I Think They May Be Trying To Kill Us

So I go to get some lunch downstairs today. This rather confused woman is on the elevator and has pushed most all of the buttons because she's not sure where she needs to go. As we work our way to the ground floor, I explain that she needs to get off on G in order to leave the building.

The doors open on Ground and as I step out of the elevator my nose begins to burn, followed by what feels like a mild asthma attack. The woman, who happened to be blonde, also starts coughing - just a little tickle like cough mind you. I can't smell anything noticeable in the air but my nose continues to burn. I glance around and it seems like every third person seems to be coughing or sneezing but no one is acting like anything is wrong.

Once in the cafeteria it seems to calm down. I get my lunch, a veggie burger, and proceed to head back upstairs. Once back in the hall, the symptoms come right back until I am safely in the elevator heading back upstairs.

Apparently someone in the kitchen attempted to dispose of a large container of cayenne pepper. I believe they placed the unopened container into some form of trash compactor which caused the cannister to "explode." I am awaiting word from my contact in dietary to verify this story.

If, however, I mysteriously sicken in the next few days, please be sure OSHA is notified, eh?

Haven't heard how the poor soul in the kitchen is fairing either. My nose and lungs are just now finally starting to calm down. Peace.

Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

I'm thinking once again about the Tower of Babel. Do you remember the story in Genesis? Mankind is getting a bit cocky and decides to build this immense tower in order to reach heaven. The Old Testament God is a bit perturbed by this hubris and smashes the tower to bits and then to ensure that humanity is unable to cooperate and try it again this God creates multiple and various languages and scatters us around the globe.

There are folks, often atheist types, like to point to this story as an example of the mean spirited and petty nature of God, apparently ignoring that it is yet another Judeo-Christian myth that is explaining how we got to be human in all our diversity.

The New Testament "flip side" story would be, of course, Pentecost in which the Holy Spirit descends and the disciples begin to preach in different languages and so everyone hearing is able to understand. At the Episcopal churches I have attended, the tradition has been to have the gospel reading on Pentecost be presented in as many different languages as the congregation can comfortably speak.

With the Pentecost story, the language barrier created in Genesis is transcended and we can all understand each other...or can we...really.

I am a person who lives by my alleged ability to communicate. I tell long winded anecdotes to make incredibly trivial little points in conversation. I write my blog. I get wonderfully snarky at times on Facebook. Yet, not a day seems to go by where no matter how hard I try and explain something, the other person simply does not comprehend my meaning.

My friend Maria commented the other day on one of my posts below. My response was "Was that really what I was saying?" The subsequent comments waxed philosophical about how we put out our thoughts and they are always reinterpreted by the recipients. The discussion in this case was in regards to blog posts, sermons, and the like. I often wonder if in reality very little of what we say is ever interpreted and received in a manner that really creates true understanding between two people.

Fresh out of college I worked for the Japanese government at their Consulate office in Chicago. Not long after I started, we were joined by a man who was part of the Hiroshima Prefecture government bureaucracy. All of the others were part of their State department and had received extensive English language training. Mr. Kono and I worked side by side for a number of months before finally he said, "My English is really not so good." I asked him about how much of what I say he understands and he replied, "About 10 percent."

For all this time I had been operating under the false assumption that we were communicating. The longer I live on this linguistically confused planet, the more I think that even in English, most people understand only about 50-60% of what I am trying to express.

The most obvious moments occur on Facebook where space is limited and verbosity is not welcomed. The same is true with blog comment pages. Tempers often flare and it is often when we least had intended to be snarky that we ignite the biggest fire storms. However, even in our day to day interactions with people our random comments seem to be misinterpreted, misunderstood, and mistaken for something else entirely.

How many of us simply give up and stop trying to share the really important thoughts and feelings? How many spouses can no longer communicate beyond, "Pass the salt, please."? How many relationships wither and die for a lack of understanding between the individuals?

Are you familiar at all with the movie Love Actually? There a number of story lines running simultaneously throughout the film. I find the plot involving Colin Firth the most heart warming. Early in the film he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with his brother. He leaves London and goes to the coast (which coast I don't remember). He engages the services of a beautiful Portuguese woman who speaks no English. Through out the film, we the audience watch as they try to communicate with each other. The scene towards the end where he proposes to her in broken Portuguese is one of the most romantic scenes in the movies IMHO.

