Short!

My posts have been so long recently, this one is going to be short!

I tried the Borax/water mixture yesterday. Didn't work so well, & i'll write of it another time, but, if you need acid in your stomach to digest food, it is NOT good to drink an alkaline drink with your meals. :[

I've come across several blogs in the last day or so which talk about book lists for 2010, or they are book review, or just books in general. Plus a couple on Kindle. I read quite a lot, but don't keep book lists. I should keep a list of what i read for the year, tho. I think i'd already have about 5 books on the list. I've a couple of new ones given by a dear friend. They are George MacDonald books. I do tend to re-read books as i find it relaxing not to wonder or worry where it is going.

One of my favorite authors is Ann Rinaldi. She writes mostly historical fiction geared to an adolescent audience & i think her wonderful. I'm finding that the bookstores aren't carrying her as much anymore, so i checked Alibris (my favorite book-finding site). To my surprise i found a number of books by her there i'd never heard of before, so i will have the chance to read more by her, probably will this year. :)

If this is going to be short, i have to stop here!

My sisters & me, about 10 years ago.

270

The weather can't make up its mind!

I woke to clouds & a wet deck. It rained last night!

For days if not weeks our low has been in the teens & twenties, but last night the low was 35F. That is about what they predicted the high to be today. It has been cloudy, then sunny, then cloudy all AM. I don't think it knows what it wants to do. Storms predicted for early next week.


Duane should be home a little bit later.


I bit the bullet.

Some time ago my mother told me of this program that several of my aunts (i have seven still living) are doing that has helped them feel better, have more energy, take less medication, & lose weight. It intrigued me, & i asked one of my aunts about it. She is a retired RN & was so enthused she bought the material for everyone in her (immediate) family.


The program (Great Taste, No Pain) focuses a lot on folks with gastrointestinal issues & my aunties that used to have to take meds with every meal are no longer taking them. (My mother isn't particularly interested. She states she "only" takes a med with breakfast. When i'd told her some time ago that she might have a lot less pain if she went gluten-free, her response was that it was too much trouble & the pain meds helped a lot & that she "really didn't have that much pain, anyway." Yeah, right.)


The aunt who told me about this program said that she didn't herself have gastrointestinal issues, but a side effect of this program is weight loss & that she has more energy. Well, that sounds good to me! I put it on hold for a while, tho. The program (which is an on line download) is about $40. So i dithered around a lot.


BUT it was working for my aunties. Not some anonymous person quoted as saying "Yeah this is great! This works!" It is working for people i actually know. So, i've been meaning to do it for a while. (Have i mentioned i have procrastination down to an exact science?)

Monday i spent about an hour watching (well, mostly listening) to a you tube program put out by Dr. Mercola of another doc (don't remember the name right off) called "The Bitter Truth About Sugar." It is in 9 segments & very well done. In a nutshell, the use of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) & sugar in our country is what is driving the obesity & chronic disease issues. (There are other problems, too, but these are the biggies.) Now, over all this is not news to me. But the way he presents it is new & he explains exactly why HFCS gets transformed into fat - triglycerides mostly. He also said that the way that sugar molecules are metabolized is very much like how alcohol is metabolized without the buzz. Alcohol & sugars are both toxins. So you can have a small amount without creating problems, but we don't use small amounts of sugar in this country. Anyway, i highly recommend watching the program.

I like sugar. I also find it rather addictive & have a difficult time with it. If i have any at all then i seem to crave it, i mean, REALLY crave it.

So i decided to get all that sweet stuff out of the house. I'm not throwing it away. I imagine that after a while - a few months - i may occasionally make cookies or brownies to have as a RARE treat or when company comes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the sweeteners & other things i have only filled a small to medium-sized basket. Except i didn't put the honey in. I've not decided on that. Anyway, i'm going to put the basket in a difficult to reach corner of the garage.

And having decided that (& one other thing), i decided that it was time to bite the bullet & buy the program my aunts recommended.

So last night i did. In essence, it is food combining. Eat fruit alone, it digests best that way. Certain foods don't digest well with others, & so need to not be eaten together (sandwiches or meat & potatoes are foods that shouldn't be eaten together, she says).

This concept is not new to me, but she does a very thorough job. Much of what she says i agree with, particularly that most of the foods we eat in our culture make our bodies too acidic & that leads to disease.

However, she spouts out some things with which i disagree. When i read where she said, "Spelt bread doesn't contain gluten" i almost tossed the whole thing out. "It is working for my aunties, it is working for my aunties" i chanted. (Well, not really, but i was thinking it.) She falls into myth that lard/tallow are bad for you & that canola or safflower oils are good for you. She also falls into the cholesterol myth that eating meats/animal products contribute to higher cholesterol & then heart disease.

