Fifty years. Five decades. Half a century. Such a long time ago, and such a short one. The other day I searched online for a September 1966 calendar. As we all know, the calendar changes and shifts its layout of weeks and days over the course of the years. It was interesting to me, though, that the calendar from September fifty years ago is identical to the calendar this year.
Chicago, Wednesday, August 31, 1966: A family of six, parents with three daughters and one son, moves from their Chicago three-bedroom duplex to a two-bedroom apartment. The other family living in the duplex, the owners, received an unsolicited offer to sell the home, an offer which they could not and did not refuse. After the moving was done, the four children, ranging in age from 7 to 16, walked with their mother to a local grocery store. There were no cars owned by the family; walking or public transportation were the ways they usually got around.
The mother seemed troubled. Her children asked their mama what was wrong. She finally told them that she had a terrible feeling. Something very bad was going to happen. The children, in their youthful hope and innocence, gushed that everything was fine. Nothing bad would happen. Mama didn't need to be worried. The subject faded into the background of this day of upheaval and change.
Chicago, Thursday, September 1, 1966: The children are all asleep in one bedroom. They are awakened by the screams of their mother. She cries out to them in Hungarian asking for help. She tells them not to allow the 7 year old child to come with them. Having never heard her mother scream for help before, the child runs to the bedroom with her siblings. None of them has any idea what to expect.
Their papa is not in the bedroom with mama. She is lying on the bed crying and writhing in pain. Her head and the pillows and bedclothes are soaked in her blood. Things become a blur. Various authorities are contacted. The father has turned himself in to the local police and left his children to find his wife who has been bludgeoned with a hammer and has a fractured skull. Years later, one of the daughters tells another that the father called her via the neighbor's phone (there was no phone yet in their new home) and instructed her to hide the hammer. On another call, he told her to retrieve it. By the day's end, the children were in different locations, the two youngest girls in an orphanage.
Chicago, Friday, September 2, 1966: The two girls in the orphanage, the older of whom was allowed to visit their mother in the hospital, are told that their mother has died. The youngest feels almost as if she is not really there, like this is not really happening. She doesn't know how to act or what to think. She is overwhelmed, as is her sister. What will happen to them next? What about their siblings? What about their father?
The two girls, who are no strangers to abuse or threats, are in the care of a nun who really doesn't care about them or their fellow orphans. They become numbers rather than names. The older one is referred to as 43-19, and the younger is 43-10. The numbers are inked on their clothes and stain their hearts. They are told over and over again that if something bad has happened to them, it is all their fault for being such terrible sinners. All of the orphans are told that they are unworthy, sinful people. They are subjected to physical and emotional abuse bordering on torture. Although there are occasional sunny moments in their lives, the nun pits them against one another. She punishes one sister for the real or imagined sins of the other, and punishes other girls in the same manner. She drives wedges between them so that they feel lonely and isolated even though they are surrounded by other girls.
Denver and suburbs, 1966 and beyond: A woman named Elizabeth celebrates her 60th birthday in July, the same month that the sisters in Chicago celebrate their 7th, 13th, and 16th birthdays. She is known to her grandchildren as Grandma Bessie or simply Gram. Her daughter Alice is married to a successful attorney, William, who was born in Hungary.
The following year he is told by his mother about the two girls in an orphanage, girls left behind after the death of their mother, his third or fourth cousin. He insists on becoming the guardian for the girls and giving them a home. His wife does not want the children; as an artist she would prefer children that, to her, are more interesting or exotic, like a couple of girls from a Native American Reservation. When she beats the youngest girl, she often tells her this, along with other painful things to try and crush her spirit. Within two and a half years both girls, first the older and then the younger, have been sent to live with her mother. As she is sent away, the youngest, who is secretly rejoicing because she will be escaping the frequent vicious beatings, is told not to be too happy because the grandmother hated her from the moment she laid eyes on her.
Present: The father served less than five years in prison. Rather than being found guilty of the original charge of murder, he is found guilty of manslaughter. The youngest is still upset that her mother's death came with so little punishment for the perpetrator and so much for the children. Did his case go to trial, or was there a plea-bargain? She neither knows nor cares. She will probably never feel that justice has been served. The two sisters were forced to go to visit their father after his release from prison even though they felt nothing but hate for him. The visit did not change this. The father died in 1980 and was gone for a long time before any of his children even knew he was gone. Perhaps in an odd way some justice was served.
The grandmother, who became like a mother to the girls, is now gone. The abusive Alice and her husband are also gone. The brother is also gone. The oldest sister is estranged from the others, but the youngest two are sticking together. For both of them, some degree of pain accompanies the memories that remain. Some of them are terrible, and some are worthy of smiles or laughter. They never know what will pop into their minds or when or why. But the turning of August to September has its own set of memories. The calendar cannot be denied. Sometimes years go by without it being in the forefront of their minds, but this is a momentous number of years. If this were an anniversary of a marriage, there would be much cause for celebration. Instead, this date brings reflection and sometimes surprise. Surprise to realize that a parent was lost so many years ago. Fifty years gone by, such a long time, and yet such a short one.
p.s. I am the 7 year old, and the 13 year old is my sister Liz. I love you, sister.
