Common Sense has to win sometime!

We saw the doctor today, basically to have prescriptions refilled. We always book our appointments together, and the clinic we attend is specifically for people who have complex medical issues, which we both have. So instead of the standard 10 minute run through the office we each get a full 30 minutes with the doctor.

As usual our BPs were in the excellent category, both within two or three points of 120/80, she ran through some lab work Tony had done a month ago, which was fine, and we worked out what needed filling.

I remarked that we are in great shape for the shape we're in, while both of us have genetic muscle disorders which cause a slow and progressive loss of strength and stamina, we live with constant fatigue and pain, and my joints are very unstable, we have none of the diseases many people in our age group (late 60s-mid 70s) have. No heart problems, no emphysema, no rheumatoid arthritis or history of cancer. We are, aside from the dratted muscle problems, healthy. Knock wood.

She remarked on how even healthy people, can go from health to profound disability in a moment's time from a heart attack or stroke, and that we are generally deluded about how "strong" our bodies are.

But the main topic of conversation was how unprepared boomers, and even 80 and 90 year-olds are for death. We have as a culture a delusion that we are going to live forever, and even 95-year-olds whose quality of life is absolutely terrible fight for painful and debilitating treatments out of the fear of death.

I think there are two issues, no one wants to die. It's a difficult process for most, painful and exhausting. The body does not give up its grip on life easily.

But death itself is different. Whether you believe you return to that deep and dreamless sleep that you existed in before birth or that you wake up in a heavenly paradise Christians and Muslims teach, you'd think believers would not fear moving to this better, higher plain of existence once their earthly bodies have become fraught with so pain and extreme frailty as to be a constant burden.

But our doctor said emphatically that this is not so, saying the most fearful of dying are the Chinese. Ah, this one I understand. Most Asian religions believe in reincarnation, so if you have lived a life of selfishness or spitefulness you may very well fear your next life will be spent as a goat or a dung beetle.

Tony and I continued this conversation at home. We have medical directives on file with our doctor. Should we suffer an accident, heart attack or stroke severe enough to reduce our mental or physical capacities to the point where we would be totally dependent once recovered, we have directed that no extraordinary measures be used to preserve our lives.

This is not to say that the life of a disabled person is without value, but to admit that technology should be used to restore people to health, not condemn them to an endless cycle of pain and complete dependence when they are incapable of communicating their needs to their loved ones.

And we are very strongly on the side of allowing people with terminal illness to have access to medical assistance to end their lives in peace and dignity. Those who say only God should choose the time of death can join the ranks of the clergymen who said easing the agony of women (some of them dying) in childbirth with anesthesia "robbed God of their screams". Back to the 1800s wi' the lot of you.

Common sense has to win sometime. Now would be a good time. 

The Halloween Fair

Photo by Leesa Brown

When I was a child in elementary school in Oklahoma there was a school fair each Halloween. We'd spend an hour in our costumes going door-to-door yelling, "Trick or Treat" as we pounded on the neighbour's doors, then my mother and father, my friend Tommy and his mother and father would pile in our green Plymouth and drive to Lee Elementary for the Halloween Fair.

The Halloween Fair was a PTA fund raiser. Being nine years old Tommy and I could have cared less about fund raising The 20 nickels our fathers had given us were burning a hole in our pockets and we were eager to begin having the fun those nickels would afford us.

The kids and the adults had different ideas of what fun was. We had no interest in winning a crocheted bedspread, or a casserole dish and we agreed that the cake walk our fathers headed for immediately was boring, except we'd like to have a cake. The table where you bought your nickel ticket was full of cakes, from elaborate to plates of cupcakes. Each had a number by it. The cake walk itself consisted of a series of numbered squares marked out on the grass in powdered chalk to create a large square.

Music was played and as long as the music continued the players moved forward by one square in time with the music. When the music stopped the a number was called and the person standing on that number won the cake on the table corresponding to the number.

We were more interested in the pony rides, as we both held fantasies that we were cowboys. The ponies were hitched to a central mechanism by long poles which led them in an unending circle. When the riders were all mounted the motor was turned on and the ponies began their never-ending trudge around an endless track. Today the idea is horrifying, but then all we felt was excitement, to be in the creaking saddle, with the reins in hand, the sharp smells of leather and horse sweat in our nostrils.

Though I knew very well that the "eighth wonder of the world", the "Amazing Toothless Wonder" in the booth run by my mother was one of our Rhode Island Red hens in a tiny apron and bonnet pecking at a pan of cracked corn, I talked it up to my friends, urging them to spend their nickel in my mother's booth.

Prizes for winning a game were mostly penny candies, whistles, yo-yos or cheap celluoloid Cupie dolls. We threw baseballs at bowling pins, shot bb guns at silhouettes of birds in flight and leaping squirrels and bobbed for apples, nearly drowning ourselves and each other, since it was obligatory to push your friend's head as far under the water in the #3 galvanized wash tub as possible, as was the punch-up afterwards. 

We fished for goldfish in a barrel, which consisted of trying to bring a thin metal fish to the surface of the water with a magnetic "hook" attached to a string on a fishing pole. If you managed to do this you won a real live half-inch-long goldfish in a lightbulb-sized fishbowl. By accident or miracle I actually won a goldfish one year. It was dead by morning.  School fair goldfish had limited lifespans.

There was an authentic Romany gypsy in a tent made of old quilts, who read our palms and told our fortunes. Tommy argued that the gypsy was Donny Bradford's mother, but I didn't think so because Donny had fallen off the monkey bars and broken his arm the week before, and if his mother was a gypsy who could see into the future, wouldn't she have told him to stay off the monkey bars that day? Tommy agreed that was a point in my favour in the argument.

We crawled through a long and winding "Tunnel of Horror" made of connected cardboard boxes. The pathway was blocked at points until we put a hand in the "bowl of eyeballs" (peeled grapes), or "dead man's guts" (wet rope), pushed open the "bloody" door (bloodied with tomato ketchup), crawled through spider's web (frayed fabric) and were terrified by a ghostly white-painted face which thrust through a opening and then pulled back again. 

After the adrenaline of the "Tunnel of Horror" we needed to wind down. We spent our last nickels on bottles of carbonated chocolate milk and threw our dirty selves on the damp grass to drink our sodas and watch the strings of lightbulbs lighting the fair swing back and forth. 

We were in that happy, dazed state only exhausted nine-year-olds fall into when Dad arrived to take us home. The "Amazing Toothless Wonder" went into a cardboard box in the trunk of the car,  Mother held the large cake Dad had won in the cake walk. 

The bag of goodies from Trick or Treating would wait until the morning. I must have been asleep before we dropped Tommy and his family off at their house, because I don't remember reaching home.

Should I just mind my own business?

I had to go to the Wicked Emporium of the West yesterday, aka, my Mt. McKinley WalMart, which has been in a state of perpetual renovation for the past year. Every month they promise a grand re-opening the next month, and every month they postpone it by a month. I fully expect to be negotiating one cart wide aisles flanked by tarped-off areas for the rest of my shopping career.

