In honor of her spirit

Last year, while in Ireland, my niece-ster and I found an old abandoned farm house next to a stream in the countryside.  We pushed through the rusty harp-shaped gate and went in.  Crossing the threshhold took us into another world, a world that once belonged to an elderly woman.  Her dishes were in the cupboards, her clothing still hung in the old freestanding wardrobe, her bed was made, the curtains swayed softly in the cold damp breeze.  A frozen vignette, covered with deep dust, white mold, and decay.  

The clothing was dated, at least three decades old, the ceiling sagged down to the surface of the bed, the curtains were tattered and covered a broken window through which vines grew.  The kitchen was littered with old mail, shredded newspapers, mouse droppings and leaves blown in through the shattered windows.  Strangers had been here before us, leaving candy wrappers and spray-painted words on the walls.  But, in some deference to the old woman's spirit, her little home was largely untouched.

A poor person's altar was assembled on the fireplace mantle, complete with plastic roses, a rosary and holy water.  An eerie powdery mold covered every surface, revealing the years long stasis of the offerings.  It was profoundly moving and served as a respectful tribute to the woman who lived there.

I could not help but think that, if this little cottage had been in America, the altar would have been trashed, the words on the wall would have been profane, and the litter would have been beer cans and needles.  

Germophobe

This is a picture of me, about to kiss the Blarney Stone.  Please note that, firmly gripped in my right fingers, is an alcohol swab to clean the stone first.  The guy who keeps the tourists from falling into the opening was dumbfounded, saying it's the first time in the thirty years he has worked the stone that anyone has done so. To his repeated 'But why?', the only answer that made sense to him is when I finally blurted 'I'm a nurse!' 'Oh, well, then, that explains it...'

Mom's Cookbook; To My Kids, With Love

I am putting together a cook book for my children.  It will include recipes for all of the dishes they have grown up with.  I hope to have it done by Mother's Day.  I will have to prepare all of these things again from scratch and note the ingredients as I do so, since most are never measured or depend on my taste at the time.

I use very little, if any, salt.  I rarely use canned ingredients, and I buy fresh spices regularly and freeze the surplus.  I grow my own herbs.  All of this is really easier than it sounds.  Once used to it, you just begin to think that way, and plan for it.  And, it makes a huge difference in the taste of our food.   

The kids regularly call from college to ask for recipes or advice on food preparation.  This book will help them cook their own favorites from home, and provide a foundation from which to create their own dishes.

Included are titles like Daddy's 'Drop It!' Omelet, so named because as the huge family-sized concoction was flipped whole into the air, the kids chanted 'Drop it! Drop it!', hoping for that best of all possible outcomes, a dropped omelet.  The kids demanded to be called for the big event each Sunday that the dish was prepared.  

Another choice is Momma's Four Hour Omelet, so called because  by the time I begin preparing the first ingredient until the last person straggles puffy-eyed and rumpled from bed to consume the final omelet, it is usually well into a weekend afternoon.  Of course, the omelet doesn't take long to fix, and many are made in the time period, and a section of the newspaper usually gets read along the way, it is a lazy day undertaking.

The entrees requiring red meat will be difficult for the kids to duplicate exactly unless we supply them with venison or elk, or they find time to go hunting themselves.  We do send game home with them to their apartments, or, in my eldest's case, fill him up with it when he's home. We also make sure they have salmon, halibut, clams, crawdads, and whatever else we have gotten from the land ourselves.  Along with the usual toaster, microwave oven, coffee maker, and vacuum, we also set each kid up with a small freezer.  My daughter is planning to can and dry food from the garden this year, as well.

Some of the recipes came from my family.  I remember a cold bowl of cucumber slices in vinegar water with onions and pepper sitting on the dining room table on summer afternoons, ready to grab on the way by.  It was so cool and refreshing, I just had to include it in the cookbook.  Although, when I set the same concoction out when the kids were younger, it was never touched by them.  Call me nostalgic.

It is of great pride and satisfaction to me that each of my kids is a good cook and kitchen manager.  They are creative and competent.  They each have a set of Hinckel's knives, using and maintaining and protecting them from novices.  How cool is that?  From the time they could stir ingredients, they helped in the kitchen.  Usually resulting in great messes and lots of stories.  That is often my experience in the kitchen, even now.

