Did we all manage to survive what I heard one local weatherman call "the wrath of Alberto"?

For Pete's sake. Rant warning.

This is exactly why people do not leave when they should. The local and national news coverage of this rain event scared the ever living snot out of the newbies and irritated the ever living shit out of us veterans.

At one point, one of the national channels was calling it a hurricane when it wasn't. A strong tropical storm, yes, hurricane no.

The problem is two-fold. One, the nationals who just want ratings. They are drooling over the possibility of video feed involving flooding and traffic signals swaying in the breeze, hopefully falling. They want their reporters to be able to stand out in the wind and say, "Gosh I can barely stand up in this, so all you people at home: DON'T TRY THIS!" It is for ratings and hype, nothing more. Their claims at "educating the public" are crap.

The second part of this problem and the ones who should be the most ashamed of themselves are the local media. They should be providing the information we need without the hype and hysterics. I know it is the only time the poor ignored, much maligned weatherpeople get to have their mugs on camera for more than a minute, but for Pete's sake, get the gleam out of your eye, the saliva off your chin and the glee out of your voice. It IS noticed. We all see it.

You are directly contributing to hurricane warning fatigue. See, over the past several days, you have scared people who aren't used to this, made them anticipate huge problems and destruction with your dire warnings. Then.......it rains. Oh MY GOD. It rained. It was windy. It was just like all those thunderstorms we've been having.

It was NOTHING.

So now they all feel silly, those people who got so scared. And they blame you, Mr. and Ms. Chicken Little Local Weatherperson. And next time, they aren't going to listen to you. And next time maybe they should. But they won't. No more than we veterans of many hurricane seasons listen to you.

You justify the theatrics to yourselves by believing that you are providing valuable information for the public. And you would be doing that if you just provided information that is in direct line with the level of threat. But you don't. You must hype it all up to the worst case imaginable scenario, get your face on the screen as much as possible, and mislead the people who are depending on you to tell the truth. And you wonder why it is more and more difficult to convince people to leave?

Because they don't believe you anymore. And why should they?

Oh. My. God.

The stork is virtually hemorrhaging babies.

Two words people: Birth. Control.

A few more words: Go. To. East. Cooper. Hospital.

After I left the hospital this morning (actually I ran, screaming down the hall and peeled out of the parking lot at about 90 mph), after I stopped by the grocery store because those spoiled rotten furbags who get to live here in the lap of feline luxury have decided that anything less than Friskies SHREDDED canned cat food is flat out kitten abuse and they have assured me that they have the SPCA’s number on speed dial, after I walked through a giant spider web going out to the creek (the spider web was giant, not the spider or I’d probably be rolling around the yard, screaming and hyperventilating) after all that, I made a couple neat discoveries.

The passion vine that Jason planted is loaded with flower buds.
My pepper plant has flowers on it.
Two sunflower plants have survived the squirrel and bunny hit squad.
The basil plant is flowering and I think it said, “Feed me.” when I walked by it.

And Thor did not run into the pantry and hide when I left the door open for half a second. I think my ADD kitty is growing up.

And I ate an entire plate of nachos with hot salsa and chopped up avocado for “breakfast”. Just wanted to let you day time normals know what we night shifters do when you are on your way to work.

My lost post from Thursday

Things I saw at the creek today:

Dozens of blue and green dragonflies.

A red winged blackbird.

A turtle.

Fresh racoon tracks to the water's edge.

A blue-claw crab (first I have seen here) patrolling the water's edge, looking for a fiddler crab to have for lunch.

A blue-claw crab swimming for its life across the water with a gang of minnows hot on its tail.

An egret.

Otto III, King of the Fiddler Crabs, standing his ground and waving his claw at me.

And in the good news department:

My son made Petty Officer, Third Class.
Whoo-hoo!! Conga-rats to him!!

Forget the National Weather Service! Forget all other hurricane predictions you have heard so far. This is the REAL deal.

Based on the fact that I am on the "lock down" team at the hospital, there will be: five hurricanes come in our general direction, but veer off (poor Wilmington, just sticking out there like a sore thumb). There will be two that come near enough for the "emergency management team" issue proclamations for us to pack up our "hurricane kits" and haul them to the hospital and prepare to stay for the duration. Neither of those hurricanes will hit Charleston and we will have to haul our stuff back home.

Now, I'm unable to predict if one will hit us directly or come close enough for us to get the effects because, yes, I am on the lock down team, but my fellow detainees are two of my favorite people to work with. So it's a toss up.

Quick! To the voting booths everyone! The gays are storming your churches, your synagogues, your mosques demanding to be married!

Last time this was the whip-up-the-vote issue, I had an acquaintance tell me that she was voting for whoever was against gay marriage because her pastor had told her that if "the law" was allowed, they would be "forced" to perform gay weddings in her church.

I asked her, "Is your pastor now required to marry anyone who asks?"

"No," she replied, "you have to take his pre-marital classes before he agrees to marry you."

"And he wouldn't be able to say no to a gay couple?"

"Not if the law passes."

I was going to try to explain to her that her pastor's right to refuse to marry a couple on any grounds wouldn't be affected by a gay couple being allowed to enter in to a civil union (I know a gentleman who was denied marriage at his fiancee's church because she is white and he is hispanic), but my head hurt too bad.

Anne Coulter was popping up all over my television today.

It isn't her political views that make me dislike her. I like lots of conservative Republicans.

It's the depth and strength of her bitter hatred and the vile accusations that flow from her lips like poison.

It must be eating away at her soul.

I'd feel sorry for her if I didn't get the impression that she likes being that nasty.

Or maybe I should feel sorry for her for liking it.

Okay, I'm probably the last person to know about this, but I saw a clip on some morning show this morning and went on-line to look it up.

I laughed until the cats hid under the bed.

Since my computer expert is not available (and I'm a total idiot) I can't do a link, so you're gonna have to google "evolution of dance" and click on the first link.

Update by "computer expert" - EVOLUTION OF DANCE.

Today I saw what is truly the first sign of summer: three young teens suntanning on a roof. Yes, laid out side by side on blankets, ladder propped up on the eaves.

Why, you ask?

Gosh! The closer you are to the sun, the faster you will tan. EVERYBODY knows that.

Really, I had to laugh. We used to do the same thing. We would use my rooftop because where the garage had been enclosed, there was a connected laundry room with a lower roofline. No ladder needed, just climb the iron trellis, fling a leg up on the shingles and pull yourself up. Girls down below then toss blankets, kitchen timer, radio, baby oil and lemons up.

Now, I was a few years behind the girls who put iodine in the baby oil they slathered on. We would spread out our blankets, cover every inch of skin with baby oil, then squeeze lemon juice in our hair (for highlights!). We would turn on the radio and lay back, carefully spreading our hair out in a fan around our heads and set the timer. Fifteen mintutes. Ding. Turn. Fifteen minutes. Ding. Turn.

This was just a few years away from the big education push about the dangers of the sun. I don't think we would have cared even if we knew, any more than those girls I saw today. You needed a base tan before you started cutting class to go to the Washout on Folly Beach to watch the surfers. (I was a geek- me and my geek friends went one row down from the Washout cos we weren't cool enough to actually hang out there, just cool enough to go watch. From a distance.)

I just hope those girls today don't have the pleasant experience of having a dermatologist remark, while burning pre-cancerous spots off your face, "Yes, you are of an age now, time to pay for the sins of your youth."

That was uncalled for.

True, but uncalled for.

Jason planted an herb garden in a big wooden tub right outside the back porch. It has basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley and catnip. There was an orange mint plant in there too, but it and the basil were growing so large, one had to go. So the orange mint got moved to where the sunflowers would have been if 1) the squirrels hadn't gotten to the seeds and 2) the rabbits hadn't gotten to what survived the squirrels.

Yesterday, I made spaghetti and walked out the door, picked a handful of basil and oregano and in to the pot they went. (Yes, I washed them first, for Pete's sake!)

So today, I went to Lowe's and bought a cayenne pepper plant, because in my cooking, that is an "herb".

I got so depressed, standing there with my little pepper plant in hand, looking at the tomatoes and squash plants and watermelon plants. They even had sweet potato plants.

But it has been tried. By better gardeners than me. By people with mesh netting and chicken wire cages around the plants. Between the squirrels, the rabbits, the racoons, the possums and the birds, nothing survives.

Oh, but how I miss it. Strolling out to the garden and picking what looks good for supper. Sitting on the back porch with a salt shaker and a big hot-from-the-sun tomato, so much juice running down your arm, you need to rinse off with the hose.

Hmmm.. maybe if we plant a row of "decoy" veggies along the marsh line....

I hate embarassing myself in public.

I leave the house this morning bright and early, well, after the Hwy 61 traffic has died down some. First stop. The gas station as I've been driving on a quarter tank for several days now.

I swipe my debit card, insert the nozzle and begin pumping. Thirty cents later, the pump cuts off. "What the F?" I ask. I take the nozzle out, put it back in and try again. I get two more cents worth in and it cuts off again.

I went inside where the clerk was less than helpful and insisted that the pumps were working just fine. So I stomp back to the truck, pull forward and try another pump. I'm really not happy about the thirty-two cent charge on my debit card.