Also, she said you don't have to restrict foods or food choices, only restrict how they are combined. "You can eat your favorite foods!" This is true as long as your favorite foods are not convenience foods or fast foods. Nothing - or little - processed. Also, beverages are rather limited.

She does repeat herself a lot in the cross literature (there are a total of 6 downloads) mostly her story, which is interesting, but i don't need to read it 4 times. I do like that she outlines the first 4 days with options for breakfast, lunch, & dinner plus snacks. It will take a change in mindset, but i don't think it will be that hard. What will be harder is to know how to cook for Duane.

Part of the reason that Duane eats so much convenience food is that 1. i'm often too tired to cook & 2. he usually doesn't like what i fix. When you combine the two, it makes it difficult to have any enthusiasm about making meals. He simply won't eat veggies. (I'm not trying to make him vegetarian, but it would be nice if he would be more willing to eat some of these things part of the time.) I've essentially only 2 meals he likes Vegetarian Mexican Lasagna & Tuna Casserole (plus he likes the meatloaf i make for him). I won't be able to make either of those items with this program; no, i might be able to get away with the Mexican Lasagna.

So, this is what i'll be doing. I've no idea how we're going to feed Duane while i'm doing it. My big wish, i guess, is that he'd be willing to give it a try for a couple of weeks & see if it makes a difference. (This program is not vegetarian per se. She doesn't limit eating meat. She says that her family eats "mostly vegetarian" with just a little fish or chicken. But the program can be used either way with equal ease.)

The other thing (mentioned above) i'd decided to do is this: Borax in water.

WHAT???

I read about this some months ago. It just sounded so unappetizing. Yuck! But i keep running across the link in my searches to be healthier & it has a lot of adherents to it. It is recommended for treating chronic fluoride poisoning. It is only a tiny amount - they recommend between 1/32 to 1/4 tsp in 1 liter (just over 4 cups) of water & then sip it thru the day. You can also add 1/8 to 1/4 tsp of sea salt.

NOT boric acid, by the way, which is slightly acidic, but borax (yeah, that stuff i buy in the laundry aisle). Borax in water is slightly alkaline, i'm told. I'm going to try it for a few days, but i'm also going to try rotating things as well as the food combining. Twice a week i'll do baking soda in water or lemon juice in water (which are both alkaline, also). I'm going to rotate the supplements i take (or more often don't take). Cal/mag/zinc at bedtime to help sleep.

Can you tell i'm starting to feel desperate in trying to have more energy & feel better?

Oh, but i've been dreaming all week! That's exciting because it means i'm sleeping better. I don't remember the dreams much, but they do seem to have a theme in common: frustration. The one i remember was i was trying to plan a party & complete a massage at the same time & things kept getting in the way of it being completed & i was really stressing out. The others have been similar in frustration/stress level.

Anyway, that's the plan. If it works well for me, believe me i'll be singing about it. :) Also, if it doesn't seem to work at some time i'll also share. My weight numbers are the same as last spring when i wanted to lose weight. (A friend said that trying to lose weight with chronic fatigue can be dangerous, so i gave it up then.) But this is - honestly - the things i already eat, i'm just limited them (like no cheese in my salad that has avocado, simple basic things). I think this will be safe, i'll just be eating slightly different food combos. AND not eating sweets. Or soda (which is my downfall). Nothing gained, nothing lost. It makes sense to at least try.


269

More Blather

Guess my mind is working over time with Duane gone & me trying to keep myself occupied.

Not that i don't have enough to do. I've plenty to do! Am i doing it? Not so much.

For some reason (the mention of someone i know elsewhere) i got to thinking about discount cards. I assume they are frequently used across the country, too. Our big grocery stores here, Ralphs (which is now part of Kroger) & Vons both use the cards. Ralphs used to be my primary grocery, but we don't have one in BB.

Vons, which uses a discount card, & Stater Brothers are our two groceries here. I generally shop Vons for they have an organic selection while Stater Brothers has very few & a very poor selection. (I also use our small health food store some, purchase from the farmer's market when i'm able, & use a health food store down the hill.) I know they track my purchases by that discount card.

I don't mind.

I'm sure i look schizophrenic to anyone checking. We buy some snack food & frozen convenience food for Duane for when i'm unable to cook & organics for the rest of the time. Anyone tracking me will see i buy no pharmaceuticals, no shampoos or soaps, no laundry detergent (except Borax), no soda. I do hope that my tendency to buy organic fruit, veggies, meat (Duane is not vegetarian), eggs, & dairy will prompt the store to carry more of it. Of course, they don't have to track me to know what of their inventory is going out as organic.