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always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great
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Friday, September 2, 2016
Friday, August 26, 2016
Shot
Although the calendar may not officially agree, the seasons are beginning to change. Yes, there's still plenty of warm or even hot weather to be had, but the days are getting ever so slightly shorter and the nights a bit cooler. The chirping of crickets is getting slower and softer. Kids all over the place are back in school, which brings us to another season of sorts. When you go into a pharmacy or drug store, you may be asked if you've had your flu shot yet. Both Trent and I make sure to get our flu shots every year. He is a transplant recipient and I have lupus, an autoimmune disorder. We have the injections to try and protect ourselves from the ick that seems to proliferate every winter season.
Of course, this makes me think of the whole vaccination issue. Let me say that you have every right to believe what you wish about vaccinations, as does everyone, and I respect your right to make your own choices. I remember having various vaccinations offered at school when I was young, and my family took advantage of every available vaccine. Gram had lived through the 1918 flu pandemic (note: pandemic = a worldwide epidemic, which is pretty horrifying). Polio epidemics occurred in various areas every year after the devastating polio epidemic of 1916. Having lived with the very real fear of complications like paralysis or death, they were all for preventing future cases of these and other diseases.
Then a British medical journal published a study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that claimed to have found a direct link between vaccinations and autism. Although his study was proven to be a hoax and was retracted, the claims that vaccines cause autism linger. Measles, which had been all but eradicated, have made a resurgence, along with things like chicken pox. Some parents even have what they refer to as chicken pox parties. When one child gets the disease, all of their friends come over and spend the night so that they will get it too.
These parents seem to think that having chicken pox or measles is a good thing, that it makes the child's immune system stronger and more effective. They pride themselves on taking loving care of their infected child. When the child has a fever, some sort of treatment will be given, whether it is an over the counter medication or soothing cool cloths. When the child is covered with itchy spots, they gently administer oatmeal baths and dab the irritated skin with calamine lotion. They bring cool juices and ice pops to help their little ones feel better. And barring complications, life goes on.
Something that I'm not sure these parents think about is what might happen later in their child's life, sometimes long after nature runs its course and the parents are nothing but part of their child's memories. You see, when someone has chicken pox, the virus stays in their body. It might just stay there forever, but sometimes it gets reactivated and results in shingles. Now, I've had a couple of minor skirmishes with shingles, and Trent has had several unpleasant ones. The amount of pain associated with them is unbelievable. Sometimes, as is the case with Trent, there are periods of pain in the affected area long after the sores are healed.
But I want to share another, darker side of chicken pox and shingles. The child who went to the chicken pox party and came out relatively unscathed might have a horrific outbreak when they are elderly. Their parents, with their lovingly doled out acetaminophen and calamine lotion and ice pops, won't be there any more. It will fall on others to care for a frail body that is covered with incredibly painful sores. And sometimes, as was the case with my father-in-law, that is not the worst. The severe outbreak of shingles which damaged the protective shield of his skin allowed his body to be taken over by a secondary infection.
Trent's father had shingles that resulted in sepsis. Infection raged quickly through his body and his organs began to fail. He became unconscious as his brain became damaged, and often cried out in his pain and confusion. When I held his hand, he seemed to respond to me, perhaps that was wishful thinking. The doctors advised giving him morphine to relieve the pain and to ease his passage from this life. I held Jim's hand and told him what the doctors said, even though he seemed to be unconscious. I asked him if he wanted help to go. He spoke the word, "Help," and we knew what to do. He had made the decision for us. I told him that we would be all right and gave him permission to leave us behind. We said our goodbyes for the last time and let him depart.
These are the things I think of when parents are eager for their children to have chicken pox. Yes, most of the time the illness is more an inconvenience than anything else. But years later, it can cause intolerable pain or a secondary infection leading to delirium and death. I am not trying to convince anyone to choose one form of action over another. I just want to remind them that our children's futures can be changed by things that are too distant for us to see.
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
Of course, this makes me think of the whole vaccination issue. Let me say that you have every right to believe what you wish about vaccinations, as does everyone, and I respect your right to make your own choices. I remember having various vaccinations offered at school when I was young, and my family took advantage of every available vaccine. Gram had lived through the 1918 flu pandemic (note: pandemic = a worldwide epidemic, which is pretty horrifying). Polio epidemics occurred in various areas every year after the devastating polio epidemic of 1916. Having lived with the very real fear of complications like paralysis or death, they were all for preventing future cases of these and other diseases.
Then a British medical journal published a study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that claimed to have found a direct link between vaccinations and autism. Although his study was proven to be a hoax and was retracted, the claims that vaccines cause autism linger. Measles, which had been all but eradicated, have made a resurgence, along with things like chicken pox. Some parents even have what they refer to as chicken pox parties. When one child gets the disease, all of their friends come over and spend the night so that they will get it too.
These parents seem to think that having chicken pox or measles is a good thing, that it makes the child's immune system stronger and more effective. They pride themselves on taking loving care of their infected child. When the child has a fever, some sort of treatment will be given, whether it is an over the counter medication or soothing cool cloths. When the child is covered with itchy spots, they gently administer oatmeal baths and dab the irritated skin with calamine lotion. They bring cool juices and ice pops to help their little ones feel better. And barring complications, life goes on.
Something that I'm not sure these parents think about is what might happen later in their child's life, sometimes long after nature runs its course and the parents are nothing but part of their child's memories. You see, when someone has chicken pox, the virus stays in their body. It might just stay there forever, but sometimes it gets reactivated and results in shingles. Now, I've had a couple of minor skirmishes with shingles, and Trent has had several unpleasant ones. The amount of pain associated with them is unbelievable. Sometimes, as is the case with Trent, there are periods of pain in the affected area long after the sores are healed.
