Meet D.O.G.

I want you to meet D.O.G.


I am so excited today about showing you this picture that I can hardly take the time to write this. The big dog in this picture is Dough-Gee. His Christian name is “D.O.G” but it is pronounced with a slur, Dee-oh-Gee, that ends up sounding like ‘Dough-Gee.’ Dog’s mother was a basset and I think his father was a Rottweiler. Despite his overly long body and stocky crocked legs, Dog is so special because he has a sweet and mild nature that still continually astounds us.

Hub and I were shocked when Dog brought this little fellow in through the dog door early one morning. We could not imagine that anyone abandoned him but that must have been the case because after advertising and calling others in the neighborhood in order to find his owner we were finally forced to give up. But thankfully, through a local animal rescue group, Dog’s little friend was quickly adopted into a loving home. I have heard reports since then and his new owners love him to death, the way Hub and I love our Dough-Gee Dog.

Spontaneous Acts

When I was in the Romantic stage of my life, that would be my youth, a hug could fix just about anything. And still it’s a good fix when everything is beyond human control. But having reached the reflective stage of my life, where romance is no longer the be-all and end-all, sometimes a hug is not the fix I need. Not if there are more practical options.

Now over the many years Hub and I have been together we have had numerous philosophical discussions. And what consistently comes to the fore is Hub’s philosophy that if a man has to be told to send flowers, to date his wife, or take her to dinner – if this is a taught and learned protocol rather than a spontaneous desire, he might as well not bother. And yes, I agree this is true.

But this week we got right down to the application of this theory and there seemed to be a problem with it. With my recent eye surgery, I’ve had my days. Days when I felt whimpy, days I felt a little down, and days when I needed spontaneous acts of reassurance from Hub.

But what I’ve come to realize, upon reaching this reflective stage of life, is that men are lacking a vital piece of thought-processing, that women have. The uncanny ability of intuitive empathy and understanding of other’s needs. It’s the thing that tells us the other half (or the kids) are not feeling up to snuff even if they don’t complain. Women know. It’s the thing that makes us seize control of the moment.

Doesn’t this all sound too familiar? “You’re looked a bit peaked this morning. I think you better stay home today. Does your head hurt? Are you in pain? What did you eat yesterday? Better let me take your temperature. Here’s a cool cloth for your forehead and let me put this warm pack on your back. You aren’t hungry? Well, you should eat something. If this doesn’t appeal to you I’ll make some broth? When did you last have a bowel movement? Do you want your pillow fluffed? Should I turn off the TV?”

So now the other day I was feeling down. Eye just a bit too uncomfortable for me to have confidence I was doing okay. And of course, what furthered my distress, was thinking how quickly doldrums can root and blossom into full-blown depression. What I needed was ‘spontaneous’ emotional support from Hub.

But, as I’ve already stated, men lack that thing so ever present in women’s psyche. They never notice if the wife is pale, or hollow-cheeked. If the eyes are worried, the face sad. How could they when they even fail to notice she cut her hair or colored it? So since Hub lacks feminine intuition, there is no point in me remaining silent. I might as well stop pulling a sad face and tell him.

So, “Hub,” I say, “Today my eye is uncomfortable. I’m feeling anxious, sad, and depressed.”

That was clear enough, don’t you think? Shouldn’t need to say more.

“Chin up,” Hub replies. “The Doctor said you need six weeks to heal so you’ll just have to wait it out.”

Now Hub already knows one thing I want. I want the color and contrast on the television minimized so that watching it will be no different than looking across the room at the bookshelf. I want my computer set the same way. But if it is going to happen, it isn’t going to happen until he finishes tweaking up the computer on the diningroom table and after he replaces a switch and a broken antenna on a two-way radio. So I told him my woes, but nothing happened. No one wiped my forehead, gave me a warm pack, or made me a cup of tea. No one adjusted the TV or suggested I relax in the big chair. When Dough-Gee dog rattled his empty waterdish and booted it down the hall, no one said, “Roberta, don’t move. I’ll get that.”

So I didn’t want to say it, the thing that can’t be learned or lectured. Yet, I needed to do something to clue this man in. So I tried an oblique approach that I hoped would not irreparably damage the wholesomeness of heartfelt spontaneity.

“Hub,” I said. “You know how often you’ve said that if the experts tell you to give the wife flowers, the gesture becomes meaningless. Well, we have that same situation here and I have no idea what to do about it. Except to tell you, you have a few dead brain cells and I can’t reactivate them without the meaning of all that is connected to spontaneous acts of kindness being destroyed.”

Hub looked at me blankly and went back to watching ‘Lone Star’ and tweaking up the computer on the diningroom table. I sat in the kitchen feeling woefully sorry for myself. Faced with a difficult quandary that obviously had no easy solution.

Later, much later, I saw Hub adjusting the contrast and brightness on the TV. Later, much later, he appeared by the big chair with a freshly-made sandwich for me. And tea. They were small steps, but admittedly they are steps in the right direction.

And amidst all this Hub would not have hesitated to give me a hug. Yes hugs are okay, they’re nice, but when you’re past the romantic stage of life, might as well reserve hugs, as I said earlier, for situations outside of human control. In the reflective stage of life, when I’m slipping into the doldrums, hugs don’t have the same impact they once did. This is not a situation beyond human control. What I need is the magic of ONE day, so seldom requested, so seldom expected, of emotional support through a servile attitude and a fresh cup of tea and a fluffed pillow.

