01.25.10

Well, I will be seeing my cardiologist in Feb. and an angioplasty shortly there after.. so wish me luck all.. I am always panicked seeing a doctor.. and the idea of a camera being  put in my thigh, and up into my heart to take pictures, maybe put in stints.. gawd.. I am terrified.. makes it hard to think and write..

Night Mist

As I stand in the night, and the darkness embraces me, the night mists surround me, wet against my face..

I feel peace.. the darkness protects.. I can blend into the night..it is a part of me..

The night mists hang over my shoulders.. touch my face like a caress.. I feel calm.. the tension of the day washes away..

Walking in the night.. so quiet.. muted light.. filtered through fog..

So different from Sun light.. stay quiet.. try not to be noticed.. stay out of the way..

The pressure of the time.. every couple had a child.. there must be something wrong with you if you didn't..

They should have adopted a girl.. a girl playing dress up in mommies lingerie instead.. a girl would have been safe.. a girl would have been protected..  a girl would have been wanted.. a boy.. a boy was only because they couldn't get a girl..

"See, see we're just like anyone else.. we have a child.. see him.. see there he is in his room."

 If you couldn't make him a girl.. try to make him a man.. five years old and still he was not becoming what they wanted..

Out in the sunshine.. where everyone could see.. a normal family.. but inside that house.. or out in the yard, the sun was shining and the boy was scarred..

The young child was screaming.. he just couldn't do anything right.. nothing was ever good enough.. acceptance out of reach.. nothing under the sun  could ever be good enough.. never could do anything to make them proud..

If you beat him often enough maybe he'll get it right.."Lillian, stop you're going to kill him."

"Stop, you're crazy, you're hurting me."  then she hit me with a chair..

He lay in the yard, a broken chair beside him... "Don't ever call her crazy." In his room he prayed for night, for the safety of the dark..

Time, has taught me.. the pain happened in the sunlight.. it was safer for me after the sun set.. I was never beaten in the dark.. I could be me, I could be anything in a book.. in a book, by candle light I was anyone but me..
There is beauty in the stars overhead.. the night mist caresses your cheek.. grandmother Moon looks down on you and the terrors of the daylight vanish in the mist......

My cardiac issues.. the practitioner I saw last week said I may need an angiogram.. or actually, I need to get one.. I see the cardiologist on 6 Jan, and will decide then what to do.. feeling weak still, but I try to stay lying down for the most part.. I will not be working again until the New Year.. Maybe some rest will help..

If you are reading this, please go to my friend Julia's page, she is a freelance journalist that I am quite fond of.. @  NOTEBOOKS - LOS CUADERNOS DE JULIA and listen to her sing "It's a Heartache" my favorite...... 

Time?

      

   What is time? Is it merely the counting of moments? One conscious moment following another in a stream across the universe. And how is it determined? The length of moments it takes the Earth to turn 360° on it's journey around the Sun. Or is it just how many moments it takes to get from one place to another? Or is it the broken moments from birth to death of each consciousness we put on?Are we, each one of us, but a moment it time? Is time determined by all of us together, each of us a linear strand of what we perceive as time? All moving down in a linear line together.

What if we are not constricted by the spinning of the Earth around the Sun? How is time then measured?

Once we leave the the Earth.. Once we step onto a plane and we are conveyed above the Earth, does time change? Is the Earths gravity what locks each of us to time? When we go above the Earth, how is time affected? When we go the opposite direction of the spin of the Earth, at the same or greater speed of the Earth, do we then go back in time? If we move in the direction of spin, at the same speed as the spin of the Earth, does time then stand still? If we could surpass the speed of the spin of the Earth in the direction of spin, could we not then go forward in time?

When we as beings step on our Moon, are we not in a different time? We would then see time as the Moon revolving about the Earth, revolving around the Sun. Have we not then changed the dynamic? And then how would it change upon another world, or planet such as Mars, or Venus? Should we keep time as Earth time? Or change it to the mathematical parameters of that spinning  ball and it's relationship to the Sun?

May the Great Mother be with us should we leave this solar system for another.. then where would Time be......

My Life Today...

Sorry everyone.. still stuck in my cardiology issues.. over a week and nothing from cardiologist regarding my thallium stress test.. I have an appt. to see someone in her office on Tuesday.. and then another appt. with cardiologist in the first week in Jan..