So, with our family's focus on food; the growing, the seeking, the harvesting, the preserving and the preparation, a family cookbook seems the perfect way for me to pay honor to the mothers of my children: myself, my own, and those behind her.

Dating in the new millenium

Tonight, I got a call from a 62 year old man, recently flung by divorce into the dating scene.  He had been the best man at our wedding, a good friend of my husband for decades.  He wanted help meeting women.  Wow. 

I can not imagine dating in today's world.  For young people, there are rules of engagement and expectations of the culture of dating that they understand.  For us middle- and beyond- agers, it must be a very foreign terrain to navigate.

First, where do you find folks our age?  We really aren't gathering in droves at private parties every weekend, or hanging out at busy clubs with groups of friends.  We aren't likely to be at the lakeside, showing off our white stretch marks, psoriasis, and joint replacement scars.  Criminee, the thought of my peers gathered in a beer swilling, dancing pack of revelers in swimsuits makes me lightheaded and faintly nauseous.  

You can spend a month of Sundays in church and only see one or two good choices, and odds are they're married.  Or gay.  Or both.

Private singles groups make me think of flashing neon signs shrieking 'DESPERATE! NEEDY! PATHETIC!'  We are even too old for Parents Without Partners.  More like Parents With Middle Aged Kids.  Or Parents Without a Clue.

So, how about a bar scene once in a while?  Well, because the drinks cost 6 to 8 bucks, money that needs to go into the 401k to offset recent losses, that's why.  Besides, a couple six buck drinks could get you a driving under the influence charge.  Back in the day, the fact that you got home was proof of your ability to drive.  (How many of you had to check the driveway to see if your car was there, meaning you had driven yourself home?)  And, it takes a lot of energy to get ready to go out, find something to wear that doesn't bind at the crotch and make your butt look like a pontoon boat passing by, and then, hunkering in some little low back chair that's likely to have your sciatica acting up in no time, not to mention your spinal fusion site...

You see our dilemma here?  See what we're up against?  

I thought about computer dating services for our friend, but a) he goes into ventricular fibrillation at the thought of touching a keyboard, b)  he would be deeply offended at any woman he would be matched with (he has a self image distortion issue, his mirror image aside), and c)  I don't think there is anything to say about him that is intriguing enough to inspire responses.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I know him too well.  But, he has been married to a couple pretty women.  But that was then.  You know?

So, I've been thinking of a personals ad for him to find dates.  Haven't decided where to run it yet.  Maybe a small Alaska weekly or a local Southern paper.  Or anything written that gets to the Bayou areas, where most of the women are known as 'Sis'.  Let me know what you think:

Lonely man wants to meet dream woman for LTR. Age 62, twice divorced, throat cancer survivor who has resumed smoking, facing drunk driving charges after leaving second wife's new home with her new husband, never voted, hates government, mysogynist, perfectionist, pig-headed.

Then, I would add:  Loves hunting, fishing, animals. Raising ex-wife's teen aged daughters from another marriage, because the girls wanted to stay.  Gave the girls' dad a job in his construction company so he could stay close to them. Extremely loyal to friends and family and elderly mother.  Cries for others.  Honest.

Hunh.  Maybe he will find someone after all...   

I Don't Like Shit As Much As I Should, Probably

I don't much like shit, and I mean I really don't like it.  Most people don't, I realize, but I really don't like it.  I live with it, from my dog, other people's dogs, my chickens, nutria, opposums, Canada geese, and mice.  I work with it, from my patients.  I measure, test, dump and clean it off asses.  I record the color, quantity and consistency.  But I. Don't. Like. It.

I wash it off the mud room floor when boots come in.  I hose it off of boots and shoes.  I pressure wash it off of decks and sidewalks.  I shovel it out of chicken coops.  I clean it off vehicle floor boards.   I scrub it out of toilets.  I pick it up and take it out of the yard.  I empty it out of the cat litter box.

I spend a lot of time with shit, just keeping the environment from becoming overtaken by shit. And smelling and looking like shit.

I spent many years changing diapers, the old fashioned way, flushing the shit down the toilet, rinsing the diaper out in the toilet, soaking it in bleach water, washing it in the washer with bleach, double rinsing, drying, folding and repeating over and over and over.  For several years, I had two kids in diapers at a time for months.  Shit is important to parenting.  Not enough, too much, too hard or soft, weird color, strange smell, all cause for concern.  

