Racist, Mysogynist, Brother

I haven't seen my brother for a few months.  He is a difficult man, a lot like our father.  Filled with anger, insecurity and demons.  He is single-handedly responsible for many (count 'em, many) insecurities and phobias I have or had.  He was cruel to me, both psychologically and physically.  He was a relentless tormenter who, being ten years my senior, I had no defense against.  He was a bully and a feared entity in my life.

We are grown up now.  He no longer scares me.  I have created defenses against his behavior, and some of it, he outgrew.  But he remains, as I said, difficult and angry.

In between visits, I forget all that and begin to remember (falsely) a myth brother, the one I so wanted when I was a child.  That brother was the golden boy, handsome and smart, athletic and kind.  In actuality, my real brother was all but the latter.  He was not kind.  But, I so wanted him to be.

I visited him recently.  When I left, I felt depleted by his rage and his prejudice.  I have never heard the words 'nigger' and 'snatch' so often in so short a time period.  I felt like I should defend the black population and the female population, but I was reluctant to do so in his own home.  So, I didn't.  

After, I felt like I had bargained away a piece of my soul to listen to that toxic spew.  I saw in his distorted features my own father, who had been just as racist, angry, hate-filled and mysogynistic.  It made me feel tired and sad.  And glad to be going back to my own world.

Fire gazer

This is Frenzy, doing something she loves to do, that is, sit as close to the stove as possible and watch the flames.  She is fearless around fires, whether confined within a stove or open in a pit.

Once, she secreted herself away in our travel trailer and ended up hundreds of miles away in deer camp.  She loved it.  She roamed the forest, came when we called and laid at our feet in camp around the campfire, just like our Beagle.

When geologic specimens become rocks become something edible

A few posts back, I wrote about my father-in-law, the mining engineer and professor of geology with the beautiful mind.  As I mentioned, he was world renown for his knowledge.  He had discovered and named fourteen minerals, hand drawing the shape, color, and features he observed under his microscope, personally performing the chemical tests to confirm their composition.  He was a genius.

At 89, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, a cruel, progressive disease that shrinks and dries the brain, rendering the victim demented and unable to process mental functions normally.  I took care of Lloyd during the last years of his life. It was not a burden, but a journey that will always remain one of my fondest memories.

I was afraid to take care of him at first; he was the powerful mind and backbone of my husband's family, and I was the poor girl from the uneducated Irish-American farm family.  My in-laws had cautioned George about marrying me; what if I was a liar, or drunkard, or gold digger?  (The night before our rehearsal dinner, George brought a prenuptial agreement for me to sign at his parent's insistence, which I did, crying as I did so)  But, time had done what words could not.  They loved me as they loved their own daughters.

Now, nearly twenty years later, I was looking after the great man.  He intimidated me until I saw that he was not Lloyd the scholar, the engineer, the scientist.  He was Lloyd, the little old man who needed guidance, reorientation, and close supervision.  What an experience it was.

Once, noticing his fluttery fingers and picking at things, it occurred to me that all of his life he had kept a journal or day planner.  I bought him a black binder with empty lined pages and a couple pens.  He set to work immediately.  He wrote, doodled, planned, pored over the thing for hours.  

On one particularly fussy and fidgety day, I placed a group of different mineral specimens and a jeweler's loupe on the table in front of him and suggested he examine them and determine origin or characteristics (he talked like that) and make notes in his book.  To my sad surprise and grief, he picked one up, examined it carefully, then tried to eat it.  That cruel disease had stolen his entire professional life, over seventy decades of knowledge and learning and teaching, gone.  

Who ever called Alzheimer's disease 'the long good-bye' was right on.

I love my kids

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I cleaned my pick-up last night after the trip to the mountains.  Under the back seat, I found a capsule.  A strange red, white and gray capsule with dots on it.  Nothing I was familiar with.  Hunh...

Asked George, got a blank stare, a shake of the head, and 'I hope there's nothing the kids need to tell us'.  'I doubt that.' I replied, too cheerily.

But I stopped doing what I was doing and went inside.  I went to my nursing medication books and looked at the pictures. Could find nothing like it.  

Finally, I Googled 'red, white and grey capsule', and many medication identification sites popped up.  It took two clicks before I found it:  Tylenol Rapid Release 500 mg.  Acetaminophen.   So much better than so many other things it could have been.