Next pump. Same story. I get five cents on it this time. "For Pete's SAKE!" I am considering bashing the pump with the nozzle because I really don't want to have to drive up to the next gas station. And I don't want the people at the bank laughing at my now whopping five cent debit charge.

One thing about gas stations though. There is always a helpful good ole boy around. Good ole boy tries it for me. Then with good ole boy logic and reasoning, he asks the obvious question.

"Is it full already?"

"Can't be," I insist, "it was almost empty last time I drove it."

"Anybody drive it since?" good ole boy asks, displaying once again that now irritating logical thinking.

Yes. Jason did. Yesterday. To the gas station. To get gas for the lawn mower.
Gosh. This is embarassing. I hop in the truck, turn the key. Sure enough, the gauge swings all the way up past "F".

Now I feel like a big old burnt cheesy biscuit.

"I guess he wanted to surprise me," I say to good ole boy.

"Yes ma'am, I guess he did, too."

Does anyone else out there think the whole "we might have found Jimmy Hoffa" thing was supposed to ignite a media blitz that would eclipse the reports of the massacre at Haditha?

Or have I just relinquished the last bit of optimist in me and become completely cynical?

Sometimes when I'm eating at Moe's Southwest Grill in west Ashley, I feel a little sad. The restaurant sits where the Ultravision Theater used to be. I get especially sad when the weather turns hot and my mind and body switch to summer mode.

Back in the days when I needed a grown up to transport me, the Ultravision was a single theater. No eight movie selections there. One. And it was a grand one in my pre-teen experience. The rounded white brick building would virtually gleam in the sun. Once inside, it was a cool, dim cave of dark blood red carpet and hard wood flooring.

There was a real curtain across the screen, about a billion yards of heavy red velvet. I know it was heavy because I touched it once when I won a Wednesday Afternoon Movie door prize: a certificate for a small buttered popcorn. I marched from my red velvet chair to the stage with my ticket stub firmly in hand and shared the popcorn with my friend Kristi, but I think we wouldn't let her little sister have any. Sorry.

Wednesday afternoons in the summer was kid's day. Free prizes, G-rated movies, a chance for our moms to go browsing at the Grant's next door (think early Wal-mart) and just get rid of us for a while. Most of the fare was pap, 60's kid entertainmnet. I think I saw The Parent Trap there.

Oh, but it was the summer I turned twelve that brings a tear to my eye when I remember. I had read the book, of course. My mamma was a Southern belle and had raised me as best she could in that tradition, against the forces of military life and my three brothers.

So, I was anticipating as we waiting in the blinding heat, fidgeting in line for my popcorn and soda, downright impatient at the immature screaming and laughing at the prize drawings. Then finally, the lights dimmed and the curtains pulled up and away as regally as anything I'd ever seen in my short span on earth.

Gone With The Wind. Every girl should see it in the theater, full sized and bursting off the screen. The dresses, the dances, the war, the triumph. Clark Gable. Drool.

While every other girl was moaning over Ashley Wilkes, I thought he was a wimp. Give me my Rhett Butler. Give me my bad boy. Oh, those dark eyes, that handsome face. That hint of danger. That pure manly grown up-edness of him. It was almost too much for my pre-pubescent little emotions.

We all wanted to be as pretty and vivacious as Scarlett and as sweet and kind as Melanie. We wanted to wear pretty dresses and go to dances. We wanted to tackle life regardless of what the world threw our way.

So, I cried when I saw the bulldozers lined up, ready to begin tearing down the building to make way for Moe's and Mama Fu's Noodle House. I liked going to movies there and always hoped it would be showing in the "old" room, where I could smile at the ghost of myself.

Loki and Sutu the Amazing Shrinking Cat sleeping in the sun.
What a life.

I was thinking about the U-scan lanes at the grocery. I use them occasionally. I thnk we ought to get a discount, five or ten percent, off our bill. After all, we are saving them labor costs.


Free kitten with every purchase?

A couple months ago, Jason once again uttered the words, “You haven’t read (insert book title here)?” This time it was a book by Anne Fadiman, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”. The entire book is captured in a few lines: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, And the Collision of Two Cultures.

I liked the book because I like anything that explores the psycho-social aspects of any culture and the history of that culture. I really like to learn about cultures different than my own. I liked the book because it makes you look below the surface. It makes you squirm against prejudices you perhaps weren’t even aware you had.

I liked the book because the author tried not to lay blame, but to find a way to bridge the gulf between cultures.

I liked the book.

But I found myself having to constantly be aware that I was reading it with my Western Medicine is best prejudices. I am part of the medical community. I was schooled right here in the good old USA and received probably only a smidge more education on cultural differences than the medical students.

This is a story primarily about the doctors who made decisions about the child, Lia, who is central to the story. They made the decisions they thought were best for the medical care of the child. They thought the parents were non-compliant. There was a bad outcome, which may or may not have occurred whether the complex medical regime was followed to the letter or not.

This is my complaint: while the doctors were portrayed as caring competent professionals who were only doing what they thought best, the nurses were portrayed as mean and angry, only interested in having a quiet, compliant patient.

Okay. Here’s the thing. Nurses have a degree of responsibility that is completely out of line with their degree of authority. If anything goes wrong with any patient at any time, it is the nurse’s fault. (I know of a nurse right now who is fighting an official complaint made against her for not providing adequate pain medication, resulting in a patient’s suffering – she was late giving a dose because another patient’s heart had stopped and she was performing CPR. Where was another nurse to give the dose for her, you ask? There were only two of them for the 20 patients; they were both doing CPR until help arrived.)

So, you have a child in the hospital, with parents who don’t speak English, with no translators available, physician orders that the parents don’t want to have followed, orders that are reasonable for patient care, so the nurse is bound by law to follow them, add to it the other four or five patients that that one nurse is caring for. Sure the nurses are frustrated. But the constraints placed on them by law and their licensing board were not explored it any shape or form, they were the only bad guys in the book.

I had in the back of my mind to talk about a book, "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down". It is the story of a Hmong family with an epileptic child and her American doctors. I was asked my opinion as a neonatal/pediatric nurse. And it sprang to mind after reading (the way too early) frustrations of baby docs at patient "noncompliance". All I gotta say about that is get used to it.

But I've been rambling on incessantly recently. So a random kitten picture will have to suffice until I collect my thoughts on this wonderful (should be required reading) book.

Hurricanes for Yankees

Tropical Wave:

This is rain. For Pete’s sake.

Tropical Depression:

This is a thunderstorm, not the beginning of the end.

Tropical Storm:

Begin watching the hourly Weather Channel ‘Tropical Weather’ updates every so often. If you are a weather nerd, get a Hurricane tracking chart and begin plotting the storm’s course. (Note to amateurs: get a pack of colored pencils and plot the storms in different colors. Why? Because.)

Hurricane:

Panic!! You are going to DIE!! Realize the Caribbean is a long way away. Begin watching the twice hourly storm reports on the Weather Channel. If you cannot remain home to monitor this potentially life, limb and property threatening situation, compulsively check internet weather sites (I prefer Weather Underground, personally.)

Natives will begin to tell you stories about a friend of their cousin who was trapped in an air bubble inside her refrigerator along with a great white shark that had washed up with the storm surge in Hurricane Hugo. Don’t believe them. Unless it happened in McClellanville, then it might be true.

Understanding Hurricane Categories:

Okay, so the hurricane is now officially within 1000 nautical miles of your home and is predicted to pass within 100 miles of you, maybe, if the winds turn sideways and blow the moon one millimeter to the right. How do you estimate the level of panic to engage in?

Category One:

If this is your first hurricane, please feel free to pull out all the stops and panic as much as your heart desires. Buy everything on the hurricane supply list, engage in all the safety precautions. Or do like the natives: beer, chips, bring in the lawn chairs and the dog.

Category Two:

Same as above. Unless you live on the beach and the storm is coming in at high tide. Ignore the apocalyptic frothing weathermen. You are not going to die. Put the garbage cans in the garage.

Category Three:

Okay. Now start paying attention. DO NOT LISTEN to the local weathermen! Note the current location of the hurricane, its direction and speed of travel, then do the math yourself. Subtract six hours from ETA because that is how long it is going to take you to get from Charleston to Summerville and you should be safe in Summerville.

Do NOT put tape X’s on your windows. Tape will not stop a flying tree. You will look like an amateur and your neighbors will laugh at you. If you are rich, you will have ready made titanium shutters that just snap in place for every window on your house. Aren’t you special? If you are a normal person, you will go to Lowe’s and stand in line for 10 hours to buy plywood, then the Pig for beer. Then you and your idiot cousin will spend the day drinking and cussing and nailing random bits of wood over a couple of windows.

Category Four:

If you are a complete idiot, stay. Have fun. When the nice policeman comes around, just give him your name, address and next of kin’s contact information politely. Don’t tell him he is ruining the mood of your hurricane party.

If you plan to evacuate, it’s best to leave about three days before anyone knew there was a hurricane coming. If you wait until the last minute, bring lots of water and books. Blankets and a shovel come in handy for those urgent calls of nature on the side of the highway in full view of the other 100,000 refugees. Food for at least 12-24 hours is also a good idea for that lovely 0.0025 mile per hour “Up Close and Personal: I-26 Tour”.