Nonetheless I had to go since Smokey the fuzzy-fuss will only eat one brand and flavour of canned cat food which is sold only at WalMart and he was down to one day's supply. And while I'm there their supplements are less expensive than at the pharmacy, plus they have some items I can't buy at Sobey's, and yada yadas which add up to a half a cart load. 

When I made the decision to go I called my neighbour "C", who has no car, and asked if she wanted to go. It means she doesn't have to take the bus, cross a very busy six-lane street and walk across a huge parking lot, and if I have enough energy to deal with someone else I enjoy her company. 

She said yes, but said she was having trouble downloading some pictures from her camera that she needed to e-mail to someone. Her sister and another neighbour ("B") had already been over trying to help, but had no success. So, once I was ready to go I went to her place to see if I could figure it out.

I'm not sure why it hadn't worked before, because it was pretty straightforward. I downloaded the two photos, wrote the e-mail for her, attached the pictures and sent the mail. Then, off we went to shop.

On the way home "C" said, "If "B" asks me if I got those pictures downloaded and sent, I'm going to lie and tell her no."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because, I want to make her feel bad."

"Why would you want to make her feel bad when she tried to help you?"

"I just feel like being mean to her."

"That's not very nice. Would you like it if people treated you that way?"

Silence

"Do you know what Karma is? The idea that what goes around comes around? If you're mean to other people Karma's gonna come around and bite you in the butt someday."

Now I have this on my mind. Working on becoming more compassionate means that I have to go out of *my* comfort zone. It's not just a theory and saying Awwww about puppies and kittens in an animal shelter. Compassion is dealing with reality. For me at the moment it means spending time with a neighbour who is sometimes hard to cope with. She doesn't understand boundaries and she's obsessive, the ranting about "B" is a constant undercurrent in every conversation. 

What is bothering me is, is it compassionate to comment on her ranting? Maybe I'm just tired of hearing about the same spat for the 100th time? There is more to compassion than meets the eye, sometimes you don't even know what to call it, sort of the elephant overhead you're afraid to look up and see. 

KIVA Loan for October 2013

Our October KIVA loan goes to the members of the Banakane 2 group.

 Ourgatou , Fatouma , Yaseguéré, Tandou , Tandou, Domio, Fatouma, Aminata,

The members of the group are all married women, who are an average age of 35 years and have an average of eight children each. All live in the culturally predominant polygamous families in Bandiagara, Mali.
The women are working with the microfinance institution Soro Yiriwaso, which is part of the international group "Save the Children". They are on their second loan with the institution. The first loan was paid back in full and on time.

The women are farmers, and are eager to begin planting their market gardens as the rainy seasons ends. The crop they grow is primarily onions, as is the case with Ms. Ourgatou, who is first from the left in the photo. With her loan, she intends to purchase seeds and fertilizer. After the harvest, the produce is sold to a customers in their home village and in the larger centres of Bandiagara and Mopti.

At the end of the planting season, Ourgatou hopes to make a profit equivalent to about $90 USF. Some of this profit will help cover family expenses. The rest will be reinvested in the business.

We are happy to be able to lend our bit, which will be combined with the loans of other KIVA lenders, to help give Ourgatou access to a small loan which will allow her to work more efficiently and improve her family's life. If you'd like to try out a KIVA loan for free, follow this link. 

Failing at the Facebook Zen

There was an teacher of Zen who when asked where enlightenment could be found would point with his finger into the air. A student saw his teacher's behaviour and began to imitate him. This went on for many months. Each time the student was asked where enlightenment could be found he would point his finger into the air in imitation of his teacher.

The teacher came into town one day and saw this. He went up to his student and asked him where enlightenment could be found.  The student pointed his finger into the air. The teacher responded by pulling out his sword and chopping the student's finger off in one clean cut.

It was immediately apparent the student had a great attachment to his finger. But the goal of Zen is to loosen yourself from attachments, to possessions, to fixed ideas, even to your own body. If it is a choice between enlightenment and the loss of a finger or any body part for that matter, then enlightenment is more important than attachment.   

Our failing, my failing, is that I still have all these attachments. I'm still attached to my possessions, though not so much as most people. I'm definitely attached to my body, more's the pity. Its "genetic quirks" and the pain it inflicts on me daily require a tedious amount of daily tending. But surprisingly I am most strongly attached to my compassion. (I am not bragging, this ain't a good thing.)

Most of us want to hear only feel good messages which encourage self-importance and allow us to ignore the imperative to abandon selfishness and share with others, even when it means personal sacrifice. This is not where I have a problem, since selfishness has roots in the attachment to possessions.

Where I get in trouble is when I can't understand why others don't care (we're talking politics here, not individuals) about sick children or hungry elders, how they can despise people who have to sleep in cardboard boxes or on park benches and eat at soup kitchens. There are many who believe in the political philosophy that only the privileged deserve a full stomach and a life of dignity.

This attitude terrifies me, because I identify with (and can't disengage from) the vulnerability poor people live in. And also because though we've worked to our full capacities and beyond, the life-threatening health issues we were born with have meant that at times not only the table but the cupboards were bare, there was no money for desperately needed medication, and the four of us lived in a 12 x 16 shack without plumbing, electricity or running water. I have walked that mile, and my compassion is hard-won but all the more sharp for the experience.

This is compassion, the ability not just to recognize but to actually feel the suffering of others. When you feel others' suffering it drives you to do something to relieve it. Where I fail, and I think where everyone fails, even those without compassion, is that we become attached to outcome. Compassion is easily neutralized by attachment, fear, resentment or shame.

What if I give that teenager begging at the door of the grocery store $5.00 and he spends it on drugs? What if the food stamps are traded for an i-tunes card or spent on candy bars? What if feeding old people makes my taxes go up? What if that person who doesn't work as hard as I do gets a health care subsidy? What if the person I buy the box of food for yells "Fuc* off! I don't need your charity!" and slams the door in my face?

Certainly compassion can be taken advantage of, you can be made to look a fool. It shakes your trust. It's what happens when you become attached to outcome. But even when a gesture of compassion fails to produce the results we'd hoped for, just feeling compassion is good for you. Studies have shown that feeling compassion activates the immune system, stabilizes the connections between the neurons in our brains, and compassionate people are more emotionally resilient and stable.

So we come around to the pointing finger once again. Stuck up there, pointing at nothing in particular, it reminds us that we are all attached - to each other. We will all eventually lose everything we have, so there's little point in fighting over it, and practicing true compassion is not for the faint of heart, especially when you are on Facebook.

Give him a donut and tell him to chill!

Are you as sick of this spectacle of sedition south of the border as I am? The interesting thing is, though I am loathe to admit it, Ted Cruz is a Canadian. He was born in Canada of a Cuban father and a mother who was born in Delaware. Cruz has thus far released only his Canadian birth certificate, which confirms that he was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1970, and additionally states that his mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. The second part is crucial – Cruz’s only claim to U.S. citizenship is through his mother – but it is also hearsay. The birth certificate is primary evidence of Cruz’s own birth, but the entry about his mother merely records her assertion to the Alberta Division of Vital Statistics. Even though I don’t personally dispute what he says, “My mother said so,” is not what is usually meant by “proof.”

