Vive La France, Vive Les Etats-Unis

I care about terror attacks all over the world. Why did the attacks in Paris just two days ago touch me deeply enough to inspire me to change my facebook profile picture in support of the French?

Because France is the USA's oldest ally;

Because without assistance from the French in the 18th century, the US would not exist;

Because so much of the philosophy that informs our highest ideals originated in France; and

Because we have so much of shared values and culture with the French.

Yes, both of our countries have problems and have made political and social errors. Putting our high ideals into actual practice is often a dirty business, both maddening and saddening. But for better or for worse, we are on paths that run together at so many important points in modern history.

France, our elder sister...so very different from us, yet so very much the same. Remember that the colors of the French flag are also the colors of ours.

Cascade

It is just shy of a year since my mother passed away.  2 days shy, to be exact.  My mother-in-law passed away last night.  We lost my father-in-law just 4 months ago, in May of this year.  I find myself in the midst of a cascade of memories and emotions that began on September 18th - my mother's birthday.  I well up with tears several times a day. 

I try to avoid memorializing specific dates, but I have been unable to stop myself this month, so here goes:  my mom reached her 90th birthday on 9/18/14.  She passed away 10 days later, on 9/28/14.  We held her funeral services on 10/6/14.  My mother-in-law's passing date of 9/26/15 adds another stepping stone into the emotional Via Dolorosa of September into October.  My father passed away on 10/30/85.  We held his viewing on 11/1 and his funeral services on 11/2/85.

I don't expect to grieve all of the way through October into early November, though I know there will be moments of tristesse whenever I think about Mom and Dad.  I felt the need to write a little bit about this, so I dusted off my old blog.  Posting about this on facebook feels a little bit too crass.  I don't want thumbs-up facebook likes on a post about this.  I don't want to publish this under my my name, on facebook, for all of my friends, acquaintances and co-workers to see. 

Dear Donald

Dear Donald,

Yes, political correctness is a cultural phenomenon that can get out of control. However, treating people with dignity and respect is not merely a facet of political correctness: it is a sign of good character. We want to see presidential candidates who have the intellectual capacity to navigate complex social and political situations with diplomacy and wisdom.

Fair warning: if you show that you are capable of that by engaging with others respectfully, you will then have to run on your merit as a leader and your knowledge of the world. One uzbekibekibekistanstan moment could bring you down.

Start studying.

Just my opinion here:

1. Holiday is not a bad word, and it puzzles me that anyone would be insulted when someone wishes them a happy one.

2. There is no war on Christmas. It is still the one day in any year that most private businesses and government offices are closed. That's powerful: no other day in the US American calendar receives that much respect.

3. "Xmas" is not sacrilegious. The X represents the a Greek letter which was used a symbol for Christ. It is simple, ancient shorthand for Christ, not a way of "crossing Christ out of Christmas," as some people preach. In fact, you will see the Chi Rho (looks like an X with a P in the middle) embroidered on the altar cloths of churches and the vestments of ministers.

4. It is Christ-like to be respectful of the beliefs of others, so forcing a "Merry Christmas" on someone who does not observe Christmas seems kind of self-centered to me. I know that most people of other faiths are not offended by it, but it must get old to hear it. Showing respect for their beliefs seems like a better way to me.

It seems to me that we accomplish more by shining as a light by example, making people want to know what motivated us to give our time and efforts to them. It has become more and more prevalent for Christians to beat people with different beliefs over the head with words than it is to quietly reach out to them to meet their needs.

If text falls into a long-still blog, will anyone hear?

Close Call

The last few weeks have been quite a ride.  My husband developed shortness of breath on October 18th.  He saw his doctor on the 19th, had an EKG and a chest x-ray (negative) and was scheduled for other tests in mid-November.  I kept asking him to go to the ER.  The shortness of breath got worse and worse, until we finally went to the ER on 10/26.  We found out that he had several large pulmonary emboli, and that the right chamber of his heart was greatly enlarged because it was working so hard to get blood into his lungs past the clots.

