Life Chronicles and other Myths

Living in the Moment....

2011-07-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

Something in my house dying! Eeeeew! Will the cats never stop dragging dead things in here? Still warm, and bloody, bits of Rabbit; Voles, Rats, mice (which I like almost as much as I like bunnies... they are so cute), and birds parts (feathers, feet, beaks) are stashed in impossible to find places. Left to rot and stink....Sometimes the odd garter snake, but mercifully, Basil rarely kills them. Just bats them about and makes a fuss so I will notice what a fearless and masterful hunter he is! O.M.G! I noticed, I noticed!!! Stop already! I take the snakes, which I like very much, outside to the garden, reproaching them for being complacent in a yard with nasty cats, and reminding them to be more careful, and thanking them for catching bad bugs, like spiders that bite. I tell Baz sternly, "Dont hurt Mama's snakey snakes!!!" He looks at me briefly, with utter boredom, and demands his supper... As a result of his stashed murder-death-kills, I have flies. Big, stupid, slow-buzzing death-flies everywhere. IN MY HOUSE! Disgusting. Gods help me, my house is a morgue! Some mornings I get up and am jolted rudely awake (before coffee!!!) by a strategically placed gall bladder squishing nastily between my bare toes. Baz, the Super-hero serial varmint murderer leaving his signature calling card. I should write a comic strip about him. He is a scary uber-predator. Totally upsets my Buddhist leanings, and puts me off meditating in the morning because I am completely overcome by guilt-by-association. How can I meditate and become one with Spirit when I am harboring a murder-death-kill machine? (Seriously, tell me... comments and advice welcomed! I am trying to be heroically Zen about it... but am failing fantastically). Meanwhile, at this moment, Baz is relaxing on the railing of the back deck, catching the last rays of evening sunlight, in resplendent cat Nirvana. He is content. Smug, even. He does his job well and knows it. He is handsome and charming, and sexy, and knows that too. A tall, red-headed muscle-bound warrior. He keeps house and hearth clean of vermin, and with great magnanimity (being a generous kind of Soul, and a good family provider) offers the beloved two legged an entire, intact morsel of the day's catch... like the wee vole I found before the front door when I came home this evening. He means well....I am an artist too, but sometimes I dont get his installations, hieroglyphics, cryptic-concept-art comments right away (slow Human). He's a Cat, ergo, a genius, and in his own stratosphere of communication. I have to work to keep up with him. So it takes me a bit of time to work out his code.... Finally, with great relief, I realize now that the icky Gall bladders are clearly meant for the dogs.

A Good Moment.... and a Good Thing....

2010-03-18T22:52:00.000-07:00

Session with Shrink was very good. Suddenly, I found myself talking to a highly intelligent person. A VERY SMART PERSON. Hugely compassionate. And asking all the right questions, not all of which made me feel good. Which is ok. Uncomfortable, at times, but good, and okay. Real. It has been a long time since I had a conversation with someone who has insight and a desire to bring that awareness to light. Gently. Kindly. But with focus too. No wishy-washing.

Keenly aware; very on point. A good listener; he asked good questions about what I said, and made me THINK. I liked that. He had read my file and referred to it quite a lot which impressed me, because it was clear that he had spent time absorbing my information and he'd thought about it... and he knew his stuff! It was a very surprising thing to sit with someone and have feedback that reflected true understanding. He gets it.

It was good. Very good. Even though I cried a bit. I still have so many tears. And will have, for a long time to come. He was matter of fact about it all, while simultaneously being being genuinely empathetic. A rare combination. And I was reminded of a thing which I had forgotten: I have a brain. A good one. And I am not stupid. That was a nice thing to relearn. It was really good to be asked to THINK. And to be reminded that I am, in fact, intelligent.

Meanwhile... Puppy-lust continues. My new shrink did not make 'dont do it' noises. This surprised me.

I am not sure what to make of that...

The main thing is that I am actually feeling more stable. And that is a very good thing.

Puppy Lust...

2010-03-16T21:15:00.001-07:00

I want a puppy. Very VERY badly.

I have four old dogs. They are easy and comfortable. They are fabulous, and very well trained, and (mostly) behave beautifully. They know the routine and are perfect. And I need another one like I need a hole in the head. It is clear that life circumstances have rendered me a bit deranged. But that isnt surprising, all things considered. My judgment is a bit impaired right now. I need support. I need you all to tell me that I am nuts in the extreme and to go away - run! Run far away! from these thoughts, NOW!

Getting another dog right now would be a stupid thing to do. It would be for all the wrong reasons. And yet in my heart of hearts, I know it is the only thing, THE ONLY THING, that will make me feel better in my heart. It will be the only balm that will comfort my loss. It is the only thing that will make me love life again, the only thing that will shake me out of this despair and depression, and go away from being in the depths of unhappiness and loss. I know it is. It is what I need, but is it a proper choice? A fair choice? A practical choice? A RESPONSIBLE thing to do right now? And frankly, can I afford it? No. No and no and no.

Reason over passion.... Reason over passion. Which is entirely NOT my nature. At all. I'm trying to be steady and mature. And that, if you know me at all, is hilarious. If you know me at all you will be convulsed with gales of laughter, rolling on the floor with fits of giggles at the thought of me being mature, making practical choices, and taking measure to think things through, and to think of cause and effect. I am laughing about it even as I write this, knowing myself as I do.

B and I are working things out. Baby steps (DONT say 'baby'!) It has been tough. I'm in my own world of grieving, and he's left out in the cold, pretty much, which has been hard for him on top of his own life stresses, which are big right now. Still, I have had the strength to lay down the law and explain that the last straw has been laid on the camels back. And he knows that. This time I have really had enough, and he's towing the line .... for now.

Gods know I'm not perfect. And he does put up with me.... For now, I'm taking the position that large decisions, and major life changes are something I should avoid. So working with status quo and protecting established comfort zones is a must. I just cant handle any more upheaval... as if a puppy would NOT be an upheaval (I SAID I am deranged...)

The other day one of the owners of a store adjacent to us came in with their new puppy. They already have two dogs (crazy with pets like me). A wee scruffalump chihuahua thing. With standing-up-on-end ears . Oh. My. Gods. They called him 'Radar', most appropriately. 4 months old. I almost died. The CUTENESS of him!

Meanwhile, I remind myself that getting a puppy is a major life decision. Dont do it. And still I am yearning..... All of our Dogs are old. 10. 11,11, and 12. They are in great form and healthy, but once they start to go, it will be a domino effect, and without any buffer, in the face of grieving for my brother, and my cat Pushkin, what shall I do? (Here's the compulsion speaking loudly over rational assessment. Give me strength!) If there were a sweet little puppy-person here, could I weather the losses with a grounding and an anchor to the here and now? Might there be a small answer to loss in focusing on life and renewal? Of being busy with happiness and puppy-love? Am I thinking ahead, or just borrowing trouble and trying to justify a life choice coming out of pure emotion? Well, probably. But the other side of the coin has all kind of of enticing arguments for it.....

B's not all bad. I tell him of my feelings. He said, and I quote, "Well I wouldnt have a shit-eating grin on my face if I came home and found that you'd got us a new puppy. But I'd get over it pretty quick. And I understand where that need is coming from". As I said, he's not all bad. He's lovely, actually, when he isnt going off the deep end himself.

I am known as 'the dog lady', and every one who comes to the store who has a dog brings it to me, to get treats and to confer about training, diet and general dog stuff. I love that. I love them all. It is the highlight of my day when a customer tells me that their dog dragged them into the store and they couldnt pass by without visiting me because the dog wouldnt let them. That's so lovely! And they tell me often that a new trick I taught their dog was a surprise to them, and now the dog is doing it all the time.

I crave a puppy. PLEASE tell me how bad a choice that would be right now. I'm telling myself (and B is too) to give it a year, but I dont know if I will last that long. Imagine how I felt today when a mother and her 4 gorgeous kids came in to the store: one of the kids holding a miniature pinscher ( a breed I dont even love). Then I'm holding 'Rosa' - she's 5 months old, and she looks exactly like a cinnamon coloured doberman in tiny version - a breed I DO love - and she's nestled into my shirt, offering me puppy kisses, and shortly thereafter, nodding off to sleep on my breast.

Yeah.

I'm not going to last a year. I know that for sure. Just help me last a little longer. Tell me all the reasons why getting a puppy right now is a very stupid idea (I know them all. Seriously. I just need some support here). Just help me stay steady and not succumb to puppy-lust! Not yet.

I know you are all on my side. I know you are supporting me. So tell me how bad a decision to make a space for puppy-love, and heart-healing with a new dog-person would be. Tell me all of the reasons you can think of why this would be a very stupid thing to do right now. Please!

On a high note, tonight's supper was fabulous and I do say so meself. I bought a halibut fillet for B and a salmon fillet for me. Soak fillets in a bowl for a few minutes in juice of lemon and lime. Dredge with whole grain all purpose flour, coat fillets in Dijon mustard, then roll fillets in and coat with the following mixture: finely chopped basil, parsley, lemon zest, lime zest, lots of freshly ground pepper, some salt, and bread crumbs. Lay into a pan of sizzling butter and cook each side quite quickly until browned. Accompany the fish with organic brown rice, julienne carrots, steamed broccoli and peas.

SO very, very yum! Easy. Relatively quick to prepare. Easy to make. And most importantly, extremely healthy.

Whilst you are thinking of my dilemma, and how to save me from puppy lust, I encourage you to try this meal. It is really really good! And tell me how it works out for you.

(No false modesty here. I am a very good cook. I love to cook. Alex and I have a long history, in fact, of cooking together, and making meals that should go down into the history of all-star team meals! We rocked. But honesty compels me to tell you that I am a crappy, no a seriously, completely and hopelessly, very abysmally and utter failure as a baker. I suck. We cant all be perfect all of the time.....)

Meanwhile, tomorrow I have my very first ever session with a genuine card-carry psychiatrist. My father is a therapist, my mother is a therapist, and my brother was a certified life-coach, and I've been in therapy for years, so as you can imagine, I am fairly familiar with the drill. The family business, as I often call it. Processing. Yuck. But I've never been to an actual shrink. This should be interesting. I'm not nervous... yet. At worst, it will be a nut-shell sharing of the recent events which have caused me to become so emotionally unhinged. At best, there will be a forum to discuss strategy to rebuld my life, and get some meds that will help with that. Wish me luck.....

Enough... I Think this is Enough....

2010-03-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

I dont know, am not sure entirely, but I think I'm done here.

OhGodohGod....OhGod!

Am at my wit's end and am tired of living in that place, of being insecure and of worrying. Of waiting, of hoping, of wanting to be held, to be met, to be listened to, to want to be heard, and to offer that in return; to be comforted, and to be supported. I am in a void of longing to be in partnership. It aint happening. And I think I've had enough.

It has been a rocky road with B, and I understand that he's been lonely, because I've been preoccupied with my family process, but I've had enough with the constant drinking, the absentness, the unconsciousness, and the general not-being there. I'm so fucking tired of it. Does anyone want a partner who is comatose most of the time? It got boring a long time ago. I've needed him, I've been needy lately and have been going through my own hell, as you know, so major life decisions should probably not be on the top of the agenda right now, were I a wise person. But I'm emotional. I'm not wise; I'm impetuous and I have a temper on me which doesnt look pretty when it lets loose. And I am bloody tired unto to death of making room for bullshit. Timing being what it is, delicacy and restraint, patience and acceptance, compassion and understanding have no place in my world right now. Either you are in my corner and are my friend, either you've got my back, 100%, or you are a drain on my energies, which I cant afford, in which case you can fuck right off.

I have nothing left. My brother was diagnosed with cancer. He died five months later. In the same week that he died, I had to put down my beloved 14 year old cat. I think I'm probably not the most loving or stable person to live with right now, but all things considered, I've been pretty good at trying to get on with things; I've been trying not to let my own process overshadow life in general. Never have I allowed my grief to manifest into unkindness toward another. I have a melt-down twice a week, generally, seems to be the pattern at the moment, but I'm not blaming anyone, I'm not angry at anyone, I dont act out in any way which might cause harm to anyone. I believe that I deserve a bit of support and some respect. Just maybe a little, for the sake of 7 years of companionship, and mutual life sharing. I dont think that is too bloody much to ask; do you!?

Brian is missing. Again. AGAIN. Goddammit. This is not a new behavior. He's very late and presumably drunk, passed out at a friend's somewhere.... It is nigh on 10pm. I'm so tired of this. Dont you think a normal person with respect for their partner would have checked in by now to give an update on the day, or night? To let one's apparent loved-one into the loop of what is going on, where one is and why!?

He cheated on me last summer. We were going through a very rough patch and I had told him then that I'd had enough. That I didnt want his crap anymore. So that gave him license, apparently, to get drunk enough not to care whom he fucked. We've (I've) tried to repair and recover from that.....

Becauee I found out my brother was dying and I wanted to preserve what was good in life, I wanted to make sure my priorities focussed on healing, on loving, on making sure that what matters in life was what I was putting my heart into.... I wanted to believe that love can heal everything and that trust can be rebuilt. Through all of that I couldnt bear to face another ending and another death. My brother. My relationship. I couldnt face the loss of both. I wanted to believe that love could heal all. Cancer, shitty relationships, past baggage... and we set a star to focus on, as a family, to believe in. But Brian never made the effort to go there....

He just got busy with his beer.

I wanted to believe that he was willing to change, because this was the biggest 'wake-up call' ever. Hello! Lets get with the program, and get with a healthy life-style, a healthy mind-set, a positive process!

And yet... nothing has changed....B is absent. Again. And as usual. How am I to know that he isnt doing it again? How am I to know he isnt cheating? This is the umpteenth time he's not checked in, he's not told me where he is, He's not called, he's not available on his new cell phone which I bought him for Christmas.....He's just NOT THERE. AS USUAL. Absent. Not available. NOT THERE.

I am tired unto the marrow of my bones with weariness with this bullshit. I dont need it at the best of times and in the worst time of my life, in the darkest hour of my worst nightmare come true, which is what I am living right now, he's just not there.

I think we are done here. Unless he's dead in a ditch ( which I am not sure I would mind terribly, right now) or has a very very good reason for not being at the end of the phone when I call, I think we are done here. This isnt good enough. I've been patient for 7 years. I have no energy left to do this.

Give me strength. Give me the strength to chuck him out. Please. Send me your support to make a break, at the most critically difficult time of my life. PLEASE! Please send me your good thoughts and support. Let me know that I will survive without him, and that I can go on alone. Alex is gone. Tashy is gone away. There is no one else to be with me. I am alone. How sad and pathetic is that? Very. I have to accept. To compromise my Self anymore will be my undoing. I shouldnt have to do that as a barter to be not alone in life, and yet fundamentally, still find myself acutely alone..... It isnt good enough.

I deserve a lot better. I know I do. I know I'm not perfect. I know I'm trouble, and I am difficult, who doesnt have baggage?! But I have never in 7 years, nor would I ever, do this to him. I have never treated him this way, been unavailable, been absent, been just gone... who knows where or with whom? He does it all the time.

This is a hard time. It seems that it is going to get even more challenging. I dont think I can do this relationship any longer..... All I want is loving kindness, to echo what I offer. All I want is an ear, to listen, to offer arms to embrace in mutual support, to be there and to have someone be there for me..... Is that too much to ask? All I want is stability, and security, which is what I offer and want to co-create. I feel like our home is a hotel which B passes in and out of at his convenience....

I dont think that is good enough. No. It isnt good enough.

Oh Gods... can it get worse?

This is just so crappy. Shitlemerde.

Breathing Through one Moment at a Time.....

2010-02-22T20:49:00.000-08:00

Better day today. Every 'better' day is an achievement.

I went to a trade show the beginning of February. I saw a friend of mine whom I've known since fourth grade, we grew up together, and we laughed, we cried, and did all of that grieving bonding stuff with far too much red wine. It was more healing than I can even find words to tell you. It was very good!

The trade show was intense. 12 hour days, so much mental and visual stimulation I felt brain-dead at the end of every day. It was fun, but also was very much about me finding my way and trying to be steady with that, whilst navigating this new territory that is 'Life Without Alex'. That was really hard, continues to be hard. But I know Alex was (and is) very proud of me for my work, what I am doing and for finding a job that I love so much. It isn't an important job in the world, or the big picture, but I'm good at it, and it gives me pleasure. And that matters.

At the show, it was and is still now, like being on a teeter-totter, or a roller-coaster. Times it was fun, and great, and I felt confident, knew what I was doing, and felt strong. Laughed a lot. Stayed steady. Made good choices, was decisive, and knew what was needed, and met that need. I was observing myself, watching how I was moving through the experience, one month after my brother died.....As it was then, two months into it now, it is the same: Some days I am okay, some days not so much. I am great in certain moments, and a basket case in others.

I'm trying to grasp what this process is. It is so foreign, so wrong, so hard....sometimes it is like a gaping, yawning abyss opens up before me, unannounced, and very suddenly. I watch myself emotionally windmilling my arms, standing on the precipice of the deep hole of grief, trying to catch my balance and desperately striving for balance, as I teeter on that edge. It comes without warning, so the ability to steel myself, to be prepared or to find coping mechanisms is pointless. I cant.

I cant.

Better day today. It was ok. I went through the motions and got busy at work and actually enjoyed it. That is good. Mostly I can cope. But then in the afternoons, when I've put all of my energy into creating a semblance of constancy and normalcy, I get tired. All of my energy goes into maintenance. Into putting one foot in front of the other and I focus on that. It is just that when I am side-swiped by the abyss that I falter.... And in the evenings, when I come home, there is simply nothing left. The day I don't panic is a good day.

What's beautiful about this process, and also very hard, as a double edged sword, is the sadness and grief of the people in my community, and their desire to share their feelings with me. Their expression of support is a great gift. But a burden too....It happens most days. Today a former client came into the store and asked after Alex. I had to tell him what happened. He hadn't known. He was stunned. Gutted. We said the obligatory sad things, the sharing of shock, the welling of tears, and then he said, "I think I need to go away now and think about this...." And he left crying. I'm left standing there with my work to do, and my business to conduct like a 'normal' person who's life has not been freshly reminded of a missing limb. Of a heart torn right out of my being.....

And then later, shopping for supper at the grocery store, I encounter another person who hugs me, kisses me, expresses her condolences, eyes welling, and I am comforted, but likewise newly grief stricken. Like a bandage that keeps being ripped off the wound. A wound which bleeds constantly. And I find myself needing to be strong for them. Needing to Offer them support. And I'm not equipped to do so. But I pretend. I go through the motions..... I receive their kindness, their sincere offers of heart-felt sorrow at this great loss, and I go away from the encounter feeling loved, and feeling equally bereft and stripped bare.

Days off, I sleep. I curl up on the couch and watch tv. The day I did panic, and ended up in the hospital (last week - heart palpitations, dizziness, crying uncontrollably for 7 hours, I thought I was literally losing my mind, cracking up, done for.) I was told that everything I am feeling and experiencing is 'normal'. Jesus wept. They gave me a pill, were kind to me, gave be a bag to breath into when I needed it, and then let me sleep. The difference was, I felt not alone, and I felt understood and comforted. I felt absolutely heard, understood, and had permission to fall apart and not be strong for anybody. They were strong for me. Bless them. They were there for me. Which when push comes to shove, in a crisis, I do not feel, at home. B is not one for 'feelings'. I have to take care of myself. So that's what I did. That's what I do.

Today was a better day. I didn't freak out. I got through it, and did well. One step at a time. One moment at a time.

I will heal. I will move forward, and I will get strong again. It is just going to take some time.... I'm making it up as I go along, and I don't really know what to do in any given moment. I just have to breathe, breathe, breathe deep, and be grateful for days that are ok.....

For those of you who knew me in my former blog before it was stolen, as 'Chupaflor' know this: This Hummingbird will fly gain. I just need to be in my nest a while; hunker down, be very quiet and heal. Its gonna take some time.....

Bird.

Melt Down....

2010-01-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

I had to put my 14 year old cat down a few days after my brother died. Pushkin had, would you believe, colon cancer, too. My dad had a tumor removed this summer. What is it with the men in my family!?

He had major surgery in october and everything looked rosy until the lab-work came back. Very bad cancer. So we had an extra couple of months of him being back to his old self, bopping around, loving life and everyone in it the the delirious and insatiable life-hog that he was. I havent been able to sleep in my bed since. I sleep on the couch. Pushkin used to sleep on a pillow beside my head. I think this weekend I will take control of the bedroom, move some things around, clear the energy, and reclaim the space. Its time.

I am comforted to know that Alex and Pushkin are together. Alex had a way of attracting cats, strays. They would just show up. Even if they didnt live with him, neighborhood cats would hang out with him. He never fed them, but they wanted to be with him, schmooz with him. He never wanted one. Liked them well enough (loved Pushkin) but didnt want the hair, the responsibility.

It makes me laugh to know that he now has the cat he always never wanted. Because I have told them to stick together, and I know they will. And they will look out for one another.

I'm doing one day on and one day off at work. My colleagues and managers are understanding, amazingly kind and supportive. More so than I ever imagined. Mostly I am getting through my days is a daze, but the rhythm of work is seeping back into me and the distraction is a help. Most of the time. However, by mid-afternoon, I begin to feel overwhelmed and fragile. Today I told a colleague that I just needed to get some air on the deck, and WHAM! Full-blown anxiety attack, complete with feelings which convinced me, even though I know better that 'I'm dying!' Heart palpitations, sobbing, dizziness, shortness of breath, unable to speak. They got me a paper bag. After 20 minutes I could talk through my crying. Everyone was so kind. They held me, stayed with me, told me not to worry about anything, and wiped their own tears from their eyes.

I left early and came home. Feel more calm now, but am drained. I dont know how to do this......

Bird

Life.... And Death

2010-01-10T18:32:00.000-08:00

I havent blogged in a long time. I havent been able to. I've been busy with my life. That sounds stupid. But I really havent been able to bring myself to be here.

There has been an ending of an era, and I needed to put all of my attention there....while it was still possible. And so now that era is over, and I must begin a new one.

My brother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer August 2nd, 2009, after over a year of suffering from what he thought was irritable bowel syndrome. He died December 28th, not of cancer. Can you believe that? He had a blood clot......It isnt fair. He was getting better.

I dont know how to be an only child. I dont know how to deal with my bereavement, which I feel from of the depths of my Soul to the tiniest minutiae of the most mundane thing. I dont know how to cope with the world that doesnt have him here, in it.

It isnt fair. He and Tash had plans. They wanted to create a family. He had so many things he was brilliant at that he wanted to develop. His writing. His coaching career. Writing a column for one of the Formula One websites. He was finally living with purpose and Intention, and was savoring every moment of his life, and his dreams for the future. He was only 42 years old.

My father came from Germany with his fiancee to celebrate Christmas with us. Mum and Tashy's parents were there. We hadnt had a family Christmas like that in 14 years... Christmas eve was traditional cold fare, and Christmas day Alex helped cook, and I made a 23 lbs bird. It was amazing. Such a good time. We were all so happy and loving, and full of hope. I gave everyone a print of one of my paintings. An Angel wing....Alex died the day after dad left.

I'm ok. I am, really. Even though I dont know what ok looks like now, but I am ok. And I will be ok. Alex wouldnt want me to go into the dark places. And so I'm not going there.

I feel him near me all the time. He is here. I see his smile, hear his sardonic, "I CANT believe you said that, Christine', laughing (famous for foot-in-mouth syndrome, me.) I feel him smiling in approval. I feel him rolling his eyes sometimes, still laughing. I feel his distress at having to leave us... But mostly I feel his humour, and his astute clarity coming through. His calm, rational perspective, always gently infused with his therapist's eye for the human condition...

His partner Tash, Mum and I were with him when he went. It was fast and unexpected. He was going to live, you see. The radical therapies he was on had cleared the tumor from his liver.... He was getting stronger, and his body was healing. The one tumor was dying off, the other was shrinking.....It was the other variables that couldnt be controlled. His PH was neutral. His levels were good in everything. Organ function, everything was strong. Aside from cancer, he was vitally healthy. And then it all went bad.

I am very angry. At him, at the hospital (they are an easy target and I know they followed 'protocol' and it isnt their fault, but I am ANGRY!)I am angry at life, at our fates. I go through denial, acceptance, fear, shock, anger, rage, unspeakable grief and calm all in the space of an hour, and then all over again. And again.

It is just all wrong without him.

He died the same day that my sister died, stillborn 35 years ago. My mother .... my mother.... Oh Gods....

Some days are better than others. Today was a bad day. Today, for the first time, I feel sadness. I feel empty. Hollow. And that is more real than anything.

I dont know how to be an only child.....

I dont want to know this terrible thing.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY!

2009-02-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

I do not know whether to laugh or cry. Whether to applaud or barf. 8 babies.... count em.... EIGHT. AND another 6 all under the age of 8. Its a litter of pups! How can one person care for so many hungry mouths adequately?

I guess money can buy you happiness. Or babies. Personally, I'd have been content with one.

On the other side of infertility I want to say, "You GO girl!" I want to send flowers and praises to a woman who loves children, loves having them and mothering them, and who, being single, just damns the torpedoes and goes full steam ahead. That's chutzpah! That's a lady with a dream, and backbone enough to make it happen. That is one human being with a lot of love to give ( or a big need for unconditional love, because lets face it, the only real unconditional love, comes from the Creator - who knows everything - and little babies - who can hardly know any better.) Still, here is a person who dared to make a family, in her desired image, and that is really something. I respect that. But something in my stomach is turning. 8. (Well 14 now) Will they get all the care they need? Will there be enough of their mother left over to actually have anything to give at the end of the day? (How can she afford it... though looking at her face, and the obviously extensive plastic surgery she's had - poor thing- she clearly has money)...Is it jealousy? Or old age? Am I becoming conservative and judgmental in my middle age? Or am I just sensing a boundary between what is possible and what is reasonable? And who the hell am I to say anyway?!

I smell a reality show coming on.Yegads.

I am one of the most liberal minded people I know. But seriously!

What do YOU think?

I am Full of Tears.....

2009-01-20T19:23:00.001-08:00

Having had a wobbly day anyway, at work (just from so much to do, not with anything bad)I got home and logged on to read, instead of watch, the inaugural speech, thinking reading would be less emotionally intense. I didn't want to cry today....

I'm Canadian. We don't hold with guns and racism, or bigotry of any stripe, although we have our fair share. But mostly we don't like that sort of thing. It isn't nice. Isn't civilized....By and large, we are a pretty tolerant and amenable bunch. Polite, you might say.....

And so I'm sitting here covered with goose-bumps, with tears in my eyes, thinking, 'Damn! About time!'

To my cousins to the south - and I do, actually, have cousins in the 'south' (mostly Pennsylvania)if somewhat secondly or thirdly removed, still....we are all related... In Native tradition, at the end of a prayer, one acknowledges the connectedness of all things by offering gratitude to "all my relations", and this includes the mineral, plant, animal and Human realms.

My heart is full and I have a thing to say:

"People of America, well done! The World has been waiting long and long for this day! Collectively, you have chosen to take the reins of the present and wrested it, with great courage and in the face of dire times, from the archaic model of the past. Armed with clarity of purpose, with a vision of Justice, and the Will to live that dream, you have put on your 'seven league boots' and finally rejoined the rest of the World in our journey towards peace! In a Very Big Way! This is how we make dreams Reality! You have claimed a goal for the future which is about inclusion and understanding, disavowing and rejecting that fear-based path which was wielded with arrogance and entitlement in the past. You have chosen to move forward by making a statement of respect, and ultimately of Self-respect, in voicing a desire to create unity in this world, and standing for that statement, and for this world. Choosing to move forward with hope and choosing to go beyond fear into a place where possibility can at last breathe. Not just for yourselves, but for all human beings living on this planet. That is what leaders do. I tell you three times, That is what leaders do! And I say to you that the world is very proud of you! I bless you and thank you, on behalf of all reasoning peoples who desire peace and security for all, I thank you for reclaiming your heritage and your future! This choice will have a large impact on the direction of the future of the world, and now we all can finally believe that the future is a good place to work toward. Together. Together we can do it. We can make the world a place where human beings can live safely, securely, and in harmony. I honor you, my cousins to the south, my relatives, my fellow human beings, People of America, for taking this step forward as leaders of this new Path."