I've even read the book, Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi.  But, I still can not become cavalier in my relationship with shit.  It offends me a little every time I encounter it.  And, God forbid I smell it before I have prepared my professional survival breathing mode.  I'll gag instantly and copiously.  My stomach actually feels as if it violently spasms.  Not something one wishes to witness in one's nurse.

I arrived at work the other day in the wake of a massive emergency Code Brown (brown for--you guessed it!).  The patient had had spinal anesthesia and one of the drawbacks can be, rarely, loss of anal sphincter control. Well, this guy experienced just that.  The entire unit smelled for an hour, and it is a huge unit.  Good morning; have a good breakfast, didja?  Want to see it again?  

Well, you get my point.  I'd write more, but as they say, 'nature' calls.  In this case, the hospital just called; they want me to come in early.  Oh, goody.  Breakfast rewind.

Little Golden Books That Never Made It

1. You Are Different and That's Bad
2. The Boy Who Died From Eating All His Vegetables
3. Dad's New Wife Robert
4. Fun four Letter Words to Know and Share
5. Hammers, Screwdrivers and Scissors; An I-Can-Do-It Book
6. The Kid's Guide to Hitchhiking
7. Amy Was So Bad Her Mother Stopped Loving Her
8. Curious George and the High Voltage Fence
9. All Cats Go To Hell
10. The Little Sissy Who Snitched
11. Some Kittens Can Fly
12. That's it; We Are Putting You Up For Adoption
13. Grandpa Gets a Casket
14. The Magic World Inside the Abandoned Refrigerator
15. Garfield Gets Feline Leukemia
16. The Pop-up Book of Human Anatomy
17. Strangers Have the Best Candy
18. Whining, Crying and Kicking to Get Your Way
19. You Were An Accident
20. Pop! Goes the Hamster and Other Microwave Games
21. Things Rich Kids Have, But You Never Will
22. The Man in the Moon is Really Satan
23. Your Nightmares are Real
24. Where Would YOU Like To Be Buried?
25. Eggs, Toilet Paper, Soap and Your School
26. Why Can't Mr. Fork and Ms. Electrical OUtlet be Friends?
27. Places Where Mommy and Daddy Hide Neat Things
28. Daddy Drinks Because You Are Bad

---Given to me years ago by a coworker , can't remember where I got it.  Copied from a double-taped yellowed piece of paper that had been typed.  (Image from Google)

Bumper Sticker

My Kid Reads Your 

Honor Student's Email

---Especially appropriate considering my eldest son is a network security consultant, basically an 'anti-hacker'.  

This great job came after a college education and a childhood of making his mom crazy 

while trying to keep him from becoming a 'hacker'.

Quote

"Keep away from the wisdom 

that does not cry.

the philosophy that does not laugh,

and the greatness

that does not bow before children"

--Kahlil Gibran

Name that pet!

Here are some names I have, should have, or intend to name my pets.

A duck.......Bill

A duck.......Slappy

A puppy.....Puddles

A rooster...Gregory Peck

A dog..........Pheces

A kitty........Litter

A turtle......Shelley

A dog.........Loophole (my husband is an attorney)

A bird........Flip (the bird, get it?)

A rabbit.....Dust (bunny, get it?)

A Pug..........Nacious

A cat...........Scoop

A hedgehog..Spike, Lance or Barbra, for a girl

A fish.........Sushi

An ameoba..Jello

A lizard.....Lounge

An alligator...Boots

An alligator...Attache

A snake.......Pasta or Fettucine or Noodle

A retriever....Boomerang

A badger.......Witness  

A squirrel.....Nuts

A mole...........Baby Jessica

A mouse........Hanta

A pig..............Crackles or Chitlins

A deer...........Vinnie (venison, get it?)

Longhorn bull....Pierce

Any other suggestions?

Spring, my ass...

There is northwest winter weather outside my window.  I know what the calendar says; here, in my drippy world, it is still winter.  Today it snowed and rained and the wind blew sideways.  I know this because I can almost see outside from the bowels of the hospital, which is where they keep PACU (recovery).  Face it, the customers are too loaded to enjoy the view, so why waste windows and light on employees?