But I want to share another, darker side of chicken pox and shingles. The child who went to the chicken pox party and came out relatively unscathed might have a horrific outbreak when they are elderly. Their parents, with their lovingly doled out acetaminophen and calamine lotion and ice pops, won't be there any more. It will fall on others to care for a frail body that is covered with incredibly painful sores. And sometimes, as was the case with my father-in-law, that is not the worst. The severe outbreak of shingles which damaged the protective shield of his skin allowed his body to be taken over by a secondary infection.
Trent's father had shingles that resulted in sepsis. Infection raged quickly through his body and his organs began to fail. He became unconscious as his brain became damaged, and often cried out in his pain and confusion. When I held his hand, he seemed to respond to me, perhaps that was wishful thinking. The doctors advised giving him morphine to relieve the pain and to ease his passage from this life. I held Jim's hand and told him what the doctors said, even though he seemed to be unconscious. I asked him if he wanted help to go. He spoke the word, "Help," and we knew what to do. He had made the decision for us. I told him that we would be all right and gave him permission to leave us behind. We said our goodbyes for the last time and let him depart.
These are the things I think of when parents are eager for their children to have chicken pox. Yes, most of the time the illness is more an inconvenience than anything else. But years later, it can cause intolerable pain or a secondary infection leading to delirium and death. I am not trying to convince anyone to choose one form of action over another. I just want to remind them that our children's futures can be changed by things that are too distant for us to see.
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
From Romance To Reality
A young couple that we're acquainted with recently had their Big Day. Instead of he and she, they are now Mr. and Mrs. A few days after the wedding, which we didn't attend (it was across the country, and we're not really close friends), I was thinking about the changes that will now come to their relationship.
When people are dating and courting, they naturally put their best foot forward. You don't catch someone's eye by being unkempt or always late or just plain rude. And we don't want others to see us in a negative light. It doesn't mean we're hiding anything, it just means that we don't want to scare away someone that we really like. So in addition to being schmoozy and starry-eyed and lovey-dovey, we're also very polite.
Then we are living in close quarters and the layers of illusion start to crack and fall away. At least that's the way it seems in a lot of relationships. Suddenly we're aware that the love of our life doesn't spring out of bed looking like a picture from a magazine. They snore, or their breath is bad. Suddenly we have to use the same bathroom. Do they leave the door open when they, you know, pee and poop? I have heard of some people going to the extreme of never using the toilet at home for anything stinky. Seriously, we had a radio host in Denver years ago that said that even though she was married, she never pooped at home! She would tell Prince Charming, as she called him, that she needed to get something at the store and would drive to a nearby gas station to poop. I guess that she thought he wouldn't love her any more if she had natural bodily functions. I'd wonder why she always had to get something but never came back with anything.
When Trent and I were fairly newly engaged, my coworker Brooke asked me an odd question. One day, out of a clear blue sky, she asked me if I had, well, tooted my horn in front of Trent. Since we were full-on in the romance phase, I said that of course I had not. She replied that when that happened it would mean that I was completely comfortable with him. I sort of shrugged it off and went about my business.
Some weeks went by and Trent and I flew to Las Vegas and got married in one of the many quaint wedding chapels that are all over the city. A few weeks later we were sitting on the bed watching television when it happened. My body didn't care if we were in the newlywed/honeymoon phase, you see. Right in the middle of enjoying the movie, my body let loose with an audible expulsion of air.
I was embarrassed. Heck, I was mortified. Trent didn't bat an eyelash. He said, "Oh, my gosh! I didn't know that this apartment had spiders!" When I asked him what he meant he said, "This apartment has barking spiders! Did you hear that? Nobody told me there were barking spiders here!" I considered myself very lucky to be with someone who reacted with such kindness and gentle humor to my moment of embarrassment. I didn't fully realize how fortunate I was until a few years later when we found out that a couple we know, who have now been married at least twenty years, have never (yes, I said NEVER) tooted their horns anywhere near their spouse's presence. Please excuse me for saying this, but part of me wonders if they spend a lot of time having a lower-tummy bellyache.
I'm certainly not saying that one should throw all politeness to the winds, I'm simply saying that we are all human. We have colds and boogies, digestive problems, snoring, and all sorts of other human conditions. We are all mere mortals. So don't act like you're part of Honey Boo-Boo's family and try to be an entire orchestral wind section. But allow yourself and those you love to have moments of being only human. You know someone really loves you if they stick with you when you're sick or depressed or your backside betrays you.
These are the types of things I was thinking about regarding this newly married couple. As time goes on, they will still love one another, but they will journey from romance to romance mixed with reality. If their feelings are true, if they deeply love one another (rather than being in love with love and romance), they will grow to love and tolerate their partner's flaws as well as their strong points. I just hope Mr. doesn't ask her to pull his finger...
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
When people are dating and courting, they naturally put their best foot forward. You don't catch someone's eye by being unkempt or always late or just plain rude. And we don't want others to see us in a negative light. It doesn't mean we're hiding anything, it just means that we don't want to scare away someone that we really like. So in addition to being schmoozy and starry-eyed and lovey-dovey, we're also very polite.
Then we are living in close quarters and the layers of illusion start to crack and fall away. At least that's the way it seems in a lot of relationships. Suddenly we're aware that the love of our life doesn't spring out of bed looking like a picture from a magazine. They snore, or their breath is bad. Suddenly we have to use the same bathroom. Do they leave the door open when they, you know, pee and poop? I have heard of some people going to the extreme of never using the toilet at home for anything stinky. Seriously, we had a radio host in Denver years ago that said that even though she was married, she never pooped at home! She would tell Prince Charming, as she called him, that she needed to get something at the store and would drive to a nearby gas station to poop. I guess that she thought he wouldn't love her any more if she had natural bodily functions. I'd wonder why she always had to get something but never came back with anything.
