I wrote about this photo on my blog at www.kcpetersen.com.
It's about how a child in a photo shoot is a fleeting thing, and, in real life, too.
Soak up your kids, immerse yourself in them, while you've got them.
In a sigh, they are grown up and moving all over the world!
Time for a new computer, looking at iMac or Macbook Pro. Any suggestions?
Altruism
Someone used to argue to me that there is no such thing as altruism. Every good deed has some kind of selfish motivation, whether overt or covert, subtle or transparent, large or small.
Perhaps he was right, although I am not ready to let go of the idea that altruism can exist, does exist, and has existed.
Nevertheless, we must examine our motivations for good deeds, service, charity, etc. I did just that recently. I participated in “Project Easter Basket.” It’s a service project wherein an individual or an organization shops for and creates an Easter Basket for a needy kid.
When the project was presented to me, I only had a moment to consider and to indicate the gender and age of the recipient, among several choices ranging from age 2 to age 14. I chose a girl around age 10.
The day before the Easter basket was due, I did the shopping. I hadn’t had time to look at what was on the list until I was on my way to the store. It was much more involved than I had anticipated, as it included such things as “4 hygiene items,” “4 school supplies,” “4 items of essential clothing,” etc. and there were listed suggestions for the several categories. Also included were toy and candy categories, of course.
It wasn’t until I began to shop that it started to become evident why I had chosen that category. I’d had three sons and then a daughter. The sons were adventurous, challenging, exhausting, loving, and a lot of fun. I’d enjoyed adventures with my brothers, while growing up, so I was prepared to be the mother of equally adventurous sons.
My daughter was also adventurous, and was able to fit right in with her brothers, but we had a special mother-daughter bond that was emphasized by our being the only girls in the family.
And when she was 10 years of age, that bond was even more important, in ways that she could not have realized.
It was around then that doctors found an angioma in my brain. They said that it was about ten years old, and probably occurred during childbirth. It was a cluster of abnormal blood vessels in the brain, that may have happened due to a birthing injury, such as possibly pushing too hard during childbirth ten years earlier. They weren’t sure what degree of angioma it was, but they felt certain that it was causing some serious problems, and that I would probably die of a brain hemorrhage in about two weeks.
I’d tuck my daughter into bed at night, and I was unable to avoid remembering that I had her in my mid-thirties, which, at that time in medical history, made me an older, at-risk mom, and, yes, well, it was a natural childbirth and it was difficult to get me to temper the consuming desire to push.
The complexities of loving my daughter and considering that my birth experience with her might make it impossible to raise her were nearly overwhelming. But, eventually, I was able to find a calm and peaceful place that was not only delicious to the soul, but it made every second of my life precious and expanded with vitality.
It was probably three weeks later that a special team of doctors researching my case came back with a revised prognosis that extended my life span.
But during that time, when my daughter was ten, my relationships were extra special, and more important than much else.
So, I went into the store to shop for a ten-year-old girl, and it was so easy, because I picked out the things that my daughter would have loved. And as I did this, it felt cathartic in some way. It was a time of revisiting that bittersweet time, that time when time stood still and became so expanded and so precious.
I picked out special and precious things. And they were not over budget. It was if the universe was assisting as I found wonderful things that a ten-year-old girl would love, and each item was marked down. I couldn’t believe it. I never do that well when shopping for myself!
I brought the items home and showed them to Mark as I prepared them and wrapped them up in an Easter basket lined with cellophane.
It sat in our living room all the next day, and as I passed it, I remembered the experience of shopping for the unknown girl, and my experience with my own daughter at that pivotal time, and I thought of each item and how the unknown girl might like them.
I wished that I could give it to her myself, and see her expressions when she took out each item. I wondered if her eyes would grow large when she saw the pretty summer dress I put in the basket, or the glowing flower pen. I wondered if she would immediately eat the jelly beans or save them to savor later.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought about how we receive pleasure in seeing someone’s response to our gifts. So perhaps it is more altruistic to give blindly like this. I won’t know the girl who will receive my basket. I won’t see her receive it.
As it turned out, my husband even delivered the basket to the collection location, so I never even got to see my basket join the others.
I just had to let go. I just had to simply send my good deed out into the universe, anonymously.
I think that there is a certain degree of altruism to that.
But, when I think about it, my contentious debater was right to a degree. No matter how altruistic we may be, we can not even get close to being as altruistic as He for whom Easter is celebrated.
But the example is there for us, and we can at least attempt to follow it.
