My Daily Dose of Poison

 

Every morning that I drive to work I vary the route that I travel.  Only one thing remains the same, and perhaps that is the thing that needs to change.  You see, I ingest a small dose of poison each day on the way to work.  I don’t take in enough to kill me, but these micro doses most of the times make me feel badly by the time I reach the front door of work.  I’m not asking for help.  I am asking for change.  I am not alone in my dosage.  It starts just out of curiosity, or the need to know a little more than what I feel I am bringing into the game on any particular morning.  Sometimes I linger too long and then the malaise fights me most of the day.  Other times, friends who also got the daily dose of poison, are cranked up when I get to the office and want to “process” their knowledge as if anything we have an opinion on really matters.

What is this poison, you ask.  I will tell you:  the presentation of the local news on the radio.  Sometimes I wonder if these guys have a set template by which they plan the stories of the day to decimate us psychologically.  It would go something like this:  Day 1 report on shooting; Day 2 re-cap the shooting unless there has been another one to take its place; Day 3 try to flush out any “human interest” stories connected with the shooter or shoot-ee.  (If it was my family that was suffering I’d tell them where they could stash their news microphones and cameras.  Maybe the idea’s time has come:  Leave the grieving families in peace to try to find comfort among their friends and family members.)  As little as I know, even I am aware that we have had 26 homicides since January 1^st.  The fear of inciting “copy-cat crimes” seems to have dissipated in the interest of selling news at the expense of someone else’s grief.

I must confess that I became a news update junkee when the punk in the Poconos was leading the Law on a wild goose chase one summer.  Mostly I was concerned because I travel through that area annually and it was appalling that it took so long to catch him.  The weird thing is that for as many days as they ran that story – with all the details of how he ate, and how he hid, and how he wore adult diapers to not leave signs of life behind, etc. – once they finally CAUGHT him, it was as if someone pulled the electrical cord out of the wall and the stories disappeared.  They disappeared, I imagine, because once he got his orange jump suit things became very legal and very boring.  Boring doesn’t sell news.

I am wondering if telling these stories is more for the purpose of intimidating the culture of healthy people than it is for inviting a solution.  We are already nervous, trust me.  We wonder when it will end.  We fear in the smallest corner of our heart, that it might not.  Just when we feel we have heard enough of Whose Lives Matter Today – I’m sorry, I thought EVERYONE’S LIFE MATTERS – they throw a news lead out:  “Officer shot in patrol car… details on the ten’s.”  Then you find out that it was NOT down the street, it occurred half way across the country.  Listeners feel badly for the family, nonetheless, but this relentless bombarding with the same type-cast story, is draining the emotional core of the nation.

Out of one mouth, we hear that another devastating (fill in the type of catastrophe here: earthquake, tornado, tsunami, raging fire, etc.) has struck a far off nation.  Our good American people who do charitable work are behind the scenes organizing the relief efforts.  They don’t make it much to the front-and-center of the news.  Why not?  Why is the press denying us this feeling of, “Oh, thank God, someone is able to do something about this!”  Nope.  The media just dishes out yet another serving of America- bashing.  They flip the story to another country that is burning our flag.  AND YET

                Which country is it that sends more money than any other to aid people in need? 

                Which country is it that sends more people to assist in danger spots of the world? 

                Which country is it that people WANT to immigrate to, legally or otherwise? 

I’m just saying, is all I’m saying.  At the end of the day, the people in THIS country have been pretty faithful in helping the world at large for quite a few decades. 

I’d like to see a flush-out of all the sensational journalist types, and a replacing of them with people of integrity who can tell a story of joy or sorrow and help you find the humanity in it.  I’d like to see ALL news outlets be able to proclaim they are “fair and balanced.”  I don’t even think the one that uses that slogan is able to say that honestly.  I would so like to say “farewell” to the news that is overtly dramatic for the purpose of selling more news.  I want the weather to be a real prediction, not a veiled spell cast by someone who shakes the snow globe and declares that this could be the coldest, snowiest winter ever.  Right.  It could be.  But you could also be wrong. 