Perhaps when we remember the fallibility of our common tongue, how easily our words are misinterpreted, when we remember to shut up and really try and listen to what the other is saying, then maybe we can begin to understand each other and move forward. Peace.

. . . . .

Running Away To Join The Circus?

Job frustration...big time. The raving inner Roman Catholic says, "Shut up, you bastard, at least you have a job...you're not allowed to complain." Bravely I blog ahead...

The number of folks I learn about who are unemployed without any apparent job opportunities continues to grow. This post is in no way to dismiss them and their own personal hell currently. Yet, their very existence makes folks in my situation all the more stressful. We look around us, listen to the news reports, watch the parade of economic indicators and it keeps us afraid.

We don't speak up when we are assigned yet more responsibility without any additional compensation. We don't speak up when we are stripped of more of our dwindling benefit package. By the way, how do they get away with calling them benefits if we are paying more and more of the cost? We don't speak up when our bosses are completely unreasonable. So we continue to muddle along in our own little versions of The Devil Wears Prada.

I have job frustration and I don't see much in the way of solving what I feel are the issues. They all stem from weak, absent management. As a previous manager, I see what needs to be done. As an organized, control freak, I am skilled at creating systems to ensure it gets done. As a typical "oldest child" I end up having to do it all to get it done. My boss sits back and lets it all fall on my shoulders.

As much as I have enjoyed aspects of this job, as much as I believe I am very good at this job, I think I am very close to being done -- put a fork in me and see.

I am fortunate that I am a college educated, RN. With those credentials, I should be able to find something else. However, I am living in a region of the country where this hospital is essentially it for nursing employment. This severely limits my opportunities.

For the past 6-8 weeks I have been working a contact that I met purely by chance. I'm not getting to hopeful in that it's quite possible the position is "wishful thinking" on the part of my contact. She is a case manager for a company that follows patients in the Upper Peninsula. There are currently two full time nurses and a part time nurse and they are all maxed out with their patient loads. Any future with this company is currently dependent on how successful she may be in requesting an additional position for the region.

I have been monitoring the jobs listing here at the hospital as well. I avoided posting for a position in the Education Department initially because I wasn't sure where the position above stood. I should add that I was less than enthusiastic about the Education job, but I am near the point of taking something else - something without a pager, something with a limit to my hours, something with an involved manager.

Which leads me now to consider a PM shift position on the Adult Psych Unit. I have pretty much decided that I no longer want to do bed side nursing. However, I'm thinking that the milieu would be different enough that I might consider making an exception. At the same time it scares the bejeezus out of me.

In the way back when I was in nursing school during my Psych Rotation, I chose to work on the unit with the more functional patients - Bi-Polar, Depression, etc. I am such a communicator that I'm not sure how well I would do with the psychotic patients. Yet there was a time during nursing school where I thought I might consider this route.

A former supervisor liked the expression, "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know." Fear. It is helping to keep me in my place. I am struggling to transcend the fear of the unknown in making this decision.

I have always liked the "frog in the pot" metaphor. You know, you place a frog into a pot of boiling water and he will jump right out. You place in a pot of warm water and put a slow flame underneath and he will sit there and boil to death, never realizing he needs to jump.

Then there's that lovely expression, "out of the frying pan and into the fire."

The worst thing about that last expression is there is no escape. There was an experiment done with dogs. They were placed into a wire bottomed cage with a divider down the middle. They would shock the floor on one side to condition the dog to jump to the other side. Yet eventually they began to shock both sides to see what the dog would do (yes, sadistic I know). The dogs gave up jumping and whimpered in the corner no matter how much shock they received, having learned that there is no escape.

I fear that more than anything else right now, that when I jump there will only be more pain on the other side. Peace.

Sure of You

I'm finding it a challenge to blog with my new set up. I am still so much into writing in the moment. I drove into town this afternoon to run errands and have a bite to eat at a place I know has wireless. I managed some of the blogs I've been following via Google Reader and my Smartphone.

Finally now I am going to blog out what I have been pondering lately, especially as an image came to me just now of Christopher Robin.

