Addiction

I'm an addict. But then, I think most everyone else is as well.

It's 5:00 in the morning and I've been up since three. I think 3:00 AM is the darkest hour, the dark of night coupled with a darkness of spirit. The world is quiet and it seems you're the only one awake in it. (Which was scary as hell when I was a little girl of six or seven - suffering insomnia even then.)

Most of my addictions are benign, thankfully - work, computer, work, television, work, books, work. (Being a workaholic does have benefits - you get a lot done and you make your boss happy.)

I first realized my addictive nature during a lengthy and stressful period of unemployment. I spent 22 months on the dole during three years in the early '90's. (Fired twice by the same guy. To follow through on the adage - shame on me.)

To get away from the knot of fear in my stomach, I read books. I didn't just read them, I consumed them in giant gulps. (I read Jane Eyre one day and Wuthering Heights the next and wondered why I got eyestrain.) I'd finish one book and, as I closed it, would panic if there wasn't another to immediately pick up.

I much preferred being in 1800's England to 1990's Kansas City. The librarian got to know me by name.

Once I got a job, the desperation to read abated. I once again had my favorite addiction - work! There was always plenty to do - and it was so much better to skate on the surface than to drop into reality.

I find myself skating on the surface again, spending hours playing stupid computer games, watching mindless television, and smoking too much.

And THAT is my non-benign addiction. The one I really know is bad for me, but I do it anyway.

Dammit.

Courage

We took my youngest sister to the airport yesterday and now she's back at home in Fort Worth, Texas. We'd spent the last 10 days or so together - the longest stretch of time since I don't know when.

My sister is epileptic and her seizures aren't controlled. Her memory is virtually non-existent, she wears two hearing aids but often doesn't seem to be tracking. She has emphysema and got quickly winded as we walked together. She's lived in an assisted living center for the past 12 years. As one of the youngest residents, her friends continue to die on her.

The hand life has dealt her sucks big-time.

She makes the best of it, or tries to.

She's been befriended by the staff, and helps the activities director by making copies and other simple tasks. She gets a $10 per month deduction on her rent in return, and is very proud of her contribution to both the facility and to the cost of her care. She calls bingo twice a week and was president of the Residents Council for five years. She's recently started seeing a therapist.

And this week she rode a horse. While I was at work downtown, my good friend and neighbor took my sister to visit her horse. Beforehand, my sister told me, "Maybe I'll get to ride it! I mean, why not? I'm 53. I've never ridden a horse and when am I going to get the chance again?"

She loved it, though the horse was big and scary. An abused show horse who is known to be temperamental. She was scared, but she told me, "What the heck?" And it went beautifully.

I wish I'd been there, but Mr. D captured it on camera.

Oh, Just Grow Up...

Disgust is the best way to describe my feelings about this fading political summer. At least the health care reform debate is moving back into the halls of Congress and away from the frenzy of various town hall meetings.

Not that I expect much better from our representatives in Congress. Prime example: the performance of South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson. His apopletic shout of "You're a liar" during the President's address showed how much civility we can expect in the coming weeks.

All this sound and fury - signifying nothing.

Meanwhile, 47 million Americans are without health insurance. Other millions with pre-existing conditions are afraid of losing their jobs - or moving on - because of the fear of losing their health insurance. And then there are those who suddenly find themselves without insurance, their policy cancelled because of some fine print.

That's what happened with my mother. At the age of 60, her insurance was suddenly cancelled. The insurance company said the benign breast cyst she'd had in her 30's was too much of a risk. If she wanted insurance - and she did, desperately, widowed, alone, and scared to death of catastrophic expenses eating into her savings - she had to pay $1500 a month. In 1989 dollars. Luckily, she was able to afford it - but was greatly relieved when she hit 65 and Medicare kicked in.


Meanwhile, we've got the most expensive health care system in the world - but don't have the results to show for it. The system is broken and it's (literally) killing us.


Meanwhile, our politicians and pundits bloviate - and nothing happens. Sound and fury.

We need a national mother. (Sorry, mine's no longer available - but she would've been great.) We need someone to tell the politicians - and the rest of us - to be quiet, go to our respective corners, and to sit and think about what all this incivility - on both sides - is doing to our national culture and character.

Can't we all just shut up? Quit the ad hominem attacks, stop demonizing those with whom we disagree, and try to figure this out?

I'm sick of all the yelling. Sound and fury...

Good Morning, Government!

I stole the following from a comment on the Huffington Post; the comment was in reaction to the Republican jeering of the President during his health care reform speech:

This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power utility regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.


Have a great day.

I'm HOW old???

The dawn of my 60th birthday has yet to break, but it's already been eventful. Had to break up a cat fight in the dark of 5 a.m. (The senior cat escaped indoors, but the junior cat took up a guardian perch on the railing of the back porch. He's a tough little shit - he was the one doing the fighting.)

Then I had a good cry, missing my longtime friend. She would have been all over this occasion, and I would have returned the favor next year.

She died in March and I guess I'm still not over it.

The tear fest was immediately followed by a 'happy birthday' call from my Dallas sister. From sadness to joy in three seconds flat.

I'm taking the day off.

Thank You!