My husband had emergency open-heart surgery that day to remove the clots.  He spent the next 8 days in the Cardiovascular Unit (CVU) at the hospital.  Halloween this year is a blur to me.  He came home on November 3rd, and he is recuperating.  I have been fortunate to be able to take a good amount of time off to be with him.

My husband has to take Coumadin (and a big bunch of other drugs) for at least 6 months.  A visiting nurse comes twice a week to check his PT/INR level, to try to keep the dose of Coumadin regulated.  That's proved difficult, and he developed nosebleeds from the blood thinners.  We ended up taking off for the ER on Monday night (11/7) just after 11 PM.  We were there until almost 3 AM.  An incompetent ER doctor (he reminded me of all of the goofball interns on the medical shows we watch) left us in a cubicle for a couple of hours because he wanted to see if he bled anymore.  He did.  Then the idiot used Silver Nitrate to cauterize the bleeding blood vessels without numbing the area first.  My poor husband, who was less that 2 weeks out of open heart surgery, just about jumped off of the table.

The next morning, the bleeding started again.  We obviously were not going back to the ER.  We kept an appointment at the hospital with the surgeon that afternoon. His office sent us on to an ear/nose/throat specialist, who cauterized the blood vessels WITH the benefit of local anesthesia.  Unfortunately, the bleeding started AGAIN that night. We went back to the ENT the next morning (Wednesday), and he did some additional cauterization.  So far, so good (knock on wood).  It's Thursday night, and there has been no further bleeding of any significance. 

The visiting nurse came today, and the numbers are improving.  We actually got to spend the entire day at home today, and I got some cleaning done.  Life is returning to a more normal pattern, although there will be many doctor's appointments, as well as visits from the nurse and the physical therapist.  My husband still needs oxygen at night, and he won't be able to drive for at least a few more weeks.  He has to ride in the back seat for now, away from any possible deployment of an airbag.  He won't be able to lift more than five pounds for a couple of months, so I'll be busy taking care of the dogs, doing laundry, etc.  (That's OK!)

This week has felt like a bizarre road rally/scavenger hunt.  We found ourselves running to one place to pick up a clue which will send you on to the next place.  All the while we were hoping to make it to the prize.  Looks like we finally found it! 


Oh...and the cause of all of this?  The flight home from Italy led to a deep vein thrombosis in my husband's leg which, over the next few weeks, caused the clots in the lungs.  At the time of the heart surgery, a filter was installed which will prevent clots from the legs from ever reaching my husband's lungs again.           

Ciao Italia

Returned home from a tour of Italy on 10/6/11. It was a marvelous trip! Here are a few pics:

Going...Going...

Gone.

Serenity, I mean. I began the year striving for it. I had some success for awhile, but I haven't done so well lately.

Work is hellish these days. Change is a daily event. No one (management most of all) knows what they are doing. There have been many unnecessary promotions ( and a very few necessary ones), leading to hordes of confused, overpaid supervisory staff. Our upper level administration is making changes merely for the sake of making changes, with no thought for outcomes. Thing is, I've been there so long and I've been through so many changes that it's making me cranky. A lot of the other veterans are feeling it, too.

There are two problems with government jobs: bad supervisors and golden handcuffs. There is a consistent tendency to promote people with good job skills and good work ethics who have no business being supervisors. Then the golden handcuffs kick in (medical benefits, pension) to keep unhappy workers there in spite of the bad boss.

To be honest, though, it's not just the changes at work that are getting to me. Several years ago I was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor. The tumor secretes a hormone that affects my dopamine levels and can also affect estrogen levels. I have to take a medication that is a dopamine agonist to balance out the hormone levels and, hopefully, shrink the tumor. I've been taking it for 5 years now. It greatly reduces the levels of the unwanted hormone, and it has kept the tumor from growing. The tumor has not reduced in size.