I still feel really weak, and am unable to stay up on my feet for only short periods of time..

The inflammation in all my joints is worse in my right shoulder, only allowing me to raise my arm shoulder high..

This is eating at me and it really bothers me that I can not get thru to my internist, but he left me a voice mail saying my thallium stress test was positive, this doesn't put me at ease.. so my mind is focussed a little tightly on this.. I believe I will get through this, still it still bothers me......

Today in my life..

I wok up this morning really weak.. felt almost the same as I felt when I had pulmonary sarcoid, it was a year of hell.. a year of prednisone.. so my wife said to call the cardiologist to see if I could get in sooner.. 

NO.. go to ER.. told my wife.. she went to the ER Chief, and told him.. ganged up on by the Doc's I work with, and before I knew it, I was on a gurney in my own ER.. Chest Pain.. Right upper chest.. a lot of EKG's.. a CT scan with some kind of dye that lights up bad areas like christmas tree lights.. two triponins.. a couple of IV's.. 

Good news.. minor kidney problem.. no heart attack.. 

Still have to see cardiologist.. need to know why I get short of breath with minor exertion ... .. ..   and where does all this get me? Very tired.. .. ..

Scary Venting........

My Doctor gave me some news last week, regarding my Echo cardiogram.. I have to go soon to see a cardiologist.. to get all the details.. but it seems that the wall of my heart is too thick on the right side.. and is not able to pump all the blood from the bottom Right chamber, leaving some back each time.. 'does not empty all the way'.. Scary thought for me.. 

So that's my scary news.. has me a little worried.. OK, a lot worried.. it would explain why I feel weak all the time.. we have corrected the syncopal episodes that are now controlled by one med to make sure my blood pressure does not go to high, and another to make sure it does not drop too low..  

I am not a hopeful person.. OK OK, I am just plain scared.. I was thinking my memory loss was bad.. .. Sorry, venting.. .. ..

Saudi Women’s Activists launch the “Black Ribbons Campaign” on November 6th

Today I read on Jane Fonda's Blog about the brave women in Saudi Arabia, please read Ms. Fonda's Blog to see what she wrote. The following is what it said on www.metransparent.com...
   

Saudi Women’s Activists launch the “Black Ribbons Campaign” on November 6th

   

Wednesday 4 November 2009
   

On November 6. 1990, 40 brave Saudi women drove their cars publicly in the capitol of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, to demand their right to drive. They were subsequently detained, their passports were confiscated, and fired from their jobs.

On the 19th anniversary of this event, Saudi women’s activists, led by Wajeha al Huwaider, are launching the “Black Ribbons Campaign”, demanding that:

A) Saudi woman be treated as a citizen just like her male counterpart

B) Saudi woman enjoys her rights to marry, divorce, inherit, gain custody of children, travel, work, study, drive cars and live on an equal footing with man

C) Saudi woman gain the legal capacity to represent herself in official and government agencies without the need of a male guardian.

We, Saudi women activists appeal to all those who support Saudi women’s rights, inside and outside the Kingdom, to participate in the campaign by wearing a black ribbon on their wrists as a symbolic and peaceful gesture of their .advocacy to Saudi women’s rights.

This campaign is raising the motto: “we will not untie our ribbon until Saudi women enjoy their rights as adult citizens”.

Please make sure to wear a black ribbon on November 6th.

Wajeha al-Huwaider

This is a very serious issue that took a lot of courage, and all who believe in Freedom, should stand with them.. Thank you..

We love Opera

Another Opera weekend started on Saturday with Donizetti’s "Daughter of the Regiment" at War Memorial Opera House. With the great coloratura soprano Diana Damrau as Marie and Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez as Tonio. A romantic Comedy. 

On Sunday we went to see Salome..  one act but what a great opera.. the music.. Nadja Michael was incredible in her San Francisco Opera debut in the title role as Saline, opposite returning artists Kim Begley (Herod) and Greer Grimsley (Jokanaan).  It was really great.

Aw.. Today 10.24.09

Well, what a day it has been. I just spent literally hours in a 3’x3’x7’ room.. .. .. Ok, Ok, scrubbing the walls in the shower.. not my favorite thing.. too old for manual labor.. no strength.. had to spray the walls with the ever poisonous X14.. like Tilex, only different.. I think Tilex worked better.