At my brother's house, when my nieces were little, the dinnertime prayer/blessing was a round of 'thank you's' to anybody and anything that had something to do with the meal before us.

"Thank you, farmer." "Thank you, truck who took the food." "Thank you, grocery store." All stated sincerely in sweet little girl voices.

It did sometimes seem like a contest as to who could come up with the newest - and most creative - subject for gratitude. "Thank you, checkout lady...." "Thank you, company that made the bags..."

"Thank you, sunshine, for helping the plants grow." "Thank you, rain, for giving them water to drink."

A lovely anecdote to remember as this morning's sunlight touches the tops of the trees.

So thank you...for another day. (Even though there's a heat advisory and I plan to spend it looking at the world through glass today.)

Thank you, person who came up with air conditioning!

Slugs Need Love, Too

This grossed me out. I hate slugs - but I guess it's as the title suggests:



The act of slug love requires the two to swing suspended on some kind of filament - you see a glimpse of it at the top of the photo.

Then that blue stuff is secreted...and then sucked back in.

Like I said...kinda gross.

Every Bug Has Its Day

We didn't have fireworks on the Fourth of July - we had fireflies.




It's been a good year for lightning bugs. For some reason - the wet weather perhaps? - there were a lot of them. I say 'were,' because the bloom is over. Just a few stragglers blinking in the night.


Fireflies aren't flies - they're actually a type of beetle. Kansas is the western edge of their habitat. They're an eastern bug - lightning bugs are a rarity on the west coast.


Their glow comes from a chemical reaction in light-producing organs in the firefly's abdomen. They're quite efficient at producing light: nearly 100 percent of their light is given off as light. An electric light bulb, by contrast, gives off 10 percent light while the other 90 percent is heat.


Each species of firefly has a specific flash pattern. Males use it to catch the fancy of females in the area and a quick flash communication between the two ensues as they prepare to get it on. The bioluminescence is also thought to be a warning to other predators: "don't eat me, I taste really bad."

Their life span is about two months. Which made me wonder: if, as Einstein said, time is relative, does time slow down for a firefly? Do they cram a lot of living in that short period? There was certainly a lot of sex happening out in the woods on the Fourth of July.....


Nature's light show.

Moon Suit

As the photo below indicates, the bugs are out in full force now. I hold my walking stick in front of me as I hike the trails; if I don't, I get a faceful of spiderweb.

The chiggers and ticks, however, are the worst.

Funny how one's idealized image of something often bumps up against cold, hard reality. When my husband and I first puchased the acreage for our house, I loved the idea of living in the middle of a forest.

On the morning of our wedding anniversary, a month or so after we'd bought the land, we decided to take some lawn chairs, croissants, and the makings for mimosas and watch the sun come up. We spent the morning in a little clearing and it was lovely - even though neither of us had realized it's a little hard to see the sunrise when you're surrounded by trees.



I started to itch a little later in the day. Upon investigation, I discovered I had approximately 250 chigger bites; Mr. D had 3. We counted.

I spent the next two weeks trying everything: bleach baths, nail polish, calomine lotion, anything that promised relief from the itching. Nothing helped, until a pharmacist recommended Benadryl (duh!) and the topical application of Absorbine Jr. Muscle Liniment in the roll-on bottle. Had to be the roll-on, she said, though it wasn't indicated on the label as an itch reliever. (It is now.)

That was the first breakthrough. The second is what Mr. D calls my 'moon suit": pants, socks, shirt, bandanna, and hat - all treated with some anti-bug chemical that lasts through 25 washings. And it works. I no longer have to spray myself with Deep Woods Off (the best, but made me want to shower as soon as I could.) The moon suit hangs on a peg by the back door, ready for me whenever I feel the urge.

It's hot, though that's a small price to pay to be chigger- and tick-free.

Putting it in context

I'm sitting inside feeling whiny about the heat...and the rain. Hard week at work. Cruising the Web 'cuz I don't have anything better to do, and then I come across this post on the BBC:

Today is a different day. I and my friends may never return home. We want the world to at least picture our being killed on streets to help democracy in iran and save the world. Pray for us.
Farshid, Tehran, Iran

Meanwhile, from the live Iran blog on Huffington Post:

12:26 PM ET -- Mousavi martyrdom. A message on Mousavi's official Facebook page "confirms he is on the streets and has 'washed in readiness to be martyred,'" a Persian speaker emails.

Suddenly, my alleged problems seem a little puny...

'Scuse me. I gotta go watch CNN now.

Annie Lennox is singing in my head

It's raining this morning....again.

Sports?

I hate to sit in the heat and just sweat. It's infinitely worse when you're sitting, packed like a proverbial sardine, amongst other overheated, sweaty bodies. Plus, one of my meds warns to 'avoid prolonged exposure to the sun.' I've learned the truth of that warning - once a lifeguard who never used sunscreen, I can now feel my skin burning within 5 minutes of being in the sun.

So why in God's name am I going to spend three hours sitting in 90 degree heat - probably receiving the aforementioned 'prolonged exposure' - crammed into the uncomfortable bleachers at the 3 + 2 field at Shawnee Mission Park?

Because young DW - my adopted nephew - is playing in the state baseball finals.

And he's good. Scored two runs, a couple RBIs, and played a wicked first base in last night's first round game.