The Surgery

We sat lined up in little chairs in the waiting room. We chatted with dim, inattentive eyes, about things beyond our control. About weather, temperatures, roads, and travel time. I didn’t want to talk but I wanted to eavesdrop. I wanted to find something in one of those conversations to lower my alarm about the here and now but there was nothing. Discussions about eye surgery – right off the agenda. It was as if we were all pretending we were waiting for a call to dinner rather than a call to surgery.

Then one by one we pealed off those chairs and moved into another room. The nurse looked at my name and looked at me and said, “Roberta?”.

“Yes, I said. We spoke on the phone.” And no, we didn’t embrace and mingle tears (see previous bog), but she gave me a wry little smile and flourished one hand under each eye than shook it out over the floor. I grinned and mimed the same.

So now here we sat in groups of five while another nurse dropped drops in our eyes. A stinging drop followed by a soothing drop. Over and over again. Now you know how reluctant even a dim sighted eye is to having anything dumped in it. And the eye is even more reluctant when the thing is expected. So with a running commentary that this ‘may sting abit’ and ‘this will feel okay’ she re-cycled drops into the corners of our eyes. We, with our dim little pigeon eyes, that can’t even read the first ‘E’ on an eye chart, saw them coming, and of course we blinked. And when she tried again we blinked. With tissues, we mopped up hoards of solution spilling down our cheeks, as we consistently blinked in smooth synchronization with each drop that hit.

And when she said with impatience, “you must hold your eye open”, of course we agreed. But the mechanism of unconsciously controlled body movements disagreed so always18 trilla-seconds after her demanding we keep our eye open, without willing it, we breathed and blinked which of course was just as the emulsion dropped. None were talking, we were all too busy willing ourselves not to blink, and wondering if we had any of the critical solution in the eye. I only knew for a certainty I had some of the stinging variety.

With our upper bodies dressed in hospital nightgowns, tied but still gaping at the back, we were each given a sheet to wear as a granny shawl to keep our teeth from chattering. And eventually each of us were transferred from our chairs with our sheet shawls to wheel chairs and transferred to the operating room. An intravenous was set up in my right hand by another individual after three painful failed attempts in my left by the first individual. And then I was left on a stretcher in a hallway. My God, what I wouldn’t have given for a warm quilt? I keep asking for one, they said they’d get me one, but no one ever did.

Discomfort in such circumstances is the not knowing what is going to happen and how it is going to happen. But when it came to parking the guerney I was on in the hallway, that was familiar within the context of my mind. Gurneys are somewhat like taxis on a slow day, are they not? Only taxis wait and wait at a sidewalk entry, and gurneys wait and wait anywhere in a hospital where there is room - hallways, alcoves, etc. So when placed on a gurney and parked in a hallway, I felt the comfort of familiarity with that event.

Across the hallway, but not directly in line with me, was a body under a shawl-sheet identical to mine, with navy dress socks sticking out from under the sheet. I recognized the socks and realized it was the patient that had gone into surgery two patients ahead of me. His feet were parallel with my waist, he was parked a little farther down the hallway, so I had to raise my shoulders and tip my head backward to see the rest of him. But the sheet was bunched around his head making that part of him invisible. So I was left to examine his feet and lower torso.

The feet were positioned like those of the pope when he was packed around during his funeral procession. The body was very still, the face hidden from me, but I watched the feet and lower body very carefully. No twitch, no movement, nothing. I wondered if he had an adverse reaction to something. A sedative or freezing stuff. Maybe he wasn’t moving for a very good reason. If that was the case, maybe I could borrow his sheet. I was becoming so rapidly convinced that he was dead. After all, doesn’t it make sense that with our present health care situation that takes a critical patient 17 hours to get through the convolutions of the administrative process in Emergency, it might take as long, or even longer, to get a dead body transferred from a hallway to a morgue. Less the hurry really. Less the emergency at that point. No one to call up their Member of Parliament to complain or lobby for change. The deceased are the silent minority – and when they succumb on gurneys in hallways they are statistics of a kind that in their dumb silence are, it seems to me, not even counted. We’ve all seen the stat counts – numbers of deaths from homicides, vehicular accidents, drownings, heart disease, cancer, but I’ve still yet to see on the list – death from “unattended gurney in the hallway”. There must be enough to warrant adding these to the list.

Now moving on to another thought, I know that it is true that if you are driving on a slippery road, and you go into a skid, you need to look where you want to go rather than where you are going. Because if you look at the ditch, you will go in the ditch. So I realized if I seriously didn’t want to swipe his blanket, I had to ditch such thinking by turning my head. It was the only way to avoid scuttling across the way to snatch his blanket. Taking it would be so unkind, regardless of what his situation might be. So I turned my head away, and wrapped my sheet tighter around me. I sniffed the air but I could not smell death.

Just then my gurney was wheeled into surgery and my head put into a snug cradle. Something was hooked up to the intravenous and away we go. Finally warm. Finally, oh so comfortable. Not one negative or anxious thought. Loving myself, the world, even the incompetent that couldn’t plant an intravenous in my arm. Still able to hear conversation and able to respond. Thinking what a lovely place to be. Doom and gloom eradicated. Thinking positive thoughts about the Iraq war, politicians, even global warming and the president of the U.S. Loving what I love, and loving what I hate. Wanting desperately to write blogs from that wondrous place. Thinking about them, coining them. Knowing that readers of those blogs would weep tears of boundless delight.

I had no idea what was being rotated through my veins. Whether it was morphine, Novocain, Valium, banana peel with nutmeg, or poppy seed elixir. How would I know? I’ve never tried a street drug, not even marijuana. Or does an occasional poppy-seed bun count? And I’ve never taken pharmaceutical drugs beyond an extra-strength aspirin. But I certainly know now how people get hooked on drugs. If this is what drugs do, life just doesn’t get any better.