I work in a new hospital, huge and lovely.  And huge.  I walk over a quarter mile from my truck to my unit.  In the rain, mostly. Or the snow.  Mostly the rain.  The building has it's own weather system around it.  The wind gusts around and through the various architectural features, the ground remains frozen in it's shadow, and the rain comes from all angles.  The end result is that I am cold, wet, wind swept and cranky by the time I get to the locker room to change into scrubs.  Expected to heal and nurture when I feel like burning and pillaging.  It's hard to be kind and caring when your shoes squish.

I am so ready for spring.  I am tired of the cold and rain.  I long to dig my fingers into warm dry soil, to feel the sun on my bare shoulders.  I yearn for blue sky, something very rare here from October to April.  I want to go for a walk and not have five pounds of mud on each shoe at the end of it.  I want to sit by a fire in the backyard as the sun sets. I want a day without thick gloves.  I get enough of gloves at work.

I'm done with, over, tired of, and way sick of  winter.  As I take stock of my numb white fingers (from Reynaud's disease), my runny nose (a constant in the winter, though I'm not sick), toes that have no feeling, hair that is frizzy (I should wear a sign:  'I combed it this morning!'), muddy clunky boots and eyes squinting against the aerosol rain, I feel cranky.  Cold, stiff and cranky.  And, not a little guilty as I slog past the dialysis clinic.

 

When one of us dies...

'When one of us dies, I'm going to go and live in the South of France.'

Well, I think this is way funnier than does George.  He is ten years older than I, but I remind him that his people live for feckin' ever, as the Irish say.  Mine not so much.  

(P. S.: For my purposes, I would change 'South of France' for 'Baja, California, Sur')

If you don't live out west, you won't get this blog

We live in a damn big country, not some piddly-ass country the size of, say, France.  But we Americans all have an equal vote, meaning that someone in a New York City apartment the size of my bedroom can decide what my life will be like tomorrow and in the years to come.  Someone whose feet rarely feel anything but concrete.  Whose idea of gardening is tending whatever potted thing will survive in the smog and small space.  How can voters from such disparate environments make choices that benefit both?

Here in the west, we have to drive miles to work, to the grocery store, to the doctor.  We garden in quarter and half acres.  We face dangerous weather and animals regularly.  There is a different code of life here.  In many ways, it can be a 'kill or be killed' life.  Predators predate, prey dies. I don't think a concrete bound city person can really understand that.

So, don't tell me I can't drive certain days, or that I can't kill certain predators that decimate my flock or herd.  Or that I have to let certain people have access to my private life or property. Unh-uh.  

The above picture on the left shows a wolf print next to my husband's hand.  I have often been followed in my outdoor activities by cougar, bobcat, or coyote.  My friend and her family were riding horses one day when a cougar ripped the brisket out of her son's pony, sending boy and pony over a cliff.  Boy survived.  Pony did not.  Cougar didn't, either, thanks to my friend's .357 revolver.  Think a native downtown New Yorker (or Washington, D.C.-er, or Chicagoan) could understand that scenario?

The other two photos show a cattle drive traffic jam on the road.  It also indicates the great expanses of country Westerners drive to make a living or get anywhere.  Difficult to imagine if you've never even owned a car.

All I'm saying is that certain decisions should be left to local governments, even more so than they are now.  My state reps and neighbors know what I need to get by, we share similar agendas.  Keeping big government out of my daily life is important, worth fighting for.

Tupperware Terrorist Society, Craft Guild & Tricycle Drill Team

We are a loose band of women, or a band of loose women, however you want it, that began looking for activities to consume our boundless energy, humor, and enthusiasm while at the same time getting us away from our husbands and children and drawing attention to ourselves. For over twenty years, we have conducted well choreographed and costumed 'ambushes' on unsuspecting others.  

We have officers; I am Madame President, my sister MJ (Madame Cruise Director), my niece Ron (Madame Wardrobe Mistress), my niece-ster DD (I'll explain later) (Madame Don't Give Her Tequila), my sister W (Madame East Coast President Who is Not as Important as Madame President).  Other members drift in and out, or stumble in and are thrown out, at random.  We are kind of like a less well-behaved Red Hat Society.  Sort of the tramps of Junior League.  Not that we do anything counter to our marriage vows, we just have the kind of fun most people would call outrageous, but secretly wish they themselves could have.

