Moving my Cheese

Almost one year

2011-09-11T20:44:00.003-05:00

September 19th last year, we brought home an over weight, very drugged little piebald dachshund and gave her a home.
It is almost one year later.
She remains so damaged from her previous life that our touch usually makes her recoil or tremble. If we try to pick her up, to take her to a vet appointment or to hold her to check her for ticks or just make sure she is healthy, she runs. When we catch her she pees or evacuated her little bowels in abject fear.
Her life is seen from behind a curtain in the bedroom closet were she hides if we are in the house.
But we know she has some joys.
We set up a video camera and recorded what happens when we have left the house. Within a few minutes, she leaves her closet and explores the house. She pesters the Puppette dog, lying down with her. This kinda annoys the retriever, but it is good. By 25 minutes past, she has jumped up on the bed and settles in to sleep. But she does not fully relax. She looks around every few minutes, might lower her head, but looks around again and again. Finally settling at 42 minutes but her breathing never becomes slow and even, like a sleep, but remains rapid, staccato at her ribs as she scents the air and expects threat where none lurk.
But then she is outside with Puppette. Her tail rides much higher now, not like a happy care free wiener, but a less nervous one. Never more than a few adorable trotting steps from Puppette. Hanging so close to the blonde back end that she gets peed on and pooped on from time to time and we can't get close enough to Pixie to clean her up.
She bowled into Bugsy one day when he tried to squeeze her out as they headed out the back door to the yard. a solid little chested bull knocked Bug aside with no malice, but decisively.
At her one year vet check, we will be exploring an anti-anxiety med for her. She exists but we wont more for her. Her existence is infinitely better than the hell she came from, but we wont her to be as happy as Puppette and The Bug.
Time passes.

6 days

2010-09-29T19:12:00.002-05:00

In six days Pixie has gained some ground.
This very morning, I was standing in the doorway to the mud room. The little one walked passed me, behind my legs. She did not scurry, she did not drop her tail.
Tonight, she was glimpsed dragging her belly across the laundry room floor. She was pulling herself along the floor with her front legs, her little tail wiggling nicely.
She has become more bold in her explorations of the house. Tonight, she made it into the living room and was standing in front of Poppy's cage stand.
There is still so much ground to cover.
She will sniff my fingers, but will not let me pet her. I limit my rubs and scratches to her ears and the nose area between the eyes.
We leave the back door open a touch and she walks in and out on her own for over two hours. When she finally comes into the house, we sneak by her and close the door.
She has taken to sleeping in Bugsy's old bed at night, abandoning her nest area in the bed room.
At one point, she was lying in Bugsy's bed and Bug came over and laid down in the bed with her. She did not give ground by stepping out of the bed.
We are so happy with each small step, each gain. And we pay so much attention to avoid any set backs what so ever.

I'll keep ya all posted.

C

Thunder

2010-09-23T06:24:00.002-05:00

As if the poor dear did not have enough challenges in her life, we got a thunder storm last night.
Fortunately, the storm passed near but did not roll over us. But there was a wonderful light and sound show going on in the heavens.
K got Pixie and sat on her love seat holding the little one while we watched TV. This way Pixie would not be alone through the storm. It really could have gone either way; she would be fine or she would be afraid. She started to tremble a bit and K said her breathing increased quite a bit.
After the storm passed and it got calm again, we prepared for bed. Pixie was allowed free roam of the house. She likes to wander in and out the back door when it is left open. But I was talking to my sister when K motioned for me to follow her. I waved her off because my sister had a REALLY bad day. I missed Pixie nosing her way under Puppette's lounging pillow and rolling on the blanket there. So she is under the pillow, on top of a blanket rolling around. She did this three times.
Every day I get home from work, I carry her out into the yard where Puppette and Bugsy are relieving themselves and sniffing the evening news. Puppette says hello to me with a WOOO WOOOOOOOO and then runs a few feet off and flops onto her back, paws up in the air and rolls contentedly with little grunts of pleasure. Did she see her do this and is now emulating? Did she do this in her cage/crate back in the hell she came from.
So many questions, but now, so many smiles.

Another day.

C

What does she think?

2010-09-21T20:38:00.006-05:00

I watch an over weight white and red miniature dachshund waddle across the yard.
What is in her mind?
Did she ever have this type of freedom in her previous life? Was she allowed out to walk on grass, smell the smells left by the passing day?
She looks aver her shoulder every few steps to see if there is a human watching her. If there is no seen observer, she sniffs more, looks up and down, left and right to see the yard.
Walking up to the make shift fence we put up to keep her out of the poison ivy. She probes it, every inch, methodically and with nose as well as mistrustful eyes. Once she reaches the end, she doubles back and looks from the opposite angle. The one opening she finds, she sticks her nose through. I can only assume she sniffed the air on the other side of the fence, gathering information on the world outside her yard.
The backward glance over each shoulder scans for the observer. I am inside and back lit. She sees me looking at her and she immediately walks forward to hide against the house. When she reaches the house, she lies down with her back to the wall and tries to get as close to some other object as possible to insure anyone coming to pick her up can't come straight at her. I duck to the side and she spots me through the next window and speeds up to lie next to the house and the water spigot.
What does she think of this new freedom?
Did she live in a cage with a wire floor and spend her days with no solid ground beneath those soft foot pads.
They told us her nails were so overgrown they had curled into her toe pads. Her tiny toes are so soft, like a creature who has not had toes on hard rough surfaces, she has no calluses.
Today she rolled in the dirt, four soft pad feet to the sky and wild abandon. She stood up and rubbed herself against the wall on the left and then the right side.
K said she had run toward the house tonight.
With all the bad things she has experienced in her life, she has intelligence, spirit and a drive to stay alive.
I smiled at her rolling in the dirt.
Small slow steps.
Or maybe, a few fast ones, when no one is looking.

C

She is Home

2010-09-19T20:49:00.002-05:00

We brought a nervous and doped up miniature dachshund home Friday. She has slept a great deal.
For the first 25 hours, she did not pee. We were getting worried, but stuck it out. She had been drinking water and did manage to eat some boiled chicken.
Last night, sometime, she peed on the incontinence pads in her pen area. Then she went outside and pooped.
Most people would not care, but this is all important to us that she thrive.
Tonight, she was more awake. She will not follow when we walk, mostly she walks away from us to avoid contact.
But tonight she was avoiding faster. Pixie walked along a section of brass pen fencing we had out, she looked it over closely and then found the one opening that would allow her to disappear into the underbrush, where the poison ivy lurks. One look over the shoulder, one look at the underbrush, one more look at me and the decision was made to walk away, into the yard and away form the poison ivy.
See ate well again tonight. After polishing off the chicken, she even managed a few kibble.
She shies away from me. If K pets her, she is good, no real problems. If I pet her, she shies away and her skin literally contracts away from my touch.
I wonder, so deeply, what has happened to this poor soul that she does not trust humans and physically reacts negatively to human touch? What horrors of neglect and mis handling did she find at that puppy mill.
She will take love and time and oh so much gentle handling to make any inroads.
It is early yet. We are ever hopeful.
Welcome, Pixie dog, time to heal.

C

Rescue

2010-09-16T06:29:00.003-05:00

Since the death of our little dachshund, Poni, back in June we have been mourning and looking for a cause of her death. It is profound how large a hole a 9 pound life can leave in your world.
K started looking for another dog after about a month. We had our hopes pinned on a little one from Louisiana, but the woman turned out to be as flaky as grammas pie crust, just no where as good. After several false starts and promises, we had to cancel that adoption. It seems the darling Star, a blue piebald miniature dachshund, had a skin condition called pyoderma, or puss in the skin.
We then tried to adopt an adult from Connecticut, but the woman running the adoption foster group had to leave suddenly to be with her daughter who was, quite ironically, bitten by a dog.
So now we search more, or K does.
A group of rescued puppy mill dogs was sent up to LI and a colleague found a picture of them in PetFinder.com. A little red piebald mini dachshund named Rikki caught our eye. She is small, but chubby and has a story to tell.
I am inferring and assuming many things here, but I doubt I am far wrong.
She was kept in a cage and used as a breeding bitch. If she is 7, as the adoption group has listed her, we can assume the puppy mill operators ( I want to call them so many worse things, but not her, not now) started to breed her around one year of age. If she had 5 litters at 4 puppies each, then she has borne about 20 puppies. She is a little fat from that. Her feet are soft and smooth, not rough like a dog who walks on concrete, grass, gravel, floors in a home. the tiny nails at the ends of her toes are pointed. Any dog that walks on any surface that can abrade, has flat ends to their nails. A white scar crosses from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, a swath with no hair in it. One of the volunteers offered it is probably a bite from another dog.
Rikki is in heat now. They won't spay her due to the increased vascularity in the uteri. Hopefully, she will be spayed today and come home to us tomorrow. But there is still a chance we will have to wait.
We go see her when we can. She relaxed enough, while I held her yesterday, to rest her head on my wrist. This is a very good sign.
I want to bring her home, to live with us and have a chance at a normal and full life as a dog, a friend, not a slab of attractive dog meat that produces money on four legs.
Soon... soon she will be here and integrated into our family.

Waiting is.

C

Who Knows...

2010-09-12T18:18:00.003-05:00

It has been a long ass time since I posted a story.

So much has happened. Puppette blew out her CCL, the canine equivalent of the human ACL and now has a permanent limp since she is a poor surgery candidate.

Poni died in June from kidney and liver failure. We still have no idea what caused this. This was the first time I ever had the gift of being present at the death of my loved friend. Sad and wonderful and painful and amazing and horrible all at the same time.
We are rapidly running up on THREE years here.
I look forward to the colors of fall.
We have seen two Broadway performances, Wicked and Loan me a Tenor, we went to the Jimmy Buffet concert at Jones Beach. Mark Cohn is next month.
We are looking at adopting a rescue dachshund, Rikki, who lived the first 7 years of her life as a breeding bitch at a puppy mill. So we will bring her into our home and give her a loving retirement. She is shy, uneasy around humans and not house trained. Let the challenges begin!

Does any one still read this. Does anyone post comments besides spam bots?

Peace, all.

C

A long time

2010-02-02T07:54:00.002-06:00

Since my last post...

I have been looking at the artifice of time.
Why do we parcel and portion the day into minutes seconds and hours. What are days... thos are defined by sunrise and sunset, moon rise and moon set. Seasons are defined by temperature, foliage, growth death and quality of light.
But really, what is a second? What is a minute but and arbitrary 60 seconds. An hour even more arbitrary being built on the shaky foundation of seconds and minutes. Who defined them, where did this dicing of the day light come from.
I am ignorant.
But the older I grow, the faster it flits away on the wings of hummingbirds and snap dragons.
Puppette's face is white.
The floor is lower and harder for both of us to rise from.
There is not enough arbitrary hours in the definition of sun up to sun down to play fiddle, love K, work, love my dogs, train my dachshund, fly my kites, talk to my nephews, stare out the window at a furious passing winter storm with sheets of rain you see in movies.
It goes faster.
When summer vacation came in school, it lasted a long time. By high school it flashed by like a roadside billboard advertising your life while the car sped by at 65 and the windows allowed a whirlwind of sound and smell and activity to mix around you.
I work in geriatrics, by definition people over the arbitrary age of about 60-65. They are defined by years, measured in the farthest most point the sun reaches at solstice in the summer and winter. Summer and winter are defined by heat and life and cold and dormancy. My geriatric patients are young and old in heart. Some stove in and rounded down by the erosion of the seasons and the defined. Some stand slightly eroded to soft edges but still solid and resolute to stand and resist the arbitrary minute, second and hour that pulls away your life.
I am not old. No, in comparison to my average patient, I am still young and alive and have so many things to see and do.
If only there was enough time.
What is time?
What is time.

C

Museum of Natural History

2009-08-25T07:39:00.002-05:00

We boarded a train in the early morning heat and humidity to rendez vous with the nephew and his dad. Into the steaming NYC we went, passing the smaller towns leading to larger suburbs until we entered a tunnel and came out in NYC, Penn station.
There is a point, in Queens, where you can start to see the sky scrapes from the scratched train windows. I thrill at the sight of the Chrysler Building and The Empire State Building.
The train station is crowded and bustling. In a city with so many people and so few cars, people tend to carry everything through the sub way system.
At Pennsylvania Station, I saw dogs panting and being so nonplussed at the chaos surrounding them as they walked in a good imitation of a heel on their masters left sides. People push or pulled luggage carts with produce, groceries, ironing boards, air conditioners, clothing, one man raced by in flip flops carrying a beach umbrella and a cooler with a beach chair over hsi shoulder on a strap. I love Penn Station.
Then to the sub way. It is so hot and close here. It smells of people and tar and oil and ozone. Trains rumble by with a predictable frequency as the platforms shake and the very loud CLICK CLACK CLICK CLACK of the rails on wheels and undercarriage supports.
We ride in a blissfully air conditioned car up to 82nd street? where we leave the train and walk right to the underground, subway level entrance to the Museum.
Very little english is spoken. We are in line with people from all over the world. I hear french and german and I think farsi or arabic, yiddish... I can't tell you, there was just too much.

The Museum is so busy with people pushing baby strollers, children running around and harried parents trying, somewhat ineffectively to herd them toward the exibits.
The first room is dark and cool. It is geology at its best. Depictions of ejecta from vocanos, layers of sediment and transformed rock that are polished on one side, to show the detail of the inside compositions, and rough hewn on the other sides. you can touch them all, feel the anciant stone in the modern air conditioning. I turn a corner and here is a picture of a familiar formation. It is basalt from the giant basalt flow that makes up eastern Washington State. I reach out and touch a piece of my home 3000 thousand miles from home. I am home sick.
A whirl up a spiral ramp depicting the big bang to the present in universal growth and development. Intelligent design my ass. God started it all billions of years ago and pushed where it needed pushing. But the universe. I fervently believe, is billions and billions of years old and we are just a passing gnat to it, so small, so insignificant, so trivial.
Then a room that defies my concepts of display. A long high wall with branches of the Kingdom Phylum Species Order of biology. A display of crustaceans and shell fish, clams, shrimps, lobsters, crabs. A line of mamals and at the top is my most treasured creature, hidden in a case next to an aardvark or armadillo. I see the first specimen of platypus, ornithorhynchus anatinus. God's spare parts animal and so humble, so far away but right in front of me.
It is now I discover my new camera has killed its battery. No pictures. I run to the gift shop and buy batteries abut they fail so fast. Maybe they are old, maybe my new camera has a short in it that kills batteries so fast. But I can't waste time on this now... soo much to see.
We enter a room so large, so vast that I have seen theaters smaller. Across the cieling is a life sized model of a blue whale. I am back to feeling small and insignificant again, humbled. We look at the sharks, the sea life in displays, listen to wave noises and whale song.
Lunch next in the cafeteria which was crowded noisy and surprisingly good.
Back into history. We are here for one thing, really. K wanted the blue whale, I need the dinosaurs. My ornithorhyncus anatinus was a sweet surprise, but I need to see my child hood love. Here a pteranadon, there an ancient tortoise or turtle so large as to be thought a fakery. A towering lumbering sauropod, used to be called a brontosaurus, now called a brachiosaurus, the menacing Tyrannosaur and the ancient cousin the allosaur. But then, the mammoth and the "irish deer" the largest deer species ever discovered looking like a love child of a moose and an elk.
I am so over loaded. SO much history, so many wonders that I am growing numb to each new discovery. How many times have I sworn under my breath at the seeming impossibility of the wonders I behold? How many times am I reduce to "oh wow" which is no honor or justice to the pageant before me.
A quick trip through a hall with pictures of birds, my favorite, on the walls. An osprey with two rainbow trout, one in each taloned foot, a double breasted cormorant, a coopers hawk with a kinglet in its feet, two bald eagle fighting for a scrap of food, a white tailed eagle being shadowed by a gull awaiting scraps from a kill. But the centerpiece is a majestic and haunting pair of yellow eyes looking straight ahead, at me, with long downward swept wings ending with the first primary wing feathers bent upward form the force of air displaced, an arctic snowy owl flies right at me. I stop and stare and become over full.
The Museum.

C

Boston

2009-07-29T19:04:00.005-05:00

A short time back, K and I drove up and spent some time in Bean Town.
I have read about Boston, who studying American history has not? But to stand in a city so pivotal and integral to America, freedom and liberty was wonderful.

We drove up through Connecticut and stayed near a casino where we ate at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. We love his restaurants and this one was no disappointment.

Then to Boston. It is a big city, but it drizzled on us off and on for the time we spent there.
The first stop was Old Ironsides. She was one of the most complex models I built as a kid. Undefeated in naval battles with the British, cannon balls bounced off her hull giving her the name. She is the USS Constitution, the oldest still commissioned warship in the world. She was de-masted and undergoing deck repairs, but I realized yet another life long dream/goal by standing on her decks. All the personnel on board her were in period garb and told involved stories about what life was like in Colonial Times on a US warship.

CannonsThe Deck, covered during renovations

A ladder to bellow decks, watch your head!

Then we were going to go to the North Church, to see where the lantern were hung to signal Paul Revere to ride. But Boston is a confusing town. We got lost, my blood sugar tanked so I was useless as a navigator, the Tom Tom GPS was lost and I could not read the map. We left town and got food.
A great brew house pub with marinated staek tips that were wonderful.
Day two took us to the Aquarium and an Imax movie.

A walk to Faneuil Hall brought us to a wondrous mall with shops and vendors, restaurants and food food food.
We saw CHEERS, but opted not to go in.

We walked the Hall and the surrounding area looking for a place to eat. Karen wanted shepherds pie, I wanted a lobster. We settled on a place:

Durgin Park
340 Faneuil Hall Market Pl
Boston, MA 02109

It was not quite the atmosphere we wanted but oh my was the food good.

I ordered a 1 1/4 lb lobster whole. It came and I made quick work of the tail, legs and claws. When our darling waitress came back, I told her this was my first whole lobster. The incredulous look on her face was priceless. She could not believe I had never had a lobster before. I toldl her if she put a whole dungenesse crab in front of me I would know exactly what to do, but I was lobster lost. She had me crack the carapace and pointed out the edible and non edible. It was delicious.

We spent one more night and then headed home through Rhode Island, adding one more state to my inner Magellan's delight.

We stopped at Battleship Cove in Fall River MA, home to the USS Lionfish, a WWII submarine we got to walk through, the USS Massachusetts, a big beautiful Battle ship, two PT boats, the Joseph P Kennedy destroyer and a former East German ship. That was a grand day. The exibits and walk throughs were fantastic.

USS Massachusetts

USS Lionfish

Then home, with a ride on a ferry boat across the Long Island Sound.

It was fast and wonderous. We can't wait to go back.

The Reason...

2009-07-21T09:33:00.005-05:00

I started this blog with the intent of chronicling an amazing journey across the USA. When we arrived here in NY, I then used it to point out things that I noticed were different between the east coast and west coast way of life.
I have bitched and complained in a petulantly whiny way about what I do not like out here. I will continue to do that.
And I have posted pictures and tales of a few trips. I have yet to post about Boston, or the WWII submarine and the USS Massachusetts.
But what I have failed to do is post the reason, the real reason, we left God's own heaven and moved to the outskirts of hell...
I have asked permission from all parties, warning them that they will be on the interweb and that it is a big place to put pictures. Everyone of adult decision making age has agreed.

M, at age 5, is a rascal who gets very moody and melts down amazingly well if things are not to the script in his head. He is a real joy when all is right in his world. His vocabulary and conversation skills blow me away.
But then again, all my nephews and my niece have dazzled me with their language skills.

This is T. He is about 2.5 and he was slow to learn to talk. Just after we arrived here, he was diagnoses with normal pressure hydrocephalus. His head was too large for his age and the pressure inside his brain was normal but odd. He can identify every letter accurately, can count to 10 only missing the number 9. He is a love and has a smile that I crossed a continent for.

M and Grandma. Grandma is the energizer bunny. One brain surgery, one minor stroke, one new kidney. Her purse is the lost room at Area 51 I am sure.

Three generations.
Grampa, K and T. Grampa is twice retired and is a trove of trivia and lore. I enjoy this man. He is truly a curmudgeon and I know my friend Nicole would love him too.

The mom of these darlings hates having her picture taken so I did not and continue to keep her un-photo'd. I did not ask the Boys dad if I could post his pic so I am leaving that out for now as well.
And there is one more nephew, J who I did not ask for permission and I have no good picture of. He is 15 and a math brain, excellent student, soccer player and loves to kick my ass playing Halo 3.
We recently went to the latest Harry Potter film with J and his father, who is K's brother in law from her first marriage.
The boys are the reason we came. When it gets shitty, when I am so done with rude ignorant asleep lemming that I want to cry and go climb into The Cascade Foothills and not come out again, I remind myself that we are here for the nephews, and how much fun they can be.

There you go, the reason, or should I have titled this:
The Reasons

Be well.

