Clean It, Make It, Fix It

I opened my Cricut, the Christmas present from my parents this past year, yesterday.  O_o  I swear, cool craft things are like crack cocaine for me.  I cannot stop fiddling with it.

At first, I was just going to "try it out," make sure I could use it so when the new school year rolled around, I'd be set to do some bulletin boards.  Then I made my first little cuts.  It was so neat that next I started looking for used cartridges.  That led to the discovery of online goodies.  Next thing I knew, I was foraging for an A/B USB cable and hooking it to my computer, downloading the free design software from ProvoCraft, and updating the firmware on my Cricut.    

While I was waiting for the firmware to do its thing, I got on Pinterest and looked up Cricut projects. This search led to lots of stuff people had done with their Cricuts, websites with information and tips, and A MILLION FREAKING PRINTABLE PROJECTS.  I kept going from pin to pin thinking, "Oh, this would be so cool for departmental 'happies'," or "Wow.  I can make a bulletin board with that.

THAT led to "cool crap to do to your house" pins.  I banked benches, storage, all kinds of things I can make with my own three hands.  I just need a small old shutter, and I'll be in business.  Oh, and some magnetic letters.  And a mason jar.  And...

Somebody once said that the best thing about things like HGTV and craft websites is the feeling of accomplishment you get after you've been watching/surfing them for awhile.  Somehow, by looking at all the cool projects and bookmarking or pinning them, one begins to have a feeling of satisfaction as though the project has actually been done instead of just added to a probably-overflowing file of things that were also interesting at the time.

We all have our "someday" files, I guess, those places, electronic or real, where we stuff all that type of thing.  I know I have binders in my craft room of things, stained glass patterns pinned to the bulletin board wall, e-files abounding.  What I want, though, is to start doing them instead of just collecting them and saying, "I'll get to that when I have the time."  That's the best way never to do any of it, probably.

Tomorrow, I will leave my dreams and e-crafting and work on the major overhaul of the back part of my house.  I have to clean out some crap so I have space for many other things, including perhaps some of the ideas I have recently seen.  It will be good to move from dreaming to doing.

After the Funeral Home

I can't think of a clever title for this one.  I have no cleverness at all to share.  I went to the funeral home tonight to see the fragile remains of someone two years younger than I, somebody I went to church with, somebody I watched grow up more or less.  Forgive me if I'm not glib.  Seeing someone you've known most of your life in a box so still and pale has the tendency to steal away witticisms.

She and I were never close, but her family and my family are tied together by several things.  She was someone I knew distantly, would hear reports on occasionally over the top of a pew.  She went her way and I went mine after graduation; she moved away, married, had children, divorced.  We would see each other occasionally in church at the big holidays that bring everybody home.

Death always seems like something that only happens to another generation.  Even though I have seen it strike down so many from every possible age group, some trick of our minds keeps telling us, "Not me.  Not us.  Not now."  The reality of it is, though, that there is no "right age," no chosen generation.  That safety we wrap ourselves in to go through the days and nights is just an illusion, a necessary one perhaps, but deceptive nonetheless.

It takes so little to end our lives, no time at all and so very little to go wrong.  In her case, it was a car wreck that reached out and crushed her.  She'd fought so many things so hard for so long, but a wreck of the type she had is not a battle that anybody can win.

Her family told us today that because she was an organ donor, already over 37 people have been  helped because of parts of her that the doctors were able to harvest.  More may receive other organs.  Her liver saved a man on the transplant list.  Her heart went to someone else.  She was someone who always took care of others; even in her death, she continues to do so.

Seeing her in that box today was terrible, knowing that there are four kids who won't get to have their mother anymore, knowing that her family (of whom I think the world) won't have her there with them.  While there is a type of relief in knowing that she is out of so many of the things that caused her pain in this world and believing that she is now at rest in a better place, my worry is for those who are left behind.  Once the adrenaline and shock end, once the final parts of the ceremonies of death are concluded and the last of the covered dishes have been delivered, I worry that the grief will become unbearable.  I hope that they can cling to what they knew of her in life, what they know of the good that came from her loss, and what they know of her in eternity and find comfort.

Andy Griffith

Yesterday, my CNN news alert service sent one of its little emails to my inbox.  Frequently, these are just sports scores or a political updates about which I care very little.  When I glanced at the screen and saw the synopsis, though, I clicked on through to read again the brief message.  Andy Griffith had died.

The sadness that I felt was profound.  I have never met him; he is not of my family. We are decidedly of different generations. The only experience with him that I have ever had is, in some cases, over forty years old and in black and white.  Despite these facts, the news that he was gone was an oddly personal thing.

I grew up, like everybody else, probably, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  I didn't always like it.  It was "just on" at my grandparents' houses when I visited, and I didn't pay much attention then.  Some of it was funny, and I didn't dislike it; I was merely indifferent.

As I have grown older, though, I have come to recognize something in it that is absent in so many other shows, a genuine sense of love and respect for people that is at its foundation.  The situations Barney and the others get themselves into are the same sort of real-life absurdities that we all encounter or participate in, for the most part.  Pride gets in the way.  A mistake is made and the consequences emerge.  A misunderstanding arises because of a lack of patience or forethought. What is striking is the incredible gentleness everyone on the show has for everyone else.  Instead of telling Aunt Bea that her pickles are "kerosene," something that would crush her, Barney and Andy dump them and get her to try again.  Instead of assuming his son is lying despite a story he can't understand, Andy chooses to support Opie and check things out before issuing a punishment that he believes to be the right action at the time.  Even with Otis, a repeat offender and the town drunk, kindness and love are used.  He's treated like what he is, somebody who can't really help himself, instead of like a "criminal."

Too often, TV goes for the laugh at the cost of the character.  Even in the later shows Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did together, most specifically We Love Lucy, the comedy is laced with cruelty. All the characters in that show have devolved from what they were in the original I Love Lucy and become adversaries who spend all their time coming up with a clever insult or acidic ridicule for their wives, their husbands, their friends.  It might be humorous for a couple of episodes, but for my tastes, the more Chaucer-esque method of showing people for what they are, with affection but also with absolute truth, and recognizing that we are all ridiculous at certain moments is more entertaining than the constant put-downs and sniping that is more commonly found. After all, don't we all want this, this most basic recognition of our human dignity? 

