Cacti

On of my earliest memories involves walking around a very big store, with very wide aisles and white linoleum tiling.  I am not sure of my age or location, but I must have been rather small because I remember the floor better than anything else.  Small people are closer to the floor.  I was with my grandmothers.  Yep, that is right, plural, grandmotherS.  I was with my Grandma Esau and my Great-Grandma Freckles.  Freckles was not her real name.  Her real name was Anice Ida Leach.  But I wouldn't know this for several more years because I was small and names and relationships are kinda vague and smoonched together.  What I knew was that Grandma Freckles looked like she had a lot of Freckles, so that's what I called her.  Grandpa Freckles got the name just cuz he was married to Grandma Freckles.  It made sense at the time.  Grandpa Freckles used to pull quarters out of my ears and made coffee so strong that it would make your hair fall out.  I didn't know the part about the coffee until much later, either.  So, me and the grandmas in a store.  I don't know exactly where we were or what our purpose was, although I imagine we were grocery shopping Albion the "big" town (population approximately 1,000) near our "little" town of Petersburg (population 283). 

What is important though, is that I walked out of that store with a little cactus plant all my own. It was the kind that has a green trunk and then a super florescent pink round bit grafted to the top. I don't know what brought about this gift.  My family never had much money and I didn't have the kind of grandparents that expressed love by buying me things.  I certainly didn't ask, that's not how the world worked for me.  Why it was decided I must have a cactus, I will never know.  However, it was love at first sight, I believe. I can't be sure because as I mentioned, I was quite small. But, I have cacti in my home now and more at my office. I often experience the following scenario with clients in my office:
"Are these rea--ouch! They are real!" It is a good measure of impulse control, "can you resist touching the cactus to see if it is real long enough for your therapist to give a response?" There is never a time that I haven't owned a cactus of some sort. I even grew some from seed, once. They are a constant for me. I never thought about it much until recently, though. I happened to mention, in passing to my dad, that I really liked grasses and cacti.  I appreciate flowers and love to have them growing around my home but I don't typically make a bee line for the flowers at the garden section of home stores.  I go for the the cacti or grasses.  My dad replied "Hmm, I bet that is because of your grandmas in Nebraska."  My dad can be kind of oblivious to things, mostly minor, like the birthdays of his children, but he got this one right.  I think I have always had cacti around as a way to remain connected to my grandmas, even though I lived half the continent away from them most of my life, and especially now that Grandma Freckles has passed away.  I remain connected with them by sharing a love for pokie, spiny, awkward plant. There is a beauty to them as well, the variations in color, shape & spines, but you have to have an appreciate for unusual beauty. And when the do flower, it warrants a full blown celebration.  Other plants are like girls from the wrong side of the tracks, they give it up easily.  They flower all over the place without anyone even half-trying.  If you see a cactus blooming and you are not in the desert, you know that there was either the perfect alignment of the stars or the person growing the cactus was very attentive, meeting it's every need, like pampered royalty.  I find them more beautiful for it and I appreciate that I learned to love something not commonly considered beautiful.  That is very likely the true gift of the grandmothers.  And yes, the grandmas had blooming cacti in Nebraska. 