Juxtaposition

2009-07-16T18:22:00.002-05:00

For the first time in many many moons, I went to a dentist.
When I was a kid, my dentist was an older man who had great teeth and was very kind and gentle. Outside his office window was a tree. It was, of course bare in the winter and leafed out beautifully in the summers.
In the Great Pacific Northwest, outside my dentist's office window was a great array of shrubs and a few smaller trees. I would watch the small birds flit around and sit in the trees.
This dentist had a tree outside the window as well. That dentist was also older than me, grey at the temples as well.
A common theme it would seem.
The venetian blinds were closed so I could not see any birds. But the leaves could be seen through gaps here and there.
But the thing that threw me off, it seems to happen more and more often now, the nice young dentist was younger than me.
There is a new gaggle of baby doctors (not pediatricians) has started at the Hospital and they are all way too young to be doctors.
But I stepped out of the dentist office to a hot ass muggy afternoon and was momentarily disoriented. I could have been stepping out of either of my last dentist offices in either city I grew up in.
There was a brief moment when I did not know where I was, when I was...
But as I came around to the oppressive muggy humid New York Long Island summer, I could smile and be happy.
No cavities.

Florida, again

2009-05-07T10:57:00.001-05:00

I turned a zero year birthday this year.
I had a choice of going anywhere I chose.
Going to Belgium, to the land of my forebears was one option. But I thought long and hard about Europe in spring.
Simple equation, actually. Cold Europe in spring or cool Florida in Spring.
FLORIDA!!

We flew down and set up in a nice hotel near a Fudpucker's restaurant. They have a gator pond where you can pet a baby gator of get your picture taken with one. It is the South, after all.

We met our first day with cool temps and winds that were annoying but not awful.
At 1000 am, the beach was fairly empty because it was COLD!
Maybe we made a mistake.
We left the beach and ate. More on food later, you all know we travel on our stomachs.
There is a great little aquarium, called The Gulfarium.
We might have mentioned it on the trip east. It is small, some sharks, seal lions, a seal, several dolphins, sharks, turtles, penguins... you get the idea.
Now when one turns a special age, you need to do more than the average birthday.
So I ponied up a few extra bucks and got to do a meet and greet with a beautiful bottlenosed dolphin named Princess.
There were these three little little girls and me at the rail. They stood on a tall box and I stood on a short step. It looked funny, three little girls and a big man wanting the fleetinf attention of a dolphin.
I got to take her through some behaviors, asked her to blow bubbles under water, raise up on her tail so I could shake her peck fins. The trainer asked Princess to roll over so we could rub her tummy and side, and later, her tail.

The trainer suggested that the best description of what she felt like under hand, she said a wet inner tube. Yes, but more than that.
I make a living because of muscles, their function and dysfunction. I got to feel her muscles under a slick taut skin that I know, have seen, create beautiful movement and amazing feats of physical prowess.
At the end of the session, the darling dolphin swam by us sideways. That tail can move a whole lot of water.
Day one of the birthday vacation had me realize a life long dream.
I touched a dolphin.

More soon.

C

Sir

2009-03-24T07:49:00.003-05:00

For many years, I would not let anyone call me "Sir".
For me it is really a sign of respect, a form or address for some one who is an elder, has accomplished something with their life, an adult.
Yesterday, leaving the Hospital, another worker I know by sight but not by name was approaching with a large linen cart. I stepped out of his way so he could pass me unhindered.
He looked me in the eye and said:
"Sorry Sir."
Sir.
I did not let anyone call me that until I turned 25.
It is a very personal thing, to me at least.
Until I was about 25, I really did not feel I had accomplished anything.
I was in school to become what I am now, I was working in a fast food restaurant and felt I had made no real contributions to the world except giving people way more cholesterol than they needed.
Then on my 25th Birthday, I decided it was OK to be called Sir.
Now it is years later and I was called sir.
What have I done to merit the title of Sir?
One little word makes me pause and look at my life.
What have I done?
In an instant, when the young man wheeled clean or dirty, I don't know which, linens down the hall I assessed my life.
What have I done?
I am standing in a Rehabilitation Hospital with a great reputation, working with a great group of health care professionals. I have a great family with nephews and a niece that are doing alright. I am not an axe murderer, I keep my corner of the world clean, I halp when I can and try to leave a place better than when I got there.
I help people regain their independence, I help families be less afraid of thelife altering events they are in the midst of.
I stood up just a little taller and nodded to myself.
I can still be called "Sir".
It makes me no better, it grants me no more privilege or status, or money. But I stand a hair straighter and make a determined effort to be just a little better, to continue the right to be called Sir.

One little word creates such a pause for thought.
Sir.

C

It is all how you look at it

2009-03-14T20:06:00.002-05:00

The other day I heard my least favorite comment from a patient.
"This wasn't a good session."
How the hell do you arrive at that?
You expected to live forever, or at least without major disruption, but if you are seeing me, you had a major disruption.
You think that it should be healed in a day or two, especially if it is something you can not see such as a stroke, a surgery to a part of your body you can't see, out of sight out of mind kind of injuries.
You forget that a simple kitchen cut (usually from a knife that is way too dull) and does not need stitches takes about 14 days to heal.
But when an educated mad man (a surgeon, we lock up people who cut people but you PAY this person to incise you and stitch you, they gotta be mad as a hatter!) cuts you open, cuts apart bones and either removes them or replaces them, and them staples you or sutures you closed, it is VERY different from the knife cut while preparing your mirepoix for chicken soup!
So then you look at me, after walking farther than you have since your surgery, without any (or minimal) assistance from me, you did not fall, lose your balance, have your knees buckle from a neurological problem or a strength/endurance issue, did not pass out from orthostatic hypotension from your bodies inability to regulate its own blood pressure, you did not have a cardiac arrest or pass out.
WHAT THE HELL IS A GOOD SESSION TO YOU?!?!?
I frequently lecture my patients with the above litany and then ask them, again, if it was a good session.
They expect to be healed from a major surgery, stroke, long term illness creating debility, in a matter of days, not the weeks to months that it will really take.
But I prevail.
They admit that it was a good session.
No one is willing to take the time needed to heal correctly.
Healing is a full time job to do it right.
Listen to your Physical Therapist, your Occupational Therapist, your Speech and Language Pathologist, your Doctor and the nurses and you will get through it well.
And I will keep lecturing my people on patience and needing to accept small victories and advances in the healing process.
Heal thyself.
No, seriously, do that and let the rest take care of its self for a while.
Go ahead, I'll wait.

C

Fire House

2009-03-12T20:01:00.002-05:00

Driving home today, after a wonderful day at work where everything went well, the patients weren't too demanding and I was in a good space all day, I arrived at the intersection near the local fire house.
It sits at the top of the hill, a four way stop where you should not turn on red and visibility can be an issue.
I was first in my lane, headed east, but signaling to turn left, when a car on my left hand side started to run the red light they had. They shot across the intersection, I saw the passenger gesture violently to the driver not to turn right but to drive straight ahead.
That was weird enough. But...
The car screamed across the intersection and stopped in the parking lot of the fire house. the woman got out and hurried, not ran, over to the open fire truck bay door where someone met her. She gestured violently to the car she had just gotten out of.
My light had turned green and I was wanting to see the next part of this drama unfold, but the person behind me was riding my bumper.
I made my head check to the left and then right and then left again, no last minute red light runners to be seen. (believe me they run red lights around here like red is a suggestion, not a law)
I saw the driver of the car opening the rear passenger door and two very limp legs fell out, he grabbed the form of a body. I had turned the corner downhill so my rear view mirror had just a fleeting glimpse of wildly swinging legs as the limp body was carried to the fire house.
I felt my chest tighten and I felt a great wave of concern. I have been around enough to know unconscious body movement.
I hope all is well.
I am glad there were people at the fire house to take care of this emergency.
Thank god for volunteer fire fighters!

C

Shaking My Head

2009-03-11T19:03:00.002-05:00

I find myself shaking my head a great deal.
Why does one shake their head in a motion that connotates disapproval or negation?
For me, it is when someone has perpetrated an act that I consider stupid or blatantly in the face of common sense.
We could easily devolve into an argument of what common sense is, but we shant.
Today, I was driving home from work, in a good mood from a full and successful day, when a large truck, 4 door and bigger than necessary, turned out of a strip mall and landed in the two way turn lane. He accelerated but not up to speed to pass me or merge safely, but he started to enter my lane with the bumper of his truck even with my front tire. I took my foot off the gas and decelerated a bit so he could safely take over my lane of travel.
I shook my head and restrained myself from making a rude gesture or honking my horn, I just waved at the driver of the too big truck as if to say "Hey, I am here".
Maybe he did not see my red truck. Maybe he was thinking too far ahead of himself and was not aware of his now, his present.
I shake my head so often when I drive that I have relieved much of my whiplash injuries. I actually have a stronger neck because of it.
I look at these people so distracted, so not in the moment and focused here that it is truly a wonder more people are not injured or killed in automobile accidents.

Just do me a favor.
Stop!
Pay attention.
Breathe.
Focus on the moment you are in right now, so I do not have to shake my head at you.

C

New York City in December

2008-12-19T19:36:00.005-06:00

Long time no post.

K and I finally made it into The City.
New York City for a small town person is a bit overwhelming.
To pass buildings so high they blot out the sky:

And the Lights:

Art in a tunnel in Central Park:

K and C in Central Park near the Boat Pond:

Things have been well.
K and C are still so busy at work and up to our waists in boxes.
We are healthy and well. Not much more need be said.

We hope you all are well, as well.

Maybe more soon, maybe not.
Tune in again.
Thanks for reading.
C

Lumps and bumps and Vets, oh my...

2008-09-24T06:42:00.001-05:00

Well, as we grow older, we get lumps and bumps. So do our furkin.
I have found several lumps on Puppette in the past 6 months and have felt them almost daily to monitor growth.
She developed an ugly red thing on her tummy and it got opened on Sunday. I took miss thing to the Vet yesterday.
I had a lump chart our last vet had started so I whipped that out and then proceeded to freak out the vet as I pointed out5 more lumps that were not on the lump chart that was last updated 2 years ago.
She felt them all and agreed that most of them are fatty and really need no investigation, just observation.
But the three lobed red thing on her tummy that opened up and BLED on Sunday, that had her attention.
The Vet finished looking Puppette over and left the room. She came back and asked if Puppette had recent blood work. I handed over the small book that is Puppette's medical record and let them look. The Tech came back in and I said:
"Let me guess, you need a new blood sample because her last blood panel is over a year old."
Yup.
She then made as if to take Pup out to the back and I stopped her and told her I hold Puppette for all minor procedures. So I held her while the Vet herself drew the blood. I told the vet, "I suppose you might as well clean her teeth while she is out"
She nodded and looked at me kinda weird.
I am guessing that she does not work with many "in the know" pet guardians.
She wanted to do Puppette today but I can't free the schedule until next Tuesday.
So my princess needs a biopsy and a teeth cleaning and I will be just as freaked out as I was three years ago at her last tooth cleaning.
I will keep you all posted.
She is 100% otherwise, good appetite, not angry poo, no weight loss, although she needs to lose a pound or two. But then again, so do I. Hmm, do I see more walkies in the near future?
Ahhh feel those grey hairs growing.

Peace
C

One Year Later

2008-09-17T18:13:00.002-05:00

Just over 365 days ago, we loaded our lives and loves into a mini van and left our long time home.
In that year, we learned some important things:
Jack Links beef jerky is manna
DO NOT EVER eat "moisturized" chicken
Nut rolls are great protein on the road.
Waffle House ROCKS!
Cherry lime aid and tots from Sonic ease the pain of travel
Kansas is flat
Never move 4800 miles unless it is a very good reason (Like your nephew calling you up to ask if you can swim underwater)
WiFi is your friend
Mini vans can be good
Parrots do not drink or eat in bouncy cars
Texas feels weird
Alabama has a lot of Helicopters
New York is expensive
Read the fine print
Communicate very well to keep your clients
You will always be right where you are supposed to be ( you probably will not always know it though)
A good companion is priceless

There is no place like home

I will keep writing when I can.
I have no idea if anyone still reads this, but I will keep it out there.

A new year begins.

C

Do you smell that?

2008-09-05T21:39:00.002-05:00

The sense of smell is an incredible memory trigger.
Today, driving to work, I was three cars behind a school bus. The car ahead of me, the person was smoking a cigarette.
The smell of burned off diesel and smoke took me back to any given Christmas morning in my child hood.
Early Christmas morning, Mom would bundle us up into warm clothes and we would take the bags we had packed the night before.
We would go down to the Greyhound Bus station and board the big grey behemoth that would take four kids to Seattle for our Christmas break in Seattle with our Father.
The cold morning air, dawn still hiding over a distant horizon, held the warm exhaust and cigarette smoke close to the ground. High rafters with cold sleepy pigeons did not allow the heat to rise so it could get cloying after too long.
We were never allowed to go into the bathrooms alone. No one ever said why, just that we could not go. The cold would make me have to pee and I could not go until I was on a moving bus across the snowy state.
We would arrive in Seattle 5 to 9 hours later and encounter the same cold darkness with smoke and fumes. Punctuation of transit with a week in Dad's house and then the same sentence in west to east instead of east to west. Same closing paragraph of cold dark evening with a long pause until next time next year.
I saw the yellow behemoth turn off into a school and the air cleared of uphill poorly incompletely combusted diesel fumes and the fool in the car ahead threw a still smoldering butt out their window and sped off to the left where I turned right.
Over thirty years later and I am transported back to a place and time because two unique smells went up my nose and tickled my olfactory bulbs. Synapses connected and I remembered the good and bad and agonizing times of my child hood.
It all comes together in the present as I drive to work, a grown man looking back at a scared confused small human bundled up against the bite of more than winter.
It helped shape who I am.

C

Absent

2008-08-31T20:01:00.002-05:00

Still here, still kicking.

Work has been fast then slow, an amazing variety of patients that keep me on my toes, to be sure.
We are getting more settled in the house.
We are now just up to our chests in boxes, not our armpits like we have been.
Poppy is settling nicely, but the flight patterns still give him troubles. He will circle and circle until he loses so much altitude that he crash lands on something. We bark at the dogs to leave him alone and they are pretty good about that.
Bugsy loves to chase the laser pointer on the laminate flooring. He has just about learned how to stop or apply the brakes soon enough so he does not crash into the walls.
Poni runs about the back yard, a rolling gait that makes us smile and laugh a little.
Puppette has taken to lying on front of the door in the morning when I leave, as if to say I cannot go without her.
Not much to say.
Thought I'd post so those that still stop by would have a read.
More when I am not so damn tired.

Be well.

C

Movies

2008-08-12T19:43:00.002-05:00

We went to the X files movie today.
One of K's favorite things is to go to a nice air conditioned theater in summer, enjoy a nice bag of pop corn with butter and get lost in a movie. She says it is a child hood thing she always enjoyed.
So we saw X files.
The movie was average. It was nice to see Scully and Mulder.
But, unfortunately, I was very distracted and annoyed by the person two seats over from K.
She kept popping her knuckles. Not just the knuckles from hand to base of fingers (MCP joint) but each individual joint on each finger (IP joints).
It is a pet peeve of mine anyway, being of the school that believes the popping of finger joints can lead to joint laxity and future joint problems like arthritis.
So I would be into the movie, waiting for the next twist inthe plot and these little snicking pops come from K's right side.
Common courtesy is dead.
Bring it back people. Please.
I, for one, miss it terribly.

C

Welcome... home...

2008-08-06T20:41:00.002-05:00

It has been a whirlwind of boxes, bags, packing and hauling to get our life out of the rental unit and finally into the house to become a home.
We had the floors professionally cleaned but it seems that wiener pee soaked in a bit too much and decided to turn amonia-y after the windows were closed on a hot muggy night.
So we will pay for new carpet out of our damage deposit and wave good by to the house one block from the water.
We are surrounded by boxes of speakers, phones, kitchen stuff, clothes, electronics, the art supplies that K was afraid would freeze and die in the storage container we rent elsewhere.
C put away his knives and moved the fiddle in so all is right with the world.
We do laundry almost every day since the miracle "space bags" left everything smelling stale and ewwww.
The dogs love the back yard and run about frolicking.
Ok, so not really.
They sniff all over and bark at the neighbors.
Puppette can't seem to roll around enough in the grass all four paws up inthe air, bent at the ankle and then she thrusts her back legs up and down a few times. She rolls over and chases Bugsy who gets scared of 75 lbs of gold running at him. He turns tail and runs for the end of the upper yard where he turns to face the golden avalanche and then panicks and manages to run between her legs only to be over taken and passed in a cyclone of shedded golden fur. Poni looks on with bewilkderment why anyone would carry on so...
The crickets increase in volume as the sun grows huge and red-orange in my western sky. The off schedule cicadas wind down for the night and the humidity threatens to smother us in its embrace.
Fans on, air conditioner humming, we crawl into bed, the frame re-assembled now, and sleep in our new home. Dreams of the west, of friends we miss, of adventures to be had chase each other like the night birds and stars in the heavens.

Dream big, live your adventures.

C

Boxes and painting and flooring, Oh my!

2008-07-24T07:03:00.002-05:00

I have to admit, I have never really been in a situation where I owned a home and had permission and ability to do pretty much what ever I want.
K and I could have gotten away with not doing anything. But we are painting a few walls and changing some flooring.
We get to choose what the floor looks like. I think that is rather decadent.
I will probably pick bamboo flooring for my little office. It is 8 by about 5 with a closet in there. I will blog, play and generally goof off in there so I need to make it mine.
I picked a parchment like color for the walls and was thinking of painting the opening lines from my stories and other favorites on the walls.
The house is coming along great. We might shift the command HQ to there later this week, after phone, internet and cable are installed this week end.
So that is why I am not posting much just now.

The rush from work to house is keeping me occupied.
It is storming here so I doubt we will get much moved from the container to the house today.
But there is an office to be painted and boxes to unpack and sort out.
Pictures? Yeah, sure, one of these days. When I remember to take the camera with me and then bring it back to the rental. Or I just might wait until the cable is installed and I can do it from our new home in the making.

Be well.

C

Closing

2008-07-18T06:42:00.002-05:00

We close in a little bit, here.
K and I did the in depth walk through last night and the place looked smaller than both our minds had built it up to be.
We chose smaller for the lower taxes and smaller payment so we aren't a slave to our mortgage.
But it seems smaller than before.
We will fill it up with our things and energy and life and it will become ours.
The dogs have yet to smell it other than a faint whiff on a shoe or pant leg.
Strange how damn hard this has all been.
Is it really necessary for it to be so complex to buy a house?
The yard is larger than I remember, that makes me smile. Even at the thought of mowing it with my new reel mower, I smile.
Today we own a mortgage and gain a new roof over our six heads.
I will post pictures soon, I hope.
Unless I am too busy making a new home happen with my family.

Be well, all.

C

Princess Puppette

2008-07-15T09:57:00.003-05:00

Time marches on.
Puppette is still a stay at home dog.
With all the hub bub around buying a house and getting ready to move again, life in boxes... I have not had the time or energy to launch myself against Risk Management at Hospital One in order to get Puppette to work with me.
I have a box of papers, the policy and procedure from Hamsterville Hospital and all my recognition awards for animal handling. That box is somewhere in our storage container.
Anyhow...
Puppette has grown older, 8 now, and I am relaxing the rules a bit.
She still must come when called, must obey the basic obedience commands she learned so long ago. She does respond, but at a more leisurely pace than years gone by.
I have relaxed some demands on her. She lives a life of semi-retirement. But she still comes to the door most mornings and looks at me so expectantly, as if to say, Why am I not going with you.
Her life, for six years, was going to work and offering a golden head for loves and pats. She brightened more people's days than I ever could. Her interactions with patients were sometimes miraculous and always rewarding to all parties concerned.
On Friday, she was waiting on the deck and I went into box the doxies. I got back to let her in and she was standing by the truck with that look on her face.
I called her in and she walked to me so slowly. She wants to go with me. The routine that has defined our relationship is gone and she wants it back.
But I am relaxing with her. She still can't have vitamin C so I can't give her the strawberries or blue berries or raspberries she begs for.
But I did something so out of character the other day.
I gave Puppette a french fry.
Yes, me, the champion of all dogs living healthy non human food filled lives gave Puppette a golden arches french fry. It was gone in a flash, but the look on her face clearly indicated the offering was enjoyed. The begging, beseeching look I got for the next ten minutes said she wanted to try another.
She now looks at me very expectantly when we go through the drive through and she smells fries.
I made the mistake of thinking once would be ok. She is older, and much smarter, and will never forget that fry.
Maybe, someday, if I feel bad that we can't walk the halls of Hospital One as the team we make so well, I will give her another one.
Maybe, someday...