I've gotten to know some of his teammates, too, so their victory last night felt more personal. I've watched those boys rally around DW, providing him great support in the months since his mother - my friend MJ - died.

His teammates loved her, too, you see. She opened her house - and her heart - to all of them. She was the person they'd talk to when they couldn't (or wouldn't) talk to their own parents. A sympathetic and funny woman, she was the adult friend who could help them see things more clearly.

Those boys grieved, too, lined up in a pew at her funeral.

And when the Shawnee Mission West Vikings take the field at 12:30 this afternoon, each of the boys will be taking MJ with them. Her initials are on their wristbands and their helmets. Fans in the stands will be wearing "All the Way with MJ" T-shirts. I've got mine on now. (The sunscreen will come later.)

I was never particularly athletic, and I went to school pre-Title 9, so there was never an opportunity to be part of a high school team. I'd never understood - or even thought about - what that experience brings to a young athlete: discipline, focus, working together for something larger than yourself.

Most of all, the camaraderie. And the love.

A love that has helped sustain a grieving teenager during his time of loss and pain.

So I'll be in the bleachers this afternoon, sweating like a pig and cheering the team on. Rooting for MJ's Team.

From the Ground Up

The wildflowers continue - each one taller than the next. As spring arrives, the mosses green up, violets and May apples appear, and life begins again. From the ground up.


Wild Sweet William and Squaw Weed are blooming in the woods now. They're both about a foot and a half tall. The Squaw Weed has the yellow flowers; the Sweet William is blue. As the season progresses, new and taller plants will come into bloom.





Missouri wildflowers, though some label it "Texas" Squaw Weed.


If you're interested in wildflowers, a really delightful site is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at UT Austin. For wildflowers specific to our area, visit the Missouri Wildflower Guide.


Wild Sweet William is also called blue phlox, and grows in woodlands and along creeks. Squaw weed is also called ragwort or golden ragwort.


Please note proper wildflower behavior: no picking. Let the flowers go to seed so there will be more next year.

A Sound of Spring

He's back. No, not the invading raccoon that kept sneaking in through the cat door. (That guy's been relocated to a new home somewhere along the Blue River...) It's the summer tanager - a shy red bird that I usually only hear, not see.

His song is quite distinctive (he's a warbler) and I heard him for the first time last night. He comes back every spring and spends his summers in one of our oak trees. From a distance, he looks like a cardinal but doesn't have the crest.





Like many in the animal kingdom, the male of the species is the one decked out in color. The female summer tanager is more subdued in her appearance.

It makes me happy to know they're back, to have this little bit of normalcy in the middle of the chaos that seems to be my life right now. Welcome back, you guys!

Transformation

The new green of the woods is taking my breath away. Every morning this week, there's been a point when the light is returning and I suddenly look up from my computer surprised once again by the color outside my window.

For months, the trees have been skeletal against the sky. Brown and gray have been the order of the day, the only color an occasional flash of red from one of the cardinals stalking the feeders.

But now the green is filling in the blanks. The oaks and the hickories are sporting small leaves of that intense yellow-green you only see this time of year.

In a few weeks, the color will deepen into the rich green of summer. Mr. D and I call it "the green wall." In the wintertime, you can see deep into the forest; you can easily see the contours of the land as it rises behind us. Not so once the fullness of summer comes.

The first green of spring is almost imperceptible. Walking the late winter landscape several weeks ago, I kept seeing green out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked in that direction - nothing.

I finally realized I had to look closer: the green in my peripheral vision was lichen on the trunks of the trees. So subtle I almost missed it.

Nothing subtle about Mother Nature now. The physical transformation of the landscape is well underway as she blatantly displays her beauty.

No wonder our ancestors celebrated this time of year for its promise of new life.

May Day, May Apples

The first day of May - and it's a soggy one. Feels like it's been raining for weeks.

But the May Apples are out in force - standing like beach umbrellas in colonies all over the forest. Their life is short - in a week or two, one small and lovely white flower will appear underneath the parasol of leaves. That flower morphs into a pulpy, yellow berry (the 'apple') and then they fade and die back for another year.


The May Apple is also known as the Devil's apple, hog apple, Indian apple, umbrella plant, wild lemon, or American mandrake. Native Americans would gather the plant's rhizomes, dry them, grind them to a powder, and then use the powder as a laxative or to get rid of intestinal worms, or as a poultice for skin problems. Don't try this remedy at home, though - the rhizome is the most poisonous part of the plant and you really need to know what you're doing with it. (The FDA rates the use of this plant as "unsafe.")

No wonder all those deer out there leave them alone.

In modern times, the plant is used as a base in some anti-cancer drugs. The berries are the only non-poisonous part of the plant, but I've never even once considered a May apple pie...we just look at them.

The May Apple (or Mayapple) is an Eastern plant - Kansas City is about as far west as they grow. They colonize big areas of the forest through those long, underground rhizomes. There will be a big patch one year, gone the next, but then another colony will have popped up somewhere else.

A nice surprise as you're walking in the woods.

Glimmers of Stage 5

It's 6:30 on a Saturday morning. I've been up for two hours and have spent that time mostly laughing.