How, then, can Ted Cruz prove his U.S. citizenship? The only sure-fire evidence, would be his mother’s birth certificate, presumably issued when she was born in Delaware. But even that presents a problem. Only one of Ted’s parents was a US citizen when he was born (his father is a Cuban émigré who did not become a U.S. citizen until 2005), and he therefore falls under a special section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that applies to “Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent.” Under that provision, Cruz only qualifies for American citizenship if his mother was “physically present” in the United States for 10 years prior to his birth, five of which had to be after she reached the age of 14. The only definitive way to prove Eleanor Cruz’s 10 years of physical presence would be with documents such as leases, school registration, utility bills or tax records.

So here you go America, your least likely enemy is leading the charge to take you down.  Canucks are not a warlike people, but arm us with a hockey stick and an unlimited supply of latte and donuts from Tim Horton's and Washington DC could easily be in our sights. But you can relax. Cruz and his Foamers-at-the-Mouth party wouldn't last five minutes here. If they tried to enter Canadian politics we'd run the lot of them out of town. Of course there's not much danger of them trying to get into Canadian politics. First thing they'd have to do is turn in their handguns, get a background check, take a safety course and get a license for their long guns, but just look what they'd get in return!

Several of the world's top rated cities to live in are in Canada; Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. They'd have Universal Health Care, face 95% less violence in the streets, be able to marry their gay partner (if that's their thing), be underpinned by a reasonably robust social system and there's always Lake Louise! They'd learn Canadians say "I'm sorry" when we don't actually need to, but it's a phrase that serves as social lubricant and it's far less dangerous than exchanging gunfire. They'd also learn we live in peace and harmony with our neighbours, despite the fact that they may be from almost anywhere in the world and may be a different colour, religion, and speak a different language.

A Hindu family lives in two of the units on our floor. The grandparents live with a granddaughter just around the corner, their daughter, her husband and their teenaged daughter live just down the hall.  Last week another neighbour came to my door, and I had e-mail from several others, all upset that the doorway of the Hindu couple had been defaced with Nazi graffiti overnight. One sent a photo. Some were so upset they wanted me to call the police and report it as a hate crime.

On the top doorjamb was a small statue of the Hindu God Ganesh flanked by a pair of good fortune swastiks and a Hindu blessing, written in red ink.  Knowing that grandmother and grandfather had just celebrated their 60th anniversary days before I suspected it was a part of the celebration.  So I went down and talked to them, and as expected, that was precisely what it was. I explained how their neighbours had misinterpreted the swastiks and they said they would remove them immediately. It was good, people were upset that anyone would do such a thing. And even though there had been a misunderstanding of the sign, they felt good that their neighbours felt protective of them.

I'm not naive enough to believe that all Canadians are free of prejudice, but as a nation we certainly wouldn't tolerate a politician, or a political campaign, built on racism, hatred and fear.  Ted better find his proof of American citizenship because he wouldn't last five minutes in Canadian politics.

Is it better to let the past be?

The headline was 20 years old, and it hit me squarely in the heart.

Local Teen Dies After Accidental Shooting

To understand we go back over 50 years to a classroom of 11th grade history students and a small, intense teacher with a moustache and an outrageous sense of humour. During class one day while passing my desk he bent down and whispered, "Stay after class, I need to talk to you about something." 

The "something" turned out to be a weekend job, babysitting he and his wife's four children, 12 y-o Margaret, 10 y-o Jeff, 8, y-o Kate and 6 y-o Jo. I was 17 and the five of us slid into a relationship as as easily as if I belonged there. Before long I was spending more time with them than I was at home with my own dour and disapproving-of-each-breath parents.

We camped and hiked and climbed together, took road trips, painted, swam. When I finally graduated and left home to go away to school it was much more my "second" family that I missed than my own. We kept in touch through letters, no internet back then.

Margaret married, and was widowed when her husband was killed in a road accident. Jeff finished college and moved to Alaska, where he married. He and his young wife called out of the blue one evening, having driven well out of their way on the way from Alaska to Arizona. They were a few blocks away, I rushed to meet them, and they spent the evening with us, along with their beautiful baby boy, who was just at the crawling stage.

The letters came and went, and in the early 90s the "second mother" I loved so dearly wrote to tell me of some disturbing symptoms she was having, and of diagnostic tests. The news, when it came, was devastating. She had ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, and it was rapidly progressing. They refitted the house to accommodate her wheelchair, hospital bed, roll-in shower, Jo moved in to care for her, Kate and Margaret serving as backup. She lived 13 months after her diagnosis. I still have her final letter, asking me not to grieve, as she'd had a wonderful life and was not afraid of death. She thanked me for my love and friendship, and for being such a good "big sister" to her children.

Margaret wrote a few times after her mother's death. While struggling with her own family problems she had let her mother take over the role of correspondent. It was a difficult period in our lives too, with Tony so ill, and the loss of both my father and Tony's mother. Contact dwindled away.

A few nights ago I decided to see if I could locate Margaret or Jeff as I feel a longing to know how they are. I found a reference to Jeff pretty quickly, in a 20 year old newspaper but from headline to end of story it was like being kicked in the heart by a mule.

The lovely baby boy Jeff brought to meet us was killed at age 17, shortly after his grandmother's death, shot by accident when a friend dropped a pistol belonging to his father that he was showing another boy.    

While they have had 20 years to process their grief, and perhaps come to terms with it, it's yesterday for me. It's not something I'm good at, letting go.  Death is one thing when a person is 90 and has had a full life, it's quite another when it takes a 17 year old boy poised on the brink of every possibility.  And in my pain I'm wondering if it's not better to let the past be?

The fog comes in wearing hobnail boots

A funny article I read about "No Frills" airline travel made me think back to when we lived on the North Coast in the 1970s and I worked for a small local air service (couldn't call it an airline) which provided daily flights in and out of hunting and fishing camps, research camps where biologists studied grizzly scat or mushrooms or salmon runs or the life cycle of mosses. Most of our business was made up of daily runs to each of the Native villages up and down the coast which were inaccessible by road, and flying across to what is now called Haida Gwai but was then called The Queen Charlotte Islands.

de Haviland DHC-2 Beaver Float Plane

Two of us worked dispatch, kept in radio contact with the pilots and answered the phone. I don't remember exactly how many we had but the workhorses of the fleet were a bunch of 30 year old de Haviland DHC-2 Beavers, equipped with floats. Each carried the pilot and three passengers. Riding in a Beaver was like putting a metal bucket over your head and sticking it in a rock tumbler. You could scream bloody murder at your seat companion, but there was no chance of them hearing you.

The only plane we had of any size was a Grumman Goose, an "amphibian" plane which landed on its belly in the water. It had 12 seats, but we often packed it to the gills with 16-18 passengers. We'd had a second Goose, until the bosses' son had misjudged his elevation in a white-out and hit the mountainside behind the office the year before. Killed everyone on board, and though we could clearly see the wreckage from the office, it took three days for a crew to reach the site. That's rugged country.