The media has a tremendous opportunity to be a tool for culturing the morale of a society.  The radio, television and print venues reach a broad variety of people – people who arguably could use a little good news.  How empowering it would be to listen to something in the morning that could set the course for a positive, creative, and healing day!  I don’t even feel the religious stations are able to offer that at this point – and I listen to them.  People know instinctively if you are a cheesy salesman for your particular brand of religion, or if you are the Real Deal.  And no one really enjoys hearing the list of who is on dock for going to hell – it is my suspicion that if you are on that train it’s because you want to be there or decided to do nothing to change your situation. 

What I think we need at this critical juncture of life – well, at least MY life, is some healing words and positive encouragement.  I would even be okay with a little Garrison Keillor story every now and then to keep things light.  But the irresponsible journalists need to be sent packing.  I will donate the suitcases and type their resumes for them if it will bring some peace and harmony to our airways and newspapers.  As a friend of mine used to say to irritating people:  “Don’t go away mad; just go away.”

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She Breathed Her First

A family member asked me why I raise puppies (periodically) - is it seeing "the miracle of birth" that motivates me?   The question was less philosophical and more out of concern because she then said, "because it makes you so tired..."

Tired doesn't scratch the surface of it the first time you go through it.  In a perfect world, things just work.  My dog Bethany does not subscribe to Perfect World magazine.  Her first litter she started birthing late at night, and then stopped for six hours - which is not ideal, right?  And I had to move her, and that one pup to the vet's office where they gave her a shot of "pop em out quicker" for dogs.  So in the space of three hours she had a litter of 7.  We lost the youngest two because they weighed in at 4 and 4.5 ounces respectively when they should have been 7 or 8 ounces.

Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot, I thought.  The second time she had a litter, she had something called "placenta previa" which caused the vet to say:  "I think you should bring her in for a cesarean section."  They do that?  Oh, yes.  Ka-ching.  to the cost of the sale price of two puppies.  But at least we saved the whole litter and the momma dog.

This third litter was the FIRST litter for my princess Madeline.  Madeline is from Bethany Pearl's litter.  She is a feisty, alpha personality like, well, kind of like ME.  LOL.  Her full name is Madeline Grace Pearl.  I have written about her before in an earlier blog.  I will tell you what I said to her as her due date approached:  can we PLEASE do this like the farm dogs do, namely AT HOME and WITHOUT COMPLICATION?

She revved up all day Saturday.  I sat like a nervous grandmother in the basement as she walked around panting.  By Sunday afternoon at two, my nerves were starting to fray.  She "asked" to go out to the back yard, yet again.  Then I realized (oh by the way, if you aren't good with "earthy" descriptions, stop here and go watch Wheel of Fortune for a while.  LOL.) She wanted to go outside because she felt pressure and knew that I didn't want her to do #2 (poo) in the house.  Only the pressure wasn't #2.  It was a puppy, I ushered her back inside and again out came his little white and black head and I reached to take him and just turned him slightly and bam!  I was holding him, wiggling and ready to go.  I named him Valor because it takes bravery to be the first one.  We cleaned him up and waited about an hour and a half before #2 puppy came ... and then a while later for #3.
Two black pups with white necks - almost identical - Moonlight Sonata and Bonnie Dream.

Frankly, I thought we were done at #3.  It was just taking longer than I thought.  But, as the great Vintner's say:  "We sell NO wine before Its Time."  And they are right.  So my friend Donna came over to visit to see if I was still in one piece.  We were standing in my kitchen and I was eating toaster waffles - famished and a little light-headed.  Madeline left her pups downstairs and came bounding up into the kitchen, circled in front of me and -splat - dropped puppy #4 on my floor.  I finished chewing the waffle and wryly remarked, "I don't think I will ever feel the same about toaster waffles."  Madeline and I worked together, each in our own way to clean up Monte Carlo - a beautiful black male puppy.

We went back downstairs and I called my mother as I cradled Monte in one hand and toweled him with the other.  Donna asked me, "Hey, did you put the white dog in the kennel with Madeline?"  No.  Did you?  He should be in the willow basket with the others.  I looked at Madeline in the kennel, kind of almost smirking at me, a white and black puppy at her side.  I lifted the towel on the willow basket and said, Valor's right here.   And the new white pup who has two solid black ears, Oreo, was with Madeline in the kennel.

