Closed

This morning, as I left for work, Moby wanted out in the hall. So D came out with him. I looked back down the long hall, and there they were, both gazing at me, guy and cat. Rather endearing.

This photo is D's camera work. We are so pleased that when Moby's asleep, we can often pet him and he trusts us enough, feels so comfortable around us, that he often doesn't bother to open his eyes. Grunts a little and stretches out, maybe. He's very cooperative when we need him to come in from the balcony when we have to close the door. Over the years, we all seem to have developed a warm and functional living relationship.

Shard

Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin'. Everything is broken.

My pottery whittled down by time. But I am not about to stop using it, since that would kill it immediately, rather than allowing it life until it's time to go.

This one slipped from my fingers, I shouted NO but it hit the tile floor to break and shatter. And I sobbed in grief for a few minutes, mostly because I can never throw another one. I took some comfort in knowing I had made it well, nice even bottom and sides. It's held a lot of salsa over the years. A favorite of D's. It will be missed.

I'll throw the shards away tomorrow.

Listing

Herhimnbryn has a lovely list up. Half advice, half personal discovery, full of a particular and warm point of view. Since it's been a very long time since a meme had any appeal, I will start here. (Later, I am going to have to think on this.)

Especially since I have a letter to write today. My fairygoddaughter is expecting it. I resolved this summer to start writing her letters, remembering writing, and getting, letters when my brother left home. This was a huge part of my writing education, and so few letters are written these days, I figured I could do this one small thing for her. A letter, then a series about the letters, in alphabetical order. She's only four, just started pre-school, and I am sure I'm writing over her head. But that's not a bad thing to do for a child. You never know what they might retain. Uncle Walt always talked to me as if I could understand complex aerodynamics, and I remember adoring him for that assumption. My brother explained how algebraic formula described lines on a graph, and I remembered it many years later. Not clearly, not with real understanding, but enough that it helped me learn it.

When Moira wrote to me, "Today, when Plum and I checked the mail, she asked, "Is it a C letter?" I hadn't prompted her to expect one; she's picked up on the fact that she gets alphabet letters just for her, and she knows which one comes next." I was more pleased than I can say. So, I better get writing. Apparently, I have a duty.

Alright, then.

Life

What?




Drinking from the old kettle. (His favorite.)


Sun beams just for the feline.





Still wordless. Eh. It happens.

Dropcloth

Attempting to take better photos of D's guitars, with a found cloth. Nearly there, need to make some adjustments. Left it in place for better light.




Moby drawn irresistibly.
"Do I look good here?"


"Yes. Yes I do."

Gogol

Gogol Bordello. A great rock band. Interviewed over on Boing Boing, not linking there because bb are sorta toxic, but it's readily findable. Or just let the song stand for itself.

Another stretch of not having anything worth writing about, nothing cohesive. Keep forgetting to bring new camera out for walks. Still too hot, high 80˚s all week. Don't even feel like having a good whining rant.

Pregnancy

Work has finally settled into "a case is a case" routine. I'm finding the dullness comforting and reassuring. I want to keep it that way.

S at work is seven months pregnant, and let me feel her babe move. I've never felt this before, and I was touched that she allowed me this intrusion. Very faint movement, but distinct, and interesting. Not deeply moving, the way seeing a birth or death is, but very interesting to me, as a woman who has never wanted children, and has never been pregnant. Probably. Had a few scares at bad times, but nothing took. Perhaps that tubal infection when I was 19 meant I never really had the option. I used to be very curious about the process, but my innate ability to see the next few steps, the end results of my actions, lead me to realize I would not be able to be a decent mother. Especially not to a very young child. Especially not when I was young enough to give birth. I never wanted children, knowing my baggage. Knowing I had no touch with children, as was pointed out to me during my peds rotation during nursing school. (Very kind preceptor, who assured me I'd done well, but was an adult nurse, and I took her assessment seriously, and in good part.)