Our office sat right on the cove, open water to your right, which served as the runway, and sweeping in a wide circle to the left a low jumble of fish sheds, boats pulled out of the water and turned belly-up to have the barnacles scraped off, and at the far edge of the circle, and directly across from us, the Coast Guard Station and docks. Big heavy coast guard cutters, even battleships, came and went daily in and out of those docks.

Our pilots ranged from old-timers who'd flown in WWII to flash young guys who didn't have the sense God gave a goose. Any fool who does acrobatics in a 30-year-old airplane is asking for trouble, and Bill found it. In the middle of a barrel roll he tore a wing off one of our Beavers and died aged 23.     

But a few months earlier than that I climbed into the cockpit with him one day for a run to Massett when there were no passengers, just a package to deliver. We skimmed the crystal Pacific so closely I could have laid on the float and run my hands through it. You could see schooling fish in the transparent water. We flew over and around a rocky outcropping so covered with sea lions you could hear them barking their displeasure over the roar of the engine, and the stench!  Pig farms smell pleasant in comparison! When I started gagging Bill laughed and pulled away.

Skimming along at a couple of hundred feet, Bill saw a Native fishing boat, and sat the Beaver down beside it. He hopped out onto the float, bought a couple of salmon wrapped in brown paper, and we roared off toward Massett again. 

There's a lovely beach at Massett. Bill said he'd flown over it the summer before, when dozens of swimmers were playing in the water, totally unaware that a huge great white shark 15-16 feet long was idling in a small creek outflow just beyond the wading zone. He flew over the beach, waving out the window, shouting "Shark! Shark!" The swimmers waved back happily. When he landed and ran to the post office to alert the Haida elder he knew would be there the old man shrugged, "He won't bother anyone," he said, "they come to our cold water to get rid of the parasites in their gills. They don't even eat this far north." 

Our biggest worry was the weather. Storms can sweep in from the Hecate Strait with winds of over 100 mph, and play havoc with planes lashed to a floating dock. But we could see storms coming. What we couldn't always predict was fog.

One autumn Friday Bill flew out in the Goose to one of the Native villages to pick up the basketball team for a tournament that was to be held over the weekend. It was clear and crisp when he took off.  It was a 20 minute flight up the coast, maybe 30 minutes to load kids, coaches and baggage and 20 minutes back.

About 45 minutes after he took off, the fog rolled in. This was no wispy, romantic fog, it was a solid brick wall. It broke only enough for us to see that the big ship which had been docked at the Coast Guard all day had powered up and was sliding into the cove. Bill was due in 10 minutes, so we warned him he'd have to circle while the ship cleared the cove.

He swore, and then asked where the ship was now. We couldn't tell. The fog had closed in again.  The Goose was equipped with  landing instrumentation, which should have allowed Bill to locate the ship. His voice was a little tense as he revealed that the instrumentation wasn't working, and he was flying blind above the fog. He decided to circle overhead as long as possible to give the ship time to clear the cove.

The other dispatcher went out with a two-way radio and stood on the end of the dock, listening for the thrum of the ship's engines, trying to gauge where it was. He could hear the Goose overhead. But fog muffles sound and makes it impossible to gauge distance. Finally there was no more possibility of delay. Though we could still hear the ship's engine and knew it was somewhere in the cove the Goose was running out of fuel. 

"I'm coming in," Bill radioed, "God help us if we hit that ship. I've got 18 kids and their coaches jammed in here."

By now the entire staff was standing at the big windows that looked out onto the cove, where the view disappeared at the end of our dock. We held our collective breath as we heard the Goose descend. We  tensed as its belly hit the water and cried out with relief as it emerged from the fog riding a bow wave. The dockers pulled it up and made it fast. Bill crawled out of the cockpit, walked up the dock, into the office, stalked silently past all of us, went into the bathroom and threw up.

Feeling the Love...

I've had nose t' grindstone this last week, preparing to present a talk at a conference, based on a paper I published  (with a couple of co-authors). It was an unexpected invitation, and very short notice, as one of my co-authors was scheduled to do it, but had to cancel at the last minute.

And as any writer knows, the minute you start trying to put thought to word processor your door becomes a people magnet. I'm on the condo board and people regularly come to the door, two or three a day sometimes, but never a dozen or more in a day before. However the minute I set to work the place became a madhouse of lost keys, leaking pipes which required inspection, requests for bike room security forms and visitor parking passes. People moving in and out did things they are not supposed to do, like jamming elevator doors and backing their truck up the sidewalk, completely blocking pedestrian access to the front door. The phone started ringing off the wall, the cats become absolutely desperate for lap-time,  I was suddenly the most popular (or at least needed) person in the building.

I'm to the stage of script prepared, power point presentation built. Now I must polish and make sure what I have fits into the time allotted me. Tomorrow evening I do a run-through with a conference organizer to familiarize myself with the software, and Saturday I present, via webinar. The conference is in Orlando and I am not a traveler. I could say, "not a traveler on such short notice", but that would be prevaricating as I am not a traveler - period. While my mind would love to gallop about the globe, my body dictates a radius of a few miles. 

Where I do travel is to the grocer's, as we are looking at barren shelves, and I do so want to eat dinner tonight. Breakfast was a frozen bean burrito, to give you an idea of the state of my stores. (I thawed it in the microwave first, I didn't eat it frozen, but you know what I mean.)

So, off to Mount Shasta or Hood, or McKinley (no, that's wrong, McKinley's the WalMart and today I'm only going so far as Sobey's.) 

Anyway, off to climb the mountain whereupon the fruit and veg aisle is, aka my motivator, for woman cannot live on frozen bean burrito alone. 

On Being Catty

Smokey adored his baby kitten from the minute we came in the door with him. As the young Hobbes grew from his roly-poly kitten stage to his all-teeth-and-claws stage we watched poor patient Smokey ambushed, attacked, jumped on, bitten, chewed, swatted and clawed. Hobbes would pounce on Smokey, grab a mouthful of Smokey's three-inch long hair and yank it out. Smokey would yelp, cry, roll the baby over and rough him up but always with a soft mouth, a sheathed claw.

Hobbes got bigger and Smokey began to hide from the little monster. Knowing we keep the bathroom door closed to protect the shower curtain from the kitten-monkey Smokey would ask to go in the bathroom, where he would jump on the bath bench and sleep away the afternoon in peace.

Smokey and his daddy

Play became rougher and Smokey began to hiss whenever the kitten came near. We began to worry that we'd made a mistake. Smokey is huge, but so so patient, he's so quiet, so laid-back. Hobbes is aggressive, a feline pit bull, he takes what he wants, he's ready to attack if you try to pick him up. All of us are pounced on, bitten and scratched. He's defiant when told to stop doing something, whether it's chewing an electrical cord or scratching the sofa.

