Choir

It is, in fact, still snow/raining. Not much in the way of drama, no accumulation or floods to speak of. Very raw weather. And due to continue for another day or two. Holy Week always was this way, in my memory. Odd, considering it varies from year to year, and should have been different. From the age of ten, until I no longer had to attend mass every Sunday and holy days of obligation, I sang with the choir, which helped. And the Holy Saturday vigil, with the lighting of the new fire, and procession, required much of our small group of heartfelt singers. The weather usually forced it inside, but once it was warm and wildly windy, and the consecration was held at a grill in the courtyard outside, and we chanted our way cupping candles, clothes whipping, around the side of the church, on that dark spring evening.

The choir saved my sanity. Able to sit alone, that is to say away from my parents, or more often just my mother, gave me a buffer. I also lectored, as somehow reading aloud to the congregation the Letters and New Testament passages made them easier to ignore than having to listen to them. (The elderly ladies liked me, because I spoke slowly and clearly, so they could hear.) I'd even been altar server for a couple of years, when that was briefly allowed. (I think it may be again.) But the choir in particular held my interest. Usually I was 1/3rd of the alto section, and would switch hit when the sopranos needed a second voice, but somehow we didn't sound bad, thanks to Mrs. Lancendorfer, who patiently coaxed us all into well practiced confidence. We may not have been great voices, but we didn't wobble. Having a role, despite my doubts, and utter lack of choice in my attendance, made that part of my life endurable.

And no, I never had any issues with any troublesome priests. All the ones I met were polite and respectful, and I was never alone with any of them anyway. I left catholicism thoughtfully and without rancor, as one leaves behind disliked shoes that never fitted anyway.

Yup, still snowing.

Dust

30 Mar 5:13 pm Temp:55 Dew Point:32 Humidity:41 Wind:N 22mph Gusts:30 Visibility (miles):0.50 BL(owing)DU(st).

Still no rain, no snow, just floating mud. Dropped 15˚ in an hour, as the wind shifted from the South, to a North wind. I always get so enthused about a big storm, and change in weather. And so often, here, am disappointed, and must content myself with a bit of a breeze and some spitting rain.

Just can't help myself, though, inveterate lover of blizzards and tornados, hurricanes, thunder and lightening, hail, and gales that I am.

Blustery

30 Mar 11:30 am 63F winds- S 35 G43 Vis3.00


De win' she blow, blow, blow,

Horizons

Precursors to the storm, supposedly on it's way later this week. Smeary grey winds blow warm and gusty bluffery, intermittently obscuring the horizons and mountains with a high white sky. A bit hazy myself, despite a sufficient amount of tea. Odd day just being back-up to a new scrub tech, although probably best that I didn't have to be on my toes today. She did fine, and I got to nurture my fog.

Moby tried to get out in the hall when D left to get the mail. So, I put his collar on, and opened the door for him. He sat politely where he could see out, if he turned his head. When D returned, me still holding the door open to the hall, Moby peered out, seemed to consider, made a few feints, then went ***just*** outside the frame, and immediately turned around and came back in, decisively. So, we opened the door to the balcony. He went out, turned around... and came back in. Quite enough adventure for him, and then back on the bed for a lie down.

Celadon

Amazing how much a bit of sun and the easing of pain can do to my mood. The aches have subsided, and we are going to take a nice long walk, see a movie, and rest. The tikka sauce D used on the chicken made for a tasty meal. And all is right with the world this afternoon. Today, I learn the lesson again.

Celadon green mug, from the Oriental Market, mostly Chinese, groceries and kitchen utensils. A color I once detested, right along with the dull yellow so often seen in stylish ceramics. But over the past few years, I have come to appreciate greens, even the olives and light dull greens. I would no longer automatically shout "purple" as my favorite color. Even Cobalt blue for mugs, may be in contention for most pleasing these days.

White clothing, also, seems to look alright on me, picking up on the clear hair color. Not the case when I had to wear it for nursing school clinicals all those years ago, and it made me look washed out and more pallid than usual. As though some new phase of my life is happening, and like an aluminum christmas tree light wheel, the hue changes. Looking with new eyes, everything a little strange, not quite sure how to walk.

Kids

We drove out to visit friends we haven't see in a long time. They are heads down in raising their children well, school, work (that they are glad to have) and life in general. We've missed them, they seem to have missed adult company - to include our friendship. Cheering, that all our friends seem to be decent, loving, responsible parents, and it shows in all of them having well behaved, intelligent offspring.