Hoh. All my relations.

And now I am crying.

But my weeping is for Joy...

The Upside of Taking Things for Granted......

2008-12-09T20:09:00.001-08:00

.... if there is such a thing. And I think there is.

We take certain basic things for granted. The Sun will rise tomorrow. Air for breathing, for example. We assume that our hearts will still be beating the morning after the night before, when in trust we fall asleep.... into that profoundly vulnerable place; that place of utter defenselessness.

We assume things, and we must in order to feel safe. If we didn't, we'd go stark raving bonkers immediately. Everything would be dangerous, if not deadly.

So that covers the basics. Yes, we take those for granted. And then there are the other things, like food and shelter, which we in the privileged cultures also take for granted. Not that we don't work our arses off to maintain these things. The fundamentals. Paying rent. Utilities. Taxes. Putting food on table and keeping roof over head, not to mention making sure we have enough money to pay the vets bills. Etc, etc. Finding meaning in work is at an even higher lever and not all of us are so fortunate. But we try.

Still there are other more subtle things we take for granted in the realms of the heart and which have to do with with the intricate threads woven between people over time, who love one another. This is a more delicate thing. At a certain level, if we don't trust with that huge leap of faith that the other (friend, lover, parent) will be there no matter what, then we live in perpetual fear of abandonment. We need to know that we can fuck up and that we are forgivable. We need to know that we can make detours, and that when we come round our circle will receive us with loving welcome.

Faith is a leap of faith. And trust is about faith, I think. It isn't about an observation of events that weigh out with a pro or con. Trust is not that clinical. It is instinctual. Emotional. It isn't about experience that shows us that we are putting our hearts on the line foolishly. It is about faith. Trust is a fragile thing, and it is a choice, but it is also a very visceral thing which speaks from a deep place in the gut, 'evidence' to the contrary, notwithstanding. We hope that trust will bear out to be well-placed and we have faith in that. In our families. In our friendships. In our communities. In where we put our vote. Because trust and Hope, and Faith live in the heart. The mind can say all it wants, with its Ego and its logic, but the heart is the captain of these seas.

We need to take certain things for granted to remain sane. We really do. I need to know my man loves me. That my brother will always be in my corner, that my friend will not forsake me if I make a stupid and monumentally mortifying mistake (okay, maybe that's never happened to you, but I tell you three times: it happens to me on a regular basis). That my mother (crazy old bat that she is, Gods Love her) will still love me even though I will never be like her, no matter how much she wills me to be.....That my government will not strip me of my rights and usurp them, or make unilateral and global decisions without my own small voice being heard.

And yet the closest people to us are the ones we 'take for granted' with the greatest lack of attention, the most egregious disregard; the most neglectful absence of attention. The arrogance and hubris exemplified in our behaviour to these very ones being put at the bottom of the list of priorities is staggering... and yet we take for granted that we will all cleave together when the fertilizer hits the rotating blades, and funnily enough, most often, we do. Moreover, the one and only person (besides,and even including our Creator) who is ALWAYS there, the Self, is the one we take most for granted, the one we abandon most easily....We all do it, some of the time.

But where is that line? When its not okay anymore.....

When the friend of a lifetime's long decades, who has found a new love, is 'too busy', or when the spouse has an important work project and needs to focus all attention on that, or when the parent is (probably with justification) involved in their own process of aging, or when we ourselves realize that not only are our most important ones at the bottom of 'the list' but we ourselves are not on that list at all! The Self gets lost utterly.

I take for granted that my family will be as dysfunctional as the next one, but that they will love me anyway; that my friend will assume I will be there when she's come out of her new love-fog (and dammit, nigh-on forty years trumps five minutes every time, thank you very goddamn much), and that my partner will know that I will be there, when he takes his head out of his navel (or arse... soon, I hope). I take these things for granted because the Love there is enduring. It is a constant, which sits at the hub of all that swirls around it. And I wonder that Love can, in fact, be constant. At all. Its a bloody miracle.

So I reckon that constancy in love is about trust, and Trust is a sister to Hope, both of which are a leap of Faith.

Tricky times in the world at large, these days. All I know is that people can and do love one another. That is, it really IS a constant. THERE IS LOVE BETWEEN PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD. I know this. We have hope that things will 'get better' and we have Faith, we leap into that blind place with Trust.

My mother told me that when I was two-ish, we were hanging out at a pool on a pretty sunny day. She said that she was chatting with some other mothers and all of a sudden she heard my voice call out to her. I was standing on the diving board, little and wee, with all the faith and trust in the world smiling out of my face. "Mama, catch!" I shouted as I jumped into the deep end. Well she scrambled like hell to get to me and you know what? I wasn't drowned. I was okay. I trusted and leaped. Trust... that 'blind leap of faith' is like that..... You just go for it, and when Love is there, you aren't drowned. Mum nearly shit her pants, of course, but I learned that someone would catch me if I jumped. I just wish I still had the faith of the innocent....These days I have to work at it. I have to really make a choice and trust with my WILL that I will be caught, when I jump.

I'm boycotting the consumer thing this season. For a change. Christmas is so stressful. I don't like it. It kills the 'Spirit' of the season for me. The real meaning of this time of year, which is really about the celebration of the return of Light to the land..... For me, the turning of the season, the OLD meaning, the Original meaning is all about renewal and reconnection. All across the World we see ancient cultures celebrating the 'festival of Light' in its various forms, with is myriad traditions. And that is a Joyful thing.

I'll do a tree, and that will be lovely. I'll make a family dinner ( I do a gorgeous bird if I do say so myself), I'll 'deck the halls' and decorate with ivy and cedar and holly, and the house will smell heavenly with it. 'Stuff', however, is so unnecessary. I don't want it. I dont want 'things'....For once, it is such a relief to say, "No, I dont want things..." I just want my people, great food and a happy time with a shared couple of bottles of wine and good conversation and togetherness.

I dont want STUFF.

I want Hope, and Faith, and I trust that people who can love WILL and SHALL love, and that with the coming of Solstice, the renewal of Light and renewal of Life, that Love, and Faith in humanity and its goodness, it's potential, shall prevail, and we will all trust enough to make a leap of Faith into a New Year, and have enough will to create a new vision for the future, where we CAN take for granted the vision that we hold in faith.Where we can take for granted that what is good and right will be created, by all of us, collectively. Because at the end of the day, as human beings, we are capable of love. We are capable of hope, of tolerance, of respect for differences and diversity, and in that there is the potential for anything we want. For all things good.

Humanity is still in it's adolescence. We are a very young species. We have a long way to go but we have the seeds of greatness and goodness in us. We can be beautiful.

I have faith in that. Call me naive. That's okay.

Because I think that if we have Love, we've got to have hope. And if we have hope we must have Faith. It doesnt matter what name that Faith has, so long as it informs us that something good is possible. That we can create, as a collective humanity, something good out of our belief in the possible. The possibility for an end to limitation; an end to judgment; an end to the subjugation of one for the other; an end to prejudice and bigotry (I so very much want that, believe in that possibility, that reality).....Possibilities can only exist if we believe they exist..... If we Intend them to exist... I can believe in that. I can really get behind that kind of belief. I am telling you right now that this is a real possibility that we can create.I know this is true.

I believe that we can be big. I have a lot of hope invested in us, as a species, that we can all be great.

I don't know if I can take that for granted, but I intend to take that leap of Faith.

Bird.

Later: I can have all the Trust I want (or try) but that isn't going to stop Teddy the Bear from busting out of the dog run and going on walk-about when he feels like it..... That little rat-bag. He's just very lucky he's so cute! And I'm very lucky he always comes back... eventually. :)

June blooms, Bitch blues....

2008-06-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

Flowers come up, finally, reluctantly, and we have intermittent sun which bravely burns off the fog between days of drizzle. Morning glory sprogs and other seedlings, both fleurs for pleasure and veggies for the garden are valiant as they sprout in their sheltered pots. I worry for them. The big world out there is not what they expect because its too damned cold.....What is this!? It should be hot and dry by now. This is a hot zone. A 'mediterranean-type' climate. Apparently... but these days it is a climate, a world, even, that one can only respond to with... "Huh!?

At least my new attempt at making a lawn where there was a gravel pit, formerly used as a car park is valiantly bursting into a riot of cheerful clover. Forget grass seeds. Clover is the way to go. It is hardy. You can throw anything at it and it likes it and spreads, looking fabulous.

We are reclaiming the gravel and creating green. We are planting dry rock garden loving things which are thriving, despite the rain ... a good time for them to set their roots in preparation for the annually anticipated drought, which right now is a mere laughable memory. And the rain comes down. As it happens, these days, a lot. I'm not complaining about that as such, just the cold. The stupid ('Hello, it's JUNE now in case any one noticed) cold. I wore a scarf today. Retarded.

I hate my job at the moment. There will be no raises this year, (the bastards) although I have taken on a large chunk of responsibility the last months. And I am doing well, working way WAY too hard, and am killing myself for...what!? A company beholden to its shareholders and arbitrary numbers....

A life where I come home exhausted, bitchy and have nothing left to give to my house, which is a disaster; or to my man ( I cant remember the last time we got laid) ; nor even anything to give to the poor dogs. The idea of taking them out for a run, rather than being a pleasure, has become one more duty that renders me tired beyond words. ...with the weight of having one more thing on the proverbial 'list'. Just one more thing... When I come home I am literally stunned, Pole-axed into a state of zombieism with the bombshell of my day, and I am not in my body. Don't know where I am, but I am not here. The stress has 'body-snatched' me away.

I have this sense of urgency, this pressure coming at me: Just one more.....Just one more thing to do. The Control that the infamous 'agenda' has over me which I feel Powerless to deal with when am spent and senseless with being peopled-out and feel the symptoms of 'burn-out' creeping closer every day. The 'just one more thing' factor is sending me screaming to the hills and putting me into a state of obnoxious, defensive negativity, on the one hand, and almost a state of catatonia on the other, as I become paralysed in the face of its relentlessness, which I cant even describe. I succumb to the pressure and go into 'head-in-sand' mode. Very little can get me out of that place once I am entrenched in it.

Its not good. It is just NOT GOOD.

I had a meltdown and lost my temper (for which I am suitably remorseful and ashamed of, but I can live with that.....) on Friday, berating the Paint department head for not taking care of her own freight which I have been doing for 9 months. ( 9 months is the time it takes a human embryo to gestate, the time it takes for one thing to become another,the time it takes for one reality to manifest a miracle and become something else...)

I guess the annoyance built up on top of actual resentment over that time took its toll. One expects a beginning and a middle and an end to things.; and like a birthing event, in all of its realness and raw glory, It's pain and anxiety, excitement and happiness, worry and thrill, and all of its 'Here we GO, this is what's happening', there is no room or time for bullshit here. Believe me, the birthing of anything worthwhile be it a baby, or a house or a piece of art, or the choice to embrace a new life-style, a new way, has a big 'shut up dont get in my way, this is happening NOW, like NOW !' and has a big ' lets get on with it factor' . Moreover, you are either on board or you are not, and if not, fuck off and dont waste the time of those who have WORK to do to facilitate and participate in creation. Be here now and be real and be a contributor, or piss off.

I bided my time and held my piece and was supportive, i.e. doing work which belonged to someone else ... out of KINDNESS, you should know. I'm not feeling so kind now nearly a year later but I'm feeling consequent. And Also I ended up feeling really bitchy. I finally spoke my truth, and truth be told it came out kind of hard, having months of pressure behind it....... I Lost it. It wasn't pretty.

I have my own work to do thank you. Thank you very F*****G much. I offered subtle reminders. Gentle requests to come on board and be a team were met with ambivalence. Clear requests were met with "I'm busy" (Okay, thank you so very much for being in the moment and for being honest with where you are but frankly, that ain't getting the job done. ) You're 'busy'. Right....HUH. Like that is special. Like that is something only you have a relationship with.

EEEEuuwgh!

The job everyone and their dog are doing FOR you which you should in fact be doing because,Hello, it is YOUR FUCKING JOB is not something your co-workers are inclined to do anymore. Never mind the broken leg, or the cataract surgery, or the bad back (its always something isn't it?) Never mind the relationship issues, Sympathy has poured like honey all over you and support has surrounded you for ages, Its enough already. You've milked it and the goodwill has run OUT . You say you are are busy. Yegads, its one of the busiest retail establishments on the island, if not the country being 100 years old and going strong because people CARE! If you don't, then Piss off and go away!

WE, whoop-dee-la-dee-fucking -da!!. We, your colleagues and co-workers have been ( believe it or not) very supportive of you and your issues and meanwhile, we have not BEEN sitting around with our thumbs up our arses for the very delightful thrill of it, we are busy too. We are all busting a gut with being BUSY whist you shirk and delegate, ignore and file your bloody nails, and that doesnt cut it, you RANCID COW!!:)

Directives from managers were repeatedly ignored and then I just snapped.

I don't need this shite. Working for a pittance with a stress level and a responsibility level that is frankly leveling me flat!

I need to be making money, which I am not. B REALLY wants me to help with his business which he is willing to PAY for (more that my shite hourly retail rate) and they don't want to let me cut my hours so I can do this!

I cant rant about it anymore or this will just degenerate into gutter cursing and hysteria.

Things things end are a bit intense and I could do with a few supportive thoughts and encouragement coming my way.

Retail is the Devil. Or one of them.

Meanwhile, to ad insult to injury, the weather sucks. Its cold and wet and Solstice approaches, when days will get shorter, and we haven't had a Spring, or even a taste of Summer so far.

Dolly, once again,has gone on walk about or something and has been missing for days.

Again.

I have an appointment with an ear nose and throat specialist on Thursday to figure out my sinus issue and to determine if my deviated septum will result in a holly-wood nose. Wish me luck. And:

Give me strength.

Bird. xoxox

Oh Baby! :)

2008-05-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

Lola May, 8lbs 5 ounces, Born May 19th, 2008.

My best friend's daughter has given birth to a brand new human being called Lola May. She is gorgeous ( the baby)... and also I mean, it should be said, that she comes from a long line of gorgeous so she comes by it honestly. Paternally, her father is a sweet, gorgeous, sincere and loving young man, and that's all I know about that side of her heritage, but her mother is gorgeous, and her Grandmama is absolutely gorgeous. Also, it should be said that her Great-Grandmama has been famous all along for being a great beauty, as was her mother before her, and they are all, all of them, more and MOST importantly very beautiful inside and out. Which is really what makes them utterly gorgeous. (Okay, I may be biased. But I'm still right.) I'm blown away to think that I have known them all...... From great-great grandmama on down.

SO I'm a proud great Goddess mother. And I'll say it out loud:

THIS IS THE MOST LOVELY AND BONNY BABY THAT EVER WAS BORN!

You should know that my best friend is really my sister, although we share no genetic connection except thorough mutual Teutonic ancestry. But she's been the only sister I've known (and best sister I could have hoped for) since age 5 . That's 38 years and going strong, and she is the sister of my heart and soul. She is my place of safety and of comfort. I dont know what I'd do without her. She's been there with me virtually all of my life. She is the one who knows me like no one else. She and I share a connection that is deeper than either of us can put into words and stronger than any relationship I have ever known. We have fought, and kissed and made up like all siblings. We are excellent at debate, loose patience with one another, make huge room for each other to be 'Us' warts and all, and are sometimes controlling with one another whilst simultaneously making loving, supportive space for each other to be real and honest in the moment, and beyond. We 'see' one another's process whilst we cant see our own even when that process is in parallel, which is usually. We KNOW one another like we know the backs of our own hands. And that is rare and special. I would lay my life down for her. Or for Emma. And now also for Lola May.

Andreya's mother is my other mother and I address her as Mama as often as I address her by name. These days we are not always in touch but when we are we pick up with an 'as I was saying' kind of thing which only happens with very old and real friends. She raised me as much, and sometimes, it must be said, better and with more kindness, appropriate discipline, attention to sharing knowledge, genuine respect and wisdom than my own mother did. She knew me better than my own mother did. That was always true.....She always loved me as one of her own Babies and I always felt that. (What a gift!) I knew that deeply and without censure and she, my other mama, as a result of the nature of her real loving of me, is one of the pillars I stand on, and is therefore, hugely responsible (for all of the good bits) for the woman I am today.

They are family. They are more family to me than the cousins and aunts I have by genetic connection and who I know hardly and care even less about. They, my circle, this collection of female energies and loving women, are closer to me sometimes than my own brother who shared the same womb with me (not at the same time), and whom I also love very very dearly, but who is still more of a stranger to me than this heritage and lineage of women I am blessed to be connected to.

Sometimes one's family, sometimes, and in fact more often than not, one's real family are not related to us through blood. But through the heart. Through the experience of life and through the heart. We learn to love and discover, much more importantly, that we can BE loved by people unlooked-for, who simply show up out of the blue and just love us... because. They see something in us no one else does. They 'see' us. Really 'see' us. They fall in love with us. Even though we've sometimes been taught by our own family dynamics that we are not lovable as we are, not lovable unless we conform to the conditions and requirements they set on us. Unconditional family love is such a crock, isn't it?

These people we are guided to, or they to us, and who through serendipity, mystery and so-called 'coincidence' (which I dont believe in for one nano-second, and never have) or other means, come into our lives, and they teach us that we ARE in fact lovable, believe it or not, which is sometimes if not always an astonishing realization. We are lovable. We are LOVABLE!!! Often and even usually, it takes others outside our blood-family to allow us to learn that. To remind us of that. To give us that gift. But this experience of discovering that we can be loved, teaches us like no other experience, that we CAN LOVE in return. That we have the capacity to love more than we ever knew...... We can love ourselves and others. And that's the point, I think.

We stumble upon friendships which allow us to unfold and become the person we always wanted to be but which our blood-families never allowed us to grow into, because of their own historical/cultural and personal paths and constraints. We are given love and helpers along the way. LIFE gives us these gifts because it knows we need to grow into love in a way that the lessons of our families are lessons that we need deal with and then GROW OUT OF. And then move beyond. And so we are blessed to find kindness unlooked-for and understanding and wisdom in friendships that come into our lives at the exact moment, in the exact way we need them. A Blessing. Some are temporary. Sparking and acting as a catalyst. Some are around for a time and they serve their purpose, as one does likewise for them in mutual growth. Others, the most special ones, we are gifted to have for a lifetime.....This is a great treasure and a gift. These are companions through life, along the path of the 'big picture' and they become those who 'knew us when', and can give and receive more than any one else. I have a few old friends. From grade school. Real friends. I'm lucky to have people who 'knew me when' who let me be who I am now, and they've loved me through that process of becoming. I have one bestest friend who knew me when, and knows me now better than any. I am very lucky that my heart-family is quite big. I am really very very blessed. Andreya is the first and last among them.

There is a term of endearment I learned from a great series of books, and that term is this: Annama Charra. A Gaelic term which describes a friendship of the heart which comes along once in a lifetime. And so I am blessed to know and live what that means in reality.

But I digress....

When we were still children, Andy and her family moved back and forth from England to Canada several times and though both our families were relatively poor, our mutual parents kept our friendship alive, supported and encouraged by love, and by finding the means, somehow, though scrimping and saving (and in the 70's airfare was a very, very big deal, and so was a wee tiny mite traveling across the universe on her own!) to make sure we saw one another and spent time together every year or so. They knew we needed one another and they supported us. I will always honour and be eternally grateful to them for that. I went to England, she, my Andy came to Canada. And then they moved, finally and for good, to England when we were both 16. Neither one of us has ever really fully recovered from that ultimate separation.

We've gone on, had lives (big full and busy) but being apart has always gutted us. And yet, in our amazing relationship, we've kept up an extraordinary and very unique correspondence and connection. In cyberspace now we meet every few days. Before that, we spent a few weeks or a month filling up a school-book of lined paper with daily journals which we sent to one another. For years! We have literally thought of each other almost every single day of our lives since we've known one another. She's my sister. What else can I say?

I visited my 'sister' Andy, in England, when I was 7 - thanks to both our parent's scrimping and saving as aforementioned..... sent to spend a glorious few summer weeks with my friend who had moved back to the UK. And I still remember walking the sea wall with her grandparents. I still remember that house in Colchester, remember playing in the fields and the smell of burnt hay as the fields were turned over, burned and prepared for the next season's crop. A smell which evokes those summer days and probably will for the rest of my life....( Kate Bush sings evocatively of this fragrance and feeling in one of her songs.... "The smell of burning fields, will now mean you and here"....) I remember the both of us tramping through the long dry grasses, taking our tops off and laying bare (and very flat) chested on top of the gargantuan hay bales, soaking up the sun, to suddenly notice some boys coming our way and we scrambled to find our shirts which we lost in the hay. We found them JUST in time! I remember choking with laughter and spewing muesli all over the table out of my full mouth, triggered by something silly and probably unremarkable to an adult, as the three of us, me, Andy and her little brother dissolved in fits of giggles over nothing as only little children can do; we scrambled to clean up the mess before A's parents came in from the garden and managed to do it just in time but erupted in hysterical gales of laughter anyway when they came back into the house. "What's going on here?" The smiling inquiry was met with the typical "Oh nothing" reply which only made us laugh the more (try not-laughing when you've just spewed muesli all over the dining room table and you dont want the adults to know). It all underscores the fact that children have their own world and will always know when an an adult cant possibly understand. We took riding lessons and my love of horses was confirmed. Little Mikey impressed me by holding bumble bees in his bare hands, gentle things, and I still remember seeing my first Ghost in that house too... but that's another story for another blog.

So....back and forth we went and finally at 16 she moves to England, I get on with my own horrible and lamentable adolescence ( they are all horrible arent they? Its a rotten time of life. Adolescence and adolescents, just nasty, all of it.) Meanwhile....Years go by. She got married and had a beautiful baby girl named Emma, got divorced (no fault of hers), and I went through a few relationships, a couple of miscarriages, a marriage -which much later failed- and finally, finally, we met again when Emma was about to have a milestone moment... ten years later.....I made another big leap across the pond to England.

The transition from baby to 'little girl' at the age of 'about-to-turn-three' is very special and hugely important. I hadnt seen Andreya in 10 years. I brought a quilt with me that I had designed and made for her daughter. It was quite stunning .... and I worked on it for many months with so much love and care. It had the phases of the moon appliqueèd (wrong accent but I cant figure out the right one) in a circle around the centre. Then in the next layer outwards, it had horses and flowers appliqeèd too. And stars quilted all over. Lots of pink! Once I get a handle on how to work my scanner I'll post a picture of it. It was all hand stitched. All of it. And it is still, apparently, to this day, very beautiful and in good condition. Almost 17 years later. I made it for my little Em who was so, so very wee at the time. Three years old. Now she's a new mama.....

So for her 3rd birthday, we, Andreya and I, made Em a Lion cake (she, Miss wee Emma, being a fairly large Leo for such a small person, and she still is). We put lots of Smarties on it and I, wanting to get her some pink flowers to wake up to and to decorate her birthday table (Em was then and still is mad about pink!) went for a short walk to look for some. Shops were flowerless . On my way back, leaned over a small wall and grabbed a few pink fleurs from a nearby scraggly yard when no one was looking... (Very bad behaviour, just plain very very bad.) But I thought, 'Just one or two blossoms that no one will miss'......As it happened, they ALL came up with the roots and to my horror, as I looked about to see if anyone had seen my theft, I realized that I had taken them from the local church yard! So Em had stolen pink church flowers, many presents wrapped in pink, and her Lion cake too. Yegads.

Andy and I were both raised Catholic, but with a twist (or an open mind) and neither one of us took to the religion fully. Our parents were products of the 60's. Mine were health yoga freaks, steeped in the nouveau-psychotherapy of the times and natural medicine. Hers were more traditional yet open minded and both of our parents raised us to be likewise.

We are both Pagans at heart and heathens, and witches, in our own way. I wasnt there for Emmy's Christening, so Andy and I contracted together and agreed to a pact. A commitment of the heart. I was to be Emma's 'Goddess Mother' and although there is nothing on paper, that agreement is carved into my Soul as no other. Stronger than any commitment I've ever made. Or will ever make. Stronger than a Marriage vow. I've watched her go from stroppy child to precocious preteen, to monster teen in no time flat. To fully-fledged blossoming wise-woman and now a brand new mother, with, suddenly, all her ducks in a row and a mind which manifests organization and getting things done that leave me and her mother in open-mouthed awe. So much happens in nearly two decades its hard to fathom it all. Who is that poised, compassionate, considerate, creative, confident, intelligent and compelling woman and what has she done with the adolescent brat?!

Lola May is here and she's utterly beautiful.

I feel very very humble. I am leaving the maiden, mother phase and entering the crone era of my life.

I am a great Goddess-mother.

I'm so grateful for the health of my girls, and for the brave birthing journey they have traveled with such strength and Grace. And for the support they have received from everyone. Em's partner did her proud. He's a good young man and he did beautifully, did everything right. And their love is a shining, glorious thing, a beautiful and real gem. Andreya was with them and helped Lola be born. She tells me that Emma didnt cry, she didnt scream. Not once over 30 some hours. She was focused and present and POWERFUL in her birthing process and I am so very very bloody proud of her!

Huh. My Bella, my bestest friend is a granny! Wow.

!

Thank you Goddess/ God/ Great Creator for all the gifts we have and for this new Soul who is so very much loved!

Now What?

2008-05-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking of the recent horrific tragedy in Burma.

It is terrible. I feel helpless. I feel gutted......Not since the Tsunami have I felt so strongly that my heart has been wrenched and battered by the loss of human life...... Not since then have I felt so useless to make a difference . I dont know what to do. So typically, I turn inward and reflective (otherwise known as self absorbed)....

I'm sitting in my little office with the huge long window, as the sun dips below the trees and the shadows get long, while a few children play below in the yard of my downstairs neighbour who is hosting a pot luck dinner. I'm invited. I'm not going though because I am so 'peopled out' by my own job. I love my neighbour. I've known her since I began visiting the Island, before I moved here, and she is the closest friend I have here. Raised in Toronto, from Jamaica originally, she gives me the ethnic juice I need and miss, which is so lacking in this 'white-bread' place.....We have a lot in common. She is lovely and wonderful with an enchanting daughter, whom I love to pieces and would lay my life down for, and who is about to have her 9th birthday. She understands that there is enough on my plate, and doesnt begrudge me that I dont want to spend time with anyone but my own space right now - my time is precious, and B and my animals (all 8 of them... 4 dogs and 4 cats) have been feeling the lack of my attention. I'VE been feeling the lack of my attention . But its nice to hear music and the laughter of children near by. I can live that vicariously for the moment even, and especially, if that moment is in the background. And that's where it needs to be. So I can be glad of a gentle space in which I can rest without any agenda other than writing, and later, maybe flopping out on the couch in front of the tv, or just going, dead tired, to bed. I've been so exhausted lately that I just fall down and sleep like a stone.

At my regular gig, at the 'Home Hardware' store, which is actually a one hundred year old, real and actual old fashioned general store, like in the old days and quite famous for it (we sell everything, and I love it there) life is busy. I've gone from department to department, learning all the different things that make each department tick, ending up (returning to) the paint till for the last 8 months, where I am equipped to help and advise with paint and tiling questions. And whatnot. Having had some experience (huh!) in the last 20 years in commercial painting, tiling and whatnot, not to mention landscaping and horticulture, art conservation, art gallery curating, and custom framing; general construction, stained glass(for 20 years and teaching thereof as well as mosaics) and etcetera. We are all Jacks, or Jaqcuelines of all trades in the adventure of trying to make a living on tis Island. My story is hardly unique. .