We look at each other and worry that Hobbes will be the dominant cat, that he will make Smokey's life hell, or that we will have an on-going war from now on, a power struggle. We've had that before and it's no fun as two cats duke it out every night over who is king of the household and who rides in the sidecar.

By this point Hobbes was stinking of testosterone, but I was not eager to rush him to the vet. We'd had two kittens neutered at six months and it was too young. Their systems hadn't developed fully yet, and one had bladder problems all his life, and at age 15 had to have life-or-death emergency surgery to reroute his urinary tract. He suffered such pain. He'd been too young when neutered, even though our vet said they were ready.

This time we decided we would put up with the stink until Hobbes turned nine months and we knew he was old enough. After the surgery it took a good two weeks for the testosterone to clear out of Li'l Stinky. They were both subdued for a few days after the vet's visit. I suspect the vaccines made them a little out of sorts, and while you'd think the surgery would have slowed Hobbes down it did not.

After three or four days the fighting started again, but not as vigorously as before. Now more like the earlier kitten play, no one was being cornered and attacked like before. But guess what? The laid-back Smokey quickly exerted dominance over the young upstart. He does have a 10 pound weight advantage in a fight, but there hasn't been much fighting. Smokey held Hobbes down a couple of times and walloped him with his fists, chewed on him a bit, not enough to scratch him, or break the skin, threw him off the tallest platform of the cat-tree, which is six feet tall, and Hobbes said, "Okay, okay, I get it, you're the boss."

Buddies

It's subtle. Hobbes waits until Smokey finishes eating. If Hobbes is lying on the bed or in daddy's chair, Smokey says, "Get down, that's my place." A few minutes later Hobbes will slip back and lie beside Smokey, and that's okay. Smokey will make room, snuggle up, and put an arm around Hobbes, but Smokey takes the best place, the first place.

Hobbes no longer bites and scratches. Smokey has apparently read him the rule book. When we say, "Don't scratch the sofa," he stops. He's a good boy now.

I Never Do this...

Grannymar had one of those ten question memes on her blog and I never do those but as yesterday's post was about 10 tons of depressing, I decided it wouldn't ache me to lighten up dudette!

Her ten questions were:

1. Your day so far, tell us about it in no more than ten words.
   Woke, ached, coffee, brekkie, pills, called pharmacy, called dr's office.
   
2. Who is your Hero?
   Helen Keller, overcame being blind and deaf and didn't give in to self-pity.
3. Describe yellow.
   
   
   Ox-eye daisy
   
4. I’d walk a mile for ________.
   The ability to walk a mile.
   
5. Close your eyes, open a dictionary, and point to a word. Does your word mean anything special to you?
   
   I don't even own a paper dictionary anymore, grabbed the closest book, closed eyes, opened it, put finger on word. Word is nothing.
   
   Does it mean anything special to me?
   Well, it's a start.
   
6. A song you can’t escape.
   Dave Carter's When I go See: All your diamond tears will rise up
   
7. In five years, will it matter?
   Probably not, but every every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character ...
   
8. On a Wednesday, what is your routine?
   I do not live a routine life.
   
9. For dinner tonight, what would you like to eat?
   Greek salad
   
10. Who was the last person you spoke to?
    My husband, who managed to fall out of bed last night and wedge his head between the nightstand and his garbage can. Since he can't simply get up off the floor we had to work to get him turned around, and maneuver him to the end of the bed so I could help him lift himself onto the bed. This is hard work when you're laughing as hard as we were. Having few working leg muscles is the pits. That old commercial, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" it's a reality around here, for both of us. Thankfully he's unhurt except for a bruised and cut up forehead.
    

Feel free to carry on, keep the meme going. Answer these questions, or the ten posted on The Other Side of Sixty

In Memory of Dr. Donald Low

Be utterly humble
And you will maintain your inner peace.
Be at one with all living things which,
Having arisen and flourished,
Return to the stillness they came from,
Like a healthy and vigorous plant
Falling back to its root in winter.
Quiet acceptance of this return
Is criticized by some as "fatalism".
But fatalism is an acceptance of mortality,
And to accept mortality is to face life with open eyes.
To deny mortality is to face death blindfolded.

Lao-Tsu

Dr. Donald Low was the microbiologist in chief at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital and a professor at the University of Toronto. Canadians first became acquainted with him during his updates to the public during the SARS outbreak in 2003, which eventually killed 44 people in Canada and nearly 800 worldwide. 

Since that time he has been the voice and heart of public health in Canada. He was a warm, caring man who represented the very best of his profession. He died September 18 of a malignant brain tumor, and the week before his death made this impassioned plea for the right to die with dignity.

Medicine looks at death as the enemy, and so it should in people who are still capable of enjoying life, or to whom life, even a life of suffering, holds meaning. But death is not the enemy when your body fails you and your only experience is helplessness, dependence and pain. Then death can be a blessed release, a "falling back on the root" for a winter's season.

It's time we cast aside the argument that allowing terminally ill patients to choose to die with dignity creates a "slippery slope" which will create death squads that descend on the disabled and elderly. If the law is written properly the request would have to come from the patient, be submitted formally a number of times to a hospital committee and an interview conducted to make certain there's no coercion involved. And if death with dignity is denied based on the premise that only God can take life - well, if you carry that argument to its logical conclusion, no country which imposes that restriction on death-with-dignity would go to war.  and that is certainly not practiced.

Dr. Low died in the arms of his wife, blind, deaf and paralyzed. The death he feared. We're kinder to our pets.

What I do for love

Right off the bat I admit that, having said my wedding vows 48+ years ago I do not remember them word for word. Or even vaguely. I have no idea what I promised to do at the time, though I'm pretty certain there were no references to operating a backhoe or running a sawmill.

Like many a naive and innocent young couple before us we arrived at the marriage ceremony having neither experienced the much maligned joy of fornication. In today's parlance, that would probably mark us as a couple of deviants, but it didn't dampen (no pun intended) the joys of the honeymoon.

But having detoured slightly, back to the vows; we were married in a decidedly unromantic judge's office in the Cook County Courthouse. If you have ever seen "Blues Brothers" this is the destination Jake and Elwood were hell-bent on reaching in the film, and the one the platoon of National Guardsmen rappelled down the face of, shouting "hut! hut! hut! hut!"

I'm wandering like a lost cocker spaniel. The judge probably asked if I'd love, honour and obey, I'm sure he mentioned forsaking all others. It was a two-minute ceremony. He couldn't have said much, though he had a smile on him like a light bulb. Maybe he had a crystal ball on his desk that showed we would mesh like two gears in a fine Swiss clock, and he just wound and set the clock to run for years of happiness. 

But the groom has a few physical problems, as does the bride. They have added to the complexity of their lives, but not complicated the  relationship itself.  This is not to say the problems have not required some degree of sacrifice, especially on my part. 

He has a severe case of Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) which is aggravated by food dyes, certain preservatives. We try to eat low on the totem pole. He also has celiac disease so can't eat anything with wheat, rye, or any grain containing gluten. So I've pretty much given up baking.