Like the time we showed up at Ron's latest sweetie's place (she's single), all dressed in black, head to toe. We rolled up in my van (Vanna White), music from Mission Impossible blaring, bailed out, wrapped his car and porch with crime scene tape, walked right past the poor guy without acknowledging him, and hit the breaker switch, killing the lights.  We scuttled about with flashlights, filling pillowcases with loot, while he's standing there, all  'Hey, guys, this is funny.  Hey, you guys are great, heh-heh...'  We continued to ignore him, occasionally flashing a camera in his face.  Then, as quickly as we had appeared, we left.  With all of his toilet paper, paper towels, underwear and socks (clean and dirty), silverware, breakfast cereal, television remote, and light bulbs.  Then we went for a glass of wine, still dressed all in black.

Two hours later, he called Ron.  She acted like nothing had happened.  It was so cool.  Damn, that's good fun, right there!

Or the time MJ's friend, a professional singer, was having a birthday.  We dressed up as hookers (I was Jet Bodette, motto: Faster than the speed of sound, and I'll leave a light on for you...) and went to an opening performance.  We made a scene over him, getting way too familiar, implying that he was a favorite customer.  Turns out he had recently gotten engaged and his soon-to-be mother-in-law was there with various aunts to meet him and see him perform.  Doesn't get much better than that!

For my husband's birthday, we renovated a bay in a steel building on our farm into a realistic Mexican border brothel and cantina.  We wrote and performed songs about his youthful days in Mexico (don't ask). We served authentic food, beer and tequila.  Plastic cockroaches were strategically placed.  Fly swatters were given to all the ladies for fans.  Little kids even came, spinning and dancing in costume.  And, if you think we don't know realistic, you gotta understand; George lived in Mexico for seven years, myself, two. We love Mexico, but we gotta laugh and make fun of some of the cultural experiences.

The ambushes, as we call them, are elaborate, time-consuming and sometimes expensive.  But, as we like to tell one another, it's cheaper than therapy...

   

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Like about 40 million other Americans, I trace my ancestral roots to Ireland, in my case, on both sides of my family.  St. Patrick's Day began as a day to celebrate a feast day of the patron saint of Ireland.  It has evolved into something very different from that religious beginning.  Do you ever think about what it means to Americans?

Well, look around.  It is apparently about green beer, four leaf clovers for luck, wearing green or risk getting pinched, drinking to excess and fighting.  Oh, and making racist comments and assumptions about the Irish.  What, you say, racist?  Isn't this all in good fun?

I don't know-- how funny is blackface?  How funny would it be to have a day during which everyone 'spokem Injun and spentum wampum on the squaw'?  Or a day in which we all wore big noses and yarmulkes and argued prices with retailers and shouted 'Oy vey!'?  Are you kidding me?  The ACLU would be all over something like that!  But, it's okay to depict the Irish as drunken, irresponsible, childlike slackers--everyone does!  Right?  (If all your friends jumped off a cliff...)

This racist representation has it's roots in the mid-1800's, after many Irish families escaped famine and genocide by the English in their own land and came to the U.S.  The Irish were refused work and openly hated and shunned.  It was common to see signs stating 'Help Wanted--No Irish Need Apply'.  When one of the first St. Patrick's Day celebration and parade was held in New York City in 1867, Harper's Bazaar depicted the Irish in cartoons as drunken ape-like violent barbarians brutalizing the police (see above).  We haven't made that much progress, despite having our own first Irish president in the sixties.

If you want to celebrate the Irish culture, or St. Patrick's Day, do so!  Have a ball!  Just do it without demeaning the Irish themselves.  And if you really want to celebrate Irish culture, learn something about them, about us.  The history and culture of the country, the Irish and Irish immigrants is enthralling and deeply entwined with the history of America.  There are many Irish cultural centers throughout the country.

The Irish are deserving of respect and the dignity of accurate depiction.  Maybe its time for us to raise some hell!  

Is O' Eirenn Me

'I am of Ireland'

  

Don't sweat the small stuff. Like children, for example.

My husband and I began dating thirty-six years ago,  August 10, 1973.  He was a blind date.  He still is blind, in many ways, as I like to tell him.  We dated for ten years.  Of course, we got mad a few times and took a year or so off  here and there.  