After a few minutes, Donna asked if I was okay for her to go.  I was probably looking drained - it was about 8:30 or 9:00 pm.  I had been on "Dog Time" all weekend - even sleeping in the basement with Madeline - and was thinking it had all been just swell..... So Donna went home to her family.  At about 9:30 or so, Madeline had been settled in the black kennel starting to nurse the new pups when she just flew out and over the kennel board, turned into the next room and splat dropped the final puppy on the floor.  Only this time it was different.

She was in her amniotic sack - which functions a lot like a protective space capsule for the journey - and she was not moving.  I mean, not moving at all.  She was very, very cool to the touch.  Her paws were limp and her little chest did not move at all either.  Madeline and I looked at each other.  I made the call on our game plan:  Mad, you've got to help me and we've got to work fast, lick this puppy, lick her face.  I began rapidly toweling this limp body to be dry.  I slid my pinky in her mouth to clear any obstruction.  I blew at her face.  I spoke to her.  I talked to God.  I begged this lifeless puppy - who was full size and kind of long - "come back to  us, we love you; we want you to be with us...."

Anyone else would have just laid her aside and said, "Well, laws of nature.  Stuff happens."  It was the longest ten or fifteen minutes of my life.  Madeline and I worked together as if we had been born for this moment.  She kept licking the pup's face.  I kept drying and massaging and begging and praying.  Finally, I stopped and the pup coughed.  "come on, come on.  we're here.  you're going to love it."  and SHE BREATHED HER FIRST.

Isn't that such a great phrase, compared to "and she breathed her last" - my heart filled ... and so did my eyes.  VICTORIA.   All I can think about in my stray moments is how amazing it feels to be part of the process of bringing life.  Well, that, and which of my photos I want put on my holycard when I am made a canonized saint in a few decades.  St. Francis can stand at the bird bath.  I want to be at the whelping kennel.   This is my joy.

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p.s. to those of you dog breeders who said to do this in a kiddie pool I can tell you that we SAT in the kiddie pool (no water of course) all day Saturday and that just felt not right.  She needed to move around.  And I needed a reason to clean all the floors in my house I guess.  I'm on Dog Time - whatever they want.  I just am here to make it happen.

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ps#2.  above image is a stock photo; not one of my dogs.

481 Sentinels

Every now and then I dabble in poetry.  I enjoy it.  I started enjoying it more when the "rules" of poetry we were taught in grade school loosened up a bit and lines no longer had to rhyme.  I think some of my best poetry is like those fourth of July fireworks launchers:  you hear the boom-poof sound a few times in a row and then various colors explode.  That's how I like to write my paragraphs.  Really.  And, no, I do not drink when I write.  LOL.

This is one I wanted to post closer to Halloween, although it was actually written on 8/13/2009.
I hope you like it.

481 Sentinels

481 South
Morning Rush
Barreling along
Late, again.
I glance left.

The green tree
Strikingly bright
Emanating fullness
Summer perfection

They appear as black lanterns
Sitting on the bows
Strategically placed
Ominous sentinels.

The beauty of the tree's symmetry
Spoiled by the horror of recognizing them
For who they really are:
Sentinels of Death.
A tree full of turkey vultures.

I scream and continue driving.

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The Power of One

The Power of One

The middle-aged farmer smiled at me as he stepped forward to pay his check at America’s preferred diner.  He was bulky without being huge and his plaid flannel jacket had that warm Norman Rockwell feeling exuding from it.  He had dark wavy hair and a gentle smile.  He rested a large book on the counter as he proceeded with his transaction and again I wondered if I had missed destiny by 30 minutes.  I was waiting for a hostess to greet & seat me and was getting hungrier by the second.  In my purse was the magazine I was planning to read while I myself had dinner alone … the situation was common and ironic: the man had finished his dinner, I was heading toward mine.  Perhaps it would have been nice for the two of us to have dinner together – instead of reading like we were hopeless intellectuals?  But what could have bridged that gap? 