Again, I got an answer to a question I never even asked about my kids, who often use my truck.  My trust is well placed, and I am so proud.  Of them, of their friends, of my small part in getting them to this level of honor.

Egg, egg, who's got the egg?

Update; Albert was recently spotted loitering in the lanai/Florida room/screened backporch room thing.  Timora was nowhere in sight.

A little later, I went out and found a little egg on the second shelf of the Tiki bar, between the Corona coasters and drink stirrers shaped like umbrellas.  

Okay, in case I haven't mentioned it, these hens all have nests, wonderful ones filled with fresh shavings or straw, tucked conveniently all over.  They never use them.  They find a place as close to the chicken-food-giver-people as possible and leave the offering.  Sweet...

1001 Things Every Teen Should Know Before They Leave Home (or else they'll come back)

Is the name of a little book by Harry Harrison, Jr. that lists important bits of life data to keep launched young people, well, launched.  On their own.  Away from the nest.  According to the introduction, a full 50% of teens who leave home return to live within five or six years.  This, for many parents, is a bad thing.  Thus, the book.

I am including a few of the Things here for your enjoyment:

• 1.  They should know that adulthood is not for sissies.
• 2.  They should know that they are graduating into a world where employers get mad, dishwashers break, and money is hard to come by.
• 21.  They should know that the difference between owning a Mercedes or washing one for a living, is usually education.
• 32.  They should know that Bill Gates lost $40 billion in eighteen months, Donald Trump declared bankruptcy, and Michael Jordan couldn't make his high school basketball team.
• 50.  They should know that the biggest difference between childhood and adulthood is that in adulthood you really can't give up.
• 518.  They should know they can either be happy or they can be right.  People who are right all the time are single.
• 548.  They should know that the inability to keep a home orderly and clean is a clear sign of someone who still needs mothering.
• 786.  They should have an adult's vocabulary so they don't sound like a teenager and have to move home.  
• 791.  They should know where their money is, where it is going and how to get it.  Always.
• 917.  They should know their ethics and values will always be under attack.  It's the world we live in.
• 997.  They should know to develop spiritual and mental endurance.

This is a cute book, about 4 x 6 inches, about $6.  Thomas Nelson Publishers.  A great grad gift or gift for a friend with soon to launch kids, sort of a 'have I covered all these things' list.

Computer Cat

Our cat, Frenzy, does  not get subtleties.  Hell, she doesn't even get blatantlies.  She comes stomping up to get on my lap no matter what is going on.  She ignores 'no', avoiding eye contact so that she can claim she didn't hear.  She climbs right back up when placed on the floor or even on the chair beside me.  No, no, no, you, my dear cat-food-giver-person, you just do not understand.  I want on your lap.  Nothing/no one stops me.  I am Frenzy.  That is my lap.

Book?  Put it down.  Computer?  Put it away or risk cat butt hairs in the keyboard.  Personal choice?  Does not exist in your relationship with me.  Silly human girl...

I ask George to hold her or distract her so she doesn't crawl on me when I am not in the mood. At seven pounds, she is too much for him.  Imagine.  The two of them are like two less-than-well-behaved kids who double team mom. 

Alternate Lifestyle Geese

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Our 75 acre wheat and rye grass field is covered with Canada geese.  They mill about, honking and flapping at one another, then suddenly starting and beginning the long take-off run, just to soar a ways and come back down in the nearby pond or in another part of the field.  They squabble and posture, crooking their neck in an upside-down U and advancing menacing on any interloper, an interloper that could have been an acceptable companion only minutes before.

Earlier this spring, their backs created an almost unbroken mat of coverage, like a carpet of geese.  There were more than three thousand in the southern field.  George counted.  Something about grids and birds per grid, and x number of grids.  I forgave him that, though, because I count stairs.  But, the geese...

So, earlier this spring, there were lots.  And they did the usual mating/milling/gabbling/pairing off.  Then the couples flew off to smaller, more private venues in which to start their nests.  A hundred or so remained. Time passed.  All over the surrounding countryside, fluffy yellow-gray babies began to emerge with their parents, visibly larger each day.  Not so at our place.

No, these geese continued their paired-off, protective, mating ritual, but no babies resulted.  In fact, they didn't even leave the field often enough to have brooded a nest of eggs.  Now, as May gives way to June, they have fallen into a comfortable routine of eating, dozing in the shade, shitting, eating, walking up to the long driveway to observe silently as we pass, eating, shitting, then settling down as darkness descends.  Occasionally, they stir themselves to actually fly somewhere, returning noisily shortly thereafter.

