Stormy Weather

As Mom, Dad and I drove back from Dennison on Friday, we saw a long line of ambulances headed south. Preparations for Gustav are under way.

Watching that thing roar up the gulf is a scary thing. I have lots of thoughts on natural disasters, on personal responsibility and governmental responsibility, but right now I just want to say a prayer for the people and animals in the path, and maybe another little prayer of gratitude for my own family safe inland at this time.

Rest

I want to lay my heart down on the mountain and rest a little while. Rest is does not abandon hope, oh no. It is preparation for rebirth and renewal. Sometimes I forget that, do you?

Happy Animal Wednesday

Course Correction

I know little about sailing, but it speaks to me. Maybe I get through life by tacking with the wind instead of motoring straight ahead. Maybe I'm not a motorboat but a sailboat. Maybe.

Update

This time last year things were the same, and different. I'm going to take 10 minutes and look back before I go get dressed.

It's almost too much to contemplate the animal gains/losses. In fact I think that I won't-10 minutes is not enough.

It was interesting to read about "wheeling through the airport" and realize I was still using a wheelchair for longer walks. Wow. Wow. Wow. That needs 10 minutes on it's own.

Ok, enough back looking, what I really wanted to write about today was how far Mom and Dad and I have come as a family-learning to work with each other not against each other. It amazes me how much effort and intention it takes on all our parts just to get along and treat each other decently. We are all decent people, but we had forgotten to be decent to each other.

I think that happens to a lot of families.

Sleep-at last-SLEEP

Nothing like an unbroken night's sleep to give you that ahhhhhhh feeling. I'm on liquids till MOnday when I go in for a test to make sure all is still well with my band (and I do hope it is)...but NO reflux thanks to the partial unfill.

So-what have we learned? It's better to go get a little unfill out at the first sign of trouble (or after stomach trauma, like, uh FOOD poisoning) then later put some back in (about $200) than it is to try to gut it out, get in worse trouble, and have to be tested ($1200).

That was an expensive piece of gas station chicken!

So I can't get it all done

Fine, I'll do what I can for as long as I can then I will see what happens;sometimes life feels a little like a run on sentence.

Animal Wednesday-Portals into the Present Moment

Animals are portals into the present
We often forget the now
Animals never do
Life without animals
Would be one big
Worry


HAW to you All!

Floods

Faye is on the East Coast and it floods in Oklahoma....do dah, do dah oh de do dah day.......

Cactus Monday

Ocean Cactus
Cactus is a bit of ocean water, the grass is part of an urchin.

Reflux

Sux

Update soup/Gratitudes

I'm going to list things I'm grateful for:

Baby snakes are eating well
Puppy has an awesome recall already
Oliver the parrot is progressing with his training
I am sleeping better
The weather is cooler now (high 80's low 90's)
Low acid decaf coffee tastes ok

What is pulling you through right now?

Maybe We Don't Need Bombs

I took Priss down to see Mom and Dad today-I'm pretty low energy but I thought it would be a nice gesture. In talking I mentioned a behavior the dogs were doing and I got the standard dismissal "You spend too much time with the dogs and you give them characteristics they don't have".

In the past, I would have lept up in indignation, defending the years of reading, studying and working with animals. Tonight I just laughed and said "no I don't". And Mom laughed back and said "well, Ok then."

That conversation would have been impossible a year ago. That little gain gave me enough energy to put Priss back in with the pack and work through her post-visit bossy vibe without any anger.

My anger is never at Priss, just as a situation that pushes us back. Priss was Mom and Dad's dog for awhile, I can get her reasonably in line, but if we visit, she falls back. But Mom and Dad need the visits more than I need Priss to be a perfect dog. And, on a happier note, the dominance rituals reinforce my dominance with the other pack members.

Where was I? Oh yeah, maybe a quiet answer really does turneth away wrath...but until recently that a quiet answer did not mean you had to agree. Wow. Heavy.

DVR

I'm bleary eyed again this morning-for some reason I wanted to see the Men's All Round Finals in real time. There is just something sooooo cool about knowing that a great deal of the world is watching this same thing at the same time. It fills a spiritual need to commune.

I wonder if the Tivo's and DVR's are another way to fragment our lives even beyond the television set. Before TV, entertainment was a shared experience-now we share it, alone.

Yet, in this great cosmic experiment, maybe we need the community AND the solitude and everything that comes in between. Ironically, solitude with the TV is still spending time with someone else's thought or vision-just like reading is.

I struggle with the never enough syndrome, believing no matter what I do, it's never quite enough. But maybe I'm projecting a feeling about the world as I know it back on myself-there is never enough time in one lifetime to do everything-but is that MY fault? I don't think so, and I need to quit telling myself it is.

I also need a nap.

Clever girlie, I am going to take it now rather than mid afternoon-in hopes that I'll then go to bed at a decent hour and DVR anything of interest.

Animal Wednesday Mysteries

What do you get when you take one part Sage:


Add one part Vibe


And mix them well? You get

Blastoff Blue Moon Doggie, bred at Blastoff Border Collies. and now residing with me.

He's an awesome pup, completely awesome. Not the dog for everyone by any means-this is a dog for someone who will spend a lot of time/energy on him. These dogs do not do well stuck in the backyard (in fact, the won't likely stay there for long). But for the right person, they are a bit of heaven on earth.

There are more cute dog pictures on Poidogz of the new kid and his new pack.

A large mass of fuzz appeared in the bottom of Oliver the Parrot's cage. Not bird fuzz, or even feather fuzz. Well, it was, in some sense bird fuzz, because it came from a stuffed pink chicken. I'll let Oliver tell you the story.