I don't mind too much using the Ace Hardware store card.

Borders, however, raises questions. I do use the card, but do i honestly want someone tracking my reading material? I don't buy things of which i'm ashamed, but it does start to raise questions for me. I have a CVS card, too. I don't buy much there, & when i do they will see that i purchase nail polish sometimes (another of the chemicals i still use), Burt's Bees products, cards, & a few other items (personal women's products, & in the past pregnancy tests). No perfume, make up, shampoo, soap, etc.

I'm not ashamed for anyone to know of any of the purchases i make, but i wonder if it is not a slippery slope.

A couple of years ago i came across someone who was doing a program (multi-level marketing). The program consisted of simply going to a certain website to do your online purchases. It included a lot of big stores like Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Kmart, Barnes & Noble. You could buy virtually anything there & receive a discount, sometimes a substantial discount. This person, P, was all enthused about it. She received a small % of every purchase made at this website from folks under her. If i had signed up other folks i would make a % of everything they bought.

But what became glaringly apparent to me was that anyone above me would be able to track each & every one of my purchases. If i decided that buying underwear or tampons on line at Target was something i wanted to do, P would know the size, brand, & color.

It was a major turn-off for me. I signed up ("It doesn't cost anything! It's free!") because she's a sales person & it didn't seem worth it to me to argue. But i have never once used the program & never will.

And i wonder where this will lead us. If we become so immune to someone else's ability to track everything we do will we even recognize when we have lost our freedoms?

One sentence the cops on TV tend to use with folks stating they want a search warrant before allowing the cops to search their homes is, "If you have nothing to hide, why prevent us from searching?" I'm sorry, that is a slippery slope, too. A right to privacy is a basic right, even if the person has "nothing to hide."

I think we sometimes lose sight of that in these days of easy computer tracking, instant messaging, twitter, & facebook. It is almost impossible to live completely off the grid in our current world. I don't mind the grocery store knowing my buying habits, but i don't think i want to let it go further than that.

(But if you think you are interested in the multilevel marketing thing, i can send you the email address & website.)


268

Potpourri

Alane, thanks for your last comment. I don't know that Duane & i can make cognitive changes, but i think you've given us thought for a good discussion. Which we will have sometime when he gets home.

Duane is off the hill. The plan was for me to stay home this week to "pill the cat." Who is doing quite well with those pills. He still struggles some for form sake, but not too much as he knows he'll get a treat as soon as the pill is down. But Duane has been gone longer than we had planned. Sunday he wanted to do something & i suggested a visit with his friend JT who lives a little more than 2 hours away. So Duane went there & took clothes 'cause i didn't want him coming back after dark if the road was icy.

The road wasn't wet/icy, but he doesn't see JT very often & it was late before he even considered coming home & we both agreed it would be better if he just stayed there. So, Monday he called me & said that OC was less than 2 hours from where he was at whereas if he drove the 2+ hours home he'd still have to drive the 2 hours to OC the today. So he went straight to OC & plans to come home tomorrow instead of Thursday.
_____________________________

I've had the best of both worlds & i cheat at it, some.

I believe i've said before that when i was growing up, especially when i was a teen, i often heard folks say to my mother, "You're not old enough to have a daughter that age!" Frankly, i assumed they were flattering her. Looking back i realize they said it sincerely, breathlessly. My mother had no youth or beauty in my eyes. Which is probably typical of children when they look at their parents. I remember being in about 4th grade & another child telling me how pretty my mother was & i thought the girl crazy. But also my mother wore her hair in a particularly frumpy style (& colored it). More so, however, i knew her actual personality, not just what she wore to impress folks.

I've come to realize that my mother inherited beautiful skin, which i have been fortunate enough to have as well. Even now at 72 she has lovely skin.

Also, by the time i was 13 most people were mistaking me for 18, & at 15 most folks thought i was 25. So i probably did look much older than a daughter could have had since she looked younger. If she looked 30 when i looked 25, i can see why folks were shocked.

Fortunately for me, the trend reversed after i was 25, & at age 28 i was mistaken for 22, & so on. (I've had the best of both worlds.)

Well, not that i've ever been mistaken for 15, even when i was 15. I went in for a physical when i was 16. The doc seemed to be taking an inordinately long time to come in. Finally a nurse came in very flustered & said, "We can't find your chart anywhere! We've looked & looked & looked. The only chart we can find is this one & it says that you are 16 years old!"

I looked her in they eye & said, "I AM 16 years old."