Artist

Well, it seems I am an artist.  Identifying myself as an "artist" has never been part of my self concept.  I strongly identified as "creative" and have loved making crafts, arranging holiday vignettes and personalizing my living spaces, even as a small child. My mom tells me I would arrange my play things "just so" in a little toy kitchen.  It was usually, promptly destroyed by my younger brother, much to my consternation.  I also cannot remember a time when I didn't have a stash of crafty things for making gifts, cards, Christmas ornaments, and random bits of this and that.  I felt totally and completely "unglued" when I couldn't find my, you guessed it, my glue gun for a few months after a recent move.  I was totally disoriented.  I doodled through every lecture I ever attended, right on up to and through my doctoral program.  But, straight up artist was not me but people who painted or had fancy cameras and dark rooms or did more than just doodle.   I formed my identity around being academic.  I studied, researched, hypothesized & memorized.  I am fascinated theories, ideas, research results.  Boring nerd stuff.  I went as far as I could go academically.  Hello, Doctorate in Philosophy of Psychology.   Recently, I joined an online community via Facebook called Open Group for Bedlam Farms, started by one of my favorite authors, Jon Katz.  This a community for those who love animals, writing and other forms of creative expression.  As I have seen posts of photos, paintings, poems, essays produced by individuals who identify as artists, I have considered the possibility that I might not just be a nerd, but also an artist. In fact, I think I can pretty confidently say that my creative expression "counts" as art. How can I be sure?  Well, in true nerd fashion, I looked it up!   According to Google, "art" is defined as "The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,...: 'the art of the Renaissance.'" And "Works produced by such skill and imagination."  Hmmm....  chew on that for a while, self!  Major, cataclysmic shift, tectonic plates in my brain crashing.  It seems that all these years I have been creating art!  Therefore, it follows that as a producer of art, I am an artist.  My brain still screeches to a halt writing that sentence and starts looking around for more familiar academic territory.  That's okay, though, I'll integrate this new idea into my sense of self.  Its nice to experience growth, even in "middle age" (although if I live as long as my great grandparents, I won't be truly middle aged for another decade!).  I am looking forward to being a part of the artist community as nerd artist!

Photograph of my dog, Kona

Photograph of my favorite flowers.

Two Feet of Love

I have always said that my husband, Hugh, and I had souls that were cut from the same cloth.  It is stereotypical, but totally true, that it felt like we had known each other our whole lives when we first met.  It was magical and seemed to be the product of divine intervention.  Hugh is convinced that his Grandpa Jones, who was a gambling man, worked out a deal in heaven.  When he was alive he constantly tried, and constantly failed, to set Hugh up with eligible women. After he passed way, it seems he continued his efforts to set Hugh up from heaven.  Apparently, Grandpa Jones ran into my Grandpa Esau and they found a way to get their grandkids together.  This was a huge gamble since my life circumstances didn't make starting a relationship an easy thing to do (super long story!).  Eventually, the fabric of our lives were sewn together.  There have been a lot of snags- a terrifying, life threatening pregnancy, a very angry baby, debt from the pregnancy, the loss of our support system, job changes and health problems.  Hugh contracted mono when our daughter was about a year old.  Unfortunately, he never fully recovered and has astronomical levels of the Epstein Barr Virus (which causes mono) in his system.  As a result, he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  We just learned of this diagnosis and he is beginning treatment.  The snag this time is that he will feel worse before he feels better and we have hit the worse part of the journey.  It is hard, there is little I can do to help, he is not mentally or physically present as much as I want him to be.  However, our souls are still sewn together.  This picture of feet is actually picture of our souls connecting.  No matter how sick he feels or overwhelming this illness seems, there is a connection.  Even if it is just putting his feet on my leg, he reaches out to me.  And that is enough. 