Okay, I live near a community that brags about it's diversity.  The residents bleed tie-dyed swirled blood. The white residents find racism where even minorities don't.  Our community made national news when organizers and workers of the Olympic track and field finals were subjected to mandatory classes on how to communicate and deal with those from 'other' cultures and ways of life. All of the competitors were American athletes, for cryin' out loud.  Some young athletes of color were offended, stating that they were being singled out rather than accepted as Americans first.

Anyway, we boast (and brag about and shove in others' faces) our diverse population.  'Gays!  Lesbians! Bi's!  Blacks!  Hispanics!  Undeclared!  Undecided!  Oh, my!  Look at us!  We love everyone, everyone, unconditionally.  We are so sorry that we can't be black or brown or bi or poor or disenfranchised, just like you!  Wait, maybe we can!  We'll really, really try!'

I just realized that, for geese, my field is the latest cool spot to hang with other geese of an alternative lifestyle.  There is a reason there are no babies. These geese are gays and lesbians!  That's it!  I wonder why it took me so long to figure it out.  The large ones walk with a graceful swaying, and spend an inordinate amount of time preening. The smaller ones swagger and pick fights and chew straws.  The larger ones hang together in artful, balanced, swirling patterns pleasing to the eye.  The littler ones are arranged will-nilly, kicking up dust and slamming back pond-water shooters, laughing loudly.  I don't know why I never noticed it before. 

I am so excited to have this natural phenomenon happening right here on my farm.  I am going to be looking into grants or funding that might be available to subsidize the farm based on protecting minorities and this alternative lifestyle community. 

Geologic treasure

My father-in-law was a geologist, a mining engineer, and the head of the department of Geology at our nearby state university.  He was world renown, serving in UNESCO and acting as a consultant in developing countries to locate and mine their resources.  In the forties, fifties, and sixties, he figured prominently in the recovery of oil in the Middle East, diamonds in South Africa, and cinnabar, a precursor to mercury for primer material, in the United States during World War II.  More than once, he was in danger of kidnap for ransom or political gain.  Or in mortal danger as when he was smuggled out of Budapest along with then-Ambassador Shirley Temple Black when the Russians invaded in 1967.

He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a scholarly writer, a field researcher, and a scientist.  His mind was truly awesome.  

I took a 200 level Geology series at the university to fulfill the science requirement for my degree.  I did so at George's suggestion, he himself having spent every summer growing up in geology field camps with his father and graduate students. (Yes, I was dating George way back then...).  And, George majored in Mining Engineering during his first attempt at college (you know, before the distractions of girls, beer, skiing put an end to that...but, more about that later)  I never took classes from his father, because his father was the 'creme de la creme' of professors, reserved for graduate and doctorate students, not lowly undergrad 200 level students.  But, the series awakened in me a love of the powers that have formed our incredible earth.

After George and I married, we took trips with his folks to the mountains and deserts and sea shore nearby. My father-in-law kept me spellbound with his descriptions of the rocks, the forces, the history, the fossils, everything.  A skipping stone in his hands became a historical find.  I wish I had had the technology to video tape him, or the foresight to record his voice. But, I do have his memory, and that I will always treasure.

High desert

Today, I am leaving on an adventure with my trailer, Foxy.  I am taking her to the mountains, to leave at my brother's vacation property, and then, a couple days later, will meet George to stay in Scruffy for the weekend.  From there, we will ride the ATVs, hunt shed antlers, stare into a fire, catch catfish, take pictures, read and watch movies.  In the high desert area.

Where the wind is sharp with the scent of sage and juniper and a billion stars arch overhead at night.  Where the ground crackles and crunches with each step instead of squishing and spurting.  Where the cold is honest and clothing protects one from it instead of absorbing it.

Where you can lie down on the ground in the forest and nap without getting crawled upon, landed upon or bitten by buggy crawly itchy thing.  Where the sun is a frequent and warming and cheering companion.  Where quiet is deep and sounds travel far.  Where I can feel whole, dry out from the wet, wet winter, and let the sun touch my face.

Separate travel trailers

My husband and I have separate travel trailers.  It has not always been thus.  There was a time when we had a travel trailer that had a full sized bed in the back and a dinette that made down in the front.  I had a nice bathroom and tub/shower.  We sold it when it became too small for us and three kids.  

