ZmMRG6_h8XZGjm-Rsj6ZHqFwcH9znEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_20191026_183224973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-4-UiJIA4U/XbTKng2j6XI/AAAAAAAA_U0/q8ZmMRG6_h8XZGjm-Rsj6ZHqFwcH9znEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_20191026_183224973.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
Phaedra is the newest member of the household. She threw our home into quite the tizzy this morning. But let me start at the beginning...<br />
<br />
I meant to drop some money off to a friend last night night. I have been making payments on my Honda for years. Things have improved lately, and I wanted to make an extra payment. So I took the payment to my friend's home this morning on the way to work. A FedEx truck was blocking the road a couple of houses before my friend's home. It took a minute for my tired brain to register the site of a tiny kitten in the road. I watched as the driver got out and moved her to the side of the road. We have over 20 rescues and don't need another. Sigh. I resolved to check on her in five minutes when I left the neighborhood.<br />
<br />
I dropped off the envelope and turned the car around. The result is obvious. Two neighbors from two different houses had appeared and were staring at the alien ball of fur. I debated. They were not approaching it....let alone picking it up.<br />
<br />
So I stopped. "We don't know what to do with it."<br />
<br />
I responded with take it to a vet. Blank stares. I tried again. "Tractor supply has cheap antibiotics. The eyes need Neosporin." They stare at me like I have three heads. Deep sigh. "I'll take her". My partner's gonna kill me. We agreed. No more cats.<br />
<br />
I scooped her up. She was fine till we got to the car. Then I got the first bite. I didn't let go. I got her in a box with two more bites. I folded the lid. Took her home. Woke Cameron. "I've been very naughty....her name is Phaedra."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-19402696224832614182019-09-12T22:53:00.000-04:002019-09-12T23:00:25.651-04:00Blowing off the dustIt's been the better part of three years....a long three years of Trumpian dystopia. Never thought sci-fi would become real life. After the election, I wrote daily then just a few times a week, then none. It was too debilitating to keep up the writing. News happened too fast and became too outrageous. I began watching MSNBC every night, aghast at what has befallen my country.<br />
<br />
The first three months after the election I found myself randomly crying. I drank almost daily. Then my doctor had a talk with me about blood sugar and cholesterol and I stopped. Sober was harder, but so be it.<br />
<br />
So for three years I have read. Watched. Worked in my therapy room to help clients who likewise struggled with the crazy around us. We still shake our heads, wonder if one day those of us that are gay, trans, Hispanic might find ourselves rounded up.<br />
<br />
Tonight I deleted 60 blog posts written after the election. I felt so bitter, so shocked, so angry that those posts were the way I found to survive the crazy. Today I feel less desperate, but just as certain of disaster. All of the damage done cannot be healed in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I have put one foot in front of the other and will continue to do.<br />
<br />
So I am going back to writing, now and again, about all things in my heart. I am not going to research and write the kind of posts I did before the election, but I will return to thoughts, struggles, and insights. I miss writing. Indeed, I resent the political climate that so overwhelmed me that it silenced my voice.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-73557021769516195142016-12-04T12:48:00.000-05:002016-12-04T12:48:22.447-05:00Heartland Pt 5I continue working through 'What's the Matter with Kansas" and have arrived a the midpoint of the book, which points out that, unlike the confederate flag waving south, "the backlash in full cry without the familiar formula of racial conflict to serve s an interpretative guide". Indeed, the author argues that in Kansas "right-wing partisanship is an equal-opportunity affair, with a ready-made complaint for every demographic and a grievance for every occasion." This has a new relevance, folks, as Sam Brownback is under consideration for Trump's cabinet. He is named in the book.<br />
<br />
In Kansas, the conservatives have appropriated language of prejudice and applied to their moderate foes, accusing them of bigotry and disliking evangelicals in the same "way that actual bigots dislike minorities". Some conservatives like Sam Brownback go much further. He's befriended the African-American caucus by constructing a museum and the Latino's with an open boarder policy. But when he sought election in 1996 against Democrat Jill Docking of Wichita, he didn't hesitate to flood the state with TV commercials reminding voters of her maiden name Sadowsky. And then there were the mysterious phone calls the week before the election reminding voters that "Docking is a Jew."<br />
<br />
Remember that the stereotype of a Jew is "affluent, alien, cosmopolitan, liberal, and above all, intellectual." In other words, we have become a country defied by elite's vs the plain people. And the elites, according to Rush Limbauh, include "the medical elites, the sociology elites, the education elites, the legal elties, the science elites...and the ideas thus bunch promotes through the media." This election wasn't won on policy, it was won on class warfare when a billionaire harnessed this elites<br />
resentment.<br />
<br />
FDR turned college professors loose on the economic structure of the nation. It was these intellectuals who designed the New Deal plan, giving the country social security. So when the Republicans "privatize" Medicare and gut social security, realize the resentment of that care for the country, which is known to be highly successful, will be torn down because of grassroots anger born on the wind of resentment of "the elites."<br />
<br />
A second anti-intellectual efflorescence came from the 50s, according to the book, in the form of Joe McCarthy when they unearthed a leftist conspiracy born in the highest-ranking families who were educated in the finest institutions. It was believed that the intellectuals betrayed capitalism; with repetition, it became common sense.<br />
<br />
Presently, anti-intellectualism is associated with "any deviation from a system of values that they alternately identify with God and the earth-people of Red America." By rallying against intellectuals, the author observes, they reject critical thinking and church hierarchy. It embraces charismatic preachers over any form of learned organization. Now if you are Republican doctor, professor or therapist, you align with the lower class by railing and grumbling about interfering professionals: "In every social issue Republicans perceive the same pattern: a conflict of authentic and natural and the democratic with arrogan and the meddling and the foolish." In every effort at reform, conservatives scream "interference!" And this is the overarching concern that Roe v Wade propagated. It was a top down change, and now gay marriage, that changed laws in most states in the union. It was imposed by the over-educated elites. In conservative's minds, the elites define life and marriage, disdaining conservative opinion. rs54=Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-1165493271221001422016-11-19T21:43:00.003-05:002016-11-19T21:43:46.002-05:00From What's the Matter with Kansas: Heartland Pt 4The next section of the book looks at the formation of the Republican control in Kansas. This quote might be one the most meaningful in the entire book:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Out here, remember, the gravity of discontent pulls to the right, to the right, farther to the right. The standard reaction of Kansas to the vulgar machinations of the state's self-perpetuating ruling class, to its cronyism and its brazen flaunting of its wealth, to its business scandals and the grinding destruction of farm communities, is to push ever deeper into the alienated right wing world of the culture wars.</blockquote>
So the way to cope with the unfairness of the universe, is to assert your righteousness and victimhood. Fox News feeds your knowledge that you are "unfairly and outrageously persecuted." It becomes identity. They become the victims of "unspeakable persecution by the ruling class, that is, liberals." By taking on the role of victim, conservatives are absolved of responsibility for their failures and justifies their rage and hatred for "depraved liberal elite". Worse, there are even those like Dwight Sutherland Jr from Kansas City, who argue splinter issues like abortion, gun control and evolution is Democratic strategy to keep conservatives in check. (I'm really not sure what the man is smokin'.)<br />
<br />
The author also takes a look at Kansas City media figure Jack Cashill who is a class warrior. On the one hand he criticizes privilege, while with the other hand he fawns over the region's business leaders. His skill lies in the ability to "make sense of the average person's disgruntlement while exempting laisssez-faire capitalism from any culpability." Mutual outrage against a common enemy like liberals allows disparate members of the community to be united.<br />
<br />
Significantly, Cashill argued that by 1994, after two years of Democrat leadership in Washington, the Midwest "were said to be living under an imposed federal regime that we were unable to question and powerless to control. Like the vanquished Confederacy under reconstruction, we were a conquered people." So all that assistance with federal jobs (and benefits), help with schools, aid to the housing authority and prosecution of a corrupt governor were turned into being called control!<br />
<br />