Category Five:

The weathermen are finally correct: YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!!

Three years ago, I awoke in tears, with a misty memory of a dream demanding all my attention. I got up and went to the computer and wrote down what the little girl in the dream told me:

You are 4 or 5, but the age doesn't really matter, it could be any age. And no-one needed to explain it to you, the silence of the table. Loud metallic collisions of mix-matched silverware against cheap K-Mart plates are the dinner music of your kitchen.
And the words finally spoken. You don't need to know what they mean, the tone is enough. The half chewed mouthful of chicken turns to sand in your mouth. You are frozen, your gaze fixed on the suddenly fascinating landscape of your plate.
Keep eating. Keep eating, don't look up, don't say anything. You risk a glance at your cup of milk, desperately wanting to reach for it. A sip, that's all you need to help swallow down the lump. You must keep eating. But the glass is too full, your hands too shaky. You know if you try, you will spill some.
You push green beans into a neat pile while you work on swallowing. Waiting. Waiting. Soon it will come. Another exhange of words. The tears. Dishes crashing. A chair toppling backwards onto the faded dirty linolium. The pleading. Yelling fading away as the voices move to the back of the house. The slamming door.
You open your mouth to try to breath past the lump in your throat. Eat. Just keep eating. Clean your plate. Be a good girl. Drink the milk, careful now, don't spill any, but do it now before he comes back. Finish all your green beans. Good girls eat their veggies.
Then it comes, the opening of a door, the sound of heavy footsteps up the hall. Time stands still. You forget how to breathe.
He comes into the kitchen, his face twisted and his eyes, so different, like a monster's eyes. Those eyes don't look at you, but at your plate. He hesitates and you waver in an agony of indecision. Should you speak? Smile? Be quiet?
He relieves you of the decision with a curt, "You done?"
"Yes sir."
He waves at the table. "Clean up this fucking mess."
A moment later the television blares the living room. You scrape the plates as quietly as you can and stack them ever so carefully in the sink, having to go up on tip-toe so you can set them down without any clanking. You upright the fallen chair, push the others back into place and with a paper towel, wipe down the tabletop.
Even then, it isn't over. The sound of the television leaves you not knowing what to do. If you go in the living room, you may be bothering him. If you go to your room, you may be ignoring him. You walk quietly to the doorway between the two rooms, testing the atmosphere.
"All done?" he asks.
"Yes, sir."
He pats the couch. "Come watch the game with me then."
You climb carefully up on the saggy, stained couch cushions. There is a baseball game on. Very dangerous ground. He has tried many times to explain it to you and gets angry when you don't remember.
You sit very still, no jiggling or wiggling, no sir. You are a very good girl. You strain to hear any sound from the back room. After a while he gets up and goes into the kitchen.
That sound. The firm crisp sizzle of a can of Budweiser being popped open. For the rest of your life, you will be able to tell the difference in sound of a soda can versus a beer can being opened.
When he comes back, you take a huge chance. "The guys in the white shirts are the Atlanta Braves, right Daddy?" You had been studying them while he was in the ktichen.
He answers with a grunt and drinks down most of the beer in one swallow. His eyes have that look. That small hard look. You fold your hands together on your lap and wonder what you can do or say.
He yells at the television. All the time it seems. You look over at him during a commercial break. "You should be an umpire, Daddy. You are smarter than all of them."
Maybe if you can make him smile. Maybe if you can find the Daddy who sometimes brings you presents and gives you the best hugs. Maybe.
You words just seem to make him angry. He talks about things you don't understand. The boss. The government. Your mother. He lapses back into silence but he doesn't seem angry anymore, he looks sad.
You rise up on your knees and reach out to give him a hug. "I love you, Daddy." It isn't a betrayal to your mother who lies weeping on her bed behind a closed door. It is an attempt to help her. If you can make him happy, if you can make him smile.
He pushes your little arms away. "Christ, get the fuck offa me. Almost made me spill my beer. Isn't it your bedtime or something?"
And you've failed again. You lay in bed that night, listening to the pop of beer cans, the blare of the television eventually drowned out by closer voices. And you don't have the words for it but the anger and venom and hatred in those voices burns through you. Burns right through the blanket that is over the pillow that is over the hands that are over the ears. Burns right through and damages something in your soul.

That little snippet of a dream went on to become a full length novel. When people ask where I "get my ideas", they don't really believe that I don't find ideas, they find me.

I hate migraines. Really. I do. It's not so much the pain, as I'm fairly lucky with mine, I rarely get incapacitated. It's photosensitivity and the visual disturbances that leave me capable of nothing except staring at walls.

But that was yesterday, today is today and I have once again proven my insanity to the lady who runs the One Hour Photo machine at CVS.


Isn't that the sweetest face ever?


Duuude...this is some good sh..stuff, maaan.
Fresh nip, far out.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the day of my birth. I'm not a big birthday person, I've never had a party (since becoming an adult) and it often takes me a moment struggling with my math skills to come up with an accurate age. I simply do not care about the numbers.

As I have told many people, each passing decade seems to get better and better, so what's to argue or regret? Life is good. Like just this week. I got to meet some very interesting and very friendly people. I got a bunch of new music - Jackson Browne and the Allman Brothers - good thing Jason doesn't know what happens when you mix a Southern gal, Lynyrd Skynyrd and alcohol. Yeeee-haaaw! Kid, I kid. I got one of my mom's secret ingredient German Chocolate cakes. Yum.

And perhaps the most unusal gift I received came from Mother Nature herself. I was sitting out on my little "dock" at the creek, watching the tide roll in. I noticed that the current didn't seem quite as swift and that the water was almost to my toes. In a few minutes, the scattering of leaves and sprig of pinestraw that were passing by slowed to a stop. After what I'm sure was less than a minute, the leaves did a slow spin and turned to head back down to the Ashley River.

I'd never actually watched the tide turn before. It was amazing.

Now the albinos are upset about The Da Vinci Code. I read where there have been 68 evil albino characters in movies since 1960. That is a lot since, I suppose, the albino population can't be very large. So maybe they have a point.

I haven't read the book. Nor do I plan to. Not that it offends me or anything, but that I've heard it isn't that well written. I tend to "get going" as someone so delicately puts it (others call it ranting) when I read something that is poorly written but managed to get through the labryinthe of the publishing world and make it to print. But that's a topic for another day.

I really don't get the uproar. It's fiction. I understand that it is fiction based on some centuries old conspiracy theory, but it is still fiction. I can even slightly understand where Christains might not like Jesus being portrayed in a manner that is inconsistant with the teachings of their respective branches.

But weren't we, as a nation, just rolling our eyes and sneering at the Muslims who were rioting over images of Allah? Yeah, I know, it is a far far worse reaction to kill people and burn buildings than to hold press conferences denouncing the book, the movie and everyone associated with it, promoting it or even planning to see it.

It's the same issue though. It's the same egocentric attitude. My religion is right, I am right, you are wrong. It is silly and wrong to be upset about a cartoon image of your (false) God, but it is a horrible thing to make a movie depicting my (true) God in a less than perfect light.

My God's better than your God. Which is what both Christians and Muslims believe. So how do we ever hope to have peace when neither side will allow that others have the right to believe differently?

After a long month of avoidance and denial, I have come to the conclusion that I have accomplished nothing more than some excessive 'throat-clearing' in my work-in-progress.

It isn't all crap. Just most of it. Blech. Time to crank up the printer, find any one of the ten thousand red pens that the kittens have distributed in various closets and under chairs, sofas and rugs and get to work.

I hate not being able to write a perfect first draft. Really. I know. I'm crazy. It should be possible.

I just, as many amateur writers do, started in the wrong place. So I just have to rewrite. That's all. No problem. Sigh.

I think a nap is called for at this point.

When I was on call Saturday night, I spent some time flipping through the TV channels. I stopped when I saw a face I knew I knew, but couldn't place on one of the news channels.

The very pretty woman was talking about post-partum depression and how in her case it almost led to post-partum psychosis. At one point the interviewer said something inaudible (at least to me) and the woman cut her eyes at him. "Tom who?" she said in a tone that could have opened flesh.

Well, now I like this chick. While I was fumbling for the remote to turn up the sound, the woman said, "His mission impossible to is carry a baby and give birth. Then he can have an opinion." (I'm quoting from memory so it may not be exact)

Then it dawned on me. It was Marie Osmond, who now has eight kids, and had an extremely bad time with PPD.

How much of a heinous disgusting man-pig do you have to be to get Marie Osmond that pissed off at you?

But I found a wonderful new respect for her. She's lived it, survived it and made it part of her mission in life to help other woman.

Go Marie!

I am a bit discombobulated this morning. I am very German, I love my routines and my normal routine is completely out of whack. I was out sick from work on Friday, a rare thing, but fever plus stomach bug isn't something you tend to want to share with brand new humans. Then I went to work as usual Saturday, only to be sent home after four hours for low census. I was officially "on-call", meaning I had to go back if they needed me. I ended up sleeping on the couch because of my phobia about not hearing the phone ring if I am comfy in the bed. I woke up at seven a.m., sweating and covered in cats, Sutu sitting Snoopy-the-vulture-like on my chest, staring down at me, ever so politely asking if I had entertained any idea of feeding him as he was about to starve to death.