I am so grateful to Mim for creating Animal Wednesday. It really is a high spot in my week!

You Tell Me

I think approval is a stronger drug than nicotene...and kicking that habit was a bitch and a half.

Does anyone find themselves choosing to do nothing at all vs. something they enjoy?

Cactus Monday

Feeling kind of dottie today.

Oh blllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah

Yesterday I drove to far Eastern Oklahoma, did not plan well (I forget there are still places where you don't have 10 restaurants per square foot) and ended up breaking my road rule-Never buy Chicken at a Gas Station/Truck stop.

I vomited for a full 100 miles, came home, went to bed, and vomited for half the night. It was one of those mysterious illnesses where output far exceeds what went in in the first place.

I brought home a new animal, who is nameless at this point. Yesterday I called him "hyena" for all the wailing he was doing. A few minutes ago he started again and Oliver screamed "AWK MURDER!!!!" which made me laugh till I cried.

Today liquids are staying down so I am calling me on the mend.

Olympics and the State of the Species

Watched most of the opening ceremonies-China did herself proud. I'm not a fan of all the sports, but I do like the idea behind the Olympics, set aside political differences and become a Divine Animal for a couple of weeks.

It's hard to set aside politics when your fearless leader is sitting hunchbacked and splayed legged for the entire world to see. Good grief man, the job isn't over until January, and you can't sit upright for 4 hours? Yeah, it was probably a Democrat that panned over when you were taking a break, but after all those years in the public eye, you'd think you would have clued into the fact that there are cameras at major world events. I saw a man bored out of his mind by the spectacle of the atheletes parading by. The idea is to set aside political DIFFERENCES and REPRESENT, and da bush let us down again.

In other surprising news, I watched part of a show on "Sex and the Brain"...it would have been better titled "Gender and the Brain" and then I might have seen the entire show. We've evolved to the point where we have to explain our brains to ourselves, and then ask the question (or rather the show did) , "can the brain disconnect from itself to truly understand itself?" We are the ultimate narcississits (although we invented the idea, so we SHOULD be good at it).

I was going to write about the superior fireworks of the Chinese, all the feel good stuff, but the image of that man not sitting quite upright in the stadium, representing U.S......I can't shake it. It goes beyond politics. That's the donkey (or elephant) who truly believes we did not evolve and we are here as the pinnacle of creation. My exact words when I was sitting home in my living room were "Oh my fucking god....."

Another good thing

Two meaningless happy entries in one day-my my my.

Oliver constantly mimics conversations he's heard-complete with phone dialing, cussing, etc and the different voices of whoever was involved. He's been speaking in my voice for a long time now-but today is the first time I've noticed him repeating a conversation between him and me. That makes me feel good. I also like his version of my voice much better than my own.

Infectious Laughter

Laughter is so infectious-even without real context. I wonder if a laugh track in our backgrounds would improve mood disorders?

Case in point, I was having a bit of a gloomy morning, and Oliver the parrot has chosen this morning to bust out with his litany of laughter. So, interspersed with gloomy thoughts comes a "ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" or a "muwah ha ha ha" and I can't help myself, I smile, and pretty soon, I'm laughing back. Compelled to be happy.

Not to be outdone, Oliver the dog marches in with a sycamore leaf planted firmly, even artistically on his broad snout. He doesn't appear to notice the leaf, and nestled in his bristles, the leaf is fixed, it won't budge. The longer the leaf stays put, the more I laugh and the parrot guffaws in chorus. Oliver look solemnly at us both-he has no idea what is so funny, but he grins politely anyway, cause he's a polite little chap.

Some days, a person has to crawl out of a pit of despair on their own. Other days, a few friends drop by to hasten the process along.

Which Photo is of a Real Animal

The second photo is unretouched and is a picture of the Yunnan Snub Nosed Monkey. Maybe there was method to MJ's madness after all. Bubbles better beware-he could be replaced.

Animal Wednesday

Forgot to post it. I was trying to make a hydra monster out of Diego and Freida but it just wasn't working for me, so I labeled my frustration and for some reason, that made it work. HAW.

Heat Wave

We're having a heat wave
A tropical heat wave....

Isn't there a song that goes something like that? Of course this isn't a wave, it's a "heat dome" and happens every summer. People die every year because it gets so hot and the air so stale that they just can't go on.

I experienced the annual burning of my ass on the car seat. Painful though it is, it's always a bit funny, because you sit down, then your first urge is to gut it out so no one "knows" but then your back arches, ass goes up in the air and the provacative touch, up, touch, up motion occurs till the seat is cool enough to actually sit on. It's probably a good workout for the abs.

Cactus Monday

Door is Open

Door is open
step out if you dare.

Ok, I don't know what the hell I'm thinking-think I'll throw my gear in the jeep and go knit with friends....wooooohooooooo. Wild woman!

Inner Space

So much looking ahead
Down the road
Across the river
Over the hill
Under the rock.

What ever happened to stillness
Here and now
In the moment
Navel gazing
Daydreams.

When did a cup of good coffee and the sunday paper
Move so out of reach?

Where to Start?

Is that the first stumbling block
that halts many an expedition?
Where to start? Where will it end?
We don't know. So we don't go.

The Question is...

Sometimes I'd like to run down the street screaming
"what do you want from me"
What keeps me from it is a vision of a giant hand
Descending from the clouds
Picking me up, feet and arms wriggling like an insect
As the voice of god booms out
"who the hell are YOU?"