Then he bought a 'new' trailer; a 1969 fourteen foot mint condition gem.  No bathroom.  Are you kidding me? I am a woman with, count 'em three little kids!  No.  I went on a few trips in his little friend, and had to pee outside in the night or in a bucket.  Forget it.  I have spent years tent camping, roughing it, doing everything 'au naturel', and I'm over that.  I will be just as gritty as I need to be to follow an elk, hike to a site, or, when I was in the sheriff's Search & Rescue team, find a lost soul or body.  But, I have nothing more to prove.

So, I went out and bought a 24 foot beauty with four bunks in the back, a lovely bathroom, and a full bed in front.  I towed mine on trips, George towed his.  I made everyone take off their shoes when they came in. The towels matched and there were sheets on my bed.  George said it was 'too damn fancy', and thus Fancy was christened.  Well, if mine was too fancy, then his is too scruffy, and the name stuck.

I sold Fancy years ago.  That money was used for my nursing school tuition.  I recently acquired a new travel trailer, one just for me.  No bunks, just a queen bed and big bathroom and kitchen.  No room for kids, no concessions to anyone else.  My sister and I had a ball decorating it.  It looks like a lovely master suite.  I refer it it as a boudoir.  She is Foxy, a take on her brand, Arctic Fox.

It is good to be queen.  And I am when Foxy I go on an adventure. 

A Predator Got Sweet Little Victoria

Our sweet little Old English game hen, Victoria, was killed last night by a predator.  Not eaten, not to provide food for babies, not for any good or understandable reason.  Her battered body was still in the pen, bitten and punctured, with maybe a teaspoon full of flesh missing.  Enough damage for such a tiny body to succumb.

I am filled with rage and grief and hatred.  I understand that everything has to eat.  But I live among a veritable smorgasbord of delicacies for predators, available without digging under or tearing through fencing.  But, this skunk (most likely) only wanted to kill, then take a bite or two and leave.  That's what they do.  

Last year, I placed my newly raised ring neck pheasants and quail adolescents into a large covered aviary to mature, in preparation for release.  A skunk came in the night and killed nine of them!  All it did was eat the heads off and leave.  Two nights later, he returned. This time, my 12 gauge spoke for me. 

Last night's raid produced more than one victim.  Our little rooster, Albert, was beaten up pretty badly, bloodied and scraped and missing feathers.  His comb was heavily scabbed and his breast feathers soaked with blood.  He had tried to defend his little wife.  The pen looked like a hell of a battle had occurred, blood and feathers everywhere.  As evidence of his efforts, Victoria's body was near the hole, but not drug through and taken.  He is very excitable today, and falls asleep standing up.

The pen has been relocated to a solid base, one impervious to digging predators.  For the chickens, it means not having the grass and soil and bugs beneath their feet. 

I am waiting.  I have set a live trap baited with a dead bird.  I will humanely capture the animal, and then I will blow it's fucking head off.

Going Home

 My son Mack, my eldest,  is visiting from Florida, where he lives and has a fantastic and mysterious job in computer network security (you know, the guys who keep hacker/crackers out of your stuff).  He has been there a year, before that residing in Phoenix while he completed his Bachelor's degree.  Before this visit, I saw him six months ago.  I miss him so much.

He was the little guy who fulfilled a lifetime dream; because of him I became a mother.  I was nearly thirty-one when he was born, and he was everything I had dreamed of.  I could not get enough of him.  He was like a gift to myself that I got to open every day, again and again.  My world revolved around him.  

I quit working outside the home two weeks before he arrived and became a full time mom, for which I am eternally grateful. Our schedules were identical; he and I napped together, ate together, slept during the night at the same times.  Most of the time within touching distance.  Joined at the skin.  It was that way until his brother arrived eighteen months later.

He and I have similar senses of humor, way off center and scorchingly irreverent, with almost nothing or no one is immune. We still can talk for hours on the phone, or in person, or spend companionable hours in a car or a garden. We challenge one another's intellect, creativity and preconceived notions.  He has a Code of the West sense of justice and honesty as well.

I have enjoyed the past few days.  Today, he leaves for home.  Yesterday, we went deep into the coastal mountainous forest to look for the illusive Pacific Giant Salamander (it barks!), a trip that evolved into a photography quest.  I had an interesting reaction just thinking about him leaving.  I actually got physically sick to my stomach, all queasy and achey, like fear or regret mixed with an ulcer.  It was unexpected.  I told him about the feeling.  He said, 'I'm sorry'.  