C

Rules of the road

2008-06-21T08:06:00.002-05:00

OK... I know, I have had at this topic before, but it is such a big thing.
It is unsafe to drive out here.
Seriously.
Out west, it is slow enough and the population sparse enough that there is at least a small fear of the law catching you if you violate motor traffic laws. You do not pass on the right, you never pass on a double yellow unless you are in the fit of road rage, you stop at RED lights and STOP signs.
Out here, it is merely a suggestion to a great many motorists.
Not a day goes by, literally, that I do not see someone blow right through a red light, a no turn on red corner, cross over the double yellow around a blind corner in the road.
I now hug the white line on the RIGHT of the road to keep from being pasted by some inattentive cell phone yacking self involved person driving, almost invariably, an urban assault vehicle.
This is a hands free municipality, but no one cares. They all have their cell phones to their ears driving mach 1 down windy roads.
I am in near constant fear of dying in a collision with a multi tone ChevyFordCadillacGMC monstrosity that some rich person is driving to self proclaim their insecurities.
Recently, at a major intersection, my turn lane had a dedicated green light. The two intersecting lanes also had dedicated green turn lights. I sat there as 5 cars ran each of the intersecting lanes red lights so my dedicated turn light cycled green to yellow to red. THEY DID NOT FUCKING YIELD TO A RED LIGHT!
I drive 35 mph in a 30. I have people pass me on the double yellow on blind corners and uphills.
There are times I wish I could just telecommute my job. Tell Ms Smith to do ten more short arc quad sets then switch to an isolated hamstring isometric. But it does not work that way.
California drivers, my dear fellow Washingtonians (the state, not the cess pool capitol of these here supposedly united states) are not bad drivers, they obey the laws of the road except the speed limit. Here, it is the worst.
I wish I could just stay home and not drive here anymore. But, alas, not to be.
Buckle up.
Drive safely.
Watch out for the other guy, he might be on vacation from Long Island New York. God save you if he is behind you or in oncoming traffic.
Drive defensively, no one else is. Except two lost Hamsters in the East.

C

Where to start...

2008-06-12T16:42:00.002-05:00

It has been a full and busy 2 weeks.
We have signed contracts and are moving into the financial side of the deal. We have a tentative closing date on mid July. the house is great, with little or nothing to do upon moving in!
Ahhh. A fenced yard for the pups and a great Kitchen for me, an art room for K.

Another brilliant thunderstorm last week where the lightning was so fast and intense that the thunder was a constant low rumble that sounded like distant un-muffled motorcycles. the sky turned a dark dark grey and the lightning flashed like a strobe light. Two lightning/thunder moments were so close there was no perceptual lag between the two. The noise is so awe-full, meaning full of awe. Bugsy sat up and bayed his defiance at Thor's hammer in the angry heavens.
That made me laugh. I called my sister and shared the storm with her.

It got hot as hell, into the 90's with humidity of 80%+ so we were all miserable.
Puppette will get her summer hair cut in about a week.

So that is all.
I have been noticing more things, differences between the Westerners and these Easterners. But that will wit for another day.

Stay cool.

C

Flowers

2008-05-31T06:46:00.002-05:00

Something I have noticed out here in the wacky ass east:
K's mom, and several other women I have met, and a few girls, have all said basically the same thing.
"Don't buy me flowers, they just die."
One girl went on to say she'd rather have that money spent on a pedicure, or a dvd or cd.
Odd.
Out west, most women I knew, and a few girls, would love to have a nice bouquet of flowers from a friend or relative to say "Hi, I am thinking about you and wanted to send you something beautiful"
(Sorry, sounds like an FTD commercial)
So I was struck. I asked this girl saying this a few more questions. She thinks that flowers are too expensive.
I asked, "What if your sweet heart grew them himself and cut them from his own garden?"
"I'd still rather have the pedicure." She said.
How sad.
Again, and I make this statement often so no one thinks I am stupid, but in the general sampling I have found, this is a common feeling.
Sad that some people would not want a little piece of beauty as a token of a loved one, but would rather have a tangible luxury item.
Is it just the younger girls? No, I find it, like I said, with K's mother.
Things are just different out west.
Go buy some one some flowers, not a pedicure.

Be well.
C

Storm

2008-05-27T16:27:00.002-05:00

As I write this, I am sitting next to an open window listening to thunder and rain.
The work day ended and I was walking to the back room to enter my charges on a really bad program when I heard someone say" It's getting dark."
I knew there awas a chance of a t storm so I listened. But when you are in an institutional building made of cement and brick and mortar, it is heard to hear the outside world.
I sat down and logged in and, while waiting for the older Compaq p.o.s. to load up, I heard a rumble. It must have been very loud outside, because I could hear it so well in that back room.
I finished and helped a colleague out to her car with some paper for a presentation she is giving tomorrow. It was pouring.
I drove home noting the wet roads, the over full gurgling storm drains and the whish whoosh of cars hitting standing water.
The rain tapered as I got closer to home.
I was listening to the radio and thought I saw a bright flash. I killed the tunes and rolled down a window. I noticed there was no rain splashing down from above on the road to my house.
I had out run the rain, but the thunder was less than a 5 count from the lightning. Less than one mile.
I raced up the hill and into the house to free the puppies.
Poni won't pee in the rain.
I got them into the yard and every one was a peein' when I heard white noise coming at me. I looked down the block and saw the rain hitting the shiny slick asphalt. It was coming on, no stopping.
Bugsy squeezed off some solids but as the first drops of rain hit Poni's head, all her orifices locked down.
I put the puppies in and kept Puppette out to finish her duties. She lolly gags in the rain, but doesn't like the thunder.
I grabbed the mail, grabbed the garbage can and came in. Puppette got a towelling oof, I stripped out of pants wet to the skin and typed this.
The rain is still coming down, the thunder is still crashing about. puppette sits at teh foot of the bed, panting in stress and because it is warm. A warm spring rain.
Just listen...

Busy

2008-05-25T07:21:00.002-05:00

Wow, has it been a while?
C got offered a job at Hospital one. That is where I want to work. K works there so I can meet her everyday for lunch, bump into her in the halls as a pleasant surprise. They offered it to me on a Friday. I thought about it all weekend, discussing it with K. Not whether or not I should accept, but what I should ask for as far as scheduling and expectations. I do not know how many others were trying for the position, but I got it. That makes life just a bit easier.

We found a house. It is not much bigger than the hamster house, but it is nice. I stood in the kitchen and had goose bumps on my arms. It is fully fenced for the fur kin. K will have her own art room.
We signed contracts on Thursday. We will hear back from their attorney next week. The we venture into the morass that is home finance.
We are excited to get a place of ours that we can unpack in and get to the things we have done without for 9 months.

Today is a cleaning day. Our landlords want to put the house we are in back on the market in June. We need to clean it and make it presentable for showings. If everything works out well, we will move into the new house in July.

Didn't we just spend 5 months packing? We have to do this again?
I just think of my newly remodeled kitchen, silestone counters, maple cabinets, skylights, and stay focussed. I get to cook in a new kitchen. I can unpack my books. K can set up her art room and start creating again. The puppies will have a new yard to explore. We are less than 2 blocks from the water. Ahhhhhhhh.

Where are those boxes? I gotta pack.

Curious

2008-05-08T19:13:00.002-05:00

I do not remember if I wrote about K's mother saying she would just kill Poppy if K did not go to the store to get her some cigarettes.
In the past little while, I have noticed an interesting thing.
People in the east, not all of course, but a surprising number make threats to others.
"If you do that, I'll kill you."
"I'll give ya a smack."
"I wanted to slap her."
"I'll give you a smack if you do that."
"I'd kill her if she did that."

Where does this tendency towards threats come from?
Is it cultural?
Is it just how these people were raised as children, how their parents and grand parents spoke to them?
What is even more jaw dropping for me is that some of these were from Hospital staff toward patients. And it is accepted by the patient.
This really is not what I grew up with.

Maybe it is that population pressure again.
Maybe it is the Italian, Irish, German old world way of raising a child. I honestly do not know since I do not know very much about those cultures at all.

And speaking of Italians. I have noticed something else.
Out here, people wear their heritage proudly.
I have heard many people say "I'm Italian."
As if that is an explanation in and of itself.
I mentioned this to K and she said: "It is not an excuse, it is a reason."
I laughed at that and then thought on it for a while.
It is a reason to be the way you are.
From what I have noticed is that Italians can be loud, insulting, passionate, generous and proud.
I met a friend's parents, both immigrants from Italy. I came home with jam, blackberry and pepper jelly, a plate of chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter thumb print cookies with the chocolate kiss in the center, and a handful of herbs from the early garden.
The fascination with these new people, their proclivities and idiosyncrasies.
The great experiment continues.

Home

2008-05-05T08:34:00.003-05:00

A nebulous concept, home.
A house is not one, but can be.
Is it really where the heart is?

K and I are looking for a house.
That is not news, you all know that.
We have found two that would do. They do not knock our socks off, make us gasp in awe at the jewel we have found. We will have to put some work into them to get the kitchen I want.
Our criteria are kinda picky. I want a big kitchen I am comfortable cooking in. K wants a studio space. We are both committed to seeing the other gets what they want.
But the market, the cost of living here and our salaries do not provide us a large price range.
So we look at space, stairs, location in relation to busy roads since one certain brown dog is an escape artist who runs away when called. (embarrassing for an accomplished dog handler to admit)
We were wowed by one house but it went off market, some one else beat us to it.
So house one is nice, the bedroom would face east so K could have morning light to wake her up, two upstairs rooms, a fully finished basement, but no deck and horrid stairs leading down to the back yard.
House two overlooks a golf course in back, no neighbors there except golfers in good weather. It has two rooms upstairs, a beautiful deck. The bedroom would be on the ground floor with a north facing window so no morning light to wake K.
It is tough.
Our lease is up soon and the land lords here want to start showing this house for sale so we need to get moving.
This is the biggest decision K and I have ever made, it is a shit load of money, and we have to like coming home after work, not dreading a poor decision.

We have looked at every house in the areas we have chosen and these are the two best.
I don't know, I just don't know.
I just want to go home, where ever that is.

C

Just for fun

2008-04-25T13:50:00.002-05:00

Driving home from an impromptu pet therapy session with one of K's patients, involving Puppette the birthday girl, I was passed by a flat bed truck with 4 portable pottys on board.
The name made me laugh very hard and call my sister with the pun of the day,.
The port apotty company name was:
Call a Head.
That is so good.
My sister told me there is a local company near her that is named:
Ker Plop.
Back in Hamsterville, I thought Port 'o Let was good.
OK you lurkers, tell me your funny port a potty names.

C

Thoughts...

2008-04-21T18:05:00.002-05:00

Spring is arriving.
Little blobs of green and yellow dot the trees and bushes. There is an overabundance of forsythia here. It must have been all the rage as a yard plant years ago.
I have passed several stands of "wild" bamboo. I say wild because it is not in a yard in some cases. It is twenty feet tall and sounds so wonderful when the wind caresses the leaves. I want some in our yard when we get a house.
Back in Hamsterville, I was told it SNOWED!! That is what happens out here, or so I am told.
We spent a lovely day with the nephews. It started with looking at an open house (too expensive dammit all) then meat ball hero sandwiches (too incredible to describe) then to the beach so the boys could play on the slides with the loving help of 4 adults. Next was ice cream from our local shop, made fresh on the premesis. We finished at the near by duck pond watching the ducks paddle around and do duck things.
It was the best birthday I have had in a good many years.
Work is hard, and long and still makes me happy.
K is good, the job is still kicking her ass.

Be well, all.

More sometime soon, maybe later....

C

Wedding Pt 4

2008-04-11T06:54:00.004-05:00

Some thoughts on the night.

I learned that this venue where the festivities took place is a “castle” where they will not even entertain reservations for a fete under six figures.

We drove up to a gate that entered a rounded cul’d sac in the truest sense. It was a round walled off area with 4 or 6 statues in niches in the wall. The road continued up a long graveled drive with exquisitely manicured trees lining each side. It ended at a gate house that you drove under and into a cobble stone court yard.

A valet met us and we unloaded for the night.

Dude, do not take my car! I have done valet only once. It seems unnatural to hand a complete unknown youth the keys to a car only 6 months old.

We entered the grand foyer with a coat room to the left and a valet/attendant room to the right. The grand staircase:

At the top was a second foyer with a round table holding cards with our table assignments for the night.

Two men played stunningly beautiful classical music on violins, but it was almost lost in the din of over a hundred voices.

I met people K has told me of for ten years. Some I met 4 years ago at the christening of K’s first nephew. I met K’s cousins and aunts and uncles and second cousins… you get the idea.

Then we shuffled into the wedding hall, I wrote about that already. I noted the abundance of yarmulkes and saw one fall off a head. That is where the thought of bobby pins, not god holding them on came to me.

I laughed at the string quartet playing “All You Need is Love” and struggled to remember what movie I had seen that done in. I still can’t remember.

The rooms were magnificent in the true sense of the word.

In the room with shrimp and vegetable noshes, there was a picture of the castle before restoration. In the statuary alcoves in this room, someone had spray painted a Pac Man ghost in one. To look at it now, it was resplendent and humming with noshers.

The other room with food had a fire place and high ceilings. I looked out the doors to the “lawn” It was out of a European castle in that it was a long grass yard that ran the length of the castle. It was bordered on its edge by a low stone balustrade.

The dining room where over 25 tables were set for 12 people, was oval with glass windows 6 or 7 feet high looking out onto the “lawn”.

It had a wooden floor in the center, for dancing, and I do not remember if it was parquet or not.

The center piece of each table was a large glass vase with budding cherry blossom branches, encircled by smaller vases with white hydrangea and pink roses.

Large glass chandeliers hung over the dance floor and wall sconces soft lit the walls.

The too loud band murdered almost everything: Bon Jovi, AC/DC, The Outfield and an atrocious free form rap in the middle of Gloria Gainor’s “I Will Survive”. No mercy was shown or given to Run Around Sue, Don’t Stop Believing or C C Rider, which the band played about 4 times.

I do not dance. From long history, I just don’t.

The band launched into Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind and K took me to the dance floor.

We were dancing to a native Long Islander’s music, in a castle, in New York. We are here.

This was as if to say we have arrived where we are supposed to be for now. All was right with the world.

Peace

Wedding Pt 3

2008-04-09T07:54:00.005-05:00

Dancing.

The father of the bride danced with his wife and they both danced well. There was one wonderful young lady in a stunning ivory dress that danced with graceful abandon, uninhibited.

Then it got crazy.

There is a Jewish tradition of the Hava Nagila dance. People join hands in a big circle and do a step twist step kind of thing that was really catchy. I really think everyone was on their feet for that. At one point, the bride and groom were lifted into the air on chairs and paraded around in a circle.

Some thoughts:

The yarmulke stays in place with hair pins, not the will of god as I saw many fall off in the Jewish mosh pit the dance floor became.

The little dude in the Yarmulke could DANCE!!

The band had to be flexible enough to destroy pop songs but have the ability to play Jewish traditional tunes as well. Almost brought them up in my eyes, almost.

Because the parents of one of the lucky couple had a long police career, there were a lot of police types there. Several times, men in suits, no smiles, walked by and looked at my glass to see what I was drinking (H20 as you who know me understand) look at my belt line, my shoes and then my eyes. Then they would dismiss me. It felt like I was being sized up as a potential threat. Interesting to say the least.

By now, many of the older people in the crowd had turned off their hearing aids. Amplified horribly horrible music is, well, horrible! So the conversation was even louder.

Then the bride and groomy cut their cake. It was a nice cake.

We were served desert. A chocolate cake, a cheese cake and a small chocolate cup filled with raspberries and blueberries. Wow! And then we all got a piece of the wedding cake.

Burp!!!

Wedding Pt 2

2008-04-07T20:49:00.004-05:00

The opening act was a beautiful salad with a delicate vinaigrette to compliment the field greens, bordered by a raspberry reduction drizzle with two big candied chest nuts at the corners, a cube of the most wicked bleu cheese ever and an orchid flower anchoring the other two corners.

I did not notice, until my brother in law pointed it out. You could tell I was not from around here. I ate all my dandelion green salad, the cheese and the walnuts. Most people at our table only ate the cheese or nuts. K and I ate it all! Hmmmmm, ok, it was not iceberg lettuce so no self respecting Long Islander or New Yorker was going to eat it. Pity, it was superb!

When the salad was served, the band played quiet dinner music and conversation was had at a near normal level. There was a lot of talking since no one was eating the salad.

Then, as the fantastic servers were clearing and setting up for the entrees, the band got back into it. The sheer volume of the band was surpassed only by its magnificent butchery of music.

The first notable sacrifice was so bad, K almost did not recognize the song “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by A Taste of Honey. K loves disco music, it was her era and she has many fond memories of school and friends around that music. But she almost missed that it was a song she knew and liked.

They played the first dance for the couple and it was one of my favorites, a song I sing to the dogs sometimes, when we are dancing around the house or doing chores Dream a Little Dream of Me. A dance for dad and daughter to “I Loved Her First”. Then more overly loud crap until the entrees.

OK, Here it got wow.

Apple sage stuffed chicken

fillet mignon

or Chilean sea bass (they spared no expense).

K had chicken, bro in law had fillet, I had the sea bass.

I have never had Chilean sea bass before. It was done medium so the outer edges were firm and the middle was soft. The flavor of the fish was so subtle that the accompanying sauce was ideal and ample. The band was sedate again and there was not as much talk as people ate, having waited over a half hour since the offending weeds and raspberry drizzle was set before them.

Then more dancing….

The Wedding Pt 1

2008-04-06T17:34:00.003-05:00

Weddings...
A lot can be said about them.
A new beginning, the end of freedom, hope springs eternal.... pick your favorite.
K and I went to a wedding of one of her family members.
Now, there are weddings where you elope and tell no one, those where there are a few special guests, ones where the families come and then there are once in a lifetime shin digs that defy, well, explanation.
I am going to try, in several posts I am sure, to describe this one.
Where ever to begin?
A man and a woman came together to be joined in holy wed lock.
It was a Jewish/Catholic shared ceremony. That was a first to me.
I was raised in Leave it to Beaver Land where minorities were so rare........
SO the string quartet played Pachabel, exquisitely as the 9 groomsmen and 5 brides maids walked the aisle. Than the groomy and then the Bride with loving father to hand her off, er, give her hand.
The invocations in Yiddish and American English took place. I have never heard that much Yiddish. But the Rabbi, when speaking American, sounded a little like a bad Al Pachino imitation.
The groom stomped on a glass, we all yelled "Mazel tav!"
The quartet played "All You Need is Love" as the newly weds and the wedding party exited.
Much milling about and a bee line for the open bar ensued, like slow cattle to a free flowing river.
There were two feeding stations for noshing, one was veggies and salami and cheese and crackers and such. The other had an Oriental food bar, a fillet mignon and turkey breast carving station, an Italian pasta bar and seafoods. There was one bar open for shrimp, only shrimp.
Then, over an hour and a half since the nuptials x 2, the main meal was announced...
We all went into a huge ass ornate room with a band playing so loud, you had to yell to your seating mate to be heard. We searched for and found our table. I have always wondered at how they do the seating at a wedding. The pattern at this one was familial, cousins with cousins, immediate family with immediate family.
They announced the parents of the happy couple and then, in a manner any stadium announcer would have envied, they announced the Bride and Groom.
Then it got weird-er.

C

Reality check please

2008-03-29T07:32:00.003-05:00

I have striven, in the last decade, to reduce that place of judgment I sit in when I see or meet new people. I try, with thought and effort, to not pre-judge a person by looks, speech patterns, behaviors.
But there is a nurse at hospital one that I just can not stand. It is almost irrational, to me at least, that I should dislike someone so much just from watching his actions, listening to his comments.
I had a strong moment the other day, where i really wanted to go off on this guy.
All hospitals have codes they call out on the public address system. these codes let staff know if there is a fire, a heart attack, an emergent medical situation, potentially violent person, bomb threat, you get the idea.
We had a code for more man power called and this guy get weird.
He brought up a story that a person in Georgia shot and killed people at a local hospital. He starts ranting that in a call for more man power, bodies to show up at a location for a show of force or a potential work group to manage the situation.
He wondered, quite aloud, is rushing toward a place with a violent armed person might get more people hurt or killed.
I will admit he has a good point. BUT...
He was ranting in a loud voice at the nurses station where patients and patient families could hear him.
This bothered me on several levels.
One: Any person visiting a hospital has enough stress as is being in a strange, often smelly environment with worry and concern for their loved one. The last thing they need is to hear a hospital staff getting loud about an internal matter.
Two: He kept saying he would like to know if the person is armed so he can run away form the danger, not into it. Interesting. I try not to judge. If this man was from New York, he just completely dishonored every victim of 9-11. Further more, he expounded he would hide behind a refrigerator. Most nurses I know would shield their patients from further harm.
Three: I do not know this man's history, but I have run toward the violence to render aid to the fallen. His ranting upset me beyond what I felt it should.
K would tell me to put myself in his shoes, understand what his motivations are. In this case, I don't care to. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has past traumas and wants to protect himself from ever facing the same again. Maybe he isn't getting laid. Maybe he lost a family member to violence.
But I just wanted to slap him.
I will probably talk to his supervisor on Monday and point out my concern of his loud voicing of the situation. But I just don't like the guy.
Oh, yeah, he is a charge nurse.
Shit.

Keep your corner of the world clean, that is all you can do. Hope the other guy keeps his clean. Do not be so surprised when the other guy doesn't keep his corner of the world clean.

C

How many restaurants...