I know enough to be gentle with the pregnant. Nurse enough to know what is going on physiologically. And that was the end of that speculation, nursing school. The complications quashed any remaining ideas of giving it a go. Women still die in childbirth, or suffer lifelong damage from it. Knowing my low level of health, given that I have no serious issues, I figured a pregnancy would elicit a real injury, at least. Seeing my dearest friend suffer both during, and long after, directly because of gestational damage, convinced me I was probably correct. I'm not one of those women who could pop 'em out with hardly a break or whimper. Even if I hadn't been sterile. I was careless enough at times, this does seem likely, though I will never really know.

Occasionally, I take care of children at work. Always stressful, as they have collapsable airways, and are fragile creatures, with parents behind them worrying. I take this job seriously. But even without all that, they frighten me, little aliens, that I feel deeply protective of, and strange with. I didn't understand other children when I was myself a child. I suspect I was a pretty strange child myself. I get help, I do what I can, I try to be reassuring, knowing I'm not very good at it.

Very glad of the assistance from the good mums among our nurses and techs, who help the children that come through, as I make sure the scrub is taken care of, the charting done, the room warm, the Bair Hugger warmer on. I don't have motherly instincts. They have transformed, in me, to nursing instincts. I have a touch for position, for reassuring competence, for taking care and touching. For putting warm blankets on feet for most men, and shoulders for most women, and listening for variation. A flawed gift, that I strive to use for good, not evil.

Flags

Fire in the southwest part of the valley, in my least favorite spot in the state. Camp Williams always was an unpleasant drill weekend when I was in the National Guard. Cold always, except for the few hours around noon if it was summer, then it baked. Desolate in a bad way, treeless and forsaken, fit only for the military.

Well, a fire started out there, late on the third day of a Red Flag Alert statewide, on a machine gun range. Took them a couple of hours to call in the fire department, after it turned out they didn't have the equipment to handle a large fire when the winds were hitting 50 MPH. It spread to about 3,500 acres, destroyed three homes, thousands of people still evacuated as they get it under control.

The Army is a Idiot. As though more proof were needed. I have no more anger left for such foolishness, exhausted my supply while in the midst of it. Simply contempt now. At least today the commander of the base is admitting full-on error. I'm just imagining how many people out there got shouted at today. And how many Lt. Cols will be simple Lt.s tomorrow. I can just picture it, too.

"This is the only chance this year we have to qualify!"
"Sir, there is a Red Flag warning up, has been for the last two days, we're going to start a fire."
"Sergeant, this has to be done today. I've never seen a warning. Get your men out there."

Yeah, lots of people got shouted at today. And I don't feel sorry for most of them.

Hanging

Moby hangs out on the balcony as long as possible in the morning. As soon as it's light enough that we figure he won't jump up on the railing - a behavior we've only seen when it's dark - we let him out. As long as we're home, the door is left ajar, until it gets too hot for him, and he decamps to the bedroom.



Under the table is a new place to flop, perhaps because the cords and cables are more contained, and the chi is better. D did a lovely job.

Gods

Working out in my head the recurrent issue of religion. Why it gets so mangled with politics, preventing rational thought, or at least pragmatic functionality. I suspect because religion, at least in the west, has always been the mechanism for political movement, just as it worked as science and family and societal cohesion. However imperfectly, and however badly for the individuals, organized religion has been the authority upon which our cultural systems have been based. It's only in the very recent past has the idea of separation of Church and State been a viable concept, and more recently still that it's been actually attempted.

Getting gods out of government is no easy task, because a void is left that must be filled with something. A Constitution is good, but when the people see it as the fine print on a warranty and skip reading it, only pulling out catchphrases they've heard from others, it's no better than any holy book. Gods are useful, words can be put in their mouths, and become impossible to absolutely refute. Nice double edged sword though, both ruler and ruled can wield it.

We live and die, thrive and suffer, by our stories. As individuals with how we interpret our particular experiences. As societies with our religious stories. Changing them into myths less poisonous takes great tale tellers, and generations. The gods brace themselves, and hope for no more gore, or tentacles.