When Trent and I were fairly newly engaged, my coworker Brooke asked me an odd question. One day, out of a clear blue sky, she asked me if I had, well, tooted my horn in front of Trent. Since we were full-on in the romance phase, I said that of course I had not. She replied that when that happened it would mean that I was completely comfortable with him. I sort of shrugged it off and went about my business.
Some weeks went by and Trent and I flew to Las Vegas and got married in one of the many quaint wedding chapels that are all over the city. A few weeks later we were sitting on the bed watching television when it happened. My body didn't care if we were in the newlywed/honeymoon phase, you see. Right in the middle of enjoying the movie, my body let loose with an audible expulsion of air.
I was embarrassed. Heck, I was mortified. Trent didn't bat an eyelash. He said, "Oh, my gosh! I didn't know that this apartment had spiders!" When I asked him what he meant he said, "This apartment has barking spiders! Did you hear that? Nobody told me there were barking spiders here!" I considered myself very lucky to be with someone who reacted with such kindness and gentle humor to my moment of embarrassment. I didn't fully realize how fortunate I was until a few years later when we found out that a couple we know, who have now been married at least twenty years, have never (yes, I said NEVER) tooted their horns anywhere near their spouse's presence. Please excuse me for saying this, but part of me wonders if they spend a lot of time having a lower-tummy bellyache.
I'm certainly not saying that one should throw all politeness to the winds, I'm simply saying that we are all human. We have colds and boogies, digestive problems, snoring, and all sorts of other human conditions. We are all mere mortals. So don't act like you're part of Honey Boo-Boo's family and try to be an entire orchestral wind section. But allow yourself and those you love to have moments of being only human. You know someone really loves you if they stick with you when you're sick or depressed or your backside betrays you.
These are the types of things I was thinking about regarding this newly married couple. As time goes on, they will still love one another, but they will journey from romance to romance mixed with reality. If their feelings are true, if they deeply love one another (rather than being in love with love and romance), they will grow to love and tolerate their partner's flaws as well as their strong points. I just hope Mr. doesn't ask her to pull his finger...
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Mine!
It was a post on social media, like and unlike many other posts. I can't even remember what the post was about, and I hope that doesn't hurt my friend Cindy's feelings. She is the one who wrote the post, and I made some sort of comment. It is a part of her reply that sticks with me. She said something like "I know, my Katrina!" My heart skipped a beat as my body tried to decide whether to smile or cry or both. As it happened, it was a bit of both. I replied to Cindy that her comment was very special to me, and that I would tell her why at a later time, and more privately.
A few days later, we were visiting our friends Marie and Thayne. I told Marie that I had to tell her something interesting. "One of my friends posted on social media and when I commented, she called me my Katrina." Marie smiled as the tears streamed down her face. She actually cried for a few minutes, a mixture of sadness, nostalgia, and love. Why the tears? The name my Katrina reminded us of a sweet, big-hearted dog named Bowie.
Bowie, who is now gone from us, was an Aussie-Beagle mix dog that never met a stranger. He was friendly with everyone. If anyone came to the front door, he was so pleased, because he was certain that they had come just to see him. So it wasn't really much of a brag to say that this dog liked you. In what is often true Beagle fashion, Bowie absolutely loved to eat. A herd of guests could come to the door when he was eating, and he would try to see who it was without missing a bite of food or leaving his dish. But we always suspected that Bowie really loved me, which was proven by him abandoning his food dish when I walked in the front door. I was told that I was one of only two people that could make this minor miracle happen.
I visited Bowie and his family many times over the course of his life, and dog-sat him on numerous occasions. Whether I was at the dining table or sitting on the sofa having a snack, Bowie would try to get a snack out of me. He had the whole I-can't hold-up-my-head-because-I'm-weak-with-hunger routine down to an art form. I managed to teach him to roll over and sort of play dead, and when I reached for a treat he would run through his whole repertoire of tricks without me asking, which had me in stitches many times.
Bowie or Bozer or Bozilla loved to get scratches from me too. When I would wake up in the morning while Bowie-sitting, he would sit down in front of me to get scratched all over. He was willing to wait to go potty and eat his breakfast so that he could have a luxurious full-body scratch. And I do mean luxurious - I usually cut him off when we hit the twenty-minute mark.
At one point, we were going over to let Bowie out every day while his parents were at work. He never failed to greet us with excitement, scampering around when we walked in the house. I would sometimes send texts to Marie from Bowie, and she got many chuckles out of them. The one that really stuck, though, was when he told his mother that he was no longer going to call me Katrina. I was now MyKatrina.
You may think that this is a silly thing, to believe that a dog views you in that way, but his behavior proved this to be true. On one memorable occasion, he proved that I was his MyKatrina. His brother was visiting at the same time that Trent and I were there, and Bowie was fussed over as was normal for us. When I came in the front door, I let him out in the back yard. He sat in the grass and I scratched him and stroked his fur. He flopped down on the grass as I rubbed one side and turned him over to rub the other. Done with our ritual, we went back in the house.