2008-03-08T06:52:00.003-06:00

K and I like to eat out. K says, to her, eating out is cheaper and just about as therapeutic as going to see a psychologist.
So we had a wonderful mid week day off together and thought we'd go try a new tea room.
In Hamsterville, the tea room was cozy but not crowded, or noisy. We went to the nearest tea room and found the noise level high, the tables very close together and we need to have called 24 hours in advance for tea service. Our Hamster tea place would fix you up a high tea with tea sandwiched, a savory, fruit, and a desert all with your own pot of tea. Not this joint. We left.
We turned down another restaurant because it looked more like an ice cream parlor that just also happened to serve food. That is risky enough, but in the off season, no dice.
We then tried a place K has told me about for years and points out every time we drive by. We entered a beautiful victorian themed restaurant and a nice maitre d' took our coats. We sat and noticed it was a prix fixe menu for 25.00! The offering were all certainly tasty sounding but way too heavy. All K wanted was finger sandwiched and a nice delicate salad.
OY!
Then they came to the table with two bottles of water and asked which we would like. All credit to Waiterrant, I wanted source municipal.
We left that place too, smelling of too much potpourri.
We went to an old favorite and had a consistently excellent meal.
The search for a new tea room to spend over an hour eating and recharging will go on. We crossed two places off the list, one we might go back to.
Pity.

The search goes on.

C

On the other hand

2008-03-03T17:11:00.002-06:00

OK, so my last post was a rant.
Sue me.

What I feel is needed is the other side.
Those that have been knocked down by stroke, illness, accident and do not give up at all.

One example is the athlete. I have to say that my athletics extends to what I do with my mouse finger, walking the dogs and an occasional bike ride.
But the athlete. They are driven by goals, standards, a history of performance.
When I am used to working with the average older person who is slowing down, the physically fit athllete makes me think to keep up with them.
They actually have to be told to stand down, step back, give the body a chance to heal before they consider full bore living again.

Or you have the home maker busy body that is retired and still is on the go from early AM to PM and does not know how to let themselves slow down, can not let the foot off the throttle.
They are the ones that think they can do more than they can. Ms Smith will have a good transfer in one PT session and then try it on her own. Sometimes a fall occurs, sometimes nothing happens and no one is ever the wiser. but human nature seems to make the person confess. They see you are busting your ass to help them learn how to maximize their abilities and they want to tell you "Hey, I transfered from the wheel chair to the bed by my self last night!"
"was there a nurse present?"
"No." with an incredulous look on the surprise and slightly saddened face.
Here comes lecture 227.2 and I pull no punches. I get gray hairs on my arms and in my beard from these people, but on the inside I am so happy they TRIED it. It is a conflict for me, but then I can walk through it and trouble shoot to make it safer, more consistent.
Then they practice it more and more the safe and correct way. The day they reveal it to their loved ones, I am vindicated and smile to myself.
I was the teacher, that is my knowledge and skill being demonstrated to the family and the smiles are on those faces from what the patient and I did together.
It pays for some of the gray hairs.

Got sick and shared a head cold thing with K last week so no work for me.
Things are moving along.

Be well.

C

Are we so different?

2008-02-26T06:46:00.002-06:00

We are, after all, advanced animals that have learned to adapt the environment to suit us. Not animals that adapt to the environment.
I have thought and believed that there is a difference in people "out west" versus "back east".
But when I get down to my job, helping people recover from the worst things that have ever happened in their lives, they are still the same.
For some reason, stroke, trauma, illness, these souls are in the hospital to heal and re-enter life. They have sons and daughters, fathers and mothers that have loved them or not, dissapointed or made them proud. There is a home to go to or to never return to again. The emotions are the same, too.
Kubler-Ross put forth the 5 stages of grief. It has become apparent that it is not just grief around dying, but also in any major trauma or life altering event.
I see people in the worst moments of their lives and I see the anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
I see it in the family members as well.
But I also wonder if environment and childhood roll models shape how one embraces the challenges these people confront.
They fight on, struggle, at least try, or just give up.
Giving up is the most frustrating. I have helped a 95 year old to learn to walk again. I have seen people no one expected to live regain so much function that they go home with little to no help.
But some give up. There are types of giving up. There is complete surrender of the will to live and they just waste away and die. There are the learned helplessness cases. These, to me, are the worst.
I can see their potential to recover, to regain independence, and they want some one else to do it all for them. It makes me mad, to be honest. I have limited time to work with a person. If you want to give up and make your family work so much harder than they need to, to burn them out on caring for you, tell me so I can move on to the next person that WANTS to get better, that dearly desires to be as independent as they can possibly be.
But I can't and do not say this. I do the best I can, crying a little inside knowing it does not have to be this way.
These people drain you so deeply.
The next time you see a health care worker drooping, dragging, looking drained, it could be this reason. Ms Smith could get up and walk to the bathroom by herself, but she has learned dependence so she lies in bed and wants help. Two to three people have to divert their time and care from others to come in, get her up, get her into the bathroom where she will probably, in a fit of hysterics, let herself fall or loose her balance, injuring the young nurse, mom of two children, so badly she can't bend overt to pick up her crying child because her back is so messed up. Then Ms smith will ring the call button every three minutes to have a pillow fluffed and her sheets straightened so a non-existent wrinkle is not under her sizable ass. Meanwhile, Ms Jones, next door, can get up with help but no one can answer her call bell because they are all wiping Ms Smith's ass and wondering whether or not to fill out an injury form and report the burning in the low lumbar area on the right side to her supervisor.
It is all the same as in Hamsterville Hospital. The people care just as much, the patients feel the same things.
Are we all that different?

The question of the day

2008-02-15T20:54:00.002-06:00

Now that I have completed two weeks at the Hospital one, I have a growing sense of life on the east coast.
But maybe it is too generalized to call it the east coast. After all, the east coast is Florida to Maine. And I think I can fairly well guess that souther Floridians are quite different from a native of Maine.
The questions I am asked the most are:
Why did you move here?
and
What do you think of New York.
Followed by:
What do you think of the people out here.
and the cute smart asses that ask:
Did you have that/this/those out in Washington?

I am gathering more information daily from my patients and fellow Therapists.
I usually reply:
Because of the nephews.
It is much faster and more crowded than out west.
They are out for themselves before others.
No, we did not have that in Washington... we did have recycling bins though? Ever heard of those out here?
The answer is always no. Millions, literally millions of people in NYC and the Long Island, and no recycling bins in public, work places. Sad, really.

Hospital two wants me to orient as soon as I get time. Both are busy now with the later flu season getting up to speed. I keep seeing orthopaedic cases which are ok, but boring to me.
One of these days, I will get to work with a stroke or head injury patient. That is my place of comfort.
The Therapist that has been orienting me told me she talked me up to the Inpatient Manager, telling him they need to hire me.
Nothing against Hospital two, but I really like Hospital one.

Two days off and then I see if Hospital one needs me to work again.

Be well, friends.

C

Patient care

2008-02-09T08:58:00.000-06:00

It is what it is all about, really.
Health care workers, in any position, it is all about taking care of the human in front of you. I am back to doing what I love and what feels so good to me.
But what really creates a great work atmosphere, is when the people around you are motivated for the same reasons.
I stepped out of the stair way onto the 4th floor and looked left and right to orient myself to where the hell I am at. I had rushed to get out of the house and had forgotten my name badge. I looked up and saw someone, who is in my department, and I said "I have no idea where I am at."
Without skipping a beat, he said "You are on 4 south." I thanked him and went down the correct hall way to get to the scheduling office to get my patient list for the day.
A couple of hours later, he walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said "You are now on 4 north." No disrespect, no sarcasm (ok maybe a little) but just a joke to help me feel not so overwhelmed.
I met a nurse and he asked me how it was going. I told him it was like a frog in a blender. (kids do NOT try that at home, ever)
I got to do three patients by myself and assisted with another and was just at home. The charting and charges systems are different, the charging system is horrid.
The walls are different, the outside is so different, but the needs and the diagnoses are so familiar.
It feels good to treat. It feels good to meet new people.
I am getting the information I need to see if these New Yorkers are all that different than what I grew up with out west.

On a painful note, I have a bitch of an infected ingrown toe nail and I had a 5 lb cuff weight fall on it. I hate limping at work. It looks bad when the pulmonologist smokes, the dietician is obese and the Physical Therapists limp.

Be well.
C

Hi ho, hi ho, it is off to work....

2008-02-07T20:16:00.000-06:00

Monday I reported at 9:00 am for Orientation at the first hospital. Wow. We covered a lot. the health care alliances out here, the Hospital history, policy and procedure. HIPAA and how it can ruin your career...
In one activity, we were to summarize, in a small group, a section of the employee propaganda and present it to the room. We were told to use "neumonics" in this exercise. How is that again? Mnemonics, maybe?
In discussing artificial nails, the video strongly stated that "Anything not natural is artificial." Thanks for the heads up on that one.
Another fire education video we were informed that "In a fire, exits are your only means of escape." And by definition, a lousy statement.
One presenter said "We encourage yous."
OK , the stage is being set.

The Rehab portion of this hospital is 10 times larger than my last hospital. It covers several floors. It is big. I think I might have lost two pounds my first day alone. Once I get into a groove, I will start relying on the stairs to burn a few more calories and try to regain my figure.
Day two I was oriented to the Hospital. The facility its self is so much bigger that I am at a loss to locations as of yet. I was informed that North hall and South hall and East hall have no relation to actual compass points. That messed me up.
OK, ok, I still can't tell you north unless I can see the sun or the water, but it does not help that the halls are randomly named.
Day three, I helped with some treatments and continued to shadow another therapist, learning all I could and getting hopelessly overloaded with information.
Today was day four and I actually did some treatments by myself, did some charting myself, did some charges under the watchful eye of a supervisor.
Tomorrow, more of the same.
I got told I will orient all of next week, to make sure I know the systems and procedures. And then it is a February break week from school and if census stays high, I will be working steadily.
Once things slow at Hospital one, I will orient at Hospital two.
I like the therapists at Hospital one. There are a lot of them and I know about 6 of 25 by name and by sight. More learning is needed.
I keep thinking the day room is on the 2nd floor when it is really on the 4th. Second floor has its own gym but I got lost and had to ask directions to get there today.
My brother told me to enjoy this time, like he told me to enjoy the exam. It is not often in life you get to experience these situations.
More experiences tomorrow, then I can come home and fall over.
But not too hard, I do not want to be on my own unit.

Be well.
C

Rain

2008-02-02T06:39:00.001-06:00

Precipitation is vital to life. We all need water, that is simple. It can rain, sleet, hail, snow, monsoon and hurricane. Water falls and flows downhill, basic physics, gravity and all, you know.
Growing up in an arid high plain technically classified as a desert, and then living in a coastal town, I thought I had seen rain.
It has rained on us here, too, before yesterday.
But, in Hamsterville, it would take all day long to drop up to an inch of rain. In the high dry place it would rarely rain long and or hard.
I saw east coast weather in its glory.
It rained. Oh boy did it rain.
I can't find a good total from a web source, but a quick look at an hour by hour rain gauge looks like better than three inches in a 24 hour period. It came down.
Poni held it in all day. There was no way she wold do anything. I happened to take her out between systems and she RAN to perform her necessaries. And again this AM she RAN do take care of her business.
K and I went out to eat and then shopping for a bit. Walking into the store it was notraining. After about 5 minutes in the store and gentle roaring sound started to compete with the ever present '70s muzak all stores play here. The muzak stopped and the pounding of the rain on the roof was impossible to ignore. Even the store clerk who took our cash for goods thought we were nuts for being out in this weather. She voiced a longing for home and warm soup and a comfy couch.

Whilst out and about accomplishing errands long overdue, I was driving along a street where the rain water system had been hopelessly overwhelmed.
In my youth, as a passenger, I was thought that driving through a puddle of standing water could be fun, look at that rooster tail from the Maverick as it flies down the road. But I was also introduced to hydroplaning and wet brake pads.
I witnessed some nice hydroplaning from young men, mostly, who thought that rooster tail was the sign of high verility in the ever nauseating mating ritual of the testosterone hyper. It is interesting to see a big 4x4 pickup slide sideways in a deep puddle of water.
Then I hit a puddle that was deeper than it looked. I went to hit my brakes and got nothing.
I have never experienced wet brakes before. It gave my heart that little shot of adrenaline and I calmly pumped the brakes, like your driver's ed teacher told you, and got stopping power.
The tide was out as I got closer to home, otherwise I am sure the road would have been impassable and I would have had to go around and take the higher road approach.
This morning, you can see the grass is bent in the direction of the run off from the yard. Can you say erosion?
I love weather, I always have, always will, I hope. But K had warned me of the east coast rain. I thought I had seen it. K told me that this particular weather system was about typical for NY. Oh boy!

On another note.
It became more of a reality yesterday as well. I opened an east coast bank account, licensed my truck and got insurance. I start work next week. I am here, it is real and happening in a big way.
The adventure continues...
C

The quality of light

2008-01-27T20:23:00.000-06:00

Years ago, having received a 35 mm SLR cameras for graduation, I was shooting black and white film. I was bored with color, I see in color so it was not too exciting. But to see in black and white was different.
In the middle of a snowy winter, I woke up around one AM and looked out my bedroom window. I saw a white world lit by a brilliant full moon. I set the camera lens on the window sill to steady it. I could feel the cold radiating off the windows, falling down over my hands and arms. I adjusted the shutter to manual and snapped several shots. Now, it is instant gratification, click the button and see the digital image. But I was working very little and money was tight, so I had to wait to shoot the rest of this roll and one more to make it worth my money to send it off for developing. Ironically I sent it to Mystic Connecticut, which now lies just across Long Island Sound. Ahh, anticipation.
Sometimes I would even forget what I had shot on the roll.
The photos were blurred, except one. This picture looks like it was taken at noon on a sunny day.
Then, later, I was asked by several friends to shoot them in color and black and white. I thought they were some of the best work I ever have done. I learned about the "sweet light" that happens with the sun low in the morning or evening sky.
Lattitude makes a difference in quality of light, so does the time of year with where the sun is in the sky.
I went out last week, into a cold, windy night with a blindingly bright full moon. Poni fairly glowed with radiant light, luminescent as she sniffed around for the perfect place to relieve herself. Bugsy was still mostly invisible, but he cast a shadow that I could easily follow. Puppette glowed as if lit from several angles at once. The night sky was that amazingly clear that can only happen on a freezing night. The limbs of the bare trees cast uneven shadows on leaf and grass. The wind made the stubborn clinging leaves rattle against their trees.
Poni was anxious to get in, he thin fur coat is no help against the wind chill. Bugsy was trying to scent squirrels in the night, nothing could dissuade him. Puppette was contenet to sniff the news in the leaves and yard detritus.
The Moon light was streaming in the window next to the bed as we all settled in to sleep. It was in my face, lighting the room we sleep in.
In the combination of freezing wind, bright moon and winter shadows, I felt a bit of home, a piece of the past in another place meet with this place and time.
I was the last to fall off to sleep that night, the last to see the full moon, so bright it was hard to discern lunar feature, welcoming me to a new home.
Quality of light. Quality of life.

C

Dough

2008-01-23T19:35:00.000-06:00

OK, so I learned a lot about the ideas behind bread making and some of the techniques.

I made a ferment. This is a flour, water and yeast mixture that sits in the fridge for a day or two or proofs for about 5-6 hours.
I made mine and then got sick, so it sat for 3 days in the fridge. Cold slows all chemical reactions, so it fermented slowly.
Then I made the dough and let it rise, then "punched it down".
Almost a kilo of flour makes one hell of a lot of dough.
I formed the baguettes like the book showed, but the dough was very tacky so it became a lesson in patience.
I let them rise and then ran into trouble.
I used fine semolina flour to make the bottoms slick so they could slide off the pan onto the baking stone. With the dough so tacky, they did not slide. I pushed them off and slapped them down on a 500 degree baking stone. That is really hot.
I hit the back of a knuckle on the door at one point. I hate the sound of sizzzling skin. Thank the maker for aloe

Proofing is when you let the dough rise. Then, you cut the top of the loaf so it can expand correctly. And, you add water to the oven to create steam so the crust does not form too soon.
So, I gave up on hte baguettes and made three boulle, one large, two small. The baking saw them rise in a wierd manner and they did not expand at the cuts like they should have. instead they balloned up from the base.

I cut a K into the big one, for my woman. The two smaller ones just puffed. They look wonderful.
Here are the baguettes

They look strange but they taste good.

So, I learned:
cut the recipe in half, I do not need to make a months worth of bread in one session
baking takes ALL FREAKING day between rising and resting...
I need a bread peel, so the dough slides off onto the stone more easily
find a better way to let it rise so the tops do not crust too soon and they puff out in all directions
a 500 degree oven makes the room really hot
artisanal breads probably are not the best to start with
working the dough by hand feels really good
fresh bread, even a learning loaf, is tasty

Wil, I am a long way from NY sourdough...

More experiments to come.......
Now for olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping.

C

La la la...

2008-01-17T10:09:00.000-06:00

OK I did not get the banana bread made yet, the butter is softening as I type. Yes, with walnuts.

K keeps saying I need to post more pictures. OK, I could do that, but I do not carry the digital camera around with me that often.
I got a call from Hospital #2 so I get to go through another poke and prod and pee session next week. But I am getting closer and closer to working again.
Yes, Wil, I agree, San Francisco sour dough is the best, Seattle ain't bad. In reading three different sources on the matter, it is a longer process than I thought. Several days to make the ferment, sometimes up to 12 hours for rising and proofing. Wow.
I think I might just start with a whole grain bread, something simple to cut my teeth, as it were. The artisanal breads can wait a bit longer I guess. But the ferment is designed to reproduce and be "fed" every few days so you can bake often. But, when, in the American lifestyle, does one have time after or before work for a 2 hours rise and proof? Maybe I can find it.

I might even make carrot ginger soup with apples to serve with the bread.
Interesting idea, making a meal around a bread....

I gave in yesterday and bought an eastern bird book. I had a western book for years, and I know many more of them. But out here, different. I have seen yellow shafted flickers, little wood peckers I have not identified, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals. Hawks are in absence, seagulls are scarce despite living on a peninsula. I think I know where my cheap binoculars are, the good ones are some where, packed for the mini van, but lost in the current house keeping.
I miss the dark eyed Oregon juncos, I haven't seen a towhee.

The dogs are asleep all around me, Puppette is out of the covers, the wieners are burrowed. It is cold and will stay cold for about 10 days or more. They tell me January is the worst and this one has been extremely mild. We shall see, we shall.

Be well.
Do one kind thing for another person today for no reason and with no expectation of recognition and or reward. And smile.

C

Goodies

2008-01-16T07:52:00.000-06:00

OK, I openly admit that I am from part of the instant gratification generation. I like new things, That is not all bad.
For my anticipation of passing the license exam, and for just taking it, I ordered a new toy.
It arrived yesterday.
Prior to its arrival and delivery by our nice UPS man who always gives Puppette a huge doggie bone, I cleaned the kitchen. I cleared counter space.
I opened the box to find three boxes. One held new kitchen implements, a spatula, an ice cream scoop, a balloon whisk, a can opener and a vegetable peeler.
The second box held my new, imperial grey stand mixer complete with dough hook, paddle and whisk. Ahhh. The third box holds the ice cream maker for the stand mixer.
I made a batch of hearty breakfast cookies. Yummy! Cut down on the peanut butter just a bit, about 3/4 vs a full cup. With my smoothie this morning, it made a great repast.
Today it will be banana bread.
I am looking at breads next. I might even chase after the crown jewel, sourdough.
I even bought a great book, Crust.
It comes with a fantastic DVD that demonstrates a great technique I can't wait to try.

OK, me buckos, I am off to make bread and enjoy my last days of leisure before starting work.

Be well, all.

C

Done and done!

2008-01-12T17:20:00.000-06:00

I called the state department for licensing and updated my address.
Then, the phone menu offered:
"If you would like to check the status of a license, press 1"
1
"C was issued a license on January 11 2008. It is valid from January 2008 to December 2010."
I was so shocked I had to listen to it a second time.
I thought it was telling me my interim permit was approved.
But that permit is only for 6 months.
I had to listen a third time and write down my license number.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I passed my test.
I am now officially licensed to practice in the State of New York!
Thank you for all your support, good thoughts and prayers.

I PASSED MY LICENSE EXAM!!

Peace, finally.
And then, back to work.

Be well.

C

And the thunder rolls...

2008-01-11T07:17:00.000-06:00

No, no Garth Brooks meanings here.
It started last night with a big flash and a distant rumble.
Then another noticeable rumble at about 4 am.
Now, 7 am brings a flash so bright I see it with my eyes closed.
Puppette is uneasy, Bugsy barks and Poni could care less as the thunder rolls over the house like a breaking wave.
The flood gates open and the rain hits the bathroom skylight like a small drum with an irregular rhythm to start my day.
Up and out with the dogs into the wet morning. I try to keep the umbrella over Poni. No, not to spoil her, I can't find her rain coat and she won't pee if she feels rain on her ass. Would you?
We come back in and I start to exercise a little, get the bones moving. the rain is a gray mist outside, it falls so hard. the drum in the bathroom is loud enough to be heard over my work out music. I see day light pale flashes of lightning and count the seconds.
I read it is 5 seconds per mile, not three per mile as I was taught as a kid. Either way the storm is coming closer.
The lights flicker, Poni decided to bark her defiance at Odin's hammer being thrown about upstairs. I sweat out the aerobic part of my movements and count seconds to distract me from the burn in my legs, shoulders.
I love a good storm.
I wrote my very first short story about a thunder storm.
How cyclic.
I am going to watch the lightning.