So in summary these are the events of today that impacted most on me.
1. Them asking me, of all people…”What eye are we doing?”
Response: It’s my right from behind the eye where I am positioned. It’s the left from where you are standing but if you turn your back to me it will be on the right. (pointing to eye). It’s this one….I think… (all the while thinking ‘why are they, the experts in this business, asking me? No one gave me a print-out of what they found in the assessment of my vision. Even verbal discussion was as limited as a dot-dash telegraph transmission.’
2. Most painful part of the day – all those intravenous attempts with that gigantic needle.
3. Most dubious part of my day – time spent in the hallway on a gurney gazing at a pair of navy blue socks.
4. Most orgasmic part of my day – the feeling that came over me when I entered that drowsy, comfy, positive-minded, cocoon of time and space just before surgery.

So now, it’s healing time and I’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.

As a final thought, I must tell you that only a couple weeks before surgery I happened to notice in a magazine a method for putting drops in one’s eyes. You pinch the bottom eye pouch between a thumb and first finger and pull it out into a pocket. Then drop the eye drops in that pocket. Couldn’t be happier I discovered that little trick. Although I couldn’t put drops in my eyes for an entire lifetime, now I can do it slick as you please. Which is good cause I have to put drops in my eye every time I turn around. I should have told that frustrated nurse, but experts seldom want advice and oft times don’t take kindly to it. So I guess today she’s probably back flooding faces with eye drops while patients wonder if they have sufficient of the stuff in their eyes to safely prepare them for eye surgery.

The Inevitable

I can afford an overly-long rant today because I may not be posting again for a good while. Cause tomorrow is my eye surgery so I’m forced to let it creep back into my thoughts. If you read my last blog you can readily see the stress of the effort of controlled ‘not-thinking-about-it’ has been making it impossible for me to intelligently string rational thoughts together.

But this morning, I finally allowed myself to contemplate what is so soon about to happen. At 8:30 when I woke up I felt good. Rested. Sun streaming in the window. Still lying in bed I covered my good eye and looked across the room. I could see. And then I thought, ‘Why am I doing this scary thing, when I can see? Maybe not so good, maybe not well enough to drive, but not so bad either.’

Then I began wondering. Is cataract surgery elective surgery? And isn’t elective surgery something that the patient elects to have? Something offered as a possible alternative, but not necessarily accepted? Is that what it is? A mere offering? Then why was I told, point blank, by two separate specialists, that I couldn’t have glasses? Why did they say, ‘You HAVE to have surgery.’

I’ve never involved myself in all those other elective offerings, so why this one? No spinal whatever it’s called for childbirth, no hormones for hot flashes, no drugs for the prevention of osteoporosis. My mother did perfectly well with none of it and so can I, or should I say, so did I – up until now.

But this morning, that’s a whole different matter. For tomorrow I want hormone therapy pills to chase away the blues, I want a spinal thing to numb my senses, and I want the bone thing so I can kick and flail my arms wildly enough to retain control over the whole process.

When I went for a physical three weeks ago, my doctor didn’t check anything. He went through one quick motion with his stethoscope of listening to my breathing. He did not check my heart-rate, my blood pressure, my throat, ears, or blood. Sure I look healthy, feel healthy, can walk and sit upright in a chair, but Gees, doesn’t he understand what comforts come with attention to details? How mind settling it can be for me when he shows an interest?

I want health care the way it used to be. It would be so nice to think the eye surgeon has a hospital room reserved for me in case I need it, with little terry slippers laid out, a soft quilt folded back that invites one to crawl into the bed. Crisp white linens, and a pair of cozy pastel pajamas that you tie at the waist. And nurses in crisp white little hats and rustling uniforms hovering over me like angels. Bringing me a cup of weak tea and telling me the discomfort will soon pass as they stroke my arms and hair. Nothing is as healing as that kind of rapport. The comfort is the solid knowledge that preparations have been made and no one will be going home until recovery is guaranteed. These are the comforts I want.

But this doesn’t happen anymore and added to that are new hate-crimes that society is insidiously blending into the fabric of our thinking. Hate-crimes that are happening that we see, but prefer to ignore. But the evidence is there. While I was in my G.P.’s office getting a pre-opt check, he asked me if I smoke. And yes, although my breath was mint-fresh, my clothing odor-free, and Hub and I came to town in the ‘town car’ rather than the ‘dog car’ (that would be the car that no one smokes in), I was still honest. “Yes,” I said, “I do smoke”.

I had indicated so on my pre-opt form. And with that honest confession, he suddenly pulled the stethoscope from my chest, ignored the tongue depressor set out on the table, and the blood-pressure monitor hanging on the wall right next to my shoulder and backed away from me like I had the plague. And that’s when he wrote “N/A” as fast as he could down my form next to “Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, Lymph Nodes, Nose, Throat, and Lungs”, then rose quickly and steered me by the elbow out of his office.

A few days later I phoned the hospital to get final pre-opt instructions. I ended up whining to the receptionist in the OR about my General Practitioner’s sudden change from a partnering rapport to rejection. “I know,” she said, “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. I understand because I am a smoker too.” And then she said the kindest most comforting words I could hope to hear in all this bloody melee.

“We are so close to extinct, I can’t help thinking that when I see you we should embrace and let our tears mingle.” Now I’m not being over-dramatic when I say that her words really touched me. My heart, having suffered for so long the pain of the new societal hate crimes that have even invaded doctor’s offices, connected to hers and in those kind words I found sweet bonding.