When I was little, I was a very quiet and shy kid. I had my school friends, but I don't recall lots of socializing with those kids outside of school. It seemed that I always had one or two neighborhood friends that I socialized with. Not until we moved to Michigan my sophomore year of highschool to I begin to have a circle of friends with whom I regularly got together and got into trouble.

Prior to this I lived in my head reading everything I could get my hands on. When I was in junior high I worked my way through John Jakes' Bicentennial Series, a number of very fat novels of historical fiction following the Kent family through pre-Revolution on up to the near present day.

Well, what has been on my mind lately is that my life seems to be reverting back to my Christopher Robin days. Lately the number of local folk that I regularly socialize with continues to disappear. I do get together for saunas with my neighbor, Heidi. Otherwise it is me, the animals and my books and movies.

I have blogged before on my secular hermit status. What I'm thinking about now is why this doesn't seem to bother me. First off, I have a small group of folks with whom I maintain a telephone/text/cyber friendship. Beyond them is my Facebook/blog network of cyber friends around the globe - literally - Lindy is in China, Jack is in the UK, PJ is in New York, Goren is in Sweden, Maria is in Missouri, Robert is in Alaska...the list goes on. I don't feel isolated in the least (well, most of the time).

I come across articles that are bemoaning the way that social networks are taking over our lives. I myself have been frustrated in the past with my siblings' relying on a simple Facebook friendship link without any regular interactions even on the network as an apparent acceptable substitute for them to an actual live connection, mainly via the telephone.

An acquaintance just had their third child last weekend. Rather than call the grandparents, they made the initial announcement on Facebook. Some in their family struggled with that decision.

Yet, there is something genuine and good in these connections. We are all struggling with frustrations and sadness and a poor economy and disappointment. There's a connection there that is in many ways more immediate and liberated than relying on the formality of phone calls. I can roll over in bed and grab my phone and see who's commented on Facebook, who's sent me a message, etc.

I have argued in the past that the seeming superficiality of these connections is in truth no less superficial than the majority of our day to day relationships. We put a significant weight on the physical presence of the other, yet what we truly value is the spirit of that other. We transcend the physical with our miraculous technical methods of connecting.

This past weekend I was actually in a mood to watch the Packer/Bears game and thought I'd sit and watch it with Heidi's husband. She messaged me on Saturday "not to feel bad" but Steven didn't want me to come over. She made an excuse about him preferring to watch the game alone. I didn't exactly buy the excuse and still suspect that he was not comfortable having me over with no one else home. My point in bringing this up is simply to reinforce my argument that these "real" relationships are just as superficial or more correctly that my cyber relationships have as much depth.

So why Christopher Robin? Well, the entire Winnie the Pooh world is essentially in the head of one little boy. As I sat down to think about my evolving life pattern of socialization, I realized that my entire social network is essentially in my head (with the help of technology) and if Christopher Robin can do it, why not me?

That picture at at the top of the post? The text is as follows:

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."”

I have many such moments with my cyber friends. I reach out and they are there, just so I can be sure of them. It's remarkably easier to do than with the folks in my physical life. Peace.

A Bit About Abby

Here's one of the best snaps I've gotten in recent months. The guy on the left is Frankie and the girl on the right is Abby. I was sitting in my Lazy Boy recliner watching some DVD or other when I looked over and saw this adorable site.

Let me back up a bit. As you can see by the pic at the top of the blog, I live in a log home in the woods. I've lived here for over five years now. The first autumn right after moving in I began to notice that I had a mouse. I believed it was A mouse. As it happens in the woods, every year in the fall the deer mice begin to seek out a nice cozy safe place to winter in. It took me until the next season to realize that it wasn't A mouse. I had long given up the whole live trap ideal and had resorted to snap traps. I was regularly catching/killing up to 2-3 dozen mice a season.

Needless to say I longed for a feline solution. My problem, however, were my trusty canine pals. I was very reluctant to introduce a tiny little kitten into the house with the four dogs. Cosmo, may he rest in peace, would always over react in the presence of a cat, as though he was shouting out, "Stand back, don't panic, it's an evil cat. I'll protect you!" Frankie, on the other hand, would probably kill the poor thing with rambunctious play.

Yet to bring an adult cat into the picture, fully clawed, might mean harm to the dogs.