C

Patients

2008-01-08T10:52:00.000-06:00

No, I typed that correctly.
I have debated with my self if I should ever write about any of the patients I have worked with over the years.
The Federal Government (sorry for using such an ugly word, people, but you gotta call things by their rightful names) in its highly questionable wisdom passed the HIPPA law. This is the Health Information Privacy Protection Act. It was passed to help protect health care information from falling into the unscrupulous hands of the unscrupulous. ( I just love that word...)
I have been reading other blogs of health care workers and of Waiterrant and see how they white wash people to make them as anonymous as possible.
That being said, I thought I'd share a story from the start of my career. Some of you have heard it, so just bear with me.

The patient came into the extended care facility (the better word for nursing home) responsive to pain only. This person had been hit by a car.
I was with the patient 5 days a week for about six weeks.
You start out moving the person, passive range of motion in all joints, so muscle shortening does not limit their ability to move. Then you advance to rolling stomach to back and return them. Next you, and another therapist get them from stomach to on all fours, then up to kneeling. We advanced to standing with three people in support, long leg braces on both lower legs so the knees do not buckle. Them you progress to walking, again with three people in support and long leg braces.
I learned about head injuries. How a person can appear normal but then have out bursts of word salad where not one word makes any sense, inappropriate responses to stimuli. This person was sitting in a room one day with many of the other residents and proclaimed ( I am not making this up) "You are probably all wondering why I called you here tonight.) It was a therapeutic recreation show where, if I remember, people were coming in to dance and sing for every one's entertainment.

I was not there the day of discharge. I missed saying good by to the family which I had gotten to know well with two 45 minute treatments a day for a month and a half.

I saw this patient six months later walking through the mall parking lot. The gait was still off in some clinical ways, but look good overall. Holding on to each hand was a grand child. There were smiles all around.
In that moment, tears in my eyes. I felt more satisfied with the world, myself, all things, than I had since I was a young kid with no greater care than which toy to play with.
In that moment, all the hell and hard work I put in to graduate was paid in full.
The Patient and spouse came back to the facility after a year. I walked up and introduced my self. The spouse remembered me, with a big smile. he patient apologized and said they had no recollection of me.
I learned then that this is not unusual. Head injured patients, patients you treat in ICU/CCU some times have no memory of the staff that help them. It is nothing personal, ever. It is a chemical mix up in the healing body and brain.

Taking the exam reminded me of what I get out of this investment.
Paid in full.

C

It is done.

2008-01-04T08:12:00.000-06:00

I woke up with K.
Kinda hard not to when 2 out of 3 dogs wake up and pace, shake, scratch, yawn loudly (Bugsy) and walk on your face licking up your nose and over your eye lids (Bugsy again). Poni would not be stirred. They needed to go out into the deep freeze to relieve themselves.
I made a safe breakfast and had some tea. It is a one hour drive to the town where the test center is.
The time to leave rolls around. I bundle the dox in their new coats and take them out into 7 degree, -2 degree with wind chill, weather to give them one last pee before they are boxed for the day.
I make three false starts. I forgot my passport for ID. I forgot the GPS navigational device. I forgot the letter from the FSBPT. (do not worry about that last acronym, it really is not important)
I go to start my truck and get three very low sluggish whirs and then the dreaded rapid fire click. The cold has turned my oil to sludge and the poor 9 year old truck battery, unaccustomed to such frigid abuse, has not enough "crankin' amps".
There is no room for panic. I just will not allow it today. I must stay calm and focussed.
I drive a stick shift and I live on a hill. Problem solved.
No difficulties following the navigation thingy to my destination. The LIE (Long Island Expressway) is blocked with an overturned semi just past my exit so the traffic slow down does not affect me.
I had planned to eat a nice salmon lunch at a nice restaurant. The navigator tells me the restaurant is 20 minutes away. OOOPS. So I pick a nice looking little diner and they have Norwegian salmon. OK. The waitress asks me how I am and I tell her tired and on a schedule. I tell her about the test and she takes very good care of me. She even asks if I want a refill on my water or if I am afraid it will make me need to pee during my test. I tipped her well.
K calls as I leave the restaurant, so does my sister. Each ask how I am and wish me luck. As my sister goes to sign off, her two boys, my oldest nephews, start singing the Olympic Fanfare for me loudly. How can one not smile.
The testing center is quiet, security is very high. I am thumb printed and they use biometrics to assure I do not leave and a stooly takes my place. The man signing my in to the test area responds to mention of "Fizzbin" and we talk Star Trek trivia while we perform the legalities and necessaries. Always nice to find a fellow Trekkie.
I took the test and felt good about it.
I am under legal agreement to not mention any part of the test or its contents. That is fine.
Another test taker was leaving as I was and I asked him to jump start my truck. He was great and did so with a smile and wishes of good luck.
I have to wait for the FSBPT to score my test. Then they send the results to the state License board, then the State will tell me my score.
So I wait.

I had forgotten how much I know.
It is almost a compliment to take such a test because I can prove I know this. My brother told me to enjoy this because it is not often one gets to take such an exam. In some ways he is very right and to think of it as a rare happening, it shifts you out of fear, anxiety and apprehension.
I am knowledgeable about so many areas. I can think through the tough questions. I had shot in the dark answers on about 10 questions out of 200.
It is a relief to be done.

More on this another time.

Be well all.

C

A secret

2008-01-02T08:49:00.000-06:00

Many of you know Puppette.
For those that don't, Puppette is a highly trained, very social, amazingly intelligent golden retriever that has been my work partner in the Hospital for 6 years.
I never taught her when to get involved with the terminal patient's spouse who is sobbing on the roll away bed in the ICU. I could never have taught her to sit at the side of a wheelchair being still so they could pet her and then stand and act normally for an able bodied person. She taught me that when she was done in a patient's room, she would turn her back on me and face the door, inching a step closer to the exit every minute I lingered talking to a patient or their family.
I did train her to come on command, to lie down and stay until told other wise.
She can hold a down stay outside a room on the insanely busy cardiac care unit or outside a room on the critical care unit while I work in the room, out of her sight, for up to 45 minutes and she will not move. We have a working vocabulary of over one hundred words and over twenty commands.
People always ask me if she is a normal dog, does she do doggy things. Is she happy?

OK, time for a secret a few of you know intimately.
My dog is a ham.
No, really, a thinking buffoon.
We walk out the door to the yard. She sits down and looks around for a minute and then flops over backward to wriggle on the grass, all four big blond feet up in the air, waiving like rabid fans at a sports event. Then she stops, holds the 4 legs up position, snorts LOUDLY, and gets up as if nothing happened. The other day I look out of the corner of my eye, keeping tabs on the wieners, and she was chasing her tail. I have tried to get pictures of this. But I swear when she sees me looking, she stops.
So this beautiful, brilliant, lovely girl of my heart topped herself last night.
We went out for the last pee before bed, all dogs should have a bowel and bladder schedule, makes life a bit easier, believe me. She stops in her tracks and I hear her growl. This mop has let a 6 year old boy fall asleep on her tummy, has sat in bed with patients hooked up to so many machines, has been calm when rushing gurneys, industrial carpet cleaners and massive portable x-ray machines rumble by in the busy halls of a hospital.
She growled.
Being such an uncommon noise, I looked at her, not verifying if Poni was peeing or not, and saw her hackles were up. ( I had a Maglite flashlight so I could see just fine, thank you) Looking across the street, I tried to see what had her up in a tizzy.
Back in November, just after Thanksgiving, our across the street neighbors put up their Christmas lights and decorations. On their lawn, near a tree, is a lighted white frame reindeer with a red velvet bow around its neck.
Puppette bobbed to her left and growled, letting it mature into a low bark/howl sound.
I stopped her at once, it was 11:30 after all, and got ehr under control. She was circling, just getting ready to go to the bathroom and she saw this minion of hell , in the same place it has been for a month, and decided it was here to end our days. She elevated us to red terror alert, defcon 4, Osama had brought jihad to Puppette's 'hood.
Poni peed and I brought my brood back in to the house. Puppette's hackles were still up when we got to the bed room.
I did the only thing I could do.
I told her that she was a good dog and that we were sufficiently warned to the danger and thank you for keeping us safe.
She sniffed loudly , jumped up on the bed and turned her back to me, sighing loudly.
My dog is the greatest.
My dog is a goof.
I love my dog.

Peace
C

Holiday Wrap up

2008-01-01T07:46:00.000-06:00

For many years, K and I really have not celebrated Christmas. We both volunteered to work at the Hospital so someone with kids could stay home and make merry memories for themselves.
And, neither of us has spent Christmas with family in a very long time.
So why was it different this year?
It seems just a bit strange to me but this year I was homesick and wanted to be near my family.
It came to mind that it is distance.
Have you ever bought a book, or a tool, or pieces for a project thinking that "some day" you would have time to do it? It is the potential for possibility, I think. When I was closer to family, I knew I could get to Mom of a brother in hours, a sister by hours in an airplane. So it was the potential ease that was comforting.
This year it is thousands of miles and many hours to get to them.
We spent a wonderful Christmas day with K's family and her in-law's family. There was only one melt down when oldest nephew got mad that some one else was playing with one of his toys first and made it do it's special thing before he got to. He crashed for a nap and the adults and the baby nephew just enjoyed a calm evening.
K was sick with some gawd awful sinus crap that made her tired and made her head hurt.
In bigger families, and parties, I do not have much experience. It has always been smaller groups for me. So present opening was scattered and personal on a one to one basis, but not what I was used to. It was not, by any means, a bad thing, just different. Vive la difference, but I need some more known routine just now.
K worked New year's eve and New Year's day, I am at home, studying because I sit my License exam on Thursday.
I really do not care what the average range is for blood pressure for a one month old infant is, and had never heard of Brunstrom! What the hell is a de-rotational brace and how many test questions do they need to ask about anterior cruciate ligament rehab?
So I continue to look at the practice exams and wonder if I ever knew some of these trivial facts... Today I need to re-familiarize myself with the bones of the wrist, specifically the carpals, and know what other bones they articulate with, I need to brush up on enervations and dermatomes and memorize Brunstrom's stages of recovery. I need the rule of nines and gait patterns with device. AAARRRGGHHHHHHHHH!!! Did you ever see Shawshank Redemption where Andy's student lost his cool taking the test? That is where I feel I am at.
Breathe... just breathe.....

So, go forth, in this new year, so young and innocent in its infancy.
May the very best day of 2007 be your worst day in 2008.

Peace.
C

A gem...

2007-12-18T13:01:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I was poked, prodded, bled, stuck and processed.
I thought the hiring was tough at the last hospital I worked at.
Here, I had to give multiple forms of ID, proof I had actually graduated from an accredited college, and then sign my life away.
Then, after a physical, paper work and three nice people telling me "welcome" to the Hospital, I went to the basement.
Phlebotomy, the drawing of blood, has never bothered me. I do not like pain, but the stick of a needle is necessary, so I have never minded it. But to put it in the basement does not help the idea of bloodletting.
When I reveal to people that I am new to the area, they keep asking: "What do you think of New York?"
I have never been overly diplomatic, and I am told I have all the tact of black on white ( or white on black, what ever). But I am careful in my answer.
So the wonderful phlebotomist, a young, grey haired woman named L asked me what I thought of New Yorkers.
She was taking three large vials of my blood for titer tests or some such.
What I have found, I have stated before in previous posts.
She agreed with my findings and we talked a bit more.
She told me that people here do not look up or down but usually straight ahead. At this, she held up her gloved hands and put them around her eyes like goggles. She then confided that she takes her kids out into the yard, has them all lie on their backs and stare up at the sky. Her tone and word choices made me think that this is not all that common of an experience out this way.
How can you live in the Pacific NW and not look up at mountains, eagles, seagulls, crows, racing clouds, vintage airplanes, jet airliners whisking people off to adventures in a rumbling roar...
My comment to her, after making my usual disclaimer that I was not being offensive (look I am not intentionally offensive, just tactless and blunt) that New York, so far, did not appear to be a place for enlightened people.
I am not talking sitting cross legged at the top of a mountain as an aesthetic. I mean some one who has at least discerned that there is more to life than one foot in front of the other-keep-up-with-the-Joneses scurry through the maze rat lab.
She readily agreed.
I found her to be a jewel. A jewel is usually found among common dirt, gravel, rock and sediment. I found that to be an appropriate analogy here.
I am not calling the people that are in the rat maze dirt, not in the slightest. But I have moved my freaking cheese thousands of miles and started new with K and the animals. I am certainly not going to look only ahead, keeping up with the Joneses. I am going to look up down left right and side ways to find gems, jewels.

I signed up to take my license exam in January. I am so tired of taking the practice tests and seeing what I have forgotten and what they have changed in the last decade or so since I graduated.

Be well, my friends.
More when I take breaks and have a moment.

C

Random Thoughts, again

2007-12-13T13:45:00.000-06:00

A wiener in the snow!

The Golden One sitting on snow. OK, I know, she is weird.
Profile.
One short legged boy really wants to go inside.

A wink and a nod. She loves the snow!

More soon. As always.

C
More snow today that turned into a type of sleet. Interesting.

Oh the Weather Outside...

2007-12-11T07:05:00.000-06:00

It is a great thing, learning the climate of a new zip code.
It is cold, not rising above 42 degrees for over a week.
It rains, it gets cold, the sun rises, the sun sets, damn early at that.
Leaves are every where. They were amazingly beautiful on the trees. Colors, the likes I have never seen wiggled in the wind, flew off limbs and carpeted the ground.
Now, it is a brown carpet of leaves. They get slick when the rain freezes. They harbor ticks, from what I have been told. Who cares, it is still great fun to kick through them and not have slugs on your socks.
I know the rest of the country is getting pounded hard. The NW got hammered, California got flooded, the mid west is iced out.

C got hired, per diem at the same hospital K works at. Now for the FSBPT license exam.
Christmas is approaching at a break-neck speed.
I hope you all can stay sane and put on the brakes a little bit. There is no reason to fly through a joyus time. Buck the trend, screw the machine and sit at home making great memories with family. Shun the mall, shop on-line in your pajamas and sipping hot coco.

More to come, as always.

C

Baby it is Colder out

2007-12-03T11:42:00.000-06:00

I woke at about 7:30. There is a window, with the white lattice on the inside, that looks easterly. The sky was overcast and a bright grey. I dragged my sorry carcass out of bed. Staying up too late gets worse as the years roll along. I squared myself away and looked at the three lumps in the bed. K and the dachs were asleep and snuggled so well, I chose not to disturb them. the Golden Child was awake and wanted to go out.
Looking out that same window. It has a poor paint job that put small, unkempt paint streaks on the glass.
It is snowing.
I love snow. It goes way back to my child hood.
Puppette led me out to my coat and shoes.
I pulled on the thick fleece wind cutter and then crinkle swished the windbreaker rain shell over the top of that. A base ball cap went on my sleep tousled head and I slipped into cold Merrel mocs.
No sounds from the three lumps in slumber land so Puppette and I walked out on to the deck. Piles of leaves we have not bothered to sweep off the deck were crisp in the cold morning and it was so still. We walked... OK I walked, Puppette fairly gambolled into the front yard where the more energetic of us whirled and jumped and slid and rolled int he snow. I have more dignity than that.
I stood as still as the morning and closed my eyes. I wanted to smell the snow, smell the frozen leaves.
It was quiet enough, still enough,to hear the ice crystals of the very dry snow landing on the frozen leaves. It hit the dry leaves that have not let go of their trees for what ever reason.
Opening my eyes, snow, sticking and staying was all around me.

I spent 18 years in cold snowy winters, 18 years in wet, cold rarely snowy winters.
Now it is 3000 miles away but almost the same latitude as my boy hood home. It smells different. Not as clean, but with the musk of decaying wet leaves, wood smoke from over there, some where.

Puppette hit one patch and slid, losing all 4 feet and came to an undignified heap stop five feet farther uphill. She did not care, she shook off and ran even faster.
Where does one lose that devil may care attitude? When do you stop doing something not wanting to look foolish. Puppette could have cared less... she just wanted to run, play, be alive.
I found myself wishing for Dancer or Rudolph, the sled I grew up with. I know one of them is with my brother, his kids will ride them keeping them alive as they were for us, thrilled with the screams of a child, candle wax on the runners.

I wished for more snow and a sled. We do, after all, live on a big, long hill.
All day there was snow on the ground.
It rained hard and warmed up so the snow went away.
But it is early yet.
There will be more where that came from.
Next time, maybe I'll be the one who slides 5 feet uphill and stands up, shakes it off and runs some more.

C

Baby it's cold outside...

2007-11-28T08:42:00.000-06:00

Autumn. My favorite season.
When I was a kid, one hot ass summer in Spokaloo, I ended up with a heat rash. I called it being allergic to the sun. If I was in direct sunlight for more than about 5 minutes, my skin (arms mostly) would break out in a rash of small red bumps that itched horribly. Mom would coat me with caladryl lotion.
To this day I have an aversion to being in direct sunlight too long, having cloying slimy lotions on my skin.
I burn very well in limited sun exposures and there is history of malignant melenoma in my family so I really am not the summer kid.
I love spring, but it heralds summer so it is pretty and a time of renewal and rebirth, but not my favorite.
I tried to think back on why Autumn is my favorite.
I have great memories of kicking through DRY leaves walking to and from school. Not the wet sodden slug laden leaves in Hamsterville, nor the tick laden leaves in New York.
I would walk alot when I was a teen, taking my best friend, Kelli the springer spaniel for long walks down a tree lined boulevard in Spokaloo. The cold bite in the air foretold of coming snow, holidays, freedom from school for a few weeks. I could hear the swish of small whale courderoy pants and the hiss of my arms swinging in my nylon jacket as I carried my book bag and clarinet to school. The cold still morning in my home town were inviting, promising adventure and safetyin a weaker winter sun.
Long pine needles woudl fall from the pine trees in our back yard, hiding the pine cones that, in the spring, would crash in the cacaphony of the lawn mower, shotting the core out at an angle hitting windows, brothers and the dog.
It is the bite in the air, more than anything. You get up in the morning and step out to go to school or work and there is so little moisture in the air. Hamsters up in Hamsterville don't get this often, it is just to damp there. The skin on the backs of your hands tighten a bit and you feel a burn of cold on your cheeks.
Now, in the Northeast, it is the colors of the leaves.
Puppette gamboling in the leaves.
Bugsy snorting and scenting squirrels while rustling, in his own diminutive way, through the leaves.
Autumn.

Enjoy your Autumn. Enjoy the calm before the storm of the Holy-daze season.

C

Getting on with getting on...

2007-11-26T09:14:00.000-06:00

So I did say that I would compare West and East lifestyles.
It is a bit difficult when I am not interacting with all that many Easterners.
I have commented on the pushed down and stand offishness I have noted. I have told about the amazingly helpful video store clerk.
But I am often asked by the people we meet, and happen to tell we are from the West;
"What do you think?"
They mean, or at least I take it to mean, what do I think of New York so far.
I think, and I believe I have said this as well, the roads are too narrow for as fast as these people drive. Speed limits are mere suggestions and I have never seen more rolling stops than here. Everyone says that they are "20 minutes" away from anything else. K's brother made a drive that takes K and I 45 minutes, in about 20. It is scary to be on a winding road, lots of blind corners, and have HUGE fuel trucks, delivery trucks, Ford Excess, Chevy mother farking Gigantors screaming at you, over the DOUBLE YELLOW lines.
What do I think?
Things here are so fast in some ways, slow in others. People are brusque and what passes for manners in the service fields make me shudder.
The food is interesting, as I have noted. But to go into a diner (Hamsterville needs a Diner, really) and each sandwich or burger comes with "cole slaw and a pickle" 'Deluxe' would have the standard fixings of lettuce, onion, fries and costs up to 2.50 more. The slaw is sweet white with cabbage and carrots, the pickles are what are called "new" or a pickle that is not brined for over long, and has a nice crisp and mild taste.
Chinese food? There are over 150 Chinese restaurants on Long Island alone, I read that somewhere. We have tried several.
They have a thing here called Duck Sauce. K says she never saw it in Washington. I have not tried it yet.
We have tried 3 Chinese places so far and have not been overwhelmed. I order cashew chicken and get a chow mien type dish, not the West coast deep fried chicken parts with artery clogging sauce. I miss that a bit. Might need to learn to make it myself.
I can't find hazel nuts much here. One store had an open bin of bulk nuts so that was nice. They have no Fritos Chili Cheese chips for K's chili. Our Lambic beer for beer butt chicken is not to be found.
It is a Yodel, not a Ho Ho, and Ring Dings instead of Ding Dongs. If it ain't Boar's Head deli meat, it ain't worth the bother. It is Hellman's, not Best Foods mayonaise. I have never seen 14 different types of mustard. The Pasta isle at any given supermarket is almost an entire aisle, not the first third like in Hamsterville.
It is an adventure, to say the least.
So K and I head out to go to Trader Joe's with K's parents. I have never been to one. The one in Hamsterville opened just when we left.
If it seems I am whining a bit, I am. I find myself a bit homesick some times. My first Holiday season so far from "home" and missing some things.
From the East, I am waving to the West and getting on with getting on.