Maybe this is why the loss of Andy Griffith yesterday was something that was so personal.  While I have no way to know how much of his public persona was actually based on his real life, from what I understand, the philosophies reflected in the show were his own.  Even if they weren't, he made a show that valued hope instead of hatefulness, and he should be honored for that.  Would that there were more who were willing to follow that legacy on and off the TV.

A Taste of Bloomington

Making mead is tough: the bee stings, the jousting, the suits of armor.  But for you, the loyal consumer of this royal beverage, it is worth the pain and suffering to deliver a mead of such great smoothness and classic honey flavor. So the next time you set out to discover new continents or to plunder a neighboring country,  provision yourself with plenty of Camelot Mead. 
~ Oliver Winery Website

When I was last in Bloomington, I bought several bottles of wine from Oliver Winery.  I had loved them when I lived in Bloomington, and at present, thanks to the screwed-up laws of the beautiful state of Mississippi, it is not possible to get their products here or have them shipped in.  As I finally got off the Topamax last week, I celebrated by opening a bottle of my favorite, Camelot Mead.  It's been waiting on me for quite awhile....

Oliver has been making this particular beverage since 1972.  I've not had mead from anywhere else, so my basis of comparison is small, but I do really love the way this tastes.  It is sweet without being cloying, and it is just better to me than most white wines.  Maybe it's the honey that does it.  I am not enough of an oenophile to know.  I would really love to be able to get it all the time, but as it stands, I'm rationing out the bottles I brought home with extreme care.

I love Oliver in general.  I love the story about it being started by one of IU's law professors as a hobby and now existing as one of the largest wineries in the eastern US.  I have never tried one of their wines that I did not like.  If you have the ability to go to Oliver or live in a state that isn't silly about its importation laws, I would suggest you try any of their wines, but most especially the Camelot Mead.  Hopefully, I will be able to get back to Bloomington (for so many reasons a happy place) and pick up some more for myself.  

Stuff and Things

I have just tried to remove 80+ pounds of large white dogness from my computer cords for about the fifteenth time today.  Chewie doesn't seem to approve of the computer or any of its attachments.  He looks up at me in sleepy bewilderment when I start trying to move him...and then he just ignores me. If I persist, he gets extremely indignant, walks away...and then is right back on top of everything less than ten minutes later.

I ordered a new lens for my Nikon, and now I'm waiting (not-so-patiently) for it to arrive.  It should give me wide-angle focus without the fisheye distortion, and I want to go out and take some pictures with it.  It's a used Nikkor 18-55, and I got a very good price on it I think.  I'm very hopeful about what it will let me do.  I'd like to go out shooting sometime soon, but I need a place to go.  It would be nice to be able to click my heels three times and be back in Brazil or somewhere similarly fabulous, but I will probably have to satisfy myself with local scenery.  Maybe it's time to go see Graceland or something...

Today was a day of laundry and reading, two things that have gone hand-in-hand for me forever it seems.  I used to take my textbooks to the laundry mat when I was in college and get massive amounts of homework done while I waited for whatever was spinning to stop spinning or fluffing to be fluffed.  Of all the household chores, I guess I like laundry the most because it's the least intrusive.  Then, too, there is the pleasant and comforting set of tactile things that comes with doing laundry, the smell of clean clothing, the warmth of a load of towels just removed from the dryer.  It's not bad.

I'm reading Skippy Dies on the recommendation of a former student.  There are moments in it that make me terribly sad for the main character, and well, for everybody in it, really.  Some of it is quite funny, but since it takes place in a school setting, a lot of it is just a little too familiar.  The characters are not caricatures; it's nothing that overt.  I guess school is school wherever you go, whether it's real or fictional, and the same types of people and situations sort of crop up in them.  I can say without question that unless there is a bright happy ending in store, I am going to have to read something totally escapist next.  And no more school as subject matter, I think, until my own real one returns.

Speaking of school, it's almost time for AP scores to be back.  I have already heard from one student.  The rest remain a mystery.  I'll just have to wait until Friday to find out.  It all seems a bit unreal this year for some reason.  I am usually sort of obsessed with the scores, but this year, while I care about them greatly and would like to see them, I just am not as worked up about it as I have been previously.  Maybe it's the way the year ended.  Maybe it's not having been to the Reading this year. I don't know.  I'm sure the reality of it will come crashing back down on me when I get the scores.

Well, my book and my washer are calling to me, so...

Brasilia's Anniversary

Brasilia's Anniversary was April 21 apparently.  This was the Google Doodle for the day, celebrating all the fantastic architecture we saw in Brasilia by Niemeyer.  He and his grandson actually MADE this doodle, so the Niemeyer experience keeps going.  Neat.

Coriolanus

I just saw the new version of Coriolanus with Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler.  I've never studied Coriolanus before, so every bit of this was new to me.  It was brutal from beginning to ending, well-adapted to a modern urban warfare setting.  I wonder what Shakespeare in his day intended us to take from it.

Coriolanus did indeed have flaws, but I am almost positive that his audience and a modern one won't necessarily read this play in the same way.  To me, there seems to be so much more fault in the people of Rome than in the tragic hero.  He dedicates his life to them, and yes, he is proud, hubris creeping its destructive tendrils in very early on.  However, in many ways, he seems not to be too proud.  Instead, he seems virtuous for refusing to "play the game" at the cost of his own integrity.  He is doomed from the moment he leaves the battlefield.  He is placed in a world of lies and manipulation, and even though according to him the world does not work this way, it grinds over him just the same.

If you haven't seen this new version, it is well worth your time.  Coriolanus doesn't get a lot of performances, and when you watch it, I think you will see why it is less frequently staged.  This version, though, gives a lot to think about after the final credits roll.  That's more than I can say for a lot of the movies I've seen....

Different

I've gone through another door lately in my life.  Things are different on the other side of it.  Maybe it's being on the "other side" of 35.  Maybe it's the international travel.  Maybe it's the freedom I found after all the bullshit at the end of last school year.  Whatever it is, some things have changed.

I bought dresses and skirts today.  It may sound like nothing, but for me, that's a huge change.  I wanted them and I intend to wear them, so instead of other things that didn't appeal to me, I bought them.  I also have shoes on the way here from Zappos.  I might not look like a total refugee this school year.

I'm cooking breakfast and making coffee in the mornings, dinner sometimes in the evening.  As if the cooking wasn't a big enough change, the coffee all by itself is a huge thing.  Just the smell of it in the morning reminds me of my Dad and my grandfathers.  In fact, I can almost see my Granddaddy sitting here in the living room with the bowl and mug he always drank his coffee in.  The echo and connection is an added pleasure to the beverage itself.