Tim Golba works on the line at the Pepsi bottling company, making it his life's mission to help increase the power of Kansas' conservative moment through Kansans for Life during the 80s and 90s. He recruited hard-line abortion conservatives. For him, it's all about principals: "They're all these business people, they have a ton of money, some of the wealthiest people in the country, but we've been able to beat them because they have no base." He believes Kansans don't vote for economic issues such as taxes or the economy. They vote to strike a blow for the cultural war. The same can be said for Trump's presidency. He has only a vague understanding of foreign policy, how to build a cabinet, how to fund infrastructure, or how to make taxes fair. But voters saw voting for him as a blow in the cultural war, despite his millions.<br />
<br />
Then there's Kay O'Connor who argued women's suffrage was a symptom of America's moral decline. She thinks government unions, especially teacher's unions, cause problems. She thinks tax cuts and free enterprise is going to fix most everything. She opposes progressive taxes, which she thinks is theft but is not wealthy herself. Her solution to urban decline is school vouchers and the low-wage economy. Market forces will fix it all. (OMG -- really????!!!!) In her world, everyone has a place and should be happy in their station. She undermines women, declaring she is obedient to my husband in all things moral". Despite this conservative Christian stance, she runs her campaign, is authoritative and is every bit an equal despite her determination to restore some sort of mythic social order of the past.<br />
<br />
Mark Gietzen, director of a Wichita Christian singles network, served as chairman of the local Republican party in the 90s. The Summer of Mercy changed the party forever, according to him. Thousands of conservative recruits campaigned door to door, for the first time, building a social movement that "shouted their fighting creed to every resident of the city, sharpening the differences, polarizing the electorate, letting everyone know the stakes." Meanwhile, the rival movement that traditionally spoke for the working class became Clinton's New Democrats. While the intent had been to accommodate the right with an emphasis on free market. Instead, they looked "dispirited, weak, spent." By removing basic economic issues from the table, only social issues were left to distinguish the parties. Soon pamphlets like <i>Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be a Registered Democrat Voter in America Today?</i> began circulating. And you wonder why Hillary Clinton couldn't win the heartland? Think about it. The Democratic party is about to make the same mistake again. Today I heard the man trying to be the new party chair arguing all the things we have in common like infrastructure and we need to work together. The Democratic party has forgotten what should have been learning from Bill Clinton's New Democratics. This talk from a one down position is going to look dispirited, weak and spent. And they will run right over us, building the wall, setting up Muslim interment camps, and putting more gilding in Trump Tower.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, as a result of the Democratic representative at the time voting for NAFTA which was originally proposed by republicans, republicans began separating themselves from Democrats by issues of abortions and guns. The next election was won by a Republican. "The inversion was complete: the Democrat could only count on support from the professional people who felt embarrassed by the Summer of Mercy and its aftermath." The polarization of the Heartland from the coasts was complete.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-55384489354222701052016-11-19T18:26:00.002-05:002016-11-19T18:37:33.813-05:00Side trip: Denny's, somewhere in the Deep SouthSomewhere in the deep south last night, a conversation took place. On one side of the table sat a white, 50-something high school graduate who draws like Donatello, loves comic books, and works at a textile mill on the second shift (previously introduced as True Heart).<br />
<br />
On the another side of the table sat my beloved Transgender priest Cameron, the mural artist, past Presbyterian now Episcopalian, was a factory worker currently (for the last 13 years if you don't count sporadic art commissions), late in life post-graduate school educated partner.<br />
<br />
On a third side sat me, the youngest 50 something, over educated, under payed therapist. A couple of tables away sat the usual Trump voters, staring at us suspiciously, guy smaller than the physically born guy at my table. You know the type. The "I want to punch you in the nose" person with his date. Yes, he listened to the entire conversation. No, it isn't coincidence that several times True Heart turned to stare him down or to remind the guy that he's much bigger.<br />
<br />
The wake of the election has rolled over our friends. While main stream America resumes their normal lives, we live on MSNBC and CNN, with occasional forays to enemy camps like The Hannity Show (radio) or Fox News to see what the other side is thinking. But even those closest to us are watching 60 Minutes as if the president-elect speaks truth and preaching "lets all get along". Meanwhile, Trump spent the week appointing a cabinet which promises to be racist, terrifying prowar, and more interested in lining his own pockets than serving the people. So when True Heart facebooked a reminder of when he gets off work and where to find him, we went.<br />
<br />
True Heart is not part of the elite. His parents are comfortably middle class, but after a divorce and five years of unemployment (ever wonder what happened when textile mills closed in the south - the great untold story) he lives with a friend, lives paycheck to paycheck, and works long hours in a textile mill. Wages in textile mills were never what they were with Labor Unions up north. Now they are even worse than they used to be. But after five years of unemployment, when this company found out the hard way that their oversees saving program had to come home when they couldn't find people with experience to do the job...unlike most folks in ended industries....True Heart went back to work. He'd spent most of the night on his knees and belly crawling around in machine oil, and since he wanted to give us a hug, found a throw away vest to keep it off of us.<br />
<br />
So we dissected the election, the fear, the ominous warning signs. We talked about George Takei who has been teaching classes for years about the Japanese interment camps but has suddenly been invited on to Fox MSNBC and interviewed by the NYTimes and Washington Post and tells us:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Stop and consider these words. The internment was a dark chapter of American history, in which 120,000 people, including me and my family, lost our homes, our livelihoods, and our freedoms because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. Higbie speaks of the internment in the abstract, as a “precedent” or a policy, ignoring the true human tragedy that occurred."</blockquote>
It was our friend, Misbehavin' who, before her death, created the logo for George "It's OK to be Takai" in the Star Trek communicator shape and rainbow colors on t-shirts. There were only a few exactly like that because of copy write laws, before they marketed similar but less illegal versions. I have the original. I have to wonder what she would say now. I promise it would have been loud and in your face.<br />
<br />
We talked about risk, our friends making plans to leave the country. I can't leave, I said. Too many cats. I'm too old. All excuses. Truth is, my job is here. Cameron agreed, and did True Heart. Despite our awareness of danger, we stay. But we aren't putting our heads back in the sand. We won't ever go back to "normal" while this man is president. Or Pence is VP.<br />
<br />
And I wonder. How many more conversations are out there? Plans being laid to hide friends who are at risk of deportation. Finding ways to support civil rights? Americans' wait and see attitude got us here...and I fear where it will take us.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-76834940115877271002016-11-15T11:49:00.001-05:002016-11-19T22:43:25.947-05:00The Building of an Us or Them in the Heartland of America Pt 3This morning President Obama cautioned against nationalism built around an us or them. As a marriage and family therapist, I have to say that anything built around an us or them is dangerous. And it touches the next blog entry I wanted to make anyway, as I work my way through What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.<br />
<br />
Bear in mind that the author obviously has to simplify, and I am going to simplify what he writes. It's obviously far more complicated than what I lay out here. But I am on a journey to understand my country. And this leg of the journey takes us to Wichita, Kansas. That's where the Us and Them became defined by the judgement of those who came to believe political parties should define morals, and forever left behind the division between the state and the church. Former Republican senator Sam Brownback didn't believe Kansans care about economic issues because the cause of poverty is spiritual rather than "mechanistic". He said Kansans have "set their sights on grander things,like the purity of the nation. Good wages, fair play in farm county, the fate of the small town, even the one we live in --all these things are distant second to evolution, which we will strike from the books, and public education, which we will undermine in a hundred inventive ways."<br />
<br />
So let's go sideways, for a moment. Mr Trump appointed someone to his cabinet who doesn't believe in climate change. Someone who is a known to have support a website that is anti-black, anti-woman, anti-Latino and anti-everything that is not male and white. Hmmm.... looks like we are getting a glimpse of how this began.<br />
<br />