So a year ago last fall, I had gone next door to the neighbors to see their son recently home from the hospital and Abby goes scooting by the sliding glass door. After a brief case of mistaken identity, I learn that their cat had had a pair of kitten sisters that summer and they were now five months old. Unfortunately there was already another litter upstairs so the girls had been pushed out of the house to fend for themselves as outdoor cats.

Along come my dogs and I watch as the kittens assume defensive postures and defend themselves and a light bulb goes off over my head. Needless to say, the girls soon were mine. Abby who was being called "Johnny Five Fingers" because of her opposable thumbs was quickly given a more appropriate and dignified name. You may recall that ABBy is short for Anne Boleyn Boadicea. Her sister who was essentially nameless was christened Catherine of Aragon Latipha or Cal for short.

It took a number of months to work out the in house logistics. For awhile the cats had the basement and the dogs stayed upstairs. However, around the time I moved my t.v. room to the main floor I began to feel that the cats were being slighted and began to introduce them to the house at large.

Frankie got whapped a few times but quickly learned to respect the girls who had grown significantly by then. There were other clues that we were moving beyond detente to tolerance to acceptance, but this photo was my first clue that we had family bonding occurring.

You can see Abby's little thumb in the picture there. If you haven't read my post below, then you don't know that she is terminally ill. I just discovered Sunday night that she has Feline Leukemia Virus and is likely to have less than an a year or two to live.

In addition to her thumbs, she has the most beautiful eyes. They are a bright green with a small ring of pea green around her pupils. There is a very small chance that as she fights this current episode of leukemia (she's on steroids and her blood counts are responding) that she will go into remission and live a more normal life). Keep the prayers coming. Peace.

Keeping IT Under Control?

When you are raised Roman Catholic you are always on the lookout for the other shoe to drop. Something good happening in your life? There’ll be a negative just around the corner. So it seems is the case once again in my life.

In recent weeks I was forced to work an ungodly number of hours at work. What got me through was the knowledge that I would have extra cash to put towards paying down debt. Sure enough the paycheck was padded and I intended to make an extra payment on the credit card. I looked over my financial plan (if you can deem to call it that) and was at least satisfied that I was making slow progress.

Well, just as the house seems able to sniff out my tax return, life took a bite out of those plans. The car needs a new part - $300-400 gone. Worse yet, one of my cats is now seriously ill and the emergency vet bill and the vet bill today - $350 gone. All the extra money and a bit more - into the debt vacuum. Did I mention it was time to order another fill on the propane tank?

Well, despite all this whining, there is a more philosophical point here.

I struggle with control. No matter how laid back I think I have become I am still by nature a control freak. At work for the most part this is a good thing. It has allowed me to organize the hell out of Home Infusion, while driving my work partner a bit crazy. She, however, is mildly dyslexic and not exactly organized. We have butted heads over the years, but in the end she sees the purpose of most of my system changes.

In my personal life it gets to be a bit more complicated. I struggle most days with my messy house. The control freak thinks there should be order, but the body is just too damn tired. The result is a constant low grade feeling of guilt - I am a bad person because my house is messy.

Of course, then I am really hit with a bombshell. One of my adorable cats - Abby - has Feline Leukemia.

She had been spending a greater amount of time in the basement lately, but by Sunday I could see that something was clearly wrong. She was very lethargic and dopey. After the emergency vet visit and the visit today, I now know and expect that she will die in the not too distant future. Her illness is not treatable and it is simply a question of keeping her comfortable. The steroid therapy is helping boost her bone marrow, but it is likely to be temporary only.

Her sister is likely to test positive for FLV, but may or may not ever develop illness from it.

The words of sympathy and prayers are abundant on Facebook and I am grateful for them all. However, I am facing this crisis with a relatively calm spirit. This is beyond my control.

Yes, it is very sad that I will lose this beautiful cat so soon. However, in all likelihood she got this virus from her mother - in other words it was going to happen. When I adopted her I adopted a cat with a short life span. The alternative would be that she simply didn’t exist. That is not an option I would choose.

How does the song go from Rent? “There’s only this, there’s only now…” I will love, cherish and care for her with the time we have together and accept that for what it is. It would be wrong to waste any of our time together wishing for something else.