Smoothie

Up before D got up this morning. He'd been awake through the night, so I'm always glad to let him sleep when he can. I wanted to take a photo of Moby on the balcony, and could not find the camera. When D got up, he had no idea either. Several hours and the begin of The Cleaning, and I finally remembered fussing with the strap ends, and putting it... well, that took a bit longer, but eventually found it hung on the coat rack. It was me. I apologized to D for thinking it was him. But then, he couldn't find the roll of velcro straps to contain the plethora of cords and cables behind the desk when it came to that. After a trip out to get more and milk and a few other things, it was in one of the places I thought it might be - after a lot more searching. It's been one of those days, but with good results.



Moby staying out of the way while the silly humans disrupt his territory.





Back having a small freak-out, stim on. This is what happens. Still, a clean bathroom floor, shredding done, vacuuming, clean kitchen. And all the dust gone from the table.

What's more, fruit smoothies. D does very nice ones.




Dinner with D's family, parents, brother and sister-in-law. Getting more comfortable over the years, and I've really warmed to my SIL. Not like we'll be bestest buddies, but she's definitely grown on me. D's dad not happy that his son is 41. That we've been together 20 years goes down better. They've backed off on the religion issue, although they still bring up church news as though we'd be interested. Not about to call them on it, simple deflection and non-commital noises seem to have worked without causing upset.

Treacle

Anti-histamines are better than allergies, but even the non-drowsy sort leave me a bit dampened. An improvement on the pressure, sneezing and congestion, no question. As I finished up work yesterday, flu shots were on offer, so I got shot. I'm too much of a canary not to, first to go down with any passing virus. Arm very sore last evening, aches and ickiness, which I rationalize as indicative that if I'd gotten this particular strain, I'd've been bottom-of-a-treacle-well very ill indeed. Either way, I can't afford to come down with a preventable illness.

Called off today, and I'm very glad I was, since I'd have really wanted to call in sick otherwise. Dopey and lethargic, and in no state of mind to clean anything, much less do a thorough scrub of problem areas. We managed to drag ourselves out to do a grocery shopping, and that's it. Finito. Basta. Mañana.

Can we just stop with the 90˚ (32C) heat? It's September, time for some 60˚s (17C.) No rain, just clouds of chenopod† pollen. Gack. Autumn, I want autumn. Summer can just bugger off.




*`They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
`They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; `they'd have been ill.'
`So they were,' said the Dormouse; `very ill.'

†The chenopod/amaranth family of weeds: pigweed, Russian thistle, iodine bush, lambs quarters, scale, greasewood, burning bush.

Encroachment

The clutters gather
Accumulations of dust
Needs a gale to blow.




Is sharing a table/desk a good idea?



Even the cat has a stash.



Books holding their own place.



Not exactly keepsakes, not quite souvenirs.



The joys of magnets.

Magpie

Magpies may not be the pretty birds of the flocking fellowship, but they fascinate me. Many congregate around the university campus and research park, which includes my orthopedic hospital. I've endured more than a few meetings because of them - and the large windows. I'd taken the camera with me this morning, for the early clouds, that can be quite dramatic at dawn. Not today, though, and all blurred en-route to the data disc.

But as I left this afternoon, one of these large and boisterous birds landed in front of me. I turned on the camera, as it rasped and hopped ahead of me. Until finally posing, as if to say, "Look, I'm most beautiful now, here!" So dramatic, and not a little ratty, but I obliged and admired the attitude.





*Reminds me of her. D, don't go and look. Any of you with any aesthetic sense, don't look. Really, most of you with any kind of sensitivity at all, just don't click, you'll be happier.

Any of you like me, well, give it a shot.

Woof

Moby luxuriating on the balcony this morning, then back to cowering, just like he did yesterday afternoon. I can hear persistent barking from the walls. Faint, but distinctive and over time, very irritating. Somewhere in the building, a bored and unhappy dog with an endless bark has been voicing complaint all weekend. We suspect this is what is getting right up the Cat's nose. Or ears, as the case may be. It's quiet now, and he's back out and sunning himself. We'll put in our report to the management, to support whomever is next door to this poor dog. We think we know, but can't be sure. It's not an adjacent apartment, but the acoustics here are confusing.

