4/30/10:
A good day, more than good enough. I got word that they have opened recruitment for a second social worker to help me (this is VERY exciting), I picked up several plants on my lunch hour (geraniums, a sweet woodruff, a curry plant and a basil), our clinic manager on a short vacation from her Navy duty station in Germany came by to see how we are doing (very nice to see), and I was able to transplant one plant and plant 3 new ones before it started raining this evening. Can't ask for much more than that, can you?
It is interesting how such different things can signal that you are doing a good job. Today after quite a bit of conversation I was asked if I myself were a vet, when I said no the person just said oh in a surprised manner. I then said I was a commie pinko. I was told that did not even matter. That is a big compliment in my world.
Today also had a wonderful local story in the Seattle Times. The picture up to the left links to it— well worth the time, good stuff.
Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.— Viktor E. Frankl
4/28/10:
The work week began rather hectically, demonstrating once again that there remains lots to be done. The nurse manager for the clinic I work at remains stationed in Germany, working with newly injured soldiers. Although we do regret taking her away from those in need, we are looking forward to Sue's return early next fall— expect a celebration!
Life remains a struggle for many people. The economy is harsh, health care is hard to come by, cheap dental care is non-existent, low cost housing is hard to come by, and quality goods are scarce. When times are tough friendly faces can also be hard to come by and the decision made every day, to remain alive, can sometimes seem harder and harder to make in the affirmative. Depending on one's work and circumstances, such realities are more readily observable to some than to others. Regardless of whether or not you observe it, it is real. You don't have to actually see, or hear, the tree fall.
I came home tired the last two evenings but enjoyed a nice dinner out with some live music today after work with my honeypot, Jay, at the Rock Fish Grill. We had a good time and laughed much of the way home— it made me think of something I said to someone yesterday:
Life is good, even though it sucks half the time.
Later man...
4/25/10:
Yikes... it is almost time to go back to work after a week off. It felt like a luxury being gone from work, the clinic has been so busy these days and I have been working late not infrequently. I am hoping things are calm this next week as I get re-acclimated.
Yesterday was rainy so we ran errands and piddled about, but today was sunny and we were able to do some yard work. I weeded and put down 4 bags of bark/mulch, making a small dent in my numerous flower beds. Last year I planted
Arctic Kiwi, one of the beds I weeded and mulched today. Earlier this year we had trouble with a pesky squirrel who was gnawing on the branches of the kiwi and the service berry bushes. At first we thought it might be rabbits but then one day I saw a squirrel holding a grape arbor stem and chomping down— yes, pesky squirrel. Jay put wire around the kiwi and bushes after that, the kiwi seem to be fine. I guess it takes a few years for the kiwi to grow enough to bear fruit, we will see.
I have about a million things I want to do in the yard, besides getting all the beds weeded and barked. I want to remove the sod from the whole front edge of the yard, put in a small picket fence, move the roses so they hang on the fence, move another flowering patch between the two maples up there, dig up the area in front of the sidewalk and put in the plants I already bought, gravel the part that will get driven on, and plant more flowers!
I enjoy my flower beds, and get sick and tired of them by fall. Luckily there is always an intervening winter to renew my enthusiasm, and luckily there are vacations to renew our spirits for the work world. Later man...
I'll be back.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminiator, 1984
4/23/10:
Jay and I returned from our Michigan visit late last evening. Jay went in to work today while I did not, allowing me to accomplish a number of things I won't bore you with. We came back to a blooming lilac bush and golden chain tree, among other flowers, and the comfort of our own bed and just being home.