Then I went to bed and slept another couple of hours, because I am still working a 12 hour night shift tonight. But I feel completely at loose ends. I don't know what to do with myself during the daylight hours on a weekend.

The good part is that I actually get to go spend a couple of hours with my mom on Mother's Day, something I haven't been able to do in four years.

Thor the basket case.


Yes, I am perfectly comfortable!


Ooops, I mean, I meant to do that!

My hanging out at the creek side buddy. He was either trying to scare me or impress me with his display.

You know, I try not to resort to mindless fluff all the time. (Pictures of the best kittens on the planet is NOT fluff, thank you very much!)

And I try not to be a person too caught up in my own personal stuff to care about the wider world.

But there is a limit.

Today I had to meet my mom at the auto repair shop and drive her to work without having had a shower. We have a house guest who likes 45 minute showers. Jason apparantly can take a three minute lukewarm to cold shower. I cannot.

Then I had to try to figure out what the hell my mom should do about this so-called prescription program that I truly believe was designed to so bewilder and annoy the elderly (and the daughters who have to slog through it) that the entire program fails. I really can't see any improvement for poor and working poor seniors (why do you think my mom is approaching 71 and still working full time? For her health/prescription plan) The cheapest Medicare option (and there are dozens and dozens of options) is still way more expensive than the one she has now. So she doesn't want to sign up, because it will be more expensive. But then, how expensive is it going to be if she has to sign up later? And gets "penalized" for not signing up now?

This drives me insane. The plan should be: if you are retired, here are your drugs. Even just have a co-pay on a sliding scale depending on your income. For Pete's sake.

Then I just spend $600 on new glasses. My insurance covers an eye exam, but not glasses. They want you to know you are blind, but not do anything about it. See, I have to get bifocals and I am (really) just about legally blind. So my only options for bifocals that my lenses will fit were these big ole giant Sally Jesse Rapheal glasses. So I bought two pair. One for distance. One for mid-distance so I can see the computer screen both here at home and at work without hunching forward.

Then I found a really cool shirt that I really like.

Then I came home to a message from my mom asking if I'd cured all her Medicare blues yet. (NO)

Then I made the giant mistake of turning on the news while I ate lunch.

I can't deal with it today. It makes me just want to scream until something ruptures. Someone please explain: 1. Why was the NSA allowed to deny investigators access to the information it needed? When did the investigated get to start running the show? 2. Just what exactly does the government plan to do with all those millions of phone call records (thanks BellSouth, first you call my freaking house six times a day, now you give my records away?) And, how much freaking money was spent on gathering, sorting, and maintaining these records? Enough to pay for my mom's blood pressure medication? Enough to send a home health nurse to visit an at risk infant so it doesn't die in its first month of life?

Okay. That's it. I'm done. Cute kitten pictures at eleven.

Loki learned how to open the cabinet under the sink - where all the cleaning supplies are kept. Until we can get a childproof lock, Jason used these plastic ties to hold the doors shut. Funny the things cats find endlessly fascinating. They spent several hours trying to figure it out.

Yesterday evening as I sat on the back porch, watching Jason try to blind/maim/burn himself with a power drill and a treated wooden planter, I noticed a little tiny bird sitting near the ground in the branches of the Carolina Jasmine I have growing on the fence.

I went to get a closer look. That's when I noticed Mamma Mockingbird on the fence post. I couldn't quite hear her over the power drill, but I know that mockingbirds are vicious little snots about their babies. So I backed off. I figured she was waiting until the humans cleared out to rescue her fledgling.

Later that evening, I went out to check on the baby, as I was worried about him. There is a lot of wildlife roaming through my back yard, especially at night. And for my concern, I got dive bombed by both Mamma and Pappa Mockingbird. I tried to explain to them that I was just as worried about their baby as they were, but they weren't having it. And I was having Hitchcockian bird flashbacks and had no desire to be all pecked up like Tippi, so I went back in.

This morning, I went to check again. See paragraph above.

This afternoon, after Jason and I celebrated Confederate Remembrance Day by having lunch at Atlanta Bread Company. I went to check again. Baby bird was flying around with his Momma. Safe and happy.

But she still threatened to dive bomb me.

I may let the cats out.

The headline screams at me from the monitor. “U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says.” (CNN) I click to MSNBC. The news there isn’t much better: “U.S. gets poor grades for newborns’ survival. Nation ranks near bottom among modern nations, better only than Latvia.”

World wide, four million babies die every year. Two million in their first day of life, two million more in their first month.

Four MILLION. That is almost 110,000 a day. Most who die are in third world countries, 99% according to research done by the Save the Children organization. Melinda Gates wrote in a forward to the Save the Children report, “It’s tragic that millions of newborns die every year, especially when those deaths are so easily preventable. Three out of four deaths could be avoided with simple, low-cost tools that already exist, such as antibiotics for pneumonia, sterile blades to cut umbilical cords and knit caps to keep babies warm.” (CNN)

Simple. If we could stop trying to kill each other and start trying to help each other. The poorest outcomes for both mothers and babies are in countries in which there is war or civil strife.

The statistics for America are that for every 1,000 babies born, five will die in their first month of life. We are tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia on this. It is even worse if you are an African-American mother: nine babies die for every 1,000 born.

Why? Lack of preventative health care. Poverty. Our abysmal teenage pregnancy rates. Poor maternal health.

Emory University health policy expert Kenneth Thorpe: “Our health care system focuses on providing high-tech services for complicated cases. We do this very well. What we do not do is provide basic primary and preventative health care services. We do not pay for these services, and do not have a delivery system that is designed to provide either primary prevention, or adequately treat patients with chronic diseases.” (MSNBC)

What to do about it? That’s the problem. Sex education works. No it doesn’t; it promotes promiscuity. Abstinence works. No it doesn’t, it keeps teens ignorant of birth control options. We are as confused about the solution as we are about sex itself.

From the American Medical Student Association 1998-1999 National Initiative on Teen Pregnancy:

“Even with decreases in the birth rate over the past several decades, the birth rate to teenagers in the United States is considerably higher than in most other industrialized countries. The birth rate to teenagers in the United States is twice that of Great Britain; more than four times that of Sweden and Spain; seven times that of Denmark and the Netherlands; and 15 times greater than the birth rate in Japan. However, teenage sexual activity in the United States and these other countries does not vary significantly. There are several possible explanations for the higher birth rate in the United States. In the United States, society identifies teenage sexuality, not just teen pregnancy, as a social problem. According to one article, this negative focus on teen sexuality causes adolescents to feel greater embarrassment about obtaining contraceptives. Other reasons for the higher teen pregnancy rate in the United States are less access to contraceptives and health care for adolescents and a larger poverty class.”


I call this the “good girls don’t plan sex” problem. Despite the constant in-your-face sex in movies, songs, music videos, television programs, magazines, despite every hormone in a teen’s body screaming for sex, it is still thought of as "being bad”. So therefore, if a girl goes out and gets contraception before she has sex, then she perceives herself as being “bad”. So what does she do? She “lets” herself get “swept away” in the moment. Then it was just an accident and she isn’t a wanton slut who wanted to have sex.

And sex education in high school, whether abstinence-only or the full blown deal isn’t going to help much. Studies prove that these programs work, each in their own way. But our (U.S) age at first sexual intercourse still one of the lowest (15.8 years)

The problem is that like most social problems, Americans want it to be simple. This is the problem, this is the solution. Be solved.

But it doesn’t work like that. Teen pregnancy, teen sex is a complex problem. Girls get pregnant for a whole lot of reasons and for many of them, a course in Understanding Your Body isn't going to help much. Especially since we tend to wait until high school to provide sex ed and by then, the danger group is already having sex, if not their first babies.

In all the conflicting data out there on this subject, a few truths stand out. Girls who delay sexual intercourse and/or use contraceptives for birth control and STD protection: come from intact functional families or have an involved, caring parent who supports and encourages them; have a good relationship with their father; have been encouraged to excel at school; have high self esteem.

I’d go on, but you get the point. Girls who have been sexually molested, girls who grow up feeling unloved, girls who perceive they have no future, girls who are looking for a way out of an abusive family situation, girls who have given up on themselves are much more likely to engage in sexual activity and less likely to use contraceptive.

Sex education needs to start early, in infancy. From birth to three years of age, a child’s brain is still growing, still laying down pathways and developing a core personality. From elementary school, a child is learning who they are and how they fit in to the world. They are learning what they can become.

Sex education does not have to mean body parts and hormone cycles. It means self esteem and confidence.

And I know I left out the boys who are 50% responsible for this problem. But the facts are that boys do not get pregnant and give birth. Girls still bear the brunt of responsibility in child rearing. Girls have to learn to protect themselves and their futures. Whether that means knowing how to say “no” or knowing how to obtain and use contraceptives without fear or shame, that depends on the girl.

Ten years ago, a very nice orthopedic surgeon patched up the inner workings of my right knee and told me that any further work would be useless. He said the only cure for my disintegrating joints is to replace them.