But his RLS flared up badly recently, and we couldn't figure out why. We weren't eating anything different… except… he wanted some chocolate and being the loving and indulgent wife that I am I bought a package of small peanut butter cups. He is not a man to ration what is good. He had eaten all but two of a 12 pack within hours. I had to howl indignantly that I wanted some to rescue the last two.

Next shopping trip, some two weeks later, I bought another package, and threatened violence if he ate my half. So he ate his half immediately and jumped around like a spider on a hot plate for several nights after.

We have come to the conclusion that peanut butter cups irritate his RLS. This is truly a tragic situation for me, as I now have to sacrifice myself and protect his health by eating all the peanut butter cups that jump (or fall) into my shopping cart. But it's what you do for love. It's an implied marital obligation. Even if the judge didn't come right out and say it.

A Home to Call My Own

Over at Ronni Bennett's blog Time Goes By, she has a special subsection called The Elder Storytelling Place. Each weekday she posts a story written by someone 50 or older. There's a fair amount of poetry, stories ranging from the gut-wrenching to the screamingly funny, and everything you can think of between.

I've written several stories for Ronni's blog and one published a few days ago was one I'd written some years ago, but reworked to fit into Ronni's 750 word limit. If you are motivated you can read it here.

A paragraph's summary will suffice for those who care not to read the entire story. In it I describe how, in the depths of the Great Depression, my young father found a job which paid $1.25 a day, and on that supported a family of nine. They lived in a 12 x 12 tent with a wooden floor, and though it was not easy, they had their daily baths, and mother washed, starched and ironed their one change of clothes every morning without benefit of running water or electricity. Two #3 washtubs, a wooden stove made from an oil drum, and two "sad" irons, which were heated by sitting them on the stove top were her tools. The ironing board was a plank laid between two chair backs.

They were part of a huge virtual city of tents like theirs which stretched along the Sabine River and beyond, because when the oil boom hit the little town of Kilgore Texas, the population exploded from 200 to 10,000 within weeks. There were no rental accommodations to be had, even if the men working the wooden derricks could have afforded them.  Tent cities are not tolerated these days.  Many working poor couch-surf or sleep in their cars, families of four and five and the family dog huddled together on -30 nights, praying no one notices them parked at the end of a street, or in an alley.

We are in what is euphemistically referred to as a great "housing correction". There are no absence of buyers for the houses in the $750,000 - $16,000,000 range. One house listed at $16,000,000 here in Calgary sold within 24 hours of coming on the market recently.

What we don't have are houses that cost $40,000 - $50,000. Houses that the disabled, or minimum wage worker can afford. Building permits are $50,000 plus here, before you ever put shovel in ground. You have to give Calgary credit for its goal of eliminating homelessness in 10 years. They looked at the cost of supporting a person who uses a shelter, or lives on the street, and realized it's far more cost-effective to house people first, and bring stability to their lives than it is to rescue them again and again.

But what they haven't addressed, and are pointedly ignoring, is the need for homes for the thousands of minimum wage workers who are forced to spend 80% of their wages on rent, and as a result must depend on the Food Bank for food, and charities for clothing and for the gift their child gets at Christmas.

If a person works they ought to have the dignity of being able to afford shelter, clothing and food security. Our government resists raising the minimum wage insisting it is only a temporary launching pad to the high-paying jobs just going begging. Our government is willfully both blind and stupid.

No one wants shanty towns, but developers have encouraged ridiculous building restrictions. Under pressure from developers city councils have enacted building codes that say houses have to be big and rooms have to be this many sq feet. But developers conveniently lay aside these restrictions when they can make huge profits building tiny condos. Condos of 250-300 sq ft are extremely common here and in many parts of the world. But these are generally upscale, and in the $200,000 range, leave no room for a kitchen garden, playspace for children, and (believe me) do not encourage any sense of belonging to a community.

When I was a girl small houses were common. My earliest memory is from the age of eight months, being held in my father's arms, watching two men put shingles on the roof of our new two room house on Howard St. in Duncan Oklahoma. That little house had a front section divided into living room on the right and kitchen on the left. A door in the middle led to the bedroom. Off the bedroom was the bathroom, which had a shower, but no tub. It probably had 250 sq ft. It housed my mother, father, myself, and my elderly grandmother, who slept on a sofa bed in the living room. My most vivid memories are of the sun coming through the kitchen window onto the table and the beautiful black and white tile floors. I remember laughter.

We had what seemed like a huge back yard to a toddler. Mother planted a vegetable garden there. There were thousands of similar houses in small towns across the south. A small porch or stoop, windows on all four walls for cross-ventilation in the hot, humid summers. No one builds houses like that any more.  In 1950 the average family size was five and the average home was 800 sq ft. Now the average family size is less than two and the average house size exceeds 2000 sq ft.

We need to come to our senses and realize that the dignity of home ownership, the ability to raise a garden and keep a few chickens for eggs, could make a world of economic difference to the thousands who simply need a niche to get started. This could be accomplished through non-profit housing cooperatives designed to serve low income earners.

One design plan for a "Pocket Neighbourhood"

Homes do not need to be large, elaborate, expensive or elegant to be attractive or enjoyable to live in. Tony and I, with our large cat Salvadore, lived in a 119 sq ft travel trailer for a year and half, one of the most joyful periods of my life. Small homes, when well-designed can function as well as a larger one.

When placed in a "Pocket Neighbourhood" as described by Ross Chapin (link below) there is garden space, both private and in a centralized gardening area, there's space for outdoor play. A central hall is sometimes included with a kitchen, laundry facilities, a place for community activities like potlucks, meetings, perhaps recycling and a free-cycling areas.

Each of the small homes pictured on this page costs from $25,000 - $35,000 in materials to build. Like Habitat for Humanity, in a project like this homeowners should be required to put in considerable sweat equity, to reduce the cost of building and to create personal investment and pride in what their work has created. And there should be a provision placed so that when resold, prices stay at the same price ratio as when they were built, to discourage profiteering and keep these homes available to low-income families.  

A house needs to be well-built, insulated and environmentally sound, made of durable materials which are easy to keep clean, and accessible to the working poor, and this would make it possible, but it would mean that the city would need to work with the developer and reduce their development and permit costs.

One thing is for certain, when there's no home in the realtor's list selling for under $400,000 we need to give our collective heads, and our hearts, a shake.

Resources:
• Tumbleweed Homes
• Four Lights Tiny Houses
• Pocket Neighbourhoods
• Ross Chapin's Cottage Plans

September Song and Otro Día

It's the 17th of the month, the day loan repayments are calculated and deposited in KIVA lenders accounts, to be re-loaned or withdrawn. This month as usual we chose to loan the repayments which have come in, but we were a bit short after making two loans last month. I added $13.00 to the amount we received back and immediately made a $25.00 loan to members of Pro Mujer Bolivia (For Bolivian Women). This is loan # 52 for us in the four years since we became KIVA lenders, and it's been a source of immense pleasure to share our pensioner's mite with hard-working business people around the world.