Laughter is good (an obvious statement). I've heard it referred to as "internal jogging," but my favorite description is enclosed in this quote: "Laughter is God's hand on the shoulder of a troubled world."

Waking up at 4:30 isn't unusual for me - I spent years jumping out of bed to get to work by 5 am and my biological clock is still stuck in that sleep pattern. Now, however, I get to savor the early mornings. No more hitting the snooze button till the last possible minute and then hauling ass into my clothes and out the door.

So what have I been doing this morning? Watching funny videos on YouTube; giggling at despair.com; and laughing at captioned pictures of cats and dogs.

God, I needed that.

My world view has been bleak since the death of my best friend, now just a month ago. I've grieved for her and worried over her two teenagers - legally adults but so lost right now. Two motherless children living alone in a suburban house, angry, defiant, and, unfortunately, self-medicating. The house has become Party Central, full of underage drinkers and smokers (and I'm not referring to tobacco).

And here I stand, helpless and unable to control anything about this situation, a reality that slams right into the 'high dominance' I score on all those behavioral tests. I'm also angry at their mother - my friend - for some of her parenting skills, which makes me even more pissed off because she's dead and I want to grieve for her, not be angry.

A couple weeks ago, I printed off a copy of something called "The 7 Stages of Grief."
Stage 1 - Shock and denial
Stage 2 - Pain and guilt
Stage 3 - Anger and bargaining
Stage 4 - Depression, reflection, loneliness
Stage 5 - The Upward Turn
Stage 6 - Reconstruction and working through
Stage 7 - Acceptance and hope

I've been deep into Stage 4 these last few weeks, with occasional dips into shock and anger. In Stage 4, "you finally realize the true magnitude of your loss, and it depresses you." It's described as a time of isolation and despair.

No kidding...


Daylight's come now. The world outside my windows is that beautiful shade of springtime green, dotted with daffodils, violets, and grape hyacinth. After the late snowfall in March and the cold, blustery days of April, spring has finally taken hold.

I've been getting glimpses of Stage 5 - the Upward Turn - these last few days, when life becomes calmer and more organized; when depression finally begins to lift a little.

A reflection of what's happening on the other side of the glass. This morning's laughter felt healing.

Meanwhile, I realize the Universe has been slapping me upside the head, once again, trying to drive home the lesson that, when it comes right down to it, I have absolutely no control. Over anything, really.

My very wise sister-in-law, who has dealt with her own teenagers, told me to "just pour love on them."

That I can do. But letting go of the worry I have for them isn't so easy.

Especially when they're being stupid.

She Had a Dream

I found, along with about 9 million other people, a video that I've watched now...oh, maybe a half dozen times, something I rarely do. Perhaps it's because I'm a little raw from grieving, but watching this clip from Britain's (original) version of American Idol was really moving.

If this video doesn't affect you, you have a heart of stone.

Enjoy.


Yeah, I know I'm probably being manipulated by cynical TV producers - but I don't care.

Out of Pocket, Out of Sorts

As my Texas family says, I've been "out of pocket" for a while. Missing in action. Gone.

My best friend of 36 years died a little over two weeks ago. Came home from a trip to Mexico and was dead in 24 hours of a virulent strain of bacterial meningitis.

I suddenly find myself the de facto guardian of her two teenage children. They're both over 18, so the fact that my friend had appointed me guardian in case of just this such eventuality means diddly-squat. But that doesn't remove the sense of responsibility. An 18 and 19 year old living alone in a house in the 'burbs doesn't leave me feeling comfortable. The 18 year old is a senior in high school and doesn't even know how to do his own laundry, though insists he's an adult now and will be making his own decisions thank you very much.

The 19 year old spent 2 years in rehab - which, from her condition during the week between her mother's death and funeral service, hasn't worked. She's turning it around, thank God, stepping up to the plate, keeping the house going, meeting with lawyers and bankers as they try to figure out her mom's estate and the trust set up for them. The decisions are theirs; I can't tell them what to do, I can only (hopefully) influence and guide. I fear for both of them.

In the meantime, I have a hole in my heart, missing my friend.

I think I have it together, but the evidence belies it: I've lost my cell phone a half dozen times in the last two weeks; lost my car keys twice; even lost my damn car in a parking lot; made a gigantically stupid error at work; got lost going to my friend's house (where I've visited a gazillion times); lost my train of thought at inopportune moments; in short, I'm a mess.

The universe is telling me to take some time off.



My friend Mary Jo, at a campground outside Jackson Hole. We sure had us some fun...

This made me laugh. I have a black cat and I can relate.

But there's fear underneath the laughter - fear of the darkness, fear of uncertainty, fear of the unexpected and of things that go bump in the night.

Blood at The Star

The lengthy list of editorial staff fired yesterday by the Star is available for public viewing. Also the list of folks forced to go part-time, with consequent cuts in pay and benefits.

The list can be found on a great media blog - Bottomline Communications.

My question: why do I have to go to an independent Internet blog to find out who's been canned? Why didn't The Star publish that list itself? And is it true there's been a witch hunt at 18th & Grand as the powers-that-be try to figure out who's been e-mailing the info to the rest of the world?

How cock-eyed is that? This bastion of the First Amendment, which regularly extols transparency while shaking its finger at those they believe to be opaque, is pulling the same crap.