Not Perfect, But Better

My family moved into a new home December 31, 2012.  Not a brand new, just built house but a new to us house.  It was actually built in 1975, making it my age.  I think it may be aging better than I am actually.  We love this house.  We waited 7 years for this house and had to over many, many obstacles to get this house.  However, it seems the only thing that was ever upgraded in this house was the carpet and paint.  We have vintage golden rod yellow in two bathrooms and the kitchen and some weird green-blue in another bathroom.  When we moved in the carpet was a pristine, very, very, very light beige.  The walls are also a very, very, very light beige. So, for what ever reasons, the previous owner had seen it fit to install carpet that is impossible for anyone to maintain, other than a obsessive-compulsive person without children or pets.  I have a St. Bernard and a six-year old.  They like dirt.  Heck, I am a gardener, I like dirt.  Most of our carpet is now a light dirt brown color, although parts of it are a dark dirt brown color.  Parts of the carpet that had furniture immediately placed over it remain pristine.  Instead of making me happy, I find it depressing because then I can see EXACTLY how much we have destroyed the carpet in 5 short months (Actually 4 months, 26 days and 20 hours). I am sure the walls would be similar if we could walk on them but luckily we can't, so only certain areas are turning dirt brown and it is easier to keep up with those spots than the wall to wall carpeting.   Let me just say that the flooring situation in this house is far from perfect!  If I had the budget, I would rip it all out and replace it with something very sturdy, in a color that hides dirt (i.e., dirt brown) and was easy to clean.  Buuuuttt, do not currently have a renovation budget.  We have a "what can we figure out that will keep me from losing my mind and doesn't cost a lot of money" budget.  That primarily involved waiting until something shows up at Goodwill, Craigslist or Habitat for Humanity Restore that improves our home and costs less than $50.  If you haven't already done so, I suggest that you check out both, or what ever the equivalent in your area is, because I have found some amazing stuff.  I found a pristine toilet for $15 at Habitat for Humanity Restore.  Good-bye ugly yellow.  Now I am on the hunt for another toilet, tub and 2 sinks.  But, back to my carpet!  The worst area is the stairways.  It is a split level house and the front door opens to the stairs.  Up to the main floor or down to the daylight basement.  Dirty dog and daughter = gross stairs.  I can't afford to make it perfect (hardwood with a durable carpet runner, perhaps?) but I figured I could make it better.  I happened upon brand new hall way runners at Goodwill.  They had 3 of the same pattern that could be pieced together to cover my stairway.  So, that is what we did.  Or mainly, my husband did.  I dictate projects, he does the bulk of the work.  It's a good deal.  And the project turned out good too!  It's not perfect, you can see where we pieced together the rugs and if you look closely you can see the nails we used.  However, it is better.  It hides the dirt, it adds traction (sock on carpeted stairs are dangerous!) and covered up the carpet we ruined. So, I can feel good that we (my husband) made an improvement.  I could be dissatisfied that it isn't "exactly" what I wanted.  But that would be disregarding the progress we made and creating a "fail-fail" situation.  It was a "fail" to have the ugly carpet but the improvement would also be a "fail" because I labeled it "not good enough" because it wasn't "perfect."  So, my attitude would create unhappiness no matter what. Thinking this way in any area soon leads to a "why bother?" attitude.  If you can't achieve perfection, and consider that failure, then everything will be a failure (or almost everything).  This often makes pursuit of perfection crippling.  Humans are motivated to avoid failure and will avoid activities that lead to that outcome.  Then we don't try new activities or new solutions to our situation.  However, there is no absolute when it comes to failure or success, it is all in how you view it.  If you focus on making progress, focus on making the situation better, there is no such thing as failure.  Even if something doesn't work out as expected, you are still learning about the situation and can then approach again, only better informed.  If the stair runner hadn't turned out well, that is not a failure, that is more information on how to improve when I try again.  Well, I am reconsidering, there is a such thing as failure.  Failure comes by not trying.  This brings to mind a quote by the author J.K. Rowling " It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might have well not lived at all, in which case you have failed by default." (Just in case you have been living under a rock for the last decade and a half, she wrote the Harry Potter books).  So, you can try to avoid being unsuccessful at something by doing nothing, and fail by default.  Or you can try something, possibly screw it up and try again.  Eventually, your efforts will lead to better.  And better is better than perfection.

If you would like to read more about this topic, please check out the book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by Carol Dweck.  It is available on amazon.com.

Hyperemesis Awareness Day 2013

I wrote this while pregnant and suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum. It was written August 29, 2006

I have met the devil...

and his name is Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG). If it is not truely the devil himself, then it is a least one of the devil's spawn. What is this hideous monster you ask? Well, I am here to tell you! Here is an "official" definition:HG is a debilitating and potentially life-threatening pregnancy disease marked by rapid weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration due to unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting with potential adverse consequences for the newborn(s).