There are other things that are going to take some time to follow through with.  I just don't see things the way I did not that long ago.  It's nice.  It's a relief.  I was tired of that point of view, tired of that person.  While I'm still trying to figure out all the new corners of this space I'm currently in, it has to be better than where I was.

Too Darn Hot

I decided to go to town today since the thing with the bank has finally resolved.  As soon as I left the house, it was like being hit with a draft of air from a blast furnace.  Wet, scorching heat wrapped around me.  As I drove, I was aware that the air had a yellowish haze hanging just above the treeline, the nastiness literally made visible.

Welcome to summer in Mississippi.  I hope you packed your flip flops, your sunscreen, and lots and lots of liquids....

I checked Swackett to see how hot it was, how hot it was supposed to be, and for a short time, the GPS in it was firmly stuck on Brasilia.  I had to laugh.  I don't blame it.  The high today was 79 in Brasilia.  If I had a chance to stay in that comfortable, non-humid climate, I'd take it, too.

When Swackett finally hit a weather station near me, it registered 101 degrees.  The "feels like" temperature with the heat index is 109, though.  109.  We're not even close to August yet, which is when our weather usually gets super-stupid.  109.  Cheezus.

I dragged my stuff in the house when I got home and mixed up a jug of pink lemonade.  Just looking out the door at that shimmering golden goo that is passing itself off for atmosphere at present makes me feel hot and thirsty.  It's a good day to spend the rest of the afternoon on a couch somewhere with a fan turning above you.  Luckily, I happen to know just the right place for that.

Rings and Things

I'm sitting on the couch looking at two rings, one on each index finger.  The stone in one is clear quartz crystal.   The stone in the other is amethyst.  Each is a single large gem in a simple silver setting.  As I look at them, I see not the rings themselves but rather the places where I got them and the people who created them.  I will always see Brazil when I look at them on my hands.  It's why I bought them to start with.

The large amethyst was one of the first things I bought when I arrived.  I was walking in the Hippie Market at the base of the TV Tower in Brasilia, and I found a booth that had the most incredible gemstone jewelry.  I knew that I wanted a large piece of Brazilian amethyst, and when I saw the cabochon ring in the case, it felt exactly right.

I tried it on, and of course it was too small for me.  The jeweler and I negotiated in our respective languages for him to adjust it, and by the time I went back to the hotel for dinner, I was wearing the large dusky purple stone on my hand.  When I came back to Brasilia, my friends and I went back to the Hippy Market for one last bit of shopping before leaving the country.  I made sure to stop back by the gemstone jewelry booth while we were there.

To my happy surprise, the jeweler remembered me instantly.  I do understand that I am a little remarkable in my appearance, standing out even more when I'm abroad usually.  It still pleased me that he was happy to see me, not running away since we'd been through the whole resizing of the ring thing before.  A customer was there with him when we walked up, and as I looked through the cases, she started to speak to us in English.  She was a language teacher who liked to come down and buy things from the jeweler.  She helped us talk to each other, and I found two other pieces by him I liked, a pair of earrings and a pendant that matched my ring almost exactly in size and color.  As I was leaving, the jeweler asked me when I was coming back to Brazil.  I told him, "As soon as possible."  I meant it.  I also told him with the assistance of the teacher who was there that every time I saw the ring on my hand I would remember him and his kindness.  I meant that, too.

The other ring, the crystal one, is from Pocos de Caldas.  I bought it in the little shop downtown that was full of beautiful things from top to bottom, the mineral wealth of the region and the nation.  The girl in the shop and I found a way to communicate, she speaking Portuguese, me answering in Spanish, and she told me about each of the stones in the rings and necklaces when I asked.  Given the situation, it was a surprisingly good conversation.

When I saw the ring, I knew I wanted it.  The stone is clear as ice, and it catches light beautifully.  She brought it out of the case, and of all the things in the store, it was the only ring I tried on and had fit instantly.  I needed to go get more cash (since by this time the theft of my debit card number had occurred) to get it though.  I told her I would be back in my broken communication, and I headed for the ATM.  About 45 minutes later, after walking to the bank, calling my US bank and having an unpleasant conversation about my access to my accounts, and finally getting some money, I came back.  The ring balanced the Brasilia amethyst the remainder of the trip, and now every time I look at it, I think of Pocos, the hills, the city of clear, pure spring water, the cool and sweet air there.  The crystal quartz just fit.

Now, even though I am thousands of miles away from Brazil, I still carry it with me both metaphysically and literally.  It is as if the memories I have in some way solidified, were polished,  have been wrapped in delicate silver, and now can be seen by others, too.  I like the idea of that, actually.  These may not be pieces that fit every single person's tastes, but for me, they are a perfect memento of my journey.

Home Again

After a day of Wal-Marting and catching up on things undone here at home, I am relaxing on the couch.  I woke up with slim ankles again.  Inexplicably, despite the fact that they were swollen my entire two-week trip, all that was needed to take care of the problem seems to have been a night at home.  I don't understand my body's reaction to air travel.

Everything is unpacked and all the laundry is done.  All my purchases, what few I made, are put away.  It amused me to see that mostly this trip, I bought Havianas or necklaces made from natural materials, acai seeds, bits of murano glass, semiprecious stones.  I didn't spend a whole lot of money this trip, but somehow, I feel like I brought back worlds of wealth.

I set the tremendous crystal ball the teachers at David Compista gave us as a gift on my bedside table for the time being.  I like to look at it at night before I go to bed.  I'm trying to decide whether or not I will really take it to school.  I like the idea of having it there, but it might be safer and less hassle to have it here.

I need to be blogging over on the other space, but for tonight, I just want to do a little trivia.  I'm not up to feats of grandeur that I always feel are required with that trip blog.  Maybe tomorrow I will focus on getting it all shaped up.  I've already done most of my pictures.  I suppose there are still about 50 I need to edit, but I didn't feel up to dealing with that today.

Today, I have felt odd in my own spaces, a consequence of a big trip that changes everything, I suppose.  Brazil, even though it was only a 14-day hop, was that for me.  I haven't even sounded out all the things that are different yet.  Some of them are very small.  I have a mug of coffee sitting next to me.  I had a glass of the wine I've had since the last time I went to Bloomington with my casserole tonight.

Some of them are not.  I am constantly turning over ways I can do things related to Brazil in my classes next year.  I have a couple of ideas, and I am hoping very much that I can get them to work out.  I think I have a couple of ideas for projects for the National Honor Society, too.  I want to get started on it.