"Oh." She didn't say more but she looked astounded.

I can't help but wonder how old she really thought me to be? Thirty, i imagine.

It had its advantages, of course. At 16 i started to occasionally have a glass of wine when i was out with friends. I'm not a drinker, never have been. Don't care for the taste of it & it often gives me migraines. But, at 16, it made me feel very grown up. I was only carded once. It was after i'd moved (for a short time) to Oregon where the drinking age was 21 & i was a year short of that. When the waitress carded me i looked at her absolutely astonished, but i handed her my drivers license (that said i was almost 20) & she brought me my drink.

My mother used to color her hair & i thought it was awful. I swore i never would do that. I didn't want to do anything that would emulate her. But i found my first white hair (folks always say to me "you mean grey?" but the hair was pure white not grey) at age 24. Also, i'd recently met someone with long dark hair who had let her hair go natural & frankly she looked like a witch to me. I don't know if i was correct in assuming i would look similar with my long red hair, but i didn't want to take the chance. So i began to color it.

That's my confession of cheating. I don't use many chemicals in my life any more, but this is the one i do use. These days it comes from the health food store, & over all i think it is better for me (& my hair feels better & has less of a "chemical smell") than the ones from the drugstore. But it still contains chemicals, none the less.

Part of it is vanity, i know. I don't want to look as old as i really am. I sometimes wonder what it would look like had i not begun to color it. My younger sis has let her hair go natural & she is very beautiful. But her hair is also a different color than mine.

Another one of those "not very important" posts. Just blathering out thoughts in my head.

As i'm typing i'm watching a squirrel on the deck. As i've said before, squirrels fight among themselves a lot & do a lot of damage to each other. The one i'm watching has lost his left hind foot. It isn't very noticable (until he tries to scratch his ear on that side) & he seems to manage well. But the damage they do to each other makes me sad. (That loss might not have been from another squirrel, tho. I wonder if he was nearly caught by a coyote. The funny thing is that he's less scared of me than most of the others.)

267

Materialism

There was another facet to the story last week that i didn't address.

As Duane's mom was angrily displaying the damage Bear had done, i could see a certain look in Duane's eye.

He told me later that he was afraid. He said if anyone, person or animal, had done that much damage to something Duane owned, he would have that amount of rage & want to kill them. He doesn't want to feel that way, but he knows himself.

I understand that a little bit, i guess.


These are my "daisy dishes." The pattern is actually "Brown-eyed Susan" made by Vernonware & date to about the Franciscan Apple & Desert Rose (or even a bit earlier, in the '30s), but they were never as popular. I had a few of the items & most of them we use every day, but chose to enlarge my collection of things like a pitcher & those shown above thru Ebay. I used to have a gravy boat up there with the others; it wasn't cheap. Jazz knocked it down & it shattered when we were in the rented house. I cried. Partly because i knew how it was expensive & difficult to find & i couldn't afford to replace it. But partly too, because i knew there was no reason to replace it. It had never been used by me & probably never would be. How often does a vegetarian make gravy? And how could i justify buying another one to sit up on a shelf? (Ok, i just went & looked it up; it wasn't that expensive, but why should i buy it & not use it?)


These are my good dishes. Due to certain circumstances, i nearly lost them some time ago. I think them very beautiful & they are even older than the daisy dishes, probably dating sometime between 1920-1925. Someone kept them for me for a few years (after i almost lost them, so that i wouldn't lose them for i had nowhere to store them). They are not dishwasher safe; washing them in the dishwasher etches the pattern. I appreciate that the person who kept them for me checked it out & realized that she had to do them by hand, but, the dish she ran thru to check it (that got etched) was my favorite - an odd-shaped serving dish.














My point is that we all have things that we treasure. I love old things. I used to have a lot of them. I've gotten rid of most of them & these days try to keep only the things that matter to me the most. As a child i always admired these weird little blown glass animals that we saw when driving across the country. I wanted a collection of them, but i wasn't allowed.

These days i admire the collections other folks have, but prefer to admire them at their homes, or an antique shop or museum. I no longer desire to keep a lot of trinkets & baubles. That doesn't mean that if our house burnt down there aren't things i'd mourn & miss. Just that i try to hold on to them much more lightly than in my past. And that part of me doesn't understand the rage - & i do mean blind rage - that Duane & his mom seem to share about their damaged property.