It's not absolutely clear whether it's the ongoing effects of the tumor or the side effects of the medication (probably both), but a lot of people with my particular type of tumor have a lot of headaches, get anxious (sometimes including palpitations), and become irritable. And a lot of our doctors brush it off. That's because the tumor, when treated, is very manageable. When not treated, it can become very serious. There are only a few medications available to treat it, and the one I take has the fewest side effects. Stopping the medication is not an option and would not make me feel better. This tiny tumor (only 6mm) can cause great mayhem.

I don't mind telling people that I have a pituitary tumor, but I don't discuss the emotional impact it has. The only way that I know that the tumor is part of the problem is from online forums for people with the same issues. That's not exactly a scientific way to pin things down, it's just helpful to me personally. I don't like to blame my irritability on the tumor. Or on pending menopause. Or on the traumas of the past (we all have them). In the end, I have to acknowledge that I can't change any of those things, and I have to continue to try to find a path to serenity in spite of them. Like I said, it's not working out so well right now. But I'm not going to give up, it's a worthy pursuit.

Ancestry

My mother and I have always thought that my father's side of the family might carry a hint of Asian ancestry. I have done genetic testing with 2 different companies, and I was disappointed when both companies reported my ancestry as 100% European. Of course, these results were provided based on comparison of my genetic material to databases that continues to grow and to be refined. I was pleasantly surprised when one of the companies recently updated my results to tell me that I am 95.76% Western European (Orcadian) and 4.24% South Asian (Pathan /Pashtun, Southeast Indian, North Indian).

I still don't think this tells the whole story of my ancestry. My father's parents were both Ukrainian, so I would expect to see some Eastern European ancestry in the mix. I have reason to think that my great, great, great grandmother (maternal) was of Dutch ancestry, but I still don't know a lot about her. I'll keep searching!

Sunday

Darned Hallmark Hall of Fame sucked me in and made me cry. The story was about a WWII widow who finally learns the fate of her husband. He had been declared to be MIA during the war.

I guess this was especially poignant to me because that was my parents' generation. World War II changed so much for that generation, even for those who didn't lose a loved one to the war. I guess our current wars will do the same for many.

We visited my mom today. She was admitted to the hospital last night with hip and leg pain due to a fall. So far, there does not seem to be a fracture (waiting for CT scan results). Her memory issues add another dimension to the whole thing because she keeps forgetting that she isn't supposed to get up and walk around. They're watching her closely while she's in the hospital. She currently lives (very happily) in an assisted living residence, but I suspect the time is approaching when she will need closer supervision.

I suspect that arthritis is playing a role in her discomfort. I wonder if there are some circulation problems causing her to have weak spells and to lose her balance. She'll probably need a wheelchair until the pain diminishes, but I don't think she'll remember to stay in it. Mom isn't disagreeable or combative, she just doesn't remember what she's supposed to do. Oh well, one step at a time. For the moment, her injuries do not appear to be serious, and that is good news.

Democracy Took a Hit Today

I have been watching the breaking news about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and several other people in Tucson today, and I am moved to tears. I am sad for the young woman (40 is young to me) and her family, and I am sad for the constant chipping away at freedom that has been going on in the US for several years now. It seems to me that the beginning of the new intolerance dovetails with the beginning of the first G.W. Bush administration.

I now live in a state with a conservative narcissist/hedonist for governor. I live in a country where the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and others incite violence against anyone who disagrees with their warped view of the world.

I know that there have always been crazy, rigid, unbalanced people in the world. The problem is that it's becoming mainstream to be one of those unhinged people. If the Republican Party really wants to be a respectable, conservative alternative in government, they have to disavow this wrathful, hateful element. There must be some sensible Republicans out there who would like to return their party to sanity. Let the crazies leave. If you can only keep your party alive by courting the unbalanced and fomenting hatred, well, there's something wrong.

We don't yet know what inspired this shooting, but it seems likely that Representative Giffords was targeted. The shooter might not have been a tea-partier, and might never have heard Sharron Angle's comments about using "2nd amendment remedies" to take over government. It doesn't matter. The culture of violence inspired by the tea party extremists and the right wing shock jocks has to end.