However, this really does not seem to do it justice. A survior's definition is as follows:

Although approximately 80 percent of pregnant women experience morning sickness, hyperemesis gravidarum, the evil sister of morning sickness, strikes only one percent of all pregnancies. It is a rare and dangerous complication characterized by relentless vomiting (usually upwards of ten times daily) and severe, constant nausea. If not treated effectively, dehydration and malnutrition can threaten the well-being of both mother and unborn baby.

This seems more like it but still the words don't really do it justice. I don't have a concise definition of this pregnancy complication, I am too busy coping to codify. Nonetheless, I still have some things I'd like to say about it. It is like have the flu with motion sickness with some elements of a migraine. I call it mutant morning sickness. This disease doesn't just harm my ability to eat and drink, it wreaks havok on all my bodily systems. Not only that, the ways in which is screws with my ability to eat and drink don't follow a pattern or seem to have any rules. My symptoms/bodily experiences:
-Cannot drink water at all
-Cannot shower or bathe without getting sick
-Severe motion sickness (I can't even walk to the bathroom without getting sick)
-Hypersensivity to light and sounds (I had to change the ring on my cell phone because the sound of it made me want to vomit)
-Dehydration (although I am doing better with this since I discovered Vitamin Water, a health-type drink and popcicles)
-Frequent nausea
-Frequent vomiting (I went 19 days without vomitting, then I relapsed last week and seem to be getting worse again the last couple of days)
-Occasionally, I blow out blood vessels around my eyes because of the force of the vomitting
-I also occasionally loose control of my bladder while vomitting, which is not all that uncommon among women with this disease, much to my relief.
-Random food cravings and food aversions. For a while, all I could eat was chicken and rice soup, not the thought of chicken and rice soup makes me sick. I used to eat healthy but now the only things I can stomach are high statch and high grease.

I have never felt more physically miserable in my life. The sad thing is that I am not as sick as many other women with this illness. It could be worse! There are at least some foods I can eat, unlike some women who have no choice but to get food through IV's. Being bed ridden, no matter what the reason is completely demoralizing, so I have to contend with my depression, as well. Although, emotionally, I have felt worse and I am trying really hard not have this labeled the most emotionally miserable time of my life. My "bad" days consist of crying and vomitting. My "good" days consist of crying, reading and surfing the internet. My "excellent" days I am able to check in with a client or do some paperwork (which seems to be ever present, even when I am not seeing clients). Aside from being stuck at home, I am sad that I am not able to enjoy being pregnant. I know that even "normal" pregnancies are uncomfortable but "normal" pregnant women haven't had the joy stolen from them. My pregnancy makes me sick and if I weren't on medication, it could make me deathly ill. That doesn't create a lot of warm fuzzy feelings. Some women with HG get angry at their unborn child, I am not, I am angry at my body. For some reason, my body reacts to pregnancy similar to how it would react to being poisoned. So, I pretty much feel that I am getting ripped off. I am also getting ripped off because I will not have any other children than this one I am carrying. I may adopt but the option to have additional biological children has been taken from me because being pregnant is basically dangerous for me. The conventional wisdom is that every pregnancy is different, so I should be safe to try again. That is not true. The odds of me having a pregnancy just like this one, if not worse is 70%. And that my friends, is not gambling odds as far as I am concerned. Some women choose to get pregnant knowing that they will have HG and decide it is worth it. I am not going to do this again. I realize that my child isn't born yet and actually having my child will change the way in which I view my suffering. Even so, I am not going to do this again. We have one shot and it better go well because I will not be pregnant again. All my eggs are in this basket and we are out of luck if we drop the basket. If Hugh and I want more children we will either adopt or find a surrogate for the pregnancy. Finding peace of mind is very difficult right now and knowing I am only going to do this once brings me a sliver of peace. For now, I focus on one day at a time and try to quell my anxiety about no income. A lot women improve in their 2nd trimester to the point of being able to have a "normal" life again. I am hoping and praying that is the case for me. The sooner the devil stops dancing in my innards, the better!

You Can Never Plan These Things Part II

Shzung, upon returning home.