Now, back to a discussion about my eyes. Doesn’t anyone appreciate what my eyes mean to me? Seeing is a small part of it. Besides sight, my eyes are where I store so many treasures. I store everything in my eyes. My remaining beauty (now that I have crows-feet, frown lines, and withered skin), my love, my care, my empathy, my longings, my romance, my pleasure, my displeasure, my satisfaction, and my reflection.

So can I let a surgeon take out the lens on my right eye that reflects all these emotions and change it to a man-made mask that lacks the natural luster needed to convey my innermost soul? Can I put a generic lens under the delicate mesh of my retina and still be the same person I am now? Will the emotions resident in my soul that come frequently to peer out at others through the windows of my eyes, become shadowed and sealed away from Hub, the grandchildren, my sweet daughters, and their husbands? Will I look at them after this as if through a distortion of emotions that makes it impossible for them to read in my face feelings of appreciation and joy that go well beyond what words can express?

You know, for the most part, as a human race, we are thoughtful and clever. Always seeking, it seems to have understanding take precedence over emotion. So I can’t help thinking that something yet undiscovered by scientists is causing the new hate-crimes against the obese, smokers, couch potatoes and choco-holics? Could it be that the perpetrators have all had eye surgery and through that process now have a ‘mote’ or ‘beam’ in the eye that distorts what they see? And so prior to instalment of an artificial lens, they saw and felt unimpeded acceptance for all of society, included those whom they now see as ‘misfits’. But since surgery, that acceptance has been over-ridden by a changed image. A distorted image that now sees warped reflections through a man-made lens of a world with two distinct races/species not dictated by birth. A race/species of plague-carrying degenerates and a separate race/species of supremes who are Journeymen of self-discipline and self-preservation.

Now I started this post out suggesting that I see well enough to forego surgery. That was my first excuse to cancel. But now I have a better excuse to cancel. To preserve my clear understanding and perception of ‘what I see’. But, unfortunately, it is too late to cancel now. I will have to go with the flow and hopefully when the eye scars are healed I will still see ALL mankind and womankind as one race and one people.

You know it. I am very stressed. I may not be back here for several weeks, at this point I don’t know. And yes, I am scared, I think more so by the unwritten exclusionary clause because I smoke. But I am going to embrace the nurse in O.R. as promised, mingle my tears with hers, and then turn myself bravely over to a surgeon, who I hope, deep in his heart, harbors no bias.

“See???” you all later.

A Picture of Fear

I took the dogs for a walk today as I do every day. I wanted to get a picture of them on the dog trail but it was so difficult. Trying to keep the camera warm enough but not too warm so it wouldn’t steam up the lenses. Trying to get all three dogs in the same frame at the same time. Meanwhile knees vibrating and trying to take a picture and at the same time look over my shoulder to see if I was being stalked.

Neighbors, bless their souls, they mean well, but some things I’d rather not know. Last fall they told me there was a bear in these woods. I was a little disappointed to hear that but a bear should be okay. He’s probably just out for a walk ‘cause his porridge is too hot or he’s on his way to a teddy bear picnic so why would he dally around here where the only fare is one aged, tough, sinewy old woman.

But now, just this weekend, the neighbors told me there is a wolf in these woods. They know because they saw him. A wolf? Now that is scary. They blow down houses, gobble up little girls with red hoodies, and even disguise themselves as grandmothers. They probably even chase little helpless road-runners as ruthlessly as coyotes.












So, there you are, that’s why I didn’t get a better picture.

Want to Make a Zillion Dollars?

It's too simple. Just create an electronic eye to put in classroom doorways that will disengage cell phones on the way in and re-engage them on the way out.

The Righteous Virgin

A needy soul, without notice, without prize
Without descendants or indiscretions
Gray temples, dim eyes, and wasted loins
The offset for honor that was hoarded
‘Til out-distanced by decline.

Night, repressed and unaccented
Daylight, a separate liberation
From urgency, but weighted
By attitudes external to her world
Of shallow indifference, even scorn
No applause for the spinster whose
Aching longing was purified
By a righteous fire lapping
At her withered loins

Senses thicken, memory fades
Dispassionate and hollow
Long ago, like a volcanic eruption
Passion heated, melted, and erupted
From the core of her being

It is nothing more than fiddling
In the transparency of day
The bleached desert a wasteland
Where she still battles with chaste intentions
Empty and alone she vaguely recalls
A battle neither lost nor won.
The long struggle and the ultimate
Exodus of the courage she
Needed to weakly surrender.

NOTES: I have a creative personality. So I sometimes have to square off with a kind of ‘weirdness’ that attaches itself to creativity that leaves me red faced and a bit squirm-ish. If you knew me personally, my real-life persona, you would find this work quite shocking, considering I’m stone sober, I only pop calcium pills, and I take life seriously. So I am a bit uncomfortable about this post and you might be too. But still, the question is, is this any different than painting nudes? I don’t know. Can this be called a creative work? Or is it just so much rubbish that reveals far too much of my foolish nature?

So do others write poetry like this? How would I know? I'm too straight-laced to read them.

Silent Rabble

The ice leaps, and the day
Withers to the lesser
The silence is formless,
Simplified, quietude. I long
For clamor and complexity
Tumult and loquacity,
For words and voices
To absorb me.

The ice compresses
Air, liquid, matter
Into unrelenting
Hoary auspices of the
Migration of glaciation
And perceived permanence
Of the polar ice,
The accordance
Of that significance
One and the same.