After we had been sitting on the sofa for a while, Bowie's 'brother' Scott told me that his back was bothering him. I offered to massage his back and neck, and he sat down on the floor in front of me. When Bowie caught sight of MyKatrina paying attention to someone else, he came over and sat right by me. His paw reached out to my arm as if to say that I should be petting him, not massaging someone else. When I didn't stop, he actually used his paw to forcibly pull my arm away from what I was doing! The message was clear - in his mind, I was Bowie's MyKatrina, not anybody else's!
As fate would have it, I was to spend the last few days of Bowie's life with him. His parents had to leave town unexpectedly for a family funeral, and I knew when I walked in the house that he was rapidly going downhill. His greeting was full of love, but without the rambunctious joy I had grown to expect and love. He had some growths in his belly that were rupturing and causing him a great deal of pain. I dragged a mattress down from one of the bedrooms and slept on the family room floor. I didn't want Bowie to be alone and in pain during the night.
I fed him eggs and hamburger and anything I could find that he might be interested in eating. There were a few times that he looked at his bowl and walked away. He would ask to go outside and would lay his hurting belly in the snow or ice. Having just lost our sweet Paris eight months before, it hurt to know that I was seeing the last days of another dog that was part of my life.
I cried every day during that time, sometimes more than once. Bowie would come to me as he always had, for love and affection, but he also came to me when he was in pain. I wept when he would jump up and come close to me in the middle of the night, seeking comfort. For the first time in our friendship, I was unable to give him what he asked for. His eyes begged for MyKatrina to take away his pain. I called and told his parents that they needed to get home as soon as possible. When they got home, I went with them for Bowie's last visit to the veterinarian. I had done what I could to help his pain, and now it was gone.
When Cindy referred to me as my Katrina, it pleased me a great deal. I was flooded with feelings about my late friend Bowie. Marie had the same reaction. She was happy that there was someone calling me MyKatrina, sad that Bowie was gone, and happy with her sweet memories. Hearing his name for me made her realize for a moment how much she loved and missed her sweet dog. Cindy knows that she can call me MyKatrina any time that she wants because it will now be her special name for me. It will be a reminder that a name can sometimes be more than a name. It can be love.
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
A few days later, we were visiting our friends Marie and Thayne. I told Marie that I had to tell her something interesting. "One of my friends posted on social media and when I commented, she called me my Katrina." Marie smiled as the tears streamed down her face. She actually cried for a few minutes, a mixture of sadness, nostalgia, and love. Why the tears? The name my Katrina reminded us of a sweet, big-hearted dog named Bowie.
Bowie, who is now gone from us, was an Aussie-Beagle mix dog that never met a stranger. He was friendly with everyone. If anyone came to the front door, he was so pleased, because he was certain that they had come just to see him. So it wasn't really much of a brag to say that this dog liked you. In what is often true Beagle fashion, Bowie absolutely loved to eat. A herd of guests could come to the door when he was eating, and he would try to see who it was without missing a bite of food or leaving his dish. But we always suspected that Bowie really loved me, which was proven by him abandoning his food dish when I walked in the front door. I was told that I was one of only two people that could make this minor miracle happen.
I visited Bowie and his family many times over the course of his life, and dog-sat him on numerous occasions. Whether I was at the dining table or sitting on the sofa having a snack, Bowie would try to get a snack out of me. He had the whole I-can't hold-up-my-head-because-I'm-weak-with-hunger routine down to an art form. I managed to teach him to roll over and sort of play dead, and when I reached for a treat he would run through his whole repertoire of tricks without me asking, which had me in stitches many times.
Bowie or Bozer or Bozilla loved to get scratches from me too. When I would wake up in the morning while Bowie-sitting, he would sit down in front of me to get scratched all over. He was willing to wait to go potty and eat his breakfast so that he could have a luxurious full-body scratch. And I do mean luxurious - I usually cut him off when we hit the twenty-minute mark.
At one point, we were going over to let Bowie out every day while his parents were at work. He never failed to greet us with excitement, scampering around when we walked in the house. I would sometimes send texts to Marie from Bowie, and she got many chuckles out of them. The one that really stuck, though, was when he told his mother that he was no longer going to call me Katrina. I was now MyKatrina.
You may think that this is a silly thing, to believe that a dog views you in that way, but his behavior proved this to be true. On one memorable occasion, he proved that I was his MyKatrina. His brother was visiting at the same time that Trent and I were there, and Bowie was fussed over as was normal for us. When I came in the front door, I let him out in the back yard. He sat in the grass and I scratched him and stroked his fur. He flopped down on the grass as I rubbed one side and turned him over to rub the other. Done with our ritual, we went back in the house.
After we had been sitting on the sofa for a while, Bowie's 'brother' Scott told me that his back was bothering him. I offered to massage his back and neck, and he sat down on the floor in front of me. When Bowie caught sight of MyKatrina paying attention to someone else, he came over and sat right by me. His paw reached out to my arm as if to say that I should be petting him, not massaging someone else. When I didn't stop, he actually used his paw to forcibly pull my arm away from what I was doing! The message was clear - in his mind, I was Bowie's MyKatrina, not anybody else's!
As fate would have it, I was to spend the last few days of Bowie's life with him. His parents had to leave town unexpectedly for a family funeral, and I knew when I walked in the house that he was rapidly going downhill. His greeting was full of love, but without the rambunctious joy I had grown to expect and love. He had some growths in his belly that were rupturing and causing him a great deal of pain. I dragged a mattress down from one of the bedrooms and slept on the family room floor. I didn't want Bowie to be alone and in pain during the night.