I pooped out last week because of the long days. Did not want to skip again, even though I had a very bad night, preferring them to feel as wanted as they are. Problem is, neither D nor I are kid people. Oh, we take each one as an individual, and on face value, knowing they deserve respect. But for more than a few minutes contact, the childness overtakes the particular personality in process, and they tire me (us) out. They elicit no anger in me, only a kind of stress, like holding down a conversation in another language. I can smile, and be kind, and get them to smile, even laugh, then I wear out and shut down and slide away.

Honestly, I never liked other children when I was a child, finding them erratic and threatening and unfathomable. I've always known I would not have any of my own. When I have taken care of young 'uns in the OR, although I am safe and thorough, and know how to make glove balloons with faces, there is no talent there. My nursing school peds instructor said much the same of me, that I did well, but should keep to being an adult nurse. I had no grounds for disagreement.

Much of this is because I never wanted to pass on my own parents' issues to another generation, which would certainly have happened when I was younger. Perhaps less so now, but still, I would be no child's ideal mum. I don't think my own parents really liked kids much, either. My father like roughhousing, but little else. My mother liked me until puberty hit, then lost all interest in knowing who I was becoming.

Thinking this week that only one close genetic relative ever consistently treated me lovingly. Aunt Evelyn had that touch with kids, and then enjoyed the adults that they turned into. In her, it was genuine, a gift she nurtured. She was a friend to me, and to my cousins I got to know while we were in Boston. Aunt Evelyn was my sanity reference point. I can never really be that to any child. Sad, yes, but I can't be her. So, I contain the spread of damage, which is all I can do.


Crabby and aching today. The arm that I evidently partially caught myself with in the fall, has declared itself above the general roar, or did last night as soon as I laid down to sleep. As these things do. Rattled to my bones, and feeling morbid.

Subdued

Quiet and subdued, worn out and sore. Nothing specific, no worsening of the ole back, but preferring stillnesses and silences.

At least I have windows at work, and could look out at the dramatic clouds and bursts of pellet snow sweeping through much of the day. After the mildness of the winter, I am glad of the last whips of weather.

Growing up in Detroit, I knew snow could fall on the last day of school, in early June, as well as the first in late August. Rare, but possible, if only flurries. June could require a sweater, with cold mud underfoot. Boston reminded me how long winter could linger, and taught D for the first time. We are content and complain not of March storms.

I am cheered at the improvement of the health care insurance - before the whole system collapses. A nominal and flawed first step, but a beginning. Despite extreme and irrational opposition. I know what it is to be without health care, or a grossly inadequate system. It really is a big fucking deal. Like other social programs that made it possible for poor kids like me get through college and get professional jobs.

These are supposed to be the Ten Worst Jobs in Science, but most seem more or less interesting to me.

Puddle

We don't have throw rugs.

We don't have throw rugs because, especially when they are in the bathroom or kitchen, they are Moby's all time, no comparison, absolute favorite place to pee. Utterly magnetic to his little furry butt. Joy in the morning. Aside from the tub, and around the litter boxes, he never goes anywhere else.

So, the bathmat rug must, at all times, be up on the shower rod, unless Moby is on the other side of the closed bathroom door. Even a moment, unattended on the floor, and cat will be sitting there, blissfully taking a piss.

We don't know why, other than he generally likes soft things. Perhaps something from his first two years, before we found each other. One of his very few annoying habits, including the odd missing of the litter box, so we consider ourselves fortunate.

Today at work, I scrubbed seven cases, finishing up just after 1500, a very good day with a sense of accomplishment. Cleaning up the last one, a puddle of water on the floor unfooted me, and I went down hard on my ass. Jolted and stunned, I managed to crawl away from the puddle and patient, and assure everyone around me that I was fine, really ok, but needed to catch my breath, just shocked. The sobbing contradicted me, but mostly I just felt as though every nerve had been twanged, and I was not really in pain, as such. It took me a minute or so, I managed to get up, and, with another nurse called in to help, finished my part of the final clean up for the day. By the time we were done, I'd stopped crying, and although shaky, in no real pain. If I'm aching in the morning, I will fill in a report, well within the legally required 24 hours.

Grateful for the new jeans that are easier to get on for the change from scrubs, then the therapy balls in my back for the drive, I got home.

D helped me get the bath going, and I got myself tea and drugs. Leaving the door open while in the bath, in case I needed help getting out. I'd been soaking my head for a few minutes, and lurched up, to see Moby sitting on the bathmat I'd put down for when I got out. He looked back at me as if to say "Hey, howya doing?" like a guy at a urinal in a movie. I shooed him out, with difficulty. D came in and scooped up the rug to wash it immediately with the enzymatic cleaner. Moby looked affronted that he was interrupted at his favorite, long denied, pleasure.