Regardless, I am still caught between two places mentally.  It's astonishing how fast I got used to Brazil, how comfortable it was.  I didn't feel that at home even in Costa Rica, and I could communicate much better in CR.  I want to learn Portuguese and go back to Brazil, spend real time there, see what it is that makes it feel so oddly familiar.

Now, I'm going to finish this cup of coffee and a book I've been working on forever.  Maybe by tomorrow it will have registered that there is not something I have to run around and do.  It still feels strange to be still and quiet.  I guess that's something else to get used to.

That Moment When

In every trip, there comes that moment when it becomes necessary to just walk away.  I had mine this afternoon.  I suppose it was about time, really.  It's almost the last day.  All the shine has worn off.  People are tired.  Perhaps they're not at their best.  I know I could use a long hot shower, some clean clothes that are not the ones I've been wearing for two weeks straight, and the sight of the people and places I love.

When the moment came, I felt everything in me rise up and declare war.  What I did was make myself quiet and still, tap my finger as a release mechanism, and wait.  And then, when the opportunity presented itself, I just got the hell out.

What good would have done to say what I was thinking?  It might have felt good at the time, but probably I would have regretted it later, if for no other reason than that it would have further soured what has been mostly a good trip more than the actions of the other individual had done.

Tomorrow, it will be gone, something ephemeral in the wind.  For now, a little solitude and a little music are powerful and necessary healers.

Things I Am Learning in Brazil

(a list)

• To let it go (whatever it is...stolen credit card, stressful year, premade plans)
• To go with God
• To be hugged
• To buy the thing when I see the thing if I want the thing at all
• To take more pictures than I possibly think I could ever want
• To drink the wine
• To try to other stuff, too
• To fold up like origami again
• To see slices of Mississippi between the leaves of banana trees
• To buy perfume
• To drink the coffee
• To feed monkeys bananas
• To buy the Havianas with the little jewels on the thongs
• To wear clothes twice (or more) and do laundry in the sink
• To be on TV.  A lot.
• To communicate in a mixture of bad Portuguese, middling Spanish, and flailing hands
• To look around and try to remember everything because I know all too soon, this is going to be over. I will still have with me all the things I have learned, though.

When Bad Things Happen

(written Friday)

Today deserves a special award. It had included having to deal with the consequences of some right red sonofabitch somewhere in North Carolina who stole my debit card number somehow (may he rot in Hell) and also an extended period of handwashing my own delicates in strong detergent and hot water in the hotel sink. As I type Adele’s voice is masking the sound of things dripping dry.

I have had SNAFUs and bank misunderstandings abroad, but I’ve never opened an email and seen, basically, “Call us. It’s all gone to hell. Kisses, Your Bank.” I thought at first it was a spam mail, and as busy as things are on this trip, I truly started to ignore it. That little niggling voice of paranoia in the back of my head, though, said, “No. Call. Even though it’s going to cost you a small fortune, at least you will have peace of mind. Call.” That was when all the wheels came off a day that was actually going pretty well….

I talked to four different departments of my own bank and a service of Visa called “Visa 911.” I gave my personal identifying information about 847 times. I ran up a phone bill that I can’t even bear to ponder out of the corners of my mind’s eye. It was a truly surreal thing to be standing in the cool airy courtyard of a school here in Pocos de Caldas while my entire financial life was on the verge of spinning into the toilet. Birds sang, a soft breeze blew continuously. Life was continuing, but I felt angry, worried, and most of all, violated by some anonymous person who felt like what was mine should be theirs just because.

It’s resolved to the point that it can be while I’m still abroad. When I return home, the next round of fun will begin. I don’t even want to think about how many things are keyed to that damn number. That’s fine, though. It will all get taken care of eventually. I am grateful to my bank for its vigilance. What I can’t get back is that feeling of utter helplessness as I was thousands of miles away from home and locked away from my money. There are not words for what I hope happens to the cause of it.

Yeah. What You Said....

I've been using a hybrid Portuglish (or Spanglese) mix to get things accomplished here in Brazil.  It's been going okay.  It hasn't been a stunning success every time.  I am picking up more and more Portuguese, catching the sound of it more quickly than I had thought I would because of its relationship to Spanish, but there have been some really ridiculous moments.

There have been endless patient people in restaurants, stores, and taxis who have helped me get what I need with my mixed and flailing language.  If you've never had this experience, you ought to put yourself on a plane most immediately and go do it.  I think nothing puts you in your appropriate place as much as spending some quality time trying to deal with the basics of life while having to work for basic communication.

I am still laughing about realizing that I told our waitress at lunch that I and my group were separated like people getting a divorce instead of using the word that means wanting separate checks.  Damn you, false cognates and near homophones.  There is, after all, a world of difference in the RIGHT word and the word that is ALMOST right.  The waitress at the place we had lunch, a sushi restaurant by the lake here in Brasilia, was fantastic.  She assumed my language command was way better than it was, but we pressed on, had lunch, paid for it, and had a good time.

Tonight, we went back to that same area by the lake for a late dinner.  We didn't go to the sushi bar, but rather to a place that serves caipirinhas with a limeade popsicle in them.  I had one and didn't finish it.  I could feel the cachaça from the first sip, and while I liked the taste, Topamax and alcohol really don't mix well.  One of the members of my group kept telling me to finish the drink, and I told him he'd have to carry me out.  I will probably try one again, but sheesh....  I think two would put me on the floor.

I need to be in bed, but I feel like reading and listening to some music.  Tomorrow, we leave Brasilia for our other city.  I am looking forward to it, but it's hard to think this time has gone so fast.  I guess it always does when you're having fun with language....

Swollen Ankles, Chocolate Bonbons, and the Perfect Pizza

Today was a marathon of meetings.  I had a lot of great cross-cultural experiences which I probably won't discuss much here as I need to save something for the other blog.  After it was all done, I found myself back at the food court again for dinner. That wasn't such a bad thing.  I think about half the group went to a bar by the lake, but I just wasn't quite up to barring tonight.  We had so much today that it didn't even sound good.

I had been told before I came to make sure I tried the pizza, so merrily to the pizza stand I went.  They were out of the stuff for the four cheese pizza which was what everybody has been telling us we MUST EAT, so I had pepperoni instead.  You just cannot go wrong with pepperoni.  It doesn't matter where you are; this is always a good option.