Over a year ago someone backed into me in a parking lot & took out the front passenger door of the Honda. Duane's rage scared me & in some ways hurt me, too, for he was too angry to comfort me (i was in shock). I was very, very thankful he was not with me at the time. I wasn't happy about being backed into, but i had a lot of compassion for the lady. He son had recently been killed in Iraq & her dog had been run over the day before. (I believe that more should be done to educate folks on the risks of driving while severely stressed.) She took full responsibility for the accident & did everything possible for the repair to go smoothly. Duane forgave her & let go, but that rage still scared me.

I'm finding i'm afraid to drive "Duane's car." I was in town in the Subaru last week. Someone stopped abruptly in front of me. It wasn't even a near miss, but i realized that had i been distracted i would have hit them. That made my heart patter & i realized that i don't want to drive that car except when we're together & traveling back &forth from OC. (Even then Duane tends to shreik at near misses - which i don't have all that many of. It is usually someone cutting me off. I've told him he needs to stop it 'cause it distracts me when i shouldn't be distracted, but he can't seem to help it.) The thought of coming home to tell him i've had an accident with the Subaru is more than my courage can bear. Duane admitted that he worried the whole time i was gone. (I've not had an accident except being backed into the whole time i've known him. I don't have a history of accidents, i was in a serious one in 1989, & a number when my parents were driving when i was a kid.) My response was, "I told you it would be 4.30 or 5 before i was home. I wasn't late. ???"

I did ask him, mostly in jest, if i'll have to move to Mexico or Canada for a while if i ever have an accident in that car.

So, my way of handling this is to drive the Trooper. Period. A smaller car is much more convenient (the Trooper drives like a boat), but it isn't worth the worry.

I'm not sure i entirely "get" this. I do like nice things. I don't like my things to be damaged (particularly by someone else). I want to keep our cars nice.

But when it is all said & done, a car is a tool to get from point A to point B. Money can be used or abused. Things are nice to look at, but people are more important. (But that doesn't relieve the fear that i'll do something to mess up Duane's car.)

Make no store of wealth for yourselves on earth, where it may be turned to dust by worms and weather, and where thieves may come in by force and take it away.
Matthew 6:19 Bible in Basic English

266

Oddments

(Needed to find new ways to say "this & that." I love thesaurus dot com!)

Stuff Christians Like is having "Shameless Saturday." Meaning you can plug your own blog. I don't spend a lot of time at this site. It doesn't hook me the way that it did when i first found it. I have been visiting a few different blogs today. (I'm mostly caught up with blog reading now. The ones i've missed are where i click on the specific post rather than the site in general. I'm a bit frustrated with my dashboard that tells me of new posts. It usually allows me to go back several days, but currently is limiting me to 10 hours, so i think i'm missing things.)

I came across a beautiful photography site. But what impressed me the most was this: Wedding Tips: Exercise Less. The reason? He talks about photo retouching & how that the images on magazine covers & in the magazines - the photos with which women tend to compare themselves negatively - are NOT what those women actually look like. No duh, right? But, those images get in our heads & tend to poison our views.

Take some time to look at the two images of Faith Hill. I didn't catch all the differences at once, but when i did - the comparison of her arms in natural & retouched is amazing. There are lots of many subtle differences, & i didn't notice her arms at first. I don't know why that one - as opposed to the lines around her mouth or under her eyes or her cleaned-up line of shoulders & back - hit me much harder. Maybe just because it is so subtle & makes her a "perfect" but unreal woman.

We have made a decision about our church attendance. We're not going to close any doors but we're going to attend multiple churches. The Lutheran church will still be a home base of sorts, but we're going to limit attendance there to once or twice a month. The rest of the time we'll divide between the Catholic church, probably the Presbyterian church, & occasionally visit others a few of the bigger ones (like Calvary Chapel & some others) in the valley. We're not looking to join another church. But i am looking forward to having the opportunity to know more of what is available in the valley in terms of projects with which we can be involved & getting to know folks outside the small circle we currently have. We've been living here almost 3 years but have relatively few folks with whom we socialize.

For better or worse, the Lutheran church has become somewhat toxic for me. It has a number of wonderful people. It has a good pastor. He means well. But i'm finding that being there almost 52 weeks out of the year is poisonous for me. We're going to cut back on those doses & hope i can manage. I'm hoping the weeks we manage to be there are weeks when he is less harsh, but not expecting it. Kind of Murphy's Law, it isn't likely to be. We don't intend to announce our plans. But we will say something along the line of, "We're no longer able to be here every week," & leave it at that. Any other explanation we've discussed gives the implication we'll be off the hill, which is the form of a lie & we are not going to do that.

I don't remember why i was looking for some Christian cliches, but i came across this post: A guide to . . . It is an atheistic site, but frankly, these phrases tend to be the ones that stick me. Not to be too negative, but i think a "relationship with God" needs to be more authentic & less superficial that what these phrases indicate.