And don't tell me this is a personnel issue. I got fired once and The Star wrote about it. It's a regular subject in the pages of our newspaper - except, it appears, when it's the newspaper itself doing the lopping of heads.

The Star article announcing my humiliation to the world, by the way, did a lot for my then-state of mind. Made me crawl in a little deeper into the black hole of worthlessness and "What the fuck do I do NOW?"

So I know firsthand what these folks are going through. Add to it the fact that the newsrooms in which they have worked are slowly being squeezed dry and the vehicle in which they have plied their profession is disappearing fast.

Not only are they thrown into the biggest unemployment pool in decades, they also have to watch something they love die.

That sucks.


And don't even get me started on what this means for local news coverage...

Neil Young Still Has It

Premiered on the Huffington Post. The best part is his dog Carl.

See it HERE.

From the beginning, never a sell-out. And some of the best music ever.

At Least It Fell on Saturday

The annual tug-of-war between springtime and winter is on. A time when the first hopes of spring are dashed upon KC's meteorological rocks.

Mother Nature has been toying with us. Fooled me. Fooled my daffodils. We've both started poking our heads out, misled by warm temperatures and sunshine. I thought I'd be spending the weekend cleaning up the yard, visions in my head of spring bulbs and getting my fingers in the dirt.

Said dirt is now covered by four inches and the snow continues to fall.

But it sure is beautiful.

It's also a gift, in that it forces you to stay indoors. Can't run the errands you planned, things get cancelled, you can't clean up the yard...

And - bonus - it's a Saturday which means no struggle to get to work and back.

So you light a fire and a few candles against the cold, and think about starting a pot of soup. Chicken with white bean, maybe.

Don't Believe Anybody - Except Maybe This Guy

This is dedicated to those with their heads in the sand who don't think we're in - as I described it in my earlier post - an economic shitstorm. And to those who don't think this is all that serious.

I heard Tom Hoenig speak a couple weeks ago. He's the head of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, and is one of the guys who helps decide the Fed's economic policy. He was also one of the few on the Fed Board who worried about the housing bubble back when everyone else dismissed it. The guy is smart.

He started his speech something like this: "I have nothing good to tell you...except there IS a future." (Rueful laughter from the audience.)

He was pretty somber. Though KC escaped it for awhile, we're now smack dab in the middle of what everyone else is going through, he said. The symptoms are everywhere, with the rising unemployment rate a major concern.

One of the big problems, it appears, is us. We've stopped buying stuff. We're cutting back. And because consumers are a HUGE percentage of the economy, we're REALLY in the tank.

This is gonna take awhile. Hoenig said that with the combination of the economic stimulus plan and the Fed's easing of monetary policy, he hoped we'd see slow, steady growth by the third or fourth quarter. Emphasis on "slow."

That's his best guess. But keep your fingers crossed, boys and girls, because nobody really knows.

Don't Believe Anybody

The news is pissing me off again. I'm back to just skimming headlines and I'm boycotting the cable bloviators.

All this talk talk talk, rant rant rant about Obama's economic stimulus plan and the automakers rescue and the mortgage rescue plan is irrelevant.

Why?

BECAUSE NOBODY REALLY KNOWS HOW TO GET US OUT OF THIS MESS. They're all just guessing.

Put five economists in a room and you'll get six different opinions. This shitstorm we find ourselves in is unlike anything we've experienced before, so anybody speaking with certainty is an out-and-out liar.

BECAUSE NOBODY REALLY KNOWS...

A quote from FDR during the height of the Depression seems appropriate. We need to do something, he said, and if that doesn't work, we need to do something else.

BUT NOBODY REALLY KNOWS WHAT TO DO.

Thank God there's finally someone in the White House who is obviously a whole lot smarter than I am. Who's pragmatic and not an idealogue. And who is trying to create a culture of bipartisanship and collaboration. (Good luck with THAT one...)

All us little folks can do is keep our fingers crossed while whistling in the dark.

He's baaa-aack

God dammit.

Rocky's back. Raccoons have a range of 18 miles (I find out only AFTER we'd released him 4 miles away). It's either Rocky...or one of his friends. But it's been a week and a half since we caught him - plenty 'o' time for him to walk the four miles and return to his territory. If that's what happened.

Couldn't sleep this morning, so finally got up about 3:45. Went down to the kitchen to make some coffee, the cats following closely because when I get up they know canned cat food (the good stuff!) is one of the first things on my agenda.

As the three of us rounded the corner into the kitchen, we heard it. The cat door slamming shut. We all tiptoed into the pantry and heard it again - something was trying to get in. The hair on all three of us was standing on end.

I yelled something profound like "get the fuck out of here" and ran to bang on the wall over the cat door. We heard him scuttling down the pantry stairs and he was gone into the darkness.

Shit.

And where was our ace guard dog through all this?

Upstairs asleep. A lotta help she is....

Rocky Update

I Googled 'raccoons' and found out they're solitary creatures (phew - maybe our home invader was traveling solo). They also don't have babies till at least April, so moving him/her miles away didn't leave any raccoon babies motherless (another worry...)