I ran down to the little store in the basement of the mall again for a few more Sonho de Valsa and I brought myself back hotelward after that.  My ankles are hugely swollen still from the flight.  I hate that.  Anytime I fly or drive a really long time, it takes days for my body to adjust.  I look like the marshmallow girl around my ankles, and no amount of water I drink seems to help.  Now, I'm on my bed with my laptop playing fluffish music finishing up my presentation for tomorrow with my feet up.  Soon it will be bedtime.

I will write up today tomorrow more than likely.  I just need to get a little rest tonight.  Maybe tomorrow my feet won't look be silly.

Introverts Abroad

It's hard to be an introvert on a group trip.  I don't want to appear antisocial or disinterested, but there are moments when I deeply, profoundly, and truly need time to myself.  I like all the people on the trip.  They are interesting, intelligent, insightful, and yet, when I've been crammed into meeting rooms and on buses with them for eight hours, I start to feel my edges fray.

I don't know if any of them feel this or not.  I can't tell if I'm the only "quiet one" or not.  I don't want to be the one who hides up in her room, and, as far as I know, I haven't been, but I need to be quiet some, think some, recharge some.  I don't think extroverts get that.  I think they take it personally when, really, it doesn't have anything to do with them.  I've been on trips where I (and others like me, the quiet ones) also have been shut out of doing everything with the group out of some misunderstanding of what this is.

So for those of you who don't get it, let me explain and make a small request:  this is not about being stuck up.  It's not that the quiet chick in the corner doesn't want to do stuff with you.  It's that sometimes she desperately needs not to.  Not always.  And most of the time she really wants to.  But sometimes, just briefly, she is going to need that little bit of alone time.  She feeds off it the way you feed off being in a crowd.

I have often thought that life must be so much easier for extroverts.  They can walk into a crowded space and, zing, their little internal batteries are charging right up.  I don't even know what that must be like.  I have to push myself, and then, by the end of the day, I'm worn out with it.

This trip has included several breaks between things so I can come back to the room for a few precious minutes of recharging.  Even more important, I have no roommate, so in the evenings, total privacy and necessary solitude is mine.  I can face the others in the morning refreshed and ready to enjoy them again.

There is no point in wishing I were not this way.  There are a lot of books and things out now talking about the benefits to individuals and society of the introvert.  I haven't read the first one of those, but I can't believe it's all bad.  It's just different, and I wish it were better understood by the "other half."  I hope the people on this trip will be tolerant of me.  So far so good.  Maybe if I can push forward and they can wait just a minute while I catch my breath, all will be well.

Packing...Again

I HATE packing.  Hate it.  I wish I had magic little elves who could do it for me.  There is always a debate about which piece of luggage to use, the big monster I have that holds EVERYTHING but frequently makes me run overweight if I'm not really careful or the smaller and more maneuverable case that doesn't leave much space for bringing things home.  This trip, to avoid having to repack at the gate coming home, I'm taking the small one.  Let's hope this doesn't turn into a mistake.

One thing I am trying this time that I already love is the packing cube system.  Mine are Eagle Creek, but I think several companies make them.  I have three, and they corralled all my garments. I had several of the compressor bags already, and between the cubes and the compressors, everything is tightly organized and compartmentalized.  This way, if TSA gets after my bags, they should go back together neatly.  They will also pack and unpack fast.

It never ceases to amaze me how much there is to getting ready for a trip.  There is always one more thing left to do, to clean, to take care of.  I have been trying to get everything rounded up for this one for a long time now, but now, it's the night before and I still have many little things on my list that aren't checked off.

Fortunately, for once, my flight isn't leaving at the crack of dawn.  I am going to take care of a few more things, shoo Pearl off my suitcase (her method of protesting my leaving involves a great deal of grey cat hair on the exterior), and get a little sleep.  Before I go to bed, I'll make sure all the electronics are charging so the final syncs and packing of all the gadgets can be done when I get up (one more little travel chore that seems trivial but actually takes time).

It will all be worth it when I get there.  I am so excited for this trip.  If I just keep telling myself that everything I'm doing is getting me that much closer to Brazil, then it will all seem worth it.

Random

(what it says on the tin)

• What does our TV say about us as a culture?  I've been watching some daytime TV (and by that I mean things like reruns of I Love Lucy, Criminal Intent, and Doctor Who) while I've been home, and the commercials just blow me away.  If, as psychology classes will tell you, commercials indicate the values of a culture, we are obsessed with some pretty horrible and depressing stuff.  Just sayin'.
• Still not packing.  Once again, a trip is upon me and I have not yet begun to pack.  I feel stubborn about this, too.  I will do it this evening.  I just want a little bit of time that is peaceful.  
• The multi-gesture pad on this new laptop takes some getting used to.  I have reduced the size of the font on this screen to the point of not being able to read it at all twice now.  Yeaah.  The messing it up was easy.  The undoing of it, somehow, was not.
• I'm going back to scarf weather in Brazil.  This makes me a lot happier than it should.
• I'm looking forward to having stuff to photograph again.  Just thinking about having my camera in hand makes me smile.  I haven't been out with it in awhile.  It will be good to be in a place where I can see new things and try to capture them.  I enjoy that part of travel maybe most of all.
• Tonight I need to teach my parents how to use Google video chat.  You may laugh hysterically now.  No.  I'm not selling tickets.  

Off to slack more.

Fragments

When you mend the patches of my clothin'
You know every thread goes through my heart
Guessin' that the river's gonna dry up
Well, I said that's not the reason why we part....
"The Sparrow and the Medicine" ~  The Tallest Man on Earth
______________________________________


When you break something fragile, pieces go everywhere.  If you've ever dropped a glass in your kitchen, you know this all too well, probably.  Even after carefully sweeping and getting into all the corners, if you're not very, very careful, at some point a careless foot will encounter that one remaining fragment.

It's like that when a relationship ends.  I'm not necessarily talking about romance, although certainly it applies to that.  When any sort of relationship that means anything ends, there are always bits of it floating around waiting to catch you when you're not quite paying attention.  Right now, for me, it definitely wasn't a romance that ended (nothing could have been farther from it if it had been trying), but it was a friendship that meant something to me, at least.  And now that it's apparently gone, the pieces of it that are still skittering around on the kitchen floor despite my best efforts at sweeping up bother me profoundly.

The music is the worst right now.  There's so much of it that I love that got attached to that particular situation, that particular person, and now I have to reclaim it, remake it, find a new way to go on with it.  Some of it I am just staying away from altogether for awhile.  I will come back to it again, I am sure, and when I do, the absence perhaps will have made my heart grow clichedly fonder.