While the ice leaps, and the day
Withers to the lesser, the cold
Matrix of silence and ice
Bonds together
Without change but yet an opening
Drives me
To without myself
To where I stand apart
The only exchange
The silent rabble of the day
Withering to the lesser
And steaming breath.


NOTES: After Christmas, I drank the dregs of the leftover wine and let the silence, the ice, and my own aloneness overwhelm me.

The Talisman

Every small town has one. That rather eccentric soul that walks the streets in a repetitive pattern, that haunts the coffee shop twice a day, and guards the square in between. And this he has done for so long that he has become an icon or town mascot – a talisman of sorts. And the longevity of his appointment, the years and years this has been so, has the rest of us thinking that he leads a charmed life with magic powers of invincibility.

In our small town, our mascot is a thoughtful philosopher of politics and religion. With totally fresh, and never before contemplated thoughts for every day. Oracles from the gods that he is anxious to expound. And for this reason, I’m ashamed to say, so many of us avoid him.

But he might have written the book on public relations. We skirt him because he has the special talent of seducing and solidly magnetizing total strangers into conversing with him. And if you don’t keep a greater than twenty foot distance, before you know it, you are floundering in the middle of a conversation that sinks to the core of your being. I swear the talisman is capable of altering DNA linkages within and the only suspicious telling of that alteration might be a goose bump or two. So knowing this, if you have neither the time, or the inclination, or the fear as I have, you concentrate on a game of out-maneuvering.

And yet, although we avoid him in a physical way, we think of him in an endearing way. As representative of our town, of our people, of what we were before the now…when hope was compact and living was simple.

But only last week, our physically rejected, yet emotionally beloved, mascot passed on. How could such a thing happen to an invincible talisman with more spirit than body form? With a reliability and longevity that suggested permanence? But it happened. And if we were remiss in his life, we were not remiss in his death. The ‘obit’ in the paper did him proud justice.

This is what it said.

“We laughed at him because he was different. He laughed at us cause we were the same.”

When I read that I felt such overwhelming pride in our talisman and such an unexpected sense of loss. He did, for certain, go amongst us altering our DNA in ways that will forever defy understanding.

The Evil Eye

Now you know I’m uneasy about my upcoming eye surgery and so I appreciate the kind people who have given support. My neighbor is one of those kind people. To the extent, that last week, when her Mother came for a visit, she called me up and put her Mother on the phone to give me her cataract surgery testimonial.

Truth is, I really didn’t want to discuss it, but what could I say? ‘Cause you see I was doing pretty well up to this point. With only a few weeks to go, I found that circumventing thoughts into other channels was the best way to escape my fear. So I kept my mind firmly planted in the crease of refusing-to-think-about-it. With pre-opt conditions (dental and physical health check behind me), thankfully there is no reason to return to thinking about it, until the scheduled day of surgery.

I know the neighbor had the best of intentions when she put her Mother on the phone. And her Mother, though she doesn’t know me from Adam, was more than a little flattered to tell me the ‘really important stuff’ that she was quite certain I didn’t know. Things I would never think of (which as I said previously, is okay with me).

So she told me what was ‘really, really important’. That for six weeks or more after surgery I must not sew, knit, crochet, read, watch TV, or use the computer. That’s when the darkness began closing in and my present life of watching CNN while playing computer games, reading blogs, and writing blog posts flashed before me.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just wait a minute here. This is a lot to digest. This goes way beyond my fear and anxious foreboding. Now I am really upset. Isn’t that what I do each day? Is there anything she missed? Seems like not. And that rapidly scrolling thought of all those things in my current life? That’s not a good thing either.

So I was close to tears when I got off the phone and turned to Hub.
“Oh my God, Hub, do you know what I have to do for six weeks or more after surgery?”

“What?” he said, with bewilderment, no doubt thinking it must be some undignified, ghastly, painful routine. And if that’s what he was thinking, he was right.

“For six weeks or more all I can do is sweep or mop floors, vacuum, iron, do laundry, shovel snow, re-organize cupboards or closets, bath the dog, clean the basement. How depressing is THAT???”

And you know what Hub did? That man who I thought would always be there for me?

He said, “Good! Very Good! And when are they going to do your other eye?”

Writing Diagnostics

I sit down and write words of random prose, and when I get to the end and look back, I see a skewed and unexpected image of what others might see.







But when I write poetry,
And get to the end, and look back
All I see, is a mirror image,







Of the emotion within my soul
That compelled me to write it in the first place.

Passion or Obligation

I have two approaches to writing. I write either out of conviction or obligation. When I write with conviction, writing is such fun. I would like to always write like that. But it’s doesn’t always happen. Some days, I end up writing because I have a Blog, and because of that Blog I feel obliged to write.

Now although writing isn’t categorized into ‘passionate’ or ‘obligatory’, readers know. Which leads me to a whim I’ve always had. I wish bookstores categorized their books that way. It seems to me, the only books worth reading are those written by a passionate author. Fact or fiction is of little matter. Truly the greater appeal is not so much plot or complexity, but the spirit with which the thing was written.

And that leads me to wonder if “The DaVinci Code” was written out of a calculated obligation to strike at a sensitive nerve that has forever overwhelmed society? Society’s need for implicit understanding of all mysteries. Was the story written as a political project or passionate project? I tend to think of the story as a passionless work because writers of passion never display dogged and deliberate attempts to weld theories into fact. The passion of their convictions spontaneously does that for them.