I fed him eggs and hamburger and anything I could find that he might be interested in eating. There were a few times that he looked at his bowl and walked away. He would ask to go outside and would lay his hurting belly in the snow or ice. Having just lost our sweet Paris eight months before, it hurt to know that I was seeing the last days of another dog that was part of my life.
I cried every day during that time, sometimes more than once. Bowie would come to me as he always had, for love and affection, but he also came to me when he was in pain. I wept when he would jump up and come close to me in the middle of the night, seeking comfort. For the first time in our friendship, I was unable to give him what he asked for. His eyes begged for MyKatrina to take away his pain. I called and told his parents that they needed to get home as soon as possible. When they got home, I went with them for Bowie's last visit to the veterinarian. I had done what I could to help his pain, and now it was gone.
When Cindy referred to me as my Katrina, it pleased me a great deal. I was flooded with feelings about my late friend Bowie. Marie had the same reaction. She was happy that there was someone calling me MyKatrina, sad that Bowie was gone, and happy with her sweet memories. Hearing his name for me made her realize for a moment how much she loved and missed her sweet dog. Cindy knows that she can call me MyKatrina any time that she wants because it will now be her special name for me. It will be a reminder that a name can sometimes be more than a name. It can be love.
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
Monday, July 18, 2016
Division
For almost as long as I can remember, I have loved numbers. Not as much as I love words, mind you, but there is a sort of magic in numbers. I will never be a mathematician; I just really love the basic math functions of add, subtract, multiply, and divide. I know enough geometry to figure out answers on the online general knowledge quizzes. Algebra, with its word problems, frustrates me. One of the first questions in my junior high school algebra had to do with the infamous Two Trains. Both trains are on the same track and headed toward one another. If one is going 30 miles per hour and the other is going 50 miles per hour, how long until they crash?
My first thought is, and has always been, that instead of figuring out how long it will be until there is a horrific accident, something should be done to prevent it. Only someone truly heartless would sit and run the numbers when people might be dying. I don't want to know when these unfortunate people will meet their doom, I want to save their lives instead. Since the Two Trains entered my world, algebra and I have not been the best of friends.
But as I said, I love the basic math functions. I still remember my excitement at learning all of the magical things involving the number nine, for example. And I still fondly recall the substitute fifth-grade teacher who had the delightful math game that we played every day. All of us stood at our desks and started counting out loud. Any student whose number contained or was a multiple of three couldn't say the number aloud. If they accidentally did, they were out and sat down. It was fast-paced and fun and we loved it.
I am fairly good at doing math on paper or in my head, and fractions and percentages don't bother me. I can walk through the grocery store with no paper or calculator and keep track of how much I am spending, even with percentages off of certain products. I am seldom surprised by the total, because I am usually pretty close in my tallies. And my tally is generally slightly higher than the eventual total, so no shock happens to us at the cash register.
Division is a math function that can do all sorts of things for us. If you and two friends dig up 87 diamonds and want to split them evenly three ways, division tells you that each will have 29 gems. Yes, someone will say that the others' diamonds are bigger, but that's just howkids people are. As the inverse of multiplication, instead of making numbers larger, division reduces the size of the number. Division always decreases the whole. While it may show us the possible components of the number, the number is nonetheless diminished.
What happens in math can in some ways be related to what happens in human societies of all types. Division takes the amazingly complex human race and diminishes it. It makes us smaller. As we apply increasing numbers of distinctions and divisors to ourselves, the wholeness is lost. There is so much division and lessening going on in the world right now that we are being driven further and further apart. What is scientifically one species is categorized to make us feel separate and different and better than or less than.
I think that we need to start a new revolution. Instead of dividing, we should be multiplying. And no, I'm not talking about the Biblical be-fruitful-and-multiply. I'm talking about erasing the division signs that diminish us and replacing them with things that magnify us. We don't need to legislate or regulate to make this work. It happens one person, one moment, and one action at a time. We need to go back to the old tradition of looking at one another when we pass by. Instead of trying to ignore each other and shut ourselves in and keep other people out, we need to acknowledge our shared humanity.
Nobody seems to say hello any more. What happened to how are you? When did can I reach that off the shelf for you disappear? It takes so little time and effort to see that another human is walking by you. And none of us know what is hidden beneath the facade that our eyes see. The person walking by you may be depressed, elated, lonely, or worried, or any combination of things in between. A kind word can indeed be a balm to the mind and soul in a world where we are so crowded but so alienated from one another. Try it. You may find that the light in another person's face when you treat them as a fellow human being is the greatest gift you can give to yourself.
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
My first thought is, and has always been, that instead of figuring out how long it will be until there is a horrific accident, something should be done to prevent it. Only someone truly heartless would sit and run the numbers when people might be dying. I don't want to know when these unfortunate people will meet their doom, I want to save their lives instead. Since the Two Trains entered my world, algebra and I have not been the best of friends.
But as I said, I love the basic math functions. I still remember my excitement at learning all of the magical things involving the number nine, for example. And I still fondly recall the substitute fifth-grade teacher who had the delightful math game that we played every day. All of us stood at our desks and started counting out loud. Any student whose number contained or was a multiple of three couldn't say the number aloud. If they accidentally did, they were out and sat down. It was fast-paced and fun and we loved it.
I am fairly good at doing math on paper or in my head, and fractions and percentages don't bother me. I can walk through the grocery store with no paper or calculator and keep track of how much I am spending, even with percentages off of certain products. I am seldom surprised by the total, because I am usually pretty close in my tallies. And my tally is generally slightly higher than the eventual total, so no shock happens to us at the cash register.