Is it time to soar yet?
Sometimes I think I am so tied down with so many things that I can’t get off the ground. But a lot of it is stuff that I want to do/choose to do.
But as I approach my “golden years,” not sure if this is referring to the sunset time of our lives or if it means jaundice, or that we should now, suddenly wear a lot of golden jewelry, I find myself in a quandary:
I don’t like to waste time. I like to waste time.
Okay, so I don’t like meetings, I get restless in them, and if they are not accomplishing something really superb then they are a waste of time. I wonder to how many hours of meetings have I been subjected in this lifetime so far? Can’t I get a pass on them from now on?
I like to dilly dally and lolly gag and think and ponder, and explore.
But, uh, there is still so much I want to do and who knows how many years are left. Granted, when I was young there were no guarantees there, but at least then, I could consider that I had 50 or 60 very likely. Now I have to consider that I have between six months and twenty years. 20, that’s not much. Especially if you consider that the possibility of disability (ew, that rhymes) is pretty high and getting higher.
That makes time precious and so, the people who mess up an order and I have to call them daily to either get what was ordered or my money back, and the person who corners me to tell me all about his or her ill-fated love life, or the traffic jam because about 150 cars must drive into the school parking lot to deliver their kids and so they back up traffic off campus for two long blocks, or a movie that is so lame, so predictable, so boring; out with them!
Our beloved computers, meant to save us time, can be like traffic jams, too. I am finding myself starting to eliminate internet “friends,” “contacts,” etc. who are more inclined to detract than to enhance. Same with clothes, products, books and mags, and situations.
I want to write in my journals/family and personal histories, do genealogy, help people, write a collection of short stories, write a novel, take the perfect photograph, get my business running smoothly (as if), lose weight, see the lands of my ancestors, learn to use photoshop, organize all my photos (like about a trillion of them, okay, a billion, but for sure no fewer), spend time with family and friends, but life gets in the way, always, daily.
Life has to be more than doing laundry, loading/unloading the dishwasher, cooking, cleaning, errand running, appointments and meetings, right? What do you say?
homemade tamales. my dad worked downtown, near the music center, and on Christmas Eve, he had more time off, and he would go to the music center and listen to music and go to the local places he knew so well for authentic, homemade tamales. He'd get a bunch of them. I don't remember if we had them on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Maybe that depended. But we had them.
wooden shoes and clogs. Dutch tradition. Sinter Klas would appear in the area starting December 6th. I think his sidekick was Black Pete, but there was a Dutch name for him, that translated to something like that. So, sometimes on that date, we'd line up wooden shoes (they had a dutch name too, trying to remember that, z something), or clogs, or any roomy shoe if one did not possess a wooden one (I had wooden clogs up until recently, actually). We'd put carrots and straw in the shoes for the reindeer. In the morning (the 7th or the 25th, depending), there would be a small surprise in each shoe to replace the carrot or straw.
Cookies and Milk for Santa. We'd leave notes for Santa, usually notes of thanks and instruction and information about his cookies and milk. In the morning, the milk would be half gone and there'd be at least one half-eaten cookie left on the plate.
Angel hair pasta (usually on Christmas eve)
Crackers. British Isles tradition, usually in the morning at Christmas breakfast, which would include such things as hot, spicy cider, egg nog, croissants, eggs, bagels, home made cinnamon rolls, hot chocolate.
Stockings (these were usually filled with oranges, walnuts, candy canes, and a few little surprises)
Frosted cookies. We'd make them ourselves from scratch. I can do without this one, as they are very buttery rich.
Pajamas. On Christmas eve, Santa would sneak into each of our rooms to place a soft, wrapped gift at the end of each of our beds. In the morning, we'd wake up, rub our eyes, and put on the new pajamas that we found in those packages.
Christmas morning. We'd usually wake before our parents, and we learned to not go into the living room yet. We'd put on our new pajamas and find much of our breakfast on the table, ready for us. When our parents got up, they'd make the eggs, the hot chocolate, the spiced cider, etc. We'd wait for our Grandma to arrive. Then, we'd line up in order of age, the youngest first, and file into the living room that was brightly lit by my dad's bank of lights so he could film us. Our films show us blinking, squinting and shielding our eyes!
Gift Opening. We'd start with the stockings. We'd all dig into those at the same time. Then, we'd take our seats in the living room and one gift at a time would be handed to us. One person at a time would open. It took most of the day! After that, we'd play with our toys while the Christmas feast was prepared (Tamales if they weren't enjoyed on Christmas Eve).