Getting more and more into the habit of cooking at home. Both of us, together. Never an easy task, since we tend to have such different tastes in food, and different ways of working. I'm not a good cook, and don't enjoy any part of the process, from shopping to cleaning up. D gets worried doing more than one thing at a time, the essence of putting together a meal. After nearly twenty years, we seem to have gotten the hang of it, at least with fairly simple meals. It's still a matter of putting in good ingredients and not screwing them up, then hoping for the best.

"Well, we'll cross our fingers..."

"When we come to them."

Goggies

Wanted to get out and try out the camera. Our original idea was out of bounds, but we stumbled upon the the Avenues Street Fair on our way back.


I got a nice kiss from a greyhound (there with the breed rescue society) and got these nice goggies on pixels. What the heck is the Ginormous Shar Pei?






Then we went to Brewvies for lunch and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The first movie I've seen at a theater in more years than I care to count that I actually LOVED. It's smart, and expects me to be bright and pick up on references and hints and to follow along with dramatic cuts and sly asides. The tone was pitch perfect, a precise movie about people living rather slapdash lives, full of heart without being sentimental. Or when it does deliver a "lesson" it's with overthetop self-consciousness, "yeah, we know, and we know you know, and you know we know you know." Fun, but not fluffy. Kieran Culkin one of many young actors that prove it's the poor quality of direction and writing that is killing film, not lack of decent actors. Never being a gamer or a comic book fan, I know I missed some of the more obscure references, but just being awake and aware for the last thirty years, I got enough.

All in all, a Good Day.

Between

Quiet this week. Cooler air, but not quite autumn. Life in abeyance. Indeterminate time. After so long, as though I should be getting ready for classes. Moby spending a lot of time on the balcony. We have gone to a couple of open houses, knowing full well we are in no place to actually make that kind of outlay. Just looking, being nosy.

Replaced our aging camera, it having suffered a few too many drops (some onto concrete) with a shiny new one. Moby already thinking we take waaaaaaay too many photos of him. Sheesh.

Fozzie

Dog reminds me of Fozzie Bear.

"Ah, wacka, wacka! We are great!"

Fraught

Haunted, as I periodically am, by thoughts of the genetic family. Two women at working dealing with their mothers deaths, one over, one approaching, and until today, for some reason, I never connected my current repetitive thoughts about my mother, and their concerns over their own. Seems so utterly obvious now, hard to understand why it was invisible to me before. Spent time sorting through old photos, and I will be doing my exorcism writing about them, as soon as I get the scanner out, and D gets it connected. This could get a little fraught. Apologies in advance.

Squeak

We got a cat toy. It has an electronic squeak. It squeaked all the way home in the car as we hit bumps and turned. We kept laughing and saying "Oh, we are so going to regret getting this."




We put it up at night.

Gadget

Just as there are places that can only be reached by getting lost, so there are things that can only be found by accident, out of the corner of ones eye, or dropping into one's hands.

My mother shopped like she had live Google, decades before it existed. She hated shopping, and did it at speed. She formed an idea of what she needed in her mind, and we sallied forth to find exactly that, nearly always disappointed. (Too bad my mother, as far as I know, still eschews the internet. Google would be her bestest friend.) That disappointment was especially acute as it pertained to clothes for me. I remember striding past stuff I wanted to look at, that we would go searching for months later, and it would no longer be there.

The idea formed in my mind that the better way to shop was to be open to what was there, and to get what was available then, not to be rigid in what I expected to find. My first chance to prove this idea was when they were looking for, oh, whatever they were looking for, and I spotted a parka. Hideous green with orange inside, but it looked amazingly warm, and dirt cheap. I somehow convinced her that I would really use it. (She could hardly accuse me of being fashion conscious.) She reluctantly agreed. That ugly coat saved me from many a sub-zero day for another decade, more.

I occasionally just go and dither in a likely place, and often come out with an item I will use for many years. In the long run, it takes about the same about of time, but with much better results.

We tried to find a particular gadget* this weekend, and failed utterly, because we tried it the other way. We eventually resigned ourselves to keeping an eye out, looking askance, waiting for it to appear. In the middle of the search, we happened upon a toy for Moby. It has an electronic squeak. Engaged him thoroughly for a good hour.