It's not just the music, though.  There are little shining fragments everywhere.  Topics of conversation.  Books.  Movies.  I hate that.  I hate that I see things and think, "Oh, I should tell...."  and then I remember that this is not something that happens anymore.  I hate that the reflexive action to share things is still active. I hate that things I love are now always going to be tied to this...ending.

And when I think about the why...  There wasn't even an open disagreement. I would have felt better if there had been a loud shouty fight. At least, then, there could have been a legitimate and honest ending.  Instead, there is just this tacit absolute silence that has grown to the point of being something lethal.  Sometimes nothing is more deadly than anything else.  There are many kinds of silences.  There is the companionable and pleasant kind, there is the polite but attentive kind that tolerates, and then there is the f-you kind.  We're over into that last kind.  It frequently makes me frustrated and angry, mostly with myself I guess, for making such an error in judgement and allowing someone to get close enough to me to matter when they were gone.

I tend to hold on to my friends.  Even if our lives change, I usually find a way to keep up with them somehow when they matter and are not just acquaintances.  My group of true friends is small, and I've had most of them for a very long time.  I don't do the whole casual cloud of millions thing.  I have only lost one or two who I considered close over the years, moved away from them or our lives just changed completely and by mutual agreement we stopped talking.  This, I guess, is going to wind up in that file.  I  I just wonder how long I'm going to keep cutting myself accidentally on the fragments of regret left behind.

Hugin Lives

My trusty netbook died on me yesterday.  It has been more than a trooper, having been to England, Rome, San Francisco, DC twice, Nashville, Louisville twice, New Orleans a couple of times, and who knows how many other little local trips.  It has been my travel workhorse banging around in my bag and through airport security.  When I was getting ready to go to England for Spring Break, I noticed that it was behaving badly, blue screening me and so forth, but I had hoped it was a software issue that I had remedied.  Apparently not.

I got on NewEgg and started looking.  I managed to find this Acer Aspire One 722.  It's a dual core netbook, and the difference in performance from my old one to this is completely a night/day thing.  I'm amazed at how well this little computer is working.  It settles my mind in so many ways, not having to worry about the old one dying (because that's over with), not having to worry about it hanging up or being insufficient to the tasks at hand, having about as much horsepower under the hood here as with my big laptop (I think).

I kept the name.  This one, too, is Hugin.  I like my paired ravens from myth, and I still find them appropriate.  Just as I had rechristened my 1GB external hard drive Muninn2, the new netbook is HuginII.  The newest incarnations of my sleek black technological birds can fly and deliver now.

It's been a long day of setting up Hugin and trying to get my desktop in the back office working right again.  I had been very neglectful of the desktop, and the antivirus had run out.  That was the least of the problems.  It was in bad shape.  It took HOURS of work to get it unSNAFUed.  It had to be updated, cleaned out, synched, protected, and generally made functional rather than a liability again.  I could not do computers all day everyday.  I would lose my mind.  There are hours of wait-time while they "do their do," and moments of blood pressure elevating frustration when they refuse to do what you want them to do.  Granted, if I were more technically savvy, I might be able to hack through the latter with greater ease, but some things, I think, just take time to walk through all the steps and stages.

I hate that.

Anyway, I do feel some accomplishment in finally getting this big list of tasks taken care of.  I am thrilled with the new netbook.  It should be perfect for keeping in touch with everyone and keeping them up to date with what is going on during my trip.  While I know that the need for it when I travel indicates the level of my technology addiction, I don't really intend to apologize.

What to Say and How to Say It

I've been working on the presentation about Mississippi that I will need to take with me to Brazil for the past day or so.  It has, in the way of such things, turned into a monster project.  Whenever I start making a PowerPoint for something, it tends to get massive, anyway, but when I know I'm going into a group that has no background knowledge, I want to make sure I give lots of images, multimedia when I can.  This makes the presentation hard to build, massive to store, huge for a machine to handle.

The hardest part hasn't been the technical assembly.  PowerPoint, the medium I chose because it works best in an environment that has limited tech access, and I are old friends.  The hard part has been trying to figure out what to say.  If my job is to give an overview of my state, what do I put in?  What do I leave out?  This is complicated if you're from Mississippi.

There are so many ways to approach my state.  You can take the Glorious Past route with strains of "Dixie" playing in the background.  You can take the Tourism route with casinos and Pilgrimage homes shining in the afternoon sun.  You can take the Race Hate route and display all the ugliness and inequality that have been a part of life here in the past.  You can take the Redneck route and show the poverty and ignorance that abound. You can look at the Arts, show the massive contribution Mississippi has made to literature and music.  You can even go with the Southern Sports life route, focus only on all the aspects of football and hunting if that's what floats your boat.  This is not even an exhaustive list.  Mississippi has all these things and more for people to pull out of her depending on what it is they personally want from her.

So what about me?  As I am planning to try to tell others about my state, what should I leave in?  What should I leave out?  What is the best way to explain what this state is?  I am not going to bash it.  Certainly I think there are things it does poorly, but I think that can be said of anywhere, everywhere.  I think we are a mixture of good things and bad things, just like every other place.  At the same time, I don't think it is right to gloss over the bad things in our past, pretend like everything has always been some kind of sterilized Technicolor dream here.  When people have fought and bled and died, you don't dishonor that sacrifice because it doesn't make for good PR.  We have a huge horrible thing in our past.  America has a huge horrible thing in her past.  We are still moving on from it.  That doesn't mean that we have the right to sweep it under the rug because it makes us or others uncomfortable to look at it.

And yet.  All so many people know of Mississippi is a stereotype of poverty, racism, and...well...bare feet and overalls.  They seem to think we're all Snopeses somehow.  Those of us who were born here and live here are sort of used to that misunderstanding.  We know there is a lot more to us than that, that things here have changed tremendously, that we are frequently generalized and misrepresented, that we have great good as well as struggles we are trying to overcome.  What I want to make sure that I do, though, is find a way to show  us accurately.  When it is as complex as this situation is, though, how can I be sure to do that with honesty and sensitivity?

All I can do is try.  It makes me nervous to say, "Here is my state.  This is the truth of it."  Instead, what I would like to say is "Here is my state.  This is the way I see it."  This would be more comfortable and more true.  Who among us can really know the heart of a place, the whole of it?  Even though I have lived here my  entire life, I find new parts of Mississippi all the time, every time I meet somebody new or go somewhere I haven't been before in the state.  It would be arrogant to think I knew it through and through just because I happened to be born here.  Maybe if I approach this presentation with that mindset, I will be more comfortable.  Of all the things I'll be doing, this is the one that is difficult.