Raccoons are distantly related to bears, as well as dogs and cats. They are omnivorous and nocturnal, a mammal native to North America and Central America. They particularly love marshmallows (!) - one link suggested using marshmallows as bait (we used canned cat food), although they'll eat almost anything.

Compost piles and bird feeders are special attractions (we have both). According to one source, the intelligence and dexterity of a raccoon is such that it can pick an avocado from a tree, aim, and throw it at a barking dog. Door knobs that can be turned -- without locks -- are no obstacle for a raccoon to open. Some raccoons seem to possess enough natural intelligence to follow the action events of what they see portrayed on television.

Dexterity is their middle name: they can open purses, unlocked doors, zippers, and can even remove shoelaces from a pair of shoes.

Raccoons are one of the few native mammals that have not been restricted to increasingly smaller areas of natural habitat by urban development. They've adapted - cut down a forest and they'll move to your chimney, attic, a culvert, or whatever.

Ours has now been moved and, boy, was he glad to get out of that trap.

Who's That Knocking on My Door? Part II

A couple weeks ago, something other than my cats tried to get through the cat door - but backed off when it heard my voice. Scared the crap out of me.

I kinda forgot about it, but then we noticed the giant dog food bag kept winding up on the floor of the pantry/laundry room/mudroom. A corner of the bag had been chewed open. There was also a lot more mud than usual tracked around in the mudroom as well.

Cue all those 'funniest home videos' showing critters coming stealthily through a cat door at night.

We knew we had a home invader, but weren't sure what.

We started closing the pantry door at night to keep the dog and cats out of the pantry and whatever was invading in. Mr. D baited a live trap we have (you acquire those kinds of things living in the woods), put it in the pantry and waited. Three nights passed unsuccessfully. (Unsuccessful for us - but we could tell our home invader was still invading.)

So, last night, we tried a new tack. We plugged the cat door and put the trap (with a tantalizing heap of canned cat food) on the porch just outside the pantry door, next to the cat door.


This morning - success! Rocky Raccoon is inside the trap and will soon be transported to some woods far away from ours. I kinda feel sorry for the little guy, but not sorry enough to keep letting him inside to feast on whatever he can find.

I hope he doesn't have any friends. Do raccoons travel in packs?

And I'm rethinking the cat door......

Winter's a Bitch, But...

...it sure can be beautiful.


Photos by Mr. D.

Rants from a too-long too-cold week

* Okay, I'm done with winter. A ubiquitous opinion, I know, and I am stating the obvious. At least the sun was out today.

* Gov. Blago is now ex-governor. Thankfully. As a native of the great state that bills itself as the "Land of Lincoln," I would like our local newsreaders on both radio and television to make note of the following: it is pronounced ILL-inois, NOT ELL-inois. (And I do love to hear you try to say "Blagojevich.")

* I'm sick to death of egos. I witnessed - and was unable to do anything about - a pissing contest today between two people whose egos were in overdrive. There was a third person involved - the one caught in the rainfall of urea. These two so-called adults were really pissing on each other, but from a distance, with #3 in a position of trying to accomodate both and catching the spray. Some people really need to get over themselves.

* On the other hand, I'm feeling really good about the goings-on in Washington. Well, not in Washington as a whole - just in the White H0use. (Congress - at least on the House side - continues to act like children - Democrats and Republicans alike. We'll see how the Senate behaves on the economic stimulus bill.)

I know it's fashionable to be cynical; disdainful is cool. (I've often been both myself - and probably will be again.) But I've been reading a lot of history lately about the start of this messed-up country in which we reside - biographies of Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton the two latest - and it's amazing we survived. (The Articles of Confederation almost did us in long before the Civil War.) It's been a dysfunctional journey, to be sure, but look at those 200+ years of (often painfully slow) progress, then look around at the rest of the world, and you realize the truth of Winston Churchill's words:

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government

(pause)

except all the others that have been tried.

So to those of you who looked down your nose at those of us misting up at the Obama inauguration: up yours.

Nana Redux

Nana, as I’ve mentioned before, was our ‘woo-woo’ grandmother. She was proud of being a co-founder of the Cleveland congregation of the Spiritualist Church which, she carefully and regularly explained to me, believed in two things: the Golden Rule and communication with the dead.

Nana lived with us from 1956 to 1963. I was 12 when she died.

My earliest memory of her is of the tea parties she hosted for me. She lived in an apartment over a drug store and had a seemingly vast collection of teacups, teapots, and all the necessary paraphernalia for serving tea. Her whole apartment was a collection: glass globe lamps, plush velvety couches you could sink into, doilies on everything, and gleaming wood everywhere, both furniture and floors.

She’d let me choose the teacup I wanted. Usually I went for the bling: a shiny gold cup and saucer with a mother-of-pearl interior. The gold was finely filigreed and the inside of the cup glowed in an opalescent rainbow of colors. I thought it was beautiful.

Every now and then, I’d select one of her tiniest cups, maybe twice the size of a thimble. She had several with raised dragons flying around the cup and saucer. I liked those, too, even though they required constant refilling. Nana didn’t mind.

Actually, Nana never seemed to mind anything. A truly gentle soul and one of the most Christian women I’ve known. She quietly lived the Golden Rule, though she wasn’t above stretching the truth.

Born sometime in the 1890’s - she lied about her age and I’m not certain – she had to quit school in the eighth grade to go to work and help support her family. Her father had left them.