Thank you notes. My mom would spread newspaper on the dining room table, usually on NY's day, and we'd gather around the paper, paints, and pens and create Thank You cards and art to send to relatives and even brothers and sisters who gave us gifts. There'd be music playing and we'd immerse ourselves in the creativity of it.
Later "traditions." When we were all teenagers, we added a few new traditions such as the Tree Decorating: Our parents would leave the room to watch TV while we threw tinsel all over the tree. We loved the randomness of how it fell.
Also, we would sneak things out of each others' rooms to put on the tree, for instance, I remember that a wallet-sized photo of a girl none of us had ever seen before had appeared on the tree. On the back, it said, "To Mike, love Cindy xxxoo." That was a real find since Mike, our youngest brother, had never mentioned this Cindy to any of us. That HAD to go on the tree, along with someone's hidden report card, or a really garish necklace that someone had given our mother and she was too polite to give it away, and someone's speeding ticket, and the Barbie doll that my sister still kept in her underwear drawer, the one that had lost most of its hair.
Gift Wrapping: If it was too big to fit on the tree, it was wrapped and put UNDER the tree. Jeff's old stuffed animal that he had when he was four, and the fur was all rubbed off? Wrapped and put under the tree with his name on the tag. Mike's car keys? Wrapped and put under the tree! My favorite record album? Wrapped and put under the tree! The object was to fill up that space with as many shiny gifts as we could! But we tried not to be too cruel about it, so, for instance, my brother was only looking for his car keys for two days, and was borrowing his brother's car in the meantime, the brother who had put his keys under the tree, of course. However, one year, a week before Christmas, I took my sister's electric razor, the one she counted on daily for smooth legs, wrapped it in a shoebox-sized box and put it under the tree. We'd be wandering around all week, wondering where we'd misplaced our stuff, all the while looking for more things to wrap.
I'm not sure how my parents survived all of us, but they seemed to manage by telling each other that one day this would all pass.
But I will never forget the look of relief on my sister's face when she opened that gift and found her beloved, long-lost electric razor, which she immediately hid under her long lost sweater.
It was a great tradition, as it made us appreciate what we had. (Each other!)
What about you?
Mankind does so many evils against its own kind. This just makes me sick. I can't help but imagine that this young man, with, perhaps, a young family, sat at Thanksgiving dinner the day before with parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, etc. Perhaps he mentioned that he had to go to work very early the next morning. Perhaps they joked about it. Someone may have even said something about the craziness of Black Friday.
And he died, first thing the next morning.
Not due to natural causes, not while protecting or defending. He died from being stampeded by greedy shoppers wanting to be the first into the cavernous temple of discount shopping.
So, we all pause for a day to reflect and give thanks for all of our blessings. And the moment the next day breaks, we stampede a store employee to death in our reckless need to get more.
I am sickened.
While this is a photo of a young seal that washed up on the beach, there was a very lively one on the beach this morning.
Leslie and I went out this morning to ride some waves. When we arrived, there was a seal body surfing and having a good time riding the waves.
We went into the water and paddled out and started to catch waves right away. The waves were gentle but yet strong enough to give us some good rides.
But the highlight of the day for me was this:
I had just caught a wave and was turning around. I looked just in time to see a beautiful, green, translucent wave rising. Leslie was at the south end of it where it was starting to break, and she was just catching it when I saw a beautiful sight. The seal had also caught the wave and was inside it, beautiful and brown, sliding down sleekly alongside Leslie. My jaw dropped and I pointed, hoping she would see the beautiful creature sharing her wave.
A lifeguard pulled up just then and saw the same thing I was seeing. Somehow that made it more real to me that a lifeguard also watched the dual ride. It wasn't just my imagination!
When the wave broke, the seal shot out from behind and was gone in a nano-second.
I will never forget that sight of green wave, shining and transparent with two riders: Leslie and the sleek, brown seal, sharing an experience together.
We have new neighbors. The lady friends moved out and Malibu Ken and Barbie moved in. This wouldn’t be a problem, really, except that their deck is directly alongside Mark’s office slider and my office window. Here, at the beach, we really mean it when we say their deck is right directly alongside, as in, we could reach out and touch the railing of their deck from the edge of our miniscule balcony.
So, by now you are probably thinking, “Oh, and they like to party, right?”
Well, yeah. But we’re not talking about every Friday and/or Saturday night there is a raucous and noisy party right there by our offices. They’ve actually, so far, been pretty considerate about not doing partying late into the night.