But, from my own perspective, I have to tell you, that in reading “The DaVinci Code”, despite the shock value, despite the expert analysis at work, and despite complexities that are stunning, unexpected, and wisely sorted, I find passion lacking. The characters are not bathed in blood, sweat, and tears. I just find them way too reckless considering their frail cardboard construction. In fact the author gives more life-giving breadth and breath to the characters in DaVinci’s paintings, then he gives to the characters integral to the plot.

I haven’t the right to suggest this was part of Dan Brown’s endeavor. But still it is a final reflection about writing that I want to share with you.

In writing, obligation wearies content. Passion is so easily marred and chaffed by more practical considerations. The need to make a work marketable. It is like anything else in life. Passion wanes when one is obligated to pursue their craft according to price indices, consumption and demand – with obligatory modifications to widen the appeal. So obligatory writing always has that stilted bit, that surgical bit, that is there to appease journalistic, editorial, investigative, or skeptical minds. And though these implants are carefully integrated, these are the parts most damaging to the wondrous appeal of a passionate work.

So now, I confess. Because I have a blog, I must write something, and so this is my ‘obligatory’ rant for today.

The Look of Destiny

NOTES: I learned something about birds this winter. They have an uncanny sense of smell. I was amazed at how quickly ravens zeroed in on meat scraps in the snow that I tossed to my dogs. Bewildered, I said to Hub, “Can something with a cardboard face and a rigid nose have such a sense of smell?”

“Certainly,” Hub said. “That’s what tells them which bags to rip open in the back of a truck. Bread bags, grocery bags, stuff like that.”

All quite amazing to me but I have something to tell you that might be equally amazing. You probably think that with a rigid template encompassing their mouths and noses, birds cannot smile. But, oh yes they can. They smile with body language. With a cocky strut, like fashion models proceeding down a runway. They smile with bright little eyes, and stretched necks, and perky heads. I’ve seen them smile. I know they can.

The following poem takes this into account. I’m not a polished poet but these are special feelings about situations that I wanted to put in a “poem treasure box,” an idea recently inspired by one of my favorite poets, Pauline.


The Look of Destiny

I pull him from his hiding place so timid and withdrawn
And peer into the little face hiding in the lawn.
He shivers as he looks at me, I see a cloud of fear
And I begin to tremble at the image in that mirror.
He is the Ugly Puppling, with crooked legs and black
He has no sporting nature to make up for that lack
I study in those little eyes the look that he sends back
And in that exchange I promise him that we will make a pact.
This puppy, he will never go; He will stay with me

Those pleading eyes
Have yielded him
A happy destiny.

I head toward the hen-house, pail swinging from my arm
Ax safely in the wood block, nothing threatens harm.
I hear the hens all cheering, “Yea, Yea, the time has come!
For us to share a morning meal and loiter in the sun.”
Some hitch a ride upon my pail and stretch their necks with glee
They cluck with sweet contentment, with peepers fixed on me
And in that bartered vision, that opaque and ‘fowl’ blink
A transitionary message, uncanny and distinct

“Today the world is well with we,
A safe and happy destiny”

A sparkle flashes in a truck
Among the cattle, fumes, and muck
And there, behind a narrow board
A diamond tear in a great brown orb.
A giant orb that stares at me
Begging redemption, “please set me free.”
The cattle truck can no longer be seen
The light has changed from red to green
But now a flood of hopeless rage
Like the hapless beast in that mobile cage


That pitiful eye welded on me
Told me so plainly what was to be…
And it, my friends, was a sad destiny.

My Timepiece

My timepiece is a simple strand
Of upward trees and traverse land.
And shadow pointers wrapped in rhyme
Translate for me the march of time.

Ejected

I don’t know how much free license one has to say what they think on a Blog. But my understanding of freedom of speech is as long as it is true there’s no great risk. I hope that is the case. Because I am feeling so low I need to tell someone.

Now this may not sound like a serious question, but it is a serious question, and don’t even read the rest of this until you give it some thought.

How would you feel if you shut down your blog for a few days to put up a new template, and when that new template was ready, you found someone else living on your site? Decorating it their way with their color values and their words? Remodeling what was once yours to suit them? How would you feel?

Well, that’s more or less what has happened to me. Starting in March of 2003, I had a quaint little place called “Abbreviated Abstractions”. This was my fledgling blog. But I was forced to build another spot because it was a blog that allowed a maximum of 300 posts and I had 311, which caused the indexing page to scramble and overlap. And made it impossible for me to continue posting there. So I moved. But still I spent a lot of time at the old place and so did my visitors.

Then just before Christmas, Hub said to me, “You’re not posting on ‘Abbreviated Abstractions’ anymore. So why don’t you clean up that site? You are a rather unorthodox thinker and if nothing else, a lot of the stuff you write is original. Original thoughts are at a premium these days and if you leave those ramblings too long, they could be plagiarized by others.”

Now I probably would have stood my ground and let the site stand as it was, but this remark was the closest Hub has ever come to complementing my blogging efforts. In an oblique way it seemed to me he was saying that I occasionally write worthy stuff. So although I wavered for the rest of that day, the next day I backed up my rants and took down the site.

And then busy with Christmas and New Year’s. So it was January 6th before I set about to resurrect that familiar old place, where I had always felt such magical inspiration, and move back in. But it could not be resurrected. URL - No longer available.

So now, my heart is breaking, as I tell you this. In the space of less than two weeks, someone else moved in. I guess to be fair, I have to admit it, the title and URL were up for grabs for a few days. That is, if we ignore the rules of plagiarism. But it still showed up when Goggled. Even though on Blogger it was now available. But Gees, I made up that title with no one’s help. So can’t others do the same? But no, we have a new resident in my old place. And guess who it is?