So, after being certain that Shzung was consumed by some rabid, wild beast roaming our new property, she has graced us with her presence again!  Hugh thought he saw her one evening around midnight.  Given that he was sober, has 20/20 vision with out corrective lenses and not prone to hallucinations, I had to believe him.  What a shock!  Usually, when cats disappear they have gone over the "rainbow bridge," so to speak.  However, she was elusive and I didn't see her for another two weeks.  Once I saw her, I thought it would be a simple matter to pick her up and bring her into the house.  But, I forgot about cats and plans.  Specifically, that cats don't care about my plans.  So, we put out food, we called her in sweet voices, we let her daughter cats out to see her.  I employed every strategy I could think of.  She would have none of it.  This went on for a month and a half!!  Quick sightings followed by an empty food dish.  Finally, one evening Huckle went out with me, meowed into the woods and Shzung meowed back.  I started in with my sweet voice and low and behold, she came up to me!  Shzung has always been described as a "snot rag" by my husband and this just proved his point.  She purred, rubbed on my leg, climbed into my lap and acted as if nothing happened!!  I couldn't even be angry at her for deserting us!  Then, I was trapped in a dilemma.  Do I grab her and head to the house, or do I let her move at her own pace?  I didn't want to have her get mad at me and take off but I didn't want to miss my opportunity.  After deliberating for 10 minutes, a while petting the cat, I went for the grab and run.  Luckily, the dog, her nemesis, was no where near and I was able to safely stow Shzung in the laundry room.  My daughter was overjoyed!  We decided to let her and the other cats roam around the bottom level of the house and strictly monitor the dog while everyone adjusted.  That actually worked pretty well and the cats were then integrated into the rest of the house.  Shzung promptly decided it was a good idea to pee in my daughter's room.  Bad plan!!  Cats should stay downstairs!  Still a bad plan!!  My husband has a sleep disorder (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, actually we all have it but I will write about that later.  Go here for more information), so he sleeps downstairs sometimes.  The cats keep him awake.  Okay, now that we know the cats will come back, they can go outside.  No!  The scratch and whine at the door and keep Hugh awake.  They can have a kitty door and go in and out.  No!  They bring mice in the house and they really keep him awake.  Please read his account here. So, now he is attempting to "train" the cats to leave him alone.  He has had some success with this and figures that in comparison to the issues that accompany mice, it's not so bad.  So, I thought we could go forth with all the family members back in the fold.  Alas, Huckle decided to go on a walk about and now she's been gone for a couple weeks.  I also realized that Three seems to have vacated the premises.  So, the saga continues.  My plans are for naught. We are now down to one cat who provides a constant reminder that "The best-laid plans of mice and (wo)men / Often go awry." (Quotation from "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough" by Robert Burns,  the addition of both genders by me!)

The Time I Threw a Live Mouse Off the Balcony a short story by Hugh (for Sunny, his beloved wife{not dead})

It was the late night or early morning of April 20th 2013, depending on how you look at it.  If you look at 4:00am as the early morning, please stop reading now.  The gap between our levels of understanding of the universe are so vast, you might as well be reading Japanese.  I awoke, or was awoken to, by a loud  clanging.  A loud clanging is an embarrassing and “so not original” way to begin a story such as this,   but I will remind you now and this one time only that every word I am currently typing AND every word you are currently reading is the God's honest, absolute and Almighty truth...

    The loud clanging turns out to be our least beloved cat, “3”.  Believe me, she has earned every ounce of effort we put into naming her.  Let me go back a moment here.  I promised the absolute truth and yet have already started with a small but important piece missing.  At first, upon being awoken, I suspected the clanging was our Chinchilla, Dr. Pepper T. Mouse (a name he/she has earned through gallant service and entertainment to the family).  I approach Dr. Mouse's cage (the irony of his/her last name only now becoming real to me) only to hear the loud clanging in the other room.  And now I have ruined the suspense, but there in the darkness I see 3 dragging our 6 foot floor heater across the carpet with her paw.  I, being the only sensible creature in the room, scold her and push her away, thinking that a heater is a very stupid thing to attack.  Rather than retreating, she leaps back toward the heater and begins to hop around and gyrate in agitated and vicious movements usually reserved to members of the fiercest South American tribes.  Then it hits me.  She's not attacking the heater at all...