At my regular job, I've done something a little bit daring, which is to take on , by choice and unasked for, the responsibility of sorting out 1/2 of the main floor, which includes camping, toys, laundry, storage, paint etc, etc., and now I'm building a crafts and art department. And that's a good thing! I have the support of my managers for it, and they've been really great. Somehow, I got fed up with standing around with my thumb up my arse and decided to DO something, so I just took charge and claimed the space. My managers have been lovely, really supportive. I'm grateful to them for that. They are awesome people.

I make lists of what sells and what doesnt, what we need and what should go in the garbage. I tell them what people are asking for and what we should offer. They seem to appreciate that. I've put a lot into it and its drained me. Its taken the guts out of me..... Because I've given more than I've got back; the pay is shite. Really shamefully SHITE. The benefits are pretty good but benefits dont pay the mortgage, you know?

I do all the window displays, with furniture or whatever is being featured, and turn them into big fantasy stage sets. Currently we have 'dinner in the gazebo' with a wicker wonderland table setting, and mosquito nets, about six of them draping down elegantly, with green jungle foliage strategically placed; green and black patio table ware, delicious and utterly bohemian black and gold elephant candle sticks with lime green candles. Floral Spring things with a splash of daring red. Very yummy. Its a part of the job that I like a lot. The drama queen in me gets free rein. But it hardly pays.

I deserve more.

I DESERVE MORE !!!

Yes I do.

Last Christmas I/ we won the 'most creative window' display. It was a bathroom display..... a collaborative effort in truth, and my managers and I had a lot of fun with it. It must be said that I was merely the 'cake decorator'. But I put a bit into the general concept which the three of us concocted. ( Did I mention this already?) We had a small tree and the usual Christmas decorations and green and red going on. I sculpted a Santa head and feet with plasticine... we put a beard and hat on him, and spectacles, filled the bathtub in which he was lounging after his long Christmas working night with big bubble wrap to indicate bubbles, flung the Santa suit and boots on the floor (and left the toilet seat up!) whilst a martini glass rested, dangerously tilted, in his hands. ..... and got a picture of the display (and me, I was horrified to have to pose) in the local paper.

The nose was beautiful... Just a tiny bit Cherubic and yet Patrician at the same time. Almost Aquiline, but friendly enough to be, well.... friendly. Like you'd assume Santa's nose would be! And the feet were life like, and the toes peeked out endearingly through the 'bubbles of the bath' complete with toe nails carves into the plasticine....It was great for a number of weeks.....until the plasticine dried out and the toes began to fall apart and Santa, it must be said, developed a serious case of leprosy!

Huh.

Meanwhile, back to the here and now, after the long slog: Rest. This is much needed. Its been a long haul. I've been pushing too hard for a long time and have been very ill quite a lot of the past winter as a result of my pushing. I had to go to the hospital at one point for oxygen and an anti-inflammatory/ bronchial dilator/ inhalation. (Two rounds of antibiotics which I dont believe in and loathe. and seriously dont recommend.) It was scary. I couldn't breathe. My lungs went into spasm. Yuk. I thought I was going to die. I'm still coughing.

The dreaded flu which goes and comes back, to go and come back again, and yet again... According to the local Hospital, it's been the worst out-break in 9 years. I think I got every bug in triplicate that was going around.

Not good.

Partly, it has transpired, the deviated septum and past multiple breaks in my nose: Horse back riding... jumps refused, nose meets neck of horse... volley ball meets face, Brick wall meets face, dog doesnt want her claws cut today and throws back her bony head into my schnoggin, I.e Dog head meets face.....etc. might be contributing to the sinus issue, because they arent draining properly. It turns out, after having an ex-ray, that apparently I have some weirdness happening and I have an appointment with an ear nose and throat specialist the first week of June. If I get a 'Hollywood nose' out of the situation.... I wont be sorry:)

I have some time off right now, a week, during which I am doing a small but plumb job of faux finish painting for some long standing and special clients.

A 'working holiday' which could suck, but its actually fun, creative and satisfying and wont take up all of my time off and is a good thing in terms of income when retail drudgery becomes a hopelessness in the face of relentlessness. ( It wont sustain you no matter how much you give.... I tell you three times)

I'll have some time to focus on the things that have been allowed to slide badly, like everything single thing in the house, and some garden time too. I've started my first seeds but have a load still to plant.

Stained glass is leaving me cold and I am itching to get back to my first love which as you know is painting. The studio and I are making friends very slowly.... all things come in their own good time.

B and I are doing well with a few hiccups along the way and a few stark realities that need to be addressed. Its called growing up, I think. We were planning to get married this summer, but I panicked, realizing that I want a number of things to be sorted before I take that plunge again. I dont want to make the same mistakes I made last time.... and have to look at what I perpetuate in terms of negative patterns. ( I waffle. One day I think marriage is a good idea, the next day I think, "I've been there and done that, why do it again? It isnt like we are going to have children'.... ) And then I think of my own reticence when it comes to commitment and intimacy. My walls are big, my attachment to distractions take away from being HERE NOW ...and feel that I need to move through that barrier...... Some days it looks like it should become one thing, and other days it looks like something else. Its all about the process of becoming, isnt it? Becoming a grounded and balanced adult human being. Gods that sounds so serious! And it is such hard work. Cant I just coast along, please and not look at the big stuff?! Cant I go along with your idea and and rely on you to 'take care of things'? Puh-leeze? YOU do it! For me.. OKay ?

Huh. NO .

OBVIOUSLY NOT. ( Grow UP Christie). We have to work at it. (Ugh, work yeughch!) The stuff of life that determines direction, and ultimately, outcome?! We have to make it happen. That requires work. PUTTING OUR SHOULDERS TO THE WHEEL AND FIGURING OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HUMAN BEING WITH GOALS.....Ugh! YUK. It sounds so disciplined, so European, so militant.... I'm not ready to be a formal and dogmatic adult. With rules and a regimental schedule for life.... (Gag me! ...find me a bridge to leap off of!)

I'm so immature.

Anyway....Next summer is soon enough to be all grown up. I want the foundation we lay to be very solid and clean. Not that things havent been solid ( everyone has their ups and downs and we've had some life-in-general factors which have come at us fast and hard the last few years) , but I want us to be more organized as a couple... be more of a couple which is something I've never learned. I've never had a joint bank account with a partner, for example, or had a house-hold budget or a plan for savings. These are things that need to happen so we can be more of a team and I know we will manage to learn them. I have a lot of faith in us, and so does B. I'm lucky. We are lucky. It isnt everyone who gets a second chance at a genuine and deep love. Twice in a lifetime. I've got that and I feel very blessed. B is a good man. He's amazing. We are both lucky to have one another. And we both know it.

I am/ we are busy with the process of becoming. Trying to be more conscious of the process.

Knowing that is enough.

A call for Solace, and Support...

2008-04-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

My Friend has lost a loved one. I know what that feels like. We all do. It hurts like hell. It hurts like fucking hell. I'm asking for all of you to send loving thoughts of Solace to HM, who has lost a family member this week.

Not a single one of us is an Island. We need each other to get through this journey of life. ...

Please send her thoughts of comfort and solace through the ethers.

We all need each other's support....

Cat Bandits....

2008-03-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

For some time now, a couple of years easily, since Dolly was put on a diet, we have suspected that she has an alternate source of food.

Ollie is what she was originally named, (horrid), which morphed into Dolly, or otherwise known as 'Mau-mau'. She's a Black cat, with an auburn sheen that comes out in the sun like oil on mahogany; very beautiful with a short but very thick, shiny coat. She comes from, as do the kittens, a semi-feral cat colony. There are quite a few on the Island, and if the babies are captured early enough, they can become domesticated but they always retain their wild heritage in one way or another.... She's sexy and Rubinesque. Tough and very independent. In our family she's an alpha-girl, but savvy with her skills of diplomacy. She has a full house of four-legged and two-legged people to manage and does so with both a steely glance and a light touch. I could learn from her. And I do.

Dogs will love you no matter what. Having the love of any animal is an honour. It is a lifetime responsibility when one has an animal as a family member. Having the love of a cat who stays with you even though it has a cat door and can roam unhindered through the local world, is a gift above honour. They come back by choice. Cats CHOOSE to stay with humans. They dont have to. I often feel that humans adopt dogs but cats adopt humans...And we love our cats and dogs and spoil all of them shamelessly. Count 'em. Every one of our cats has a dawg... :) 1 each. times 4. That makes 8 four legged beasties. Yes we are a bit nuts, but that's ok.

Crazy is good.

Our animal meals, which consist of all kinds of good things such as - for the cats : wet cat food, and natural kibble- and for all the beasties: sardines, eggs with rice, my own home-made version of 'haggis' consisting of oatmeal, home made stock made from veggies, lamb and beef bones and a lot of time; some form of protein like canned salmon, ground beef or trout; veggies, seaweed, and whatever strikes my fancy to supplement their wet food and high-end kibble (which is paupering us, but we do love our beasties so sacrifices are made without much complaint). These are given out in exact measurements. Their nourishment and care are a source of pride for me ( pride goeth before a fall ).

I cant give the dogs the exercise they used to get because of my working hours (but they are middle aged now, being 8, 9, 9 and 10 going on 11, so they require less of a physical commitment and I go overboard in compensation with providing them what I can give....) They do get to the beach at least once a week during spring, summer and early Fall months, to swim and play, and several visits to the local ravine a week... mostly. The gentle paramble around the neighbourhood happens now and then, but they have their dog run out back which is a fenced in area approximately 75 feet per side. Frankly they use it as a toilet primarily, play pen only occasionally, as (duh) there arent any couches out there!

Anyway, back to the point, Dolly gets the same lovely food as all the others, only LESS . Because she's.... round. Rotund.

We have suspected that SOMEONE, due to her unaltered girth (which isnt dangerous but is ...'Zaftig') in the neighbourhood has been feeding her. Because she's a generously gifted thing. Stout. I call her plush. Her fur IS plush. Still, I thought it doubtful, due to her mistrust of strangers...And yet, sometimes, the odd occasion, she doesnt come home for dinner and stays out all night. The slut. First time it happened I 'grounded' her for a month, blocking the cat door at night. What would you have done?! It worked for about 6 months. She didnt play truant and came home at meal times like a good Catholic girl......

Huh.

Time went on and she became lazy with the rules, and the times she was absent, gone for hours past her meal time,always arriving late and then announcing her arrival as though she were the Queen, deigning to grace us with her Presence - and demanding a meal AT ONCE- I was grateful she came home. At all. Fat cats DONT miss their food opportunities, as we will soon reveal...

When she was playing truant, I walked the curbs and looked for her dead body, convinced she'd been struck and murdered by a car. Weeping, with a Miner's skull-beam flashlight on my head, I searched the shoulders and ditches, desperate to find her, dead or alive. Those of you who read my old blog under Chupaflor will recall my anxiety, and my ire (highly amusing no doubt in it's hindsight's telling) when she nonchalantly blasted through the cat door on the morning after ( or afternoon, I cant remember, little rat) and yowled for her missed dinner. As though it were MY fault she'd missed a gourmet home-made meal. Manipulative sow.

We got a call the other day from a distant neighbour who said our cat's collar had been found on his land. Kind of him to call. My heart stopped cold. Last time that happened the workers who found the collar of my cat, Tigger ( this was many years ago in Ontario, still married to my ex) were very gentle when they told him Tigger was dead. I was in England at the time and when I called home from a phone box to check-in, I collapsed on the ground when I heard the news and wept uncontrollably for two days.

I love my beasties too much. They are the only children I will ever have. When B told me our distant neighbour had called to tell us that Dolly's collar was at his house, I was sucker-punched, gobsmacked, thrown sideways and numb with sickness- at -heart, blood running cold....

But then I realized she was sleeping peacefully on the bed. On my Pillow.... Naturally.

Before work that day I went to the address, about 1/2 a kilometer away, and discovered that the land belonged to a regular customer and business acquaintance of mine. Apparently, Dolly has become known and has earned herself a reputation as a local pariah. She who is the affectionate and schmoozing cat, who comes home yowling loudly in welcome when she hears my car pull into the driveway and stretches out in my arms with a big purr-fest... She who yammers loudly at me when I go for a walk, scolding me when I leave the land. Like mother, like daughter-cat, she's a control freak... As for two leggeds, she's loving to me and pretty-much no one else including B, who was her first human, and who adopted her and is continuously choked that she has chosen me as her 'primary' human. She's fearless, fierce, a smoosh-ball of cudddles - for me- and loves her dogs with a possessive passion; especially William who she grew up with.

Little rat-bag has been roaming to other regions. Going over the 'big' road, and what's worse, Basil, my baby Baz, being lead down the 'garden path' by her Royal Terribleness, has learned to follow in her footsteps. Whether she actively solicited him is in doubt but clearly he followed her and a feline and unknowable to two-leggeds deal was struck. She showed him the ropes. It transpires that they have become a TEAM, and terrorize the cats from our, and neighbouring communities.

My Cat babies are terrorists.

It isnt funny. Dont laugh. Stop it! IT ISNT FUNNY! Okay, its a tiny wee bitty little bit funny. Well.... Hilarious, almost, if it isnt happening in your own house, and if you dont have to face angry neighbours. (We are a mad and dysfunctional family. Not unlike everyone else.....Although we have more feet than most. We endeavor to put the fun back into dysfunctional.....)

Lately, I've been noticing - strangely enough- that the incidence of cat-fight noises has been totally absent from our neck-of-the-woods since the kittens arrived, last May/June. In the past, a few summers ago, I remember Dolly running down the stairs of the front deck, to confront a stranger-cat. She was a scary thing. Literally a hell-cat. She on hind legs, arms waving wildly in the air, shrieking in that unholy other-wordly way that only irate (or amorous) cats can.... like a Ban-shee from some horror movie. (Yegads, I'D run from her right quick if I didnt know her! She's gorgeous but terrifying!)

What I realized this week is that the truth is that Dolly has seduced my baby Baz into a life of crime. He's not barely a year old! She's taught him street fighting. Taught him to be a con-artist and a bully. It seems it isnt enough to subdue and dominate the local cat population (who dont dare approach or encroach on our land anymore, hence the 'quiet' and lack of cat noises) . No, not good enough, they need to go to the NEXT neighbourhood, expanding their territory (across the 'big road').

Across the Very. Big. Road.

Shitfuckpissdamngoddamsonofabitch.

Meanwhile, poor neighbouring cats. My neighbour H said, when I arrived on his doorstep to get my rotten and criminally delinquent cat's collar, "Now that I know it's you who owns these cats, I feel a little bit better" whatever that means. Maybe it means he wont shoot them because he knows me, for they, according to him and I dont doubt him for a minnit, BEAT UP HIS CATS AND STEAL THEIR FOOD.

My children are criminals. Bandits. Hooligans!

Shit.

Bonnie and Clyde. I have bully cats. They are the local Feline Mafia!

(STOP LAUGHING!)

I cover my head in ashes of shame. I was so embarrassed when I went to retrieve her collar (one of many she's 'lost' and ironically the only one with her SPCA tag.)

IN other news: It is snowing. An unlikely and unseasonal dump of the wet and slushy stuff which threatens to freeze over-night, rendering the roads treacherous. I've got the wood-stove cranked and all the beasties are within. The terrible and unlikely twosome included. Monsters. The local and not-so-local cats and their dinners are, for tonight, at least, safe from marauding, voracious and unreasonably territorial cats who should know better and just stay home and sleep on the couch where it is warm, dry and I AM HERE to love them. Dont you think that should be enough for them?

You know, learning that one isnt enough for one's children, two or four footed, always sucks.

Cats will eat your face off if you die. Its true. They will eat your body whilst dogs will starve themselves (almost) before they desecrate your corpse. I love them. But Gods save me from dying alone in a house full of them. They are incorrigible. And a mystery. And really, my first love of animals. I will never be without them.

Hopefully if I die alone the neighbours will offer a more interesting menu.

I am only a human with a small scope of senses, limited in my understanding of almost everything in this world, and therefore good at having opinions and not-so-good at actually having real and genuine perception.

But I am grateful beyond words to have four-footed love, companionship and wisdom in my life. Thank you Goddess for giving me so much ( so very needed) unconditional love and relationship with the four-footed people and teaching me to be a student of them, and a friend to them.

They are the greatest teachers because they do not lie.

They might steal, drive you mad with worry, beat up and terrorize the neighbours ... and they might eat your face off if you unfortunately die alone, but they do not lie.

And that's something.

That's why I'll take on board, with big open arms, a four legged bandit over a two legged so- called person anytime.

Bird. xoxoxoxo

Control Freakism....

2008-03-07T18:48:00.000-08:00

Hello delurkers, fellow blogsters, Dears and all!

Its been a harried week. I take my piss-ant job too seriously. Probably because I believe that things will fall apart if I am not there to do EVERYTHING by myself, MY way (the right way). I worry about not being able to leave the place in tip-top shape for the weekend shift, and leaving them with a mess, which inevitably I will have to address when I get back to work. I worry that ....oh hell, I worry about silly things for a job which I love but which keeps me in the poor house.

I need a flipping vacation. That's what I need. BIG time. One that requires an airplane to convey me, transport me far away to somewhere ELSE. Somewhere warm, with sand, balmy breezes and palm trees. With nothing at all happening. No agenda, no time-lines, deadlines, places to be or things to see. No intrepid excursions shared with other intrepid adventurers in overly stuffed-full and smelly buses. It would be okay if it included or comprised entirely, and preferably of all of the local colour, I. E: REAL people , with real places to go, with real lives in the here and now who could tell you a real story or two, and invite you to a real place to hang out..... not that tourists dont have real lives. I are one of them , frankly, and I think and hope that I'm real most of the time, but I really loathe the 'Us and Them' thing that happens when one travels to other countries. I dont want it. It stinks.

So, other than making a kind of gentle and budding friendship with our regular driver (who was utterly beautiful with green eyes and skin the colour of rich molasses) who took us - whole famdamily - to 'see the sights etc., and being invited to dinner with his family at his shanty-town home (a HUGE honour) which I have experienced on St. Lucia, and which is something I will never forget, I dont want to engage with anyone. I dont want to see the sights, either famous or historical . NO group events. Maybe yoga in the morning on the beach, I could deal with that.... Kissing the sunrise hello with out-stretched arms. Toes digging in, to be cocooned in still cool sands, sounds of surf gently doing the ebb-and-flow dance with counterpoint of land silently just BEING. Breathing. Matter meeting matter. Breath meeting breath.

ONLY if I felt like it, however, if I didnt, and that would be okay in such a decadent holiday way, just sleeping in until noon would be the thing. The very thing. Freshly squeezed orange juice on a tray waiting for me. Smell of coffee brewing, triggering my reluctant departure from the dreamlands. Room service. No lists. Nothing to do but just Be. Here. Now.

Except horse-back riding. I'd schedule that into my day. With pleasure. THAT I could deal with. I'll give my parents credit there. Whenever they booked holidays they always made sure we went somewhere where there were horses. There were horses when I visited the Dominican Republic a good 20 years ago with my mother. We rode every single afternoon. Just when the daily thunderstorm was about to break. The horses went wild and we'd gallop home. One time, one of the of the tourists freaked out, on a day when I was given one of the Horse Master's own horses to ride. A very HUGE gift, since his own horses werent part of the tourist 'string' and they were, in fact, his babies. He was a real horseman from South America, Argentina or Chile, I forget which, but he was a life-long horseman and loved his animals. A true rider. He urged me to race ahead and stop the horse that had bolted with the screaming tourist on board (who only made the poor beast more frightened... silly woman) I managed to catch up, grab her reins and stop the panicked horse.

Never you mind about all that adventure stuff. The athletic exertion. I'm TIRED, okay, and have no words or energy left in me to do anything. I'm peopled-out. They say a change is as good as a rest.... Picture this: Here's the white woman who has nothing to say and is a lazy self interested, disconnected typical tourist, navel gazing, watching the waves roll gently, in and out, sitting on her towel at the beach, not talking to anyone. A snob, very likely. Ignoring other people and seriously discouraging conversation by her look' if anyone makes the mistake of getting too close. Except for the beach bar-tender . Yay, I'll embrace that! That slogging through the jungle stuff or climbing mountains, or racing down white water rivers, bonding with strangers who need to connect with nature to feel alive because their lives are as exhausting as mine; no. No, I just want a quiet beach and a book or ten, and a few drinks to pass the day....

Have I mentioned that my mother has control issues? Huh, apple falling not far from tree comes to mind.

If wishes were horses...

Actually, if wishes were horses, I'd be in my happiest element!

Happy Birthday to all of you birthday boys and girls today. Hope all you are doing well, or at least ok.

I'll make sole for dinner, with rice and asparagus. Simple. And then I'm taking the night off and am just going to relax with a few loads of laundry that need folding, and sweet domesticity whilst B does dishes.

Been a long time,Been a long Time, Been a long Lonely, Lonely, Loney.....

2008-03-03T20:03:00.002-08:00

...Lonely Time...

This blog is not for the faint of heart or for those who have no time on their hands.... Just so's ye know...

So. Long time no speak, which has become a Plus ca change, plus c'ect le meme chose moment. I've kept a lot in, so I have a lot to say now..... Brace yourselves, this post may take some time to read.... Pour yourself a glass of vinto tinto, or tea, or whatever your pleasure requires. Settle in and prepare yourselves for a long read. Or change the channel right now......

Here's me in this moment, no holds barred:

Lately I've become shy. Partly due to a recent flirt with Facebook in which many of my classmates from high school seem to have converged, rendering me bemused, and a bit horrified. I never wanted to do Facebook but was invited, and now that I've joined, I feel chagrin and regret, a bit of a happy "well met old friend', but also a weird sense of 'Yo, Toto, I dont think we're in Kansas anymore..."

I hated high school. I just plain hated school. Period. I didn't hate my classmates, necessarily, but I hated how they saw me, and I knew how they saw me because of how they treated me ( I hated me then, loathed the me they thought they saw which I believed....which is the salient point, isnt it?) and I feel suddenly put in a box I thought I was out of for the last 20 something (who's counting?!) years. It feels weird, and I am not sure I like it.

How strange is it that I feel more authentic and more genuinely 'safe' with my blog and fellow blogsters on this space?!

Think about this: I've known these people since long before high school, you should know, some of them since third grade, where we studied, among other incongruous things like knitting, J.R.R Tolkien's "The Hobbit". LITERATURE! Which is what sparked in me my life-long love of Fantasy, sci-fi, and the place where myth meets consensus reality; where we shape our reality by what we believe, where the possible meets the impossible, and where alternate realities simply wait a 'hello' to become as real as the so-called here-and-now. ....which as we all know is a very flexible membrane.

Suffice it to say that at the age of eight when I began to read Joan Grant's 'Far memory" books, I was set on my path as a quester. Seeing colours around people was simply part of the usual day (didnt every one see that?). 'Remembering' past lives, or 'dreams about other people' in those strange cultures which a child of that age couldnt possibly know about, was 'normal' to me....Reading about others who understood made me feel like I wasnt absolutely and utterly beyond hope, made me feel like I wasnt a complete freak and strange.

In French, the word strange "Etranger" means stranger. That is how I felt. Always. Still do most of the time....

Its not all bad. But often I felt like the class scape-goat . We sang songs sometimes...a song about a fox and the light of the moon. The last line being 'and the little ones chewed on the bones-oh, bones-oh, bones-oh...' Everyone pointed at me and laughed as they chanted "Bones-Oh" and I laid my head on my desk, buried in my arms, and cried. I was skinny. Very small and thin. This was apparently a source of of humor and a chance to taunt someone smaller and therefore not invited to be part of the collective mob. So I guess I was "bones-oh".... Children can be so cruel. These are things one doesnt forget. Especially, that the teacher did nothing to stop it. I learned that I had no defender. That the small ones were meant to be picked on. It was a long road until I got strong.... I went to a school where adult domination of small children was the norm and child-mob domination of the sensitive and small was not considered something to address. But rather something to observe with amusement.

Can I just say 'yuk' please, and that that is NOT okay!?

What doesnt kill you will make you strong. I'm strong now. I AM STRONG NOW. These things made me a person who defends the weak and fragile, who champions the under-privileged, and the downtrodden, who doesnt forgive bigotry, who has no room for intolerance, and for that I am thankful. I'm strong now, and if I see someone making a small person into a scapegoat, I'll rip their bloody face off, let me tell you!

There are other memories. The good memories with that childhood crowd include climbing up the very tallest, and most impressive of trees in the forest that surrounded our school with one of my favorite people on this earth (then and to this very day, 30 something years later) and reciting Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' from beginning to end. This was grade six, when we were still small enough, and intrepid enough, and felt immortal enough to climb the tallest cedar in the forest. I prided myself, being the 'bones-oh' little person that I was, to be able to climb to the highest tippy-top of the biggest tree - easily 150 feet high - and put my small hand above the top most branch, as though I had bested the tree, my classmates, and the challenges of Life itself, all in one effortless and graceful moment. I was finally better at something than anyone. I was finally good at something. The tree was my friend. I was one with Nature and could do this. I was 'different' and I was welcomed by the forces of the Forest with whom I could communicate. I knew this. And it gave me strength.

Meanwhile, on that special day, that Shakespeare-in-the-tree-day, a wind storm raged and we, Lisa and I, were tossed back and forth, to and fro like a ship on the high seas. You would have cringed to see two little girls up in the very top of the highest branches on this tree in this fierce and deadly wind. What did we know of danger? All we knew was that we were happily hidden from the powers that be, playing truant where NO one could or would ever find us, and that the tree was our friend...

Our big tree was rooted at the edge of a ravine. Right on the precipice. So that when the wind blew and we sailed from east to west, on the one side we had our 'normal world' of school, and the delight of being 'out of bounds', whilst still feeling relatively safe in being able to see the school and its lands and all that was familiar. It was a thrill that no one could see us, but as the wind blew the tree over the ravine, all became strange. All became unfamiliar and exciting and dangerous. We were suddenly leaning over a drop that was twice as far as the height of the tree when it swung to the other side. It was like black and white. The familiar and the strange. The safe and the dangerous. And all the while we recited Julius Caesar.

We felt alive. The tree-top must have swung thirty feet, back and forth, from one gust to another, bending gracefully, but FAST; bowing to the pressure and swinging back, as only a cedar can do, east to west, wind blowing like stink, and we sailing on her boughs, oblivious to any danger and utterly delighted, enchanted, thrilled even, to realize that we are riding wild wind horses; we are pirates on the high seas; we are riding Gandalf's horse, Shadowfax, lent to us by his grace because we are 'special' and our need for him has brought him to us, and granted us this gift; we are being taken by Poseidon's very own mermaids into the storm; We are riding on the back of the North Wind, being offered views and visions that no one else can see; we are pounding the sand of the Sahara with our camels, miles upon waves upon endless waves of dunes before us; we have been invited by Pegasus himself to join with his herd, to be FRIENDS with mythical beings, and FLY above the clouds... tomorrow we will each wake with a feather from that herd of hypogryphs, those magical beings , those who might even be Gryphons!

Can you imagine! ? Can you even imagine? Can you believe what we had, what we felt, what we were given, what we knew?

It was magick on that day.

I thought about it. A feather. A small thing. I imagined us discovering them , one each, silver grey with a sheen that was almost phosphorescent, that cast a glow even when the lights were out, we'd look at them in the dark when we were supposed to be going to sleep, each in our own homes, our own bedrooms, knowing that we were both thinking the same thing,imagining the same thing....and those feathers, those magical feathers would be casting such a strange light in our respective rooms that we couldnt possibly , could not at all possibly sleep, not at all... because something very special was going to happen as a result of those feathers (if only in our dreams)

These singular feathers which only we had......... we'd discover them under our pillows. Something to remind us of what happened, like a gift from the tooth faerie which no one really believes in, anyway, I mean seriously, nobody does, but this was different. Something real. Something magically manifested to mark our special communion with the worlds 'between' ; the place that 'normal' people could never go. Because they werent invited. Because, most significantly, and crucially, and here's the really important thing: because they didnt BELIEVE.... They didnt believe. That's WHY they werent invited....Unlike like us, of course..... Because we did. Because we really, and really and truly DID.