Ruby Slippers

If you look very closely, you'll see a doggie in that window. Don't ask how much that doggie is...she's priceless! That's my Daisy, who was watching from the cozy bedroom as I tromped around taking pictures in the snow.

I haven't posted much lately because I've been generally miserable. It's not the holidays - I really had a nice Christmas, without too much stress leading up to it. I don't know whether it's hormones, (what with the pituitary thing and my age), or if it's work, or if it's just all of the sudden changes of the last few months (getting married, husband retiring). I guess it's some combination of all of the above.

Work has recently gone from being a place that I didn't mind, that I even liked most of the time, to being a land of the unknown. I'm like Dorothy in Oz, but without the promise of the Wizard to cling to. I really don't have much hope that things will get better anytime soon.

I'm one of the odd men out when it comes to office relationships since I don't have a lot of close friendships within the office group, and I don't text and email my coworkers throughout the day. But then, I never passed notes in high school, either. Being surrounded by networks of people who DO socialize with each other at work this way is...strange. And the atmosphere gets really toxic sometimes. I've taken the brunt of it, and I've seen it affect other people, too.

I'd say that it's a generational problem, but there are plenty of people my age participating in the silent babel. Funny how social networking is turning adults back into teens. It's just odd that it has taken on such an important role in the workplace. Maybe we never really grow up, we just don't have teachers anymore to tell us to stop, so we think it's OK.

Anyway, I've seen how ugly the whole gossip thing has become, at work and in the world at large, and I'm opting out. I know I'll stumble, but I plan to work on it. Even the craziest, most difficult person you know deserves respect.

I've been thinking more and more about pacifism. I have known some fairly committed pacifists in the past, and I have a lot to learn from them. It is not necessary to right every wrong or rail at every perceived evil. And it is distinctly wrong to try to get points for witty comments at someone else's expense. Serenity and peace are undervalued today. I think I will be more serene and peaceful if I cultivate respect and compassion for other people. Meditation might help, as well.

There have been other changes at work, with retirements and hiring and the like. Government agencies are pretty haphazard in the way they handle both of those things, and it's got me tired and confused. I used to know how to do my job, or at least I thought I did, but not anymore. I'm getting absurdly mixed signals about what's wanted and what's expected.

OK, so it looks like work is the source of most of my misery right now. At least that much is clear. I guess finding the Wizard of Oz was only a false hope for Dorothy, since he didn't do her much good in the end. Turns out, she always had the power to change her own situation. I guess I'm just at sixes and sevens when it comes to figuring out how to apply that to my own life. The pacifism/meditation route is the only step I can see right now. Where DID I put those ruby slippers?

All at Once

I left work early last Wednesday because I felt lousy, like I had the flu. Felt much better Thursday and went to work. Then Thursday night it hit like a steam-roller: I had a sore throat and I felt lousy again. Stayed home Friday.

That's just the beginning of my tale.

On Friday morning, Muttley was trying really hard to get Daisy to romp with him in the house. Daisy was a very good dog and just sat quietly next to me. This led Muttley to go in search of a new tactic. A minute later, Muttley came out to me with something in his mouth. Turns out it was the cooling gel headache pad I had used overnight on my forehead. It's infused with all sorts of substances, including eucalyptus oil (toxic) and castor oil (possibly toxic and surely laxative).

When Muttley brings something like this to you, he wants you to chase him to take it away. It's an attempt to get you to play. Usually it's socks.

I said, "Want a snacky, Muttley?" and led him to the kitchen. Muttley ran around the table and came back empty-mouthed. I gave him the snack and grabbed his collar, then I put both dogs in the bedroom so that I could go back to find the dropped gel pad.

Only I couldn't find it.

I realized that Muttley had swallowed the pad and then come back for the snack. I had a moment of vertigo (partly from the cold, partly from the situation) as I envisioned a sick me hauling an uncooperative Muttley off to the vet for emergency treatment.