I don't want my kids to feel sorry for me when they leave after visiting.  Guilt is icky and gets in the way.  Guilt feels like Velcro ripping as two people part; you can actually hear it in your soul.  So, no guilt.  But I will always feel a little nostalgic, or a faint yearning for the other days when home was where I was.

Quote

If you're gonna be stupid, you better be tough.

                                       --Unknown

Soccer Mom, Professional Level

My middle child, Garrett, made his professional soccer debut in goal last night for the U23 team in a large city 120 miles from here in a huge commercial stadium.  He played a 4-0 shutout.  It was the first game in a four game U. S. Cup qualifying series.  In one spectacular save, he was kicked in the jaw by one of his own players. His beautiful smile is intact, though.  He said 'I keep my jaw clenched when I dive', which is good advice for life in general. 

It was really something to go to that huge stadium in that big city and wait in line at the entrance gates, knowing my kid would be taking the field there!  I was so nervous.  But like Mack said at the time (he's visiting from Florida), 'This is what he's been preparing for most of his life.'  He reminded me that Garrett made his first save in goal when he was 3 1/2, rushing between the flags to kick a ball out that the goalie on Mack's team would have missed.  The ref made me take him off the field, gave the other team the goal, and Garrett was disgusted.  He said. 'That boy dumb. He not get that ball. I get that ball'.  He's come a long way since then.

George is in red-neck heaven.  He gets to watch his kid play soccer while he himself drinks beer and eats hotdogs!  He has a team hat in camo, and wants to join up with the local 'Army', the swaying, mouthy, singing group of team supporters.  Garrett may have to disown him.

My son is a pro player.  The years of practices, muddy equipment, swampy-smelling little boys in the van getting dropped off all over town, ground rubber pieces throughout the house, and hours at wet cold fields have culminated in this.  Thousands of miles. thousands of hours, tens of thousands of dollars as he advanced through club ball, Olympic Development Program, to high school, to college, and now this.  I am humbled by his dedication and skill.  I am proud of his accomplishments.  I am stunned that it has happened so fast.  It seems that just the other day that he was a little guy, dwarfed by the goalposts and his jersey.  

And, now he is a professional, in every sense of the word.  My heart just forgot to keep up.

The difference in male vs. female dominated careers

I used to be in the business of teaching defensive tactics and firearms training to law enforcement personnel and civilians.  I was a professional shooter and spokesperson for a major firearms manufacturer.  I was on retainer to showcase firearms, their use, and function.  I worked with police, military, private security and law enforcement special teams from throughout the U.S. and abroad.  It was a macho, powerful, physical, in-your-face business.  I was constantly challenged by men who had a tough time accepting a female leader.

Now, I am a critical care nurse.  I work in a predominantly female field.  It has been an interesting transition.  I have noticed some differences in the two environments, obviously.  Some subtle, some not so.

1. The locker room I share with women smells better than any I had to use before. Typically, if only one changing area was available, I would use the space first.  I learned early on to never, never agree to go in second after the guys were done.
2. Women cry more than men over little things.  But we all cry the same over big things.
3. Women really are concerned about what makes their butt look big.
4. Men don't care where they scratch.  Or who is watching.  Most men will rearrange their junk to suit them during a hot day on the range.  Extensively so.
5. Men don't necessarily do things better than women; they just think they ought to.
6. Most men speak more directly, confront strife more directly, and settle it more directly.  Women quite often resort to 'bitch sniping', a term I used to refer to the psychic sideswipes that some women use as an alternative to direct confrontation.  It usually includes a louder, higher pitched tone that delivers a shame-assigning observation rather than constructive input or even a question, as in:  what is this about?  Some nurses have it perfected so that, before you realize it, you are feeling little and blamed and inadequate.  I think settling things with the full knowledge that you're both armed makes it easier to be both direct and diplomatic.  I think if some nurses had their noses broken in hand-to-hand or got knocked on their ass a time or two, they might realize that direct and diplomatic is better than shrill, blameful and indirect any day.  (Yes, it is the voice of experience speaking...)
7. Men are more generous or nonchalant with their money than women are.  Going out for a pint is much more casual, with less 'who bought what/what is the tip/let's split the cost of this'...
8. Patients assume the men are doctors and the women are nurses.  
9. Men are no more crude than women, generally.  But women will give intimate details of their sex lives and body more readily than men.  Men play that pretty close to the vest.
10. Wives make lunches for their spouses more often than husbands do.