How do I explain this? It’s as if they are on permanent vacation and wanting to make every moment vacation worthy.
So, they wander out onto their deck, (which, by the way, IS their living room, dining room and rec room all rolled into one), in the late mornings, stretching and yawning and emptying the coolers of water and clearing out the beer and wine bottles from the day/night before. And it is this deck that is so prominent in our lives these days. It is our view from all south facing windows (all but one of our windows!). Then they go shopping, or to the beach, or to get more food and beer, or, most likely, they stretch out in their various deck furniture in her bikini and his swim shorts, and read their mags, or play some game where they lean over and make little clicking sounds for hours on end (Backgammon? Checkers?)
She has high-maintenance chunky blonde highlights, always artfully arranged, and he just sits around with his hair slicked back like it’s Miami. He may have a diamond pinky ring, but I haven’t looked that closely. I don’t think I have ever seen him in anything but a swimsuit. I see her in her bikini all day long, day after day. She slips on a little shift to go get food and beer. I don’t think I would recognize them clothed.
So, they mostly just hang out there on the deck, ALL THE TIME. From the time they wake up, until the sun is long gone, and sometimes later.
I am pretty sure that they are Malibu Ken and Barbie. I think there may be a pink convertible down on the street somewhere.
I don’t think either of them has a job.
Maybe they are on a two-week vacation. I know they are not honeymooning because we heard the downstairs neighbor telling us that a guy in his thirties rented the place. She didn’t say a couple rented it. Maybe in another few days they will both go back to jobs.
I sure hope so, because so far, it has been nothing but lounging around in swim attire, wine glasses in hand. They have outfitted the deck with a rattan bar, and various drinking stations. There are tropical plant and skulls leaning menacingly toward Mark’s office window. There are many red candle lanterns and every night, seriously, every night , around 5 PM, those get lit and start to flicker just to make the evening lounging around more special than the daily lounging around.
As I pass a window, I see them there. Her hair upswept, her bikini accenting her tan, daintily holding a wine glass. I see him leaning over and wolfing down food, that seems to mysteriously appear.
Friends come to see them at all hours of the day and night, and they come up the stairs and say, “wassup?” and “washappenin, man?” And they always, each, are carrying a 12 pack.
Their music is generic rock, and so close to what one might hear in an elevator that my ears nearly bleed, and I have to turn on my itunes to drown out their sounds before that happens. They are considerate in that they don’t play it loud, but sometimes what really makes you insane is hearing a constant buzz of low volume generic rock. Background music. Save me.
Then there are their conversations which seem to be limited to what do you want to do today, or, “you can’t do that!” when there is an illegal board game move. I did hear one friend talk about how her boyfriend had to start paying the rent for someone in their apartment who was being a slacker.
As the evening approaches, I see them sitting again, leaning into the candlelight. They don’t talk much, unless friends visit. Left alone, she mostly looks at him and poses. Yes, poses. I see her lean this way and that, and one night, when the candles were flickering, I saw her arrange a kind of shawl wrap about her bare shoulders, and make the kind of expression that one might make if it was the end of the movie when the protagonist is remembering what she learned from her bad experience with the guy who wasn’t right for her.
I am hoping with all my heart that eventually they will have jobs to go to, and that they will eventually begin to lead more normal kinds of lives; lives that require actual attire.
If that doesn’t ever happen, I will have to find a way to cope:
1-I could just pretend that it really is Malibu Barbie and Ken, and just try to deal with having that show going on at my window when I am trying to work.
2-I could move.
3-I could decide that maybe Mark and I could be more like Malibu Barbie and Ken, take some time off, and sit around all day in swim attire, sipping cold beverages and playing board games while posing by flickering candlelight.
4-I could pretend that I am in a Twilight Zone episode, and as soon as I figure out what the theme is, maybe everything will return to normal.
5- I could hope that they will start to fight and throw things at each other. Hey, if they are going to seem like they are in the next room couldn’t they at least be entertaining? And besides, if they break up, they may move.
It would totally be another thing, entirely, if they just got into their swimsuits once a day, and sat on their deck for an hour or so, per day, while leading normal lives. But it’s that they are ALWAYS on their deck. LIVING on their deck. And their deck is a resort and bar and they are on vacation, ALWAYS.
It’s just that this is in our faces, 24x7.