Operation Rescue. Remember them? It was the "Summer of Mercy." Abortion was firmly supported by the people of Kansas until busloads of evangelical Christians arrive that July, 1991. (Before, it was Atlanta in 1988 and Los Angeles in 1990). While there were obviously people on both sides of the question of abortion, it was Operation Rescue that made those contradictions manifest. They "set up a conflict so unresolvable that everyone in the state would eventually have to choose up sides and join the fight." I would add eventually the nation. It is the attitude of if you're not for us then you are against us.<br />
<br />
So Pat Roberts gets involved, declaring "We will not rest until every baby....is safe in his mother's womb." The Christian right piled on and made their views manifest coast to coast on the airwaves. And these are the people who then became extremely politically active. Further, no one works harder than those who pushing extreme political action for the "the Kingdom of God."<br />
<br />
Moderate Kansans pushed back, telling the Wichita Eagle: "They want women to return to a time...when white gloves were required attire at afternoon teas, and when women were kept in their place by being taught that the men in their lives always knew best." Soon the moderate pushbacks made the Conservatives who were anti-abortion believe "that society's real victims were evangelical Christians."<br />
<br />
Ultimately, this division became a class war: "Not in the way tastes-and-values way our punditry defines class."<br />
<br />
So those "with the lowest per capita income and lowest median housing values consistently generated the strongest support for the conservative faction. The areas with the highest income and highest real estate values ....were just as reliably loyal to the moderate machine." So the situation completely flipped from what it was forty years before. Previously, those who were the most desperate were also the most radical.<br />
<br />
Conservatives came to define class as a matter of <i>authenticity: </i>"Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. What makes one a member of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility and the rest of the qualities that our punditry claims to spy in the red states that voted for George Bush." Let's just substitute the words Donald Trump. He talks like them and wears a ball cap like them, so therefore he's one of them.<br />
<br />
"Our culture and our schools and our government, backlashers insist, are controlled by an over educated ruling class that is contemptuous of the beliefs and practices of the masses of ordinary people. Those who run American, the theory holds, are despicable, self-important show-offs. They are effete, to use a favorite backlash term. They are arrogant. They are snobs. They are liberals." And that becomes "Liberals, in other words, are parasites."<br />
<br />
By breaking down social class definitions to authenticity instead of privilege and money, conservatives began rallying behind the very corporations and tax laws that cause them harm. But that's a different blog entry.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-10604199494019241652016-11-14T11:00:00.001-05:002016-11-14T11:18:22.875-05:00Understanding the Heartland Pt 2So first I read Hill Billy Elegy because the author was on MSNBC. Yeah, I'm a bleeding heart libral who gets her news from the Elite. I check their facts. I read their sources. I can't listen to Fox 2 minutes.<br />
<br />
Then I watched a commentator that I didn't like so much, the bastard voted 3rd party and I'm not real patient with people who throw their vote away in this election, but he talked about What's the Matter with Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heartland. It was published in 2004, but really is fleshing out a lot of those missing pieces.<br />
<br />
Let's step over to the back burner a moment. I'll tie it in, I promise.<br />
<br />
We moved to Arkansas when I was ten. My daddy decided he was going from Conservative Methodism to the Church of Christ (many believe they approximate a cult). He started attending college at Harding University. He got a preaching job for $100 a week he drove to Possum Grape Arkansas and preached Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Several families in the congregation were chicken farmers, and I've spent my fair share of time in a chicken house helping to collect eggs on a Sunday afternoon. Long, narrow buildings full of noise and odors. Those are all gone now, replaced by the same buildings owned by Tyson foods.<br />
<br />
Let's talk about my book.<br />
<br />
In Kansas it was farms, or companies like Boeing. There were no labor unions to protect people when Boeing decided to become a virtual corporation. They "outsourced", asking cities to bid against each other. They moved production overseas, picked fights with unions.Then 9/11 happened and the demand for planes plummeted.<br />
<br />
"The culprit is the conservatives' beloved free-market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for small town merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place. Deregulated capitalism is what has allowed Wal-Mart to crush local businesses across Kansas and, even more important, what has driven agriculture, the state's raison d'etre, to a state of near collapse."<br />
<br />
I knew some of this, but not all because I believed that capitalism was sacred. Here's what else he says: "But in reality the interests of [farmers and agribusiness] are more like those of the chicken and Colonel Sanders of backlash lore. And Colonel Sanders has been on an unbroken winning streak now for twenty-some years, with farm legislation, trade policy, and a regulatory climate all crafted to strengthen the conglomerates while weakening the farmer."<br />
<br />
He goes on to say; "Farming is a field uniquely unsuited to the freewheeling whirl of the open market. There are millions of farmers, and they are naturally disorganized; they can't coordinate their plans one with another. Not only are they easily victimized by powerful middlemen...but when they find themselves in a tough situation -- when, say, the price they are getting for wheat is low -- farmers do not have the option of cutting back production, as every other industry does. Instead, each of those millions of farmers work harder, competes better, becomes more efficient, cranks out more of the commodity in question....and thus makes the glut even worse and pushes the prices still lower."<br />
<br />
That's why the New Deal research on my previous blog. It brought price supports and acreage set-asides and loan guarantees. But agribusiness likes low farm prices because it means high profits for them. The Regan-Clinton area deregulatory climate led to to the ironically named Freedom to Farm Act which threw all the acreage into open cultivation and basically finished off the New Deal. Farmers didn't even seem to understand what this would mean. They over produced, prices plummeted, and everyone failed except the largest and most efficient farms. Finally it got so bad government stepped in again. But the largest farms got the most help.<br />
<br />
But we don't need any of the government interference.<br />
<br />
That's where I am now.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-70927440261774257972016-11-14T10:29:00.001-05:002016-11-14T11:11:15.611-05:00Understanding the HeartlandFirst a note of housekeeping. I do not tolerate trolls. My views are not up for debate. I have changed my setting so I moderate comments because if I don't like it, I get rid of it. My blog, my thoughts, my rules. I like readers, but the writing is for me.<br />
<br />
Back to writing....<br />
<br />
When things happen that I don't understand, my "go to" to research. Guess that makes me an elitist. And the best way for me to assimilate information is to act like I'm in school writing "reflection papers". So here we go.<br />
<br />
I grew up in the "armpit" of the midwest. Rice fields, mosquitos the size of a grape, and poverty. I didn't know it then, but we were privileged. I didn't know that my skin color and a three bedroom home, two cars and a job and a half in the house meant privilege because all the white people in my neighborhood, school, and church appeared to have the same. Except the country club set, but they didn't talk to me. It took living in a 30 year old mobile home and a sixteen year old car for me to understand I will never be as upwardly mobile as my parents, guaranteed by the student loan that gave me a career, but whose interest payments are more than $2400 a month, if I could make them.<br />
<br />
So with the loss of this election, I really needed to understand. I'm not saying I do, but that I am beginning to get glimpses of what has happened to my country while I was sidelined with getting out of Arkansas, getting away from a psychopath, and loosing my children. Yeah, I was a little distracted before I turned 40. Then I went to grad school and got distracted for another decade. But here I am. And I apologize to those in the midwest who were struggling and didn't get the help they needed.<br />
<br />
So let's have a history lesson. I'm looking to wickipedia for some basic background info. This is a blog, not a term paper ; )
<br />
<br />
1929-1932 banks didn't have depositor's insurance, there was no unemployment insurance, social security or medicaid. Income fell by over 50%. A quarter of the nation was out of work or underemployed. Eventually 5 million mortgages were foreclosed. According to Wicki: "Political and business leaders feared revolution or anarchy."<br />
<br />
FDR was elected, and promised a New Deal: "The New Deal represented a significant shift in politics and domestic policy. It especially led to greatly increased federal regulation of the economy. It also marked the beginning of complex social programs and growing power of labor unions. The effects of the New Deal remain a source of controversy and debate among economists and historians." Nevertheless, the New Deal put people to work, resulted in FDIC insurance for deposits, established the US Securities and Exchange commission to prevent another Wall Street crash and corporate abuses, and provided for farms and rural programs.<br />