Be well.
C

Does it ever end?

2007-11-24T20:26:00.000-06:00

10 hours. Roughly 2 hours for each month it took to pack it, the PODS container is empty, our new storage container now holds our worldly goods.
We finally recovered our winter clothes and boots. Just in time as the temperatures this week end were highs of 40 degrees. But I am not complaining. Clear skies meant that none of the stuff in the new container went in wet. K and I embraced NSAIDs (non steroidal anti-inflammatories) whole heartedly.
C has more art supplies, C has his cutting boards, best knives and all his pots and pans.

The story in pictures:
K at the dump. we took 10 loads in that borrowed pick up truck. (Thank you thank you thank you Richard and Sherrie) Some where around a ton of stuff. We recycled as much as we could, believe us.

The PODS container just before it was closed and taken away. There was literally 1/2 inch between the door and the end of the desk.

K moves yet ANOTHER box.

The POD tries to ensnare K in its nets, but she got that box out. Oh yes, she did.

The new container at about half.

The new container just before we left and locked it up. It holds all the contents of the POD with room to mover around.
So that chapter is almost closed, maybe ended with a comma, until we move into our next house. That will happen one day, we both have faith that we will find that house.

This is a picture of Poni in the sun in Florida. She loves to drag her tummy on the grass or the carpet. Her face says it all, bliss.
This is a coke and a slice. That is how you order it. Plain is a "regula" slice, mine is a pepperoni. This is our favorite fast meal and it is indescribably delicious. Do not tell our former doctors.

Be well. Eat well.

C

Autumn

2007-11-22T21:58:00.000-06:00

It has been a while.
K got a job, no one wants C yet.
Thanks Giving suddenly came out of nowhere and impressed upon us the steady forward rolling of time.

Some pictures for you:

K fell asleep and C played in the kitchen preparing turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy (from scratch with NO lumps), dressing with extra fresh sage, and brussel sprouts with bacon. K insisted we have a vegetable. Bugsy had pterodactyl.

Poppy went cannibal and had some turkey too. He is shown above after a spritz of water. It was not a bad feather day, it was "I just washed my feathers and can't do a thing with them."

The autumn colors have exploded and are so eye catching. There is a house just up the hill that has a lacey maple that is a peachy orange that I have never seen on a tree before. We rake leaves and the wind just blows them back around the yard. It is a game my old fickle mistress the wind plays.

A little maple next to a wonderful stone wall. It is a neighbor's yard but the colors know know master or bounds, do they?

Puppette loves the middle of the street. I do not know why. I am just very grateful that we live on a street with very little traffic.

We finally found a storage place that would let us put the POD on its property. But... the POD is about 45 feet from our container so we just load up the pick up truck and drive the stuff over.
We spent 2 hours today and moved less than the first quarter out. It is slower, we think, because that last quarter of the POD was also full of last minute items. Over the next few days we will get the POD empty and it will get picked up on Monday.

It is interesting to have gone with out so many of our belongings and then to get them back. Live with out the bulk of your "stuff" for a while. It gives me the mind to go through my belongings and pare down even more.
I could see the box with the cutting boards in it, but could not reach them. So I continue to cook with less than my full compliment of gear. It creates flexibility. I have said it before, but a complete T-day dinner with the cast iron, 2 sauce pans and a new casserole dish. Iron Chef meets deprivation island!

Bugsy is begging you all to come by again, sign the guest book.

Every one was so close in the mileage we will send each a NY treat.
The total mileage was 4864. Almost 5000 miles.
Impressive.

Be well.

C & K

We are homeless

2007-11-04T10:06:00.000-06:00

HI!

As of Friday, November 2nd, we are homeless.
Our house closed!!!!!!!!
So we now have the great pleasure of looking for a new house to buy.
This rental is cute and all, but it would not be our choice of a house to live in long term.

Thank you all so much for the prayers and support while the house fiasco unraveled and re-knit itself.

We were house bound yesterday, Saturday, as a tropical storm, Nole, passed by Long Island and lashed us nicely. Wet and windy the likes we get in Hamsterville, only a bit more intense.

K has had 2 interviews, I have one next week and a possible second coming.
Things are good.
Sorry for the lack of postings. We just are trying to set a routine and get more safely settled here.
The new dilemma is: our PODS container is here, near by. It is much money to rent it and have them store it, we have no room here to put it and we can't put it at K's parent's or brother's houses. We need to unload it and take all our stuff to a storage facility.
It took us 5 months to pack it. Many of you saw how full it is. We really did not want to have to unpack it and then re-pack for the move to a new home. Now it is unpack, load a storage place, re-pack and move it again.
But, then again, if that is one of the greatest of our worries, it is no worry at all.

The winner of the contest will be notified soon.

Be well, people.

C

Diamonds

2007-10-29T22:25:00.001-05:00

One can not work with people for many many years without learning to read faces.
Authors read so much into the face. Eyes smolder, light up, crags of sun exposure make the old farmer wise, trusted, presumed innocent of heinous crimes. Babies have all the innocence, can look like and old soul.
Here, in the shadow of Gotham, the faces are telling me stories.
In the liquor store K and I browsed today was a woman who tans too much and has a heavy face despite the small, thin frame of her body. It screams years of sampling her products to lustily.
In the faces of the young here is an innocence but a cynicism. There is a way they hold their heads, move their bodies that makes them never quite face forward, directly at you, but angled as if to either avoid confrontation or to precipit a fast get away from unknown danger. They walk offensively, a pushing of the energy ahead of them that says, I belong here, I am moving forward, do not way lay me, do not think of messing with me.
Adults appear pinched. Jowls and frown lines appear so starkly against faces that I have seen else where that are ready to smile, laugh, admit the sheer joy of living. But here it is as if there is a crushing pressure that pushes the face in to a scowl, a frown, a look of compression.
K has mentioned, and I think I have written it here, that Long Island is where people from The City fled to escape The City.
Imagine Gotham, NEW YORK, NEW YORK; over 8.2 million people (according to Wiki) in about 322 square miles. That population pressure, the sheer pressure of so many people living, breeding, stealing, dying pushes down, not up on a soul. Your pressure valve is east, to the Atlantic. These people look pushed down, compressed, pushing others out of the way so that they might have the space they crave, the elbow room they are denied in The Big Apple.
So I am at the store and see young people looking pinched, pushed down, older than they should be. The teen agers move like mercury rolling out from under the finger pushing down on it.
Down ward pressure is not a good thing for most objects of an organic nature. Pressure on an artery can kill, pressure on a water hose stops life giving fluid from keeping things alive. Crushed stone, ridges in asphalt on roads and cement, changes to a very solid state of matter.
But, but... pressure creates diamonds.
Diamonds on your bling are polished, the crusty outer surface rubbed away and ground away by more pressure, friction.
Although no where near as scarce as the diamond cartels want you to believe, diamonds are uncommon in this polished form.
So, I have to think that I am seeing the diamonds just un-earthed, crusty, dirty, not in the accepted polished beauty we are trained to see, but the hardest substance on earth in its raw form.
I have to look at the brighter side and believe that those pressured scowls and offense, brusque presentations are the outer coating that hide jewels.
Maybe I have just lived where the rain washed off the crust and people shined just a bit more readily, unearthed and free of the pressure. Maybe I am where the pressure is still exerted to finish the product.
I will keep looking at the faces, look for the polished facets. Or maybe I will look at the surface and have faith that below is the beauty inside, hidden under a cover of patina, a disguise to keep that brilliance hidden from most strangers, but not from the people that need, crave and must have that brilliance in their lives.
Shine. Stand in the rain, get rinsed clean and shine.

C

Food

2007-10-27T11:59:00.001-05:00

This will be something I come back to again and again, I think.
K and I have gone to several different grocery stores now. One had incredible produce. You name it, it is probably there. Quince, prickly pear fruits, large aloe leaves, bunches of basil leaves that are just huge. The deli meats... oh he deli meats.
We have a friend who is on a year long vacation with her husband. They were just in NY for a wedding and even they had to comment on the food.
The predominant brand is Boar's Head. They make ham, chicken, roast beef, liverwurst, bologna and on and on and on.
We have found a wonderful pizza place where you just go in and ask for a coke and a slice. A slice of this pizza is huge, think about two slices of a large pizza. There is plain cheese, pepperoni, sausage, a seafood variety. I ordered a pop in a deli and the girl serving us looked at me like I was speaking polish.
Out here it is a soda, or just a coke.
You fold the slice in half, the crust snaps in half and the oil spills out the front or back of the triangle. It is the best pizza. I worked in pizza for years, I know a good pizza. This is good.
Bread tastes different out here too. People say it is the water they use. I do not know, but it is saltier, has a different texture, the crust.
Bon apetite, mes amis!
It is time for lunch.

C

OK, my bad.

2007-10-25T09:39:00.000-05:00

I made an awful generalization.
K and I were at a blockbuster of a video store, and the guy at the counter was so great.
We bought two used DVDs, Hot Fuzz and something else. I asked if he could open them so I could inspect the disc for scratches. Not only did he open it and find it was a bad disc. He went and got three more copies and checked them all, giving me the best, least scratched of the group. He was oh so polite.
So maybe that first sampling was not a good representation. I need more samples for a better analysis.
Maybe the poor waitress, the overworked DMV person that said only "How are you today." while helping me get my license, maybe they were just tired from burnout, a hard night out, bad home life, being stuck in a job they hate and they just suffer from "quiet desperation".
It just reminds me of one of my favorite sayings: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."
I would quote it, but I do not know who said it originally.

K and I now have temporary driver licenses.
They took my WA license away. And it had such a nice picture. Another step toward assimilation. Resistance IS futile.

OK. Go get em, kiddies.

C

Milage guesses:

2007-10-24T10:32:00.000-05:00

So far:
J has guessed 4014
Papa Bear has guessed 4730
A has guessed 4900

I will keep the game open for another week.
I know more than 3 people read this.

Thanks.
C

The answer, my friend...

2007-10-23T21:32:00.000-05:00

If I remember correctly, there is a Native American word for the sound the wind makes through the leaves in the trees, through the pines.
Sweyolakan.
That is the sound I hear now, outside an open window.
The screen keeps out the bugs but lets in the sound of the crickets, the woosh and swish of sweyolakan. It is a sound I have heard all of my life. In my back yard growing up, there were about 18 pine trees and there were maples up the street. Wind would howl through them in the spring and fall, the change of season. It would be the lullaby to send me to sleep some nights.
The sound is still the same, 3000 miles away.
The change of seasons.

Being from the great PNW, I am used to a bit more civility, politeness.
Please, do not mis understand me. It not a lack of civility, more a brusqueness. You sit down in a mis level restaurant and you are greeted with "How ya doin?" asked in a way that states it is just rhetorical as hell.
There is a lack of eye contact, a lack of lingering at the table when dropping off the check, walking by to ask how things are and you answer the back of the waitress as she is moving away, no break in her stride.
I have history in food service, I understand busy and no time to linger so you can get the 6 top served before that other section's 8 top. But it was not that busy and our waitress had only one other table with 5 wait staff total just hanging out gossiping.
It is not just restaurants but at grocery stores, the DMV, gas stations.
I have no idea where this brusqueness comes from. It is a mystery I will look at in spare moments, listening to sweyolakan and crickets.

Listen to the wind, once in a while, just stand and listen.

C

Autumn?

2007-10-21T10:14:00.000-05:00

So it is Autumn. Leaves change and fall, there is a cold bite in the air that makes you grab that favorite old sweat shirt, the one with the grease stain from the dropped nachos, a spot of pain here and there, and sally forth into the world. You embrace the slick wet leaves on the ground and take the sliding in stride.
Wait...
The temperature today is to be 76, tomorrow 76...
Every one tells me this is not what it is like here. But you know what? I'll take it.
There is a nip in the air sometimes. But K was in shorts yesterday. Boy do people look at you strange when you where shorts when the local populous is in sweaters, denim jackets and zippered hoodies.

The leaves are changing slowly. Reds and yellows and golds that just do not come in that 64 crayon Crayola box.

Pumpkins are all over, the local roadside farms stalls and the nurseries have haunted houses and corn stalk bunches to show off the local produce.
Ever have a courtland apple? How about honey crisp?
I made home made from scratch chicken soup for us the other night. There is a squash waiting to be made into soup as well.
It is fall, a time of change.
That is where K and I are, admidst a time of change.
We faxed back a signed contract to our Realtor last night. We have been told that the deal could close very fast.

Enjoy your Autumn. Prepare for a winter, a time of slumber before a new period of growth.

Be well.

C

No Gusses yet? C'mon, our friends, how many miles were on the mini van when we turned it in?

This Just In....

2007-10-20T15:52:00.000-05:00

Right after posting the all is lost memo, C checked his cell phone and found a missed message.
Our Realtor called.
Just after his "man" had put the appliances back on the new linoleum in the kitchen, another Realtor gave a full price offer.
We will look over the paper work tonight.
More to come...
Thanks for your prayers and thoughts!

C

ARRRGHHHH

2007-10-20T11:32:00.000-05:00

The deal to sell our house has completely fallen apart.
Because of too many details to go into, and to not impugn anyone, let's just say it fell apart.
Anyone know anyone that wants to buy a cute little house, let us know.

We are in shock.
We are OK.
We have applied for jobs just a little sooner than we had wanted.
We will win that loto!

Be well.
Think good thoughts.

C

Fall is in the air...

2007-10-19T11:02:00.001-05:00

Many years ago, almost 20, I moved from eastern Washington to the Pacific NW.
My first day in Hamsterville, the girl I moved to be near dumped me.
I remember it quite well. With the depression that comes from getting dumped, I walked a lot.
Autumn has always been my favorite season, and it was definitely fall.
I took a long walk, one day, up to a local lake. It had rained the night before and the smells were all new and different.
As I walked the winding trail up to the lake, I smelled wet earth, damp pine needles, cedar, dirt, mold.
A few months later, still smarting from loss of love and direction. I took an advanced first aid-wilderness first aid class where we spent one full day out, under the trees, figuring out how to save multiple victims 3 days from the trail head. I remember the smells that damp fall day I took my final test, and passed.
I came back to help with the class three more times, acting as a victim twice, lying in wet pine needles and cedar boughs.
Today I walked out into the front yard, walking a certain brown long dog and letting Puppette sniff all around, I was noticing new smells.
There are more leaf trees here, so it smells different. The sound of acorns falling on the house, the truck, the shed. They pop under your shoes when you step on them.
Part of what you experience in life is visual, part scent.
I am in new scents and trying to enjoy all of it. But there is the ever present knowledge that this is not Hamsterville, not the surroundings I have known for so many years.
Vive la difference!

Get ready for a little contest.
If you can guess the total miles logged on the minivan, and come closest with out going over, K and I will send you a New York present!
Guess only once.
I will take guesses for one week.

Let the fun and frivolity begin!

C

The neighborhood

2007-10-18T09:10:00.000-05:00

There is a duck pond about 1/2 mile from the house. There is a duck crossing sign and we got a chance to see the ducks crossing. These are K's favorite, Indian Runners.

Here is the beach we can drive to, just about one mile away.

A local hanging out on a nice day.

Poppy and K's dad.

In New York, it is a soda, not a pop.
It is a pie, not a pizza.
The common greeting is "How ya doin'?" A rhetorical question that I was raised to answer.
K and I keep running into people that feel compelled to tell us their life stories.

The roads here are narrow and everyone drives at least 10 miles an hour above the speed limit. Now, I love to drive fast, and I love windy roads as much as the next testosterone laden male, but in a small pick up truck and a sea sick passenger, it is not nearly as fun. We tend to go slower than the posted limits, but the driver behind us is close enough to read the serial number on my muffler.

We have a new adversary.
It is small, sneaky, parasite.
Ticks.
In the many many years I lived in the great NW, I took 4 ticks off my dogs, collectively. In less than 2 weeks, I have pulled three off Poni, one off Puppette that were just crawling on their fur, one that was crawling on my shirt. We have dislodged one from Poni and Puppette each. Despite the Frontline, they lock on and suck up. I dreamed about ticks all last night and I itch almost constantly. EEEWWWWW!!!!

We have found several wonderful restaurants. We ate at a great deli yesterday, K had a meatball hero, I had a hot hero with ham, prosciutto, provolone and riccotta cheese.
I cooked last night, pushing my creativity a little.
Most of you know, I love to cook. But... most all of the cook wear is in the PODS container. I did steaks with sauteed mushrooms, roasted red potatoes and a satueed onion-squash medley using a 10 inch cast iron pan, a 2.5 quart sauce pan and a 1.5 quart sauce pan and a dollar store round baking pan. It was so nice to be cooking again. It was a nice challenge to get things cooked in impromptu pans. The steaks were great, the mushrooms were baby portobellas and the onions were sweet against the squash. Ahhhhhhh...

I never seem to say what I want on this. I have great ideas throughout the day and never remember what I wanted to put down in words.
The Long Island sound is beautiful. It is protected and the rocks are smooth rounded in pinks, reds, tans, even some almost clear as they shift under your feet. The water is not as cold as the Northern Sound out West.
It is good here. We wish it would slow down just a hair more, let us breathe.
Soon. That amazing little word that promises tomorrow, promises time, gives hope.
Soon.

C

Perspective

2007-10-16T11:35:00.000-05:00

Through a great round of missed connections, misunderstanding and mistakes, we were without hot water for a over week.
We moved in to the little house on a Sunday and knew that we would not get gas for the hot water heater.
Then it dawned on us that Monday was Columbus day and that no services were available.
the land lord had put all the helpful numbers right in the lease so we knew who to call for what and that was all expedited so easily. But there was no info for the gas company.
I called a gas company and was informed that Gas Company "Able" could not fill the tanks for gas Company "Baker" and so on. So I called to find out who filled these tanks before us. That took over 24 hours to get an answer.
Then, on Wednesday, I called our prospective gas company and talked to a nice person who took all the pertinent info and then, was hopelessly human, and forgot to schedule the appointment. We did not find this out until the following Monday.
K and I stayed home all day Friday to wait for the cable guy, the water meter to be read for switching over to our account and the gas company.
K and I are very reasonable people. We waited until Saturday and called the gas company. The office was closed and I got the main US corporate line and explained the problem. Monday I called the gas company again and that is when the nice person who took all the pertinent information, admitted openly that she forgot to schedule the appointment.
She sent a guy out who told us, upon seeing the tanks "These are out of date and I can't fill them." I looked at him.
I do not think I smelled bad, I do not think I looked unwashed, but he said "I am gunna get you gas today, somehow."
So we had gas, finally. But then the pilot light would not light. So close but yet so stinking far. (yes, that was intentional, shut up and keep reading)
So he gets the pilot lit and we let the tank steep for 30 minutes. No hot water yet. It is a new tank but god only knows how long it sat empty. So it took a long while to heat up.
We passed yesterday looking at more houses, looking at the surrounding towns. We came home, teasing each other about hot showers. We ate late and fell asleep later and did not shower.
The gas company was coming today to swap tanks and get us set up. That they did with a shiny new tank with a gas gauge to ell us how much we have left.
I got the first shower.
The last shower I had was at K's parents house over 13 days ago. We had been heating water on the stove and doing spit baths for almost two weeks.
I showered!
I used 4 times too much shampoo, I scrubbed that soap into me grimy skin and shaved off several days of stubble.
AHHHHHHH!
I scrubbed hard with the towel, like a loofa. I think my skin squeaks.
K is in the shower now.
It is interesting what you take for granted. Hot water to wash dishes, take a shower, wash your hands.
Cleanliness... it is, I truly feel, never to be under rated.
Two things: I need to duck when entering the shower to keep from hitting my head on the damn sliding door upper track (which I have now done 4 times), Every one and their freaking cat out here has sliding shower doors. I can not tell you how many houses we have looked at online that have sliding glass shower doors. What the hell were these people thinking?
It helps to open the skylight in the bathroom to vent it.
We just had a fan installed in the bath room in Hamsterville before we moved and now we are back to no good venting. On step forward, one step back and into the hot steamy shower with too much shampoo and soap and bubbles and...

More soon.

C

Still alive, still ticking

2007-10-13T23:22:00.000-05:00

We found a place to rent. A nice house K and I have been looking at online for months.
It is small and cozy.
Poppy is still with K's parents until all is settled here.
There will be more posts, soon. Promise.
All is well.

Thank you to everyone who helped get us here.
The food is soooo good.
Time to start exercising.

Be well, all.

C
PS: we are one block from the water!!

New York, at last.