I know it may sound like I am making too big of a deal out of this, but their voices and their “music” fills my office, daily, all day long, and the window, right there, in my office nearly fills the entire wall. This is as if I have Ken and Barbie and their friends (Skipper? Tad?) right here, in my office, where I am trying to work, laughing and sipping beer and wine in bikinis and shorts, in my office.
Mark says that eventually it will get cold and they will have to go inside. I suspect that they will still be out there, being Ken and Barbie, every day, they will just put some stylish cover-ups on over their swim attire. They’ll add a palm frond cover to the deck to keep the rain from putting out the candles.
But, I may not notice since I will have been admitted to the asylum by then!
It's the middle of the summer, right? Have I had a summer yet?
I did go to the fireworks display in HB on the 4th, that felt like summer.
I did have some cherries from the HB farmer's market, that tasted like summer.
One day, Mark and I went for a swim in the ocean, that was summer.
But really, that has been about it.
Here we are living in Seal Beach and we've been in the ocean once in 10 months!!!
What is wrong with us?
Okay, we've been working a lot. We have many obligations. We support a lot of people.
But really, I think we would for sure, spend more time at the beach in a year if we lived in the midwest. We'd save up, get tix to the coast, find a nice place to stay at the beach for a week or two, and then we would spend every day on the beach, in the water, eating cherries and watermelon, and putting aloe vera on our sunburns.
What is wrong with this picture?
Anyone want to come visit us at the beach and distract us from working and invite us into the water or onto a towel?
Recently, my daughter Kiera came out for a visit. It’s always fun to have her because she is a person who is nearly larger than life. By that, I mean she is full of personality and energy, and she is colorful, and sweet, and well, she fills up a room (no, Kiera, I am not saying you are fat!).
She has been a force to be dealt with since birth. Actually, even at birth. Once she was ready to enter the world, she was coming in a hurry. (I am talking about the delivery stage, here, she was one of my quickest deliveries, arriving after about 13- hours of labor, but once the delivery stage began, she was in a huge hurry to get out and see the world!!! I was in an alternative birth center, and I remember the staff running around trying to prepare for her once they realized she wasn’t going to wait any longer.
Then, she surprised me at how she could be so content, and so motivated, and so loving, even as an infant. I could put her to bed at night, wide awake, and she didn’t cry! (after the three boys, this was a very strange, new experience!). In the mornings, she would wake up and begin to sing to herself until I came to get her. And everyone got love from her, from infancy on.
As a toddler, she liked to go into her room, and change her clothes a few times a day. She’d come out in some truly creative get-ups, often borrowing from my closet!
She would sing, dance, coo, all day long. She took ballet as a pudgy pre-schooler, and danced on stage. She liked to create stories and draw pictures all day long.
When she was four, she asked me to teach her to read. I got out some books with repetitive patterns, and in a little while, she was reading everything she could get her hands on.
She liked to take the dog and pretend she was her baby. She’d bathe her and wrap her in a towel and rock her. I am pretty sure the dog really believed that was her mother.
Anyway, this is about our visit. When she is here, I notice the ways that we are different. She likes to be very busy, and always fills up her time with many activities, and talks to a lot of people, and is very extroverted. I, on the other hand, like to be not busy, not fill up my time, and not talk so much, and I am more introverted.
But I also noticed the ways in which we are the same. As we took a walk on the beach, over the sand dunes, we were talking, but we both kind of stopped talking and I realized that we were both being distracted by the weeds.
Yes, weeds.
We both had our cameras and soon we were photographing the weeds.
Now, keep in mind, at first glance, these were just ordinary weeds. At first glance, they seemed to all be a kind of dull shade of brown. Most people would have just passed them by. But not us.
I was really enjoying that there was someone else in the world who would find beauty in the weeds, and to know that it was my own daughter.
What a precious gift to have in common the ability to see beauty in the world around us.
I love you, Kiera!
Today I walked a little bit, wearing just a neoprene support on the ankle/foot, and, imagine this, a pair of matching hiking sandals!
Healing is a miraculous thing! It's not just that over the past six weeks the foot went through all those stages starting out as a big, purple box, and gradually, very gradually, changing ever so slightly. I went from having to crawl, to walking with crutches, to limping and then finally, to being able to bear weight.
It's not just that torn ligaments and tendons began to slowly, and carefully, heal and grow every so slightly stronger a little bit at a time.
It's a whole lot more than that.
I know it was just a sprained ankle, and even if it's a third degree one, the worst kind, in the whole scheme of things, I realize it's just a minor and temporary injury.