I remember sitting in a small pizza place in a village on the outskirts of the Adirondacks and an elderly gentleman looked at me and said, “a nice woman like you should not be eating alone” or something to that effect.  Because he was safely 30 years my senior, I replied:  “you are welcome to share my table if you like.”  In the long run, he was picking up a pizza to-go for his wife.  But we did have a nice chat nonetheless.  A transition to sharing dinner with a complete stranger closer to my age would be just that:  “stranger” – and potentially quite uncomfortable.  Yet I am not ready to move to the level of sitting at the bar of America’s favorite diner with all the good ole boys.  I do have some shreds of self-esteem left.  I think.

Eating by myself I do often, in fact, every single day.  And sometimes I like it because I can catch up on my reading; yet sometimes I don’t.  Recently someone said to me, “well, I don’t cook too much because it’s just me …” and I thought to myself that hearing someone else express that out loud was almost painful.  It was as if because the person wasn’t cooking for someone else, they weren’t worth feeding well.  I hate those kind of sequences!   I want to shake the person and say, “By gosh, have some self-esteem!  YOU are worth a good meal!  YOU are worth the effort!  The Good Lord made YOU by yourself, not joined to the hip with someone else!”  And lucky it is that we are like that.  I can’t imagine not eating  the variety of things I enjoy because I was stuck preparing meals for a strictly vegetarian person, or a meat-and-potatoes-only sort of guy.  I want Mexican.  I want Chinese.  I want waffles for supper.  I want a drive-thru apple pie at 10PM.  I want ice cream, well, basically all the time.  I want fresh peaches today and not tomorrow.  I want a latte at Dunkin once a week.  (some day they will invite me to be on their Board of Directors – I just know it).  I want pizza with Canadian bacon and pineapple pieces.  I want chocolate in my refrigerator at all times just in case of emergency.  These are “likes” that make me most uniquely me and to expect me to “unlike” or “unfriend” those foods would be like de-bouncing Tigger. 

Years ago, the mother of one of my dear Arizona friends announced that after her divorce she had learned to go to the movies alone.  Up to that moment, I had never considered the prospect of attending a movie alone.  Aren’t movies meant to be shared experiences?  Then again, if you just lost your number one sharing partner – or if he hated the kinds of movies you like to watch – you are up the proverbial creek in a lead canoe with no movie.  I started thinking about it.  At this point I watch movies alone at home…. well, I’ve got two spaniels jumping on me and one elderly, needy cat draping herself on me as I try to hear the dialogue on the television.  That being said, it’s not really undistracted movie-watching.  Back 30 years ago the idea of going to a movie alone was kind of profane and almost scary.  Then I started to think about myself in a different way:  if I am a fun person and enjoy going to fun things, why should I stop doing those things just because my friends don’t like watching “Shaun the Sheep” or the latest Madea movie?!  In theory, this is healthy thinking.  In practice it is still a haul to get myself to see a movie by myself.

Learning to do things by yourself, arguably, builds confidence and certainly requires some tenacity.  It also gives you choices and options that you might not otherwise have.  Think of this:  when you walk through life experiences that are negative, if you wish you had a significant other to “go to bat” for you, just talk to your friends who are couples and get a reality check.  A lot of times the other person fails and does not stick up for you the way you would have wished.  Or worse, they create a scene in a way that slams your doors shut for you because you may have handled it differently given the chance to do it yourself.  Or even more worse, they take your opposer’s side.  Yikes.

Permit me to go back to the restaurant scenario for another example of that.  At the diner the other night one thing struck me:  the waiter who was young enough to be my son was falling all over me.  If I was not alone, maybe he would have reigned-it-in a little more.  But he made me feel very prioritized once seated (even though I waited over 5 minutes to be acknowledged and seated).  He brought me extra napkins without being asked, and personally walked the newly opened can of whipped cream directly to the table and frosted the hot chocolate as if it was the most important detail of his job.  It was kind of comical.  Yet it was also excellent.  And I believe in rewarding excellence – and I said to him as I ramped his tip up to about 97% of the dinner bill:  “I am not a person of means, but you made me feel special and that was great.”  You should have seen his smile. 

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