Then sprayed the walls down with water.. had to do the rest sitting down on a stool, with an abrasive pad, and a chop stick. It worked, but I’m doing the rest of the night lying down.

I let it go too long.. then worked too hard.. now lying down, probably for the rest of the week end!

Started out the day moving my Mini, so my wife could pull out her car to go to the gym at 0630.. already having myself out, I went to Destination Bakery and got some wonderful fruit filled things, that I can’t find the name for.. then home to have coffee and said fruit filled things.

My wonderful sleep apnea has again removed the word that I need to use instead of ‘fruit filled things’. Sad, who would have known that my brain forgets to tell my body to breath, Hence, not giving oxygen to said brain, causing Memory loss.. now that I know that, I wear a mask over my face at night, so that I am forced to breath. Now that helps for some things, but does not get me back the vocabulary, that I once had.. Vary Frustrating! 

If only I could select the things I wish to forget.. HA! Fat chance!.. So many things too horrible to remember.. yet, there they are plaguing me day, after day..  

“Danish!!!!” there! HA! 

The ‘fruit filled things’ I could not find the word for in that morass that I have for a brain.. I can’t find ‘Danish’, but I can tell you what I wore 20 March 1788.. no problem remembering things from past lives.. I can make a fishing spear, an arrow, leather clothing, play the flute, do the most intricate bead work, and can’t remember the word to use in a sentence.. Frustrating...

Does time do this to us?.. is it time that ages us, or is it life, that ages us? How could I have used up so much of life and not known? My body feels used up.. weakened.. canes to stand, canes to walk.. to spend it sitting or lying down.. why? Why is it thus? What did I do to it, that I must be in pain always? Huh! Well maybe that’s it.. I see patients come to my window in the hospital each day, trying to get more pain meds. Maybe that is why I try to go without. So that I will not be trapped with in the medication. Is that not profound, or is it an  epiphany? 

I have tried many that my PMC Physician has given me.. they work for a little while, but never get all the pain.. just some here and there.. some joint pain goes, and some where else in my body gets worse.. fix that, and it moves somewhere else..

So, I try to ignore it.. to mask it.. and to walk and live with it.. cause it is going to be there regardless. But it is irritating!

But, other than that, I guess life is really good. I can still see.. I can still feel.. I can still hear.. Therefore, I can READ, enjoy the Opera, a Play, a Musical, Theatre, even a Movie..  and so, Am I Not Blessed?.. Yes! I am Blessed indeed...

Altered Photo Art

Trees

A touch of Red

Lonely Bee

Rainy Days and Rainy Nights

“Rainy Days and Rainy Nights” was the title of a post by the author of Blog It, a blog I like to read now and then, located at http://bloginsherry.blogspot.com/ It is one of many I try to read.. 

So.., it made me start to think of how much I love, “Rainy Days and Rainy Nights.” I always feel comfortable in the darkness.. it makes me feel secure, and safe.. and so do rainy days, and rainy nights... 

With the rain, comes peace and comfort.. as if the Goddess held me in Her arms, and to Her breast.. to suckle and be comforted.. as a child with it’s Mother... Everything is in the single act.. comfort, nourishment, security and peace.. No cares.. no worries.. 

The rain comes.. and cleanses the very air that we breath..  helps to sustain the plants and animals that give of themselves that we might live.. 

I have always found that rain at night, brings a peace to me that is hard to describe.. It comforts.. I like to sit on a porch.. and listen to the rain.. even better to be able to put my feet up and have enough light to read by.. sometimes to play my flute in the darkness..

Rain is such a blessing.. a gift of the Goddess.. it brings forth beauty and comforts my soul...

Manpulated Photo Art

Moss Covered Shale

Shale

I really enjoy finding and creating patterns, that turn an ordinary picture.. into Art.. 

Click pictures to enlarge...

A Day at The Opera

My wife got tickets for the Opera for today at two in the afternoon.. we went and had a wonderful time..  I prefer Puccini , but it was still great. Maybe just because I love Opera, altho I am not a real fan of German, but Italian Opera.  Today, it was an Opera by Mozart, “The Abduction from the Seraglio.”  The stars were: Mary Dunleavy, Anna Christy, Matthew Polenzani,Andrew Bidlack, and Peter rose. Our seats were in row D of the Grand Tier and were terrific. It was a great way to spend the day..

More Manipulated PhotoArt

I altered photographs to create this Quilt, I use it as wallpaper on my Mac

My Altered Photograph Art

so great to just be........