2007-10-04T20:59:00.000-05:00

We arrived on Monday. At last check, the odometer read 4730 miles. The odysey is now done in the traveling stage. It is weird to have the crossing finished. I wake up every morning thinking that we need to get on the road nad make 400 miles before we rent another hotel. We moved out of opur last hotel and will stay with friends and family.
We were driving the other day and K said "let's just drive around, look at the roads." I looked at her and said:
"But what destination do you want me to program into the navigation system."
"No where."
"But where do we go?"
"Just drive around."
"But don't we have to be anywhere?'
"No."
I looked at K as long as I could without veering off the road.
No destination.
We are at our destination.
That, by no means, implies that we are done.
Today we signed a tentative lease on a house. It just hapens that it is one of the houses we have been looking at for months. It went off the market and then just came back on the market yesterday or today. We were looking at a house one block over and our real estate guy here said he had one more place to look at. We were in the drive way before we realized it was that house!
It has a fire place in the kitchen area and a great sun porch, a nice deck. It is litterally one block from the water.
It is 10 minutes from where K and I would like to work.
The food is soooo good. We have eaten at teh same deli two days in a row. K is enjoying bologna and liverwurst with mustard on a roll. I had a chicken breast one day, Boar's Head ham today. We finished with an lemon Italian ice. Tonight we had "a cheese pie" for dinner. The food is sooooo yummy!
It got hotter than hades today with humidity that relaxed my bow hair wonderfully.
The dogs are well. Puppette sleeps alot, I think she is just tired from the heat and the continued disruption to her world. Bugsy is now a slave to his name tag. When I lovingly teased the Bug with the laser pointer, I created a monster. He has become so nuerotic chasing his name tag. Any time light hits it and a reflection is thrown, he stalks it and pounces upon it like the great hunter he is (deep inside his little badger dog heart).
We still do not have an internet connection. I am on a family's network for this. More regular posts might be forth coming.

That is all for me for now.

Be well, all.

C

The continuing saga...

2007-10-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

And into the east we go.
Putting Tennessee behind us, onward into Virginia... the states keep falling.
Loved this bill board:
The little prince surveys his mobile kingdom.

Puppette asks: "Are we there yet?"

The other Prince surveys his world from the safety of his cage.

Not much to post from C. It has been a long trip, the end is now in sight.
I am tired.
I am overjoyed at the news that our friend Richard is doing wonderfully well after surgery! They let the man have a triple americano a day after his surgery, he is doing so very well!
Best wishes Richard, Sherri.

K is out, she has pictures she wants to post, but that is for another day.
Once we reach our destination, we might be off line for a day or two until we can find a free wi fi spot or get internet in our place.

Be well, all.
C

2007-09-30T21:18:00.000-05:00

Random thoughts:

In Alabama, we saw 7 helicopters, 4 blackhawk type, 2 Chinook and a Bell Huey. Interesting that we did not see an airplane the entire time in Alabama. They like their helicopters, eh?

Speaking of flight: After so many states, we finally saw large birds that were NOT turkey vultures. Odd that we would cover so much country and see so few birds. It was a red tail and several crows. And, I saw my first blue bird. Not those jacked up Stellar's Jays from back home.

Truckers are nice and crazy. They change lanes so fast at such close range that you cringe expecting the grind of metal and that gut punching sound of a traffic accident. But on the other side, when we approached an accident, we had a 3 mile warning that the RIGHT lane ahead was blocked. The truckers moved into the RIGHT lane to keep that sneaky brat that ignores the signs to sneak 5 places farther ahead of everyone else and cause everyone to slow down even more. These truckers set up a moving road block to control traffic.

In Tennessee there is a Hotel chain, called the Jameson Inn. It was beautiful, charged only a 10 dollar pet deposit and had a great big room with a wonderful king size bed. The bed was the best sleep K and I had slept in many years.

Just up the road from the Jameson Inn is a restaurant called the Texas Roadhouse. I ordered another cheap steak that tasted not at all cheap. K had a rib and chicken plate. We both feel, out of all our travels and all the places we have eaten, this was some of the very best food we have ever had.
I know, I know, I said that about the etoufe. But in its own way it was the best etoufe. The sauteed mushrooms were the best I have ever had, the steak was almost perfect, the beans were with onions and ham, and they had fresh baked rolls with a cinnamon honey butter that was almost as good as the sopapias at The Pepper Sister's back in Hamster land.

We detoured to the Great Smokey Mountain park today. Las Vegas and Disney World had sex and the illegitamate love child is Pigeon Forge Tennessee! With a name like Pigeon Forge... well... It is glitzy in the woods. But what fun... a Dinosaur walk museum, a Jurassic water ride, 3 or 4 miniature golf courses, a muscle car museum. We will get back to this place, some day.

Breakfast and dinner were Cracker Barrel. If you know them, you know how good that food is as well. Ahh... foood.....
I did not allow myself to go to a knife/cooking gadgets store boasting over 1000 kitchen gadgets.
*sigh*
Tomorrow, more roads. We are almost there.
Soon, soon...

C
Southern colors by K:
I decided there must be a law about driving only red vehicles in Alabama. This carried into
the beautiful state of Tennessee. It struck me when I found myself surrounded on all sides:
first a fire engine red Hummer, then a cherry red pick up truck, then the off road vehicle
being transported to some heavily hilled dirt pile somewhere nearby...
the red brick homes in Tennessee where they use small and long bricks that are textured on
its outside length...
Alabama's team is known as the Crimson Tide. I had yet another Cherry Limeade To Go!
I wasn't quick enough to click pictures of some of the local restaurants which used horizontal
red stripes to elongate the look of their building. It was striking enough to make me want to
pull the car over and take the photo though...

Ruby falls is advertised everywhere, a wonderful kind of repetitious reminder that there were
places on the map that were yet to be discovered...

I'd like to tell you about Rose, a petite gal who worked at Country's Barbque in Montgomery
Alabama. She had a smile that lit up the Roadhouse architecture like moonlight. "Mama" was
behind the counter cooking. I thought Mama would be softspoken for some reason. The image
shattered quickly with Mama yelling orders: "ONE PORK, ONE BIRD TO-GO!"
Rose walked me to the door since my hands were filled with barbque dinners and an order of
sweet tea (yes Arnitha, there is sweet tea still brewin' here!)
I made Rose laugh. "I need to learn to bump the door from behind like you do", she nodded and
laughed. I'd hoped she'd heard it as a compliment and a thank you.
when you are tired and hungry and in between homes, a brilliant smile and a kindness go a long way...

Some random thoughts and random pictures

2007-09-28T20:37:00.000-05:00

Nap Time!!!!

Inside joke to our friends: Look at the street sign.

Which way do we go?

Church reader board signs seen in Alabama:

Give to God what is RIGHT not what is LEFT.

How is that again? Is that implying that the RELIGIOUS RIGHT is what needs to be given to God? What about the LEFT?

Righteousness exalteth a Country?

Sounds like zealotry. How righteous is a Zealot in Iraq? Afganistan?

Move too far south and the brain does begin to shrink, it must.
In the south, It is astounding how many churches there are. What is odd is to see an LDS and a Jehova's Witness Kingdom Hall amongst all the Baptist and Episcopall and Church of God and............ Do they cancel each other out or is it the source of some hell fires that make it so bleeding hot down here?

I found a great surprise for K . We have been wanting to find a Cheeseburger in Paradise on the way accross the country. I went to a starschmucks, no free wifi, no soy for my latte, but I found a Cheeseburger in Paradise!!

And I had a Cheeseburger in Paradise:

Ahhhhh
" I like mine with lettuce and tomato, heins 57 and french fried potatoes, big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer, good God almgithy, which way do I steer for my...?" Cheeseburger in Paradise, Jimmy Buffet.
It was good, the atmosphere was fun. Our waitress, Donna, was a hoot.
Last night, K and I found a great little place, Kenny D's, 2964 US-98 W Scenic Gulf Dr
Miramar Beach, FL 32550. Since we did not get to have southern cookin in Louisiana, we had it here.
I had the crawfish etoufe, K had fried grouper smothered in etoufe. This is some of the best food I have ever had in my life, hands down. The etoufe was so wonderful.
We walked into an empty restaurant and were ordering when the Kenny of Kenny D's made his suggestion to have the grouper fried. Fried, the texture of the grouper was delicate but held up to the etoufe so well, tempered down the spice a bit.
The food has been so great.

Tonight, K got us bar b que from a great little place down the road with the most moist and tender slow cooked chicken. Green beans with hunks of ham and little corn bread muffins that were only missing honey butter.

When we went on vacation in Las Vegas, K, my sister, her partner and I ate well and often. We had warned my sis that we went to eat. We vacation to eat. So my sis called my mom and said to her "They really do plan their vacation around where they eat.

Is there a better way to cross the continent than eating?

We passed several little places out in the middle of nowhere that had a huge wood pile, an out door chimneyed slow cooker and smells that promise ambrosia.
I have said it before, Ahhhhhhhh.

So it is OK that the southern zealot follows their drummer, as long as the food tastes this good.

Some folk art K snapped in downtown Brantley Alabama.

K is asleep, so are the Puppies, I should be too.
Hello to all the wonderful friends at Fairhaven Veterinary Hospital. Debbie, I kissed Puppette on her wet nose for you.

Peace.

C

Wastin away...

2007-09-27T10:30:00.000-05:00

OK, it is not Margaritaville, per se, but it is so grand.
I tried, for the majority of the life of the lap top battery to get a video clip or two on here for you to see the water, hear the surf... but it looks like I need to read the manual for transfering videos.

It is too beautiful to describe. The temperatures are from 72 at night to 91-92 in the day. The humidity is heavy, like stepping out of a hot hot shower with the bathroom door closed. The water is so inviting. The red flags (dangerous conditions watch for rip tides) were down and yellow ( watch for possible rough water, but calmer than red) flags were up. No so much for the boogie board, but great to just let the waves push you around a while.

The person in the unit above us left yesterday so now we are all alone in our complex. We went out later last night in search of food.
It looks like so many of the wait staff at any restaurant are so tired from the hustle and bustle of the season, that they have nothing left to give. We went to a wonderful place list night, we had been there before. We ordered golden fried button mushrooms and smoked amber jack dip. We were supposed to get crackers with our dip, but got nothing. The look on the waitresses face when we said we would be taking it to go was a look of resignation of another lost tip. I will not get into the argument over tipping, go to Waiterrant for that.

We made a late night trip into a local food store that was closing and shopped fast. After a week of fast food, we I found myself suddenly craving fruits and vegetables. We bought an apple or two for Poppy. All was well.

We got back to the place and tucked in to the best smoked amberjack dip I have ever had.
We got ready for bed and found an uninvited house guest.

The wonderful man renting us the condo warned us the lizards could get in. This was a fiesty lil guy. He was calm enough until he realized he was trapped in the plastic container and then he got all fired up. I let him out, into the damp grass off the patio. Fare well little guy, good hunting.

OK, a wonderful bistro, carb heaven since it is a bread shop, but for all its wi-fi connectivity, there are no outlets to plug in so the lap top battery is dying.

We are trying to decide when to leave out little piece of paradise. There might not be another post until saturday.

Hang in there, everyone.

From the South we is wishin' y'all ta hev a nice day.

C

Fun in the sun!

2007-09-26T08:51:00.000-05:00

We are arrived!!

The sand on the beach is so fine, so white that it can squeak under your feet. There is no hopping form one foot to the other exploring the depths of your cursing abilities, but a cool soft floor of nature to escort you to the gentle waves and sureal vista that is the Gulf of Mexico.

Unfold the new beach chairs, bought at one of the local (there is one every block, no really, one EVERY block) beach store. The smell of coppertone sun block 50 competes with the salty winds and the rare waft of cigarette smoke from down there, some where.
Thank you Jennifer, here's one for you...

" No, really, AJ, the wave was HUGE!"

Meet a local or two:

A lizard above, a flock of pelicans below.

Look at the local dining room:

One word: GROUPER!!!

Local color:

Relax with friends:

It is a good thing, to realx. To lie under an umbrella that blocks an almost too hot sun that pinks your skin and beckons you back into the waves. Waves that are bath water warm and that play with you not unlike a big puppy. Misjudging size and hitting you just a touch too hard, they can throw you down in the sand and surf only to grant you that momentary reprieve so you can stand up, wipe salt from your lips and eyes and be tagged by the next bubbling breaking wave.
Walk out a bit further, the water is up to your hips now and you are more fully embraced, less likely to be toppled. You judge the incoming swell and jump at the right time to be carried back to the beach. The outgoing wave sucks at your ankles and pulls you out to play again. The white sand beach is inviting you to come sit under that umbrella, relax, listen to the song of the waves and the stories of their travels.
Come, sit.. listen...

I am sitting in a cafe, wifi enhanced, latte on board, K is at the condo, puppy sitting. I have been away from them too long, away from the beach too long.

Last thoughts:
Sherri and Richard, peace and our thoughts and prayers and hugs to you.
Thank you, once again, to everyone who helped us get here.

A picture for Craig, courtesy of K:
We miss you all, we cherish you all.

Peace

C&K

Moving right along...

2007-09-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

Moving right along, dug a dum, dug a dum… Fozzie and Kermit from The Muppette Movie.

In this grand adventure…

OK stop a sec. I know I have refered to this odyssey like this before but there are only so many ways to describe this trip and all its myriad of happenings, so I apologize if I repeat myself.

We finally reached the Condo!!!!!!

Florida was 86 degrees at 7:00 PM and muggy as hell.

We crossed three states, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and into Florida in just one day. Everyone did a great job. We hit much more rain since a failed and weakening “tropical depression” was heading north. That rain was a true deluge. I do not use that word lightly… it was heavy enough to keep you from seeing the car ahead.

All the states are very pretty in their own way. K and I saw many places we would like to come back and explore. But that is for another time.

After settling in the animals, and finding out there is someone in the unit above us, we tried to leave to get something to eat. It was just after walking out the door and almost reaching the van that we first heard Puppette barking. Then Bugsy and Poni was yelping in a very high pitched voice (at least we think it was Poni, for all we know she is the most well adjusted of the critters and it was Bug making the yelps)

Since we have someone above us, we trashed our plans to leave and came back in to relieve the dog’s anxiety and our neighbor’s discomfort. I went upstairs to talk to the neighbor, but they would not answer their door. How am I supposed to tell them what is going on if they will not co-operate.

This brings up a dilemma: If we can’t leave the animals alone because they will bark their brains out and disturb everyone, how will K and I get to the great restaurants you all know we have been talking about for two years? How will I get to the beach and have K videotape me on the snifty boogy board my PT partner gave me as a going away present? How is this going to be a vacation?!?!?

So it goes…

There is no internet here, I have to go to an internet café down the road and post. And, I will have to go alone.

It is murder, I tell you because the sun is shining, it is already above 70 and humid, and looks to be a grand day for FL adventure, and we are stuck with separation anxiety dogs. We will probably give them all Benadryl to make them sleepy, our vet said it was OK to do this, so hackles down people.

What can one say? We are in FLORIDA!!! It is off season, fall just started, there aren’t as many tourists….. heaven if we can just get past the dog anxiety thing.

Breakfast from WAFFLE HOUSE! We have been waiting a long time for this. These calories and this cholesterol do NOT count, got it?

Dinner last night was peel and eat shrimp for C and we shared spinach artichoke dip and crab dip.

Crossing the Mighty Mississippi!

There is a rocket test center in Mississippi. This Lunar Lander module was actually used in the Lunar program as a training craft. How cool is that? And, one of the Apollo 13 astronauts had his boot prints placed in cement and it is under the lander module. Fred Haise.

Looks like snow, right? This is the sand and these are the dunes between the highway and the Gulf of Mexico.

Settling in at the Condo. K has great hair and does not look wiped out despite a full day of travel. How does she do it? I will never tell.

K asks… is this relaxation? Or exhaustion? Or maybe… a little bit of both.

K is on the couch, Poni on her tummy, falling asleep again. Maybe K9 anxiety will keep us here and make us rest… time will tell.

Spaghetti in Cajun Country

2007-09-22T22:33:00.000-05:00

A long day.
Up early, pack all the overnight essentials into the minivan and leave the Hotel just in time for all the fast food joints to stop serving breakfast. Fortunately, immediately next door to the Hotel is the rib place we ate at last night. They serve breakfast burritos all day. Blessed be!
Get breakfast, gas up, hit the road. Doubt what the GPS navigational system is telling you, then believe it and turn around and find out that dumb little box that controls your movements, like sudden lane changes in the middle of no where Wyoming, and POOF you are back on track and skirting Dallas.
My father grew up in SE Texas and, if time just were not a concern, I would have detoured to see his home town. It was, says he, about 80 miles south, where we could have picked up another east bound highway and cut through SE Texas, but we did not.
As it was, I called him and talked to him for over 30 minutes (gotta love those free week end minutes on the ol cell phone) and had fun telling him where we were and having him describe the trees, some things he did as a kid. My father saw Elvis in Shreveport when he was young ( Elvis and my father were both young at the time. Dad is one up on the King, Dad is still alive!)In Texas, we saw a camel ranch. I have seen many odd things from the car window in my life. But I looked at the field and said "Look, camels". Dad was on the phone with me at the time and said "What?" and K said "What?" K missed the camels.

We hit our first rain of the trip. I am used to NW rain that kinda takes its own sweet time to fall out of the sky. Here, it kinda falls with an attitude. K described it to having a bucket of rain thrown on your wind shield. I can't come up with a better description.
There is the remains of a big storm that failed to titillate the National Hurricane Center
But managed to dump over an inch of rain in the area where our condo awaits us. K thought it would be OK to be stuck inside on a rainy day. She said reading a book in Florida is different than reading one at home. Again, I can't argue with her thought.

We settled into the hotel and we have a great big room with a HUGE king sized bed. The puppies promptly sniffed the room thoroughly and then fell fast asleep.

K went to a near by food place and got us american fare. I am in cajun country and wanted some crawfish etoufe, but I had grilled chicken with rice and cooked carrots that were so over salted, I could have thrown them out anywhere in NW Washington in place of a salt lick!
K took a chance and ordered spaghetti which she said was not too bad.It is too small to read, but it says "Becca's Steak and Seafood, The 'first' Cajun restaurant in Louisiana.

So that brings us up to date. Poppy did great again today. A bit more talkative, a bit more lively, but tired as hell since he can't sleep in the van.
A friend grew up in the mid west and had never seen the Columbia river. The first time she saw it, she was a bit awe struck at seeing what she had read about and studied in grammar school. Today I had one of those moments. It is not a great picture.

This is a cotton field. We passed many of them. Such a simple plant that has made so many things possible. Humbling, to me, to see what a huge part of The South relied on, created a demand for slaves, impacted history.

Manna station, better well know as Sonic. Love that cherry lime aide.Peace and quiet. If you follow the sine curve of the wiener bodies and extrapolate the function of that curve, I feel it would give you the equation to eternal contentment, peace, serenity.

That is what I wish all of you: eternal contentment, peace, serenity.
Thank you all for your love and support and help making this adventure reality.
Thank you for riding along with us.
There is much more to come.
But now, to bed.

C

Food critic by K.

I have rediscovered the essentials for driving cross country as I've done this a few times
Sonic's drive in : best onion rings ever! chilli cheese dog, cherry limeade and iced tea

Salted nut roll: it's kinda like having some protein!

Lots of beef jerky: Jack's preferably (i am going to buy stock in this company)

Hotel room fruit: usually an orange or apple, today a banana!

drive through anything! save time, easy handling food, usually smells better than it
tastes but who cares when you're starved and you are considering snacking on the
parrot's food!
(ps. we take acidophilus every morning)

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL

The young woman who greeted me at Shoney's Restaurant just 100 feet from
our hotel had beautiful brown skin. She looked smooth and sweet as any of their desserts, but I
thought "she doesn't know how beautiful she is!". I couldn't see the name on her tag but I noticed how serious she was about her job and later did discover that she had customers who favored her attentiveness.
C. wanted to try the Chicken and rice on the menu, I was only a little hungry
(I took a chance with the baked spaghetti). The fellow who actually took my order was a tower
of sweat, his name was Denny. "It's hot back there, huh?" I said rather obviously. "Yeah it is!"
said as only a southerner can say it. (God, I love the South!)
A pale skinned woman with lots of freckles and loose hair sat down to rest, she
asked me if I'd been helped and in my best NY version of drawal answered "yes, ma'am ah have!" (I just can't help slippin into it) She smiled and we both returned to watching a little girl
who cuddled with her mother for kisses.
Most of the patrons of Shoney's ordered the usual American fare, I heard orders
for Fish Sticks and such. I thought "Nothing much must happen here".
That's when Mina stomped in. Mina looked like Pebbles maybe all grown up in her midlife. Her hair was red toned and pulled up on top of her head and teased. She wore the classic waitress garb of button down white blouse and black pants and she complained that she was using someone else's apron tonight. "The pockets are too deep and I'm lost!" She looked harried and I felt a little sorry for her thinking, she's stuck here with no excitement...
That's when two fellas entered the restaurant and give her a "Oh my God you're alive kind of hug" and I get the story. Mina was arrested along with two bad girls with whom she shares a house ; there was a local woman murdered the other night as well. They thought it was Mina! So Mina's things by her frantic report are still at the Police station. (I haven't a clue why). No one knows who the dead girl is, "They won't release the name yet!".