Which sounds so tempting. Take out the old, painful, can't do anything joints. Have yummy fresh new joints that allow me to do all sorts of wild and crazy things. Like stand up. Or kneel down. Or simply squat to retreive something off the the floor. Hey, I could ride a bike again!

But then I really think about it. And even if I wouldn't get fired for taking three to four months off for the operation and rehab time, I don't know if I could force myself to do it just yet. I mean, it's not like I'm in a wheelchair or something.

It's just the idea of sawing through the bones in both my legs, then drilling screw holes in them to attach titanium (or whatever it is they use now) knee caps, makes me cringe a bit.

Plus, I'd have to have them both done at the same time because I am a major whiney ass titty baby about pain. I don't think if I did one, I could ever make myself go back and do the other. And Jason would probably strangle me out of sheer frustration and misery.

But the surgeon had said I'd have to have it done before a certain age and that age is rapidly approaching and he is turning out to be right. And it pisses me off because this is all my father's fault. He and his lousy ass yankee genes. Everything bad is from his side. Malfunctioning joints. Graying hair at 25. Alzheimers for Pete's sake, every-one on his side is eat up with it. Only good thing I got from him was my height. My mom's side has the good stuff, young skin, a tendency to drink excessively and eccentricity (read: mild mental illness, but in a fun way).

So I guess I need to start planning this. Save up all my time off at work, be extra nice to the boss so she won't fire me. Be extra nice to Jason so he won't kill me. Concetrate on how I could buy a Mini-Cooper if I have new knees, or a VW Bug. I could so totally get in and out of a Bug if I had functioning knee caps. I could actually throw out that three year old bag 'o frozen peas in the freezer. (Flashback: Jason rummaging thru freezer for dinner, "What about these peas?" Me: NOOOOO!! Not the peas! Never, ever eat those peas!")

And, an extra added bonus (see list of "good" mom traits): narcotics!

Picture in leiu of thinking weekend



We sent my mom to New York City for her 70th birthday. She and her sister from California met up there for five nights/six days. They saw three Broadway plays, went to museums, shopped and generally acted like giddy girls. That made me happy.

I took my mother for a doctor's appointment this morning. She was getting a nerve block and they required her to have someone to drive her. Fine.

So we get there and of course, the waiting room is almost full. My mom gives her name to the receptionist. The receptionist asks if she has a driver. My mom gestures to me like I'm a prize on the Price is Right.

"Yes. This is my daughter."

I smile.

Then she does it. Again.

"She's a NURSE."

Receptionist lady doesn't give a rat's patootie, she's got a ton o' nurses back there with her. But every little old lady and man in the waiting room swivels around to stare at me. One lady even moved her purse off the chair next to her. She did everything but pat the chair seat.

See, my mom doesn't hear it. No, this is the South, people are too polite to interrupt our conversation. No, they wait. They wait until my mom is called back.

When I'm alone.

"Oh, excuse me, did I hear right? You are a nurse?"

I want to shout, "NO, I am not. My mother is crazy. She has Alzheimers. She doesn't know what she is saying. She thinks my brother is Douglas MacArthur."

But of course, I can't do that. That wouldn't be polite. And it'd be a lie.

See, they have questions, these little old ladies and men. They have detailed medical histories. (The first time I met my late next door neighbor, she told me how big her hemorrhoids were. Thanks for sharing.) They are the last of the generation that never question their doctors, so they are a little confused on diagnoses, medications, treatment courses.

But I don't know nothing 'bout no old people. I am lucky, because I have that copout. I'm a neonatal nurse. If you are over two weeks old, I don't know what to do with you.

I know it isn't just nursing. I'm sure doctors get asked for free medical advice, lawyers for free legal advice, accountants for free tax evasion hints.

But I'm supposed to be NICE about it. I'm SUPPOSED to answer all their questions because I'm a nurse. I'm supposed to be all Julia Margolis on ER and hunt you and your answers down on my own time and travel 100 miles into the most dangerous neighborhood on earth just because I'm a NURSE.

If a doctor or lawyer shuts down someone looking for advice, well, that just how they are. What more could you expect from them?

But I'm supposed to just be thrilled to death to discuss your seeping wounds, your diarrhea, your hemorrhoids, your blood sugar levels, your oozing rashes. And look at them too! With a smile.

I have a friend who is a teacher. He gets discouraged when he tells people what he does, they say "Oh, that is horrible. I couldn't do that."

Everytime he says that, I roll my eyes. No one ever expects him to stop grocery shopping to teach them how to solve a quadratic equation, do they?

Don't get me wrong. I like my job. I really do. When I'm at work. That's all.

Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself. I really am an idiot. I was on my front porch, black Sharpie pen in hand, laughingly sneering that the crazy yard lady across the street is apparently out of town and is having people come over not to feed/water any pets, but to tend to her yard. She has babysitters for her yard!

I thought that was weird, then I remembered that I was on my way out back with aforementioned Sharpie to remark the grave stones in my kitty graveyard out back.

So who is weird?

Answer: we all are in some way.

(Jason don't look)

In memory:


Miss Kitty


Conan
Our sweet sweet baby who deserved so much more life.

Okay. I've never considered procrastination a bad thing, but since I've been caught at it twice in about as many weeks, I figured I'd better get off my lazy butt.

I have completed the package for the agent. It only awaits Jason's label making skills. Which means I tried and failed miserably to figure out how to make big labels. I can make small labels. Really, I can.

I have vacuumed and swept and dusted the entire house. That includes the big chore of vacuuming all the cat hair off of chairs, sofas, cat trees, cat beds, curtains, and hunting down and killing the fist sized hair balls that will someday morph in to actual real live cats one day.

Then I finally finished the big job. The room formerly known as my son's, which is supposed to be a storage-for-his-stuff/guest room. I had it all nice and neat, his things boxed up and labeled. Musical equipment over here, computer equipment over there, clothes here, books, CDs and DVDs there.

Then he came home for ten days.

So, I've repacked, restacked and recleaned the entire room. The cats are happy because I've rotated the box fronts and now they have entirely new surfaces to scratch down to literally nothing.

I have paid bills, I have washed dishes. I have even remembered to take something out of the freezer for dinner. Although I noticed Pennachio's sign said it was "filet and lobster" night tonight. Yumm-O!

I have carried some stuff out to the shed. I have left a pile of stuff for Jason to put up in the attic. I know my limitations and that ladder with these knees and that elbow....don't think so.

I have captured the cats who escaped while I was taking stuff out. Sutu and Thor. Sutu went right back inside when I told him. The guy next door (not the old guy, the guy with the ugly pile o' trash) got treated to the sight of moi in my lovely pink and red polka dot pajama bottoms and hot pink t-shirt standing in the middle of the yard and yelling, "Thor, you better get your skanky kitten ass back in that house right now!" You really do have to yell at him like that. I swear he is the product of some weird science project gone awry. He has a dog brain in a cat body.

But he is sooooooo cute.

Okay. I can begin procrastinating again now.

Why do people get all huffy in traffic along Highway 61? It's 61, dude. No, there is not a wreck ahead slowing things down, this is the way it is. All. The. Time. Stop swinging out to make sure that there is traffic in front of me. Go live some where else if it's going to give you a stroke or at least try to pull off the road before you have it.

Why do I pay good money to let some-one slather hot wax on my eyebrows and rip the hair out by the roots? (Actually there is an answer to this one. It's because while Brooke Shields may be able to get away with the caterpiller eyebrow look, I, being no Brooke Shields, cannot.)

Why do I get all teary eyed when that old couple from around the block go out for "walks" on their matching Hover-rounds?

Why, when presented with a loblolly pine seedling, did I have to warn Jason not to plant it too close to the house or the insurance company will raise the rates or make us cut it down as soon as it gets grown.

Why am I sitting here thinking up why things when I should be finishing the query package for the agent that was recommended to me?

Okay, I'm going now.

My mom bought me a diary for my tenth birthday. It was one of those cloth covered books with the little teeny-tiny sliver key to lock your thoughts away. I recorded the events of my life for two days before I realized I could do better.

I started making up stuff: adventures out on the high desert (we were living in El Paso, Texas at the time), daring rescues of helpless kittens, brave stands against mean teachers, even one sizzling romance in which I handed the object of my affections a note in math class, with the age-old question," "Do you like me? Circle: Yes No Maybe". In my story, the note came back with the "Yes" not only circled, but with two exclamation points.

Swoon.

Then my two older brothers found the key and gained access to my entire body of work. It was shared. With many. You-know-who included. My first critiques were not kind. The worst though, was the editorial review.

The entire story came out after my mom caught me and Mike fighting in the hall. Well, I was fighting, clinging with one hand to his shirt, flailing away madly at his back with the other. He was swinging his body from side to side, bouncing me off the walls, trying to dislodge me.

I was sent to my room for hitting my brother (of all things! He was 15, I was 10. He'd once bounced on my stomach until I threw up!) and pending review of my diary.

Later that day, after my dad got home, I was called to the editorial review board, I mean the kitchen. My parents were concerned. They wanted to know, did I know I was "making up lies" or did I really think these things were true? Since I hadn't made any conscious acknowledgment to myself that I was actually writing fiction, writing essentially what were short stories, it never entered my mind to use that defense. I did my best to explain, that yes, I knew it wasn't true, I was just trying to make my diary more exciting.