House chicks

I have chicks in my house.  At a recent chicken show, my niece won a large brooder with six Bantam Buckeye chicks, about one day old.  Emily took them to college with her, smuggling them into her apartment for a touch of home away from home.  After a week, she brought them home, realizing that they are noisy and the brooder lights keep her awake at night in her studio apartment.  So, they landed in my family room.

They are goofy and clumsy and constantly hungry.  Daily they grow and change.  From fuzzy sleepy little bundles of vulnerability, they quickly became squabbling scruffy long-legged streaks of activity with voracious appetites.  They have big kid feathers growing in at wing and tail, giving them a patchy, spiky appearance resembling the dinosaur birds, the archaeopteryx or the oviraptor (see Google image).

They are always in motion, always hungry, always zipping around in high speed, until, suddenly, they aren't.  Like some master switch has been thrown, they all lie down and sleep.  Jonestown Koolaid massacre-like.  Just as suddenly, the switch is reversed and off they go, fully restored and at full speed.

I am starting to consider what to do with them when they outgrow their brooder but are too young to go outside into a pen.  Everything is bigger then; birds, feeders, poop.  They get really messy.  Their pen requires cleaning every other day. A lot to invest in animals I didn't choose to have.  But my kids and my husband love these darn things.  Actually, I do, too.  They make me laugh.

An egg by any other color (or size) is still an egg

This is one of my egg trays from the refrigerator.  There are big brown Rhode Island Red eggs, smaller peachy-white Cochin eggs, even smaller white Old English game eggs, and tiny pink dove eggs.

It makes a lovely sight.  And a lovelier omelet.  Or quiche.  Or bread, or egg flower soup, or french toast.  It is good to have hens.

Lessons from an old cat

Our cat is getting old.  She has slowed down, finally.  She used to be full-tilt hell on get-away-sticks, in the middle of everything.  She daily earned her name Frenzy.  Now, she is more likely to snooze languidly in the sunshine than to curiously investigate anything that moves.  She more often ignores adventure than joins in.  

Once a blur of fearsome energy, she now pauses to smell, observe, or enjoy.  Like a old person.  But, I don't feel sorry for her.  It's as if she is finally able to enjoy the things around her, to savor everyday things.  

She no longer hunts.  For ten years, she would be gone for long periods everyday in the summer.  She would return to eat voraciously and then leave again.  By August, she was lean and ropy and vigilant from months of outdoors survival.  We never saw a mouse around our place.  Now, she will only open one eye to watch the yard squirrel sneak past to steal chicken food.  It's as if she is mentally weighing the cost versus benefit; is the expended effort and abandonment of a great resting spot worth seeing the squirrel scamper away?  Usually not.

Maybe she has realized, like aging people the world over, that there is room for more than one point of view or lifestyle.  She has even begun to show an accepting sense of curiosity and tolerance toward things she would have formerly tried to destroy or to kill and eat.  Like the baby chicks we have in the brooder in the family room.  

When my husband was holding a chick, Frenzy got up on his lap to cuddle.  Finding the chick there, she gently smelled and nuzzled it before lying down beside it and dozing off.  Life lesson from an old cat; there is room on the lap for former enemies.

Happy Birthday, Florence Nighingale.

Today marks the 189th year since Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy.  Her life and professional endeavors serve as guidance and inspiration to nurses even today.  Her writings are still relevant.  She was a mathematician, an architectural planner, an expert on health care and hospital planning, and a compassionate human.

She devoted her life to a calling from God to improve the care and outcomes of the sick and injured patients that died in the thousands daily in England.  She put her own life on the line to care for wounded and ill soldiers in the appalling conditions of the Crimean War.  She advocated for good, clean, evidence-base health care for everyone, not just the wealthy.    She opened the first nursing school in London in 1860.  (see Google Images) 

Florence Nighingale was the consummate professional nurse, one I am inspired by and aspire to emulate.  She is a rare female hero in a well-populated boys club.  I raise my lamp to you, Flo.

Closet cases

Today was a good day to work in my garden.  Last year, I created a garden space from what had been a parched bark mulched area with a few huge and unoriginal evergreen shrubs just outside the front door of the house.  I enclosed it in picket fencing, put in some raised beds, and imported wonderful rich soil and compost.  All I have to do to step into my garden is open my front door. 