We were fearless, high spirited, and fierce wee Sweet little girls, exultant and triumphant, vulnerable, susceptible, and tough as nails, ....Kicking hard ( with hobnailed boots) at the the shins of life and the stories that didnt suit us, and sponging up all that did. We wore little china doll shoes and proudly jumped in puddles so often that our shoes became universally (in our universe) known as 'puddle jumpers'. We were the hot shit, I tell you. In those moments we made history (if only for ourselves) and we were immortal. We were cool. And we were invited to special places , if only in our own world, that no one else could venture to. Because we were invited. Because we loved enough, we believed enough, we trusted enough, that there was more to to the world that the naked eye can see.... and we 'Saw' plenty....

Through the windstorm, back and forth as we sailed on our imaginary dreams, we recited Shakespeare, from beginning to end, without one single mistake, ALL the parts, and Julius Caesar said, "Et tu, Brutus!?"

We were 11 years old. 11 years old. So little.... And yet SO big. We were huge.

Some things you dont forget. Such as: The Ides of March are coming ( and they are) . That kind of memory is one of those things.

I went to a weird school. Weird and wonderful and terrible. Probably why I like the Harry Potter stories, why I read J.R.R. Tolkien again and again, and felt that I belonged in those worlds more that I did in my own 'real' life. Why I read C. S. Lewis. And was reminded that I was practically weaned on Heinlein. Those stories, and Narnia. Later, I learned to live in other worlds. The lands of Charles de Lint. And most importantly, even before I met Charles and his worlds, the Keltiad series, (which if you havent read and you have ANY leanings towards sensing that there is more 'out there' you MUST READ!!!) I tell you three times.

Keltia is a place I shall go to in my next life. I am determined about that.

Backtacking again to the age of 8, with 'Stranger in a Strange land', by Heinlein (one of my step-father's books, and an author who became a favorite), I was convinced that there was more to this life than met the eye. More to this Universe, in point of fact, and surely we werent 'alone' here....It wasnt until Shakespeare and I became a friends and I read that 'There is more in Heaven and Earth " etc Horatio, that I realized that there were more 'strangers', or 'Etrangers', on this journey that I thought.

I saw a funny cartoon many (many) years ago which said, "Forget the Ides of March, Beware the march if Ids!" At 16 I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever heard. Funny enough that after 30 something years it still makes me chuckle. ( Almost 40 years now, but who's counting?!) Okay, both my parents are therapists. You do the math.

Changing the topic 180 degrees, I have a yam (which I have always though was a sweet potato, but apparently I am wrong) in the oven, roasting. Fibre. Beta Keratin. Vitamins and minerals, along with the cruciferous darling in the form of a green young organic broccoli, supplemented by one crowning glory of a broc, from my own garden which weathered storms, snow and wind this past winter to stand proud and be counted for tonight's supper (thank you garden); beets steamed to perfection and a side salad from the garden which has over-wintered with such an adamant determination that I honour them by writing about them today. My 'home-made' salad greens ROCK!

Meanwhile, I am out of cigarettes. You might scoff, ( oh yeah, you who live by the adage that "my body is a temple" cling to your perfection, you over-achieving, sodding, over-weaning health- hounds) but I am in the throes of withdrawal which aint pretty. Especially since I have done so well these last months. I'm down to between one and two packs a week. Here me now Gods, I thank you for your help, couldnt have done it without you, but some days we need to just let loose and be BAD. Tonight is one of those nights.

Drinking is also no longer a thing which I engage with on a regular basis. I'm getting too old for it and I dont like it anymore. At least not the way things were. I' m too European still to give it up entirely, however, things are changing. I am changing. Juicing every other day or so, eating only whole grains and multiplying my veg and fruit intake (hey the first 40 years are free and then you gotta work for it) . Am contemplating the correctness of eating mammals (I am still in that place which suggests that if you dont give them a name or make them a friend, it isnt murder. I mean seriously. Take Sir Loin par example. He thought he was a member of the family and was treated as such until he became dinner. I dont think that's fair......) I dont like that my neighbour is making more and more bunny hutches, playing with the rabbits and then selling them as meat. Draw a line. Either they are food or they are friends. Would you eat your cat? Would you make your dog a member of your family and then serve him up for dinner in a stew? Eeugh. No.

I'm a hypocrite, I know it. As far as I'm concerned, meat comes from the supermarket and is wrapped in plastic. Divorced from the process of life and death. I dont believe in hunting and yet I eat beef. I dont eat moose (which B has some cuts in the freezer of from a friend. Yuk! Bambie with a very big head, that's what that is. )

And yet still, on the other hand, conformed, or reformed vegetarian ( for nearly 15 years) that I am, I have been more recently, a punch drunk love-happy carnivore (even voracious. Give me a steak, the bloodier the better! Ugh! The Guilt, the guilt!). I am a hypocrite. And as much as I do not believe in hunting ( in my world, for others, the rule does not apply.... ) And yet, I like fishing. How schitzoid is that? Mostly I do catch and release, BUT, I do remember that we ate a Barracuda once which we caught as a family off the coast of Mexico. It was really good. And really very ugly. Ugh. Hunting.... I'm just one confused person full of contradictions. And hypocrisy. HOW can I have convictions of any kind when I contradict myself all the TIME!?

Give me strength.

So get this: I am eating PORK! I am a pig-eater. I HAVE BECOME A BACON FREAK, after 27 years of abstinence (truly) ... I feel like a priestess who has discovered the joys of the flesh. She abstained until she simply couldn't any longer deny her body's yearnings, and finally gave in to that heavenly and primal satisfaction, that God-given pleasure. Bacon. Yegads. I comfort myself with the rumour, which I am totally on board with, that Bacon isnt actually Pork OR even meat, but is, instead, a preservative, so it doesnt count. Huh. Except that today I bought ORGANIC bacon ( which could never be viewed as a preservative) so I have to get over my denial here. In a big way, since said bacon is slated for tomorrow's breakfast.

These are the things that have been on my mind the last few (many ) months since I havent written. Life just has so many issue it throws at one, and there is so much to deal with. Its a balancing act. Justifying ones convictions with one's actual practice in life. Par example: we all believe in recycling, but do we all recycle?! We all agree that fair trade is vitally important but do we all put that into practice when we buy our coffee beans?! We agree that plastic bags are the devil but do we remember to bring our fabric bags with us to the grocery st0re?! I punish myself by choosing to buy new fabric bags every time I forget to bring the ones I already have to the supermarket. I have about 57 of them kicking around my house. Will I ever get serious and disciplined about it? I try....

Something to think about and it matters to me. It matters to the world. It matters to me to be as minimally hypocritical as I am able to be. I know I am a BIG HUGE hypocrite in a lot of ways. I'm glad that at least I know it and that I dont pretend otherwise.

My car is 25 years old and I am desperately afraid to think about its carbon emissions..... Moreover I am desperately afraid that I cant afford to have the repairs done to it that it needs (its name is' The Shithawk', dont laugh, it is actually famous, I kid you not. I may live in a small community but my vehicle is a big fish in a small pond). It is otherwise known as 'the dog mobile'.... our 4 hounds (each of whom has a feline , and yes they all get along most lovingly) need the Shithawk to get to the local ravine for their runs.

The most recent vehicular crisis is that The SHithawk's muffler fell off, or at least disengaged with the undercarriage ( Dont ask me for details, okay?) It is now too loud for sensitive dog ears. What I know from cars is that it is the long peddle that makes it go and that's about it! We tied up the pipe, and muffler ... Oh, who am I kidding?! B got down onto the swampy ground and made a silk purse out of a sow's ear with my scant contribution, offered in the form of speaker wire, (redundant earphones which had lived in the back of the Shithawk for two years... hey-ho recycling!) which he used to attached the blah blah to the the blah blah blah. Cars are not my strong point. I may be of German descent, which makes me a good driver (despite the qualifications and yet the lack of paperwork to the contrary... this is strictly among friends and hugely confidential. You must swear on your mother's eyes to keep schtum!) Having stated all that, it still doesnt mean I understand (or care) how cars work. I dont, in point of fact. Suffice it to say, the muffler is being held on by virtue of a very precarious situation, defying the laws of physics - and my Life is all about that! - exemplifying the adage that the mother of invention is born out out of necessity. Speaker wire. Seriously. Dont laugh.

I cant afford a hybrid car. Who the hell do you think I am, Julia Roberts?! I cant even afford another OLD car. I love the Shithawk. Despite her flaws. Even though Teddy pulled all the inside door panels off in a fit of separation anxiety-induced pique, and she STINKS - poor thing, its not her fault - like the dogmobile she is. Point is I put the key in and she starts up. Pretty much always. Unless she's sick. That's something. So what if she's a rust-bucket about to be condemned by the very eco-saviour groups I am trying to emulate and join?! They are gonna get me and her one of these days, I know it. At the very least I can say that I am opting out off the consumer- driven mania of buying into commercialism and feeding new oil consumptive vehicles by driving a VINTAGE car. Its almost like recycling, isnt it?

Meanwhile, I do try hard, and I cant afford to do this stuff on a large scale, but I can do ''me wee little bit'. "Bones-oh". That's me. I guess. Little old me. Not so little anymore, decades later, but that's another rant for another day. I'm trying to do my little scrawny bit. If each of us does our little teeny tiny personal bit, it will make a MASSIVE AND HUGE DIFFERENCE. Think about that. ... Please, please, it might be a very small thing, but I want to try. I want you all to try to do one little teeny, tiny, eensy-weeny very little thing, every day . Dont use plastic bags. At least cut down on them.

Doing our best....That may be all I can do... I want to be authentic. I want to be honest with my mother, the Earth. I want to be respectful of the Goddess, Mother of all manifested Life. I want to be in alignment with the Creator who knows the ways of living that honor this planet......and the Universe...

All of this has been on my mind.... I want to do right by the World and by my community, by my man and my beasties, (count em, ) four leggeds in canine and feline form. Four of each. Is that crazy or what?! Full house. We all love each other and have no conflict, which is a lucky state of affairs and I count my fortuitous stars every day.

I want to do right by me, too. I want to start letting the me that wants to animate and direct my life have a voice.

Bringing things back to the here and right NOW....There has been a lot going on, as you now know. Besides the fact that I've been sick. Not deadly sick as in a life threatening thing, but sick for two whole months with a hideous winter lurgy which wouldnt go away. Lodged in the sinus, in the ears, in the throat and in the lungs, making me feel every heart-beat as though the congestion I felt was actually in every beating arterial pulse. Horrible. I was in hospital to get oxygen inhalations and bronchial dilators, anti-inflammatories, steroids and other horrible non-mentionables. Yuk. Two months. High fever, chills, joint pain. My hair bloody hurt and that is ridiculous. I thought I had SARS, bird flu or worse. Two rounds of antibiotics which I totally dont believe in, but which Dr. Wonderful assured me was necessary when things are dire, and he stressed that things were. Dire.

Now that you've been bored by the long drawn-out version, I'll give you the nut-shell:
Incommunicado due to illness, (utterly rancid, horrible and depressing). Better now. Things are looking UP! Studio is clean and waiting for me. Am thinking of paintings to work on (dreaming of painting which I think is a good sign) sculptures to create (mosaic with mirror... figurative work which reflects the environment. Feels very very exciting!) and theories to explore. Glad to be among the living again. Hope all you out there are well. Thanks for dropping by. And I mean that. Hope the long drawn out blah blah blah didnt bore you utterly and completely to tears.

Good news is that kittens, Basil and Jasmin, otherwise known as Baz and Jaz, not quite one year old, are screamingly hilarious, healthy and very smart. Though they came from a wild (feral ) colony, they are very very tame with B and me, but no one (of two legged persuasion) else. Dogs are cool , and so are their other feline housemates. They think that climbing curtains, finally, is what babies do, and therefore restrain themselves most of the time, thank all stars; and they have pretty much moved through the monster stage, being almost one year of age, and so the evil behaviour ( like shitting and pissing in my potted plants) is therefore beneath them. HOWEVER... leaping onto shelves and pitching things onto the floor just for the fun of it, is still an activity which is highly droll to them. An all time special thrill is t0 watch mum, moving from living room into office,or bathroom, to bedroom, whilst she gathers, in her unique and elegant way, stuff' that has been rendered 'floor worthy' and make sure they are 'underfoot' for the entire process. Sweeping is all time top-ten the biggest thrill especially with the Swiffer. Grab at it, play with the enormous dust bunnies made from dog fur which builds up and collects in every corner and sometimes just straight out in the middle of everything, and play, play, play with it. Disburse it evenly throughout the house whilst mum tries in vain to corral the bunnies and put them in a bag! Bless them!

How cute they are. Catchin' little garter snakes (Wait until summer, they get a lot bigger) and putting them in mama's shoes is out (Seasonal availability),but bringing in mice, and 'playing' with them until they are dead of either a heart attack or asphixiation , is in. Charming, no? Pissing in mama's plants (thank all Gods) is out, and bringing in worms as an offering is totally in. Eeugh. But it could be worse. I love them fiercely. They can do no wrong. Especially since they are such voracious and rabid hunters, AND they deal with the R.O.U.S.'S. (What?! You havent seen the princess Bride? Watch it! See it. Better yet, read it. It's good. It is more than good. ) Unfortunately, rodents are found in any, and every community. Even in this idyllic and gentle place. But I have hunters to help with the problem. Serial rodent murderers!

Kill them I say. Get them! Those bastards!

So, Here's me now, having blathered on and on, in not quite a nutshell....

I've missed my fellow blogsters. Didnt mean to abandon you. I'm back now.... I think ..... More or less....

Love and light,
:) Bird. xoxoxox

Been a long time,Been a long Time, Been a long Lonely, Lonely, Loney.....

2008-03-03T20:03:00.001-08:00

Baby Steps....

2008-01-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

Havent written in a while. Dont know where to begin, or what to say so I'll just ramble off the top of my head, and if things end midstream, you'll understand that I am out of practice....

Not into any huge or monumental changes in terms of New Year's resolutions, mainly because I know from experience, and my own nature that trying to turn a leaf from one day to another simply doesnt work. The intent is there but the set-up for failure, when drastic measures are attempted, is huge. I do not want to do that anymore.

And I dont want to stalk the infertility blogs anymore either. I'm done with it. No kids. Okay, that's Life. Have cried most of the tears I think I can cry, have settled into my Life 'as it is', and I have a FABULOUS man, and many things to be so very grateful for, which I am. Moreover, actually, I realize, that I find children sometimes quite annoying. I'm getting too old, obviously, to think of parenthood now. So here I am, and I accept now what is.

Everyone wish me Mazeltov please. This is very large.

So it is about baby-steps, right? (No pun intended) Being present and mindful in the moment. Being aware and gentle with myself, as I am always reminding myself that change and healing never happened in an atmosphere of judgment. Not ever, not once. And I am so good at self- judgment....

Work is good. I am claiming a space for myself and just taking charge where I can and that seems to be going over well. Mostly I just love the hubbub and constant stream of people coming and going. I get to be as goofy and silly as I want. In short, back on the main floor, I can be myself. My job is to take their money and make them smile. A laugh is even better. I like what I do. I am good at what I do and mostly I know what I am talking about. It isn't getting me out of the poor house, but I have a few ideas brewing....

B is away during the week, off island on a big project but comes home weekends. This is a bit stressful, as one might imagine, with 4 dogs, 4 cats and a household to run while holding down a full time job. Who am I to complain? I have a job after all. And I have the beasties and B. But I am tired now, have been for ages, since B's back went out this summer.

I didn't tell you about that, did I? No, of course not because I haven't written in donkey's ages. B ruptured two discs and nearly had to have surgery this past summer, but we were relieved to learn from the neuro-surgeon that his progress was coming along, and that spelled well for his prognosis. He's almost back to normal now, although still has a bit of sluggishness in one leg, but little pain. Which is the main thing. His pain was terrible.

You should know that he didn't sleep for three weeks. Not more that 2 hours a night. I would have been stark raving mad, and would have been committed ( or much more likely would have first committed a very bad act, like homicide, for example) had I been in his shoes, but not him. No. Still, it took a toll on us and we are both recovering from it, emotionally and financially. I lost it a few times, just seeing him go thorough it, and I wasn't the one in excruciating agony.

Meanwhile, I've been laying low. Feeling insular and not wanting to blog. Just wanting to be here and now and quiet. Dealing with things in general. And trying to maintain a semblance of constancy and normalcy. A challenge at the best of times, being the unruly and undisciplined type I am and who the hell is 'normal' anyway?! No one I'd want for a friend, that's probably for sure. I like the eccentric. As I often say, 'I have an elliptical orbit' and I like others who do too!

And, speaking of not-normal, Mum was here for Christmas as usual and, all graces and mercies to be thanked, stayed with my brother for a change (its his bloody turn after 4 years of twice yearly visits, summers lasting four or more weeks at a time, thank you very fucking much) , so things weren't so difficult. Not for me anyway. My brother finally 'gets it'. Huh. Will wonders never cease?

My best friend's girl, my 'Goddess daughter', is expecting her first child. ( Yegads. ) She's going to be a wonderful mother! :) Cultural biases and societal norms aside, I really think that we have a biological mandate to mate and create off-spring early in life. We are physically designed that way. Looking at it from that perspective, I think 19 is actually a very excellent age to have one's first Babby..... :) In the next couple of days her latest ultrasound will tell us the gender of the baby. Once I know I'll begin working on a quilt. 16 years ago I made one for my Goddess daughter's third birthday, with the phases of the moon and horses running round the borders, flowers appliqued all over it, and stars stitched all throughout.. It is gorgeous. I brought it from Canada to England and it is still one of her most beloved possessions. Fitting that her child should have a quilt too now.....I hope it will last, as the first one did, from one generation to the next. Wow. That makes me think....What kind of a monumental, statement is that? I never thought I would have an impact on the connectedness or continuum from one generation to another, but it seems I am doing just that. That's utterly lovely, don't you think?

I have a new computer, which I got for Christmas. It has bells and whistles which wont ring or...well, whistle. ..and it wont speak to my email server neither. It wont recognize it's OWN serial number or Goddamned password, nor let me open applications I need, so other that my hotmail address, I cant receive my regular mail. How annoying is that ? Maddening even (might I say that is the understatement of the decade?! I have been tearing my hair out! However, one of the mac geniuses on the Island has agreed to help me. Really, I thought Macs didn't do this kind of thing.... probably I messed things up in the initial set-up. Technologically challenged person that I am. My old imac has just given up the ghost with alarming timing. As though it knew it was to be put out to pasture just as I tried to set up the new one beside it. I tried to boot the old one up to get at my mail, which was never a problem before, and it went all weird, the colours being strange too, the image trembling and wavery, and I thought, 'Oh my Gawd, it's gonna blow! " Unplugged it right quick!)

All things being equal, I may not have my health entirely, struggling with the usual winter bug, but things is more or less business as 'unusual' I.e: Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose. Get use to it Christie. Roll with the punches. Count the numerous blessings: Kittens are wonderful. Cats are fab. Dogs are a joy and hale and hearty. B's well, and I am ultimately just fine.

I hope everyone is well, business as unusual being what it is especially at this time of year, and I wish you all Light, happiness and many Blessings in the coming year.

Love, Bird.

Three Alarm Fire.... Or, 'Drama belongs in Life, Not on the Stage...'

2007-07-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Nothing like a nice relaxing bath at the end of the day.... Something I could use right now. For hours, but we went to the beach instead, and let the stresses of the last few days wash away. I clung to a small driftwood log, languishing in the water which was warm and felt my muscles unwind, the knots leaving my limbs as the tide came in and gently rocked me back and forth. I thought about the events of the past few days, counting my blessings as my body was embraced by the waters. The dogs swam after the balls we threw, played and ran on the pebbled shore-line and we had some much needed r&r....

On Monday night we evacuated our home, due to a massive fire not more than a mile away from us.

It all started out with us hearing sirens and saying as how they sounded really close. I went out to the front deck, smelled smoke, thought it was my imagination until I looked up and saw a big black cloud. I then flew to the back deck where I saw the size of the cloud: billowing, moving with a seeming volition all its own, gargantuan, and back-lit with what I thought at first was the sunset...

B and I walked down the road encountering a few neighbours. We all stood in amazement at the sight. Directly in front of us, at the end of the road is a bank of trees and the cloud of smoke seemed to loom over it, fanned by a hard hot wind. Coming straight at us. Not good. Definitely not good at all.

"That looks really close" "Shit!" "Oh my God".... "It's coming this way!" "That wind... Jesus..."

Within 20 minutes, we had learned that it was the nearby resort which was on fire. Very close. Way too close for comfort, especially on a heavily treed Island, and adjacent to a residential area. Yegads. By the time those 20 minutes were up, I could HEAR the fire, hear it loud, not crackling, or popping, but roaring and booming, and the wind was driving it right to us. The cloud of smoke was tinged bright orange and red with flames. I was afraid. The whole night sky was lit up with it.

Suddenly, I saw embers in the sky, and thought, those cant be a mile away.... I wouldnt be able to see them. And then they started landing in the road, catching up in the trees beside us. Christ, was the whole Island going to go up in flames?

Cars went by; they all stopped and said, "we're leaving". I said that we should knock on doors and alert the neighbours in case anyone was sleeping or unaware. And so we did, running from house to house.

When we got back to our own house B picked up a message on our voice mail telling us to evacuate, and then everything happened very quickly. A friend showed up with divine timing and we packed up all the beasties into three vehicles, but Pushkin was missing.

"I'm not Bloody leaving without him!"

Looking for him, calling to him over and over, he wouldnt come.... (he'd had his dinner so the incentive to come home was rather unattractive on a hot night when he could be hunting, or resting in the cool woods, after all). Time was going by with the smell of smoke thick in the air I thought to myself that I might have to leave without him. But Jaysus, if the place goes up in flames, he'll be killed, burned alive. I just couldnt do it. No matter the risk. He's been my friend, my family for 14 years for Godsakes.....Finally, the little bugger arrived all nonchalant, like, "Where's the fire, dude?" and I could have throttled him, but chucked him in his crate instead.

Just before we left, there was a massive explosion. Propane tank maybe. The sky lit up bright orange, red and yellow and we though, Fuck, that's it. We're done for, its coming for us.

While I was searching for Pushkin, B had gathered up bowls and animal food and loaded everyone into the cars. We high-tailed it out of there like the proverbial bats out of hell, making a pit-stop at the wine store, which had just closed, but which mercifully let us in so we could fortify ourselves against the crisis, i.e: buy some smokes and wine. I'm thinking to myself all the while about what a fucking hypocrite and arse I am to be buying cigarettes when the bloody Island is going up in flames! Wine was for medicinal purposes... you understand.

We arrived en masse at Kathleen's, B's step mother, and explained the dire situation; deposited the animals (all - count em! - 8 of them at Dad's shack). We drank some beers together, and joked about how pissed Dad would be, who was away at the time, visiting family in Manitoba, about having 8 animals in his shack, but I suggested that if the cats dealt with the mouse problem he'd been having of late - a wily thing far too smart to fall for any trap - then we'll have paid our rent for the night! Trying to make light of the serious situation. You had to be there. It was funny at the time..... And truth be told dad wouldnt have been pissed off with us really. It was a crisis after all.

Kathleen gave us bedding, and the one tenant who was home at the time and traveled with us was put up in style in the 5th wheel trailer , which is rather like a small hotel room on wheels complete with kitchenette and shower ( and air conditioning!), far surpassing our own modest accommodation at the shack. I worried about our other tenant, and her daughter but we'd left a note on the door and what else could we do, at nearly midnight, by this point?!

I prayed that the neighbourhood wouldnt burn to the ground. I kept going to the screen door and sniffing the air, smelling smoke, and wondering how bad the damage was. Miles away, if I could smell it here, how close was it getting?!I prayed that no one would be hurt, or worse, killed.... I hardly slept and watched stupid late late night tv, until, exhausted by the events, I fell into a fitful sleep and didnt even hear B's truck leaving in the morning. Was dead to the world until he woke me with a cup of coffee, and told me the house and community was still standing, apparently unscathed.

"And the cats paid our rent"

"Huh?hmmmgrrmf?"

On the floor was a modest sized and very dead rat.

We came home to charred bits all over what isnt a lawn (due to the septic having been redone, we have a field of dirt which is trying valiantly to grow its seeds, but mostly failing in this heat wave). There are bits of charcoal in the flower and herb beds. It is purely a miracle that this entire end of the Island didnt go up in flames and burn to the ground. We had help from the fire departments of three nearby islands, emergency crews and volunteers from the mainland and the Big Island who stayed to put out small brushfires in the forests.

Bless them. I tell you three times, bless them. There were no injuries, deaths, or damage to homes other than the actual resort. Which burned to the ground and ended as a charred, crisp cinder. A bloody miracle I tell you.

The last two days I've been in a stupor. In shock, probably. I'm blaming it on the heat which is a plausible excuse, as I dont do well with it at the best of times. But frankly, I was shit scared, and havent talked about it much. I fear fire. Love it in a woodstove or bonfire. Or fire place, where it belongs. But big fires, wild fires.....I am phobic. Really, really scared of them.

We could have lost our home. People could have died. The Island could have sustained terrible, horrific damage....Yet it didnt. Despite the heat; the drought. Something like this happens, and it changes you. I kept thinking, 'we're all safe, never mind the STUFF, never mind the house; all of the animals and B and I are together and safe, and that's all that matters.' I didnt even think twice about trying to gather bits and pieces together from the house; no photos, not even my portfolio, or my art, it never occurred to me at all. Not once. I wanted my man, my cats and dogs safe, and that was enough for me, that was a grace in and of itself.....

At the end of the day, we are ok, the house didnt go up in flames, no one panicked, all the animals behaved beautifully, and all's well that ends well....

....and the cats 'paid our rent'.

Dad's home now and got a very good chuckle out of that one.

Letting the Cat out of the Bag....

2007-06-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

We've discovered the paper bag game. Is anything more fun than three kittens playing with a paper bag? I doubt it.

They had their visit to the clinic today and were all fixed. Lola went to her new family and I had shed most of my tears beforehand, so was reasonably steady until she was put in her carrier, and heard my voice. Despite her groggy state, she stood up, climbed 1/2 out of her box to kiss me on the face... Jesus wept. I tried not to, and mostly failed. I'll miss that little angel. We bonded very deeply. I've decided, and put the thought out into the Universe, that if she needs to come back to me she will, one way or another, and said as much to Chris, telling him, "If it isnt a good match, and if the other cats dont get along with her, she will always have a home with me...." If its meant to be it will be, if not, I know I've added to her life experience in a really good way and contributed to making her babyhood a very good one. I shall miss Lola so much. She's a special Soul.

Meanwhile, Basil is doing well, but Jazzie is still very groggy and gurgling a terrible sound from having been intubated during her procedure. The gas burned her throat, and the tube scraped her larynx. She has tracheitis and laryngitis. I can tell she's really sore and feeling very unwell. Poor love.

Work is odd at the moment. I've changed departments and although 'on paper' all looks good, the department should suit me, but its dead BORING and I so very much miss my regulars; what I used to call, in the old days when I was teaching art, my 'repeat offenders' . The cranky old men who always left my till with a smile, the contractors who respected my opinions on paint and tiling, the hub-bub of the main floor which sees most of the traffic, and me knowing where to direct people within the inch to find what they want.....

Later... Jazzie is vomiting. I dont think that's good. I was told to expect her to be sluggish and to 'gurgle' a bit when she breathes. But no one said anything about vomiting. She's barfed twice now... I've paged the vet.....