Still have to ice, and definitely feeling fragile and shaky, but it doesn't hurt more than usual. Weird that.

And Moby seems to be resigned to our weird human quirks.

Psychic

Jeans that fit. I've given up on walking my way back into the next size down comfortably anytime soon. Don't be put off by the crossed arms. That's a polite posture in the OR, when scrubbed in, it allows others to move around you with more space.

We are not psychic. As a species, we just aren't. And yet we keep assuming we can know what is in another's mind without asking. We attribute to others what we would be feeling in that situation. Judgement, rudeness, lying, friendliness, and perhaps rarely the most accurate, disinterest. This has benefits, allows us to be compassionate. May keep us safe around hostile people. But it's not really accurate for anything less than those very general situations.

My mother consistently told me she couldn't read my mind, that I had to actually tell her what was wrong. (So, very good instructions.) I was one of those quiet kids by nature, and around my father, learned early to keep my thoughts to myself. I knew whatever I said to him would be giving him ammunition to throw back at me. And at other times, my mother would tell me she knew me better than I knew myself, knew what I was thinking. Knowing I could lie to her about nibbling on the chocolate chips she kept for baking, and get away with it, gave me a mental space of my own. Gave the lie to her contradictory assertions.

She also assured me "Of course he loves you, he's your father." I knew he didn't treat me lovingly. I didn't care if he bragged about how smart I was to the men in the neighborhood he talked with, assuming that was true. Even that smacked of taking credit for my achievements - when he actually interfered with my studying and was contemptuous of intelligence. How my mother could claim to know what he felt, especially when it contradicted my own reading, and her own statement that she couldn't read minds, confused me.

I don't know, I cannot know, what is in anyone else's thoughts. Unless they tell me, and that seems consistent with how they behave. So D and I tell each other what we feel, what we are thinking, and have so many years together to trust each other at our words. We watch Moby's body language, and guess at his intentions to the best of our ability. We know these are just educated guesses. We hope he feels loved, by treating him kindly, as the cat he is.

I have observed since childhood that the people who most assert that they are not lying, that others are liars, are the most likely to be twisting the truth all out of shape. Angry people figure everyone is out to get them. I am starting to learn that behaving in a cheerful way allows the people around me to relax enough to be at their best, take me as a friend. This has been my work of the past week, and the response, both from my cow-orkers, and within myself, has astonished me. I'd already come a long way toward this, but the sense of mastery eluded me.

Telling a girl to "Gimme a smile!" is intrusive and insulting, resulting in my own defensive snarls of "what have I got to smile about..." If only one person had told me, "When you smile, you feel better. You smile for your own joy, it just happens to leak out on others." Not to go around grinning all the time. My face when I am thinking is not a happy-looking one, but that's a matter of others trying to read my mind. Which fails, of course. But my having a ready smile, to throw up as a shield or an opening to others, helps me prepare for social interaction, upsets their presumptions about me.

The whole of life is just full of new lessons, ain't it?

Drill

Sitting around at work today. No, not usually there on Sunday, but I volunteered for a Disaster Drill, needing the extra income of a half day, after several weeks of low census. I'm sitting between two other nurses, as we waited for further instructions, we poked around online.

The Drill was very low key for us, but apparently there was a full scale simulation going on. To put the best possible face on it, much was learned and no one died. And I got nearly five hours pay to make phone calls. Good thing I had the new flashlight in the car, because the lights in the locker room/restroom would not come on. Didn't need to change clothes, but I did need the instruction sheets and call list. Their idea of "lunch" at the debriefing was El Cheapo's Extremely Greasy Pizza. None of us tried it. But it was popular among the bloodied actors (presumably from a high school or college theater group.)

All in all, a pleasant morning considering I was being paid.

D and I took a good long walk once I got home.

Chirrup

About a year* ago, I nearly lost my job. The problem was the other people, but the solution was entirely in my own hands. I got to the work counselor (for those in the states - EAP is an amazing benefit, use it if you need it.) She was all about how to solve the problems, change my behavior, since I was the only one who could, and the only person I had any control over was me. I turned it around, completely, with a huge, sea-change effort. Just by actively choosing how I acted, not allowing the moods of the handful of drama queens affect me.

Yesterday, I got to prove myself. One of the worst of them, who'd left precipitously for a "better" job has been re-hired. I was to scrub in her room, for the surgeon who'd also put his oar in during the whole mess. Two cases I am not used to doing, and have not scrubbed for him in over a year, and never scrubbed for him much before that - only circulated. Very different knowledge set. I objected the evening before, feeling set to fail, and P, the nurse coming in to cover lunches offered to come in early to scrub those two. She had to finesse the politics and just treat it as a training session for me, but she wound up being witness to the circulating nurse's bullying of me. And after P bucked me up, before the day started, I pasted on a smile, soothed my knotting gut, and P saw me act cheerful, laughing and calm and non-reative, for at least the first part of the whole, long, painful day. (Turns out, Drama nurse is ruffling a lot of feathers, not just mine.)