When we began dating, he was twenty-eight and headed to law school.  I was eighteen, a sophomore in college, and called to teach the handicapped.  As I also like to tell him, back then, he had money, muscles, hair and a Corvette.  What happened?  I ask.  'You', he says.  Doesn't even smile when he says it, either.

He is funny, smart, mostly kind, and loves me, the latter being something that isn't as easy as it might sound.  See, I like my way.  And I like his way my way.  He sometimes has a problem with that.  Inflexible, I say.  Independent, he says.  Don't ever try that, I counter.

But, alas, he is independent.  Often more than I care for.  

Like when he decided to take the three kids and our Beagle and two nine week old Chihuahuas camping.  I was teaching a shooting class that weekend and would be on the range ten hours each day. The kids were 7, 9 and 11.  They hadn't even made it to the mountains when I got a call that the Chihuahua baby, Caliente, had eaten her weight in chocolate bars.  What to do?  I called the vet and called George back.  Not long after, I got another call.  Finally reaching the camp site, the Chihuahua Gordita had fallen into a swift snow-fed stream.  They saved her, but what should they do?  Oh, and, how do you get skunk smell off of a Beagle before bedtime?  Come home, I said.  We'll be fine, he said.  

Or when I called home from a shooting competition in Florida.  My husband assured me all was well.  Then, my eldest, the fifteen year old, got on the phone. ' My brother broke his thumb at soccer practice.'  'What?!'  'Yeah, it was all crooked and blue and hurting, and I said 'Dad, that thumb is broken' and he was like 'No way' and I said 'Yes it is'  and Dad said he'd have you look at it when you got home, and I said 'Take him to the hospital now or I'll drive him.'  So, he did, and guess what?  It's broken.  Cool, huh?'

So, to avoid further, uhh, events,  we have trained or arranged training for our kids in outdoor survival, advanced medical treatment, operating emergency vehicles, orienteering, mountain climbing, scuba diving, edible plants, animal first aid, shooting, martial arts and the Spanish language.  Whew!  All to protect them from their father who, contrary to what it sounds like, is one of the most competent outdoorsman alive.  He's just, well independent.

Today, my son's friend killed himself

 

Today, a young man named Beau died of an overdose, a probable suicide.  Three days earlier, his gay boyfriend had hung himself.  Not long before that, Beau had 'come out' to his parents.  It had reportedly not gone well.

I have watched as the little boy became a big boy, then a young man.  I shared space with his mom in the bleachers and the high school team booth selling popcorn, Pepsi and T-shirts.  I shared her pride as she showed me homecoming court pictures.

I dug out pictures of him at six, ten, twelve, and eighteen, first in oversized team shirts, grinning, muddy, and carefree, then filling out pads and man-sized jerseys, hope and thought and feigned toughness visible in his gaze.  Before.  Before rehab from oxycodone and oxycontin. Before his true sexuality demanded it's recognition.  Before life had dealt him the blows and pain his spirit could not handle.  Before.

I am, first and foremost, a mother.  I ache to know the words to say to Beau's mom that might help her.  I think, meditate, and I pray.  And I come up empty.  I wish for do-overs for him and his family, and for my own son, who is grieving as well.  I am no more than a mourner, an aching soul in the wake of tragedy.  God help us all.

And I am grateful the terrible Thing has not happened to me, to us.  I have bugged my kids today, using them as touchstones to allay my fears, to be reassured that we are all okay.  From all over the U.S., my kids assure me that they are okay, they are thriving, they are not suicidal. Their words are my chorus as I whistle past the graveyard.

To Beau, who felt so much pain in his twenty-one years, to Carrie, who lost a child and can never ever not ache again, to the rest of the family, who will forever be hurt and scarred and guilty and angry, and to Beau's friends, my son among them, I wish for eventual peace.  God bless us.

Poultry Whisperer

I got chickens today.  Lots.  of.  chickens.  

My niece is also a chicken woman.  She has bunches, many kinds, even shows, sells and trades them.  Well, she is moving to somewhere as yet undetermined, and until she gets settled, her chickens have to go somewhere. Where else but Aunt Lynnie's!  It is where extra kids, animals, birds, and plants go to recover, hide out, or learn to behave.