<br />
Not everything he tried worked, but the economy shot up over the next ten years. The point is that the government, with many mistakes and side trips, became a last resort of protection for the people. Now I was raised in Indiana and then Arkansas, and have spent the last thirty years in Georgia and South Carolina. My family are conservative republicans. And I was raised to believe that all government interference is bad and competitive markets are always best. I was wrong.<br />
<br />
The purpose of "government interference" was to provide a safety net. I've drawn unemployment insurance. My current paycheck depends on children's medicaid payments. One day I hope to draw social security (downsides are a different discussion). The banking reform "offered unprecedented stability". Farmers benefited as the government paid for reduced output which raised prices. They could afford to be farmers again. Now we've turned that into something bad. We've pitted little farms against monopolized corporations (thank you Regan) and made it possible for the corporations to put most farms out of business. We've busted the labor unions who got fair wages for people and reasonable working conditions (I love you, Mother Jones). We've destroyed our own safety net. We sold our souls to companies like Tyson and Boeing, who then pitted us against each other, and sold it to us as free enterprise, bankrupting our people and our small towns.<br />
<br />
Worse, most people don't realize that's what we did. Thanks to the Christian right's involvement, it's become moral issues. We've forgotten the principal of separation of church and state.<br />
<br />
FDR's advisers "believed that excessive competition and technical progress had led to overproduction and lowered wages and prices, which they believed lowered demand and employment". What would they say now? We've elected a president who promises to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and to cut regulations on clean air.<br />
<br />
Since Mr Trump is uniquely unqualified to run a country and has never even been elected to the PTA, I'm going to look to the man who will really be running the show, possibly for the next 16 years. According to Brietbart, Mike Pence " opposed federal bailouts and economic interventions, called for returning control over education to states and local communities, and opposed numerous power grabs from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Communications Commission. He was also one of the foremost lawmakers opposing Obamacare, both before and after its passage."<br />
<br />
It looks to me like by the end of the next four years, we won't recognize this country. Listening to MSNBC and CNN over the weekend, it's clear that the freedom of the press is being threatened. Unlike other countries, no one can sue inside the US for libel the same way you can in other countries which is why President Obama couldn't go after the birthers despite the clear lie. Yeah, it's all going to change and some within 100 days. FDR brought about radical change in 100 days which is where that measuring stick came from. Holy cats, what will Mr Trump do?<br />
<br />
This is getting too long and I've not even gotten to the book I am reading. Let's end here. I needed to do a little research and organize my thoughts. We'll talk about What's the Matter with Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heartland next.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-64704178150388430322016-11-13T17:52:00.001-05:002016-11-13T17:52:20.797-05:00Post Election ThoughtsLike half of America, I watched last Tuesday night with fear and trepidation. Last spring I married my partner of 13 years, despite swearing I was waiting until the election results were clear. I feared what I happened in California, when gay people went to bed one night married,and woke the next morning not. Then I became angry. Angry at the fear. Angry at bigotry. Angry that human rights are still questioned, and married my partner in a court house ceremony. Half way into the night, I knew Hillary would loose, but couldn't face it.<br />
<br />
I wasn't going to blog my thoughts. I wasn't going to risk an unfortunate backlash if my blog is actually traced to my real identity which could complicate employment, safety, etc. But after watching brave people march, others take a stand, and news reporters expressing real concern for the freedom of the press, I realized that sometimes we have to put it out there. So here I am. And here I will continue to be.<br />
<br />
I've heard negativity regarding the Clintons most of my life. I grew up in AR listening to the adults talk about Bill Clinton and the horrible things he and Hillary supposedly did to the Arkansas education system, for example. Many years later I learned teachers in AR were functionally illiterate. The teachers were required to take a test which basically tested literacy. What was the problem????<br />
<br />
This fall I started researching. I read books, articles, and internet sources about both candidates. It was impossible to compare policy because Trump didn't have one. His self admittance of narcissism, multiple bankruptcies and extreme count of lawsuites (3500). I read about Hillary, and while I don't understand all of her choices, I read about a woman who has answered her calling. A woman who really is a bleeding heart liberal who wants to do good.<br />
<br />
I still can't make sense of America's vote. I continue to read and research, Having read Hilly Billy Elegy by JD Vance this weekend, maybe I have the beginning of an understanding.<br />
<br />
On a personal note, I have never felt more at risk. I never thought my education would become a dangerous liability. Or that women really would risk dying again if Roe v Wade is struck down. Or loosing my marriage if they somehow manage a retroactive antigay marriage stance. Or the unforeseen complications of a Republican Supreme Court, House, Senate and President.<br />
<br />
May God have mercy on our country. And may have a country left at the end of this president's term (s). And for the record. He's not my president.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-20477860288680513782016-10-24T11:02:00.002-04:002016-10-24T11:03:02.628-04:00ReflectionsI was in the 8th grade in Searcy Arkansas when I developed a crush on the bari-sax player. He was an older man in the 9th grade, socially awkward, and likely returned my feelings. We would have been"equally yoked" in the proper Church of Christ terminology, since we were both members of the same church. We sat together a few times on the band bus and I even remember holding hands once. It was an almost serious relationship. Until the day they were spinning records in the band room and he walked in and saw me dancing. That was a sin and the almost relationship ended.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for searcy arkansas high school" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/17/68/0f/17680ffdb915b680deef75f6f216a695.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the downtown area</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I dreamed about my bari-sax player last night. In my dream I was a guest in his three bedroom apartment and felt just as much on trial as I did every day that I attended that high school. I had gotten up from my single bed and stumbled to the kitchen to find the daughter-of-my-heart preparing breakfast. She was telling me I could wake him and my life, and it would be that world of small town Arkansas. This time I could graduate, go to college, get married to the bari-sax player, and keep my children. All in the right order. And all I had to do is settle.<br />
<br />
Put that thought on the back burner.<br />
<br />
I've been doing a lot of reading lately about Hillary Clinton, the woman I hope and pray will be the first woman president. She got stuck in Arkansas for 17 years, about the same time I did. She moved from Illinois, 45 minutes out from Chicago. Might as well as been another planet. When I moved from neighboring Indiana, with the Republican Methodist grandparents and extended family, to Searcy Arkansas the culture shock nearly shut down my previous 10-year-old self. I spent years trying to get out.<br />
<br />
Add that thought to the previous one...let's stir.<br />
<br />
So I crawled out of bed this morning amidst the 25 cats and stumbled to the bathroom still in that dream of what if. And shook it off as if I had had a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. Yeah. I could have created a life in Arkansas. Inside the Church of Christ where dancing is a sin. And I would have lost out on the love of my life who is a trans gendered male and watched Rocky Horror, both versions, with me last night. I might have been graduated college but using that degree when there is a very patriarchal husband in the household would more likely have kept me home raising children and languishing in a small town that nearly broke my younger-self.<br />
<br />
My partner and I have lived together for 13 years. I told everyone at work I wouldn't get married until I saw the election results because I didn't want to live through Mr Trump undoing my marriage if he wins. Then in act of defiance and love, I married my partner anyway. Yeah, Hillary escaped Arkansas, survived her husband and the White House politics. And now she's prepared to go back and stand by my right to be married to my partner as well as all the other hard things she will have to do. And it's because of Arkansas and where we come from that she has my vote.<br />
<br />