One advantage is exactly what I wrote about last week, just standing. One of those rules, especially for nurses who scrub, don't try to circulate while scrubbing. Drama nurse was MIA when one of the patients was brought in the room (by the anesthesiologist.) I had set up earlier, but had not scrubbed back in yet. So I got the patient onto the table, warm blankets, and when Drama nurse came in, I immediately went to the sink to scrub back in, even though I had at least ten minutes that I could have helped. (And been slapped down and contradicted and berated in the most sweetly fake tones imaginable.) Instead, I had license to just stand there, and repeat to myself "It's not my job, it's not my job." Actively calm. Untouchable. Doing my job exactly. It was a momentary stroke of minor genius, if I do say so myself.

By the end of the (late) day, I was exhausted, but calm, and rather proud of myself for staying cheerful. I got to list my astonishments at the arrogant stupidity witnessed, without personal rancor. Not a happy day, not easy, but I chose my own mood, my own action, moment by moment.

Slept well, if not long enough.



*From April of last year:

Having pulled my head (Smmmpuuuck) out of my stressed out rectum, I have come to a number of realizations, some of which see previous angsty posts. The knowledge that I get no free rides, cannot charm myself out of trouble, can't lie to my personal advantage, is one of the well disguised blessings. Not that I didn't get away with some stuff as a kid, but it was mostly in matters of chocolate chip stealing. Anything more serious, and I always got caught. My working theory has been that all the rules apply to me. There are some folks to whom most, if not all, of the rules just will not stick. They can, actually, get away ignoring them. Really, I suppose some of the rules don't work on me, either, but I'd be hard pressed to enunciate them. This need to live an honest life, swallowing whole every hard lesson, lest I have to get beaten with it again, isn't an easy path, but it does leave me regretless. Maybe it's just because I feel the consequences so acutely, and others do not. Or I can imagine the consequences so graphically, and prefer to avoid walking on glass to picking out slivers.
It's all of whole cloth, and mine is duck, canvas, worsted, not pretty, but made to endure. The endless patches merge. Best get on with it.

Class

Moby, our household god, who keeps demons away, and does not let us sulk too long, or suffer alone.

Stunned this morning, now afternoon. The time change is hateful, throwing me off, ruffling my feathers. This is the week I always feel dreadful, even as I go to bed an hour earlier and get to sleep well enough. Awake at 0400, aching and dreaming vividly, then crashing into solid unconsciousness until a thick emergence tells me I've slept too long. I get up at 0930, earlier than I thought, but lethargic and guilty. Worse than the last two days in early to work.

Nothing done. Finished my book. Past Imperfect by Julian Fellows. An interesting story well told, but all a bit of a storm in a gilded teacup. Good perspective on modern, post war, British 'society' history, manners and expectations, but with an ending to comfort them instead of awakening. Consistent within the context of this novel, so I have no argument with it. Reminded me of Gosford Park, and that may be the point. The forms change, but the assumptions beneath do not, even today.

When D was being sent to San Francisco during the dotcom boom, working IT for an advertising agency, he got to take me once to the Pan Pacific Hotel. Very posh and shiny it was. He felt like he would be stopped and asked to leave, with his middle class background, even if some of his colonial ancestors were real toffs. I, as the child of a factory worker, simply gawked and enjoyed nosing into this other world. With me there, he was able to relax and be amused. Such delights will not come our way again, nor do I care. Fun at that moment, though.

I'd've been no good at an idle life. I don't relish work, but I do care about being useful, and I tend to drift without meaningful activity. I practice what I call enlightened laziness. Get everything done as soon, and as efficiently, as possible, so I can sit and read. The result matters, the method matters, but the amount of time it takes up does not. Nothing more lovely than a day off, to be idle and drift. A day. The odd week. I've never had a whole month, but it sounds good. Years? I'd go insane. Wouldn't know where to put myself. Not that such a life has ever been on offer.

Could really use a few weeks vacation, it's been decades since I've had more than seven days in a row without obligation, and even those are rare. A working life, thoughtfully lived.

It'll do.

Growk

*

I always read Language Hat, though I seldom put in my oar among such August company. Today, Hat teaches about a most necessary word, groak, or growk. Referenced in

Cassell's Dictionary of Slang: "groak n. also growk [20C+] (Ulster) a child who sits watching others eating, in the hope of being asked to join them.