But it has been six weeks of my not being able to do what I am used to doing. It has been six weeks of often feeling frustrated, and sometimes depressed, and feeling as if for the rest of my life I will be limping in unmatched footwear.
It was six weeks to slow down, be humble, be teachable, and to think about what I could learn from this enforced period of such.
It was people praying for me, including random surfers on the beach, kind people checking on me and my progress, people with experience with such things giving me much appreciated advice, and it was kind of amazing.
Faith, our connections to each other, love, and all those good things were the silver lining.
One neighbor has seen me walk to the beach nearly each day, at first, in a giant boot, and then in a little white inflatable one, and then my hinged sports model, and he has acknowledged my progress each time I have passed his house and been greeted by his dog.
I am grateful for all of those kinds of things. I probably have a few more weeks before I actually move "normally" again, and a few months before things are totally healed, but for now, I am just so very grateful for the things I have learned and experienced while being the "gimp."
Thank you people,
kc
So, I was walking along the beach one morning, and three surfers were coming out of the water near the pier.
Yeah, I was limping along, doing my sand physical therapy which consists of walking up and down the slopes to strengthen my sprained ankle, while wearing one of my ankle supports.
They were asking me what happened and how. Mark says I should have said, "You should have seen it! There were these monster sets a few weeks ago, and...."
I told the truth, I said I was rock hopping on the jetty when it started to rain, and well, anyway. Some say I should start to act my age, and then maybe I wouldn't get hurt so often. But, it's not easy. I grew up with so many opportunities to be a tomboy. Yeah, I may be pushing 60, but I really don't want to become an old lady any time soon.
So, anyway, back to the surfers.
After they talked to me a while about the ankle, they asked if I would be okay with them praying for me.
I responded that they were welcome to do so, I wouldn't mind at all.
I didn't realize that they meant right then and there, on the spot. They meant right then and there. On the spot.
They gathered around me, still dripping with sea water, holding their boards in one arm (I was as if enclosed inside a flower petal), and with their free arms, they joined hands and one placed his hand on my ankle and one held my hand, and they prayed, aloud, on the beach, near the SB pier, that my ankle would heal, and be stronger than ever, and they prayed about how much Jesus loves KC, etc.
I thought many things:
1-I am standing near the pier surrounded by three random surfers who have decided to pray for my sprained ankle!
2-How random is this?
3-How sweet is this?
After our amens, they began to head for the shower, but they continued to converse with me as they walked up the shore, and as I began to head back in the other direction.
How random was that? How sweet was that?
I have had an intimate relationship with this foot now, for about five days. Prior to that, this foot was simply one of a pair that I occasionally treated with new shoes or socks, but mostly it was meant to work in tandem with it's twin to get me wherever I wanted to go, which was a lot of places.
If you saw them both at the same time, you would notice that the right twin looks nothing at all like its sister. First of all, the right twin has a pretty little silver toe ring. (which probably would have had to be cut off, if it had been on this left foot). Also, the right twin, in comparison, looks totally skinny and bony when next to her puffy and colorful sister.
I have noticed that I have gone through some stages in this healing process.
stage one-SHOCK
Omigosh, did my trail runners grip the rock so well that when I went to slide down my ankle totally bent like folded paper, and then got wedged against an adjoining rock, while I sit here in shock and can't feel my foot, ankle or leg? Did I just break my ankle in two?
stage two-CODDLING
Poor ankle, here, have some more ice, have another epsom salt soak, here rest on this pillow while I watch another silly, insipid movie.
stage three-CABIN FEVER
Arrrgggghhh, it's a beautiful day outside and I am lucky to be able to go from this room to the bathroom. I will never walk again. I will make people crazy asking them to describe what it looks like, just outside my door and down the stairs! I long to see the ocean.
stage four-FOOT ANGER
stupid extremity! why'd you have to go and do this? Were you jealous because you had no toe ring??? Now I can hardly do anything at all and it's all YOUR fault! Hah, no epsom salt soaks for you today!
It seems like life is never really smooth, or even all that peaceful. Between us we have ten kids, four grandkids, and several jobs.
There are certain aspects of our lives that are especially stressful, things that I have not mentioned thus far, and probably won't. Hardly a day goes by without some kind of extreme stuff going on in the corners of our world.
And we have a great many financial obligations (definitely related to the first two paragraphs) and so we are often left to do without.
Mark gets up well before the sun rises to take care of business, and is exhausted after working a long, long day, usually until 10 or 11 each night, Monday-Saturday.