No idea why such small, useful, items have such a strong SEP field, can't imagine what the evolutionary advantage might be.



*One of those anodized aluminum bottle openers that usually also fit on keychains.

Series

Envy

I always worry about seemingly good people who have trouble envying other people's joy and good fortune. A friend who avoids K and Dave, and their children because he so wants a family and children of his own. Instead of camping out there every weekend, babysitting, and getting the best of both worlds, he denies himself a version of what he loves. Instead of taking the bitter with the sweet, and relishing what he can have that would benefit his friends and their children. He's a very good person, but seems to have gotten a bit lost lately.

What we wish for others is what so often comes to us, in some form, in time, if done with no expectation that we will get a direct one-to-one reward. Life doesn't work like that. But when we want love and comfort and happiness for others, with all our hearts, we open ourselves up to love and comfort and happiness - it's easier for us to see it around us, and it grows better.

The ex, when that relationship deteriorated, hated seeing couples in public, had to turn away, sickened. I gazed at them in awe and pleasure. Maybe I would never find it, but such sweet love existed, and that seemed enough. Just knowing beauty exists in the world, even if I don't own it, lifts me up. I don't have to own the ocean to be glad at how gorgeous it is.

Bitter resentment and jealously only breeds more isolation and pain.

So, although I indulge in whining about my angry, judgmental parents here, I adore hearing about others with warm, friendly families. Mine were a bit of bad luck, and not the worst by any means, but that's all they were. Loving families can happen, I just didn't get that to start out with. Gives me the right to not love the ones I got, because they could have been good, but weren't. Fair deal. And I got better family when I got to chose for myself. Once I was a better person, better people joined in.

We have a friend, with his wife and children, and million dollar home and yearly income, and we are so tickled to see him enjoy his well earned wealth. It suits him, he indulges in toys and gathers in friends, nothing fake or boastful about him. We'd have fun if we came into a fortune, of course.

A common enough speculation, what would we do with a cool million, or ten? Cut back on work, but not stop. Live in a somewhat larger place, that we would own. With ten million, start a non-profit foundation to benefit friends, and friends of friends, who want to try out strange ideas. And build a house on the Northwest coast with lots of guest rooms, and be the vacation spot for everyone we know.

Grunt

There are bad days, and there are hard days. The two forces are not dependent on each other. Today was a very hard day, but in no way bad. No one crabby or angry, no long delays between cases, no huge failures or intractable messes - the bits that make for bad. Just a lot of work, having to make major changes in bed configurations, a lot of supplies needing opening, a lot of floor fluid to mop, for every single turnover in every single room. And being the resource/lunch person, I got to do them all. No one happier than me when the last case came down at precisely 1600, and I could come home.

This place is not like a trauma hospital OR, when a good day is when everyone gets out alive, and we've all had bad days. In an orthopedic hospital, there is a somewhat higher bar for a good day. This one got over, but with a grunt.

Understanding

Read about college "helicopter parents" in the paper this week, parents of college age kids who can't let go. Remembered my first day of kindergarten. My mother walked me there, and I learned the way. The teacher asked me for my name, and I stood and spelled out the ten-letter French-Canadian last name, as I'd seen my parents doing on the phone, at the bank. I was aware that this was unusual when I looked at the teacher's face when I was done, but with no real idea of why. The smallest girl in class felt ill, and rested her head in my lap as we sat on the floor in the circle.

I loved school, always did, even though there were bullies who tormented me. Because there was no father there, and it was the one place where smart counted, and smart was the one thing I knew I was good at. I dove in and reveled in knowing.

On my second day, I walked myself, and never looked back. I got driven, later, for other schools too far to easily walk to, but I left my parent's home at the car door. Whatever the mean girls did to me was easier to deal with that what my parents dished out, and school, I knew, was my ticket out, to freedom and the wild world.

I think my mother would have preferred me to hate school, as she so often told me she did. As imperfect a refuge as one could settle for, but I was passionate about understanding it all, knowing it all, so that I could escape. And so that I could understand. A trial to prove myself.