My daughter came from her college town forty miles away and we drove an additional seventy five miles away to fetch chickens and pens.  In my four wheel drive GMC and utility trailer.  Out west cruisin' in style.  

The hillside behind my niece's house was covered with pens full of chickens;  giant, award winning Cochins, little-bitty miniature Old English game, dramatically feathered Pheonix.  None of whom wanted to be captured, placed in little carriers, and driven to a new home.  Without saying so, they did get their point across.  Luckily, I am the Poultry Whisperer!

It is not something I just run up and announce or anything.  It's a stealth identity.  But, anyone who has seen me around chickens knows it.  I can herd, wrangle, or catch just about any bird.  This unique but totally unmarketable skill comes from growing up with lots and lots of chickens.  Laying hens, fighting roosters, pet chickens, you name it, we had them.

Today, I was on.  I had those birds under my spell.  I was quickly and gently catching birds, sometime two at a time, with almost no screeching or flapping of wings.  I 'talk' to the birds in a sing-song/clucking way that I learned from my father.  It is like going back to my native tongue, natural and soothing.  I never lunge, I never rush.  

I go in low, arms slightly out to my sides, and use just my wiggling fingers to direct the birds. They turn away from the side I am wiggling and go where I want them to. Eventually, they stop or just hunker down and wait.  I pick them up from under the breast and capture their wings.  

I watched my daughter catching chickens.  She is tall and slender, with athletic limbs and the grace of a dancer.  She, too, is fluent in the language of chickens.  She gently approached them, crooning a song generations old, and picked them up effortlessly.  She turned each one over, spread each wing, inspected the vent, and checked eyes, comb, and feet.  A wellness check, as natural to her as combing her own hair.  I knew I was watching family history manifesting itself.   

Warning: You cannot please me! But, please, keep trying!

from Google Images

Some folks ought to wear a warning label.  It would save the rest of us a lot of time, energy, emotion, and effort we would otherwise spend in attempting to make them pleased, comfortable, satisfied or content. Some folks are just disgruntled and angry.  They will never be happy, pleased, or grateful.  

How great would it be if they all went to live away from the rest of us?  But, alas, then they would lose their power and, thus, the reason they behave as they do.  They need us, the regular people who feel and reach out, who get angry as seldom as possible and who treat others fairly, if not gently.  They need us to draw back in astonishment or pain at their petty onslaughts.  They need to watch us redouble our efforts to satisfy them.  They draw power from seeing us in a service role, knowing in advance that we can never earn their approval. 

If these emotional tyrants had a warning label for all the world to see, we could all relax, do our best, and know that killing ourselves for them would be futile and unnecessary.  Poof!  Disconnect.  No need to be hurt or confused or exhausted.  And, it would put the rest of us on an 'Aha!' alert when these folks further flex their dysfunction by complaining about service, reporting inadequacies, or passing along hurtful tales. Again: Poof!  Credibility failure.  Time, energy, effort, emotion: spared!  Wow--a labor saving device.

Sometimes, nurses get a feeling about some patients.  Their behavior seems to go beyond stoic or stern. They turn away from their caregiver, often frowning or with pursed 'pissy lips' (you do know pissy lips, don't you?).  They answer in short, dull, inaudible monosyllables and participate only minimally in their own recovery.  They seem to resent any effort to make them comfortable or to gather important information about them.  They act as if the nurse is an intrusion, a servant to be waved away, to be held in line.  I have come to learn that these are all red flags, and a call to action to watch my back.  

These are the folks who are gonna bite the hand that heals them.  They will make their nurse miserable while they are being cared for, and usually, they'll continue to do so after they leave.  They will complain about their care, or the environment, or their 'experience'.  Case in point: remember the difficult patient I wrote about a week or so ago?  The one who didn't want to hurt, but didn't want medication, the one who wanted nausea meds, but to not be tired?  The one whose husband kept me on the phone grilling me about his wife's care?  Well, when I returned to work a few days later, damned if they hadn't complained formally that I wouldn't, get this: let her urinate while in recovery!  What?!  She had been offered a bedpan and refused it!   

I now record my care notes in even more excruciating detail, yet another CYA move to counter yet another nasty person who should be wearing a label.  Taking up even more patient care time.  

So, to the chronically displeased, the career offended:

Hey, asshole...here's your sign!