As I did this morning.  I left the door open to let the breeze blow away the traces of winter in the house.  About fifteen minutes later, I came back inside for something.  I heard a strange scratching sound coming from the hall closet.  I slowly opened a wider gap in the partially opened door.  Yep, there was Quaila, one of our Rhode Island Red hens, scratching the floor to make a better surface on which to lay an egg.  I took a picture.

Shortly thereafter, my daughter investigated why Albert, our dapper little Old English game rooster was loitering in the entry hall.  Well, now it was time for Timora, one of his wives, to be in the closet.  This time, she found a stack of flannel sheets that I set there for my son to decide to take home or donate to charity.  She was nestled on them and had managed to pull down a coat from above.  I took a picture.

Later, my daughter called me back to look at what was currently amusing her in our busy closet.  There, in the middle of a perfectly formed flannel sheet nest, were two eggs, one big and brown, the other small and white. Each girl had left a gift.  I took a picture.

Roots

Just beneath the surface is what you do not see.  

It is more important than my looks because without it, I cease to be.

                                                                                                                    ---Unknown

To my kids on Mother's Day

You are the poem I dreamed of writing, the masterpiece I longed to paint.  You are the shining star I reached for in my ever hopeful quest for life fulfilled.  You are my child.  Now with all things I am blessed.   --Unknown

They know me in a way no one else ever has.  

They open me to things

I never knew existed.

They drive me to insanity

and push me to my depths.

The are the beat of my heart,

the pulse in my veins,

and the energy in my soul.

They are my kids.

---RK, 2002, from Femail Creations

Happy Mother's Day

Today is the day to honor mothers.  Your mother, your first teacher, your first protector, your first and best fan. Mothers come in all shapes and sizes, all socioeconomic, educational, and 'normal-ness' levels.  We don't get to choose our family.  Sad, but true.  If we could, we would probably choose incorrectly, anyway.

When we are little, we don't think that God has mismatched us, even if your mom is way bizarre.  We think the mother we have is the best there is.  It is only later that we begin to see the flaws, the deficits, the embarrassing behaviors. It is then that we wonder if we were switched in the hospital or found on our folks' front step.  This usually occurs when the kid is a teen.  

I guess that is why moms are so nostalgic about the days when their children are babies or toddlers or preschoolers.  It is a magic time, a time when love is the most talked about thing of the day, when heroes bake cookies and a bath can soothe all troubles.  It is a time when Mom is the center of a world that she creates with her babies.  One day, it is a castle, the next, a veterinary clinic, the next, a schoolroom.  And day after day, hour after hour, the foremost thought that the mom has is about the kids' well being; clean clothes, good food, dry diapers, adequate rest, safe toys, the list goes on and on.  It becomes an entrenched, critical and consuming lifestyle, necessary to raising kids well and safely.

And then, seemingly overnight, the kids begin fending more for themselves.  Then, they begin to find fault. It is a necessary transition for them to separate from that most intimate and dependent of all relationships, but it is difficult and usually not handled diplomatically.  History is filled with legends and stories of strife between kids and parents.  When we are old enough, though, it is time to overcome the separation battles and try to recapture the magic.  Your mom is still there, ready and willing to be a friend again, if not a queen or a dragon or a Transformer...

 

New day, new attitude, new direction

Wow, I just got done labeling a bunch of my recent blogs, and it is obvious that I have been in a real funk. The most common labels were 'Cali, grief, loss, death, pain'.  I have been a real ray of sunshine, haven't I? About as much fun as partying with Sylvia Plath or Franz Kafka or just about any Irish writer.  Well, I am Irish...

So, I am gonna attempt a remake of my attitude.  I want to smile again.  I am thinking that Cali wouldn't want me to be so sad for so long.  She was about forgiveness, love, fun, and greeting every opportunity to play or show her love.  I am going to try to be more like her, and more like she would want me to be.

I still don't like the dreary weather, the half planted garden I see through the dripping windows, or the damp chill that inhabits my bones most of the year, but, as Radar O'Reilly said in the television series MASH, 'I hope to do better, sir'...

Stand by.  Suzy Sunshine on the way.

The Girls

There is a local ad on television, aimed at encouraging women to get a yearly mammogram.  The catch phrase is 'Take time for the Girls'.  The Girls are the breasts, of course.  Many local women felt compelled to write to the local paper, the Cancer Society, and Whoever Else would listen, complaining that the cute name objectified womanly features and demeaned women.  Oh, get over your hairy legged 'they're-out-to-get-us' self.  