Or of a dog gazing in the hopes of food. But a cat can growk best of all, and for no readily apparent reason.

Put food down, nope, that's not it.

Pick up for a cuddle. No, no, no. Growking continues.

Outside? Goes out, comes in, nope. Growk. (I think I like this spelling best, though there seem to be others.)

Then, his attention drifts, and the grook, grouk, groak, groke, groaching is over. Cat sigh.

He has taken to growking at D when he gets out of the shower until dressed. To the point of seeming to stalk him. This is always unsettling. No idea what he wants, or if he is just wondering at how weird we are for getting wet all over.


*Not the best example of this word, but I'll work on it.

Hairy

Finally got Good Hair to watch. I am in equal parts appalled and amazed and amused (thanks to Chris Rock) and horrified. (Highly recommended, by the way.) I've had enough friends who've dealt with the issues of "black" hair to get the jokes. Racism is alive and well, and none more oppressive than the oppressed themselves. (Keeping their own in line to avoid censure.) The selling of "european" hair, which is actually Asian, specifically Indian, hair for weaves, plus toxic relaxer chemicals and the expectations of beauty and the high price of fashion. Honestly, I have always thought that natural black hair is lovely, and relaxed black hair looks like Barbie fake nylon hair. My thin, stringy hair would be considered "good" and I'm frankly shocked. On the other hand, I'm so glad I have decided to eschew all salons and "beauty" treatments for the rest of my life. This movie unsettled me as thoroughly as Bury Me Standing. About Roma (Gypsy) belief and culture, the superstition and self destructive values, odd and alien.

I've commented about Hair before, long ago. And I am still frustrated at how important the issue seems. Even considering that it is a symptom of genetic health, it's so overblown, so exaggerated and emotional.

So, I set in concrete my promise to myself. I will not get my hair cut, though I may trim it myself. I will wear no make-up, apply no dye, nor will I in any way support the industries that tell women that they are inadequate unless they do so. Easy enough looking at 50, I suppose. But I will be myself, and let anyone think what they may.

Genre

I have a weakness for historical fiction. Which is why I love Lindsey Davis (although the last two books have left me resigned to reading her no more.) Past Imperfect by Jullian Fellows has caught me today, given that I am only 46 pages in. I clearly remember The Death of Attila, by Cecelia Holland, gleaned from the shelves of a small branch library when I was perhaps 12, and part of my devotion to the genre. Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt were the only author (singular) whose romance novels I continued to read after gorging myself one summer with the Romance Shelf, and never going back.

Perhaps I just like stories, and history tells the best ones of all. Real history is full of holes and unknowns, and I like authors who try to fill in the gaps, while using everything they can glean from factual accounts. Maybe it's just my intellectual laziness, wanting it all pulled together for me, and call it good. Or I enjoy thinking that real people, like us, were the impetus behind the great changes, and who survived and loved and strove to live their lives through the ages. Not different, save in what they were taught, the assumptions they made, the choices available to them. That we would be much the same, given their circumstances.

Maybe we have changed, as a species, though. Maybe we are less irrational, more willing to question and challenge, abler to change.

Ultimately, I think I just love the idea of time travel, and historical novels are my time machines.

Front

Around ten this morning, the light changed as the front moved through. "Turning the swift air luminous and strange."*

Snow. Snow and rain. Snow and rain and wind and a perfectly marvelous day. Went for a long walk, lunch, and the watery snow iced down. Still falling, though to little measurable result, pouring along streets, puddling coldly. Days like this make me miss Boston, where it rained reliably and routinely, and I was out in it every day.

We watched Happy-Go-Lucky with the audio commentary before sending it back. Nothing new, really. But I found myself not wanting to let go of the characters, have one more cup of tea with them. Get to hear more of their stories, watch them grow a little more. The story is more a study of characters, and I love knowing that they will all be fine. Well, maybe not one, but that's his own doing. All of them will stay with me for a long time.

Practicing the ukelele. Slowly, so that I don't make my fingers so sore I won't practice tomorrow.

Moby content to knead the woollyness. (The fur is not quite grown back on his front legs, which they shaved for the blood draw & IV.)








*From a poem, but this is about all I remember of it, and will gladly give credit if I figure it out.

Cheerful

The universe may be trying to tell me something about being cheerful.