I juggle many things, too, work-wise and otherwise.
But the thing is that here, in the center of our little apartment, there is peace. In the center of this relationship, there is peace.
And that makes all the difference!
I am suspecting that they do. Here are my reasons why I suspect this:
1-I had a neurological virus a few years back that nearly crippled me in more ways than one. Doctors are actually pretty amazed that I pulled through with as much capability as I enjoy. But it left me with a few glitches.
One of them is a sensitivity to certain chemicals that affect the central nervous system-such as caffeine, aspartame (and a few other artificial sweeteners), and MSG.
This is how I react to MSG. I lie awake all night, exhausted, not ruminating, not tense, not going over and over something, not worried, just awake. AWAKE, AWAKE, AWAKE.
MSG and a few other things, are excitotoxins, in that they stimulate the central nervous system in unpleasant ways. If you have a "normal" CNS, you may not notice any reaction at all to MSG, or you may get a headache, or some insomnia, or a flushing, or discomfort, or, you may be sensitive and have an anaphylactic shock experience, complete with a ride in an ambulance!
Or you may just be awake for about two days, like me.
2-I was awake most of the night last night (slept maybe an hour and a half), after eating at Panda Inn, and today, exhausted, tried to nap, but only managed to get about 15 minutes of sleep with about two hours of trying to sleep, and incapable of much else.
3-Because those who like to use MSG in foods, also like to disguise it, due to the fact that some people are not very happy with that additive, a restaurant could say, MSG-free, but the chemical may still appear in some broths or bases that they purchase, or it may appear with one of its AKAs such as “natural flavorings,” “hydrolyzed yeast extract,” “hydrolyzed vegetable protein,” etc. So, even though I have contacted Panda Inn to see if they ever use MSG in their foods, and even though they have not responded yet, the fact remains, they could be using it and not really realize they are, or hope that they are fooling us, or any variation of the above.
4-MSG is in just about everything processed, and it is difficult to keep up with all of its AKAs.
Why, if it causes problems to a large enough segment of the population, and is known to do so, and many food manufacturers try to disguise that they use it, is it used at all?
Because it makes food taste better than normal, but that is an illusion. It causes your central nervous system to think that what you are eating tastes better than it really does, and it causes you to eat more.
http://www.drnorthrup.com/news/msg.php
So then, what is it anyway, a drug? There are some who would like to classify it as such. And many who would classify it as a harmful drug. Anyone who is sensitive to it would agree with that.
Those of us who react to MSG might be considered to be the canaries in the mine. Just because you don’t have a reaction to it (and you don’t get hungry again immediately or eat too much, or have a headache, at least), doesn’t mean that you are free from any and all harm from consuming MSG.
I don’t know about you, but I think I would rather eat food that actually tastes good than eat food that has been laced with a chemical to make me think it tastes good. There’s just something smarmy and brave-new-world-ish about that.
Still waiting to hear from Panda Inn and see what it is that they use in their food. If they are able to convince me that they never use MSG in any form whatsoever, I will report back here (and wonder where I got the neuroexcitin, maybe chewing gum?)
Kiera posted on her blog (see Jeremy and Kiera link below to the right) a states map indicating all the states that she and Jeremy have visited together. This is my version of the states I have visited. Granted, some of them were simply drive-through states, but most were visited for more than a day or two. I guess I have a few more to go.
If you want to make one of your own, take a look at her blog. She has the link there.
Okay, so one of you told me to write a bit more about the Dominican Republic since what I’ve written so far has only touched on trying to get back home again. So, even though it was a year ago now (a fact that is so startling to me that I cannot even be startled!), to recap:
We went to the DR to visit Mark’s parents. His parents were presiding over the Santo Domingo temple. We also went there to bring some humanitarian aid supplies. So, shortly after Christmas, we packed and headed for the airport. I had one bag and a backpack. Mark had one bag and there was one more, very huge, red rolling bag that contained the supplies. It was difficult to make our way to and through the airport with all of that luggage. Mark was pushing/pulling two large rolling bags, and we were convinced that the big red one (the one with the supplies) would likely be:
1-totally inspected, as in throw the stuff all over the place and ask, “What is this? Why are you transporting so many diapers out of the country?”
2-weighed and found to be so much over the limit that we would be charged about $89.73 for the extra weight and one of those stickers would be slapped on it to warn the baggage handlers that it was a back destroyer.
3-laughed at.
4-seen as being a bomb, and blown up.