Duane & i saw Sherlock Holmes this week. I was hesitating, honestly, because of a "review" an uncle of mine passed around. It claimed that, well, i'll just reproduce the body of the letter:

It was out and out one of the most satanic films that I have ever seen and none of the
film's press releases or reviews highlight this element in the film, at all.

There is real black magic witchcraft in it and Sherlock Holmes even makes a
floor sized pentagram of his own, literally joining the dark side to solve a case.

It was at that point that we finally left the theater. We should have left
after the first 25 minutes.

Don't watch this film. It's no PBS miniseries. Sherlock Holmes is apparently a witchcraft practicing cokehead.

I'll be honest, it gave me pause for attending the movie. Duane & i see a lot of different movies including the Harry Potter ones. My mother was a Christian paranoid about "things satanic" & it is a major difference between us. But i don't like certain things & i hesitated.

So, i was pretty angry when we left the theater. The (stupid) people who wrote this "review" reacted in a knee-jerk, paranoid manner & had they sat thru the movie they would have found it no more satanic than Agatha Christie, or David Copperfield (magician). Frankly, i think things passed around like this make Christians appear mindless & ignorant. I toned down my opinion, but did respond to my uncle's original letter. The letter arrived to me with no identifying markers, so i have no idea from whom it originated.

What was interesting about this (i replied to everyone he sent the letter & i come from a huge extended family) was that thru it i connected with one of my younger cousins. I try not to respond/react to everything sent out. Sometimes i do reply, however, & i've long felt that i'm a lone wolf in my opinions. I think the family sees me as a strange, odd, liberal (when i don't think i am), kinda weird California person. It has been nice to discover that this younger cousin (whom i've only seen a couple of times) has similar opinions to those of mine. NOT that everyone has to agree with me, of course. But it is nice to feel that i'm not alone with a target painted on me. He had been living in North Carolina (close to our larger family) but is now in Colorado. Maybe sometime he'll actually come visit us.

We seem to have been doing well with giving Mac pills. We do follow it up immediately with treats (for both cats, of course). I'm afraid, however, that before long we're going to find a "stash" somewhere like Rosemary's cat. I'm hoping that by next week when Duane is gone i will have this down to a science & can give the pills alone. He doesn't seem to be fighting quite as much as before. After all, the sooner he takes it the sooner he gets what he is wanting. I'm afraid it is spoiling them both, tho. It used to be that they would get treats maybe 4-5 times a week; now it is twice a day & they are begging for them even more!

I'm going to try a rather novel, unusual, controversial home remedy this week. I'll write about it another time.

Did a massage today. Came home exhausted & chilled. The only thing to do for chill (i mean feeling cold to the bone) these days is sleep. So i did. Thus, i'm awake much later than normal tonight.

I think i could blather on forever, but i'm stopping now. :)


265

Why are titles so hard?

I rarely remember dreams. But then, i don't care what the experts say, i rarely dream either. On the days i wake & i know i've been dreaming even if i haven't any memory of the dream, i'm happy. Because when i have been dreaming i wake more rested. When i haven't been dreaming i wake & my eyes feel like (excuse the vulgarity) "piss holes in the snow." (A term from Siegfried in the James Herriot books.)

So, it is always more pleasant to be waking from a dream. Yesterday i did remember the dream i had had. Frankly, it started with a suicide pact, not sure what that is about. But later i was talking to a dear friend of mine & two other folks were there & being unkind to her. They were talking about her attributes & her weight. But they looked very similar to her in appearance. I told her to ignore them & just know that she is beautiful. But they continued disparaging her.

"They are narcissistic," i said to her.

And one of them responded, "I am NOT! I don't go in for that religious stuff!"

Funny the things your dreams create.

I'm in the mood to post some pics i like.


Duane took these on our honeymoon, 5+ years ago now. Most of them were taken in Yellowstone Park.

264

This 'n that

Writing things out does help. I'm feeling less sad over the recent events. Sad & yet not crying, i guess. Part of the saddest factor of this is that the loss becomes the past & we are able to move on, yet that seems unkind. Beyond a lot of guilt & the strong feeling that Bear wasn't treated well, i didn't have a lot of connection to him.

I've thought, in the past couple of years that i'd really like to have a dog. I'm re-assessing that at this point.


These are the type of dogs that i'm rather attracted to. The top one is a Finnish Spitz, the bottom one an Akita. If we ever were serious about getting a dog, however, i'd be pushing for the shelter not a purebred.