Google is a remarkable thing. I just found that bari-sax player living three blocks from the high school in a 1200 square foot house with one bathroom. My house is equally modest. But I wonder if his life is a rich? I'm going to go have lunch today with my friend from England who spent 20 years in South Africa. I'm going to a job for a few hours to do play therapy with children, thereby following my calling and my passion. And when I come home tonight, it will be to the arms of guitar-playing, artist, poet partner that I married this spring. And 25 cats.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-81518376747154473662016-02-16T19:21:00.001-05:002016-10-24T11:07:03.540-04:00The Season of ChangeLast September began the season of change. I'm still working as a clinical counselor at the methadone clinic doing substance abuse counseling, but rather than going into management, as previously planned, I moved sideways adding a part time job in the afternoon/evenings at a children's mental health clinic. My original dream in grad school was private practice, and I had found my way into a business as a contractor that would give me that dream back. One I gave up on a year and a half ago when I took the new job at a just opening methadone clinic.<br />
<br />
I had been told I would become the director, but the previous director didn't tell me it wasn't his power to reward that position. So he passed me small responsibilities, coached me in the personnel side, and then broke my heart. Hours of overtime and burnout later, a miracle occurred. But the miracle came at a price. Right now I need both checks to pay for the 12 years of neglect to our material needs, such a roof repair, kitchen floor, and car repairs. But hopefully this coming September I will go from being gone from home 16 hours a day to 10. I can live with that.<br />
<br />
In January my weight peaked at a new high of 303 pounds, and I made a commitment to myself and my future for self-care. With Lipedema and Lymphedema as well chronic fatigue syndrome, I needed to amend my ways. I started using Almesid as a diet aid, and since Jan 12 I have lost 23 pounds. I'm afraid that the new life style and eating requires a lot of shakes for my own well being, but with my terrible schedule, they actually simplify the eating and planning. Weekends are nice when I can cook. We've had some amazing food such as pizza and potato soup.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-26326285686841018932015-08-29T10:11:00.000-04:002015-08-29T10:13:11.614-04:00<img src="http://reichardtfoundation.com/woohoo/wp-content/uploads/inspiration-quotes-21.jpg" height="320" width="293" /><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been working in methadone treatment since Sep 10, 2008. I started out working the front desk, taking money. Six months of hell later, I was promoted to a counselor. I was given a caseload the same day I began seeing clients as a student therapist. I worked for a greedy man who profited 3 million a year (yes, the foolish man let his accountant fax his tax return to the work address while I was standing there). Pay raises were irregular, but sneaked to me now and then when others didn't get them. The organization was obviously profit seeking and unprofessional, and when a new clinic opened last year, I made the jump. Note that my check bounced three times before I sent out my resume. Not that because he didn't have the money to cover payroll, but because he didn't leave anything in his business account. So the bouncing was due to carelessness, best I could tell. And over spending in his personal life. Islands in the Bahama's are not cheap, at least not to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The promised 3.5% annual raises, 4 weeks PTO, and six months after starting, the intern director said I would be groomed to become the director. My monthly stats are consistently 90% and above, I have taken on additional responsibilities, and work a lot of overtime to get the extras done as well as my own responsibilities. The director runs another 800 population clinic in another state. He's supposed to be in our clinic two days a week, but its more like 3-4 times a month. Recently I learned my promotion is not in next year's budget, there's no real plan to promote me any time soon, and the business owner says the director "overstepped himself" in offering me the promotion. My theory is the promise was just a way to get him out of our clinic several days a month, and that when things are running this well from a business perspective, there's no intensive to change. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Worse, despite passing our national certification with no recommendations (meaning with flying colors), high marks on everyone's report cards, and all of our hard work (a new clinic is 20 times harder than one that's been open for 10 years, I now know), we were not given pay raises (all the other clinics they own got their raises, despite one's less than adequate performace); we weren't profitable enough? Since I track population and who's paying, I'd say it's greed. They wanted a profit and payoff this year despite some business decisions they made that cost the clinic). While I have many speculations (and facts) for why, I won't put them here. Unlike my previous clinic, I won't be given one quietly on the sly, either. While it is a much more professionally run clinic on many levels, the lack of raises and the promised promotion have broken my heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Put that on the back burner. Side note:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BTW the above is what happened to my blogging over the last couple of years. With the chronic fatigue syndrome, I was so thin I worked, slept, ate, and worked some more. My hobbies, my writing and my art largely went to the wayside. Due to financial constraints, we gave up cable tv and I haven't even noticed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's get out another pot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About six months the PD (program director) needed to hire another counselor. In methadone, the ideal caseload is 50 patients. Given that it's a new clinic, with the majority needing intensive time and attention, it should be much lower. We were up to 70-75. Since he was "training me" I helped go through resumes, we talked about hiring practices, and I participated in the interview. I was introduced to our future employee as the future program director. That obviously hasn't happened, and isn't happening any time soon and the people around me know it. Matter of fact, a new position was created for the business owner's pet, and she has been appointed the clinic "point person". The director assured me at the time it did not affect my promotion. Uh huh. I got a bridge for sale. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Put that on the back burner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So our new employee was contacted by one of her contacts in the field about a few positions coming open in several local practices. $40 an hour, 32 hours a week (in private practice you don't really get paid for the paperwork so 8 additional hours would be set aside for that). The particular opening that caught my interest is an a pediatrician's office (she is there one day a week).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's stir the pot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I took business practices in grad school. In fact, Cam came across my business plan a month ago or so. I had given up on the idea of private practice because I don't have the necessary local contacts. I'm not known in the community, don't hang out with doctors and other practitioners. Methadone's kind of a red headed step-child in the substance abuse and agency world. And the business owner was ready to hire me sight unseen because of my recommendations and previous training in child therapy. We graduated from the same school, had the same teachers and training. She knew what I knew. She even rewrote the contract to accommodate my needs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's put it all together. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sitting on my deck, something I've only managed 4-5 times this year, blogging. I have a week's vacation. When I go back to work, I'll be working 5am - 1 pm at the clinic. Then half an hour away, I'll start seeing children in the afternoons 2-7. When they have 25 hours a week for me, I make the move full time. I start next Tuesday. Given that they already have scheduled 5 hours for me, I think it'll build. In fact, she needed 3 people for this office. Until the my caseload and one other's is full, she's not bringing on the 3rd, though she's been hired. Based on last year, she has no doubt she'll fill our schedules quickly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I once dreamed about working with children and their families. That dream is about to come true. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-69336521951435709492014-03-07T09:24:00.000-05:002014-03-07T09:31:03.325-05:00I'm doing just fine...Remember the old saying, "I'm on the right side of the dirt; I'm doing just fine"? I've modified it to say "My intestine is on the right side of my belly; I'm doing just fine". Thank you, Jazzman.<br />
<br />
I went to see him Wednesday after the Lent service at church. I had the smudge of ash on my forehead as a stark reminder of my own mortality. In the car, driving to the hospital afterward, I caught a glace of myself in the mirror. No doubt, there was a dark cross shaped smudge on my forehead. We're told to leave it for the day, but I struggled with that idea.<br />
<br />
"What's the difference between me wearing a dark, obvious smudge on my forehead and walking into a public building than the man who stood on the street corner praying?" I asked Cameron as I drove. Seems to me that, like the man praying loudly on the street corner, I would be rewarded like that man by drawing attention to myself: "See how pious I am. I went to Lent service at church." That attention being a reward rather than a reminder of my own mortality.<br />