Gawd! My wife took me out to breakfast this morning, I outdid myself.. eggs over medium, bacon crisp, fried potatoes, and biscuits and sausage gravy..

Now I'm back lying  down with Mac, after a great shower.. and all is right with the world.. got at least three of the dogs with me.. it's sunny and cool out side.. fan is on me inside.. couldn't be better.. work tomorrow, but thats tomorrow.. Smidgen, our little red Italian greyhound just did a nostril check, thats where she peaks around my shoulder and tries unsuccessfully to stick her little pointy mussel up my nostril.. sniffing nothing good tries the other one.. very cute...

We are a house of dogs and a cat.. dogs are all Italian greyhounds.. and quite a little pack.. one tuxedo cat, who is very happy to be the only cat around now that Piewacket has passed.. She was the most beautiful Old World Siamese (her blue eyes were not crossed), she had, what I can only describe as banded whiskers.. they started out white 1/2" then black 1/2" then white, then black, alternating to about 4" in overall length.. with a lovely sable coat.. she was about seventeen.. we miss her, even Taddie, who used to torment her misses her.. he looked for her for days..

A three day weekend is such a pleasure.. I am going on HuLu shortly to catch up on "Warehouse 13" and "Dollhouse" two of my favorites.. I would really like to watch "Pride and Prejudice" with Collin Firth which is a real favorite of mine, but my wife gets tired of watching it. Aw Well...

Work tomorrow.. front desk, emergency room.. so I think one could see why I like a three day weekend.. A reprise, so great to just be........    

Healthcare

Progressive Democrats of America click HERE to sign the petition. We can not be silent. We must not go quietly into the night and not be heard. We have to speak out and support these legistlative action alerts. We are going to show those who are in doubt, that progressive ideals are not dead. And we will stand steadfast for the democratic legislative process. 

Death Is Painful For We Who Must Go On...

My friend and co-worker passed over.. beyond the veil that separates the light from darkness, time from eternity.. his name is Albert Serna.

Some years ago, Al had a very bad stroke. It left him in bed, unable to talk or walk. The hospital wanted to put him in a nursing home.. Al said No.. he wanted to return to work.. It took Al over a year to walk and speak, relearning everything. Al persevered.. .

Al tried to get disability.. the amount of money would not cover his apartment and expenses.. again Al said, “NO.. I can do this.. I will return to work at my job.” When he came back to work they wouldn’t take him back as a ward clerk.. so Al applied for and got a job in the admissions department. He hadn’t ever done admissions before, but picked it up real fast.

Every morning Al got up, got cleaned up, got dressed, walked around the small lake in town, (he called it his therapy) and took the bus to work. Al didn’t get back the use of his left hand, so he kept it in his jacket pocket. He had limited use of his left leg, so he had a terrible gait, it didn’t stop him. He had a desk very close to the Emergency Room front intake desk.. so we talked every day.. he and my co-worker talked sports all day, in between us checking in patients, and Al doing admissions.. he used the computer with one hand better than some did with two.. he did one hell of a job.. two people work in admissions.. but as often happens.. he worked there alone if he had to.. people are out sick, go on vacation.. so sometimes he would be doing all the admissions for the whole hospital with out help.

Al never complained.. never asking for help.. doing everything himself.. taking calls.. helping ward clerks in the hospital wing do things they didn’t know how to do, even thou it wasn’t his job.. all you had to do was ask.. Al got it done.

Always a good sense of humor.. always a smile on his face, always going the extra mile for everyone.

His sister needed help when she lost her job because of this recession, he took in her family.. into his apartment.

Where am I going with this story? Will every day Al pushed open the envelope a little further.. he would fall sometimes, wouldn’t take help to get on his feet.. he didn’t want any one to look at him any differently than they did before the stroke. The point is, Al was my HERO. Why, you ask? Because I don’t think I could have come out of a stroke the way he did.

Albert Serna was an incredible person.. an incredible human being.. He was my friend.. I don’t have many.. but he was. We loved him, he was an inspiration to every one who knew him.

So I put this note on his desk on Tuesday when I found he had passed, after I cried.

Dear Albert,

We Miss You..

We Wish You Good Journey..

Take The Second Star To The Right,

And Then Go Straight On Till Morning......

YOU WERE OUR BEST.............