The life of one cat is so meaningless against the larger tragedies of this world. However, with this illness, I have been granted the opportunity to adjust my attitude once again. I have been reminded that life for all of us fleeting. Death is beyond our control. We must all live in the moment and cherish the beings that we are walking with along the path.

UPDATE: Sister Cal has tested negative for the virus! This means either she was lucky and didn't catch the virus from mom or she did and her body successfully fought it off. Either way she has been started on the FLV vaccination regimen. Abby's blood work on Wednesday was an improvement from Sunday night so she is showing a strong ability to fight. There's a very small possibility that she could go into remission and surprise us all, so please keep the prayers coming. Peace.

Trying To Get Back Into The Groove

Here I sit at the Irish Rover waiting for my "Irish Breakfast." In the past my blogging was always rather spontaneous. I would get an idea; log onto the computer; and type away with minimal editing. Now I have to plan.

Well, now that my breakfast/lunch is tucked snugly into my gut...eggs, deep fried bread, bangers and champ, ham, beans...YUM.

OK, so here we go. The obvious topic at hand would be the recent tragedy in Tucson. However, I've already said plenty on Facebook--most of it angry.

I think I would rather discuss what I heard on NPR the other night. I was driving home and they were discussing smart phones, apps, etc. The one guy actually said that he preferred "the old fashioned internet." Wow. I nearly had a mild panic attack.

I was only beginning to wrap my poor old brain around the idea that e-mail will soon be going the way of typewriters. I can grasp that we are witnessing the death throes of commercial scheduled television as we know it. However, "old fashioned" is not a term I would think to apply to the net.

It would seem I have purchased my smart phone just in the nick of time. My rationale for that was the complete lack of internet connection at home in the woods. After calling up my mom and asking her to look something up for me, I realized I had to do something.

My smartphone, a Galaxy S by Samsung with Droid technology, is wonderful. I am actually reading blogs more via Google Reader. I am able to check mail and comment regularly on Facebook. The speed is acceptable and the cost is half what I was paying for my wireless card.

I am happy with how I am keeping up with technology. I never used to fancy myself a "computer geek" and maybe by geek standards I am fooling myself. However, I look around me and see many many folks who are slowly being left in the dust.

Ironically, though, one of the innovations I am not interested in is the Readers. I commented just yesterday on a status update in which my friend was wishing for a Kindle. My response was that I would never give up real books, and magazines and journals printed on paper.

Perhaps it's because the printed word is more a part of my physical environment. One of the best compliments I have received regarding my house is that "the whole house is like a library." I have stacks of back issues of the Nation and Harpers in the basement. There is a permanence with the tangible items that seems so lacking in digital form. If I lose power for 24 hours, I can still read my book by oil burning lamp. They cannot take them away from me except by the extreme - as in Nazi Germany or Fahrenheit 451.

Yes, I realize I am drifting a bit into my paranoid delusions of total collapse of society. I also realize that my books are not permanent - they are only permanent for me. They will eventually disappear - either tossed into the trash after I am gone or allowed to slowly crumble to dust if my siblings' offspring continue to pass them on from generation to generation.

Much as I think I want to loosen my grip on things, books will always be things that will be hard to relinquish. I can't believe I am thinking of Charlton Heston and "prying my cold dead hands" from my books. OK, maybe I'm getting a bit carried away.

In any case, my life is a strange combination of near off grid living in the woods and current technology. Folks from either side would likely scoff at the combination, but it works for me.

I Think The Picture Says It All

Yes, I am alive and well, for those of you have been wondering. I have been active on Facebook. I gave up the Internet at home last year and that has cut me off a bit. However, I have succumbed to the temptation of smart phones and now, with the help of my Droid, am able to do most things at home on the net via my phone.

I am finally taking full advantage of my Google Reader and am gradually increasing my subscriptions. This allows to me to regularly read posts, although I am not able to comment, which may be a good thing.

I have had surgeries on both wrists to alleviate carpal tunnel symptoms and am now on a new drug via the neurologist which is helping with what he calls "micro neuropathy" as the cause for my joint pain throughout my body.

Work continues to be a challenge, but I am thankful that I am employed when so many are not. My bills are getting paid and my debt is slowly decreasing. I am blest.

More to come...