Please don't drive off with our driver

Sign behind a Costco store in Phoenix, Arizona

When I first spotted this painted on the back wall behind a Costco in Phoenix, I asked one of the guys working the dock if the problem of driving off with a forklift and driver was common.  'Oh, yeah!  Before we put up that sign, we used to get frantic cell calls from lift truck drivers headed down the freeway in the back of some truck!"  Apparently, truck drivers didn't bother looking in the back before closing the doors and heading to the next stop.

Quote

I have done much in my life, but I have yet to conquer ice cubes in a glass.

--Me, after the millionth stained shirt

Equity

How come my nephew was given twenty years in prison for receiving stolen property when armed robbers, rapists, and child molesters get three or four or nine years?  And when the two guys who actually stole the goods served four years and two years?

Frog eat frog world

As I have mentioned before, I do not like invasive species.  In our neck of the woods, the top ten are:

1. Zebra mussel, Quagga Mussel
2. Northern Snakehead
3. Asian Carp or Silver Carp, Bighead Carp
4. Chinese Mitten Crab
5. New Zealand Mud Snail
6. Rusty Crayfish, Red Swamp Crayfish
7. Oriental Weatherfish
8. Feral Swine or Wild Boar
9. Red Eared Slider, Common Snapping Turtle
10. American Bullfrog                                                                                           Learn more about them at:  www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/  

Anyway, they creep and they crawl and they munch and they crowd and they push all our little native guys aside and gobble the food and leave nastiness behind.  They are probably okay where they came from, but we are not prepared to deal with them here.  Some of them, I like to eat, like the bullfrog.  But, I would gladly forego the opportunity to harvest locally the occasional les cuisses de grenouilles in order to help out our natives, especially the Pacific chorus frog, which the bulls love to eat.

Late last summer, I was out fishing for bass in our pond and I caught a big ol' bullfrog.  What I love about it is that, nasty eating machine that he is, he got caught in a frog-eat-frog situation.  I was using a frog lure to fish, and that's what the monster gulped after!  Now, that is the code of the west at work!

The person in my child's life

As my children have grown older, they have fallen in love and created relationships with others.  The relationships have changed from 'we're dating' meaning hanging out after school, on the phone with and crying at misunderstandings to long term, committed, quietly solid bonds.  With some very nice people.

If dating is hard on the dater, it is equally hard on the parents of the dater.  I love that which enhances and improves my child's life, I abhor that which causes pain or anxiety.  My children want us to approve of their chosen love object, eager to hear glowing appraisal. But when things go bad, it is hard to trust the next person who comes into their heart, for fear of the pain that might inevitably follow.

My children, now in their early twenties, are relationship people.  They do not comfortably play the dating game.  They thrive in monogamous committed unions, most lasting years.  Refreshing in such young folks today.

The people they choose are bright, funny, educated and motivated.  They are good looking and polite.  So, why do I worry?  I worry because they hold the most precious thing in the word to me in the palm of their hands, my babies' hearts.  They have the power of pain and heartbreak over my precious child.  They have the ability to leave irreparable scars in their wake.  Until you've been a mother you don't realize how protective you can be.

I have committed myself to enjoying these wonderful young people for as long as they occupy our lives and not worrying about the future.  Oh, yeah.  Didn't that sound so grown up and balanced?  In reality, I worry.  I worry about my children's hearts.  I worry that I'll grow too fond and lose someone I care about.  I worry about losing the silly animals that these people bring into our lives, especially a goofy Pug named Winston who knows me as Gramma.  I worry that I worry too much.

When our children are small, we protect them from falls and burns and sharp objects and mean animals.  As they age, the threats change, but the sense of protectiveness remains, so we prepare them to independently assess and avoid risk and danger. Then, they fall in love.  And suddenly, all their vulnerabilities are laid bare for the other person to exploit if they so choose. And the parent is out of control.  As we should be, of course, but still...  

I want to bring my babies home, tuck them in all clean and safe, read them to sleep like before, and keep the world away. Where I can keep them from harm.  Where they don't need to be tough or careful.  Where no one can break their heart.

As my husband says, assuming that we will ultimately find that one person with whom we will spend the rest of our lives, then every relationship before that must end.  That means some breakups and some pain. For them and for me.  I just hope we all survive intact and stronger.