We watched Happy-Go-Lucky last night. Neither of us remembers putting it in the Nutflix queueue, or why it got on there, since we didn't realize until the opening credits that it is a Mike Leigh movie. And the description of the "plot" (like Mike Leigh films have any) would not have gotten to either of us. The main character, Poppy, has a rather irritating laugh and manner - or so it seemed at first. By the end I found her quite endearing, as her depth became visible, her sense, her bright and fluid intelligence slowly revealed. Her unflagging cheer and silly giggle are not just defenses, they are who she is. A reflexive happiness grounds her, grows out of a compassionate, all encompassing love.

Stealth zen.


Real spirituality gets belly laughs.

Black

Local

Being pretty good at boundaries, having grown up with a father with no concept of them, I rarely get seriously stuck in social embarrassment. I tend to either walk away, or go silent, or just smile ruefully. But there have been times when there was no escape. I don't consider the oddnesses of my patients to be conversations, since I never thought I had to do anything but listen kindly. It's only when I have had to respond that I count here.

The one that happened to mind this week was when I was ride share hostage to an elderly Mormon woman, not long after my moving to the Mecca of this particular church. Ok, I was only 22, which added to my shock. So, I buckle up, and we drive off, and she says, relatively casually, "You know, Jesus preached to the Indians here in those lost years." She may have also mentioned something about dinosaurs being planted by god as a test to her faith. Maybe that was another time. Now, I knew a bit about what the dominant church here teaches, but, Jebus made it to the pre-Columbian western US to teach natives? Really? Literally? You really believe this is factual? I think I managed an "Oh, well..." Worse than meeting a trekkie or a UFO believer, because she seemed so nice-old-lady mainstream.

And I grew up Catholic, which is full of damned odd corners. I mean, I was once taken to see a weeping statue of the BVM. Stood out in the cold saying the rosary with my mother, shuffled through to witness the miracle, saw nothing (nada, zilch, zero) and left feeling cheated and even more prone to atheism, or at least agnosticism, than before. I've seen weird. I've kissed the nailed feet of a statue of Jebus every Good Friday as a kid. I've had my throat blessed with candles on the Feast of St. Blaise, I grew up with a picture of a saint with stigmata in our LIVING ROOM. And this elderly, conservative woman assuring me of this peculiar fact, out of the blue, startled me badly. And made me want to get out and take the bus.

On the other hand, I was nearly as shocked when I heard about the local custom of flocked Christmas trees. Not artificial trees with artificial snow, I've seen that, tasteless, but sure, fine, whatever. But artificial snow on REAL trees. This struck me as obscenely funny, and peculiarly perverse.

So we choke on gnats and swallow camels, and maybe it would be better to think about what we believe in.

Bells

A number of bells have found their way into our home. None are up and ringable at the moment, due to the configuration of this apartment. But in most places, many, or all, have been up and ringing. In our first place in Boston, a pleasant brass bell hung near the stove.

When we first brought Moby home, he hid under the sofa, then the bathroom sink cabinet (about 6" clearance) finally under the bed, on an old pillow. Only gradually did he appear during the day, over the course of a week. The only way we knew we had a cat was because his tags jingled, and he chased a ball around late at night, food got eaten, litter box got used. He took his time trusting us, and we didn't push. I would reach under the bed to pet him, and he'd purr anxiously, and I let him stay there.

One night, we heard the bell near the stove jingling. A moment of consternation, we kept the kitchen doors closed. We got up, and Moby had gotten in, and up on the counter, and was licking the pan we'd cooked chicken in earlier. His back ringing the bell. We put him on the floor, but had no heart to do anything but giggle.

This tendency to be Under is part of how he got his name. A black cat named after a great white whale had to have a subversive trait or two.

Jokes

Watching The Gay Divorcee. Fred Astair's British accent is nearly as good as Dick Van Dyke's in Mary Poppins. Ahem.


How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Two.

One to hold the lightbulb, one to turn the universe.

What did the Zen master say to the hot dog vendor?

"Make me one. With everything."

How many performance artists does it take to change a lightbulb? Two.

One to screw in the bulb, one to fill the bathtub with brightly painted machine tools.

How many absurdists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Fish.

Wooly

I got a bit of sheepskin, for my metal back chair, and other moments needing comfort. With the intention of sharing with my fellow wool-loving friend here.

Other times, he's happy on the red wool, staring at me.


Obviously feeling much better today, chasing around madly. Caught the toy and dragged it to the scratcher to give it a good whatfor. The fur is growing back pretty well from the front legs.

Dress

(Some are just always ultra stylish.)

Now, I will admit one very girly fascination. Oscar fashion. I could defend it by adding that I had a costume history class that means I look at it as art and artifact, and that would be true. But it would be misleading. As a poor kid with either cheap, or homemade clothes, I have always loved good fabric and high style. I love swirling, draping, soft and lovely clothing.