I was so ashamed that I sat on my bed and tore every page in the diary in to the smallest bits I physically could. It took me many many years to "come out of the closet" with the fact that I was still writing. And hanging out with other writers. And I liked it and it was a big part of who I am. And I'm not going to stop writing.

I wish writers had a snappy little motto. Maybe I'll write one.

My grandfather and all his great-grands (at the time) many many years ago. That cute little guy with the big grin and the red print shirt is now floating around on a Navy ship and the little blond guy next to him is 6'6" tall. Sigh. They are all grown ups now.

Keith Richards fell out of a palm tree and gave himself a concussion.

I can't even begin to imagine, well, hell, yes I can.

And speaking of, has anyone on the planet other than my son and I seen the Saturday Night Live skit where Mike Meyers plays Mick Jagger and Mick Jagger is playing Keith Richards? "That's not even a language, it's like some language twins make up."

Wicked funny.

Flying to Japan

When I was eight years old, the Air Force in its infinite wisdom decided to transfer the family to Wakkanai, Japan. Never heard of it? No-one has. Except those who did time, I mean served, there. Picture the island of Japan. See that little itty bitty part sticking up way on top, almost touching Siberia? That's it.

All I remember about the trip was being very confused when we got on what I thought was a pink plane in San Francisco and discovering that it was really silver when we landed in Hawaii. And a little arched bridge in the Honolulu Airport that spanned a fish pond full of koi. I used to think there was something seriously wrong with me, lke a brain tumor or more likely (knowing my two older brothers) a history of a serious head injury, because I never could remember more than little bits of our travels.

The mystery was solved by my second oldest brother, Mike, who many years later told me, "It was the cough syrup."

"Cough syrup?" I asked, a horrible creeping feeling coming over me. I had a sudden flashback of my mom and that big black purse she carried, the background noise of flight announcements, the brown glass bottle and the tablespoon, wrapped in tinfoil.

"The air on the plane is so dry," my dear sweet mother LIED to us, "this will help."

She drugged us. Drugged us with Robitusson, the good stuff with codiene. Real hard core narcotics. No wonder I'd thought the plane was pink! No wonder I never remembered anything. I spent half my travel time in a coma.

I had to forgive her though. Really. She was a sixties housewife with a sixties husband who did nothing with the children but expect her to keep us in line. There were four of us. Three boys, one girl. Aged thirteen to three. A trans-Pacific flight with at least four connections. I'd have drugged me too.

There was a custom in those days of hiring local women as maids and babysitters. We had a nanny back in Germany, the one who gave me my family nickname, Schatzie. Took me fourteen grueling years to kill that one. Yeah, I know you had a dog named Schatzie, believe me, every-freaking-body did.

In Japan, we had Tamatsa-san or somtimes, Obaasan which meant Grandmother. She was a tiny woman, even by Japanese standards. At eight, I saw eye-to-eye with her. She didn't speak much English and would yammer at us in high pitched rapid-fire Japanese, most often shaking a finger up in to my older brothers' faces.

Wakkanai was a wonderful place to be an eight year old tomboy. We used to go down to the beach and look at Siberia (well, not really the actual Siberia, but a lower region of it) with my dad's binoculars. It was cold up there. Tons of snow. The base was separated from town by several low hills. When the snow came, usually in September, we could go sledding or skiing, or in my case, get sent over the ski jump on a toboggan and crash through the ice of the man-made gully at the bottom of the hill. One guess as to who set me off on that particular adventure.


The "hills" before a good snowfall.



My father who was 6'2" providing scale for a snowbank.

But I had a lot of fun with Tamatsa-san. While my mom was off trying to be the perfect military wife and earn her husband a promotion by playing cards and drinking Mimosas at the NCO club, I would go downtown with Tamatsa whenever I could.

It was with her that I drank green tea for the first time. Shopkeepers kept it warm and ready for customers braving the 20 below wind chills. She also took me to the wharves where the fishermen would come back with their days catch. They would take the octopi by the tentacles and swing them, bashing the bodies against the concrete sides of the pier. Tamatsa rubbed her belly and winked at me when I asked why. I still don't know why. Tenderizing, I suppose.

It was Tamatsa who handed me a strip of what I thought was beef jerky, then cackled like a crazy woman at my reaction when I bit in to it. She nudged the little man behind the counter until he laughed too. It was dried squid. Considered a treat. It tasted like licking the inside of an aquarium would, I imagine. Not that I've ever done that, unless it was on an airplane, then how would I know?

You would think that after the squid incident, I'd be a little more careful about accepting food from her. But they looked so familiar, that warm brown chocolate, the round shape. Chocolate covered raisins, yummy. Except these raisins had a strange bitter bite to them. I spit out the remains in to my hand. It was an ant. Okay, the woman was evil. She had just fed me an ant. She yammered in Japanese, the held up a bag. I could see those weren't no chocolate covered peanuts, no sir, you could still see the bent legs of the grassphopper buried beneath the chocolate. After that I got in to a lot of trouble for picking at my food at the dinner table. But hell, I was trying to make sure it was safe. Woman was trying to poison me.



The Sapporo Ice Festival. It still goes on today. These are building sized ice sculptures, hand carved back then. For an idea of the scale, that black "line" through the picture is a telephone wire. Only a few pictures have survived the many moves between Japan and here and I can't find my favorite from the trip to Sapporo, which was a life sized crystal clear ice carving of Cinderella's carriage, complete with horses.

And thank you to the several local bloggers who have recently written about their travels/childhoods in strange lands. It inspired me to look to my own memories.

Republican senators version of a great idea: "Hey, all those whiners out there are complaining about high gas prices. Let's wave a hundred dollars in their greedy fat faces and they'll start drooling like Pavlov's dogs. Then we can make all our oil company benefactors happy by putting the opening of the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve to drilling on the same bill. Those people out there are so self-centered, they'll forget that the majority of Americans don't want to defile the Alaskan Wilderness, they'll just want their money money money."

Aren't the conservatives and Republicans out there tired of being manipulated yet? Aren't they tired of being treated like a means to an end rather than the people who are being represented?

Oh, and wasn't it just TWO days ago that Bushie was telling us that the problem wasn't the amount of oil available, but that we didn't have enough refineries to make gasoline? That's why he reduced environmental standards, so the few refineries that we have can make gasoline faster out of the adequate amount of oil we have? So, why exactly do we need to open the Alaskan wilderness? Don't we need to open more refineries?

Oh, yes, I know, someone is going to trot out the "dependence on foreign oil" defense. How about this? How about finding economical alternatives that don't leave us dependent on any non-renewable substance, foreign or national?

In the mail yesterday was one of the two magazines I subscribe to: National Geographic (which other than liking it, it was one of those things we couldn't afford while I was growing up, so now I must have it.)

In this issue is an article about the Judas Gospels. I haven't read it yet, as by the time I sat down with the magazine, it was late and I had a glass of wine sloshing around, depressing my neurons and this seems to be one of them smart people articles that is going to take my full attention.

I was struck by one line as I skimmed the first page, that these findings herald the "return of the most hated man in the world". Or maybe it was "in history", but there is a sleeping cat on my lap and I can't get up right now to check.

I don't understand this. (The most hated part, not the sleeping cat part.) It goes right along with that old bit of hatred, "The Jews killed Jesus". Which I also do not understand.

If you believe the basic story of Jesus, that God sent him to die for our sins, then how can you lay blame or have anger or hatred for the part anyone played in the sequence of events that surely God had planned.

I mean, if the Jewish powers to be at the time hadn't wanted to shut Jesus up, if Pilate hadn't gone along with them, if Judas hadn't pointed him out, if the crowd had chosen to spare Jesus instead of Barabas, well, where the hell would we be?

Jesus would have lived and God's plan would have been thwarted.

But I'm probably just, in the words of my former pastor, "thinking too much and asking too many questions" and I should, "be quiet and be-lieve."

Religions are strange.

While running my errands this morning (half the list done!), I drove by the gas station. Holy digits, Batman! I only buy gas maybe once a month or so, therefore I rarely pay attention to the numbers.

But I was sooo thrilled upon returning home to find that Bushie is going to try to solve the high gas problems by "temporarily" reducing the environmental standards refineries are expected to follow. That's great, make it cheaper for them to refine the gas and those sweet little old white men running the oil companies are just going to drop prices. Don't mind that black shit coming out of the back of your car, it's only going to hurt birds and people who walk around outside.

And, um, "temporarily"? Like income taxes were initially supposed to be "temporary"? Or welfare was "temporary"?

In Bushie's defense, he did give his oil buddies a little no-no smack on the hands by threatening to take away the billions in tax credits and free money we taxpayers give them every year.

Okay, yes, I fill up about once a month. I drive the truck formerly known as "my son's", I think it's a Ranger or something. How do I do it?

I live within three miles of anything I consider worth putting a bra on and going to. (Except my vet, it is 40 miles roundtrip to my vet: Chad Reynolds at Central Vet Clinic on Central Ave in Summerville. He and his entire staff ROCK!! If you go, tell them I sent you so I can get a $10 credit on my next bill)

Also, I follow these simple driving rules:

1. I drive the speed limit.
2. I do not tail-gate (brake, speed up, brake, speed up, sound familiar?)
3. I do not drive up to red lights or stop signs, I remove my foot from the gas and coast up.
4. Zero to 60 in five seconds is a bad thing.