    I lift the end of the heater a few feet in the air.  There is a small section at the end, where the wiring is housed, that just so happens to be impossible for a cat to infiltrate.  I imagine it is nice and warm in there.  I give it a shake and...  Something is alive in there.  I steel my nerves and head to the garage for supplies.  My initial plan is to remove the housing cover by unscrewing the single Phillips head screw to identify the intruder.  Wish I had given it more thought, but I am a man and we tend to think one step at a time.  This will hurt me later.  To be honest, my plan was probably as follows.  I open the things, the creature runs out and the cats pounce on it.  They do the dirty work, I do the clean-up and we never tell a soul.  Just giving each other knowing looks while we pass through the house for the rest of our lives.  “Mommy can never know.”

    So there I am turning the screw with two agitated felines twitching behind me.  Schzung has now joined the fray and while I don't have a lot of faith in 3's abilities in... ANYTHING, Schzung could most likely survive on the Moon.  But that's a different story.  I remove the housing cover only to discover a new problem that causes my original plan to fall to pieces.  The mouse is adorable.  All of a sudden, this has become a moral dilemma.  Not having time enough to explain the change of plans to the predators, Schzung pounces for the kill.  The world's cutest mouse scurries through a gauntlet of razor sharp paws and gnashing teeth until finally taking refuge behind a stack of books in our entertainment center.  Note to self: My cats are incapable hunters.  On the plus side, I did not have to witness the grizzly killing scene while quietly consoling myself with thoughts like, “well...  that's nature.  A brutal struggle for life.  Beautiful in it's way.”  Nature of course, did not remove screw from the cover housing.  I realize now, that if I hope to get any sleep tonight, I will be taking care of this problem myself.

    As the cats continue their pursuit I run to grab a pair of gloves.  If anyone is going to be getting this tiny creature out of our house, it is going to be me.  When I return to the scene the mouse makes a break for it.  The cats are useless, it has to be me.  I spring toward the fleeing mouse and moments later I am looking at its little tail in my right hand.  Now what?  I start toward the sliding glass door.  My first thought it to let it outside.  To release it back into its natural habitat.  But after a few steps, I pause.  This little thing has invaded my house.  It has put my family at risk with it's toxic feces.  Rabies, Hantha Virus...  Who knows what this little disease ridden filth mammal might be carrying.  I should just crush its little skull.  Just squeeze it in my hand with my world renowned grip strength.  No...  Too gruesome.  I don't have it in me.  Next plan.  I'll put it in a container.  Yes.  Keep it there overnight and ask Sunny what to do in the morning.  Edan will get to see a cute little mouse and then cry because she can't keep it as a pet...  No.  No good either.  My track record for keeping creatures in containers if spotty.  Remember what happened to the salamander?  And the frog escaped as well.  We would be back at square one.  I walking up the stairs now.  The container idea is denied.  So what then?  Flush it down the toilet, garbage disposal, suffocation?  I have to either kill it, or get it far enough away from the house that it won't easily return.

    Once again, my instinct to get this creature out of my house kicks in.  The front door?  Nowhere to put it.  It will scamper into the garage and be back in the house in an hour.  I'm not walking back downstairs.  If Kona catches wind of this, she will only further complicate the issue.  And then.  It hits me.  The balcony.  I fight through nagging doubts as I walk purposely, nurse-like, to the sliding glass door that opens on to the balcony.  With one motion I slide the door open with my left hand, rear back my right arm in a mighty recoil and let fly the mouse in a launch intended to reach the surface of the moon.s

    And then.  There was silence.  In the far distance I see the tiny silhouette under the moonlight as the rodent floats gently down the cliff.  I don't know what the terminal velocity of a mouse is.  But the fall looked VERY survivable to me.  So... Am I a mouse killer?  Or a mouse rescuer?  I'll leave it to you to decide.