None other than Martha Stewart. My Title was “Abbreviated Abstractions” and my URL was “abbreviatedabstractions.blogspot.com” and her title and URL is now exactly that. Words cannot express how heartbroken I am. I know I’m partly to blame but couldn’t I have had a longer period of grace?

I moved out on the 23rd of Dec and as far as I can tell, she took up residence January 5th. I am so sad. My only comfort in this fiasco is that the place is haunted. When I was there, there was Spam lurking everywhere.

By the way, just so you know, I noticed when I googled what once was my place, that some of my older blog friends still have links to my old calling card, so don’t be surprised if Martha greets you, instead of me.

And now, by writing this, I’ve probably offended Blogger, and they’ll kick me out as well. But that would be too unfair. They have a shared responsibility in this matter. They have been telling me, and telling me, for probably two months or more that my old blog was unstable and that it MUST be moved.

Narrative About Creation

An amazing new discovery. A new source for a generous supply of stem cells for medical purposes without death to embryos. The article is here.

Stem cells extracted from amniotic specimens that are normally discarded. Such good news, but what was more fascinating to me is that researchers put the cells into a print cartridge, installed that cartridge in a printer, and than the cells were “literally printed out onto sheets and grown into functioning tissue.” (CTB.ca. News Staff). Seeded onto sheets with the spray of an ink-jet printer.

A page with an encrypted message of the true story of creation, that when translated, developed, and fleshed out, forms sheets of new liver tissue, bone tissue, and skin tissue.

For those of us who love to write, and know the awesome power of the printed page, were we surprised?

A little, but (as Glenn Beck of CNN would say)...'Not so much.'

Check-Ups or Check-Ins

This week I phoned my family doctor for a Physical before my scheduled eye surgery. Before surgery I needed a physical examination by my local family doctor, who then would sign forms that the Eye Specialist required. So I asked the receptionist in my doctor's office if she could make an appointment for me so I could get the forms signed that I needed.

The receptionist replied, “We can’t do that, Roberta. Dr. East cannot fill out the forms. They need to be filled out by your regular doctor”.

”Dr. East is my regular doctor.”

Silence as if waiting for an explanation and perhaps I owe her that much. She probably can't remember ever seeing me in the doctor's office before. So I continued.

"I haven't been there for a long time. I just happen to be healthy. I only go to the Doctor when I am sick and I have not been sick for five or six years.”

Silence for a long moment on the other end. “Oh, hmm. Well…Okay. I’ll put you down for 9:00 a.m. on Monday.

I sighed with relief. Guess it’s true. What you don’t use, you lose. So are people like me a liability rather than an asset to his practice? I thought it was good to be healthy. Approved of by government, medical providers, and society in general.

Well I may be a liability to my doctor but I’m certainly not a liability to private Health Insurance with gratuities of more than $1500 per year. So if I am to fix this, what can I use a Doctor for besides medical attention? Should I pop into his office occasionally for a coffee and a casual visit?

We, The Ordinary People

We, the ordinary people, have done it all – the crying, sobbing, and weeping. But you know, and I know, what we most hate about melt-downs.

There is the contorted countenance, the runny nose, and the unstoppable sniffles – always when one hasn’t got a Kleenex. There is the soppy pillow or shirt, the shiny nose, the red eyes, the tear-streaked face. And for woman, even worse, is the sooty rivers of mascara or muddy rivers of matte make-up descending down the nose and cheeks. There is the need to awkwardly wipe the face on one’s sleeve until one is bathed from the waist up in an awkward bath of phlegm and salt water. And when one looks to find a Kleenex to mop up the mess, there is none. A friend may eventually hand over, from the bottom of a dusty purse, a tightly wadded tissue or napkin that although dry is still highly suspect of being used. And always when we just get ourselves pulled back together, there the contagion factor. The need to weep on seeing the face of another, even a stranger, with tears in their eyes. That is the face of sad, but ordinary people.

But we, the ordinary people, are doing it all wrong. I see politicians and starlets and other of the rich and famous on TV every day, particularly on News briefs and talk shows, not ‘weeping’ (which means to shed liquid), not ‘crying’ (which means to shed tears of grief, sorrow, or pain), but ‘sobbing’ which means ‘convulsive gasping’. But for simplicity sake, we’ll just call it ‘crying’.

They don’t cry the way we, the ordinary people, do. Yes, they speak in the husky choked voice of the melt-down, but there are no tears. No sniffles. No slimy drops of nose phlegm or rivers of tears with all their converging tributaries. No soggy sleeves. No smeared make-up. No frantic searches for tissues.

So if you haven’t been paying close attention, this is how it’s done. You cover your face with your hands, or bury your knuckles into your eyeballs. You talk in a choked voice. You shake your head and droop it to your chest or look away. You wring your hands. You contort your face and say, “Excuse me” in the middle of a sentence and refuse to go on for a time. You stutter and sputter fractured speech. You run a finger tip gently along the underside perimeter of each eye frequently, but not too frequently. And without tears, the grandest part is you won’t need a tissue to blow your nose or mop up the mess.

You see it’s not so hard to do. And like coughing into the crook of your arm, this approach is so much neater, dryer, and hygienic. Give it a go.

Oh for cryin’ out loud. That performance was terrible. Guess I forgot to mention that you also need to ignore empathy, sympathy, and sincerity. Don’t let the situation touch your heart. You’ll end up drowning in another slimy phlegm and salt-water bath and crying like we, the ordinary people, do.