<br />
Moreover, I was going to visit a possibly dying man. It's one thing to remind myself of my own mortality. It felt wildly inappropriate to remind Jazzman of his. He already knew.<br />
<br />
Nowhere in the bible does it state we should paint ourselves with ash. We use it as a custom to remind ourselves of Jesus' sacrifice for us. We use to become mindful of our own eventual return to ash. Within a community of believers, the ash is shared and we are all sinners and saints together. However, I felt that venturing into a hospital wearing ash on my forehead would be like the man who prayers publicly on a street corner to draw attention to himself. So I wiped it off.<br />
<br />
I was quite relieved to have done so, after gaining my first glimpse of Jazzman's intestine on the wrong side of his belly. Bear in mind, his cheer and kindness. The nurses are all fond of him and brag that he's the most gracious patient on the floor. He's a true gentleman.<br />
<br />
There's nothing in my life that's all that bad today. I have my intestine on the right side of my belly.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-64565367455592720572014-03-05T20:11:00.000-05:002014-03-05T20:13:27.289-05:00From Ashes to AshesToday is Ash Wednesday. The first ten years of my life, I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. We attended church at <a href="http://www.fairviewunited.org/heritage" target="_blank">Fairview United Methodist Church</a>. Being so close to the school, we benefited from many amazing musicians. I remember sitting with my grandparents, looking up at the pipes for the organ in awe and listening to the chorus.<br />
<br />
Then my dad decided to take us to <a href="http://www.nc3family.org/" target="_blank">North Central Church of Christ</a>. The loss of music, incense, candles, alienated me. I <i>liked</i> those symbols. The austere building, the loss of an actual altar and the loss of children's church confused me. People around me talked about those symbols as if they were <i>bad</i>. No wonder I love the ritual of Wicca. Or that I delight in my current Episcopalian home.<br />
<br />
So today Cameron stayed home with contractors and I used my comp time to get off work early for services. Oddly enough, both religious experiences seemed to come together today. Of course, the priests still wore robes. But there was no chorus. A silence, a kind of peace, filled the church today. I found the service powerful.<br />
<br />
As the priest smeared the ash on my forehead, he said, "From dust you were made and to dust you will return." Dust. Mortality. Death. My own death. It brings a solemn hush. Three clients were in my office at different times this morning speaking of death. A mother dying of cancer. A brother dead 21 years ago of Down's Syndrome. A cousin dead of a motorcycle accident a week shy of his 19th birthday. But always we spoke of someone else's death. Grief. Bereavement. Those things no one but a counselor will talk about. A place of sacredness only equaled by birth.<br />
<br />
Of course, Christian faith centers on resurrection and judgement day. I tend to keep my rather heretical thoughts to myself, because I do believe in reincarnation. This very interesting site explores such thoughts: <a href="http://reluctant-messenger.com/origen.html" target="_blank">Christian Reincarnation: The Long Forgotten Doctrine</a>. Nevertheless, death has walked with Cameron and me these last few weeks, as seen my previous blog. So the service touched me deeply as I reflected on Walt and our family dealing with suicide.<br />
<br />
I called Cameron on the way to the service to talk about why we have Lent. Cameron pointed out a great many people see it as a time to recognize what Christ went through for us and to offer our own kind of solidarity by fasting or giving something up. Indeed, a co-worker had posted on her Facebook this morning, "What should I give up?" Cameron offered an interesting column entitled: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-sandlin/dont-get-caught-in-the-lent-trap_b_2658983.html" target="_blank">Don't Get Caught In The Lent Trap</a>. Father Mike talked about the things that distance us from God, and about how giving things up isn't always the answer. Some people choose to add something to their spiritual life. Now, this makes sense to me.<br />
<br />
I must have channeled Walt Monday when we went to visit Jazzman. It's not usual for me to drive to a hospital on the other side of two towns over to visit a stranger. That is, however, the person I <i>want</i> to be. And I kept thinking about the things Walt did that mattered. Moreover, a bible verse keeps playing over and over in my head:<br />
<br />
<i>'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’</i> (Matthew 25:35-36).<br />
<br />
There were no flowers in Jazzman's room. There were no cards and no visitors when we were there. And in that moment of compassion we met a good man. With an intestine on the wrong side of his belly, Jazzman was able to laugh and cry with me as we talked of differences and similarities. Of dreams and wrongs. A man who, like me, was caught by the descending arc of the IT world and after the last job, ran through savings accounts, the 401k, and ran the unemployment out and lost, or has nearly lost, everything. Funny, intelligent, well-read, and able to keep me on my toes regarding politics and philosophy, and culturally completely different from this lily-white-assed northern transplant. I found a brother. Family of choice because we all need tribe.<br />
<br />
Safely tucked into my warm bed with a job to go to tomorrow, I ask, "What is the point of the day?" The point is, I think, I am on to something. The next step of my own spiritual development and growth is this service to others. I carry with me a renewed awareness of my own mortality. I turned 50 in September. Even if I live to my great-grandma's age of 92, I'mg more than half done. As I watched the predominately gray-headed crowd move toward the altar for communion, I was reminded of the lack of kindness to the body that aging brings. The drooping shoulder, the walkers, the canes and the damage of the years wearing on each face. Mortality. So what do I want to do with this time I have, however much the Spinner of Destiny allows?<br />
<br />
Hmmm...I've already answered that question, haven't I?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-87809462486125499242014-03-03T19:08:00.000-05:002014-03-05T20:13:00.217-05:00Random Acts of KindnessAbout a month ago Cameron and I attended church and experienced an opportunity to visit briefly with our friend Walt. He told us a story of going to the post office and getting out of his car to see a man nearby, sitting in his car with the door open. The man appeared heavily burdened, so Walt being Walt walked up to see if he could help. The man told Walt his wife had died a few days before, and for a moment let Walt help him out of the car, and just leaned on him with tears streaming down his cheeks. I can imagine big, tall, graying 70-year-old Walt holding the old, grieving man in his bear hug. Walt told us how it touched his heart and what it meant to be a part of the man's life for those tender moments.<br />
<br />
Put that on the back burner.<br />
<br />
Last Saturday I attended Walt's funeral. He'd had a heart attack during the recent winter storm. His wife couldn't even make it the hospital the first day as he lay in intensive care.<br />
<br />
Put that on the back burner.<br />
<br />
Walt was the kind of man that when a young couple, obviously impoverished, showed up on Christmas eve to sit on the back row of the church, took up a donation for them. Right there, during the service, there's Walt walking around getting money...and people gave. They left with a wad of 20s in their pockets. Walt told the congregation they were angels visiting and it was our responsibility to care for them on Christmas. That was Walt.<br />
<br />
Stirring it together.<br />
<br />
Adding a side story.<br />
<br />
21 years ago my Vietnam Vet husband David died alone of suicide. We had separated a year earlier because of my fear that he would commit homicide and suicide. It was a hard decision, but I later learned that his cancer had gone to his brain, bringing about dangerous mood shifts and behavior. In the months leading up to his death he began calling. I knew what he was saying couldn't be true, but I loved him and made plans to go see him. I never made it see him alive. David committed suicide on New Year's Eve. I borrowed money from everyone I knew to get to the funeral. I was so focused on getting there I didn't have time to begin the grieving process. He was Catholic, so the memorial service was in some random chapel. He'd been cremated by necessity. I was in shock, sobbing, and kept staring at the box holding his ashes trying to figure out how they got his long legs in that tiny box. It took days to realize it was simply ashes.<br />
<br />
So there I stood in our church, 21 years later, staring at tiny box holding ashes. I couldn't look, couldn't imagine how those long legs fit. Later, a soldier played Taps and a flag was folded for the grieving widow. And I gave thanks to Walt one last time, for relieving me of a heavy burden of when the last time I stood in cemetery, listening to Taps and watching my husband's ashes being interred.<br />
<br />
And the next story to stir in the mix.<br />
<br />
Family violence touches the people we know in the shadows and in secret. Even when you know there's a problem, you never know how bad it was until the story ends. It ended last weekend in a memorial service in the backyard of a family we love dearly. Out of respect, I won't say too much about the details. But I was grateful, as I stepped into the role of a priestess, for David's spirit. He'd taught me to love my children. He'd taught me sobriety. He'd taught me a work ethic. And in his final gift, he taught me how to cope with a suicide. How to face the blood on a mattress and do what is needful. And how to be okay doing what was needful.<br />