And something is terribly rotten in the state of dress. When, at the event considered the epitome of elegance, and the personages considered the most beautiful by our culture, a large portion look ridiculous, something is broken. Oh, Bjork's swan dress was probably more eccentricity on her individual part, possibly an ironic commentary on the show. But when every year these decorated celebrities appear in extraordinarily unflattering gowns, either the designers or the aesthetic is screwy.

N suggested to me that this may be because High Fashion designers are more about the art of the creation of the dress. Whereas once, hollywood stars would be dressed by costume designers, many of whom where women, whose job it was to make them look wonderful on film. And pure fashion designers, with a large gay male representation, maybe just don't get what is attractive about women, so they make costumes that are more detached, more like festival/Mardi Gras/Halloween/fancy dress.

Not that evening wear was ever all that concerned about comfort, but it was meant to accentuate appeal, reveal the body, or create a silhouette and a line. The need for dress reform movement, to release women from heavy corsetry, speaks to the kind of restrictions put on women by that society. The exposure and ridicule of women today speaks to ours. It's not frivolous to see what is raised to an ideal, and try to understand what those symptoms indicate.

Sandra Bollock looked wonderful, though.

Budge

Small day at work, two ORs open, home by 1530. Scrubbed in with a doc that I can harass. As well as my favorite circulator, S. Even pleasant resident and fellow, another rarity. Plenty of help for turnovers. This is the week of a large medical conference that our medical staff attends, and not much has been scheduled, indeed Friday we are closed. Taking the time to slow down, get stuff done.

Poor dear, though, S had to hit the code button for the first time. Not the first code she helped on, but the first that was hers. Patient had a difficult airway, that got worse, and then the anesthesia machine did not work as expected for the anesthesiologist. He kept trying different approaches until he got the situation under control, patient is fine, but at one point he asked for a scalpel. Well, I was ready for an emergency trach, stood with my #15 blade in hand, ready to do as requested, hoping not to have to. Thankfully, it didn't come to that.

But as the scrub, I protected the sterile field, ready to break scrub if I was needed. With so many people available today, I stood back. I stayed sterile myself. If that trach had been necessary, I had the means to keep it relatively clean.

One of the hardest things to learn when new in the OR is that sometimes, one's role is to just stand there and wait out of the way. It's second nature to me now, but that purposeful idleness is extremely uncomfortable at first. I used to have to clasp my hands tightly together, and repeat to myself to stay still, stay still.

So today, when the charge nurse (who should have known better) told me, in the middle of all the fuss, that I should break, we wouldn't be doing the case, I held firm. I'd heard the anesthesiologist say he'd wake him up, not cancel. Time enough later to break down. She was guessing, and had not heard anything new. In fact, after waking the patient up, telling him what happened, they did an intubation awake - after numbing his throat and sedating him, which went beautifully. And then we did the case. I still had all my supplies and an intact sterile field. Because I trusted my own ears, and didn't budge. I've been through more codes than I can count, in every OR nurse role. This one didn't even get my adrenaline going. S needed to go have lunch after, she was shaking so badly. Still, she was calm during, and that is what counts.


Stepped on the scale in Pre-op, and confirmed what I already knew. The winter of my inactivity has laid it's heavy hand on me. Must step up the activity, ease off the sugar, and stop kidding myself that I'm "pretty good for nearly 50." I can do better, and I need to, regardless of back issues. Can't afford new pants. Not to mention how much not fun it is to shop for pants.

Jolt

The weather is turning, here. Which leaves me a bit sad, not having had a winter worth the name. Still, more light, air to breathe while walking. We've walked the last few days. Didn't go so well for me yesterday, as my foot slipped off the edge of the sidewalk, jarring my back. Not so bad, until I did it again. Had to stop, stunned tears, jolting pain. Eased with a bit more walking. Soaked in hot water when we got home, drugs and ice and capsaisin patch overnight, and it's not much worse today. Stiff, but otherwise about the usual.

I think about after D smashed his elbow. About a year after, he had a fall, jarred it badly, and panicked, took himself into the ER for an x-ray. No new damage, but the fear of more breakage, after so much pain, overwhelmed. I could finally, really, understand.

Moby's been sleeping a lot this week, not playing much. A little off. We watch, try to get him to play, give him time. He's not old, but neither is he a young cat, and he may just need more time to recover. Give him until the fur is all grown back on his legs, before we worry.

Again

Another song worm in my brain the other morning, about singing and dancing in the streets. A cover version of it, no less. And the subject matter bothered me as much as the tune turning and turning and turning. I have long suspected that songs about singing were redundant at the very least.

"What is this song about?"