Somewhere in between dramatic story lines, a couple dressed in dark purple
T-shirts for the local TIGERS team grinned as they shared the score with the family who cuddled the little girl. The fellow chewing on a toothpick said 28 to 16! "We gave 'em the 16!"
He laughed at his own joke quietly. His wife watched to make sure he'd given a decent tip. She
had decals of tigers on both her cheeks. (no lie!)

So here we are in Tiger country and I didn't even know it, in the middle of dark doings and winning games. I am remembering the look on that little girl's face as her mother held her upside down to blow kisses on her face. A lot more happens in Louisianna than one would think.

Texas

2007-09-21T22:12:00.000-05:00

"Big steaks, big cars , no troubles, yeah that's the place for me... I'm goin' to Texas" - Chris Rhea, Texas

We crossed an entire state today. Now if one were in New England, that would be no big deal, the states are relatively small at the ocean front as each wanted a port for commerce, but I'll spare you the early american economics lecture...
We are now in Texas.
As we entered Texas, I played the song, Texas, by Chris Rhea. K laughed alot. was it that funny or were we starting to get a little punchy?
Kansas was beautiful and flat. As we were approaching a little town and trying to decide to go south now or continue east, K re-programed the GPS navigation system. As soon as she hit "enter", it said "TURN RIGHT". I was stunned and followed suit. Here is the catch, I was going 75 (yes, that is legal in Kansas) and was 2/3 past the exit beginning so I crossed a bit of the white hash marks. I thougth we still had a few miles to go. Then I thougth the GPS was wrong but there was no exit for over 3 miles. K consulted the old out dated paper atlas, and sure enough, the new fangled GPS was right after all. So south we went.
I am not sure what shook me more: the high speed lane change or the fact that I blindly followed what a dumb little box told me. The high speed lane change meant nothing to anyone else, as there was no one within a mile of us any way.
Oklahoma is flat. Hey, c'mon, that is why they are called the plain states, right?
The soil is very red. There was, of course, road construction, and the soil was surprisingly red. These photos do not show it well.

Poppy is doing well. Although we did not have a long noise making session today, He took the longer drive day in stride.
C has a low grade headache that Tylenol and then ibuprofen could not touch. That really sucks when I wanted to help with the driving today.
It turns out that we are just 37 lil miles from where Poni was born, but we won't be able to go visit. They do have new puppies though...

One thing to think on:
When you see this
and this

You know that you are no longer in Kansas, Dorothy. Figuratively or literally.

We had some good bar b que tonight, some brisket, some St Louis style and baby back ribs and an excellent cobbler for desert.
And, we spotted a mecca for C and K... WAFFLE HOUSE!!! No idea when we will get to eat at one, but soon, very soon (wringing of hands and maniacal laughter fit well in this mental picture, folks.)

A form of advertising in Oklahoma:

Sorry it is blurry but it is a semi truck and trailer stuck vertically in the ground, advertising a truck stop off I-35 south.

Ever wonder where all that Wal mart crap comes from? Like the ancient elephant burial grounds? I found it!!!
All that S#!T comes from TEXAS... anyone catching a trend?!?!?!?!?
You can not, unless you see the building for yourself, comprehend how enormous this ware house was. It is probably bigger then the 'Hamster Mall. I am not kidding.

OK I'll get off the soap box. In a flat land like this it just makes you a more visible target.

I need to take some more painkillers, try to fix my neck and pass out again. Tomorrow, another state. We might make it to the Condo in two more days.
Every one is well.

If you are reading this, please leave a comment. It just lets us know you are out there.

C
LOOKING FOR COOL by K.

I now truly understand why Dorothy was trying to leave Kansas. I imagined even a modern
day D. attempting to find a cooler place to be:

DOROTHY: Aunt Em, I'm outta here. I heading west with Scary C!
AUNT EM: Now don't be foolish child, you know it's that time of year when all the crickets
descend on us. It's only temporary. And the heat and dust? Why...
DOROTHY: No Em! I've got my cell and a gig to play in Los Angeles at Witchy's!
I'm Hollywood bound...Don't worry about me.
AUNT EM: Now hon, be reasonable, you always go a little loopy when the temperature
breaks 90 degrees. Let me show you this cute gingham dress I made for you.
DOROTHY: Gotta fly! Em, Love you!
(dorothy runs to the car driven by Scary C waving to the farmhouse. she is being whipped
around by dry hot dusty winds)
You can catch me in my travels at my "overtherainbow.blog"
(auntie em tears up the curly haired dog runs up to comfort her)
AUNT EM: Damn, she's left me the dog again. DOROTHY! DOROTHY!
DOROTHY: (climbs into the back seat behind Tinman, the saxophone player
Hey T, turn up the tunes. Let's play some ABBA! (then to EM)
Bye Em, Goodbye! Oh, and Em I couldn't find the shoes to go with my red dress!
Mail em to me would ya?!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cool colors palette:
Poppy's Pistachio green

Suzie's Caligraphy Blue (Suz do you love the texture here?)

Betsy's I love you with a passion Purple

Lastly, we did see a rainbow in Kansas but it was a row of Skittle colored
Truck cabs-orange, turquoise, cherry red, lime green! and lemon yellow. I was so
surprised I never grabbed the camera...

Places we didn't stop today:
The OZ museum (my sister's favorite movie of all time)
the giant brick chess Pawn adorning a ranch gate entrance
the roadside art of a chimney sweep as tall as the overpass (who resembled Chico Marx of the marx brothers fame)
the toy and action figure museum in Paul's valley, Oklahoma
the red clay river bed
frontier museum
the pioneer women musem.
Poni's homestead in Decatur, texas
***We'll plan another trip this way with lots of time to wander-and maybe when it isn't 94 degrees! Hi to all

Kansas

2007-09-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

Wow, what an amazingly flat country.
But beautiful in its own way.
And, being in Kansas, a part of history for america with its beef and cattle industries, C had to have a steak.
Maybe it is supply and demand, we are near the stockyards and the source of this beef so it is less expensive. Maybe it is being in the corn belt where the feed is grown so trucking fees are lower and the beef costs less. For what ever the reason, C ended up with a 16 oz cut of rib eye steak cooked to preference. It cost only 16.95 at a reasonable diner in the town we have settled into tonight.
16.95 for a wonderful piece of bovine that I shudder to think what would cost up in Hamster land.
But the hotel is right next to a Sonic, so K had a wicked chili dog
The travel is getting into a rhythm and we are making good progress.

The puppies sleep alot, thank goodness.

At a rest stop in the middle of BFE, I took Puppette and Bugsy out into a side field. There is a nasty little seed pod, it can be called "goats head". They were every where. Puppette and then Bug pull up lame, limping. Bugsy had just one and he dislodged it by himself. Puppette had two in her hind foot and one in a front pad. The front and one rear came out easily. The third one came out in a gout of blood and started gushing. K is away in the other direction so I called her to get gauze so I could apply direct pressure. The bleeding stopped and Puppette was not pleased that I would not put her foot down. Lesson: be careful where you let your dog go to pee. I will be watching for signs of infection now, but Pup seems no worse for wear.
I hate it when my dogs bleed. Truly hate it.

Poppy is doing so well, he and I had a nice long discussion in the car today. If he is willing to get into a noise making match with me, he is doing very well.

Thank god for cruise control.

It is late and I will pass out soon.

Be well.
Until tomorrow...
C

ORANGEN'T YOU GLAD?

I noticed a color theme in the past couple of days...
I met Lisa at one of the rest stops. She smiled at me the way a mother smiles at someone else's
newborn. She looked at Poni, our little piebald dachshund.
"I have one like that" she said grinning. "I wish I could take them to work with me."

Lisa is the gal who keeps one of Wyomings wonderful rest stops sparkling for it's visitors.
Her uniform was Coral. It was the style that is called a tabard, a bib. It had white trim and little
ties at the hips and deep front pockets. We talked for awhile about the dogs. She went back to her work.
I walked barefoot around the reststop, it's too much trouble to locate my shoes in the rubble
of traveling debris (the front seat resembles a rummage sale table!). There were giant Terracotta circles. Like earthen mandalas, I felt a sudden urge to practice yoga. I remembered
trips I'd taken to Santa Fe and Taos.
The stone was smooth, the warm sun beneath my feet...

C bought us a pop st a gas station stop, the cap was bright orange. Our speedy driving slowed to manuver between neon- colored construction cones.

In Kansas, the wheat fields glowed with the setting sun. And later, from my pocket
I pulled a little stuffed dog toy. It's half chewed from play between two members of the "below the knee club". It's a carrot.

And this at yet another rest stop:but today we're in Kansas and we'll be on the lookout for rainbows...

Rocky Mountain High

2007-09-19T23:27:00.000-05:00

Ahhh what an adventure filled day. We were rudely awakened at 2:22 AM by inebriated imbeciles that made poor lil Bugsy start barking. When asked to keep it the hell down I was even more disrespectfully called a bitch. Hmmm, lesson? Do not confront inebriated imbeciles at 2:22 AM in Casper WY!

We boomed across the border and met Colorado with misty distant hills K said were the rockies. They were so distant that they were a mere hint and suggestion of the grandeur I am sure they are. But, alas, our course leads us away from them. We made it an early day in the Mile High city since we are all just whupped!

Look at this picture of me, Puppette and the Bug in Wyoming at one of the neatest rest stops I have seen.
I look like I am ready for anything, especially a nap.

So my thoughts thus far are we live in a grand country of unknown beauty. Get your butts to a far away place and rent a car and just drive. We are so targeted to get to point "B" that side trips have to wait this time around. We missed the grizzly bears on display, two dinosaur museums, a museum of mining, a museum of the rockies. The Grand Tetons and the Rockies up close will wait, as will Jellystone and Yogi and Boo Boo, Pikes Peak and Buffalo Jump. Passed by were several historical forts that hold vital importance in the american Manifest destiny. (we will not debate the right or wrong of that just now)
Prairie dogs, turkey vultures, antelope, bison, deer, cows, horses, rabbits, jackelopes, red tail hawks, american kestrels, doves, pigeons, coyote, mag pies, crows, ravens, a golden eagle, a bald eagle against a grand back drop of grey brown mesas and buttes that rise up from a sun browned grassy world of heat and dry existence. The brilliant glinting waters of the rivers the Platte, the Powder. Black and rusted still oil pumps that dot three states so far, motionless in the world they helped propel forward so fast, too soon.
Oh that we could just drive at 50 miles per hour and stop to watch when the urge took us, fill memory card after memory card with memories... but onward, ever onward...

Bugsy looking onward from the back of the van:

We have traveled over 1400 miles now, with a few left to go. Thank god for air conditioning, beef jerky, french fries, brown bubbly colas, wonderful animals and the greatest traveling companion one could want.

Enough!
To bed...
C

AN EMBRACE:

This doll was made for me to travel with by my dear friends Sherri and Richard.
Sherri laughed and said it was "a family affair!". I am posting this picture today as a tribute
to friends who are my chosen family. We have learned recently that Richard is ill and being so
far away leaves us with little way to provide love and support...

We hope you see the love in this embrace Sherri and Richard...it was the only thing I could think
of to do today to express this. we have you in our hearts...

K
Puppette looks: forward to adventure, back to friends and loved ones.
Two paws way up.

You can Post comments, really

2007-09-19T10:34:00.000-05:00

I changed the comments section so you do not have to be a google account holder to comment.
Now, anyone should be able to post comments.
Don't just lurk, our dear friends, post your thoughts to us, please.

C

Where the deer and the antelope...

2007-09-18T23:41:00.000-05:00

End of day four finds our intrepid explorers deep in their fourth state. The scenery has been so incredible. C's first peek at the Rockies was of distant snow capped rugged peaks.
We rounded a bend and there was a distant high mesa that looked just like a scene from a spaghetti western. It is so breath taking.

Poppy is doing so much better, but the long traveling does not allow him to nap. He is used to napping 3-4 times a day. He was so exhausted tonight, that we covered him immediately and will try to give him 12 hours of sleep.

We too one side trip to see the Little Big Horn monument. It is humbling, painful, beautiful.

Markers for Cheyenne Warriors at Little Big Horn.
The marker for the fallen US soldiers over their mass grave.

These are the biggest tires I have ever seen:

Enough from C, I am tired. Be well all.

from the food critic K:

I don't know what possessed me but the sign advertising "moisturized chicken" tempted me
beyond reason. Though had I known that only5 miles further there was a cracker barrel, an applebee's, red robin and perkin's (my favorite) i would have kept on driving...
but C. and i were hungry.
I gave my order to a waitress wearing a blue checkered top. It had a white collar and her outfit blended with the aqua vinyl seating in the little diner. I think I should have asked how a chicken
is "moisturized" but i was too hungry to think about it, and maybe, i didn't want to know.
I asked if the iced tea was fresh brewed. The waitress nodded and pointed to the brewer.
"making a fresh pot right now" she said. She could have been named Dottie. Her hair was pinned
back and tightly curled. It made me think of Melanie Griffith in that movie with Harrison Ford.
I'd like to tell you it was the best chicken sandwich i ever had, but it had no taste. in fact, probably the blandest chicken sandwich i ever had. Now I'm thinking that moisturizing process
does something to the flavor...
The old fella sitting in the aqua booth wore suspenders to hold up his pants, he walked up and
i caught a flash of blue jeans and red plaid. Dottie said "it's taken care of, Frank's got this one!"
The old man chuckled "Well jeez that was nice, and thank's for the extra tea" He looked surprised in that Christmas sort of way. That made the trip to Trixie's special chicken house
worth every penny.
So if you're ever makin' your way from Bozeman to Billings drive a little further-Red Robin
makes a great blue cheese burger!

The BUGSY report:
Montana is big. I saw most of it with my eyes closed. Poni had a great idea sleeping between the
seats. My appetite's tanked. I got some of the blond's food. I'm powered up to go. (maybe I'll sleep through Wyoming too).This is Bugsy signin' off.

POEM byK.

A LETTER TO BILL

I see birds. I think of you.
One startling image. a magpie.
black darting the bird's flight like a
crazy arrow
a paperwhite fan between its wings

I fail to know its name
I want to hold the answer then
and think "Bill would know"

For the Tiara Girls:
Woo hoo, a tiara cowgirl on the plains. Keep a look out for any other 'sightings'.

"I would like to have seen Montana."

2007-09-17T23:53:00.000-05:00

A quote from Capt. Vasili Borodin, from the Hunt for Red October.

We are seeing a lot of Montana. What a big state. I thought Washington was big, but not anymore. We were not fast enough with the camera for two great photo ops. One was passing into Montana from Idaho, the other was crossing the continental divide.

Poppy is doing oh so much better. We limited his visual stimulation and he actually made normal Poppy bird noises to us today while we were driving.

K is out like a light with all three dogs. Due to a request for a different room, we have a double bed, not a queen, like we are all used to. They had put us right next to the ice machine. If you know our two dachshunds, you know that would never have worked.

Some observations: The rocks in the bitter roots and the rockies are different from the rocks in the cascades. They look different and have different erosion patterns.
There are antelope in Montana, I saw a herd of them at dusk not 5 minutes after regaling K with the trivial fact that there were antelope in Montana.
Map quest indicates that by now we have driven in excess of 760 miles and it feels like over 1000 already.
Army convoys will clean a rest truck stop snack bar clean out of beef jerky!

Poni fell asleep between the driver and passenger seats today.

Bugsy on look out.

He learned to chase light on the floor because his well intentioned but very misguided Doggy Daddy taught him to chase a laser pointer. He now drives us all a bit mad chasing the mere reflection of his own dog tag. OOOOPS!

We are all tired. The concern for Poppy has been a strain but he is better so hopefully we can relax a bit.

The truck is safely arived and is waiting for me.

Mickey Mouse in my Whoppers box...

Puppette just lifted her head as if to ask me why I was still awake.

for all of us, thank you again to all those who pitched in and helped us sooo very much that last week. we never could have gotten to Montana with out you.

Tune in tomorrow.....

Onward.....

2007-09-17T00:04:00.000-05:00

I never thought the words "wow, I like this minivan" would ever come out of my mouth.
But... Wow, I like this minivan. It handles very well, has a killer air conditioner, it even has a mileage indicator that tells how long until you need to stop for gas.
I am a little disappointed in our GPS navigation system, it led us astray trying to find our hotel.
The hotel room smells of cigarettes and it has no hangers?!?!?
A great visit with Chris' family members in the state were great. Mothers and nieces and nephews, oh my!
The dogs are settling into a routine, but the doxies did not take kindly to the dry grass, being used to the plush green of home.
Poppy perked up nicely last night and was right as rain this morning. We think his trouble is he is so over stimulated visually that he does not eat or drink, so we are taking frequent stops to allow him to eat and drink.
We hit a great dust storm in the middle of the state and it got colder faster than either of us thought.

Chris' truck will arrive tomorrow. It made it across the country faster than us. But then again, it is not traveling with a bird.

The truck heads east *sniff sniff*

The Jack antenna ball looks forward to new adventures too.

The Report from Bugsy:
In Wenatchee there was a wild warm wind blowing. The little white dog and I got stuck in the
brush. Sometimes it's tough having short legs...The dog we shared the field with is named Bear.
Bear's big. Bear's fluffy. He growled, I ran. Miss Gracie the fairy princess danced when the Big Dog played the fiddle. I escaped out the front door underneath Bear's fluffy self. Sometimes it's
great to be a dog with short legs...
Connor let me play with his yellow ball. I bit it and it sizzled. I fell asleep on the Big Dog's lap
my right ear flappin' in the breeze, drool slippin' past my chin. (If the word gets out I'll deny it!)
Michael made a gourmet breakfast and coached us through the big prep for the next leg of the
trip. Miss Carole made us all feel comforted with her smiles and laugh that makes like good music to dance to...There was a warm wind blowin'-we think it warmed all our hearts...
Bugsy signin' off. ps. the little parrot seems A-OK but we're keepin' a watchful eye.

On the bumpy road...

2007-09-16T00:17:00.000-05:00

We REALLY want to thank everyone who helped us sooo much on Thursday night, especially, Karen, Jennifer, Mary,Diana and Michelle and everyone who offered saying "what can I do to help?". Special thanks to Jacob and Barbara for their determined efforts to clean up and clear out our "s&*t". Mary, Michelly, Barb there is no way we could have managed without your repeated loving efforts to keep us organized...Thank you all for stopping by-it kept us sane!
Thursday afternoon, we surrendered our modem and we were without access to the internet. I went through withdrawal, it was not pleasant, do not try it cold turkey!
Friday, we had really hoped to be on the road by noon. At 1:45 we got the news that our buyer has a lien against her by some one who... never mind the gory details, suffice it to say, the house did not close. We jumped any way and continued our concentrated efforts to escape the City of Subdued Excitement. Did you 'hamsters know that is the motto of your fair city?
The PODS container was picked up at about 1:00 and I freaked out thinking I had locked the key to the borrowed pick up truck in the PODS. It was in my pocket. Can you say STRESS?
(Thank you again Sherri and Richard for lending us your truck for many many trips to the dump) This was the highlight of our packing madness...
Here is the pod being loaded. It was cool to see it be lifted and placed on the truck, odd to see our life roll away on the back of a truck...

We finally decided to just stay the night and leave on Saturday. At about 3:00 something we got Poppy and hit the road.

We are staying with My brother the first night and then we will push on eastward. We might try to drive one hour longer each day to make up for the lost day.

A pic of us about to leave.

More soon

Chris

REPORT from Bugsy:
It was a cool and cloudy day in bellingham, the weatherman had said "nice and sunny". The weatherman was wrong. Now I don't want to say the mama dog was strung out but she left
the house wearing two different shoes-one blue, one not. The big dog said he only noticed it himself two hours later. Now i don't want to say the big dog was having an ing -bing because he thought he'd lost the keys to our friend's truck but sheesh, he looked a shade paler than usual
(that's somewhere between
This moving thing hasn't been easy on me either. Truth is, i've been chasing
the golden reflections of sunlight bouncing off my shiny new doggy tag thinkin' they was bugs.
Usually i'm up for chasin' the birdbrain we live with-the one they call Poppy, but he had a tough
first day traveling. too much bouncing, no good naps, he didn't drink until late...
This is the Bug signin' off. Think good thoughts for the bird.

A picture says...

2007-09-12T08:07:00.000-05:00

Thought this one said it all:

That is K in the PODS container. We are just about 1/2 full there.

The cast of characters:

Left to right are: Poni, Bugsy, and , of course, Puppette.

So much left to do...

T minus 3 days and counting

2007-09-12T01:00:00.000-05:00

It is only 3 days until lift off. A simple mini-van with three dogs, two humans and a parrot will attempt to break free of the West Coast gravity and head EAST!

This blog will host updates from the road, guest entries from the animals and thoughts and observations from the two people heading up this odd little cattle drive.

Sit back, enjoy and join us on an odyssey like no other.