The "Otro Día" ("Another Day") borrower's group is beginning its third cycle with the Pro Mujer Bolivia (For Bolivian Women) as part of the Alto Lima regional hub. This group is made up of nine members and is run by a board of directors, of which María is the president.

The members' businesses are varied. Some sell fruit, or salchipapas (fried potatoes with hot dogs - I can testify that this combination is unexpectedly delcious), one sells computers, one sews layettes for newborns, one sells runners (i.e. tennis shoes) and one does carpentry work. What a busy, hard-working bunch of women!

This loan will benefit all these small business owners. The group's leader, María joined Pro Mujer six years ago by invitation from one of the institution's promoters, who visited her at home. Maria sells fruit from a market stall which she inherited when her grandmother died. The stall and the business were her grandmother's and María carried on that business.

She will use her loan to increase her working capital by buying fruit wholesale at the larger markets. She will later sell this fruit from her stall. Her business allows her to generate an income to help support her family, as she is married with two children.

When asked what she likes best about Pro Mujer, she says that she likes the access to health workshops and the ability to borrow money to improve her business.

If you would like to try KIVA out for free, click this link, and you'll be given a $25.00 credit to lend to any of the hundreds of applicants waiting to be given a chance to improve their lives and the lives of their families through access to something you and I take for granted - credit.

Collateral damage and a war of fear

Yesterday on Facebook my friend posted a photo with a caption that said, "Guns don't protect freedom, speech does that."

And as expected, words began to fly. One woman argued that when "our enemies" invade she has to have guns to protect herself. In light of the fact that no "enemy" is likely to invade the US with a "boots on the ground" army, it seems to me that Americans pay an extremely high price for this kind of paranoia.

In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicide deaths, and 11,078 firearm-related homicide deaths in the US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that between 2000-2005 on average, one child died every three days in a firearms accident. If you extrapolate those figures to 2013, that's 1,582 little children, collateral damage of a war against an "enemy" which is not there and may never come.

But gun proponents are right in one argument. It's not the gun, it's the society. Gun-related death rates in the US are eight times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it; however, all of these countries have more secure social networks, which is an important key to a non-violent population.

In 2009 UN statistics record 3.0 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in the US; for comparison, gun homicides in Switzerland were 0.52 per 100,000 even though they rank third in the world for highest number of guns per citizen. The difference - the Swiss follow the national motto of "One for all and all for one". They take care of their citizens.

And in response the woman said; "..while you are still trying to figure out who our enemies are it will be too late to say Gee, I sure wish I had a gun! Duh! If we get invaded by one of our enemies you won't have to worry about all those social problems we have . You are going to be worrying about saving your own a_s. If you want to live in a socialistic country keep thinking the way you are."

And because I live in a country which is a social democracy I said, "Thanks, I already live in one and love it."

But all this was prelude to point. I look at the US and see so much fear, so much paranoia, and as a result so much violence and hate.

There seemed a chance in the 60s and early 70s to create an equal opportunity America, a land of peace and plenty. But that opportunity was co-opted in the most vicious and cold-bloodied manner possible, by politicians, corporations and institutions determined:

1. to keep the Black man "in his place",
2. to continue to exploit the labour of people of colour, whether Native-born or immigrant worker
3. to break the power of the working class by outsourcing their jobs to Third-World countries
4. to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, while benefiting from the infrastructure and services built and supplied by tax-paying citizens
5. to turn Americans against each other, with a special focus on hating and fearing the poor, and revering the cult of wealth and celebrity
6. instill a deep mistrust in "the government", while politicians exploit trust by focusing on divisive issues.
7. arm those who have bought into the paranoia that their fellow Americans are "the enemy". I have heard some of these people say the US Military may be "the enemy" they have to fight, which shows how far their paranoia (and their delusions) have progressed. For one thing they may have forgotten that old saying, "Never bring an M-16 to a armoured tank division invasion supported by drones".

Once this hoax that "we have seen the enemy and it is our own government" has been accomplished a corporate takeover of the government is possible. Politicians owned by big insurance, big oil, big industry, big pharmaceuticals, big money can essentially stage a coup d'etat without ever raising a weapon.

The election of Barack Obama was a Godsend to these interests. The presence of this calm, intelligent, thoughtful but often visibly frustrated Black man in the White House was a lightening rod that brought out every fear-mongering, paranoid in Washington, with the agenda of bringing the American government to its knees. And his presence made it so easy to do so with the millions of Americans brought to the brink of madness by the struggle to survive, anxiety and despair.

And many, like this unfortunate woman, are more terrified of feeding a hungry child or 90-year-old widow than they would be of finding a grizzly bear on the doorstep because feeding the hungry or tending the sick have been reframed as "socialist" acts rather than Christian or compassionate ones, and they are ready to shoot to kill the "socialist".

I struggle with this every time we turn on the news. Another mass shooting today. I had to turn it off. I couldn't kill another human being. I can't even kill a spider, or an ant. And even the act of carrying an ant outside. Where is its place, its own hill? If I place it wrongly it will be enslaved, or attacked. I worry about ants. And this huge burden of fear in a country which was at one time a beacon of hope for the entire world, it sends me reeling. I feel it deeply, as a wound in my heart.

Let all beings be happy! Weak or strong, of high, middle or low estate,
Small or great, visible or invisible, near or far away,
Alive or still to be born — may they all be perfectly happy!
Let nobody lie to anybody or despise any single being anywhere.
May nobody wish harm to any single creature, out of anger or hatred!
Let us cherish all creatures, as a mother her only child!
May our compassionate thoughts fill the whole world, above, below, across, –
Without limit; a boundless goodwill toward the whole world,
Unrestricted, free of hatred and enmity! (Sutta Nipata 118)

A Satisfied Mind

Boy, do I ever love the music of Bryan Bowers, who is the acknowledged virtuoso of the auto-harp, and knows how to make love to a song as well.

This is but one of the thoughtful songs he signs.

How many times
Have you heard someone say,
If I had his money
I'd do things my way?

How little they know
It's so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind

Once he had money
Fortune and fame
Oh he had everything
He had a start in life's game

Oh, but one day it happened
He lost every dime
Now he's richer by far
With a satisfied mind

Money can't buy back
Your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely
Or a heart that's grown cold

And the wealthiest person
Is a pauper at times
Compared to the man
With a satisfied mind

Now when my life is over
And my time has run out
All my friends and my loved ones
I'll leave them no doubt

Ah the one thing for certain
When it comes my time
I'll leave this old world
With a satisfied mind.

I'll leave this old world
With a satisfied mind

Flippity-flop

I slept from 9:30 Wednesday night until 11:00 Thursday morning and woke feeling like I'd been run down by a large truck. But you have to love it. After eight days of feeling like a speed bump in a school zone, suddenly, for no reason apparent to me, about 2:00 yesterday afternoon my concrete blanket of fatigue dropped away and I felt perfectly fine.

I quickly drew up a grocery list and headed for the nearby Sobeys. Just in the nick of time, as we were looking at a dwindling supply of fruit.