Raw

One of those weird phenomena of my work came up today. I suspect I've been seeing more male patients, older female patients, or those having merely hand surgery where this does not become an issue.

Which is to say, women of an age to have periods, will be having a period on the day of surgery. This should be about one of four, or one of five, but tends to run more like three of four. Women having gyn or colo-rectal surgery always tell their nurse, or we find out anyway. No big deal, either way, of course. Not for the OR staff. But I can well imagine having to deal with that inconvenience as a patient, as well as having surgery, and I try to convey both that I sympathize, and that it makes no real difference to us. Just one of those things. To the point that I expect it.

"Yeah, I think it's a *rule*, if you're having surgery, your period is going to start that day," is my go-to joke. It gets a resigned huffed smile, usually. Ah, well, what can you do? In general surgery, we had mesh undergarments that would hold a pad. In ortho, we generally don't need to remove underwear, so whatever they have from home will work fine.

I suspect it has to do with stress, which holds the hormones off, then, when the day for the procedure comes, things, well, relax, and stuff starts happening.

When I think of the shame surrounding this process, in my own early life in particular, I want to make this something normal for my female patients to tell me. To make light of it, to reassure. To convey the attitude of "Oh, pshaw, we're nurses, this is what we do, you're safe here."

When I was in nursing school, my mother once told me the story of her first experience of childbirth, before being given the drugs so she wouldn't remember. That she'd lost control of her bladder, and the nurse berated her for wetting herself and making a mess. Well, this is a completely normal occurrence, and any nurse worthy of the name should have told her that, and made her feel nurtured and comforted, not shamed. Then cleaned it up matter-of-factly. It's my job to clean up whatever comes out, and return to each patient their dignity and humanity, washed and dried and covered in a clean sheet or tidy dressings. Made whole, not left gaping and raw. Not left to fester for decades.

When people are most vulnerable and runny, someone has to. Just like parents clean up their children's shit and vomit and spit. But for adults there is a matter of showing that that substance may be disgusting, but you, you are fine and human and touchable. Not judging a job, only doing the job in front of me without weighing it down with emotions and baggage, means that I honestly don't mind. Don't mind the smells or the risk, I just do what has to be done.

Makes the awkward and unpleasant work just, work. A task. A chore. No big deal, best done quickly and first.

Glossary

Lucy metablogging, mentions a blogger's a Glossary On this shall I write, since my brain is in late summer mush.

Not exactly Blogathy, since I really want to write, more like Blogstipation, since nothing is coming out. As a Journal blogger, possibly a kittyblogger, I still find myself stuck for the moment, with only dribs and drabs, and I'm tired of them. Even Dale, our favorite example of the Blognoscenti in this corner of the blogosphere, which I prefer to call Blogistan (even if it doesn't jibe with the definition there) seems to be writing less in this fallow season. I probably have a lot of Link rot, and should go and check at least the ones on the sidebar to make sure they work.

I got a lot of splog comments in Chinese, and constantly following the links to report them seemed to do no good, until the last week when blooger started their spam reporting on comments. Yes, I followed them up, enough to find their url, and whack-a-mole them. But I haven't had one in the last week, so I must've been doing something right. Their splogs seemed so empty, newly formed.

I tried to get the newest blooger templates working, but I couldn't keep the current look. One that Moira designed and executed for me, and that I absolutely adore. So I reverted, and not being able to see my "followers" (like I don't know who my friends are by now) or "friend" people who aren't, or get enmeshed with the whole fiasco that is fecesbook, seems a good thing.

I love the Linguablogs, like Languagehat.

I love that the authentication is a Turing test.

Air

Moby spent the morning wedged between the AC unit and the railing out on the balcony, basking. Or lurking. Could be both. So welcome, weather to keep the windows open and the fans off. Oh, and sunspots for a cat. Places to lean and stretch out and curl. Feline version of photosynthesis, turning light into cute.

Scattered ideas about what to write, nothing enough to be coherent, not jelling. Needs a bit more incubation time.

Perhaps I need to wash the windows.