I do however, play my radio way to loud, once a policeman told me to turn it down. But it was Kashmir by Led Zep. It's the LAW that you play it that loud.

Ah, Tuesday. The day I love my work schedule. See, I left work yesterday morning at 7:30 am and don't have to be back until 11:00 pm Friday.

But there is a drawback. I have entirely too much time on my hands. Not that I don't have enough to do. Just too much time to do it in, which lends itself to all sorts of horrible procrastination. This is why I could never own a business or be self employed, I have very little self discipline to make myself do "work" when I could just as easily be reading a marvy book.

The intent of my schedule was to allow me a long stretch in which to write. Which it has. I have one manuscript, semi-polished, ready to start making its way out in to the cold, cruel world. I have a second under way.

But I also have a house to maintain, a yard that needs attention, three cats, one pretty neat fella, an elderly mother, a couple of friends, all the books I could ever want to read and all these new interesting blogs to read.

I'm easily distracted, that's all. But last night (hint, if you even think that you might have a touch of food poisoning, don't drink two glasses of wine) I made a list. Of all the things I need to do today. Or by Wednesday. I haven't quite figured it out yet.

Example number 1001 that working night shift isn't good for your brain cells: butter knife in the fridge, butter in the sink.

I think the birthday trip has been decided to be Lake Lure, NC with side trips to Chimney Rock Park, Bat Cave (because I love the bat wing emblem on their fire engines), Black Mountain and Montreat. I've found a cute little cabin at the Gaestehaus Salzberg. Which appeals to the German in me. With the price of gas continuing to rise, it's a close destination.

Ever notice how gas prices shoot way, way up, then drop down, and we are all happy and relieved about it, but the prices are still 10-20 cents a gallon higher than they were before the spike?

But it's one of those areas where I have to shrug it off. People complain, I ask them if they remember 1973-74. What were people driving? Giant, gas gobbling monsters. So, what are people driving today?

Supply and demand, baby, it's what makes the world go round.

What miffs me is that we are the most technologically advanced nation in the most technologically advanced times in history and we "can't" get something other than gasoline to make our cars go?

That's when the liberal-inside-my-head (bwaahahaha) starts ranting. It's the oil companies with their money leashes firmly attached to politicians right on up through the prezzie. New technology is being suppressed. Oh, don't believe those stupid ads that Mobil is running about how they are diligently "searching" for alternatives to oil. They are diligently searching for ways to profitably extract and refine the not-so-usable oil up in Canada and Alaska in the Northern reaches.

Hey, after all, it's only some crazy native people who think eating fish all the time is fun and some polar bears, let's destroy their environment to buy us another ten years of gasoline profits.

Sheesh. That's enough rantificating for a Monday.

How do you lure a mountain lion out of hiding?



By calling, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."
Hey, it worked.
Grandfather Mountain, 2005

Why I keep the car keys with me:



On top of Grandfather Mountain, NC 2005

Blech. Friday. The day normal people are rejoicing over as the end of the week. It is the beginning of my week as one of the invisible people. The weekend night shift crew. No-one even knows we exist. And we kinda like it that way.

I have spent this last day of my "weekend" vacuuming and dusting and dish washing all in an attempt to postpone what I've been working on all week: a query letter to an agent.

Holy High Pressure Batman! I think my mistake was looking for examples to follow. Because from what I've read, you are toast if you don't "grab" the agent's attention in the first two words (okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, they probably mean the first five or six words). According to what I read, the query letter absolutely positively must be the BEST WRITING YOU HAVE EVER DONE IN YOUR LIFE!

No pressure, just be yourself and let your own unique style come through.

Well, my unique style with business letters is to revert to my previous life as a secretary which ain't all that handy in the "wow 'em in five words" category.

So I am probably doomed.

I have a problem. Isn't admitting it the first step? Oh, wait, that's from Alcoholics Anonymous. But still. I do. Have a problem.

I'm beginning to suspect that I am a biblioholic. I am currently in various stages of reading five books.

"Class, A Guide Through the American Status System" by Paul Fussell. Which I bought because it looked funny and it is funny. (I am high prole with a dash of middle class.) But with about 20 pages left, I am bored with it, so I guess I can toss it on the 'read' pile.

"The United States of Wal-Mart" by John Dicker. Which I picked up when Jason brought it home for an assignment he was working on. It may be slightly schzoid of me, but I both hate and admire Wal-Mart. I mean, dang, they run that company tight. Of course, they treat their employees like crap, but dang, the innovations they've come up with. I still hate them though, do not fear my liberal friends, people are more important than procedures!!

"The Working Poor: Invisible in America" by David K. Shipler. Excellent, excellent book that looks at BOTH sides of the issue: society's responsibility to the poor and individual responsibility in one's life. I have long held that no social problem is black and white and American's current climate of extreme polarization of people and issues is doing nothing for US, only creating job security for politicians.

"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden. We rented the movie and I loved it. I lived in Japan for two years as a child and have the best memories of the people and places I knew there. Besides that, it was a beautifully written, acted and filmed movie. Loved it. Then Jason brought me the book as a present. Loving it. Some day I'll blog about our housekeeper/nanny Tamatsa-san.

Finally, one of those Jason-all-incredulous-moments: "You haven't read insert-title-here?" "No." Then he disappears into the room where he keeps all HIS books (because the rest of the house is filled with all MY books....hmmm). This time he came up with "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman. The blurb on the front explains it all: A Hmong child. Her American Doctors. And the Collision of Two Cultures. I like it because I deal with this sometimes when we have non-English speaking patients. It's hard and you want to do right, but sometimes you don't know if your best efforts even come close.

Then, Jason comes home last night with three new books. And some publisher's PR machine now has his name (as a reviewer) on a list so books are just showing up at the house. I don't even have to go get them anymore.

I don't think this is a good thing.

Oh, and another thing. Now that Katie has squeezed out the ONLY CHILD TO BE BORN ON THE PLANET, will Tom Cruise SHUT THE HELL UP?????????

For Pete's freaking sake.

Scott McClellan has resigned as White House Press Secretary. Who can blame him? Poor fella, probably got ulcers from all those lies he had to tell, bless his heart.

I was watching one of his press conferences a few weeks ago, when the whole "who leaked what when, Bushie did, who did" shellgame they were playing was all the network rage.

I had two thoughts on the matter:

1. Did McClellan use an electron microscope to split those hairs he was splitting?

and

2. Does he just spray his entire body down with anti-perspirant before facing the hordes of evil reporters who just won't sit there and obediantly take down what he says word for word? Cos I would have been a sweatin' plenty telling them whoppers and having those mean ole reporters shoot down everything I said.

I almost felt sorry for him that day.

But not really because he knew that his job was to be a lying skank-hole cover-up artist for Bushie, et al when he took it.

But I hope his ulcer gets better. If he has one. God knows I would if I told even a millionth of the lies he told.

Ah, spring. In the last week or so, between the two of us, we have planted: six azaleas, two Bradford Pear trees, two rose bushes, one chocolate flower thing and repotted two planters, one with purple flowers and one with mystery stuff that sprouted up on its own.

Trees have been fertilized. Elephant ears dug up and redistributed. Pinestraw has been spread. Blackberry brambles have been painted with poison, as has the Virginia creeper creeping up the brick.

I have been drooling over oleanders, dreaming over patio pavers, and figuring out where to put a fig tree.

Little oak trees are sprouting all over the yard from acorns buried by squirrels. The Carolina Jasmine is out of control on it's portion of fence. The day lillies are coming back to life.

It's all good.

Okay. Some-one got a hit on this poor little blog via a Google search for "mothers refusing to lick kittens bottoms".

I don't know whether to laugh or be afraid.

So of course, I had to see why this happened. The link thingie (I LOVE talking all computer techie) went to a post I did about Thor trying to lick my toothbrush.

Really.

For Pete's Sake!

I am trying to decide where I want to go on my birthday trip this year. It's a fairly new tradition for me, but the idea is that each year on or near my birthday I travel somewhere I've never been.

I haven't always stuck to the "never been" part of that. I went to New Orleans twice. Last year we went to Chimney Rock, Grandfather Mountain and did a quick tour of the Linville Caverns and waterfall, all in North Carolina. I love the mountains.

This year I was looking at Lake Lure, but technically it's the same trip as last year. So, I'm spending time with my good pal, Expedia.com, searching for new places.

My top two wishes right now are: 1. Going back to San Francisco or 2. Going back to Washington D.C. Note the "going back" which violates the "someplace new" part of my tradition. But I'm not sure DC counts as we were only there for about 20 hours.

And, my time off is in late June and I'm not sure about stomping around DC in the heat of the summer.

I don't know. Any ideas?

Mural in Chinatown, San Francisco, 2004

Birdwatching.

What?? No "war on Easter"?? I'm disappointed. But will once again point out that the word "Easter" comes from the Germanic/AngloSaxon legend of the goddess Eostre, who was the goddess of spring, i.e. bunny rabbits and eggs and stuff. So there.