When she told me stories of that time in her life, her father was never mentioned. Instead, I heard about her setting pins in a two-lane bowling alley or playing the piano and organ in the silent movie theatres.

When the “talkies” came along, she needed a new source of income and decided to go into real estate. There was one big problem, though: the state of Ohio required real estate agents to have a high school diploma. So Nana told them she’d graduated from a high school that had burned to the ground. The fire, of course, had taken any records with it. (No computers in those days, boys and girls.)

By the time I came into the picture, she’d built her own real estate agency. I remember visiting her at her office in downtown Cleveland’s Arcade Building. It was a magical place – Cleveland’s first skyscraper (all of nine stories) built in 1890. It was a ‘50’s version of a shopping mall: you entered a five-story atrium covered by glass and metal, connecting the two nine story towers. There were shops and an area with lots of games to play – I remember pinball and bowling.

Nana’s office was a little boring in comparison. At least to a five year old…

Nana at work - circa 1955

Old, Fat, Naked Women for Peace

Background:

July 14, 2002

ESCRAVOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Unarmed village women holding 700 ChevronTexaco workers inside a southeast Nigeria oil terminal let 200 of the men go Sunday but threatened a traditional and powerful shaming gesture if the others try to leave -- removing their own clothes.

"Our weapon is our nakedness," said Helen Odeworitse, a representative for the villagers in the extraordinary week-old protest for jobs, electricity and development in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta.

Most Nigerian tribes consider unwanted displays of nudity by wives, mothers or grandmothers as an extremely damning protest measure that can inspire a collective source of shame for those at whom the action is directed.

About 600 women from two nearby communities are holding ChevronTexaco's giant Escravos terminal. They range in age from 30 to 90 -- with the core group being married women aged 40 or older.

The women want the oil giant to hire their sons and use some of the region's oil riches to develop their remote and run-down villages -- most of which lack even electricity. The people in the Niger Delta are among the poorest in Nigeria, despite living on the oil-rich land.

ChevronTexaco officials have refused to identify the trapped workers, but an employee at the plant said Wednesday they included Americans, Britons and Canadians as well as Nigerians.

Both sides took a break Sunday from their often heated negotiations. They were to meet again Monday, Odeworitse said.

July 16, 2002:


Women protesters who have besieged an oil terminal in southern Nigeria for more than a week say they have reached a deal with the refinery owners to end their blockade.

One of the protest leaders, Anunu Uwawah, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency: "It is settled. We stay today, but once the paper is signed, we will leave."

She said the firm - Chevron Nigeria - had satisfied the women's demands by agreeing to hire more than two dozen villagers and build schools, water systems and other amenities.


My cousin Paula sent me the following - a little dated now that Bush is gone - but funny nonetheless:

Who's That Knocking on My Door?

So this morning about 5:30 I'm grabbing a cup of coffee in the kitchen when the little cat comes scurrying through the cat door in the laundry room, whips around, fur slightly raised, and gives one of those intense cat stares at the opening he's just come through.

I figure it's the old cat. I hear the cat door open, then swing shut, then nothing.

I go to the laundry room door, switch on the outside light, open it to the cold - nothing.

Just to be sure, I look in my office and there's the old black cat sound asleep in the basket next to my computer.


What the hell was trying to get into my house????


I live in the woods. A childhood in various suburbs, most of my adulthood in Midtown, and now a house Mr. D and I built ourselves in the middle of a small forest at the edge of KCMO. I am a city girl, and I've enjoyed the sightings of deer, fox, wild turkeys, raccoons, etc. that we've seen over the years.

They are not, however, allowed inside the house. And now I'm thinking of all those "funniest" home videos showing raccoons coming through a cat door in the middle of the night to feast on cat and dog food.

Shit.

Outer Darkness

I ask myself every year about this time: why don't I live in San Diego?

Winter can be fun for awhile: it's new and it's the holidays. You don't so much mind the snow (though the traffic is often a bitch) because everything looks like a Currier & Ives.

Once New Year's is over, however, reality returns: cold, dark, snow, ice, and wind that cuts to the proverbial bone.

One of my favorite meditation books is based on the seasons of nature. A phrase I particularly like: "Outer darkness calls for nourishment within."

A time to take our cue from the world around us. A time to slow down and hunker down. A time to reflect, to go within.

But I think I'm also gonna go to Florida.

Now What Happens?

* I liked this move on his first day: Obama authorizes a bunch of new regulations providing, as he put it, light to the dark corners of Washington. Transparency is a good thing.

* And - just to be safe - Chief Justice John Roberts re-adminsters the Presidential oath of office again. Since he messed up yesterday, and since the Constitution specifies the language, he and Mr. Obama did it again today. This is apparently not the first time this has happened: Chester Arthur (????) and Calvin Coolidge both re-oathed.

* I'm hearing/reading lots of comments to the effect of "what was with that hat???" Yes, the chapeau worn by the Queen of Soul was somewhat bizarre to us white women who think of hats as more utilitarian than statement. Aretha was wearing a "church hat," the kind of flamboyant hat chronicled in the book and exhibit, "Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats." This video from some local TV station in Virginia explains it best.