Right, have spoken to the vet who says to monitor for an hour (she's managed to get herself onto the bed and beside Baz so that is good) and then call again, and if there isnt any change in her condition, he'll see her to make sure she's ok. That will make it 9pm. Can you believe how dedicated these people are?!

Bless them!

Opportunity Knocks....

2007-05-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

... I think. I think so.

I had my assessment at work today. Long overdue. Got a small raise (thank you). And was offered a different position in the company, which months ago I had coveted, but was not allowed as I hadnt the computer skills and there wasnt a place for me. At that time I had covered another employee who was ion holiday for two weeks and I loved it so much upstairs that I had asked to be transferred. But it didnt happen...Turns out things are shifting now, months later, as a result of my hard work learning how to use the computer (I hate PC's) and the departure of the former furniture buyer/manager.

I was praised today for my creativity and for how far I've come since I started. That was nice.

Did I mention that a few weeks ago I told management I needed to cut my hours, at least for the summer? Well I did.

Today I told the company that I would think about it (quickly) and let them know. I told them that I, quite frankly, couldnt afford to work there full time or even four days a week, but I really LOVE my job there, and I love the company. Which I do. So I thought about it...for about a nanosecond. Though I wanted to give myself some space and to talk to B about it (He's all for it) and to let them, well, really WANT me. I know already. I'll take it. My raise isnt contingent on me taking this new position, but moving UP is, and I know that. This is an offer to at the least have a chance of moving forward there.

Down the road I will hopefully have the possibility (assuming all goes well) to become a buyer - as had been promised me when I started- however, that plan fell through when the combination of characters involved didnt 'gel'... as in I found myself in a nest of viperous bitches, none of whom wanted to relinquish their petty control and train me, so that I was left rudderless and swinging in the wind, utterly insecure.... but most of whom I liked well enough, it has to be said, each on their own. The combination of people, and their brand of clique-ism, and negativity was deadly for me. I had to get out.

So I've been cultivating my skills meanwhile, and charming our clients, and generally making everyone happy.

I have a good feeling about this. I will be surrounded by beautiful things. The job will involve sales, some interior design elements and the usual...Freight. But that's ok. And I like the main person I'll be working with. She's 'animal people'.

So, we have options. And life moves forward. Tune in next time. Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

(Did I tell you that New Life in the house would bring new energies and new options? That Life/The Universe would respond and so would I? Huh. When I'm right I'm right!)

Pitter Patter....

2007-05-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

I went to visit the kittens today. Purr machines! We've tentatively settled on names for them. Basil and Jasmin. Friends of mine have adopted the little charcoal kit and she is called Lola.

Baz and Jazzie. They'll come home at the end of next week.

*sigh*

:)

Please tell me I'm not a Fool, or Some Kind of Idiot.....

2007-05-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

THIS is what made my heart go "Aaaah!" Gods, can you handle the cuteness? Its too soon to tell, but I think brother might be a 'Bullseye' Ginger, which is rare. It means he doesnt have the usual striping but has round, circular markings. Sister is So lovely and gentle, with a white belly and reminds me of Xena, with her black and orange brindle markings. Aren't they gorgeous?

This is what is making me happy, what is getting me excited about having new life in the house, new energy, and new creativity. THIS is what is getting me engaged in the process of creating and being here NOW in life, inspiring me and helping me shake off the last dregs of the winter, down-dragging blues.

I made a whole entirely new raised bed in the garden today, near the studio and close to where the gate will go eventually, and ringed it with stones in an almost spiral; sort of a circle which went inwards and then flared at the edge. That makes no sense of course but no matter because the point is that each stone was dug out by me, by HAND from the sand-box/gravel pit that pretends to be soil on this acre which is slowly but surely becoming beautiful. The reason for the new raised bed was to honour Muriel's potted plants, which have been languishing for two years, waiting to find a proper home where they can put down their roots. So I planted B's mum's two shrubberies, along with loads of other plants which I transplanted from here and there. It looks gorgeous. I'm stoked. I'm sure Muriel is pleased (even though I accidentally broke a piece off one of her her Christmas cactus plants the other week... Sorry M...)

I'm off the couch, feeling SO much better. Spent the whole day outside and am feeling really positive. Got a bit of sun on my face. I worked like a maniac and couldnt believe how much I got done. With all the digging and getting wheel barrows of dirt from the meadow below the woods, I did something weird to my Sacro Illiac, but I dont care! Its like I feel a new infusion of "YES, lets GO!" flowing through me. And it felt truly like Spring has not only arrived, but has had a fanfare of trumpets, with feather boas and sequined ta-ta's, to announce "Hello everybody, I'm AT the PARTY!"

I dont know why this is so important to me. It is symbolic maybe. Another Mother's Day has past without babies of my own body. This time of year, 18 years ago, I lost one of my 3 pregnancies.... This is an anniversary. Its a letting go and a way to be okay with that. This is a surrogate, for sure. And also here's a way to expand Life, caring, nurturing. Symbolic of me reconnecting with giving myself what I want and need, which I havent done for so, So long....I used to be so adamant about what I wanted. I've become a blanc-mange; but now things are shifting back to how they were, or even into something new, something better, at last. It feels really good.

B came with me to visit the 'twins' today. Their eyes have turned from blue to green in the last two days, which tells us they are about 6 weeks old. His comment: "Yup, they are really cute" was a bit quiet, but remember that he now has my cold, which I of course have got rid of. Hoping his enthusiasm levels will rise as the 'due date' gets closer. He is not very 'animated ' in general these days which I can well understand (who can blame him?) and have compassion for because I BLOODY WELL know how it feels ( for the last two plus months!)

Anyway, back to the kits. They have to gain some weight before they can be spayed and neutered. The local SPCA no longer lets any animal out of their care before they've been fixed, which I think is a good thing. They have to wait until the kits are at least 2 lbs before they will be strong enough to undergo surgery. So it will be a number of weeks yet before they come home. Did I mention that already? Oh probably. I'm so thrilled I'm babbling and repeating myself.

So today was a very good one.....

Until I spoke to my brother.

So, if you please, if you can, answer me this:

Why? WHY?!

Why do I always fall into the same trap of my own making? Why do I always attempt, despite the evidence and years of experience to trust my brother and tell him anything about my life, as though he might inquire about how I am, what's going on, why I am where I am and is that ok, or make some positive statement of any kind whatsoever? At. All.

I talked to him on the phone and told him about the kittens, though to be absolutely truthful I only actually mentioned one kitten, intuitively trying to protect myself from his reaction; trying to lessen the load which I sensed was going to come down on me. Intuitively knowing that to tell him would be a mistake...and I did it anyway, more fool me, ( MORE FOOL ME!) Wanting for him to be a part of our happy news news. Wanting him to hear joyfulness in my voice and share it and ...approve. (Why do I need his approval!?) Wanting him to ask if I missed Tashy, and do I feel that it must take two cats to fill the hole in my heart that she left when she went, BIG in my heart as she was. Or laugh and say, "you're mad" or, "you should have been born a farmer", or, "Yegads, I hope you got that vacuum cleaner replaced". Wanting him to be happy for me. Wanting him to understand that I cant fill my house with the pitter- patter of tiny feet other than the four footed kind, and wanting him to fucking GET THAT...Wanting him to know that I need this, and why. I so want him to understand who I am, but he doesnt, or wont. He doesnt want to. Doesnt care to. I just want him to be part of my life as it is, and be .... a part of my life. But he just doesnt want to....

Instead, no surprise, he levelled both barrels at me and let me have it, straight on and head on. So much judgement. So mean. So much criticism. I should have known. I did know.... Of course I knew but I tried anyway.

I was so hurt. I let him rant and then quietly said I had to go. Said goodbye, and rang off. Then I got a vicious, utterly brutal and completely rancid email from him telling me, among other things, that 'normal people' dont require so many pets, that 'normal people' might consider our number of animals 'adequate'. "That 'normal people' might find the the number of pets over the top, and suggested that the pet hair and dander might make 'normal people' not want to come to our house (well the hell with them, then, Goddammit!). That I've been sick so much lately because of my pets (?!?!) That I'm defensive and then (O.M.G!) he asked me if I'm bored with my other pets.... Jesus! Can you believe that? Oh sure, ask your friend next time she's on her second, or third, or whatever pregnancy... "Why are you having another...are you BORED with the first?" Please put on your 3-d glasses on right now and watch her rip your throat out in striking technicolour. Then, THEN, he said he was entitled to his opinion (huh, not wrong there, but I'm likewise entitled to mine) and accused me of hanging up on him. Hello! HELLO!!! I said I had to go. I SAID GOODBYE... in a polite voice even.

I'm gutted. Why dont I ever learn? Why do I bother? Why do I invite him in and let him HURT me. Again and again. It never changes....

He's been really very not nice to me... a lot, in my life. He's been the apple of my eye since he was born and he has resented me, hated me, humiliated me, rejected me, judged me, treated me like absolute shite, and befriended the very people (most certainly 'normal people') who have trampled over me and abused me....Why do I try to engage, and bother to share what's happening for me, what's important to me, what is really good and exciting in my life? Why do I want him to CARE?!

Probably because I'm not a 'normal person'.

More fool me. I should know better.

Fuck him.

These babies.... They are my Mother's Day present, thank you. Thank you very much. If you dont understand that, cant understand that....

Raining Dogs and Kittens...

2007-05-14T19:24:00.001-07:00

This time I've completely lost my mind. Having heard, late last week that the local SPCA just took in two tiny kittens, I called, went by to get an application form, picked up two donation tins for the store tills, saw the babies, fell in love, had an argument with B who thinks two is excessive (and he's right) but I fell in love in the way I did with Zeus. In a weird, not being able to sleep, obsessing about it kind of way. I'm not sure that is healthy... Today I went by again to drop off the form and now there are three. Obviously I'm not that cracked up, but now I'm wracked with doubt about taking two.

My gods they are cute. It was the dark tortoise-shell, with the strawberry blond eyelashes who spoke to me, as her orange fuzz-ball brother was snoozing and I didnt want to wake him when I first saw them. Today they were all three awake and bopping around, using their liter box (good babies!) and generally being devastatingly adorable, even if they all needed a bath. I stroked and held each one. Little Ginger boy was the most affectionate, purring like a machine, his soot coloured sister the most aggressive and bold, and little turtle was gentle, soft and curious. She likes having her head rubbed in exactly the same way Tashy did. Their eyes are still blue. It will be a few weeks before they can come home.

What to do?

I've been depressed. I've been sick for a long time, not genuinely sick as in something to really be worried about but just ill off and on which has made me depressed. Am I looking for comfort to fill a hole in my life? I mean, seriously, who really needs 8 pets?

And yet the other side of the coin, as I try to sift through my feelings with a fine tooth laser is that I've been feeling less and less grief about not having children. I think I've let go. I'm in a place of acceptance. Or so I thought. Is this sudden desire to expand the menagerie a way of dealing with that? On the other other hand I feel a rightness when I feel into these kittens, and I can see them here, feel them here already. My doubt may spring from another financial commitment I am taking on for the next, potentially, two decades, but I am mindful of how small my world has become. How I dont expand. How I dont give myself what I need, and maybe, just maybe its time to do that. I havent had a baby in the house since Zeus was a puppy and that was 7 years ago. Old Tashy was the last time I had a tiny kitten.

I guess I do need a baby after all. What matter if he/she/they are four footed!

In other domestic news, B went off island and exchanged the super-duper vacuum cleaner. Lets hope this one works. We're going to need it!

Go on, comment! Tell me just how crazy I am.

What to do With the Problem Child.....?

2007-05-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Last night Teddy bit me. Quite hard, and I sustained a deep puncture wound, and some bruising on the inside of my left wrist.

You wont know this because my other long lamented blog went the way of the dodo bird some time ago, but Tashy's story was on there. My much beloved and ancient 19 1/2 year old cat who was dying of renal failure, 2 years ago now, and not having any fun anymore, had soiled herself, as old people sometimes do. Well I cleaned up my grandmother too, when she needed it at the end, and I cleaned up Tashy-cat, but lordy she hated water. And she was frail, so she must have been uncomfortable as I held her and slowly poured warm water over her, trying to be as gentle as I could. Well she bit me. More to the point, she bit my thumb clear to the bone, and by the morning I knew something was very wrong, so I went to the hospital and was told to go straight onto an antibiotic IV. Inconvenient timing, I told the locum on call, which he responded to by telling me I could go and make a big family dinner, or stay here and keep my arm. The blood poisoning tell-tale red line was well past my elbow at that point. My mother always said that once the line reaches the shoulder, you're dead. So I did the sensible thing and followed Dr.'s orders, and went in every 8 hours for 2 and a 1/2 days for my IV drip. And I'm still here. But you understand that animal bits are something I no longer take in stride with a cavalier attitude, yes? Especially when the outcome was that a few weeks later, I had to make the terrible decision to release Tashy from this mortal coil, which wasnt doing her any good anymore, but which cost me a piece of my heart.

Teddy and I were having a snuggle, and suddenly he growled. Well I'm of the opinion that their teeth are bigger than mine, so they need to know who the leader is at all times, so I got up, took his collar, and said, "Come on T-T, you're going outside for a while". He struggled. This is again uncharacterisic of him, and I pulled harder, very firmly, and then he rounded on me and bit my wrist. HARD.

It bled some. That deep scary black red blood that takes a moment to well up. The kind that tells you: This is deep. I'm still finding blood on the floor, and the location of the bite worried me and set me to thinking that he might have nicked a vein. We went forthwith to the Hospital, me voicing murderous epitaths and striking the fear of God into B, who literally thought he'd have to take Teddy to his father's farm in the morning and shoot him. It was a touch and go thing for a while there.

It was my fault. I know he gets the creeps at night. I was aware of it, and aware that he needs to be handled softly, no matter how rude he is (and he was VERY rude), or I am just teaching him to be afraid of me. The thing is, I'd never tolerate that behaviour with one of my own dogs, and I never get that behaviour either, and I got angry. I was so angry in the car I had decided we had to put that stupid dog down. Our tenant has a child, for goodness sakes. Yet as far as I know he's only ever bitten me. What does that tell you? I must be a horrible person. After all I've done for him, does he hate me, the little shit!?

I've been crying about it off and on all day. I dont trust this animal anymore. I feel abused - as he probably did in that moment. We dont know what gives him the creeps at night, only that maybe B's mother hurt him...when she was drunk. She was drunk a lot. Most of the time, actually.

T has taken a lot of love, patience, and gentle work to get over many of his issues. He's had more of my attention that my own dogs, Xena and Zeus, or B's other dog Willy. We spoil him, coddle him (enable Him?) and it has to stop now. He's been demoted to the bottom of the pack now, and I dont know what to do with this problem child.

Nor do I know what to do with me. When T-T arrived, we thought he was autistic. Seriously. And he'd been traumatised by being in a kennel. He couldnt be left alone so I'd have to take him to work with me. I painted houses at that time. Once he saw me leave around the corner of the house and he literally crawled out of the window where I'd left a 5 inch gap. He was still skin and bones then but know this, he's a very powerful and big dog. The next time, with windows less open and car in the shade, I left his sight, he literally shredded each door panel of my car to bits and pieces.

I've been so proud of our progress, of the happiness I see shining out of his eyes at last, of his willingness and responsiveness. He's happy to stay at home with his siblings now and doesnt worry that we wont be back, because he know we will and he'll get to go run outside with his housemates when we do. He is part of the pack and they all adore him. Finally he is showing His huge intelligence, his acute sensitivity, and his shy affection. It beautiful to watch him open up finally and let us in. To see how happy he is to see us, and the way I feel honoured when he shows his desire to be close, which is rare and usually on his terms. To see him join in the pack and run with them like the wind....its been a long haul, but has been a gorgeous thing to see his healing. This is his home now. And it is a good one. And one sees that he accepts that and knows it, and loves it back.....

Akitas bond with one person, and when that person is gone, they have trouble bonding and may never bond to another human again. Luckily he knew Willy and B since he was a pup, so they were/are the bridge for him to be able to bond again. We took him. When Muriel died. We took him because B's last promise to his dying mother mother was: "I'll take care of Teddy, Mum. Dont worry." Who can argue with that?

On the one hand I feel that the responsible thing to do would be to book some time with a dog trainer (I'll go with a new one. One I know of who has a very soft approach to her technique, and who has even worked with animal communicators, which is somthing I've considered with this wayward son). On the other hand, I feel like I've paid my damned dues with this dog, thank you Muriel, I've spoiled him rotten, even COOK for him and I am disinclined, now, to give him anything more. Not if he's going to bite the hand that feeds him. Yet he's the foster child with a sad childhood, and big issues. You dont give up on that. And Yet still, I feel I've done my best and he's still blocking me out....Maybe I'm the problem child....

I show him my bandaged arm and he looks away, lies down. He knows. He comes to sit by me and I tell him 'Off!" I dont want him near me right now. My arm throbs when I look at him. It isnt business as usual. How does a human tell an animal they're sorry? How does a human, who goes by the book when it comes to dog training (I'm considered very good) not find it in herself to actually LISTEN to the individual needs of that animal, allow intuition to provide information, and run instead rough shod over his old emotional hurts. How is it that my inborn skills with animal behaviour and psychology, with dogs, have made me blind to approaching him as HE needs to be approached. Is it my arrogance?

How does an animal say sorry? Business as usual? I dont know. I only hope that in that moment he must have been frightened for his safety, or he wouldnt have done it. I wasnt THAT hard with him. I saw him panic, I actually did, and I didnt listen to him. I should have released him, but I wanted the dog to obey me. He needed me to listen to his fear (Of me, of something triggering the past, of his night time creeps?) and change tactics to jolly him into doing what I wanted in a soft way. I needed him to smarten up and listen to ME.

Maybe I failed this one.I got it wrong.

What the hell did B's mother Do to him?!!!

In related news, they put me on yet another course of anti-biotics at the hospital. I went to my GP (Dr. Wonderful) today to confirm meds with him and he said all the right things, and said I'd done all the right things, but if my sinuses dont clear up in a week or so, he wants me to have them x-rayed.

Is that like having my head examined? Would probably be a good thing. Who in their right mind even has four dogs? Maybe they'll see, written in impacted and multihued snot, "crazy woman, too many dogs, off with her head!" Huh.

I'm feeling very wobbly now. Sad, embarassed. Remorseful, angry, vulnerable. Feel weepy still. I cried in the car today. I havent cried since last fall when we got robbed, and I told my mother about it. I am Tired. Very, Very tired.

If anyone has any to spare, I could use some good thoughts sent my way right about now.....Please and thank you....

Domestic Demons from Hell

2007-05-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago I was waxing lyrical about the vacuum cleaner I had planned to buy. Signed, sealed and delivered, it lasted 20 minutes before something died. Lovely. $300.00 (including ferry costs to get off the Island) and the damned thing had to be emptied rather a lot, and then the carpet spinning brush thingy choked. And so did I.

Mercifully, it still had great suction, which allowed me to attach one of the spiffy attachments for bare floors and also to deal with the frighteneing great billows of cobwebs. BUT NOT THE CARPETS. No. The main place where dog hair sticks and builds up...

After some investigation (really, this machine is completely disassemleable -not a real word, I know, but so what - and all the parts are totally washable. Very cool.) I discovered the belt had broken. Strange.... I had envisioned the building of a solid and long term relationship here, and this gave me pause. But I'm trying hard to be positive about all things. So I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

All sweetness and Light, I called (long distance) to the retailer and told them my dilemma, telling them that the belt had snapped after 20 minutes use. I suggested that they send me two as a courtesy, but only one arrived in the mail today.

Very excited, I swivelled locks and clicked bits apart, and put the belt on. Clicked, swivveled, put everything back together, Voila! simple as pie. Turn it on. Suction but no spin.

Give me strength. I'll have to go off Island again (another Ferry fee) and exchange it.

Is this a conspiracy?

Stretching Myself... too Damned Far

2007-04-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

I've been sick lately... for a long time. I dont feel like doing anything. Dont feel like writing much. Dont feel like working, and have made myself go into the garden and get some stuff done, which is finally making me feel better. It looks pretty.

Finally gave in and went to the doctor 2 weeks ago, who said I have a systemic infection (ears, lungs, digestive tract, throat, sinuses....Eew); put me on antibiotics (which I loathe, but hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do) after my not-flu flu went insane and tried to kill me. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but seriously folks, 8 weeks is just too much. I got things under control just before the bronchitis turned into pneumonia, and was ordered off work for 5 days. The silver lining. I got to sit around and watch soaps whilst I ate metaphoric bon-bons. I slept a lot. Doctor's orders. Who am I to argue with a diagnosis of, "You've been pushing too hard and not taking care of yourself, you nit-wit, and now you have to sit on your arse and be good to yourslf with rest".

Seriously, Dr. Wonderful would never say that. He's the soul of compassion and thoroughness with just the right amount of information (a lot without actually pontificating in latin), and frankly, I adore him.

Meanwhile, I am on the horns of a dilemma. Back at work now, I'm finding my Spirits somewhat dampened by the constant sick and tired, I'm faced with making shite pay for retail slave labour, and alternatively, pushing like crazy at the plumb job I have with faux finishing, which wont be endless, so, in other words, I have a decision to make. Do I splash out and cut my hours at the retail facory and try to beat the bushes and drum up more work which actually respects my skills and pays me for them, or do I stay safe, and make crap pay, trying to do BOTH and thereby exhaust myself? Seems like a no-brainer, right? Not so easy....But I have to start thinking of me. I cant bloody afford to work there, truth be told. I got a small raise, but slave wages are still slave wages.

I feel guilty, isnt that silly? For being sick and letting things slide, so to make up for it I've been jumping back in with both feet every time I feel better, and working 6 to 7 days a week. No wonder I kept relapsing. Self inflicted wounds do not get a sympathy vote. Huh.

But here's the thing: I do not know how to say no. I worked an extra shift yesterday, when I was tired out and needed to rest, as a favour to a co-worker who was moving. Today I agreed to go to a dinner for another co-worker who is leaving. And I just dont wanna. I'm tired, dammit. I think I'll go to the company do, and then beg off for the drinks and dinner thing. I just dont have it in me.

What I need is a holiday. Its been about 7 years since I had one. I'm bone weary, and feel like I have CFS again.

Pah! If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all... now you know why I havent been writing much lately. I hate sounding like a misery....

Count all the "dont's " and "haven't's " in this post. Disgusting! Little Miss negative.

Off to See the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.....

2007-04-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

Greetings fellow blogsters! Long time no write. I've been remiss, and have little time right now but am going to give you a quick update. Aren't you thrilled?

Its been a month of dragging my heels fighting a not-flu flu which migrated from body region to body region. Not sick enough to be sick and not well enough to be well. Exhaustion. One week I was intestinally challenged, the next week I was coughing all night with a weird dry cough that had nothing to do with congestion in my lungs. Post nasal drip sucks.( Oh, I'm just so hilarious.) Then I felt okay for a day or two and then I'd relapse. I wont bore you with all the gory details. Suffice it to say, after being ill for so long I might have expected my body to have shed a few pounds, as a slender silver lining, but no such luck. My appetite didn't get sick. It was voracious, my body demanding fuel to fight the lurgy.

A side effect was that I've been depressed. I don't think I've felt actual sadness, as such, but I've been a slob and a sloth, lethargic and unmotivated. Bursts of misdirected anger. Feelings of huge resistance to everything. The inner judge has been loud. All symptoms of depression (or adolescence, and we can have a dialogue about that if you like, so long as its funny...it might make a good conversation.)

Tomorrow we have an exciting plan. (I hear the song in my head, dippy and silly, "We're OFF to see the WIZARD..." I'm SO excited!) We are going off island to buy a vacuum cleaner. Now this might sound slightly mundane, if not in fact inane, but you have to put things in context. For one thing, we hardly ever leave the Island (why would we?!) And for another,my ancient (20 + years) vacuum has bit the proverbial dust, pun intended. The sound effects were amazing: Rhuuuur! Rhuuur! Rhuuur...ppppthththtthpt! Huuuuhghghghg. Ugh. Pthththtt. Nothing.....The smell was frightening. Charred plastic and slow roasted dust, marinated in worn out parts, or vice versa. Poor thing died a slow and choking death, over a matter of years to be sure, but the last few weeks it went downhill fast. A familiar story.... not unlike Vaudeville. With 2 cats and 4 dogs, all of whom shed like they invented it, the sheer amount of animal hair in my house could be woven and knitted quite literally into dog hair blankets that might warm the population of a middling sized community in the Himalayas, or Siberia, even. Cobwebs hang from the ceilings in waving swathes, quite rude, if you ask me... Dust bunnies the size of hyenas, with a similar malevolent presence gather like their proverbial pack in the corners of the hallways, the rooms, under the bed, behind the couches (dont for Godsakes look back there!) and they move softly too and fro in the breeze when a door opens, quite like a stalking predator. I worry that one (or the lot of them) will take it into their hairy heads to choke me in my sleep. Visions of being suffocated by a van sized dust bunny.. it sits on the end of the bed, watching me sleep, biding its time until it senses the right moment to strike.

Yegads! Move over Stephen King! :)

Tomorrow we'll go to Canadian Tire and get "The Shark" vacuum, which seems to be a Dyson knock-off. (I'm a big believer in knock off's these days. I got myself some pretty purple knock off Crock clogs the other day for 7 dollars. I call them my 'Crock offs'). This hoover is highly recommended for animal hair. I am sure I could write a testimonial and get myself my own very personal (and probaby embarassing) tv commercial. I just cant wait. Have you ever been excited about getting a cleaning implement? Its weird. Gross almost. Kind of surreal. And utterly uncharacteristic of me, but that only underscores the point of how desperate I am.

I cant even remember what a clean house looks or feels like. But I will know soon. Woo-hoo!

Meanwhile, the faux finishing goes well. The owner lost one of her little dogs to a car the other week and when I arrived on Tuesday, after having been away sick for so long, I brought her a dwarf red rose bush in Ruby's memory, and a card. As soon as she saw it her face crumpled and I just threw my arms around her. She cried. We both did. That was a fine little dog. She was. You cant understand what it feels like unless you have a dog. They live in your heart, you see, almost as deeply as a child, and when they go, a piece of your heart goes with them. Having your heart torn out hurts....You cant understand how people dont get it that when you experience a loss like that it is very real. I have a feeling that she hadnt gotten a lot of understanding lately for her sadness, and I just cried with her, knowing what I will one day feel when I lose my own dogs.

Meanwhile, the garden is waking up, but late. Things are filling out with green, but its still quite unseasonably cold and I worry about the crops and the bees. The fruit trees are all bursting into bloom and hardly anyone has seen a single solitary bee. Its been too cold and wet. I worry that the crops wont be pollinated before the blooms are blown to bits by the mercurial weather (WHY is Winter hanging on so hard this year?) and that our produce will be damned to an infertile season.

In other news, back to the off-island obsession, I have been scouring the SPCA's online photo galleries and have set my sights on a young boy cat. He is named Tommy and is 6 months old, orange and white with a look that says, "I am here!" and which makes you take notice. I'd like a very wee baby, frankly...oh, wait a minnit...What's that? You have something to say? You think I have too many animals and that I am certifiably, completely and unquestionably crazy?! Nuts to that. Huh, took you long enough to figure that out. And might I just ask, what is your point? All of the beasties are getting on, you know. The youngest, Dolly, is 5 and I'm hankering for a baby. Zeus was my last baby and he's seven. Its time, okay? Pushkin is 13 now and when he goes, Dolly will need to have a friend by her side. So we need to think about that.

I havent decided if Tommy is our cat or not, but my hidden agenda is to convince B to take a swing by the SPCA so we can have a looksee. Dont know yet if they are open on a Sunday. Or if B will be convinced. He says he'll come with me to the local SPCA on Tuesday, but I dont know that thewy have any kittens....