Division is a math function that can do all sorts of things for us. If you and two friends dig up 87 diamonds and want to split them evenly three ways, division tells you that each will have 29 gems. Yes, someone will say that the others' diamonds are bigger, but that's just how
What happens in math can in some ways be related to what happens in human societies of all types. Division takes the amazingly complex human race and diminishes it. It makes us smaller. As we apply increasing numbers of distinctions and divisors to ourselves, the wholeness is lost. There is so much division and lessening going on in the world right now that we are being driven further and further apart. What is scientifically one species is categorized to make us feel separate and different and better than or less than.
I think that we need to start a new revolution. Instead of dividing, we should be multiplying. And no, I'm not talking about the Biblical be-fruitful-and-multiply. I'm talking about erasing the division signs that diminish us and replacing them with things that magnify us. We don't need to legislate or regulate to make this work. It happens one person, one moment, and one action at a time. We need to go back to the old tradition of looking at one another when we pass by. Instead of trying to ignore each other and shut ourselves in and keep other people out, we need to acknowledge our shared humanity.
Nobody seems to say hello any more. What happened to how are you? When did can I reach that off the shelf for you disappear? It takes so little time and effort to see that another human is walking by you. And none of us know what is hidden beneath the facade that our eyes see. The person walking by you may be depressed, elated, lonely, or worried, or any combination of things in between. A kind word can indeed be a balm to the mind and soul in a world where we are so crowded but so alienated from one another. Try it. You may find that the light in another person's face when you treat them as a fellow human being is the greatest gift you can give to yourself.
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Word Choice
A couple of weeks ago our friends invited us out to dinner to celebrate Trent's recent birthday. These wonderful friends of ours are currently in the throes of Weight Watchers. Now, I've never been a member of a weight-loss program, so I really can't say a great deal about how they work. However, you do pick up bits and pieces of information from people you know and advertisements and such. What follows is based on information I have gotten by those means, and any errors are entirely mine. This is also neither an endorsement or indictment of Weight Watchers or any other dieting plan or method, it's just another story from The Lunatic.
WW (Weight Watchers) has created a system to make the task of losing weight less like a job. Instead of counting calories or portions of foods from various food groups, they use a point system. Every food has a point value per serving. Every member has a daily points allowance which is undoubtedly based on their current size and weight loss goals. There are points values for all sorts of things, including dishes on restaurant menus.
Since the amount of points at your disposal covers everything you will eat in a day, some planning and sacrifice might be necessary so that you don't end up going to dinner and being unable to eat anything. That extra breakfast sandwich might make lunch or dinner quite a bit smaller, and a light lunch might enable you to splurge at dinnertime. When we eat with our friends who are on WW, whether at home or at a restaurant, they use their points allowance to help determine what they will be able to eat.
So, when we went out for dinner at a steakhouse nearby, our friends got out their smartphones and searched for the points values of the various items they were interested in eating. I looked at the menu and decided fairly quickly what I wanted to eat, but enjoyed being a lookie-Lou and reading all of the offerings on the menu. As I read about various sauces and preparations I was aware of the discussion of points from the other side of the table, something I've grown used to hearing.
When our server delivered our drinks and asked us if we wanted an appetizer, Mr. Host said that he could afford it but wasn't sure if Mrs. Host could, would he give us a few more minutes, please? Our server abruptly turned on his heels and walked away from the table. Ouch. I was fairly certain that the server had no idea that Mr. Host was referring to daily points allowances. I said very quietly to our hosts that perhaps that wasn't the best thing to say to a server in a restaurant, that you could afford something and another person might not be able to do so. The server would probably assume that one was referring to money.
I'm afraid that on that count, I may have been right. It would seem that our server jumped to a few conclusions based on the most common usage of the word afford. I'm guessing that he thought our host wasn't paying for his wife's dinner, and that she didn't have much to spend, because our service was abysmal. From sitting down to getting up to leave the restaurant, it took two hours for us to get through our meal, and we had been seated before five o'clock. There were long periods of neglect interspersed with things like our server walking away while we were trying to decide whether we wanted to order desserts. He was probably afraid we were going to do a D&D (dine and dash) and run out on the big bill. Sigh.
When Mr. Host spoke to the manager about our poor service, the manager was surprised because he considers our server to be one of the best members of his staff. What can I say? I think it was an unfortunate case of being bitten by the words we use. Often what is so clear to us conveys an entirely different message to others. It happens. We all survived, we ate well, the bill was paid and the server tipped. My food was fabulous and the dessert was a sinfully delightful mix of chocolate, ice cream, and whipped cream. And we had plenty of time to eat it...
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
WW (Weight Watchers) has created a system to make the task of losing weight less like a job. Instead of counting calories or portions of foods from various food groups, they use a point system. Every food has a point value per serving. Every member has a daily points allowance which is undoubtedly based on their current size and weight loss goals. There are points values for all sorts of things, including dishes on restaurant menus.
Since the amount of points at your disposal covers everything you will eat in a day, some planning and sacrifice might be necessary so that you don't end up going to dinner and being unable to eat anything. That extra breakfast sandwich might make lunch or dinner quite a bit smaller, and a light lunch might enable you to splurge at dinnertime. When we eat with our friends who are on WW, whether at home or at a restaurant, they use their points allowance to help determine what they will be able to eat.