Warning: turn your sound down. The video starts up suddenly with a commercial that will blast you out of your seat.

Inauguration Day Arrives...

...and my overwhelming emotion is one of relief.

Relief that the clueless bozo at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is movin' on out.

Relief that we won't be subject any longer to the arrogance and hubris demonstrated by the Bush administration.

Relief that maybe - just maybe - I can hold my head up when I go beyond the borders of my country.

Not that I'm expecting miracles. But it is a moment to be proud and hopeful.

So pride and hope are in there, too, along with relief and great satisfaction that the Bush II era is over.

Relative warmth

Left church and didn't bother putting my coat on. Checked the thermometer when I got home: 43 degrees. A veritable heat wave!

What would bring out the winter coats and gloves in September feels like spring after the cold spell we've just had. It's all relative...

Driving home, I listened to "A Prairie Home Companion" and heard Garrison Keillor express a thought I've often had about winter: "Mother Nature is telling you that you don't belong here."

Instead of acting like the nomads we are and moving our tents south for the winter, he said, we've built these permanent structures (infrastructure if you will) that Mother Nature does her best to destroy. (Anyone who's lived without electricity for days in the cold, dark depths of winter knows what I'm talking about.)

Granted, Keillor is talking about a fictional town in frozen-for-months Minnesota. It's not as bad here - we get the (relatively) balmy breaks now and then, like the one we're experiencing today.

But if I ruled the world, nobody would have to venture out when Mother Nature turned on us. (Unless, of course, you were essential - firefighters, medics, snowplow operators, etc.) The rest of us would stay inside our permanent tents and watch the weather channel.

Bird Buffet

Picked a good day to work from home. I knew I'd be suffering from round 2 of a root canal (think punch in the mouth) and this morning turned out to be one in which to avoid driving. Especially on I-35, thanks to a 10-car pile-up that shut the interstate down completely.

Driving on slickness scares the bejeesus out of me (think white knuckles and sick to the stomach). Thank God and the Internet for telecommuting.

The snowfall brought out the birds - finches, juncoes, titmice, and a flock of cardinals, bright spots of red, the only color in the landscape. The feeders were busy - easier than foraging in this weather. It was an all-day show...




We've set up a buffet for the birds: thistle for the finches and chickadees; suet for the woodpeckers; sunflower seeds for the cardinals. And today the cardinals were out in force.

Though territorial during mating season, they tend to flock together in winter. They especially love sunflower seeds and peanuts, and prefer a "hopper" style feeder, as shown above. It's apparently easier on their little feet.

The experts say cardinals are monogamous during breeding season, but, from my observation, they seem to be paired up year-round. Mating behavior involves the male feeding the female.

My kind of guy: faithful, and he feeds you.

Winter

It's 14 degrees and the thermometer is dropping fast. Winds are gusty and from the northwest. The weather service is predicting wind chills of -15 overnight.

Good to be safe and warm inside my house; good to have heat and electricity; good to have a pot of chili simmering on the stove.

And good to have a job to help pay for it all.

I'm counting my blessings tonight.

On the Dole

Unemployment numbers came out the other day, evidence that it's just as grim out there as they're saying it is: 524,000 jobs lost in December for a total loss in 2008 of 2.6 million jobs - the highest since 1945.

Every day brings a new story about layoffs - or pending layoffs. I know good, talented people who are suddenly finding themselves without gainful employment in a job market that absolutely sucks. They're putting a brave face on it, but I know exactly how they're feeling.

I was let go several years ago, and spent the next 13 months on the dole. It was the worst 13 months of my life. (If I'd known there'd be a happy ending once those months had passed, I could have treated it like a really extended vacation and relaxed and enjoyed the time off. But it didn't work out that way.)

It was hell. Not only was I out of work, but there was absolutely nothing available in KC in my then-chosen profession. It was move to another market or do something else. But do what???

So, for too long, I did nothing (or just enough to keep the unemployment checks coming). I've always liked to read, but during that period I was addicted, reading constantly, panicking as I closed one book if another wasn't near at hand. (I read Jane Eyre one day and Wuthering Heights the next, for example, and managed to give myself a bad case of eyestrain. But I still kept reading. Better to be in 19th century England than 20th century Kansas City.)

My self-esteem was non-existent. My savings slowly evaporated. But then, something shifted and I came out of hiding. I began investigating some new possibilities and cobbling together a variety of part-time things - freelance writing, teaching a couple classes at UMKC, and some other stuff. Got a little money coming in when - at the 13 month mark - a job offer materialized in left field and started me down a new path.

So if you find yourself in a similar position, here's the best advice I can offer:

Remember, you are not your job. We're such a work-obsessed society, defining ourselves and others by what job we do and what position we hold...

Get over it. You've lost a job. You haven't lost your identity, your good and bad qualities, your history. Yes, you've had a sucker punch to the gut, your world is entirely different, and you haven't a clue what to do next. But you haven't been diminished.

Shrug your shoulders and do what you need to do - which includes wailing and gnashing of teeth if you feel like it. Loss of a job is like a death, and expect to go through all the usual stages, from denial to anger to eventual acceptance. Do all that the advisers advise: network, reach out, go to support groups, whatever.

Now's not the time to hole up like I did.