City of Death

I'm on a Classic Doctor Who kick, and when I saw this series on Amazon Prime streaming, I almost giggled.  I have been wanting to rewatch it forever.  I haven't seen it in years and years, and it is one of the best of the classic DWs.

There are so very many things that make this one good.  I hardly know where to begin.  There's the fact that this was the first series to be filmed outside the UK.  Therefore, the locations aren't cheesy backlots.  They make much of that.  You get to see lots of Paris, and it really makes a difference somehow.

The setting, though, isn't nearly as great as the dialogue in this one.  Tom Baker's DW years always had good witty repartee between the main characters.  I think that if it wasn't there, he was sort of ad libbing it as he went.  This series was mostly written by Douglas Adams (and if you don't know who he is, turn in your Geek Card now) and it just sparkles like a gem in bright light.  Everybody is clever.  The baddies are clever.  The secondary characters get good lines.  And the Doctor and Romana, well, the Doctor and Romana absolutely scintillate.

There is so much to love in this.  You get science fiction and time travel but bound up with the most human of things, quite literally, in some cases.  There's great art and artists, too.  In fact, the Mona Lisa becomes a key touchstone of the whole thing, something that probably endears this episode to me even more since I have such a fascination with that piece of art.  (I know.  Me and half the world.  But still.)  There is even a brief John Cleese cameo I had totally forgotten.

It is, then, in every possible way, perfect.  If you've never seen Doctor Who before or only watched the new series, this is a good place to start.  There are other episodes I like better to be sure.  The Pyramids of Mars  and Sutekh's absolute Egyptian camp cannot be defeated for first place in my heart of hearts, but this one with its charm and its wit are probably running a close second.

History Speaking - Old Capitol Museum

Today, I went to Jackson seeking things to take to Brazil.  I knew that I wanted to take things that were as representative of Mississippi as I could, things made here, crafted by people from here if possible.  The big problem is finding things like this, especially affordable things in the quantity I needed.  I picked up my best friend, and we made a day of it.

Rotunda, Old Capitol Museum, Jackson, MS

We started at the Old Capitol Museum in downtown.  I had remembered a large gift shop there from when I had gone a long time ago, and I decided it would be a good place to start.  The Old Capitol was damaged heavily when Katrina came through, and it underwent major renovations after that.  It was very different.  The restored building has multimedia exhibitions and is very nice.  It is a very pleasant place now.

One of the exhibitions is a screen that scrolls down from the ceiling in the former House chamber on the hour and half-hour.  A film is projected onto it with actors recreating the debate that took place when Mississippi chose to secede from the Union.  It is rather intense to stand and watch as the actors attempt to persuade you to vote for or against secession.   As I stood on the third-floor balcony looking down at that film playing to the huge chamber, empty except for my friend and me, it struck me suddenly that I was standing in the place where that decision had happened, that it wasn't an abstract nebulous concept, some random string of dead letters on a page, but real people who had argued with each other and had come to the decision that the best thing for the state was to leave the Union.

Somehow, even though I have lived here and grown up as any Mississippi native or transplant does surrounded by the Past (with the capital P on purpose), it seldom feels real.  Maybe it is exactly because we are so inundated with it that it lacks sharpness.  You don't have to go far to see it.  It might be a redneck with a rebel flag sticker or a devout bunch of costumed Civil War reenactors on a major holiday, but keeping the past alive is a full-time hobby or job for people here.  There are even holidays that nobody else takes, for example, my trash didn't get picked up because it was Confederate Memorial Day. (Who takes THAT?  Apparently my trash guys.)   I think all this familiarity breeds contempt, though, or at least builds up a giant callus. We drive past major moments in history everywhere, and I think that sometimes we need to shake off that ennui and remember that real people struggled, chose, lived, and died during them.  I don't mean that every moment needs to be dedicated to glorifying or resurrecting that past, but when we become so numb to it that it becomes just another part of the background, I think something important has been lost.

Doorknob Detail
Governor's Office Door

The museum had a very fine edge to tread, and it did it well.  While we have some things and some people of which we may be very rightly proud in our state, Mississippi's past, let's face it, is not exactly 100% glorious.  I won't absolve my state of any past transgressions nor will I try to gloss them over, but I will say that we are not alone in that in this nation.  We are not alone in that in this world.  Every place has some part of its past that it must overcome. Every place, just like every person, has some scar to carry with it, some wound to heal.

 That's the other reason museums and the going to them are important.  For better or worse, even if it's something quite terrible, I think it's always better to know who you really are and what you really come from.  Know your good and your bad, your strengths and your weaknesses.  Such self-knowledge gives a firm foundation to build a future on.  The museum is a living example of that, and not just in its exhibitions. In its various stages and phases of renovation, it has physically removed the bad, that which has decayed through time so much as to be no longer functional, and it has replaced those things with that which supports, that which meets the needs of the current day. One whole room chronicles the various changes the Old Capitol has had to make to survive including removing original brick in some cases because it was crumbling or damaged and of course restorations after not one but two hurricanes sheared away its roof.  I guess we can use the Old Capitol as a bit of an object lesson, not just for what is housed inside it but also for the structure itself then.  If we as a state and we as individuals within it can manage to do as well as this one museum,  perhaps we can all use the past, whatever mixture of good and bad it may be, to reinvent ourselves gracefully to meet the challenges ahead.

Prying the Fingers Loose

Some things I always want to hold onto even after I know they're no longer functional.  There's a sentimentality to that.  I grow attached to places, to things, to people, and even when I know it's time to leave or let go, it's hard to do.  It's especially hard when the situation in question is something that is precious. Foolishly, I suppose, I think some way will be found to renovate, refresh, revive.  Usually what happens instead is that I just wind up with something broken and slightly dangerous in my hands and a lot of time wasted for my efforts.

I have a situation that I've known was falling apart now for awhile.  When I say awhile, I mean a very long time.  I've slowly watched things change, misunderstandings happen, vitality disappear, and I've known that I should do something about it, but once upon a time, this meant a great deal to me, so I've held on to it hopefully, thinking that I'd find a way to mend it or make it good again. Maybe that only happens in fairy tales, though, that sudden turning of hearts, that miraculous healing of relationships.