We had an enjoyable time seeing my parents, family and friends in Michigan, Jay being the kind, patient man that he is. Of the many, varied activities we experienced, the highlights include having a Wacky Cake specifically made for us by my generous Aunt Cathy Jardot, seeing my Uncle Fred alive and healthy after two recent bouts in the hospital, getting together with many of my family on my mother's side (Ellisons) for Sunday dinner, seeing our old neighbor and friend Doreen and having her regale me with her tale of a recent phone call from one of her husband Don's Navy buddies and the excitement along with memories that brought her, and the man's choked-up voice as he learned of Don's passing several years ago, several meals out with family, being able to make my mom feel better by massaging her feet, legs, arms and back with silky lotion, seeing Jay's smile as he found a bag of Jay's potato chips at the local store, picking up several tops on sale for myself and 6 for my mom, and, a big highlight, going to the evening social program my sister Linda runs for adults with developmental disabilities. We enjoyed the evening program of singing with my Aunt Lois, cousin Diane, and my mom and dad. My mom's memory is fading away but she remembered that evening of mostly familiar songs performed by David Dickerson and I enjoyed singing and clapping along with my mom and the chuckle I got from his song "Bury Me At Walmart" so my wife will visit me every day...
We did not take that train this time, but I did find a nice picture of the Charlotte train station, circa 1912, on the internet that seemed appropriate. I forgot to include in my list of Michigan activities sitting in my parents' house and looking out the dining room window at the cardinals, red-winged black birds, blue birds and yellow finches feasting on my father's offerings and watching out the living room window, spying over 25 turkeys, some fanning their feathers in the warm morning sun, seeing 2 brown cranes, a couple of deer, and a pheasant. Jay and I ventured out back to take pictures of Jay near a tree that had not fallen and later ventured down the road to photograph the area where my dad found a murder victim wrapped up in a carpet several years ago. Wow, we did a lot I guess— I thought I was just pooped from the travel and all the memories filling up my head.
Jay took pictures, they will show up here later. We had a good time, and we are glad to be back home, although we will be going back for a Labor Day celebration of my parents' 60th Anniversary. Memories abound. Ciao, au revoir, etc.
The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.— Wendell Berry
4/15/10:
I picked up 3 plants today at lunch time, planted them this evening. I can't really tell you what they are (this drives Jay crazy) but they have pretty flowers and they are perennials.
The picture above is in the old Mount Vernon Post Office, a New Deal oil painting. The building is now part of Skagit Valley College. The picture links to an interesting site Jay found a while back that is full of New Deal art from the Great Depression.
More later, have a nice weekend et al.
Great part of being a grownup, you never have to do anything.— Peter Blake
4/11/10:
My fingers are stiff from weeding and yard work this lovely, sunny weekend. I am not a fan of the bark you put on flower beds but it does save me from re-weeding multiple times during the summer. This weekend I got one bed done and had enough bark left over from last year to almost cover it. I also took the pick-ax to a compacted area that I felt was in need of flowers rather than gravel... there is more to be done there and elsewhere.
There was a lot of traffic heading toward town later in the afternoon yesterday, apparently tulip sightseers. We were expecting a lot more today but they did not materialize. Next weekend is the Tulip Festival street fair, which we will miss, opting instead to get up early enough to leave by 4AM so as to catch a plane to Michigan— we won't miss the tourists. The picture links to the local newspaper's tulip photo contest entries, in case you are inclined as the weekend is fading away.
We should not mind so small a flower—
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the Lawn again.
So spicy her Carnations nod—
So drunken, reel her Bees—
So silver steal a hundred flutes
From out a hundred trees—
That whoso sees this little flower
By faith may clear behold
The Bobolinks around the throne
And Dandelions gold.
— Emily Dickinson
4/10/10:
Whew! It was a busy workweek and I am thankful to have the peace of being home, going slow, gardening...
Does the picture to the left look familiar? Yes, it is from my September 2009 webpage, a picture of the elliptical follow up biopsy on my left foot. I later developed inflammation in that wound as the broken up inner stitches worked their way out for about a month. At the time I checked on the PDS "dissolving" suture material that had been used, finding that some people do have allergic reactions to those stitches. So big deal, right? Cindy is allergic to everything, awaiting her eventual demise as she becomes allergic to life itself. Whoa Jack! Not so fast.