First of all, anything that gets women motivated to get a mammogram is okey-doke by me.  And it isn't all about the well educated, free thinking urbanites like those women who were offended.  The message is intended for consumption by all women who have breasts.  Last I checked, that included farm women, homeless women, minimally educated women, so-called non-liberated traditional housewives, and their grandmothers.  

That humorous light ad just might just be the message that gets them thinking and gets them to go to be screened.  No scare tactics, no confusing statistics, just 'Hey, don't forget the girls'.  Last week, I had a patient who had had a resection of the breast due to an ultrasound-detected lump of cancer.  She was 86 years old.  She loves the ad.  The point is, some women think too personally about these things.  It is just as sexist to assume that all women think just alike as it is to relate not at all to women, as the patriarchal media often does.  

Health education programs must reach as many consumers as possible.  Patient education materials are geared toward a sixth grade reading level to address the greatest number of end users.  The grade level designation is based on research done with actual patients in a large sample longitudinal study. The fact is that most patients fall into the sixth grade reading level designation.

So, I love the ads.  I love the humor, the fresh approach, the familiarity and you-deserve-it message. Women have been referring to their breasts as 'the Girls' for years, and this campaign simply uses women's own private language to get an important message across.  

Hawk haunting

There is a hawk after my chickens and that pisses me off.  I am surrounded by 75 acres of field mice, snakes, little tasty crawly things, a virtual smorgasbord for predators, but this lazy guy thinks he needs my chickens.  Today, he actually was crashing into the wire on the top of a cage, trying to rip through to the tiny frightened Old English game birds two feet below.  Now, that is just rude.  Enough to make the girls quit laying,  Enough for me to fantasize about shotguns and puffs of feathers in the sky...

I know; they're protected raptors.  Ooo, be still my heart.  To me, that only means I can't shoot them when they are in my stock.  If they would stick to the fields, I would live in happy and peaceful coexistence with them.  But, no, they want fast food at the expense of my little farm.  So, I hex and curse them every day.  I give them the evil eye.  I run out, flagging my arms and calling them really bad names.  I have a little raptor voodoo doll that I stick chicken bones in.  That'll teach 'em...

(If I sound frustrated, I am.  I take my animals seriously and don't have spares or lose any lightly.  But, I am unable to defend my stock.  If a coyote, dog, feral cat, whatever threatened them, I could shoot to kill, as farmers have done for centuries.  But, not a hawk!  No, that is murder most foul!  Whatever...  (Hey--what if I just happened to be playing frisbee and one of the silly things flew right into the disc?!  I gotta think about this...)

Desert rain

Beautiful, sunny high desert!  The center of the state, sunny and warm or sunny and cold, no in betweens.  George and I went there to look at homes this weekend.  He had been telling me how as we crested the pass, we would break through the clouds and I would see that illusive sun my soggy depressed brain so badly needs now.  He has been to the area frequently lately to get his dose of vitamin D and fresh air.

But, instead of sunshine and blue skies, there was grey clouds and rain.  Rain!  In one of the driest areas of the West!  All weekend!  Where do I go to get my money back?  George had said that when I get there, I 'll see the sun and say, 'Oh, yeah!  This is why we should live here!'  Well, I did not utter that line all weekend.

There are some good deals in the real estate market, though.  If I want to live in a brown place that rains...   

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

google images

The holiday of Cinco de Mayo, or fifth of May, commemorates the victory of a small poorly equipped Mexican militia over the Napolean-backed larger French army at The Battle of Puebla in 1862.  In Mexico, it is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state of Puebla and it's capital city of the same name.  It is especially celebrated in the cities of the United States with a large Mexican population.  It is not Mexican Independence Day, as many people think.  That day is celebrated September 10.

It has become a huge commercial success in the U.S., and food and beverage vendors now promote it as vigorously as other holidays.  The food, music and dance of the Mexican culture is on display at festivals.  It is a great opportunity to sample the culture and enjoy the pride of an ever-growing part of our community.  I think it helps those Mexicans who are away from their cultural homes to remain connected.  The celebrations are colorful, happy, sensory bombardments that are a delight to behold.  I love especially seeing the little boys in embroidered black pants and white shirts, hair gleaming and slicked into place, dancing with colorfully outfitted tiny girls with huge paper flowers in their hair.  

Cultural pride, great food, and dancing children; these need no interpretation.  It is international language.