I laughed, Alane, at your comment at the bottom where you said you tend to be "wordy." Because you were commenting on a post that was a mile long! I definitely tend to be verbose.

Your point on my MIL & her feeling out of control is well taken. My own preconceptions got in the way of what she was saying about Bear because i couldn't conceive of someone having that much hate for a dog that was innocent of the situation. So you are right, i wasn't really listening. My FIL is not an evil person (MIL either, for that matter). At times he is kind & generous, other times he is clueless & tactless; but so are most of us. He is human. I try to see things from other folks' point of view, Alane, but then i read your stuff & realize how far i fall short.

I'm not much of a morning person. I wake early but don't really move or think much until later. I tend to rush out the door in the AM, in a hurry to wherever i'm going. I've had to remind myself to leave an extra 20 minutes or half hour in the AM, 'cause my MIL likes to chat before i go. The least i can do is give her some time & listen.


These were taken by Duane on his hike with his cousins last week. They are taken high on the north side of Big Bear valley looking south over the lake toward the ski hills & the range beyond that which contains Mt. San Gorgonio; at 11,503 ft it is the highest peak in Southern California. They were just short of reaching the Pacific Crest Trail when Duane took these.


Here we are, all together at Sugarbear having dinner. This is the only pic Duane got of us all together. Our cousins got another one - having breakfast! I thought it a bit odd that the only time we got such pics was when we were at table. That would NEVER be my choice of a group shot!

A lot of folks have blogged about New Years resolutions. I'm not much of a resolution person myself, i tend toward suggestions at best. But i would like to be better organized at some things, most particularly preparing meals & managing supplements & other alternative treatment. I need to make up a list & it will have to pass for a "resolution."

The folks trying to give Mac a pill had no luck with it at all. They had three people (lady, her husband, her son) trying to get it down him & it wasn't working. She felt really badly about it, but i told her not to worry. I'm staying home next week (he is suppose to take them for 2 weeks). I've done a lot of pilling of cats over time. I worked for a vet in college. Mac is by far the biggest challenge. But he isn't mean or aggressive. He didn't bite or (purposefully) scratch anyone. He has learned to work his tongue in an undulating manner that makes it really difficult. He throws in headshakes as well. Sometimes he throws the pill a ways so that we think we got it down him, but are sadly mistaken.

Duane sent me this website on How to Pill a Cat. Funny. :)

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It's complicated

Not the movie.

Headache is better, thanks. One of the things i love about getting CranioSacral work is that the migraines usually last a short time (whereas before they could go on for days).

I appreciate everything that folks wrote about poor Bear. I agree with Alane in that i think the person who really failed Bear was my FIL. But i have to say that it honestly never occurred to me that my MIL hated the dog as much as she apparently did. I know that sounds really stupid, especially in light of the comment about considering letting him drown, but i guess - even tho i was shocked she would even say such a thing - i assumed it was some sort of joke. Somehow i just didn't "get" that she really, truly, thoroughly hated the dog. And so, i doubt my FIL did either. I am very, very thankful he was not abused as in beaten or kicked or whatever.

But honestly, this issue is so intertwined with other stuff it is hard to untangle.

I think i've written of it before, but i had two dogs as a child. (Well, three dogs, actually, but the first one my parents got rid of when i was 3-1/2 & i barely remember her.) One of my dogs was a beagle mongrel i named Spot. I loved that dog dearly. I had him for about 6 months when i was 6. We lived on a busy highway & he was run over by a car. The second one i got when i was 9. He was a Scottie/cocker spaniel mix. And i loved that dog with all my heart. We called him Scotty. He lived for 5 years & then was hit by a car, right in front of me. Essentially i never got over that. My parents had other dogs, (mostly shelties always named "Lady") but i never considered any of them "my" dog. My parents have had two other dogs run over by cars. I don't consider them good candidates to be pet owners, either. FOUR dogs hit by cars? What does it take after the first one? They evidently consider it normal & natural for a dog to chase cars & then some day be run over.

My parents were "farm folk" & no animals in the house was a big part of their beliefs. Pets stayed outdoors. The problem was that their shelties were NOT working dogs, they had been conditioned to be companion animals/pets. Those dogs sat outside our sliding glass doors (often in below freezing weather) & watched the people with whom they wanted to be near. It was HORRIBLE. I felt so guilty the poor dogs were outside wanting to be with us but i could do nothing about it. I didn't even want to like those dogs, but i felt so guilty.

Having Bear banished outside these past 8 months was shades of that from the past & i hate it.