As expected I put my neck out lifting sacks of food from cart to car and car to granny cart, but my lovely friend Diane came along as I finished loading the granny cart and she took it away from me and pulled it to my door. Nonetheless I sat here reading into the wee hours because my throbbing migraine would not allow me to lie down. Finally an extra pain pill did the trick and at 3:00 am I trundled off to bed and slept as well as anyone who is adored by two loving and somewhat jealous cats will permit.

Of course there's nothing wrong with being smooched awake at 4:00 am and again at 5:00, but by 6:00 am I'd had my fill of whiskery kisses and tuna breath. I got up, took my pill, went to the bathroom, fed both of the lover boys, then shut the bedroom door and slipped back into bed with a lover who knows it's rarely productive of much lovin' to awaken me in the night.

Surprisingly I was awake and quite chipper at 8:30. A quick review of systems didn't reveal anything amiss, I guess I have just caught up on a year's worth of sleep this last week and was ready to get up, even though I'd shopped yesterday. Who'd a thunk it?

When we moved in here we had a lot of help, and things got stacked willy-nilly in the closets. Face it the place is poorly designed to store those things any functioning family needs, like a toolbox, a couple of fileboxes for warranties, legal papers, etc. I have a genealogy filebox, there's a shredder, there's a wheelchair and a walker, cat carriers, linens, and I've already told you that at 5' nothing I can reach only the lowest shelf in the kitchen cupboards.

So I've been sweeping around, vacuuming around, falling over all these bits and pieces forever, and I was sick and tired of it. WalMart had a sale on sturdy open shelving so I bought two sets, a 22" long set and a 30" set - several weeks ago. I hadn't had the energy to put them together or worse, move the stuff from where they are going and then move stuff into them. The shelves are plastic and certainly not pretty but I'll go to Home Despot and get some sliders and cut to size panel or foamcore doors. I have some lovely wallpaper left over from papering the Beach House, and I think I have just enough left to cover sliding doors to cover the contents of the shelves. Tidy and even pretty. If I don't have enough paper I certainly have paint.

But HURRAH! Today I feel good AGAIN! The 30" one is going on the right side of the bed in our room, the 22" on the left. We have bedside tables which go between the shelves and the bed. I emptied the spot on my side of the room, which housed the wheelchair, a kitchen chair, some pool noodles (for stretching my back), a cubby for shoes, a cat carrier, a file box, a shredder and some misc. bits and bobs.

The shelves went together in five minutes and I had them filled just as quickly. [edit: Husband says I have taken great journalistic license. While the shelves went together in 10-15 minutes the organizational mayhem of filling said shelves took the rest of the afternoon. And to think I worked for a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper as a pup. Truth is relative, or maybe what's true is that time is relative.] Nothing left sitting on the floor. We moved the chest of drawers from Tony's side of the bed to mine, putting it against the wall. Then we assembled the 22" shelves and put in the little boxes he uses to organize his medications, and some other boxes.

Now that the front closet is empty the wheelchair and walker both fit in easily. The shoe cubby is also there, along with the box of gloves and toques.

Very nice Flip-Flop of a day.

How to understand someone with chronic pain

And I might add this also applies to someone with a chronic illness. It's easy enough to support someone through a broken leg or recovery from an appendectomy, but when someone has to deal with chronic illness day after friggin' day, year in and year out it's more difficult to understand.

This link is to a great Wiki-How called "How to Understand someone with chronic pain" but substitute "Chronic illness" for chronic pain (the two are usually interchangeable, or compounded) and it's just as useful. It's a quick read, and it's useful knowledge.

Be a Good Girl!

Blogger Ronni Bennett tackles the myriad aspects of growing old in her blog Time Goes By. Today her subject is the annoyance elders feel at being spoken to by strangers as if they are either close family members, lovers or worse, toddlers, in her post The Dangers of Elderspeak.

So I was trying to remember if I have ever been annoyed by this "Elderspeak" and I can't recall that I have. Women in the shops here call everyone "dear" and "luv", not just the old folks.

I have been outraged at being treated as if I were stupid by physicians (and a few nurses) in doctors' offices and hospital ERs. But this started in my 20s, so it's not "just" an elder thing for medical professionals to treat patients as if they were children. I actually get more respect now that I am older than I did as a 30-year-old. Though the geneticist I saw recently introduced himself by his first name he leaned back a bit in his chair and said, somewhat suspiciously, "You seem to know a lot of medical terminology," once we were deep in conversation. (Am I supposed to play dumb for them? I've had this disorder since birth. I'm 68 years old fer cryin' out loud. I would be stupid if I hadn't learned something about it by now!)

But thinking about forms of address sent me musing on the past, as thinking often does these days. I was raised in the American South and in the 40s and 50s children were called "Sugar" by the women in the family, and were mostly ignored by the menfolk, until you were old enough to take fishing and shootin' if you were a boy and old enough to guard the virtue of, if you were a girl.

If you were lucky you had a Papaw and a Memaw on one side and a Granny and Pa on the other. I had one "Grandma", all the others having taken flight long before my birth.

Darhlin' was the common term of address between adult family members, unless you referred to them by their relationship, and this often came with some hint of disapproval, as in, "Oh, you know Bruhtha. He likes himself a fast car and a fast woman."

The grocer and the doctor called you Mrs. or Mr. unless you went duck hunting together and then it was first name basis. I don't think my Mama went duck hunting with my pediatrician, as he called her Mrs. He wasn't just a hunter, he was also an unskilled taxidermist who stuffed and mounted many of the unfortunate creatures who strayed into the path of a bullet from one of his many firearms. He called me "Little Lady" and his office made me anxious.

I can well imagine that his wife wouldn't tolerate his handiwork in her living room, so his office was where he displayed his hobby. As a result his office was a House of Horrors to this five-year-old "Little Lady", nervously waiting her turn to see the doctor; an eagle caught mid-bomb-dive was suspended from the ceiling where it rotated endlessly, glass cases crowded the chairs into the centre of the room. A frowsy raccoon family trundled along on a log, a porcupine gnawed a stick, a moth-eaten possum hung from a branch, a lop-sided bobcat snarled and raised a threatening paw, a mountain goat and other various heads and racks of antlers poked through the walls.

The exam room was worse, the cracked and peeling black leather table and instrument cabinets were wedged between glass cases of coiled snakes, a pair of long-eared Texas jackrabbits, a dozen different kinds of misshapen ducks and a giant wild tom turkey with mis-set eyes, perpetually looking both right and left.

I suppose the boys enjoyed it, but it raised a terror in me so I always cried when Mother said I had to go see the doctor, not from fear of him, but from that dead zoo of his. I'd sit there snuffling and shaking and Mother would give my arm a jerk and hiss, "Stop that sniveling and be a good girl!"

As you can see my childhood was crowded with incident. And being so busy and all remembering the good times I haven't had time to work up a head of steam about being called "dear" or "sweetie" by a total stranger at the market. But I swear the first one to tell me to "be a good girl" in a medical setting is getting their face ripped off.