<br />
The next chapter.<br />
<br />
I listen to Phoenix Rising Radio and read <a href="http://goingglobaleastmeetswest.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Going Global: East Meets West</a> regularly. A gentleman by the name of Jazzman calls in regularly and I've always found him delightful. He stopped calling in last fall, and Phoenix put out the word for him to call. Phoenix reported back he eventually had made contact, but didn't reveal why Jazzman was out of touch when I was listening. Last night, I was listening when Phoenix announced that Jazzman was in the hospital. He wasn't doing so well last week, but was showing improvement. Jazzman had requested his hospital location and phone be made public. Looking on the website, I was surprised to see it was within 30 miles of where we live. So this morning we drove downtown to the hospital. There we met a good man.<br />
<br />
Jazzman is about 10 years older and, in his words, a person of color. He was rather surprised and extremely happy to meet two lily white people from Phoenix Rising Radio. In that first moment, he later said, he couldn't figure out who would know him as "The Jazzman". Tears streamed down his cheeks unashamed as we hugged. He clung to both of us in turn. And we talked. About religion. About sexuality. About culture. About family. Even about Cameron's being transgender. And we were touched, deeply touched. If you are curious about Jazzman, this is a blog entry from several years ago: <a href="http://whosafraidofcancer.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=1" target="_blank">Who's Afraid of Cancer</a>.<br />
<br />
I asked him what brought him to the hospital. He said last Wed he was dying. Judging by what I heard and saw, yes he was. He's somewhat improved, but facing a difficult path. He has to heal enough to have surgery again as he has a blockage in the intestine and it doesn't look good. Nevertheless, the three of us visited and it became a powerful, frank, sacred space. I was blessed to be there.<br />
<br />
On the way home, we stopped at the local Taco Bell for a quick supper. A crew member not yet on duty started chatting about the rain and her granddaughter who has asthma. We visited a bit, and a few minutes later when she heard me say I didn't get my chips, fetched them unasked. What a lovely random act of kindness.<br />
<br />
A short while later, a middle aged man at the next table struck up a conversation, telling us about serving in Desert Storm and his struggle with PTSD. He hugged us, two total strangers, before leaving. I thanked him for serving our country.<br />
<br />
So many stories. Stirred together, it becomes a montage of surprising encounters, unexpected blessings, and random acts of kindnesses both given and received. I'm still catching my breath, but I can't shake that feeling the Divine has noticed and blessed us.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-47650870260712938032014-01-23T07:57:00.001-05:002014-01-23T09:10:29.600-05:00Grief and CatsTen years ago I moved from Atlanta to South Carolina. I had lost virtually everything. My home, my children, my coven. The evil ex-boyfriend had spread lies that took years to live down. Some still affect my life in profound ways.<br />
<br />
The only thing I didn't loose was my cats. 16 of them. I actually moved twice before getting my current home, living in a friend's basement and later in Cameron's studio. The cats were accommodated with the expected challenges.<br />
<br />
In the early years of living in my mobile home, we occasionally had unfortunate great cat escapes. The backdoor didn't always latch, despite our best efforts. A few found other homes. Others just disappeared and never returned. One that was ill was eventually discovered to have died under the house. It was heart breaking to loose each one.<br />
<br />
Eventually we did find a way to repair the back door. The cats grew older. Others joined our cat colony. Of the original, Dickens was my familiar and died about a year and a half ago. Several of Cameron's original colony have also died in the last year or two.<br />
<br />
In no particular order, and with duplicates because I love the pictures, I share these with you.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PMr3ROQ-J8Y/Tm1ds7Jni6I/AAAAAAAASxM/0IlktIy18-I/w1185-h889-no/IMG_2395.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temptation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X9i0A1z66Cs/UdsC0W0LHbI/AAAAAAAAaRg/4aa0Z1udVRU/w1185-h889-no/IMG_20130626_194703.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Legba and Xian</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-QEhSQQrMx30/TvegDia-q1I/AAAAAAAAV_8/7_OSfwqII7A/w1185-h889-no/2011-11-23+21.17.36.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tannis when Thor came to live with us.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8ab5bq2inZM/UYWWpZ7MP0I/AAAAAAAAZmQ/zuM5lCYs0OA/w1185-h889-no/IMG_20121110_222243.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rascal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1ftYsoUrS2E/UCQGLvrozvI/AAAAAAAAZRg/V0eQ2BIramk/w800-h600-no/Dickens+and+Chole+%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dickens and Chole</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-VBN26KGS9F0/TvehxhyuEoI/AAAAAAAAWgY/9ozf9z8cC64/w400-h300-no/1319492866305.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dickens and Lotus</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-hEPX0XtJnOQ/SkCyHdFE0GI/AAAAAAAAAJM/prqFIwe6BJ8/w1185-h889-no/DSCF1882.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Little John and Legba</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Uvhcm0CCjmo/Skh65nxUr4I/AAAAAAAAAnM/T4Phx0zox3E/w1185-h889-no/Thor+and+Cyn.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Mm3CiyMRgt8/UdoG7n-VboI/AAAAAAAAaOQ/dYjp1XiWAyE/w1185-h889-no/IMG_20130706_225502.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rascal and Tannis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-0_KqoE881vg/SnmQQ7tdLfI/AAAAAAAACsQ/4V5jbt8jBXQ/w1185-h889-no/June+22+2008+229.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thor and Legba</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CXWz0SVPZ9o/Skh7yCS9ESI/AAAAAAAAArE/RgH1jPcWCLc/w480-h640-no/Image041.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dickens</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3c-zOq4k7bU/Tm1WQNGOvPI/AAAAAAAASjQ/za8BEuzUDsk/w1185-h889-no/IMG_2206.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Xian</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img height="240" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-eyVoXYTzlLM/Skh7smN8azI/AAAAAAAAAqo/x6cTKvqC_H8/w1185-h889-no/Weebit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 16px;">Wee Bit</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eFTHbL_0jMQ/UdsCfe0tuPI/AAAAAAAAaQw/jjBIzNzomy0/w1185-h889-no/IMFAC2%257E2.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lotus deceased 1/22/2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DFqGoE7VEIQ/T69Uurs0kFI/AAAAAAAAYw8/Ba3EdknGaUk/w1185-h889-no/2012-02-26+20.45.54.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 16px;">Lotus</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-BA8SW0eHqPM/S3c21eqWt1I/AAAAAAAAJ4Y/bjvsazJunIc/w600-h800-no/Image043.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dickens and me 2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Yesterday the last of my sixteen cats from Atlanta died of Cancer. Lotus was found in a parking lot in Atlanta by a dog person. She called me, saying "what do I do with it." She came home in shoe box. Lotus came to rule the house with well enforced personal boundaries. She didn't like kittens, believing they weren't really cats.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We still have 18 cats in the house. Two are older, most are middle aged, and about seven are under the age of three. Nevertheless, we mourn each loss and remember their stories with joy.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Lady Bastet, we are your humble servants. You bless us with your children for the short time they walk this work and you call them home to you. One day my own body will return to the earth and I will cross the Rainbow Bridge where I will be blessed beyond measure.</i></b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3WZr04tK0Lg/S3c22dEQCgI/AAAAAAAAJ4g/uakWFSYMUaU/w1185-h889-no/Dickens.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dickens, my familiar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-91068887933208867642014-01-18T14:44:00.000-05:002014-01-18T14:44:05.747-05:00Ahhh....SaturdayIt's a three day weekend and I intend to enjoy it! Today I've been cooking. I just finished making banana bread which has Godiva chocolate and a few walnuts. It's utterly decadent...mmm....<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/1010797_10203120601239931_1608885183_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Banana Bread </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And for lunch...<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1526809_10203121454861271_1637126448_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Broiled potatoes and olive oil</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Also made my version of potatoes for lunch. Made large fry shapes with potato skins on, with olive oil and seasoning...served with sour cream. It's a lovely lunch on a cold winter day.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1/q75/s720x720/1536650_10203121456421310_1641599665_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chocolate chip cookies</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Chocolate chip cookies for desert. I love Saturday because it's a day to eat just what we want.<br />