I calmed myself and took a moment to think. I knew that he hadn't had time to chew the pad, so he had to have swallowed it whole. That meant that he'd probably be OK if I could quickly get it out of him. I gave him a small amount of hydrogen peroxide to drink. Without going into too much detail, it worked like a charm. Cleanup was a minor detail compared to the thought of a trip to the vet.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of my tale.

Friday night, my hubby calls down the hall, "There's no water." Oh no. Immediately checked for flooding under the stairs, where the interior apparatus for the well is located. Nothing (thank goodness). Then checked the circuit breakers. All OK with the electric service. That's about as far as my knowledge base could take me, so I knew I needed outside help.

I dug out the information on the well. At 7am on Saturday, I called the guy who installed the well (house is not quite 4 years old). He said he'd "see about getting someone out here" and he'd call back.

The well man called back 2 hours later to say all of his guys are tied up. He told me to give the switch a couple of whacks with a stick - sometimes that's all it takes - and call him back. I gave the switch several whacks - nothing. Called him back. Got his voice mail, which was (surprise!) FULL. Got out my cell phone and called from a different number, and, magically, he answered. Told him the whacks didn't do the trick. He said he could get someone out here this afternoon and he'd call back. Waited all day, and nothing - no show, no call.

So now we're on day 2. Called a guy who advertises emergency service, and if water runs through it, he can fix it. Got his answering service, and he called me back right away. Said he'd call "Pete" and call me back in 45 minutes. That was 2 hours ago. I haven't given up hope yet, but it's waning.

Thank goodness for bottled water. Thank goodness for Nyquil. Anybody know a reliable well man?

Flowers

Early Fall

We've had one of the hottest summers on record in the Northeast this year, and we've had very little rainfall at my house. The result seems to be an early fall for us. There has been a bit of rain in some of the areas around us, but it seems to have missed us each time.

The sour gum trees are usually first to change color in our woods in the fall. They become a beautiful bright red, and they usually start to show color in August. I saw the first leaves turn on the sour gums during the last week of July this year and the sweet gum trees are going yellow already. Way too soon.

The sweet pepperbush was in flower and covered with bees and butterflies during the last 2 weeks of July. Now the leaves are droopy and brownish-yellow. The understory of wild blueberry usually turns into a lovely, endless bank of red sometime in October. It's already starting to go brown.

Some of the oaks have started to drop their leaves. That doesn't usually happen until November or December. There is sure to be a poor crop of acorns this year, which is bad news for the squirrels, chipmunks and mice.

Too hot. Too dry. We need rain.

Groundhog Day

Caught!

Critter Wars

On Wednesday evening this week the dogs went nuts - running around, barking, jumping at the window in the living room. I looked out, didn't see anything at first. Then I said, "It's just a fat rabbit on the front lawn. No...wait...that's not a rabbit. I think it's a groundhog." He started walking, and his identity was confirmed. He walked right up to the front steps then walked around them into the bushes along the foundation. Couldn't see him anymore.

The problem: now there is a BIG HOLE behind those bushes, right next to the foundation. Time for a groundhog relocation project. Let the games begin.

Broken Record

Preview for the weather forecast coming up at 11:00, "Record breaking temperatures are on the way." Same thing they say every night these days. It's like listening to a broken record.

Cool Down

After several days of temperatures in the upper 90's, culminating in temperatures of 104 and 103 the last two days, tomorrow's forecast for a high of 92 sounds like a cool-down. Seriously, the temperatures in Playa del Carmen, Mexico have been in the mid to upper 80's all week, according to the weather tool on my homepage. Anybody up for a trip to Mexico to cool off?

Soap Opera

Muttley ate a bar of Dove Soap while I was at the grocery store today. R opened the gate to the upstairs hallway to put some laundry away. Muttley got into the guest bathroom. Doubt I'll get much sleep tonight...