Since the Bear incident, i've decided i'm not a "dog person." I've never given this a lot of thought before because i like animals & i like dogs. I love visiting with the neighbor's dog Buddy, & with Kim's (the PT, she brings the dog to work) Boycee. Of course i liked Bear. The reason i didn't have a dog for so long is the place i lived for so many years allowed me to have cats but not dogs. But the fact is, i find dogs very "needy." My cats have some "dog traits" but over all they are pretty independent & don't require my constant attention. I don't care for dog kisses, but i also don't care for the amount of guilt that a dog seems to elicit from me.

Duane didn't have a lot of attachment to Bear. You see, he HAD a dog, Rocco. Rocco was a rottweiler. He had originally belonged to Duane's sister Laura who was killed in a car accident some years ago. During a period of time when there were a number of incidents of dogs attacking people, the insurance companies made a unilateral decision that they would not insure homes in which pitbulls or rottweilers lived. It didn't matter that Duane's family had been covered by this company for years or that Rocco was a well-behaved, non-problem dog. He had to go.

Duane drove him to the country where some distant family lived; they had agreed to take him. And he lived there for two or three years. Then Duane's mom married his step-dad & Bear was there. Which felt unfair when they couldn't have Rocco.

The worst of it was that the folks who had taken Rocco went on vacation & didn't want to be bothered with arranging for his care & had him put down. They didn't tell Duane's family for a few months. His mother had told Duane, but he was in the middle of something important on the computer. She assumed he heard her & didn't want to respond but the fact was that he didn't hear her at all. The day we got engaged & went to tell his parents his mom made an off-hand comment about Rocco's death. Duane was devastated. In a small way, i think it was like Laura had died again.

Duane agrees that Bear wasn't treated well. We don't disagree. But he didn't feel a lot of attachment to him because it always felt unfair that FIL could have Bear, but Duane couldn't have Rocco.

There is yet more.

A couple of years ago my ILs bought some property in Branson, MO. My MIL thought it was for an "investment" but now my FIL wants to build a big house there & spend part of the year there. To finance it he wants to sell the house they are in now. She is not very pleased. She appears to have little say in the matter.

Last summer my FIL decided to put the house on the market, not really planning to sell it but seeing if they got any interest. It was during that time that Bear was banished for she had to keep the house pristine & told him if she had to show the house a lot she would NOT be sweeping up Bear hair (he did shed a lot).

Duane's take on it was that she felt that she had very little control in her life & what was happening & she was taking it out on the dog. NOT acceptable & we didn't feel it right, but to some degree i did understand that.

Over all, while i said she doesn't "get it" about Bear being depressed & lonely, at some level i think she realized she was being cruel to the dog. I think that is why she was so very angry with me when i said that.

My MIL, in general, is a very nice lady & i'm lucky in many ways. It could be so much worse. (My MIL from my first husband seriously threatened to kill both of us.) But Duane's mom at times has trouble taking responsibility for some of her actions. A couple of years ago she invited some of the Jehovah's Witness cousins to a birthday party but neglected to tell them that it was a birthday party. They were pretty angry with her. She feigned ignorance about why they were upset & acted like she was the injured party. Frankly, she knew perfectly well what they were doing because that family has been JW for about 35 or more years. She just wanted them to come join the rest of the extended family.

Well, this is quite long & it is getting late. It just seems that the last few days have been very twisted with my feelings, Duane's feelings, & his mom's feelings & it all seems very complicated to me.

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Aura?

I think i had an aura today. Sounds exciting? Well, sounds that way. (Makes me think of aurora borealis!)

(Image from Stunt Granny.)

I've been getting migraines since my early 20s. Atypical, i believe the cause was an accident with concussion when i was 11. Largely they are much helped by CranioSacral Therapy (& sometimes caffeine).

Today i had a visual disturbance (kind of flashy/zig-zaggy lights in the center of my vision which distorted what i was trying to read & as time went by it kept moving more & more peripherally; i think it was mostly in my right eye, but can't be sure) that lasted about 15 minutes. I had the doc give me a chiropractic adjustment almost right away. About half an hour later i developed a migraine. But atypical to me. LEFT sided (99.9% of the time i usually have right sided migraine). Usually they are in my R temple, but this was L in the frontal bone above my eye orbit. I had him check my neck again. But the headache remains.

I didn't recognize the aura for what it was until the migraine occurred. Having never had one before.

This is new to me. Nothing to freak out about, although it felt freaky. But something to keep an eye on in case this continues & i'll need to be re-assessed. Or get more CS. :)

I just read at "About.com" that a migraine is NOT a headache. (Sure feels like it to me!) Says that migraine is a neurological disorder. Ok, still hurts.

Think i'll go find some caffeine & lie down.

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