"Dunno. Ah, put down words about singing it. Yeah, that'll do."

Might as well just make it instrumental, or fa, la, la, la, rah. Not that it's bad, exactly. No doubt a tool to get past writer's block, write about anything, what you are doing right then, just to get moving.

It always feels like a placeholder to me, "Your Photo Here" or Lorem Ipsum. According to one resident I worked with, Oye Como Va is much the same, listen to us, we're a great band. Although there may be a bit more of a joke that doesn't translate well. Doesn't invalidate the music, or a great performance, but when the lyrics wax lyrical about the lyrics, it gets it's knickers in a knot. As it were.

Novels about writers writing novels. Poems about poetry. Movies about making movies. Plays about putting on plays. A movie about a play about producing a play - Noises Off comes to mind. On stage, it was amusing, the movie lumbered about in misery. Having taken a Self-reflexive Cinema course, I notice self referential movies acutely.

Even painters painting themselves painting. Actually, those can be rather clever, like Diego Velasquez



or Norman Rockwell,



who are conscious of the distancing. There is humor intended. Still, self portraiture in art is rarely considered the best work. The huge paintings of rooms of paintings, however clever, are also, ultimately, unimaginative. Etudes can be lovely. Scales do not a symphony make. It all gets very recursive.

Creating about the process is a useful tool. Only a master can turn it so completely inside out it can become art again.

Bad? Not necessarily. Useful exercise for the artist? Sure. Really imaginative and creative? A vanishing rarity. Mostly, no.

Got any other examples of ridiculous redundancy? Or when it is handled so well it becomes illuminating?




Speaking of rant. Found several new-to-me bloggers, who use Embedded below post comments. And although I've left my notes a few times, I will not continue. Anyone who makes it that difficult to comment should just shut the comments off completely.

Cookies

This will be blasphemy. I hate the very idea of Girl Scout Cookies. I remember selling them in my short stint in the scouts, which was a kind of torture, and which didn't get our troop out into the wilds. Even that long ago, it became an end in itself, instead of a means to get out of the city. For an inner city kid, the organization was anemic, quite unlike the image of getting urban children out among the trees learning to start fires - as it were. I did once attend a Girl Scout day camp for a few weeks, and I learned how to braid plastic lanyards and glue popsicle sticks - crappy crafts that I knew enough to hate at the time.

If the GSA had bake sales or other fund raisers to clearly send children off to camp, I would have no objection. That a commercial cookie is sold by "scouts" it means little girls are learning not scouting, but marketing. I don't care how tasty the confection might be, this is the whoring of small girls. Worse, pimping, because they don't even get to keep and use the proceeds.

Cranky of me? Take away your own lust for thin mints, nostalgia for what it was supposed to accomplish, and look at what is really happening. The Boy Scouts (of America) have their own issues, but they don't sell cookies, do they? Getting little girls mentors, all going out camping is a wonderful ideal. Focusing on coercing them to sell sugar, for no clear benefit, is a skewed kind of value to be teaching. Nay, demanding.

Ok, maybe some troops may actually have real outings. Mine didn't, and I expect many are the same. I did a year, and called it quits. Maybe the whole idea is obsolete. It's been going out of style for forty years.

Oh, yeah, I just remembered, I'm 48 as of last week. So long thinking, well, I'll have to add that number, and when the date passed, I rather forgot. But then, took me until the 4th of this month to adjust the date on my watch. February will mess you up.

Cheered

This cheered me rightthefuckup. This Too Shall Pass...

Grump

Being full grumpy.
Disappointment in mud month
Snarling at nothing.

Feets

I have most surreptitiously take this photo of D's new slippers. He wears them often, so it's worth getting good ones. He also thinks his feet too large, but I think them lovely, always have. He also complains of his sweat being caustic, but I disagree in silent affection. I blame the cloth and metal for being oversensitive and reactive.

While there, (at the shop with the various woolen and sheep related stuff including slippers) I became entranced with a bit of sheepskin. Intending to share it with Moby, and warm my own metal backed chair. In turn. He avoided it suspiciously, but when we returned with groceries, he was innocently stretched out on it.

One year, I was perhaps 13, 14 years old, for Christmas, received no less than three pairs of slippers. I tried, but never wore any for more than a few minutes before kicking them off, my feet boiling. Socks are about all I can stand, and even then often pull them off, much preferring bare feet at home. I wear shoes otherwise, not one for flip-flops, needing well structured edifices for long walking. Given the choice, my feet are naked, even cold.

Old peasant stock, shows in my wide, tough feet. Easily callused, most happy naked, sturdy, though turned in, malformed by birth and ballet, not by flat, well fitted shoes.