Meanwhile, B is taking the dogs to the ravine as I write and I have to get ready because we are going to Dad and Kathleen's for dinner. He's been ill and has walking pneumonia, which is rather a serious concern at his age ( he's 82 and kickes the ass out of any statistic you might care to throw out), so why he thinks hosting us is a good idea right now, I dont know. But he says he's much better since I brought him a basket of food and home-made chicken soup early in the week. Kathleen was away in Oregon and he wasnt eating. Gods, my heart nearly dropped out when I heard. And there's nothing worse than cooking for yourself when you feel like shit, is there? Anyway, Dad says he's on the mend and we'll have his famous pot-roast and chat and play crib, no doubt. A nice evening.

Thanks for listening. Its been a while since I vented and having your ears does me good. Hope all of you are well out there in blogland.

Love, Bird.

Sunny day...

2007-03-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

For a change. :)

People get giddy this time of year when the sun comes out. Understandable when we've had nearly non-stop rain since November. Everyone was cheerful at work and I tried valiantly to meet cheerful with happy, and although I'm not unhappy, as such, I am trying to hold The Lurgy at bay. So far moderately successfully, downing massive amounts of vitamins, but I can feel it creeping in. Ugh. I DONT want to get sick!

I should be taking advantage of the longer days and today's sunshine to take the dogs to the ravine this evening, but after a long day at work, and feeling kind of crappy and dizzy, I hardly have the energy. I spent the last three days on the couch, except for running the dogs yesterday ( when they had a great run and had squillions of fun, snarfing around, bareling full till up hill and down dale, jumping over logs and swimming in the creek, digging great wholloping holes in the path for which I had to reprimand them, and generally carrying on like happy wolves in dogs clothing, which of course they are, at heart), so I expect they will forgive me. They are playing outside in the yard now. Enjoying the late afternoon sun.

I dont know if it is the bug I am fighting or the change in climate/daylight but I've been lethargic lately. Physically and emotionally. And I cannot say either that I've been depressed, but the 'internal dialogue' which we all have in our heads has been particularly loud of late, and that wears me down. Sometimes the noise is such a cacophany that I become overwhelmed. Hearing voices? Maybe I'm crazy.....

I rationalise this by telling myself that I have many aspects to my Self, and right now they are all trying to be heard all at once, so I cant hear a damned thing, let alone hear myself think. Sometimes I shout at them, "Who are you?! What do you want from me?! What do you want me to do?!" Sometimes I talk to them softly, and say, "Just give me some space, please, so I can get this and that done, and then you can have the last word".

I've often wondered what it would be like to have multiple personalities. I think we all have a touch of this. Some of us are more border-line than others. It would make my life so much easier if I could identify the conversations, the running commentary and be able to label them, put them in a safe box and hear them out, one by one. Name them. Understand the bits of myself that need to be heard, that need to be understood or that need to come out of the shadows into the light. It would help to be able to confidently say: This opinion comes from the 'observer', this one comes from the 'judgmental bitch' that one comes from the one who worries all the time; this one is a frightened person, young, and she's lonely, while that one over there, very quiet today, says that things always work out, there IS a Plan at work, and we are moving forward in our evolution as a species, and there is beauty and HOPE everywhere, if we look for it. Probably HER name is Pollyanna...

Mental health is so fragile. We can be on top of the world one minute and slip off the edge in another, hardly knowing how it happened. I'm not falling off the edge, but feel rather like I'm sitting right on it, at the moment, with the sharp edge staring me in the face. And I dont know why. Is it because things are okay? Too okay? Is that it? Am I so used to drama, trauma, and struggle that coasting for a while, and the euphoria I feel, the well-being I experience with a daily rhythm which makes sense and works well doesnt give my brain the "I'm terrified' chemicals it is used to, so I somehow manufacture anxiety to feed that addiction?

Comfort, constancy and normalcy, the sense that all is unfolding gently as it should is a foreign experience to me. I fear complacency. Because usually, in my experience, just when you get settled, all hell breaks loose and the excrement hits the rotating blades. I mistrust happiness. How warped is that?! And yet I am reminded of what my step father used to say, bless him, he said, "Let the shit hit the fan... it makes good fertilizer". yeah, thanks dad! :)

I have been having heart palpitations and shortness of breath. It isnt my heart, I'm pretty sure of that. Could be I've been smoking less (a lot less as I am not 100% well), and my body is going, "Hey, where's my fix?" and offering symptoms to indicate its temper tantrum. It feels like the onset of an anxiety attack, but never goes there. Which might help, even, since after the horrible and frightening experience of freaking out (and inevitably there is the point where one feels for absolute certain that one is going to die - you will know this is true if you've ever experinced it, and if you havent, let me tell you, it ain't fun) . Usually I crash afterward, and dont worry about anything anymore. I'm too tired to. The calm after the storm. I havent had a full blown anxiety attack in years, but this feeling, this sense of anxiousness, these days this can last hours at a time.

I'm still taking my happy pills, but havent taken any anti-anxiety pills in over a month, and nor have I taken sleeping pills in 6 months (which I only ever took as a last ditch desperate resort anyway, prefering Nyquill,or gravol, limiting myself to two or at most three, of any of the above, nights a month). Time for a chat with Dr. wonderful, perhaps?

I'm not sleeping well. I've mentioned that already, I know. I'm repeating myself, sorry. Sleep deprivation is something I dont deal with in a good way. It just makes me totally crazy. Quite literally. Emotional, wobbly and irritable. Paranoid even. So maybe I'm just run down and sleep deprived. Maybe the noise in my head is about some stuff, inner garbage, old baggage that is rearing its ugly head so it can be released. It has to come out somehowm, Goddammit. I know that right now I'm relatively stable ( reality being relative) so its an opportunity for the crap to come out. Maybe its an old anniversary I've forgotten.... I was sent to an Aunt in Newfoundland for temporary fostering probably close to this time of year when I was about 4 and 1/2 or 5, or maybe its a miscarriage. One of the three. I cant remember when they happened... Blocked them out... but last night I dreamt I had a miscarriage. I just know something's going on and I cant connect to it, give it a NAME, reason through it, or rationalise it away. It is happening and I just have to trust the process and ride the wave. There is something percolating, bubbles rising, and when they burst at the surface, I expect a word, or a picture/memory or a REASON to be born into the air, to be expressed into consciousness... something, tangible, on the lips of the mouth that whispers in my ear, "Something is going on...". But no....

Meanwhile. Spring is making herself known day by day and warming the earth. Softly softly. The baby little plants are beginning to stick their fragile tiny fronds gently out of the ground, so tentatively, and buds are forming on trees, unfurling just ever so slightly to make that inimitable Springtime green peach-fuzz haze... almost there, but not quite yet. My forsythia is blooming and the crocuses are up; daffodils are putting up their long, spiky leaves, but not ready to bloom. Like me maybe? The clematis didnt die after all but is putting out a huge cluster of shoots, as is the honeysuckle, prolific and mad with winding up the wire fence surrounding the veggie garden; although it seems the trumpet vine went the way of Vaudeville..... sadly. The deer didnt help with their brutal 'pruning' last summer.

The idea though, the dream of green, is at hand, and we all know by now that ideas make our reality. Our thoughts can and do shape our reality. We know this. That which we hold in our thoughts and dreams, is that which we manifest....

Are the trees thinking of Spring? Are my poppies thinking, "Right, days are longer so its time to send up those leaves"...? Are the wild roses, still asleep, dreaming of sunny days as the nutrients slowly are drawn through their roots, into their sap, bringing the message that its time to wake up and make flower buds? Do we all grow instinctively, like this? Maybe that is what sets us apart from plants and animals, ultimately.... the need to understand the process and to know why. The need to measure it, to mark it. To know, be aware of HOW to do it. To choose how to do it.

Frankly, I dont know how.

In shaping my own reality I know my attention to things, and my perspective is everything. I can chose what colour my lenses are. I can chose rose coloured glasses, or not. I can choose green or grey or black. I am noticing more and more that when I do that, when I look at things a certain way and set/choose my 'intent' my life opens up. 'Coincidental' events seem to bring opportunities to make me happy. 'Coincidence' seems to conspire with sweet Serendipity and I make connections, with people, with events, with my conversation with Life. 'When I change the way I look at things, the things I look at change....' I know all these things in my head and am working with them consciously, and with a lot of attention and effort. Why then do I feel like a bag is over my head and I am walking blind?

I went into the studio the other day, and left soon after, noticing the mess, and feeling resentful about it. Not all of it is my mess. Some of it belongs to the renovation and its materials being stored there. Not using the space for that reason is a pitiful excuse. Maybe that is what this flatline feeling is about. Guilt. Every day I don't do something in the studio, I feel guilty. (AHA! THAT'S the internal judge, jury and executioner, right there! That's good. I named that one.)

At the end of the day, I suppose, the best thing to do is accept that there is a process at work here, an internal process that has no words to offer me, and one that I cannot name. No explanation. I have to trust that the Process itself knows, like a tree waking up, what it is doing, and it is going about its business as it is meant to.

I feel strongly that I need to have a conversation with Life. A dialogue. A living, breathing give-and-take. I need to know why. And likewise, I need to have words so I can box up an experience and tell myself, "This is what this thing is" and make it safe for myself. Or at least understood. Contain it.

I am not getting the feedback I need here, and I'm feeling lost and afraid. I have no words to rationalise this. Maybe that's why my head is so full of them, clamouring, tumbling over each other, like a river of words, tumbling over stones, rushing over me. Its not that I am not listening, is it? Are all of the scattered bits of me, floating out on the ethers, buffeted by the winds, lost in some vortex of Gods know what, crying to be called back to me, to come back Home? I miss them, need them as I know they need me, to be whole. I'm trying, I am, but I dont know how to contain them, how to hold them, protect them, hear them all.

But just maybe, perhaps, the words jangling around inside my head ARE the conversation this process is trying to have with me, to tell me that the lost pieces of my Self are finding their way back to me, back Home, bit by bit, little by little; and they all have something to say about it, but I cant decipher their feelings and thoughts. I cant understand what they are saying...... not....

Yet.

Soon. Maybe.

I hope.....

Fatigued and Dazed....

2007-03-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

Thursday:

I am very tired. Sleep deprivation. Good thing I'm not a mother. I hardly can imagine how new parents manage on lack of sleep. I'd be terrible.

It happens every year. Twice a year in fact. When the light changes, I get tired. My body slips easily into the gentle rhythm of a slower way of being in Winter, as my brain struggles to keep up the usual frenetic pace. In Spring, as it is now approaching, I try to reboot, but end up losing sleep. My brain wakes up but my body falls behind, reluctant to emerge from hybernation.

It began to get light at 6 this morning. What was I doing up, you ask? After being awakened at midnight, and floppng on the couch (B was fast asleep on the other couch having nodded off during a DVD we were watching), I couldnt get back to sleep and flipped channels for a while. Dozed. Was rudely awakened at 3 by his Lordship Pushkin, who decided that his OWN pillow would simply not do, and that MY pillow, indeed, my HEAD would make a better bed. Thanks, little ratbag!

I was irked enough to deposit him firmly, and consequently on his own pillow, which overlapped mine, you should know, so maybe he was confused about which one was his? No, He was very certain about my head being the better place to recline and drain the very heat from my body, whilst covering my face with long hair and, to add rudeness the affront, tap my head with his claws to demand that I make room for him.

More channel flipping. Then I dozed, with weird dreams until 5. Sought relevant news and was disgusted by the cheerful and chirpy, 1/2 clad BIMBOS who pretend to offer hard news, whilst SMILING as they tell us about terrible things.

Give me strength.

Today, needless to say, was a struggle, but I got to work early, always said, "I'm very well indeed, and how are you?" *bright smile* and wanted to fall down and hide in the cupboards below the counters to sleep. I did sleep, in fact, in a series of micro cat naps, during my lunch hour. No kidding.

Its past 9pm now and I've only just put dinner in the oven. I want to sleep for a week (or a month) and wake up to a world where war is considered in poor taste, and just isnt done, and is in fact considered bad management, and criminnal and the consequences of bad management are a trip to jail forthwith, do not pass 'GO', do not collect $200.-; where poverty no longer exists because money grows on trees. A land where doing what one loves is appreciated, and where children are safe.

Friday:

Main Entry: ec·cen·tric
Pronunciation: ik-'sen-trik, ek-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin eccentricus, from Greek ekkentros, from ex out of + kentron center

1 a : deviating from an established or usual pattern or style
b : deviating from conventional or accepted usage or conduct especially in odd or whimsical ways
2 a : deviating from a circular path; especially : ELLIPTICAL 1 b : located elsewhere than at the geometrical center; also : having the axis or support so located
synonym see STRANGE

* * * * * *

I am even more tired today, if that is at all possible, than I was yesterday. On Sunday I plan to sleep all day. My arse will not leave the couch. Except to run the dogs. How exciting.

In other news I found out that the breast groper IS in fact, 'like that' and IS, in fact, a really nice guy. He means nothing by his touchy-feeliness, and I am willing to concede that breast-contact was accidental. The next occasion of having to serve him was met by me with full emotional armour, and that in no way deterred the hand on the shoulder, the rubbing of my back, in a very childlike way. Moreover, I learned that he and his wife just buy people presents now and then, because. Because they can. He's an eccentric millionaire who has a thing with connecting with people in a tactile way. I dont think its a fetish. I think he's an innocent. So I'll get over myself, and think about my city-girl armour, and what it means to live on a small island with people who are odd.

Heaven knows, I'm odd enough myself.

Flipping flea

2007-03-05T15:47:00.000-08:00

Long time no Post.

I found a flea IN MY SOCK today. Yegads. Mild winters are not always all they are cracked up to be. Time to get flea drops again. Like ASAP. And you know where the goddam flea population is coming from? I'll tell you. From the rats.

Apparently the rat population (mild winters, what did I say? Definite down side...) has quadrupled in the last two years. Lovely.

Other than that, I've been working 6 days a week. Loving the faux finishing, but feeling tired.I'm treating us to a pot roast tonight, and the house, if not sparkling and shiny, is at least relatively devoid of chaos. A Very Good Thing, said Pooh.

Last week I had a day from hell during which I was insulted, annoyed, breast groped and dismissed. On 4 separate occasions.

Nut shell version. Some guy flipped the edge of my vest to, ostensibly, better view my name tag, but pressing against my breast was what he did. I dont know him. Told the manager, and (the dismissal) "Oh he's just like that, he's actually really nice, just tactile and huggy'. Right. Later she said if it happens again I should let her know and I said, with a smile, "NO, I dont think I'll bother, because if he tries that again I'll take his nice hand off at the wrist". Thank you. Thank you very much.

And then I was irked at the till by the general handy man for the place who proceeded to use my phone (to conduct his own sideline business), which doesnt allow me to serve the customers I am hired to serve. ARGH!

So feeling already like a piece of groped meat, and having been told, as I was told as a child I'm WRONG to think I was touched inappropriately, and had my space invaded by jerkola, a guy comes in whom I've painted for in the past, and says, "So, you're selling paint now? haha. You like selling paint do you? The paint seller...haha" Laughing at me and acting as though the mighty had fallen SO far and he wasnt going to let me forget it. Bastard coke-head.

I can laugh about it now, but it really upset me at the time. The other thing that really turns my stomach and isnt funny at all is this:

A woman at work is leaving the island (her good luck/ going away gathering was held this evening) to move across the continent to Michigan to live with her on-line lover. Okay folks, seriously! She has a son. She's never met the on-line guy except on net-camera, and she's taking her boy with her, without a working Visa ("I dont need one, we're planning a family right away, so I wont be working") and no health care insurance. Jesus God wept. She's just lost her mother to cancer, and now she's running into the arms of a man who was turned away at the Canadian border.... she's getting on a bus, her little boy in tow, on Wednesday. I dont especially like her, nor do I dislike her. But I would not want to see ANYONE make such a scary choice. Such a final and detrimental, potentially dangerous move.I have a bad feeling about this.

Meanwhile, the good news is that B and I are busy with working on the principles of abundance and positive thinking. Everything from Wayne Dyer to 'The Secret' (law of attraction) and 'what the bleep, down the rabbit hole'. Haven't progressed to Depak Chopra yet, but I was watching a programme on John of God in Brazil and B said it put in him a state of such positive head space and openness that the day seemed to just flow and everything fell into place.

Things are shifting. For the first time in my life I seem to have a partner who suddenly ( well more and more over the last year) is on the same page as I am. We are making changes on a fundamental emotional and spiritual level, and things are coming out of that which are all good. We are in a really good place with one another.

Gods, I love him! :)

Pot roast is in the oven. Smells heavenly. I'm about to chop some kindling and will make a nice cozy fire. Swinin' standards are playing on satellite, and it looks like a good evening in the making.

Hope everyone out there in the big world is well...

Does it Get Better than This?!

2007-02-13T18:44:00.001-08:00

I am doing one of those jobs right now that dont come along every day. Faux finishing is one of my great loves. I'm good at it. I've been doing it for about 15 years now. It is labour intensive, most of the time, and pays well. Coming from a client who, according to the site manager, is never completely happy with anything, I nearly jumped with euphoria when I heard the words today, "It's amazing. Better than I had envisioned. Its perfect! I love it!" High praise indeed. For doing something I absolutely love. I'm all charged up and full of creative inspiration. Its like a window opened inside me and let the sun in. Gods, I wish I could do this every day of my life!

I went to the Doctor's today to renew my 'script, and he was frankly amazed that I am working 6 days a week at the moment, and loving both jobs.... He asked me, having known that I was struggling at my other job, and I told him quite candidly that I cahnged my mind. I change 'the way I looked at things, and the things I looked at changed..." I said that I used to be an expert in my field. I used to teach. I used to run a business, and I had felt like a failure, as a 'lowly till jockey'.... but then I changed my attitude. It isnt about the money, obviously, because I can barely afford to work at the General Store, the pay is so shite. It isnt about the work either. No. Its about the people. Its about contributing and being valued. Its about making people happy. Making them smile. That's my job. The staff, the customers, the feeling I have of being connected to the community now is what makes it great. And that's why I love it.

He said that he was amazed. That 3 months ago my life was such a different picture and he was really impressed with my incredibly rational and determined choice to see things in a way that was healthy to me.

I got some high praise today from two people I respect a lot, and that feels really good. :)

Meanwhile, its one of those gentle evenings with a mild rain. The feel of it makes me think it heralds Spring, but maybe its a tease. But I dont know. Mother Nature knows best...The buds on my Forsythia are sprouting and they seem to think Spring is on her way. I need to stop and notice these things. I need to stop and be aware that my poppies are sending out leaves, and that the soil smells fecund and fertile. I must be conscious of the world turning, shifting and making ready for another season. This year is going to be very different. Why? Because I am. That's why.

I was in a state of somnolent, dragging despondance. But I pushed through it somehow (damn good happy pills I tell you). I've been going full tilt.

An this evening I'm making a soup from the stock I made on Sunday (my only day off these days, which involved the usual domestic bliss of laundry - motherloads of it - and cleaning, shopping, running the dogs, and then flopping in exhaustuion on the couch where I stayed for hours until I had regained enough strength to eat dinner which B made, and crawl to bed). This soup, my darlings, she will be delicious! An Italian recipe I got out of Boulevard Magazine. A bean and veggie soup which I will spice up with Churizo sausage, as I dont have the jalapenos the recipe calls for. Glad I made the stock for the puppies too, with lamb and beef bones, to make their 'haggis'.

Tomorrow I am back at work at the General Store, and although I wish I could do the artsy thing every day, I sense that it will grow, and I'll get more of that work in time. I am holding that 'Intent'. Its coming....All in good time....

Today was a very good day.

And now I'm off to have a nice bath, and a glass of wine. I'll read a best seller pulp novel - one of those semi-esoterical, historical thrillers in the style of the Davinci Code...which has sparked a whole new Genre, it seems. (But let me tell you that Catherine Neville had that genre craked in the eighties, okay? She did it first and better if you ask me. Read her. She's great!) I will stop reading and breathe deeply, now and then, and think, 'what this smells like is... Home...' The soup will bubble slowly and gently, scents filling the house, as it comes, in its own time, as all things come in their own time, to the ready. And then we'll eat. And it will be utterly Yum!

BTW...

2007-02-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, dinner the other night, the duck breasts, was to die for. All-star team for sure. :) Some days you have it and some days you dont. You never know. But when you catch the groove, and get into the creative thing, and it works, coming from pure inspiration into material form...damn, but that's a good thing. Utterly yum. I dont know when I've had a better meal in a high-fallootin restaurant, in recent memory. Of course, it helps that we dont have any high-falootin restaurqants on the island, but that's as an aside.... The best rstaurants I know are the kitchens of my brother's and me and B's....

Damn, I'm good!!!

:)

Ennuie..... But Ultimately, its all Good...

2007-02-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

The earthquake came and went, apparently, with hardly a blip on the radar screen. A 2point something. I didn't notice and I probably slept though it. Only one earthquake I've ever felt in my life, and that was in Ontario, which is rather rare, but it was very interesting at the time. Small. Not scary.

Work was boring. I didn't even bother trying to spice things up with flashing the security cameras, wearing weird accessories or making silly displays. I didn't sing to the satellite radio (oldies) as I often do when inspired to make things more cheerful. I didn't get upset about it either...though I did wonder if the day would ever bloody end; today was a blanc mange.I stalked the ailes and even the manager apologised to me for things being so slow. "You mustbe so bored...it isnt always like this." "I know, Its okay" . Tomorrow we have a HUGE shipment arriving, and I anticipate it with baited breathe, being run ragged and off my feet with stuff to do looks like a good thing compared to the dreaded pacing of ailes with a duster in my hands. Give me strength.

Huh.

It was so boring I couldn't bring myself to be the quirky and weird freak that I am...I was boring myself. And tired. Exhausted. I was too tired and sore. Painting hurts my body. The last two days did me in, working for my brother on a high-end home/estate. These people have more money than God, and actually pretty good taste. I love the faux finishing, don't get me wrong, and that part was great, but mostly, for the time being, I did regular house painting (trim work, Canukifornia, I'm with you and know you feel my pain). Next week will be the fun part after my brother's crew have prepped everything for me and done the hard part....but man, am I sore. Carpal tunnel. Shoulder impingement injury saying, "Oh SHIT! Not THIS again...!" But there may be a stained glass window commission in this for me so I pretend to be a trouper and work doggedly on. So far trhe owner seems pleased with where I am going with the painting.

Its good money and I cant turn that down. My benefits package came today and next week I should get my card which means full dental, for me and 90% for B, full prescriptions, naturopathic - partially covered, and physio therapy partially covered...good stuff. (In my most wistful moments I wonder if I can push the envelope and get some coverage on fertility treatments but that will take time to investigate, and I am pretty much out out of time here... or very nearly). I'll make enough money to cover the physio, and maybe get my arms and hands in better shape. Meanwhile, with the damp and cold, arthritis is really adding insult to injury.

Whine, Whinge, Whine. Whatever. Its my prerogative.

Xena's foot is healing nicely and she is not longer limping or upset. That's a good thing. We count our blessings. Every day. Ultimately, reality being relative, it all okay. Hope its all okay with all you out there...

Meanwhile, I'm going to have a bath, with bubbles, and a glass of wine, and read a silly fluff book whilst B makes a dinner of rack of lamb, salad and broccoli. B has put on some country music which plays happily in the background. He's a convert now, after balking with large attitude in the early days, guy-like. I know that music is innane sometimes, but it is cheerful, frankly, and having songs mostly about love and life, and sex, and family filling our house rather than angst and oh woe is me, is a relief. I'm not so proud, at my age, to be reluctant to say I'm mellowing....

B and I, after almost 4 years together, have settled, finally, into a gentle rhythm of loving existance and gentle appreciation. We applaud one another our truimphs and support one another through our stresses. We dont pick at one another but rather always focus on the positive, and respect the gains we make, individually and as a couple. Conflict comes rarely and when it builds up, resentment over undiscussed or unresolved stuff,it can be explosive, but is soon resolved with the greatest desire being a need to be kind, and a way to make the other understand, and feel better...We've become best friends, after having bonded through that incredible initial attraction and passion that so often goes no where, or to a bad place. We've always said we are lucky to have found one another, and its true. I thank my lucky stars every single day. Counting blessings makes me able to deal with the every day shite.

Life is just fine, thank you. Thank you very much. :)

The Fat on the Skinny....

2007-02-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal.....Sorry to everyone for locking you out of my site. We have family who are travelling right now and I set up another blog specifically to post comments to them and keep in touch as they relate their adventures (I could do with a little bit of Mexico myself right now, who couldnt, but bless them, they deserve it and more power to them. So what if I'm green with envy).

Blogland being what it is combined with my lack of computer nerdness meant that I accidentally posted from THIS site, which as you all know is quite personal. I panicked. I changed the settings and now I've come to the conclusion that after asking them to delete the link to H-bird, either they will respect that and do so or they wont, and I refuse to censure myself. This is my space and you are my friends, and welcome. And if they read this, so be it.

I've begun making a dinner which I hope will make it to the all-star team. Breasts of duck, flash-braised in the pan to crisp the skin, then added red wine and orange juice, churizo, tomato slices and garlic; now baking in the oven. Accompanying the duck will be asparagus, which was on sale, and slices of baked squash drizzled with walnut oil, walnuts and a bit of maple syrup, with a plain salad on the side.

I have a fire going in the wood stove, swing/jazz classics on in the background (sing it Ella!!!), which I love. I feel like I am in a black and white movie from the fourties.... Silly sentimental music with lots of saxophone. Its okay, expected even, to smoke and have a cocktail or two before dinner, changing out of painters garb and into a long slinky gown, cut on the bias, which will not show the spare tires I have round my middle. Not in THIS movie! I wait for my man to arrive, and the stage is set. (Yegads!) Anyway, to set the scene, you should know that its foggy outside. Very mild and everything is shrouded with that grey diaphenous membrane, shifting here and there. Now you see it now you dont. A very romantic site. A lantern is lit and I feel safe to light it now that the earthquake scare is officially over. Despite not having heard the fat lady sing, I am doing ostrich head in the sand right now and will not think of natural disasters. There are enough disasters going on as it is. I am in a movie of my own making, and it looks cool, baby, real cool. We'll play cards later. Dance the cha-cha...(oh, no, that was the 60's wanst it? )We'll talk about the fact that in the US the State of the Union address was retracted by the White House...is that like saying the President is a big fat Liar?

Huh.

I painted for my brother today, only a 1/2 day and it was good. I feel sore but sense that that is more about being out of shape, and less about being arthritic and having inflamed joints.

B is coming home soon after doing his thing networking and touching base with his guys at the pub. He doesnt know I'm making this dinner. Its a surprise and I hope it turns out. Its a thing I kind of made up as I was ambling through the ailes of the grocery store this afternoon...wish me luck.

It was a good day, y'all. I'm really sorry about the panic privacy thing. I miss your comments and hope to see all of you back tomorrow! I espcially miss Lisa. Hope you're okay Cookie....

And that's me, chewing the fat and giving you the skinny. Ninight, and sleep well.

Phew!

2007-02-04T14:52:00.000-08:00

Earthquake alert has passed. A new experience for me. I must say I didn't much care for it.

P.s......

2007-02-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

Oh. And....uhm.... did I meantion we are on earthquake alert?

Business as Usual....

2007-02-02T18:30:00.000-08:00

Hey All, I'm sitting here not sure what to write. Dont feel like there is a lot to say, but I'll give it a whirl.....Things are okay. Home is good. Simple and basic. Work is fine, although I've been moved to another part of the store which is dead boring, and I try not to go nuts with ennuie. I put my hands on the counters on either side of me, do leg lifts, push ups (not many!) and debate flashing the cameras by pulling up my shirt and exposing my red bra, but pull silly faces at it instead. I straighten the shelves. And, Gods help me.... I dust. Hope that someone will catch me at it, just so that a conversation might happen, but so far no joy.