Yesterday on the radio I heard a short bit on those anti-bacterial soaps so prolifically in use at home these days. The FDA is reviewing the safety of a particular chemical used in much of those soaps, triclosan. The bit would have peripherally caught my attention anyway but because the announcer used the word triclosan I spun my head around... well, at least a teeny bit. Yes, triclosan, yet another chemical we in our wisdom have deemed safe enough to proliferate in our personal environments without hardly thinking twice about it. Indeed, so safe it is used to coat those dissolvable stitches to prevent infections. Interesting. Hmm, maybe they should use me as a canary or something.
Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.— Cullen Hightower
4/6/10:
As the Catholic church's preference for its holy men to have sex with boys under 18 (instead of with women, or men) grabs headlines worldwide, it is good to take time to research some history for perspective.
For instance, you can look up clerical celibacy, although how sex with children fits into concepts of celibacy remains a mystery even after looking it up... but anyway, for a Wikipedia discussion of Clerical Celibacy click on those last two words.
Another website has an interesting summary of Celibacy in the Catholic Church (click those two words), which includes this information:
Popes who were married
St. Peter, Apostle
St. Felix III 483-492 (2 children)
St. Hormidas 514-523 (1 son)
St. Silverus (Antonia) 536-537
Hadrian II 867-872 (1 daughter)
Clement IV 1265-1268 (2 daughters)
Felix V 1439-1449 (1 son)
Despite the popular notion that current religious rules are immutable, handed down directly from God and left unchanged, one does find with very little effort that they are not. That the Pope should not be married and that priests must be celibate are not ancient precepts. Hmmm, interesting. I wonder if any other hard-and-fast religious rules and ideas are abominations of what was handed down from ancient times? Damn...
Click on the blooming onion (make you hungry?) picture to go to an interesting article about how Pope Benedict XVI vowed this week to bring the widespread pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church down to a more manageable level. You might enjoy it. Ciao.
I'm a godmother, that's a great thing to be, a godmother. She calls me god for short, that's cute, I taught her that.— Ellen DeGeneres
4/3/10:
It was windy, rainy and cold yesterday and again today on a smaller scale. For whatever reason I felt quite unambitious today, lazing about and getting dressed late in the day. I did make it out to buy a baby present and a going away present for 2 people at work, and found enough ambition to pick up 3 new shirts for myself (on sale, of course), cash in yet another free panty card at Victoria's Secret and pick up a new bra at less than 1/2 price. I certainly was worn out after shopping for all those bargains. I picked up our favorite white garlic sauce vegetarian you-bake pizza on the way home, so I wouldn't have to cook either supper or breakfast...
I had been afraid the forecasted stormy weather would blow apart the tulips just as the month-long festival got underway, the tourists being more welcome in these lean times. Not to fear, the fields appeared intact as I drove about, crowds stopping to take photos of a lovely pink and purple field down the road— the sight of which served as a reminder to me to be cognizant of the route I took, not wanting to get stuck in tulip traffic trying to get in or out of the area.
The yellow tulip photo here links to and was purloined from the website of a local basket weaver who has a market on the road over from us. Nice baskets, nice tulips.
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.— Dorothy Parker
4/2/10:
Ah, once again, for the millionth time, my favorite Easter cartoon...
I finished another library book by Doris Lessing, Love, Again (1996), and include a excerpt here:
Somewhere about middle age, it occurs to most people that a century is only their own lifetime twice. On that thought, all of history rushes together, and now they live inside the story of time, instead of looking at it from outside, as observers. Only ten or twelve of their lifetimes ago, Shakespeare was alive. The French Revolution was just the other day. A hundred years ago, not much more, was the American Civil War. It had seemed in another epoch, almost another dimension of time or of space. But once you have said, A hundred years is my lifetime twice, you feel as if you could have been on those battlefields, or nursing those soldiers. With Walt Whitman perhaps.
Jardot's World: April Edition, 2010
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