My Holy Grail

(with apologies to Dan Brown, author of “The DaVinci Code”)

When I retired suddenly and unexpectedly from work after a long career, I was sent a parting gift a few weeks later. It wasn’t a gold watch, or a pin. Instead it was a rather heavy, ornately carved, velvet-lined redwood box with inlaid filigree around the lid. It was in truth, a beautiful thing. And in the center of the lid was a raised ornate frame with a photo of the facility I worked at mounted under glass. And that photo was the only clue as to what the box should contain. And since ‘retirement’ is right up there with the other milestones of life – birth, graduation, marriage, and death, I could only surmise that this miniature casket should contain a keystone of articles related to the turning point and distance of my career.

So what should I put in it? My application letter and a copy of the working covenant I signed my name to so many years ago? My stapler, my pen, that bloody alarm clock that whined and wailed all those years and roused me from sweet slumber? None of that seemed worthy of such a fine treasure house. Or should I put a copy of my unorthodox resignation letter? Written with such unexpected suddenness that I was as surprised at what I wrote as the recipients of that letter.

The letter I sent to the President (with a cc to my Supervisor), after spending a morning at the office covertly stashing all my personal stuff in a box hidden under my desk, read as follows:

“This e-mail is just to let you know that at lunch time I am leaving and I won’t be back. I am sick to death of the acts of political corruption, rather than a mandate to clients, that rule this establishment. I will no longer be a part of it. I know the rules but I don’t care about the consequences of leaving without notice. I don’t know how I’ll feel once I walk out those doors. But I am fairly certain I will feel a whole lot better than I am feeling right now.”

Or maybe I should stash the response that came directly from the President.

“Roberta, this is so not like you. I am well aware how valuable and reliable worker you are. Why don’t you take a couple days at home to think about this? Contact Human Resources and then go and see your doctor. You may just need to take some stress leave. I know arrangements can be made for you to take as long as you need.”

My response, sent from my at-home computer, “If I am sick in the head, I am too sick to recognize my sickness. You have enough abusers of sick days, stress leaves, and long-term disability that you don’t need any more. I will not even consider stress leave. I am done. If you require a formal letter of resignation, this is it. Print off this exchange and put it in the file.”

I guess I sure had a pickle up my a-- that day. It’s that pickle I should put in the box, but I guess it got flushed. Oh well. Probably the best thing to put in the box is an ecclesiastical manifest of the dramatic disclosure of facts, not known or realized, until the day I walked out. And so this is my manifest.

This is Book of REVELATION of Roberta Smith, to show all things sent and signified by her retirement.

Chapter I, Verse 1.
“And the vision that came to me were the things I had forgotten. I forgot I would not be alone if I quit work. I forgot I had a Hub with a sense of humor that delighted in my presence. I forgot that the world doesn’t have to spin like an out-of-control merry-go-round every hour of every day. I forgot that I have creative hands and a severely damaged imagination that perhaps can be resurrected. I forgot there are other challenges in life to give me worthy purpose, sensibility, and accomplishment. I forgot that contentment comes from liking the person I am. And most of all I forgot that life is for living.”

That is what I will put in the box. It’s no Ark of the Covenant, but for me…it’s my Holy Grail.

What Words?

Every mechanism has a dependency. Even a light bulb. The dependency is a source of power. People are no different. We have dependencies. And if we ignore those dependencies, we might as well attempt to vacuum stars from the sky with the shop vac. That’s how ridiculous it would be to attempt to have a happy heart and contented mind without being mindful of our own unique dependencies.

But throughout our lives, dependencies evolve and change. A simple example might be that an infant’s dependency is food and the comforting smell of his mother. Adolescent dependencies are friends and fashion. Teenage dependencies are love and romance. Family dependencies are good health and financial success. So you see as we travel through life, our dependencies change. Weaving, overlapping, sometimes being dismissed and supplanted by another. And when the dependencies of any one season are met we are happy and well satisfied.

And so that brings me to my current dependency. It is words. The unshakable confidence that I can create, settle, explore, resolve anything, with words. Words are the oil for the efficient function and satisfaction of my soul and body and mind. But as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, a ghastly realization hit me. That 2006 dependency on words suddenly rotated in to some other dependency.

I discovered at that particular moment when others were setting off fireworks that I had thoughts I couldn’t express in words. Profound thoughts. Thoughts with purpose, and mandate, and meaning that could not be expressed. I guess as we flipped to a New Year, at that very moment I graduated to another stage of dependency. A place where I felt emotions that were not in the dictionary. A collection in the mind of light-weight teasers and, at the same time, consequential ponderings. Thoughts of pleasure and pain. Love and friends. Mortality and immortality. But all of those thoughts suddenly outside any context that could be accomplished with words. And furthermore, they were thoughts that could not be mimed with interpretive dance (though God knows, I tried). Thoughts that could not be mimed through music (tried that too). Thoughts that couldn’t be expressed in rhyme, unsteady rhythm, or rap (I went there as well). Thoughts that couldn’t be painted (at least not inside the lines). I could no more wrap a solid in liquid than wrap those thoughts in words.

But I have just finished reading “DaVinci’s Code” and perhaps that is what has uncovered this ghastly truth. But I am undaunted. I’ll tell you my thoughts but circumstances force me to tell you in the secret cipher of cryptography.

This is what I was thinking on New Year’s Eve.
“




....“. (hic)

Good thing we understand the DNA that links us all together isn’t it?
Causeyouwerethinkingthesamething – Right?