A few weeks ago, to provide some comic relief for myself, I set up a display on the top of my monitor which consisted of two white plastic doves, arching one over another, seeminlgy in an effort to reach the perfection of an August Rodin sculpture, depicting lovers embracing. Then I put some Christmas ornaments, white feather puffs on long stalks around it, framing the 'lovers' and put a plastic red heart in the middle. White fluffy stuffing, pretending to be snow, with sparkles, as a foundation. White trash tacky at its best. It gave me SUCH a giggle. I was hoping to provide the manager a laugh, but no one noticed! Not even the customers. Now I have a webkinz kitty on my monitor in the hopes that it will soothe the poltergeist that lives within the system, and inevitably follows me to whatever till I am stationed at. So far, its working. A little technical mojo, feng shui, or magic. Call it what you will, but the charm seems to be having the desired effect. Don't argue with me, okay?! There are Ghosts in the Machine, I tell you three times!

A few days later I bought a garland, you know the kind you put on a Christmas tree, like a string of popcorn, or pearls, only in this case it was lavender and purple beads which went off on straggly strings like branches off a tree. I wore it like a very long necklace which fell to nearly my thighs. I though of Coco Chanel, laughing in her grave. She'd have been proud of me. I wonder how many of her designs arose out of mind boggling boredom?

Meanwhile, boredom requires drastic measures to generate some kind of way to break the desperate tedium. What else can I do? Humour is the best medicine. As it turned out, I got a load of compliments on my 'necklace' last Saturday, at B's dad's B-day party, which was a smashing success, B's dad having told me a few days later that the cold he had coming on that night was wiped out by all the fun and excitement and he felt like a million bucks. 83 and going strong, bless him!

B's ex comes into the store. A stalker by nature and a freak of nature, if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, I am a big believer in all kinds of other-worldly things, but when my man's ex gives him her card to offer to ME and says she'd love to do an 'Angel Reading' for me.... Can I just say: Eeugh! And/or Eew! Tell me people, doesn't that seem odd to you? We are not friends. Neither B nor I like or approve of her. Her poor son works at the Store now and he looks so unhappy, even apologised to the manager for his mother being 'such a loser'... He is actually a great kid.

The thing is, she gets fixated on men. Mostly men very much her junior, as in 20 years her junior. Now B isn't THAT much younger than her and they dated a couple of months, until he wised up and managed, though it took a while, to extricate himself; silly sod. Then he met me, months after he had 'let her down easy' and she STILL had not let go. She sent him letters, showed up at his job sites, offered to FIX HIS JEANS.... and she comes into the shop nearly every day. I have to smile and be nice. At first I wanted to kill her. Decapitate her and eviscerate her. Tear her hair out and scratch out her eyes... pull off her fingernails one at a time. Very. sSowly. Because she still wont let go. My gods, woman, you were a blip on the radar screen, get over it!

I know a number of B's exes. Its a small Island. He has good taste. They are nice and lovely women, the few I know, but this one, she STILL wants his energy. She still makes barbed comments to him, she STILL wants something from him, and still tries to engage him and that's what irks me. He's in love with me. We are solid. We are coming onto 4 years of being together, and you'd think by now she'd get it...but no.

Its just really eew. I feel sorry for her but now and again I get angry at her attempts to connect with him. Thank goodness she has found a new object of desire and obsession..... The aforementioned 20 years junior person. Poor young man... he has the grace to be polite to everyone. Including her. Gods, she pisses me off.

Xena's foot which was quite savagely bitten by Zeus (did I mention this?) over a bone presumably, is healing, finally. When she was a year and a 1/2 I got Zeus, at 3 and a 1/2 months old. She bit him when he ran upstairs, within the first hour of them meeting, and after two hours they were in love. They have never been separated......Seriously, to the point that, in tears, I begged a baggage handler to make sure that they were loaded in their crates, in the hold of the plane side by side when we moved out west. "PLEASE DONT SEPARATE THEM!" He looked at me, the handler, through the plate glass window of the waiting area, and gave me a thumbs up sign. I cried. I'm such a wuss. But I was leaving my erstwhile husband at the time so I had an excuse for being wobbly over sentimental shit....

Anyway. Zeus bit Xena, and she had a couple of punctures on her head, and a really nasty laceration on her left fore paw. The vet said not to run her for at least 3 weeks. Bummer. She's been limping and cries when I clean it with antiseptic using the syringe the vet gave me. Today she seems better and the wound is beginning to close as it heals. Thank goodness.

I guess I had a few things to say after all. :)

Hope everyone in blogland is well.

Being Broke Sucks...

2007-01-30T17:41:00.000-08:00

Anyone who is freelance knows what I'm saying. Yes I have a part time job, but the pay is crappy, and until Spring, when I'll hopefully be branching out into gardening, my income is fixed and small. B's fluctuates at this time of year, its low season, so we are scrounging.

Its a small detail in the scheme of things but it makes me think of power; personal power and the power that money represents. Security. I notice how we are different with one another when the ebb and flow of that freelance life, the feast and famine thing, is in a good place. We joke around more, which is important since we are not the most jolly types at the best of times. When we are in famine mode, everything goes into a slump. Our outlook, our energy (I spent the last three days, my days off, pretty much doing nothing, for no reason at all. I wasn't depressed as such, but was unmotivated, drained), our sex life, and our ability to GENERATE goes into hibernation. It isn't surprising at this time of year and I suspect we both have a degree of that lack of sunlight syndrome called SAD . Seasonal Affected Disorder. IS it a disorder? Or is it 'normal'? Are we just following the natural rhythm of things, close to the cycles of nature?

Anyway, when we are flush, B is grandiose. I am manic. We do stuff. Not as much as I used to. Not the way I used to with turning my hand at every old and ancient craft I could learn about and get my hands on from quilting, rug hooking to decorating, faux-finish painting and making things, all the time. Whether furniture or stained glass....

I have never been so uncreative for so long a stretch in all my life and I have likewise never been so broke, and so I believe there must be a direct link between being able to access the juice of life within me, to feelings of security being overwhelmed by anxiety, worry and exhaustion.

The happy pills help but my doctor tells me it took me a lifetime to get to where I am and it will take some time to reverse the trend. Turning a ship in the middle of the ocean takes a long time. I know this. I am hopeful and optimistic, however.

I still have no relationship with my studio other than to feel guilt, and make excuses. I am often ashamed of this, looking at all the blessings I have and knowing there are so many people in this world who have less, and are struggling in life..... Not that I'm not struggling but I do have my health.

Still, I am reassuring myself that it will come. It will come with Spring, when that quickening comes, which affects all things. That giddy feeling of being high just because the sun is shining. That feeling that one has, when the buds on trees are ripe and ready to burst into leaf, that life is happening and blood begins to flow more quickly. That a secret word has been whispered into the ears of all living things and they hear it even if they don't know what it says; it is a language we all know. The need to be vital, and grab hold of life. The need to be NOW. The need to create, and the inspiration that motivates that will come. I trust that. I'm just still recovering from the last few years....

I've been thinking about my ex a lot the last few weeks. I don't know why this happens still. In July it will be 5 years since I left. April marks 4 years since I told him I don't want him to visit, after begging him for MONTHS to please come, and receiving repeated refusals, I told him it was over. He told me I had just written his death sentence. Can you believe that?!? And then I met B a month later and the rest is history.

Leaving my ex was traumatic. I still miss him desperately in some ways, because he was a such part of me, my other 1/2. In thinking about him today I realized that he wasn't good for me. I knew this, of course, all those years ago, or I wouldn't have left but my leaving was instinctive. I ran away, out of fear. I really got it today. 4 and 1/2 years later. I am absorbing the pain I couldn't cope with and the reality of my loss and the fact that is it okay. I am so much better off now. I am letting go of the grief. But I also realized, in our co-dependence, that not trying to make a baby was what broke my heart and his not caring about that was a betrayal I can finally admit to, and one I can never forgive. I spent my inheritance, my 'baby fund' , on wedding rings for us, custom made to my design, on a glorious honeymoon to Europe for 2 months, on a wedding (we eloped in Scotland), on supporting us for the next two years supplementing our scant income..... I gave him everything and when I left, I was left destitute, emotionally and materially bankrupt. They say it takes as long as the relationship lasted to get over it...yegads, ten years?! Give me strength. He took everything I had. But most crucially, he stole my dreams for a family.

I've built myself up a lot since then. I've found, by the Goddess's grace, a new and very true love, whom I adore. B. I have a home , a family of four footed beasties, a job, such as it is, and a life. I'm getting connected to the community and people through my work. I'm still rebuilding myself. I'm still in recovery. And I know that the art will come. The creative essence that I need to express, the need to make things, it will come again. When life returns to the land, and Green covers the hills. When the sun shines and the days are stretched out, long and endless as the horizon of the sea that surrounds us. When we have sun-showers and rainbows cradle the sky.....It will come. I trust that.

Meanwhile, I need to hibernate for a while longer.....

Briefly....

2007-01-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

Its all good... or mostly anyways. Work is fine. I love people and am enjoying that part of the job. Work was deathly boring today, as it was inventory time and an outside company was brought in to do the slog-work. I twiddled my thumbs, preventing them from getting stuck up my arse, in between times of pleasant engagement with customers. gave the evil eye to one or two who looked not right, shifty, and they left forthwith. I give a good evil eye.

I have had a really good week. Great happy pills, these. What a difference two months can make.

Meanwhile, B's dad's 83rd B-day is arriving at an alarming rate. We've arranged a surprise for him on Saturday. Most of the famdamily will be here, unbeknownst to him - he thinks it is just me and B and him and Kathleen. But no. We will be at least 9 for dinner. Yikes. I will make a Brisket, and roast a bird. What am I saying? I am WORKING TOMORROW. Okay, I will marinate the brisket tonight, and B will get a bird tomorrow which Alan, who has cheffing experience, will help him with. The house is a disaster, but you know what? I don't care. (These pills are great!)

Anyway, there's no major drama to report. I am still not pregnant, nor will I ever be. I grieve. I shove it down and don't think about it, and then I obsess...I stalk the infertility blogs. Life is still marching on. And I am okay, although not getting laid...much.

So now that I've dropped that bomb, I'll exit stage left.....with the charm, elegance and grace I am so famous for (Sagittarius rising I.E. read, blunt, straightforward, bull in a china shop. Never mind...)

Sunday Blahs....

2007-01-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

Not doing much, except long over due house organising. Am tired beyond words. Nothing much to say. Maybe I'll take a nap.....Hope everyone's well.

Shit, shit shit....

2007-01-18T21:53:00.000-08:00

Today I heard that one of the people who lives on a boat in the marina, died last night of asphyxiation. Carbon monoxide, from his Kerosene heater. Insufficient ventilation. He passed out, and that was it.....

Later in the day, a customer came in, someone I know as an acquaintance. Someone I like very well. She lives on a boat, with her child. She's had a hard life, is a struggling and very talented artist. She looked like hell warmed over, and I stepped away from my till, purely instinctively, and simply threw my arms around her, the glance we shared as she came in conveying at once that I knew the news, and that she was utterly shattered by it. I hugged her tight, trying to absorb her pain, and tell her with my arms that I felt for her and wanted to take some of her sorrow away, if I could, into myself.

She fairly collapsed into my arms, and shook like a leaf as she told me that last night her neighbour, on his boat, had died, and that she and her son had likewise nearly died of the same problem. If it hadn't been for their carbon monoxide detector they would be as dead as he. Then she said that their dog had been hit by a car 4 days ago, and been killed. I knew they had raised him, and bottle fed him from birth. That often they had eaten oatmeal for days on end, being broke, she and her son, so that they could afford to buy real dog food for their pup. I knew how much they had sacrificed to keep him and make sure he would be healthy and well. He was a great dog. I met him and I tell you this because I know it personally to be true. Some dogs are dogs, and some dogs are people. He was a Mensch.

She lost her neighbour and friend, her dog, and nearly her son and her own life in the last few days.

Jesus Christ. Please say a Prayer for M...She deserves a fucking break.....

I look around me and see my healthy dogs, see myself in a healthy relationship, with a job, and a roof overhead, my cats happy and my STUFF, and am ashamed for every single time I have every complained.

Please say a prayer for M.

As for Delurking Week...Nevermind if it is After the Fact

2007-01-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

Go on, people, be bold.... Leave a comment! :)

Are we Crazy?

2007-01-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

The short answer is YES. Snowy roads, dark, looming snow storm notwithstanding, I did really well. Only stalled the car three times, and they were all times when I was starting up, as in going into first, rather than on the open road.

I've only driven standard once before. A lamentable 15 minutes, last summer, which almost included assault and battery, and I didn't speak to my mother the rest of the day . You should know that in my family, she isn't famous for being a great driver anyway. This fact is something she would argue vehemently against, but you should see her drive. Seriously. Note to Self and others: If EVER it seems like a good idea to let your mother teach you to drive her standard car, take a deep breath, step away from the vehicle, take your meds and realise that going to that place would be very very bad. Save yourself.

When we got to my brother's place, I jumped around screaming, "I drove here, I drove here! Woo-hoo! I drove standard!" I was so excited. And it isn't that hard. And then B, God love him, said "You did great, Baby. You drive almost as well as your mother...:) " What a tease....

Dinner was incredible and we all had a SUCH fabulous time! Drank too much, laughed a lot. Took a cab home.

Dreaming of match-making.....

2007-01-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

Recovering from another day off, during which I did a lot of not much. Chopped kindling, fought with the wood stove for a bit before it conceded that providing me with a glowing fire and preventing me from freezing to death in my own home was its actual purpose. Seems I've lost my fire starting touch. But in the end, I slew the beast, and made fire. I am Tom Hanks, Wilson.... see me roar!

So I didn't do the house cleaning blitz I intended to do, or the grouting of the bathroom floor which has been waiting for nigh-on two and 1/2 years (what's one more week?!) Neither the last window in the bedroom which is still naked and sans trim work. Nor the last of the trim work in the studio, which continues to be lonely, although I did transfer some boxes of broken crockery into it for future mosaic making. The list is endless. I had a lazy day. I sat on my butt a lot. Tidied the living room, did a few dishes, made the bed, and then thought: whatever. Tomorrow ... tomorrow I can do productive things before I go back to work on Wednesday. Meanwhile, lets see what Sam and Jason are up to on General Hospital..... :) Not to mention that oh-so-perfect Elizabeth.

I'm actually beginning to love my job. Have I mentioned this yet? Learning curve is sloping to a more gentle pitch. For the first time since moving to the Island, I feel as though I am part of the community. Right at the hub of it all. Everyone and their dog (or their dog's dog, in quite a few cases - and we love dogs, and give them treats) comes to our store, which sells everything from hardware, to boating supplies, linens, sporting equipment to paint, furniture to microwave ovens, plumbing and heating to pet supplies and electronics. A real old fashioned General Store. We sell almost everything and almost everyone comes in at some point or another. I am amazed by how many people I know, and how much the job is actually about people and making them happy. Which I love. If everyone who comes through my till leaves with a smile, I've done my job, and I'm happy. So far, I seem to be doing well at that.

The old me who used to teach, and who was great with people is coming back out of her shell. And I like her. She feels good in my skin, and is glad to be back. :) She is the one with confidence who flirts with everyone from the cradle to the grave. I have my favourites, and they know who they are, and if the occcasional nasty old drunkard comes through, or embittered cow who does nothing but complain, I say with and acerbic tone which only a descendant from Austrians can muster, "I'm sure they will be able to help you at the service desk....over THERE!" I.e, dont talk to me like that and piss off, thank you, and have a nice day....

The fellow who was giving me attitude and the cold shoulder the other day made a turn-around and showered me with Bonhomie the following day, going out of his way to be helpful and friendly. Strange man. I cant help but like him. I like most everyone, actually, and its all good.

We have more snow coming and for those of you in North America - on the east coast, and most of you in between - just put your fingers in your ears and say, "La-la-la-la...I cant hear you", for a bit while I whine. I left Ontario for a number of reasons, and winter was one of them. While we have a winter season which is so gentle as to be laughable to most of you, I am sure, I have been able to enjoy the snow we've had, because it tends to go away. Not so much this winter.

We have snow coming tonight, they say. And a wind storm. Enough already.

The good news is that my brother's ex, who has morphed into his 'best friend' (with benefits, and frankly, kids, I don't wanna know! Do they think this information makes things easier for me ?!?) and with whom, and her family, he spent his Christmas holiday, has come for a visit. He left right after Christmas and they did a Russian timing thing, her ancestors having come from the old country, and he's been back a week, and has asked her to come and stay for a while. Yay! I'm not going to make any wise-cracks like I did last time (like, "Oh, just get yourself with child, already, woman!" I was drunk). WHAT are they playing at? They obviously cant bear to be apart for long, cant seem to get on with their lives apart.... Ugh. I just wish they'd slip off and make me an auntie so we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief and start planning a wedding. Not that they'd allow that, they'd fight tooth and nail, probably for years, and by the time the child entered school, maybe they'd come round, the fact of the forgone conclusion being utterly lost on them.

A girl can dream, can she? Gods, I love them.. silly, obstreperous, stubborn, contrary children that they are. Don't they know that Love doesn't grow on trees?! Don't they know that if you find it, you nurture it, hang on to it, make it your first priority in life and make everything else curve around it so that is stays, protected and whole. Because it doesn't happen every day. A love like that. You cant take it for granted, ever. And speaking of which, just so you know, every morning I wake up, no matter how bad my life is, I have a bubble of happiness inside me when I hear B making coffee. I thank my lucky stars every single day of my life for having been blessed with this man, for having the Love we share. I am grateful every day. When I slip slowly from dreamland to wakefulness, I feel my chest expand, my heart open as I hear him puttering around, or feel him lying beside me, still heavy in sleep, his body a warm weight beside me, radiating heat as only a man's body does, inhaling his smell, that warm man smell of HIM, and that singular and unique sense of safe contentment washes over me, saying, 'we are here, together, and It Is Good'....Meanwhile, the cats begin to stir, making 'I want my breakfast" noises.....

That wonderful man, who tells me tonight, he's hilarious, that he's going to teach me to drive standard, in the dark, with snow clouds looming, on the way to dinner...right. Have I told you recently that he drives me nuts? And I love him. Impractical dreamer, who makes his impractical dreams a concrete reality. He makes me a person who tries to be a better person, and every now and then we, together, succeed. We're muddling through, we are, and it is okay.....

We are going over to my brother's for dinner tonight, in a hour, so I'd better finish this and get ready. I cant wait to see her.

I have loved her since she was in utero (this gets a bit strange...). I was actually the one who named her. Our families have been friends since I was a baby. Her older sister and I, who are of an age, shared a crib when we were tiny. And when the new baby was one the way, ten years later (my brother's 'best friend'), I was the one who suggested her name. We all grew up together, sort of like cousins, which makes their relationship oddly incestuous, in a way. It isn't that they were childhood sweethearts or anything. In fact, her sister and I did everything we could to keep them apart, seeing the sparks between them for years and thinking they'd be a disaster just waiting to happen. It was inevitable. Karmic. That was nearly 6 years ago.... and the rest is history as they say.

I cant wait to see them together. They are SO cute. They are so lovely as a couple I just want to smack them upside the head and tell them to get on with it, but they are working things through in their own way... And I have to work with what's right for them, no matter what I think. I just want them to be happy. I just want them to be happy and wish they could do that together. It could happen....

As I said....I can hope, and dream....

I will try soon to figure out how to post some photos of the dogs, with the DT's helpful hints.

Ninight, my Chickadees. Hope all's well with all of you.

Jay.....

2007-01-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

Where the hell are you?! We miss you... C. xoxox

Another Day in the Life....

2007-01-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

So, you've heard this before, but seriously, B hardly ever went over to P's place to hang out, for ages it seems, and recently, perhaps once a month or maybe twice a month, there has been a reconnection. Coinciding with the hockey season, which isn't part of B's life or interests, but is part of P's, the life-long friend, and it calls for company, apparently. So the upshot is that I've a night on my own with the beasties and blogland. Which is fine by me. Romantic nights with the world covered in a winter wonderland are not uppermost on my mind as I am feeling tired and cranky.

Not that I'm not appreciative. Don't get me wrong. Since mum left B has reclaimed the kitchen and cooks every other day, almost, at least. He's become rather anal about dishes. Who are you and what have you done with my spouse?! I love it. I compete with him by trying to get on top of the laundry, but fail miserably, most of the time...

We are trying to conserve gas, which can go up to $1.20 a litre, and I know they pay way more than that in Europe, but dammit, we have our own wells for Christ sake, so this isn't on.... and having the luxury of the use of my mother's ancient Toyota 4WD station wagon, we've opted for using that, because it will go through any snow or weather, and so B drives me to work and picks me up. I don't trust my geriatric Buick in the newly fallen snow nor my own snow-driving skills. Especially as the barometric pressure swings and the roads become iced over. We've had more snow this winter, since I moved here, and okay, its only been 4 1/2 years, but that's still a baseline to make the eyes go 'pop' at the amount of snow that fell in the last few days.

Jeeze. I'm from Ontario. This is child's-play to me. Or so I think it should be, but mark my words. Snow that falls at sea level is different that any other snow.

Okay, I'm being a drama queen... Whatever. I reserve that right... always.

I'm being vibed-out by someone at work who was formerly kind, helpful and protective. Actually he's been an arse and quite rude. To the point that I've been stranded with customers needing assistance and have not known where to turn to help them. I don't know what to make of it. I think my feelings are a bit hurt. I'm just way too sensitive... its made things a bit icky. I have asked him questions and asked for assistance (which is his job) and been ignored for two days. Shit-le-merde. I totally do not understand what is going on.

Outside it is cold. Not like Ontario cold with a wind-chill factors of minus 27 or 35, but cold to my western adjusted sensibilities... It is only minus 6 or so... That's Celsius for our cousins to the south, and that means is it minus 32 Fahrenheit....something. Freezing, in other words. WAY TOO COLD. Okay go ahead and laugh, but frankly I hate the cold and am obsessed by the weather. All year round. Read my blog and get used to it.

For once the cats wont go outside to do their business. We have icicles and 8 inches of snow; pure and white on the railings of the deck, and on the roads;the trees are all weighed down with their burden of winter wonderland. Fir and Cedar and Balsam, all the conifers are a Christmas trees in a belated white Christmas. Heavy laden. I worry about the hydro lines, frankly. What this means is power outages, again. We ourselves have been lucky so far.

Meanwhile, with B away, Willy has once again gone on walkabout, the little terror. With the acute sensory apparatus of the psychic canine, he determines that his 'very own human' is not here tonight, and he's simply absconded. Bloody hell. Elvis has left the building...again. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.

Little bugger. I am now in my pyjamas and soft cushy socks, and settled for the night and I am DAMNED if I will go intrepidly into that good night, bundling up with inadequate insulation, to look for a stubborn errant dawg. Thick long johns, or leggings, as you please. Woolen sweaters, the extra socks to combat the holes in boots, the over-coat, the hats and scarf and gloves. Dammit. WHY DOES HE DO THIS TO ME?!

I have on my new jammies, which mum gave me for Christmas. Not that you really want to know, but they are a soft light blue with sparkled metallic threads throughout in a criss-cross pattern. Flannel. Lovely and soft and comfy. Not quite sexy, but nice. Attractive flannels, if there is such a thing. I will damned well not go out into a freezing night of utter cold and arctic snow to look for an errant stubborn, MIA dawg.

How can I be so hard-hearted and why do I say that, I hear you ask? Experience, that's why. Within the hour, I'll have you a bet, he'll be at the gate looking all bashful, forsaken, shamefaced and forlorn, not to mention freezing cold, as though I had bloody-well deliberately abandoned him on an arctic ice floe. As though he had a very good reason to abscond, and just looking me in the eye would let me know...IT WAS MY FAULT.

B's away. William goes on walkabout. You can bank in it. He'll be back when he wants to come back.

Right, okay, you know me too well. If W doesnt turn up soon you know I will be strapping on the boots and over-coat to look for him.... in my gum boots with the holes that will let in the snow and freeze my feet in a wet misery. Little rat-bastard. God love him, if anything happened to him I dont know what I'd do.

Meanwhile...hope all is well with all of you in Blogland.

Sleep well my Chickadees.... :) (Even as I am tramping though the snowy woods looking for a dawg who thinks he might hunt deer, or something, and at his age, ha-bloody-ha - on a Godforsaken, freezing-arse cold night - but who actually knows better... or damned well should!)

Huh!

Oh. My. Gods.

2007-01-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

It looks like the old iblogs sites have been appropriated by porn sites now.

What the fuck!?

Are they allowed to steal websites like that? Or did Arlo pimp them?

I'm choked.

Rain and Mists of Nostalgia......

2007-01-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, So I'm not a computer genius/magician like the DT, but hey, I figured out how to put a clustermap on my site and I'm so impressed. This stuff is all Greek to me. Or geek, if you'd prefer. Which I'm seriously not, more's the pity becauee I LOVE this stuff. It took me nearly four days to figure out how to make animations in place of names for my blog roll list on my old blog (Reggie's dolphin's leaping joyfully out of the sea was my favourite) and that nearly killed me and my computer (which, not for the firt time, was very close to being flung unceremoniously out the window!) Yegads, save me from technology!

Anyway, the Gnocchi didn't happen last night but hope to make it tonight.

The rain keeps falling. You know this by now. Or you would know this if my old blog hadn't gotten lost in cyberspace for months. (I'll have to set up an alternate blog and link to here, but it will take some time to sort out).

We have two seasons here, on the west coast, in these gentle gulf islands: hot and dry/ cold and wet. And when it rains here, it rains a lot. All the time. The rain has miriad ways of making itself the same and yet different every day. It can be relentless. It can soothe and it can frighten.
It rains in shades of blue and grey and green. Soft washed out colours. Hard shining sheets slanting, buckets and torrents comming down. Textures like the softest, fluffy corded bales of wool, slick silk and hard like grains of sand, pelting down, tearing up the siding on the house and decks. Mercurial. Mists that hover and linger, softly, softly fogging over hollows and clearing into crystaline sharpness only to be plunged into a white wall of cloud again. Heaving, booming rains that come in waves, driven by the wind, pounding on the roof and windows so that it shakes the house; delicate drizzles like the kiss of a fairy wing. Sometimes so subtle it is only the idea of rain, before it falls in earnest. Blue, green, grey....

Before I moved here, departing from the former husband in the big smoking city back east, I was concerned that the rain would make me depressed. Isnt that a laugh?! :) Heaven knows I have enough in life to make me depressed, thank you, dont worry. It isn't the rain. Actually, the rain recalls to me the months I was fostered in Newfoundland with my Aunt. My biofather's baby sister. It rained a lot there.

I don't have many memories of that time. A neighbour's new white puppy, which I went often to visit, being more interested in the dog than the little girl he belonged to. Making sand cakes with small buckets...filling the pail 1/2 full of sand and then shoving a layer of bright green fresh grass on that and then topping the rest of the bucket up with sand. Invert, plop! Lift off pail and Voilà: A sand layer cake. Very yum! "Do you want some cake with your pink lemonade?"

I recall my cousins, girl and boy, older than me and my brother, by one year, respectively.... Breakfast; dunking strips of toast with margerine into the yolks of soft boiled eggs. And carnation milk. I guess they don't have cows in Newf. Few memories..... The sound and smells of the sea, and sounds of rain make me happy now. They evoke days of sitting in the attic watching Puff the magic Dragon films, when it rained; eating crepes filled with brown sugar. Before the days of dvd's. Or computers, even. I remember a movie that came out that summer, I think it was that summer, called: "The computer wore tennis shoes".... it was the late 60's. We took the couch and chair cushions off and made them into forts. Play was allowed. But not fighting. If we fought (did we?) or if we were naughty, my aunt's voice would get very quiet, and very clipped. We knew 'that voice' meant trouble. She never hit us. The quiet voice, her disappointment, her sense of consequence was enough. I think I loved her. I must have. Because when I think of her I feel a sense of longing......