Well, it went right through, and we even found it again in Miami, where we had to leave it in one of the most casual baggage collection locations I’ve ever seen. I was convinced that some thieves just came into the airport and roped off an area with twine and called out to people on their way to board the flight to Santo Domingo to leave all of their valuables with them. I was certain we would never see the red bag or our own bags ever again.
We arrived in Santo Domingo that night, and sure enough, the bags were missing. I remember being exhausted, watching the same bags go around and around, over and over again. When the trolley stopped, Mark ran to the counter to put in the lost luggage claim (apparently he has experienced this before. And yes, it happened more than once after this experience.)
As an aside, I recall asking my mother if her luggage had ever been lost in any of her travels. She said that when she went to Italy, her luggage was lost, and it was NEVER recovered. That was encouraging.
So, we went a few days without our luggage, which, in my case, meant borrowing things like contact lens solutions, and underwear. I wore the same things for three days. There I was, in a tropical climate, and for three days I wore a tee-shirt, jeans, and trail runners. My feet were begging to be set free. I did find, though, that if one washes clothes the night before, and they are not all that dry the next day, they are still okay to wear in a tropical climate. Damp clothes actually work in such a climate.
Well, we called day and night for our lost luggage. We went to the airport a few times, too. Again and again we told that they were not there. On our last visit, we brought the temple president. We were determined to find our luggage. We spent about four hours standing around in jeans and trail runners, and the temple president (okay, my father-in-law, FIL for short), and my husband, were both talking to anyone who wore a uniform (thank goodness they are both pretty good with Spanish. I was only understanding words like please, lost, and three days ago.
Let me backtrack for a moment. When we first entered the airport that night, we stood near the entrance and spoke to a few officials. Near where we stood is also where the passengers exit after finding, or not finding, their luggage. Our luggage was finally found to be just inside that area. But we couldn’t see it because there is a passageway there. We had described our luggage to these officials, and they said they would take a look, and they left and came back empty handed. And that was only the first of about a dozen requested and promised searches.
The airport nearly closed by the time we found our luggage, but we had no plans to leave until we found it. Someone had told us it was, finally, for sure, really, at the Santo Domingo airport, so we persisted. We spread out. I was on the top floor where a very official man had promised to bring our luggage to us and he took off with an empty luggage cart. My FIL was downstairs somewhere, and Mark hovered in between trying his best to get some action.
After what seemed like about 6 hours of standing around on the top floor, and after there were no more passengers appearing there, I saw Mark bounding up some stairs, and he motioned for me to come. I was reluctant to leave my official, promising man with his luggage cart, but went to see what Mark had to say. The luggage had been right there, in that passage way, and my FIL was loading it into the car as we spoke.
I was sooooo happy to see my bag again, and sooooo happy to change my clothes, put on some sandals, and some lighter weight pants, oh, and my little down pillow, at last!
And then, we spent the rest of our time in the cities, and in the jungles, where we saw that the manhole covers were missing because people used them to create other things that they needed, and some people lived in shacks constructed from corrugated sheet metal that they had collected from roadsides, and there were cooking fires along all the highways and freeways, and about ten people per run-down taxi, and many of them carrying a live hen for dinner, or a stack of plantains, and a baby wrapped in a shawl.
We saw a lot of very poor people in this third-world country. But everywhere we went, we saw happy and friendly people. In the Dominican Republic, when you go to church you are greeted with a kiss. If you look at someone they look right back at you (with gorgeous, big, brown eyes) and they smile. There are colors everywhere. There are pigs everywhere.
They have hardly anything. They have everything. They are happy in the jungles.
When we got back to the USA (which was another post, down below), finally, everything seemed so sterile and new, and almost even somber in comparison. And every so often, I kind of envy those people.
...do photography all day long, every day. Sigh. (I guess I should get back to editing that math book.)
What would you do all day long if you had the choice?
Why is it that the year can seem like it is moving along at a regular, if slightly-above-speed limit, and then, along comes December, and it is suddenly WARP SPEED!!!!
I was just thinking today, how grateful I am for my husband, Mark. He works so hard so I can live in the comfortable place where we are living and so I can have my internet, and all the things that he provides. Yeah, I work, too, but he is the reason why we have this cozy place. I'm grateful for how hard he works, and how he puts up with me, and how he supports me emotionally and spiritually, and all of that.
He listens to me, he encourages me, he is the best husband there is!
And he brought me these berries today!
For what more could I ask?