So, when we went out for dinner at a steakhouse nearby, our friends got out their smartphones and searched for the points values of the various items they were interested in eating. I looked at the menu and decided fairly quickly what I wanted to eat, but enjoyed being a lookie-Lou and reading all of the offerings on the menu. As I read about various sauces and preparations I was aware of the discussion of points from the other side of the table, something I've grown used to hearing.
When our server delivered our drinks and asked us if we wanted an appetizer, Mr. Host said that he could afford it but wasn't sure if Mrs. Host could, would he give us a few more minutes, please? Our server abruptly turned on his heels and walked away from the table. Ouch. I was fairly certain that the server had no idea that Mr. Host was referring to daily points allowances. I said very quietly to our hosts that perhaps that wasn't the best thing to say to a server in a restaurant, that you could afford something and another person might not be able to do so. The server would probably assume that one was referring to money.
I'm afraid that on that count, I may have been right. It would seem that our server jumped to a few conclusions based on the most common usage of the word afford. I'm guessing that he thought our host wasn't paying for his wife's dinner, and that she didn't have much to spend, because our service was abysmal. From sitting down to getting up to leave the restaurant, it took two hours for us to get through our meal, and we had been seated before five o'clock. There were long periods of neglect interspersed with things like our server walking away while we were trying to decide whether we wanted to order desserts. He was probably afraid we were going to do a D&D (dine and dash) and run out on the big bill. Sigh.
When Mr. Host spoke to the manager about our poor service, the manager was surprised because he considers our server to be one of the best members of his staff. What can I say? I think it was an unfortunate case of being bitten by the words we use. Often what is so clear to us conveys an entirely different message to others. It happens. We all survived, we ate well, the bill was paid and the server tipped. My food was fabulous and the dessert was a sinfully delightful mix of chocolate, ice cream, and whipped cream. And we had plenty of time to eat it...
***************************************************************
The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
Monday, June 20, 2016
Sometimes You Just Can't
I want to begin by apologizing for my long hiatus. As May wound down, I found myself feeling quite ill. My stomach was in a great deal of pain, and food just didn't seem to taste right. After taking a ten-day break from the antibiotics I use to control my rosacea, coupled with adding heartburn medicine to my routine, my stomach improved a great deal. But I didn't feel better. I was hurting all over and exhausted and headache-y and weak. As much as I hated to admit it, it seemed pretty certain that I was having a mild flare of my lupus. I hate to admit it because it feels like defeat. My body is out of my control and has betrayed me once again.
Now, this flare hasn't been dangerous to my health, but it certainly has had an impact. We have gone grocery shopping, for example, and I run out of energy quite quickly. I don't even have the strength to think of what we need to get other than the obvious one or two things whose absence has prompted us to go shopping. When Trent asks if we need to get x or y, I hear myself saying that we can come back and get it tomorrow, I just want to go home. I get home, exhausted, and bumble through the rest of my day, only to be plagued with insomnia. Well, crap.
So that's where The Lunatic has been lately. I have thought of writing but haven't been able to find the energy to do so. There are times when you can just ignore the fatigue and weakness and push though. Sometimes, even though the aches and tiredness may not be as bad as they've been in the past, you just can't fake your way through it. A mental and emotional fatigue sets in as well, and the head isn't strong enough to push the rest of the body into doing what it might normally be convinced to do. Sometimes you can manage it, and sometimes you just can't.
Being in that situation really bothers me. I feel like I have let myself and others down. I remember some of the bad episodes in the past, and get a bit depressed because I don't want to take a step backward. I also feel guilt at not being more productive. The worries feed one another and I fight feelings of failure. As the days pass by and become weeks, I wonder if I should quit writing. I ask Trent if I should stop and he asks me if I enjoy writing. He knows how I will answer. I love it. So I will keep on. Thanks for coming back to read after this long absence. It would be easy for you to say that you're done with me. But I'm really hoping that, like me trying to fight through my rough patch, you just can't.
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
Now, this flare hasn't been dangerous to my health, but it certainly has had an impact. We have gone grocery shopping, for example, and I run out of energy quite quickly. I don't even have the strength to think of what we need to get other than the obvious one or two things whose absence has prompted us to go shopping. When Trent asks if we need to get x or y, I hear myself saying that we can come back and get it tomorrow, I just want to go home. I get home, exhausted, and bumble through the rest of my day, only to be plagued with insomnia. Well, crap.
So that's where The Lunatic has been lately. I have thought of writing but haven't been able to find the energy to do so. There are times when you can just ignore the fatigue and weakness and push though. Sometimes, even though the aches and tiredness may not be as bad as they've been in the past, you just can't fake your way through it. A mental and emotional fatigue sets in as well, and the head isn't strong enough to push the rest of the body into doing what it might normally be convinced to do. Sometimes you can manage it, and sometimes you just can't.
Being in that situation really bothers me. I feel like I have let myself and others down. I remember some of the bad episodes in the past, and get a bit depressed because I don't want to take a step backward. I also feel guilt at not being more productive. The worries feed one another and I fight feelings of failure. As the days pass by and become weeks, I wonder if I should quit writing. I ask Trent if I should stop and he asks me if I enjoy writing. He knows how I will answer. I love it. So I will keep on. Thanks for coming back to read after this long absence. It would be easy for you to say that you're done with me. But I'm really hoping that, like me trying to fight through my rough patch, you just can't.
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The Tip Jar:
As always, I am happy and honored to write for you. It brings me great joy, and I hope that it gives you joy and/or food for thought. If you'd like to support the cause, please visit:
https://www.paypal.me/TheLunatic
Thank you for reading!
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