Why, why why in the world do curtains only come in 84" length?? I only need about 65 inches. And even less for the little window in the back door.

So, I go to my mom. Tell her my woes. She asks why I don't just make some like I always do. Because my sewing machine foot pedal is broken and parts for 50 year old Singer's aren't that easy to come by these days.

She says I can come to her house and use hers.

I don't want to go to her house. I want her to do it for me.

Then she suggests I try WalMart. Sigh. That's my mom's answer to everything: Go to WalMart. Need curtains? WalMart. Shoes? WalMart. Bread? WalMart? New liver? WalMart. Vaccinations for your kids? Oooops, not if you are a WalMart employee.

You know, when I made the kitchen curtains, I just ironed the hems in with Stitch-Witchery. I can do it again. Oh, yes I can.

But I did find a killer piece of poster art for the back wall in the TV room. So, life is good. Who needs curtains? Only things looking in those windows are the birds and squirrels and racoons and possoms.

Bush.....trailers of mass destruction...."biggest sand toilets"....evidence not supporting the cause ignored...

Sigh. My brain is going to explode.

My most wildest dream?

(Other than winning the lottery and buying all the undeveloped land along the West Ashley corridor and Bee's Ferry Road and telling developers to kiss my left toe the rest of my life, then leaving it in trust to the Coastal Conservation League?)

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rove and Rice on trial for the murder of every American killed in action in Iraq and the attempted murder of every American wounded in Iraq.

Liars liars pants on fire.

There, that fits right in with the style of political "debate" going on today.

At least they should have to go to every family and apologize in person for manipulating evidence and flat out lying about just about everything in order to send their loved one off to die so Bush could get a hard-on about how "tuff" he is.

It's hard being blue in a red state. Not really blue, I'm more a bit of purple. But aren't we all? Who really agrees 100% at all times with every position of their "side"? And why have we allowed ourselves to be so segregated?

I am liberal on most issues, but a few of my beliefs leave my liberal friends with their jaws hanging open.

For instance, I don't believe that pregnancy should qualify you for government aid. Free medical care, free housing, free food, reduced utility rates. It's an elective condition and perhaps if there were financial consequences, people would be more careful with birth control and/or abstinance.

My liberal friends gasp at this cold heartedness and tell me that this would only hurt the forthcoming baby. Sentencing a baby to a life of welfare poverty will hurt it also. We've watched it happen generation after generation.

Then I cheer my liberal friends up by saying that we should pay girls not to have babies. Give them a hundred dollars or so when they show up for a depo shot.

Those of us who planned (or at least had the financial means to accomodate) a baby, have no idea the conditions and chaos and levels of dysfunction that most poor babies grow up in. They literally don't have a chance.

And welfare doesn't help. Postponing pregnancy until schooling and jobs are obtained will help. And that won't happen until there are financial consequences for behavior.

Sunday night I was asked about an acquaintance who, perfectly healthy until a grand mal seizure alerted her to trouble, was battling a brain tumor. She is doing well, finding new strength and learning how loved she is in this world.

Monday morning, I saw another acquaintance who, in the middle of a divorce, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She looks fabulous and is attacking life with a new vigor.

Monday evening, I got a migraine. Moaned and groaned and whined until I annoyed everyone in the house then went to bed before 8:30. Then I laid in bed with waves of pain radiating around my head with every little movement, being jumped on by kittens I forgot to remove from the room. I'd never had pain so bad with my migraines before and I thought for a moment maybe I should go to the ER. Then I decided I'd rather just die right there in my warm comfy bed than in the noisy ER or the MRI chamber.

I'm better today after a 12 hour nap. But I really should toughen up and learn to deal with these things with a little more grace. I mean, it was just a headache, for Pete's sake.

Birthday present gone awry.



At least Loki had the good sense to look slightly ashamed.

The Saga of Loki and the Red and White Polka Dot Ball: Long Lost Buddies Reunited

That lil rascal Scooter Libby. Dag-nabbit.

I am actually sort of looking forward to see what brilliant scheme Karl Rove comes up with to let Bush squirm out of the newly revealed information that he, Bush, actually approved of the leak concerning Valerie Plame, in order to punish, scare or discredit her husband for proving that Iraq was not buying uranium from Niger.

Now, does anyone remember a short little Bush speech-ette in which he vowed that if the leak came from within the White House, the person responsible would be fired?

Okay, here is my question. If he has the presidentail authority to declassify information as the defense seems to be building up to be, why didn't he AT THAT TIME just say that? "Hey, I'm the president and I have the authority and it was a matter of national security, so kiss my Texas size ego."

Why'd he lie about it? Huh?

Why'd he let a special investigation ($$$$) get underway?

Why'd he let Libby be arrested?

I'd like to see one Republican get as hysterical over this as Clinton's blow job lie. Just one.

I'd like to see one Christian get as hysterical over this as the phony "gay-marriage threat". Just one.

He is a liar. He has sent young American men and women to their deaths and tens of thousands are without arms and legs due to Bush's lies. He had an agenda to go in to Iraq and flat out lied about every reason why we were there. And now he has come right out and said that removing our troops from Iraq would be a problem for the next administration.

In the meantime, his buddies and supporters in the oil industry and Halliburton are raking in tens of millions of dollars in profits on the bones of those dead young Americans while Bush is cutting veterans benefits to almost nothing.

Oh, and where is Bin Laden? You remember him right? The guy who financed and planned the 9/11 attacks? I wish Bush was half as determined to find him as he was to make profits off the Iraq war. Oh, but then his hand-holding friends in Saudi Arabia might be mad and oil profits might go down.

How silly of me.

My mom made me take her to the new Super Wal-Mart in town. I think we have five or six of them by now, because gosh golly gee whiz, who would want to drive ten miles to one when we can clear cut and burn a gazillion acres of virgin forest (leaving three or four old growth oaks surrounded by asphalt).

It is a horror. Really. It made me want to vomit right there in the pristine parking lot. I was glad I didn't because once we got inside, I really wanted to spew on something. The McDonalds? The bank? The massage and fake nail shop? Oh, where to begin.

But the saddest thing of all, is that like a crack addict with a full pipe at hand, I know I'll take a hit. I'll go back. I'll hate myself the entire time and feel the need for redemption afterwards, but I know I'll go.

See, here's my rationalization. I grew up working class poor. To waste money was unheard of because we had no money to waste. I learned the difference between what you need and what you want. And still today, I want very little because I have so much of what I need.

But I still can't make myself go to some other chain store (what is Target except a wanna-be middle class contender against Wal-Marts lower class image?) Belks? Chain. Dillards? Chain. Sears? Chain. Penney's? Chain. What's the difference?

Unless I want to drive over to the-most-perfect-place-on-the-planet-to-live-yuppie-ville Mt. Pleasant and be treated like a cock roach running across the wedding cake at Gwynn's again (really they cared more what I looked like than whether or not I had money in my bank account, which I did, which I elected not to leave with them because of their completely snotty attitudes), where are the locally owned shops? Where can I buy my white good girl Hanes bikini cuts and my white tube socks for work? Where can I buy my collection of tee-shirts that make up 50% of my wardrobe (jeans=20% sweat/pajama pants=10% grownup stuff/interview/funeral clothes=20%).

I am mentally, morally and physically incapable of paying $20 for a tee-shirt that I could pay $6 for at a Wal-Mart sale. Sorry. I can't do it.

I'll donate more to charity. I'll set up a wildlife refuge in my backyard (oh, wait, it already is pretty much). I'll try to do good to compensate for my support of the evil empire.

I went to Lowe's this morning. I managed to contain myself. I've got six new azalea bushes in the front and two pretty purple creeping phlox for that stupid little raised brick planter thing built in the middle of nothing next to the drive way.

I dug out most of the elephant ear bulbs and now need to figure out where to replant them. I dug out the loriope grass that the bunny rabbits kept gnawed down to stubs and tossed them over the back fence in bunny rabbit land.

I trimmed up some bushes and the palm tree.

I would be done if I hadn't forgotten to buy pinestraw. See, REAL southerners use pinestraw in their flower beds. I don't know what danged Yankee thought that unnaturally red cedar chips were just perfect for mulching flowers with but they were sadly mistaken. Might as well put some plastic garden gnomes and a lawn jockey out in the grass while you are at it. It's tacky.

And so are rocks. Especially blindingly white gravel. In flower beds?? Come on ya'll. Pinestraw.

Trust me. That warm golden brown glow is perfect against any green, any flower color. It's all natural and the palmetto bugs don't love to munch on it.

Rocks and cedar chips. For Pete's sake.

Last Friday evening, to great rejoicing throughout the land, well, throughout the house, Jason found Loki's red and white polka dot ball. For Pete's sake. It was shoved between the wall and some gigantic bit of musical sound equimpment owned by my son.

Oh, it brought a tear to my eye to see the look on Loki's face. He was so happy. He carried that stupid ball around with him, he played with it, he growled at Thor if he got too close to it.

Peace had been restored.

Then came Saturday morning. The ball was missing again. I found it. In the exact same place.

Then Saturday evening, I found Loki meowing at the same spot. The ball was once again shoved under the amp.

It's still there. I refuse to get it out for him. The little shit.