At the school recital, or some event, I borrowed my cousin's shoes, because mine were too small and ugly, and wore three pairs of socks so they would fit. They were still too big but I was proud to have such nice shoes, and my legs looked thick in white knee socks with layers underneath, which was okay because I was so skinny. Mostly, I think we had a good time.....

Anyway, the night I first spent there I cried. I was homesick and scared. Barely 5 years old, and in a house of strangers. My Aunt told me to listen to the rain. She told me it was okay to cry. She said to let the rain sing me to sleep. I must have done so, because ever since, the rain's song has been a comfort to me.

After I left, and mum got us back, custody having become moot because the other parent had fled to Saudi Arabia (of all places! What's a Kraut to do THERE?!) I never saw my aunt or my cousins again. I have no idea if they are dead or alive. I think of them from time to time, quite often actually, and wonder if they remember me. Are they well? Are my cousins married, do they have children now? Is my aunt still alive and still doing her pottery? (She was apparently famous in her time, having apprenticed in the Blue Mountain area of Ontario and had an 'accident' in the kiln one day, which became the current famed 'Blue Mountain Pottery' style of slumped and draped glaze sliding down the form, or so I am told. I was told too that she had her own local tv show for a while. I suppose I could find her if I tried....and yet, I am afraid of the past).

The husband of my aunt was a big hairy Kelt, with long sandy reddish hippy hair, and a motorcycle. The day my aunt's brand new VW bug arrived was a day of celebration. The car was called Clementine, which was appropriate because it was bright orange, and round and looked like something ripe and luscious, ready to be eaten. It had that new car smell....We all wanted to ride in her. Uncle's motorcycle was at once relegated to the 'been there done that' insignificance of experiences that pale in comparison to the moment's new shiney toy. I dont actually recall seeing him as my uncle now that I think of it, he was sort of just there sometimes, more or less.... but I do remember riding, at the age of 5, on the back of his bike. Once. It was exciting.

I do not really know if I miss them, or if I miss the idea of them, or just miss the gentle days, and feeling like I was part of a genuine and real family for a while....

I think it would be nice to have cousins again. Probably that means I do miss them.....

More Good New Year's News.... Happyhappyjoyjoy! :)

2007-01-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

Well, guess what?! Having realised that I AM, in fact, totally devastated by the loss of my iblogs archives over the past year, I went and searched Google. And have been searching for the last two hours. For those of you in the same boat, here is what I discovered. Iblogs is a real arse, and yet, Google has us in cyberspace it its cache!

I searched with keywords using my blog site name, the arse-wipe server and the word 'archives', Like so:

chupaflor, ' a day in the life', iblogs, archives

And tickety-boo, a whole score of my pages turned up. Utterly inaccessible, of course as the aforementioned dregs of the derriere is defunct. (Bastards). And yet, intuition being what it has to be when one is as computer illiterate as I am, I pressed the highlit 'cache' button, and lo! and behold! There they were. Months of them. Not all, but months of them, which I copied , and now have to find a way to insert them into a file but they are safely saved in a drafts folder of my mail.

A small triumph. Another bit of New Year's good news!

Mostly the photographs didn't copy, and I am especially choked about that one as I think of Zeus up in a tree, playing 'Hound of Hell', with fiery camera red-eye, making him look like a daemon. You'll remember of course. And I still have that photo in my hard drive, but havent yet learned how to post pics HERE. You might recall the time it took me to learn how to post photos on iblogs. Learning curve was steep!

You know, many native cultures believe that if you take a photograph of something, you capture a bit of its essence. I dont necessarily think that is a bad thing, as I think my own essence is limitless (I'm so modest). But seriously, on a soul level, we are limitless, right, so why would I care if someone has a piece of me? Its like a hologram. Or a drop of water. Each piece is whole unto itself, and yet the entirety isn't diminished at all for having a drop of itself here and there. Its all infinite. A fanciful analogy, maybe but I am sure you get my point. (Actually I think that The DT could explain it more articulately).

And yet, that point being made, I felt somehow that there were pieces of me floating around in cyberspace, or worse yet, gone into the ethers, completely gone. I imagined them lost in space, lonely without me, and without each other....Horrible. Silly, but horrible. (Abandonment issues?!) That's a years' worth of my journal, my thoughts and my experiences. And all of your comments! Okay, so it wont change the tide of life on this planet, and isn't that important in the grand scheme of things, but dammit, it matters to ME! Those are pieces of me/us floating out there, and I'm happy for others to have a look at them, but I want them under my own wing, so to speak. You know? Because words have power, and when I put them out there, I offer them, as a gift, but I when they are stolen from me, I don't like it.

Anyroad, I've got some of them back. Have no idea how to import or transport or teleport them to this blogsite. But they've been brought home. I take comfort from that. They are home, back with me where they belong. Looking rather a lot worse for wear, with keywords being highlighted, and arrows everywhere, and no photos, no background blog template to show them off as they were. An intent. An offer. A place to express myself, and vent....An invitation to a conversation....and a moment of life. Yet, I feel so much happier knowing that they are home.....

Bloody, Bloody bastards, those iblogs. Yeah, so it was free, but you don't give someone a home, let them get settled in for over a year, make friends and form bonds, and then say, "Ooops. You cant have that now, piss off". And now we can't even contact them and tell them how annoying this all is?! Or ask them what can be done about it. I still hope against hope that the site will come up again so I can retrieve the rest of my lost stories. Particularly, 'Muriel and the Christmas cactus', which meant a lot to me. And to her, I'm sure, dead though she is.....

So aside from that little achievement which nearly made my eyes cross in frustration whilst searching and figuring things out, Sunday was lovely. Mostly, or totally spent on my own, but that's okay. I chopped kindling, played ball and Frisbee with the dogs, brought some stuff for mosaicing into the studio - then panicked and left. But I DID go in there. I must have a phobia or something. I blogged and read a lot. A real Sunday.

Got a fire going in the wood stove, and of course I found the lost children (or some of them) from the old blog...... A successful day, in my opinion. :)

It was lovely to revisit the comments made by everyone, and realise what a tight little community we had there. I hope Claudio is okay. And am hoping that Reg will be blogging from her apartment soon. I miss them. Miss you all. Mostly I miss Bloomsie. Haven't heard much from her but got a brief note recently saying she's okay.... The tribe.....

I've been reading some blogs by people with infertility issues quite a lot lately. Its been a comfort to me. Will make a list soon of various really good blogs I read. There are a lot of very big hearted, strong, fragile, feeling and wonderful people out there!!!!

I was given a HUGE bag of fresh basil from an importer the other day (a few bunches of which I gave to fellow workers, to their apparent delight), who swanned through my till with the querry, "Do you like Basil?" Huh? Who doesnt. Somewhat bemused, I said of course I did, and he came back into the store a few moments later with the bag, saying he had a large shipment from Guatemala bound for the distributors in Vancouver and Toronto. Wow, how nice is that?! (Good thing I have a policy of making sure that everyone who passes through my till leaves the store with a smile!)

Tonight I plan to make gnocchi, with butter and basil pesto. I've never made it before, of course, so am a little concerned, but what the hell, at least I'm not doing what I usually do....which is try a new recipe when I have company! I have no anchovies, but DO have pine nuts. And how hard can it be, really? Olive oil, Basil, pine nuts, salt, pepper, parmagianno porfavore, and garlic. Wee potato dumplings, boiled and then sauteed in butter before being drenched in the pesto. Utterly yum. (A few slivers of lemon rind maybe, do you think?)

Yo, Cuisinart, here I come!!!!

Have a good night, everyone, and a happy tomorrow! Ciao my Chickedees!

Ruminations on Redemption

2007-01-06T15:36:00.000-08:00

In my family, one of the problems is that we don't let things go. There is a lot of psycho-babble talk all the time, so called 'processing' (the family business) but the truth is that we cant seem to move forward without dragging the past along with us and tripping over it. Or flinging it into one another's faces. The concept of 'healing' is bandied about on a daily basis whilst the weapons of past destruction are primed, aimed with deadly accuracy at the target's most vulnerable spot, just waiting to be fired. And usually are. Sometimes the rockets go off spontaneously, without warning, surprising everyone. The ricochets can be deadly.

Okay, so it wasn't all bad. There were some good times. We laughed, we cried. But frankly, Scarlet, enough is enough.

The problem isn't entirely our own. Its cultural, and probably universal in family dynamics. As much as we know this we still act it out. Talk about it, and act it out again in a zillion different variations. From family, to nations, its the same story.

Why is it that we hold on to the past so hard, as if our present or our future couldn't live without it? Ego. Is that it? Identity? Who would I be if I let the past baggage, like the garbage that it is, simply go?! How would I be free to develop? I must be afraid of myself, of who I might be allowed to be, and of my potential or I would let all that crap go. What am I so afraid of? Does a me without that weight think she'd be worse off?!

I've been working on the concept of the 'process of becoming' for some time now. I watch myself encapsulate the good moments in my family's past, tie them up tightly and off they float, drifting, like bubbles, utterly unconnected to the day to day so that what creates the image of the whole, and is the basic thread through the continuum, really just goes from bad to bad. This doesn't work. At least that's what I used to do. And that's been the pattern in my family. We all do it. And it sucks.

I'm noticing how deeply entrenched the pattern of judgement and making the other wrong is in my family. Part of my character too, no doubt, as that is how I was raised. I hate that. I'm noticing how much I wish instead that the mere idea of allowing a person to just be who they are is such a challenge. Why cant we just accept, invite, allow and embrace?

I make mistakes. I know that. Everyone does. But in my family, the focus is so often on the negative. Mistakes, or the assumption that a person might be doing something another doesn't agree with, ergo it MUST me a mistake, will be judged. The smallest thing can become a spark to trigger an argument.The larger the transgression (decided by whom ever is in the most controlling mood at the time, and you can pick any little stupid thing, as an example, I'm sure you have a few of your own), the greater the judgement, and the smaller the possibility of being invited to have a relationship where compassion and acceptance has a place. Without compassion there is no possibility of being redeemed from error. We stay stuck in the place of mistakes and are forever damned by them. And guess what? There might not be any mistake at all! There can be judgement just BECAUSE!

When there is judgement, there can be no compassion. There is only judgement.

My mother had a hard life. She has a hard time not judging. I have to remind myself that she was very broken.With a compass so badly damaged, just how well could she have possibly done?! I know she did her best but my brother and I are still recovering, and living through the consequences. She gave what she could back then. Some of it was wonderful. She gives a lot now. I learned a lot of good from her. I also learned how to beat myself up. I learned from the best after all.

This year, this brand-spanking-new and shining year is taking on a shape already. And it looks like a place where compassion will play a much larger role. I hope so. I know I have to start with myself. Being kind to myself is the only way I will learn to pay it forward, back into my family, and disarm the defenses. Its going to be a big one...... this new leaf.

On a lighter note I read a funny quote I thought I'd leave you with:

"I'm having a difficult day... My inner child just threw up on my higher Power."

The good news: 1): Most of the stolen money was recovered.

2): Mum's gone.

3): I got my benefits and they should kick in soon. (Also am beginning to really like my job).

Happy New Year everyone! :)

Shedding the Bah-Humbug....

2006-12-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

Hi All, just thought you should know that my mother arrives in two days. I have been diverting and trying not to have conniptions. To keep my mind off getting overwhelmed by the fact that the house is a disaster (and before anyone says 'she's coming to visit you, not the house', this is and isn't strictly true. The Kraut factor, remember? The clean-freak Principle, which is ingrained in her and all of her ancestors, but which I am able to conveniently overlook - or be in denial of- from time to time. Lately has been one of those times....) Also, our vacuum cleaner is dead.

So anyway, I digress, and have been all day. But it was a productive and creative digression. I made the most stunning wreath for the door with cedar, balsam, fir - all pilfered from the land. Some cut and some scavenged from the ground, thanks to the recent storms - fresh holly, ivy and a red satin bow with silver edges. Lovely. Also made some hanging clusters of same as the above, with bows as well to put at the corners of the deck. It looks festive and welcoming, even if the interior of the house does not.

Still haven't got a tree and there may only be a few left for sale, maybe we can get one from B's father's farm? We'll see....

Meanwhile, a cup of tea is in order and then I have to do a blitz cleaning, straighten up mum's bedroom which is currently still the 'junk room'...and try not to lose my mind in the process. Tomorrow I'm back at work, and then dinner at my brother's so I wont be able to do much in the way of preparation before she arrives on Thursday afternoon....

Please, wish me luck!

P.s I have not made or bought a single present yet. I dont know what I am going to do..... YIKES!

Weather or Not....

2006-12-16T18:17:00.000-08:00

Have lit a fire in the wood stove, which is burning nicely now, casting a good heat, and am comfortably settled in, at least for a while, to write a long overdue post. Glass of well deserved wine at hand.

We've been hit by a series of freakish storms over the past few weeks, starting with snow, which I told you about, and then rain, wind, and more rain and wind. Nearly 200,000 homes out of power at one point, some of them for days, some of them still, a week later. Horrible for them. We ourselves have been very lucky.

I had oil candles burning a lot, just in case the power went, so as not to have to grope in the dark for light. It did go out, too, but just for a minute at a time, in quick succession- one, two, three, right after a large flash of light in the dark and furious night sky, and then the power came back on. Thank heaven for small mercies. We are so dependant on modern conveniences...

Sitting on the couch, looking out the large windows, I watched the fir and balsam trees being lashed by hurricane-force winds, and I was afraid. Rain pounded slantwise on the house, almost horizontal, hammering the windows, despite two foot soffits (eaves). The tin roof made a noise like a train. I was afraid, watching those trees bend to impossible angles, back and forth, back and forth, branches flying off in all directions and setting off the motion detecting lights on the studio. I was so worried that one of them, the top of a tree, probably, would break off and come hurtling in through the window where I sat, making a direct line, like a compass to north, to impale my head. Visions of a bad disaster movie. Drama queen, I know.... I've never actually been scared of a wind storm before, but I tell you, the elements meant business. It was terrible. Aside from the ruined gutters (from snow) we've sustained little damage, I'm glad to report. We were so lucky.

Meanwhile, I am feeling more confident at work, but still have the looming spectre of potential unemployment hovering at the periphery. Hours have been cut due to the overall numbers coming in, and there is nothing I can do about that. I'm beginning to see things more philosophically now, and trying to regain my sense of humour. Had a compliment about my work the other day, which was nice (and almost brought me to tears, it was so unexpectedly kind), from one of the 'top' people, and I haven't had a lot of those.

The Christmas party went well, last weekend. I was a bit worried that chins would be wagging, and that there would be a flurry of gossip because we ended up sitting at the owner's table. Kind of an honour, like sitting at the captain's table, you know? And only the important office people were sitting there. B and I arrived a little late, fashionably, of course, and were hunting around for vacant seats, and were simply invited by the owner to join them. Gobsmacked. But actually I shouldn't have been. They are seriously nice people and utterly without pretension. It was a nice evening, but I was so tired from a truly hellish day, and we left sort of early. Just after dinner the speeches, and 'secret santa' gift exchanges.... and before the dancing and the very ribald revelry started. I heard rumours of some of the behaviour and goings on and frankly was glad I was not there to see it. I don't think I should mention it in this blog! So far no one has said a word about our exalted seating arrangements. Which is good. The drama of other people's behaviour superseded any gossip we might have have generated. Thank all Gods.

I was always up for a laugh, in the old days. I was always joking, and saw the funny side of things. A healthy sense of the ridiculous, I used to say. Before the truth of infertility, before the memories of childhood trauma returned, before my marriage died.... I used to be funny.

I'm starting to regain my funny bone, I think.

A case in point occurred most humorously last week when I accidentally mooned the entire store for 1/2 the day. I kid you not. I realised at lunch time that my pants zipper - at the back- had split, and every time I leaned over to get a bag to deposit a customer's items into, I must have been exposing my arse. Mind you, I was wearing dark leggings as long johns underneath my black trousers (I'm near one of the doors and the winter gusting winds tend to apply a frigid draft up my aft, so added protection in the undergarment department is a must...) Perhaps no one noticed? Having between 300 and 500 people come through my till a day, I wonder what are the odds.... ? Huh. No wonder everyone was so friendly! :)

I just had to laugh. I think that means I am on the mend.....

Other than that, am settling in to the rhythm of work more and more, still not in the studio on days off, but am feeling that that will come...soon. Things with B are good. We're broke, but what else is new?

B is over at a friend's right now, doing his guy bonding thing, and I have the place to myself for the night. The cats and dogs want feeding, which I'll tend to, and then I'll sit down on the couch with a Diana Gabaldon book, to reread. (Oooh, that Jamie! I want to be Claire when I grow up!) The night is calm, with hardly a drop of rain, but everything smells sharply damp and fresh in that coldly winter wet way, with mare's tails wisping across the night sky. Star light seeping through the clouds, very gently, in places here and there. There is no storm tonight. I'll light a lantern anyway, and some candles.

I like the feeling of being in that light.

Its been a good day. Moreover, I've had the most gorgeous, lengthy and rambling talk with my best friend, who lives in England. Food for the Soul. Absolute heart nourishment.

Later:

Oh damn.

Shit. Piss. Fuck.

Willy's gone missing. Nearly every Bloody time B stays over at Peter's for a guy's night, playing cards and drinking beer, which isnt that often anymore, frankly, William goes off on walkabout. How does he know that B's not coming home tonight? HOW does he know?

Shit. Fuck. Piss; Goddamn sonofabitch.

I guess that fence I thought I repaired so well isnt actually repaired very well at all. It wouldnt matter so much if Willie werent an epileptic....

Bloody, bloody, bloody hell. Now I'm having hell-scenario visions of Willie having gotten out onto the road and having a seisure just as a large truck comes barrelling down the hill....

Shit.

Later:

The prodigal son returns. But not before first Xena and I, and then a second attempt, Zeus and I went on search and rescue. He got out of the pen, of course, little monster, with no expressions of remorse, full of himself, and the delight of freedom. Wolf at heart....and he was fine. We encountered Pushkin during our travels who came home, following us at a run with a loud 'Prrriiirrrup!'. Dont ask. He's a cat with sound effects. He's beautiful and very very cool.

Everyone is finally contentedly ensconced, and under roof, and I will have pasta for dinner now. Everyone is safe. Phew. I can relax at last and read my book.

Jeeze. About time. Bloody hell, what a day.

I hope everyone out there is okay.....

Layers of the Onion....

2006-12-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

Got my car back on the road for the first time in over a week. That was exciting. I took Zeus with me into town to pick up a few bits and pieces, among them dog food and treats. He was spoiled, as usual. He always enjoys, with a simultaneous exultant thrill, yet still a calm and smug, "This is only my due" kind of attitude, as he receives the adoration of his fans, and seeks every opportunity to work the crowd and expand his fan base. He thinks he's royalty. Or a rock star. What a ham! Of course, the way people fuss over him doesn't help the high regard he holds of his own status in the eyes of the world. Silly dog. It makes me think of the personas we all put on when we go into the world. He's really quite sensitive and insecure. As are we all, and we all put on 'the mask' to make ourselves safe.

The new and exciting drama occurring at the house is that as the snow begins to melt, it is sliding off the roof of main house and studio, and taking the gutters with it. One of them is ripped right in 1/2. This is not good, and when the parent arrives at Christmas, to view her domain, she will have fits. I am trying not to have them myself.

I've let go of a lot of my emotional investment in this place as I am reminded, repeatedly, when things come to conflict with her, that she could have bought a house elsewhere, with other tenants, and not had such a headache. Thanks mom. I am reminded, every time I go into anxiety attacks at her imminent arrival, by my sibling, that I chose this, to live in her house. Yes, I did.

I find my hindsight is spectacularly clear. Not so good the other way round. Never mind... We have to deal with what is.

In fact, mum has been surprisingly supportive about the crappy job and is encouraging me to get my arse into the studio to 'produce', but there is the issue of mortgage and bills, and 4 dogs to feed, (don't forget the two cats), and my own sometimes crippling sadness that comes at times of stress, to paralyse me and beat me down.

Meanwhile, after a fantastic beginning to the year, and telling me he didn't want me to have to work outside of the home if I didn't want to, and to GET INTO THE STUDIO!" B had a setback in his new business at the end of the Summer and is struggling to catch up again. Ergo me and the crappy job....He will, it is just a matter of time. He's so talented and good at what he does and has already built a reputation which is very respected,in only one year of being out on his own. These things take time. It will be okay.

Did I mention we were robbed by one of the reno workers two or so months ago? My mother's house, her reno, her money. My fault. I didn't lock the house. No one does here. It has fucked me up badly. That experience brought up all of the old issues, pushing me into a relapse of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I feel like nothing will ever be the same.

Getting on meds helped, at least it is better now, but when I started my job, I was on the edge and things got worse for a while, so that I had trouble concentrating and focusing. My short term memory is like a sieve these days. Not good circumstances under which I have to learn a computer database system on a pc when I have historically ONLY used, ever, a Mac.

And then there is the fact that now that I am 42, hoping for a miracle is kind of a lost cause. A baby isn't going to happen in this life time. We cant afford fertility or foreign adoption. And I am to old to qualify for regular adoption in this country as the waiting list can drag on for years.

Right now.... I feel okay. Its been a rough ride the last few months though. Right now, I can stay up late tonight watching tv on the couch, offer to make hot lemon and honey for B who is in the worst part of the cold I gave him (which I am now nearly over). He will refuse it, saying, "no thanks, Baby". But I did make a fantastic soup and lovely salad for dinner, and made him lunch earlier this morning. We eat very well. We might be dirt poor right now but we eat well, and so do the beasties.

If I'm really lucky, the roads will be clear enough to bundle the dogs into my ancient car and take them to the ravine for a run.....

I can stay up late tonight, sleep in tomorrow a little, but get up early enough to make B breakfast and lunch, and see him off on his day. We take care of each other. If I feel like it I'll clean the house tomorrow, and if not, I'll do something else, or nothing at all. A day off. Make myself hot lemon, and crap out on the couch and watch soap operas.... and try to block out the sounds of a lonely studio, still not named, still not animated, who keeps asking me to come and play with her, and which I still ignore. I am feeling her calling more and more insistently and I know I NEED to get over there, because I don't want her to become a sad and lonely space. She needs my energy, my attention. She needs to be loved so that I can feel safe and creative in there, and we can make things together.....Maybe she is the child I am meant to have.....? I am trying to strtip off layers of the onion these days, distilling what I am and what I need, who I want to be into one and the same thing, but they seem so far apart....

We all have lonely spaces within us that need attention. We all have symbols and archetypes that speak to us about those places. And call to us. How often do we listen?

Aaaarrrrgghh!!!!

2006-12-01T17:58:00.000-08:00

I've been told that I remain on 'probation' , being one of the newer members on the Totem pole at work ,because I don't have enough computer skills. At the time - last week - I was so gutted I immediately fell into a depression and got sick. Fortunately I had my three days off, right after that, which I spent pretty much on the couch, being alternately sorry for myself about being ill, and sorry for myself for not getting on the benefits plan. Yet. Bastards. What they'll do, I suspect, is use me and then spit me out after the Christmas rush. First day back at work, I was cowed and quiet, but now I'm back to my usual flippant and mouthy self, and if they don't like that, they can fold their opinions into sharp little corners and insert them right up their you-know-whats.

Fuck 'em. Goddamn office politics. I am not a politician. And anyway, as e.e. cummings said, "A politician is an arse, upon which has sat, everything but a man." So there. Why can people just be nice and get the job done? Why is it always about competition and status and power. Yuk. Okay? Just...yuk.

I'm an artist, and I'm playing at being a till jockey right now. And I only have myself to blame, but having owned and managed my own business for ten years, and taught stained glass and mosaics for three, through the Board of Education's continuing Ed programme, I can confidently say, I'm not a complete idiot, or entirely without people skills. Thank you. Its what happens when you leave a marriage, and a home, a whole history, life, and friends behind; dust settling across 5ooo miles. Or is that kilometers? It doesn't matter, that was then and this is now, and the point is that I am shit scared of engaging with the studio and doing art. Why? WHY?!

Why am I so afraid of it/of myself?

Argh.

I've always thought that artist's block was a euphemism for wallowing or spinelessness, or lack of drive. Lack of confidence maybe. I am harsh, yeah, but who else will look as closely at this than me and pull out the old ghosts to pick through them and say, "THIS is where the fear began...and this is where the road forked, this is where you said no to your Self".

The snow remains, and our dog enclosure is something I am grateful for, still not being able to run the dogs at the ravine. Four of Zeus's balls are lost in the snow. We'll hunt for them when it melts. Probably this weekend. They are still loving the snow. :)

I wonder what I am doing with my life, and worry that in the process of becoming, I am becoming something I don't want to be or have any control over..... Who IS this person? What's happened to me?! What if I am never meant to make or do anything to be proud of?!

Don't worry, once I've licked this blasted cold, which I almost have, I'll be back to my usual Self. Oh, wait a minute, I forgot who that is.....

I am lonely for my iblogs crowd. I miss them a lot. I hope they are all okay....

Lets Try This Again.......

2006-11-26T18:06:00.000-08:00

My blog on iblogs is lost. One year of postings, one year of my journal, gone. I'm not devastated, only really disappointed. And pissed off. I wonder if there is a way to retrieve it?

Anyway, Life goes on..... And I'm starting over, here, hoping this will be a new home.

Chicken soup is on the stove, Simmering away with lively gusto and scenting the house with fragrances even my clogged sinuses and runny nose cant compete with. The smells of comfort, whilst a storm rages outside. Winter wonderland. Rare for our little island on the temperate west coast, and a treat. Except for the lack of snow tires.

All hell breaks loose when it snows here. No one on the island knows how to cope with it. Even though my Ontario sensibilities scoff at the panic which people here exhibit when the white stuff starts coming down, I resisted their notion that THIS snow is different somehow than THAT snow. But now that I am into my fourth Winter here, I have become convinced. It is wetter. More dangerous, as a result, and flash freezing makes our pitiful roads an exercise in taking one's life into one's hands every time one settles in behind the steering wheel. NOt to mention the chronic power outages. Which so far, mercifully, we've been spared except for one time when we lost power for only a few hours. B's folks we without power for 5 days last year. Kathleen says it pays to bribe the hydro guys with cases of beer.

I miss the big snows of back east. For about a week or two, and then I no longer have any use for it, but that's okay because snow rarely stays that long, here.

I took the dogs out into it this afternoon. They went crazy with glee in a way that only happy dogs who have been cooped up too long can show. Three of them in fleece coats, although Teddy, being 1/2 Akita, never needs one. Usually I drive them to the ravine for their run, but not today.

This past fall B and I made a dog enclosure, but Willy, escape artist that he is, seems to have found a chink in that armour and kept getting out to visit the neighbour's dog. (She's sexy). So despite my cold, I bundled up and threw the ball for them, and made big rolled up snow balls with what we used to call 'packing snow' which Xena delighted in eviscerating. When she was a puppy, no snow-man was safe from her. She would "kill" them dead every time, and stomp them into the ground, erasing all traces of them. I placed stones and sticks from our little woods all along the area of fencing which was suspect, and I think I've got the problem solved. Threw the ball for Zeus again and again. They Loved it.

I am dreading going back to work on Wednesday. I took on this job thinking that it would be good for me to be around people, having has such an isolated experience overseeing the renovations for so long. HOW long, you ask? Coming up on 3 years now. You wonder why I'm losing my mind........?!

I haven't done any art since the studio was built, and I did my first stained glass window in it last year.

This is me. Artist. Blocked. Crap job. And whining about it.

Suck it up girl, life is what you make of it!

My mother will arrive from overseas for Christmas, bringing her special brand of kraut-factor "THIS is how we do things!" which always makes me feel inadequate. Twice a year she comes, and it takes me months to recover, each time. We dont always get along.

Lets put the fun back into dysfunctional! :)