<br />
Between and around the cooking, I am working on a MacDubh, or Doodle as I have nicknamed him, doggy sweater. Pattern can be found here: <a href="http://adoginasweater.blogspot.com/2011/02/dog-sweater-tutorial.html" target="_blank">A Dog and a Sweater</a>. Given that we have a rottweiler/dachshund cross, the measurements are interesting. Given that I only have been crocheting for a year, can barely follow a pattern and have never measured anything for fit before, the results are simply amazing. Here it is so far:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/1545915_10203120588359609_1332692024_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even managed to use the stitch markers correctly for the leg holes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And an update on our house renovations. We now have a stone hearth and walls for the wood stove expected to be installed on Monday:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1512539_10203117394439763_1939201778_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love this stone wall!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I love long weekends!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-35317339948306281532014-01-09T09:33:00.001-05:002014-01-09T09:55:51.690-05:00Sleep and WorkI am a substance abuse counselor in a medically assisted program. In order to treat clients before they go to work, we open at 5 a.m. This means I get up at 3:30 in the middle of the night. I'm a morning person, but that isn't morning.<br />
<br />
My cats usually finish ripping and roaring by 2 a.m. and I find them sleeping innocently when I get up. Mostly I think about having to get up to be able to buy cat food, the lazy brats. These are from this morning:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Photo: 3:30 comes much too early. I should be sleeping!" height="240" src="https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/p480x480/1507625_10202915202671954_1817790626_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lugh and Ibn. Not sure how Ibn is breathing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1529843_10202915453718230_1426821156_o.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thor and Bear. Size Large and Extra Large.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-84023752745607455222014-01-06T16:44:00.001-05:002014-01-06T16:44:50.428-05:00It's a Candle Making DayI started experimenting with candle making a couple of months ago. We actually started with a youtube on using crayons. Two words for anyone with a similar thought. Don't bother. Turns out the pigment in crayons blocks the wick. So it burns low for about half an hour then gutters. I have a couple of gorgeous crayon candles on my alter that look really good but will work on for a short emergency! LOL<br />
<br />
So then I did further research, giving up the idea of making candles in my microwave. I'm still keeping it very simple. I get a lot of glass jars in the side walk sale we attend twice a month. It's more like a attending a scavenger hunt with a whistle being blown and everyone diving for slightly out of date dried food items and filling banana boxes. $8 a box. We get the wildest things from Ghiradelli chocolate and Dickenson's curd to mac and cheese. We subsequently have a full pantry and surplus of very cool jars. Given we once set the bathtub on fire with candles, I have a fondness of candles in glass jars.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1554505_10202896948655615_773332720_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Work in progress. Yellow was poured a couple of days ago and tipped to dry. Red was poured today. I'll top it off tomorrow.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The above candles were poured in Dickenson's curd jars, a favorite jar found at the sale. I can't say I've used all the curd in all the jars, but I have found the vanilla curd very good in brownies and banana curd makes great banana bread.<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Photo: These will be quarter candles. Made with first intent!" height="240" src="https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/p480x480/1557630_10202896961655940_309437946_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quarter candles for circle.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've been working quarter candles for circle. Have finished the red, green and yellow. Tomorrow, if I have the energy, I need to do the blue. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Since we are attending GaFilk this coming weekend, I need to get my projects finished up. Don't want to leave a bunch of stuff sitting around for the cats to use for entertainment!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-64021595717716833612014-01-05T18:38:00.000-05:002014-01-05T18:38:20.591-05:00Sunday MusingsSundays are for doing nothing except what I like to do because I want to do them. We've had a disrupted week with Cameron caring for Warrior Priestess the last three days. It's been very strange to sleep alone, have control of the thermostat, and watch Doodle mourn his poppa. The thermostat was okay, but not so much for the other two.<br />
<br />
So I've started a new cross stitch project. Current estimate is 4 years to completion. Here's the picture:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Goblins Fae Guide - Click Image to Close" height="207" src="http://heavenandearthdesigns.com/images/renee_biertempfel/goblinsfaeguide.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goblin's Guide</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
The pattern calls for 25 count fabric, but I'm using 18. I am 50 years old and see it better! LOL <div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/525319_10202890827782597_1240425847_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approx 2,000 of 98,800 stitches</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
I estimate the project will take about four years. But I'm going to be 54 anyway, so why not have this picture to hang on the wall!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My mindfulness exercise of the day was walk beside our lake. Seeing the lake was another matter.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="240" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1497576_10202890634617768_1585631548_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lake in January fog</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1545063_10202890630897675_234927965_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No mountains today</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1558419_10202890627217583_772297866_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slight suggestion of water here.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<div>
So that is my Sunday. Many things I should've done. Only a few that I did. What a lovely day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9190984333115275441.post-41877373513700388312014-01-04T09:06:00.001-05:002014-01-04T09:06:58.534-05:00Musings and Prayer RequestMy heart is breaking today for our beloved friend, Warrior Priestess. Many years ago she was misdiagnosed with lupus, and underwent oral chemo every Monday for ten years. Friends became accustomed to her schedule, knowing when she would be at her best and when she wouldn't. Over time, the meds messed with her memory and she also developed some balance problems.<br />
<br />
Warrior Priestess is a remarkable woman. Her daughter and only child Sarah died at the age of 19 from leukemia. Her husband died about five years ago from diabetes. Despite these sorrows, she has led a coven, was the Priestess in attendance at my first initiation, and performed my second and third. She has served her community and been ever available as her health allowed.<br />
<br />
The misdiagnosis was corrected a couple of years ago, the meds reduced we all rejoiced to welcome her back to some version of normalcy. Over the last few months the aphasia has worsened as has her balance. Last week Cameron learned from True Heart, Warrior Preistess' roommate, of her condition. He had found a job after many years of unemployment, but had to be gone for 12 hour shifts and it was worrying him to death to leave Warrior Priestess alone. So for the last two nights, my beloved Cameron as stayed with her, making sure she is safe and oriented. Warrior Priestess has an appointment with her neurologist Tuesday so we hope for information and direction that will help in her care.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, I've slept alone the last two nights and anticipate anther night alone tonight. Cameron and I live very well together and it's very strange to have him gone. I had to gauge my wake up time around walking the dog as well. Doodle is used to late night ramblings with Cameron, and just couldn't understand my bed time last night. Poor thing laid on the couch all day yesterday just watching the door waiting for "daddy" to come home. Cameron came home for a few hours, and when he left Doodle moved to the dining room chair. Guess he thinks since its closer to the door, it'll bring daddy home faster.<br />
<br />
Today I pick Cameron up in an hour and we're off to see his parental units for a much delayed Christmas gift exchange. We're out to his mom. His dad, on the other hand, revolves from seeing to understand we are a couple to rants against the evil of gays. He's in his 80's and I firmly believe there are some conversations that just cannot be had.<br />
<br />
Lovely aside. As I write this, a plump male cardinal made his way across the deck. The two cats on the table, Starshine and Thor, were quivering with excitement. The deck is proving to be a wonder for all of us!<br />
<br />
Anyway, send love and light, or prayers, to Warrior Priestess. She's often walked a dark path, but this one is really challenging her.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1