It's been brought home to me rather brutally lately, though, by another issue that the last-minute healing and mending doesn't really happen that often.  Everybody involved has to want it, work toward it.  When something is foundering, this is hardly ever the case. It founders precisely because one or more of the parties involved no longer cares enough to maintain.  It's foolish to continue holding out a hand just to have it slapped down or ignored.  It's foolish to set oneself up for the hurt.  If I have learned nothing else in the past two months, that lesson I got.  In spades.

So I am moving toward peace with this, I think.  Maybe it's only the ashes of something that was once wonderful in my hand anyway.  I am opening my tightly-clenched fist to the winds and letting whatever is refuse be blown away.  This is an ending that has been a long time in coming, mostly because I've been a long time in letting it.  A wiser person than I would have said what needed to be said, done what needed to be done, and gotten free of it all a long time ago.

When Literature and Rock Collide

On my way home today, "She's So Cold" from the Rolling Stones was blasting and I was singing along when it hit me.  The lyrics of that song are just a reworking of Spenser's sonnet "My Love Is Like to Ice." I teach it every year to two different courses, so it is kicking around in the back of my mind fairly handy.  Here's the Spenserian sonnet:


My Love Is Like To Ice

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal's with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

Here's the Rolling Stones:

You judge for yourself.  Maybe it's just a case of that old adage that there's just nothing new under the sun, but this juxtaposition of things made me really, really happy as I sailed down the highway.  Think I'll use this next year when it comes time to teach this again.

Ducks and Books

Chewie is cavorting through the living room attacking his green squeaky duck.  He tosses it, chases it like it ran away, springs on it as if it has defied the will of God and man, and then gnaws it in brief contentment before repeating the cycle.  Roux is watching him a little warily from her perch on the couch.  Life rolls on.

Roux can stand now on her own for short stretches, but she still can't walk. I carry her outside like the oversized child she is.  If you don't think a pit bull is a hefty dog, then come tote mine.... Her appetite remains extremely good; I just fed her.  She drinks plenty.  I sneak her small treats, tiny bites of cheese if I have some, a morsel of my lunch, a strip of crust off my breakfast slice of bread.  She is alert when she needs or wants to be.  The rest of the time she snores in oblivion.  I am hopeful that tomorrow will be the day she walks some on her own.

When I wasn't dog-nursing today, I did laundry and read.  The laundry was just something running in the background.  It is probably my favorite chore because it is so low-maintenance.  So many other things can get done while it is being processed.  The sheer luxury of a day reading, though, and totally guilt-free, was fantastic.  I've read two-and-a-half books in the past three days.  I am now rereading The Hobbit, and unless I decide to do something else, I will probably finish it up tonight.  The feeling of ripping through text for pleasure is fantastic.  I just need to keep my Kindle adequately charged.

It has only just started to register that the summer is actually here, that everything is finally over.  Tonight, I was at my parents' house having dinner with them, and I caught myself with that twisting feeling that I always get at the end of the weekend when I know I have to go back and face a problem at school the next day.  Then I smiled.  There are no more next days to go back to.  For better or worse, it's all over now.  My mother looked at me and said, "Just started to sink in that it's summer, right?"  When your parent also has done what you do for a living a lot longer than you have, it sort of makes you transparent in certain situations, I suppose....

I want to write some things about some music I'm listening to lately, my current auditory obsessions.  I might get around to that in a couple of days.  I also have to finish up preparations for Brazil.  That is looming ever-closer, and I'm really no more prepared for it than I have been.  As usual.  I also need to do a thorough cleaning of my house, and, for the first time in a really long time, I want to have people over.  Yeah, the house is still ramshackle, but if I keep waiting for that to change, I may be 90.  Screw it.  They're not coming to see my house, right?  (right?)  I miss seeing my friends.  I'm going to see if I can put together a way to get some of them together.  It will probably have to be after Brazil, but I am going to do this.

For now, though, I'm just going to enjoy my book and my snoring dog.

Returned

I had mourned them all day and was trying to figure out some way to get up and force myself to go to the church to play for night services when I saw Roux's face appear in the lower portion of the glass of the storm door.  At first, I wondered if I was just seeing what I wanted to see.  I had, after all, been praying for that sight for hours, wishing for it, willing it to happen.  Then Chewie's big white head popped up next to hers, and I stumbled over to the door and managed to work the lock with through my tear-blurry vision to let them in.

I had been so upset because my biggest fear was that they had been taken by someone.  Nothing good ever happens for dogs that are stolen.  It's not like somebody takes them to a loving new home.  All I could see in my head was them being used for bait dogs and being so afraid and not understanding why someone would be so cruel to them.  The not-knowing was killing me.  With every passing hour and with every acre we searched it just seemed more likely that something like that had happened.  Only once or twice in my life have I felt relief as profound as when I saw them at the door.

Roux is not in the best shape this morning.  If the speed she is moving right now is the speed she was moving as she came home, I can see why it took so long.  She can just barely walk.  She has over-extended herself in the extreme.  I'm feeding her pain pills and carrying her outside, putting her on the couch, making sure she eats and excretes.  There is nothing else I can do for her right now.  She's been almost here before, exhausted to the point of collapse, but this actually is the worst I've ever seen it.  As long as she keeps taking in and putting out, keeps being responsive, then rest is the best cure for her.  I've panic-buttoned her before, but the vet has told me on other occasions that she just has to recover from these excesses.  I wonder how long it will take this time.

Somehow she managed to abrade the tough leathery skin of the pad of her front paws off.  Each step must be agony.  I can't imagine how far she must have walked or on what surface to have done that.  It would be the equivalent of the entire sole of your foot being covered in broken blisters.  I think this is the main reason she doesn't want to walk much, and I am trying as much as possible to carry her so she doesn't have to put pressure on her poor tattered paws.  What could have done that?  Regular grass or woodland walking should not have damaged her feet that way.

Chewie seems fine.  He is asleep in the big brown leather chair he has commandeered for himself.  He is less bouncy than usual, but still had enough vim and vigour to drag me all over the yard this morning on the leash for his morning constitutional.  I guess we will both walk.  It will be good for us both, too.

So, for awhile then, I will be a dog nurse.  I am happy to play the role.  It's not the first time.  Roux and I are old hands at this after cedar trees, knee surgeries, skunk debacles, and all her other adventures.   I only hope that this time, too, Roux will get better.  Even if she for some reason does not, though, at least she came home.  I know that may sound strange that it would be any consolation to me, and it will be a very small one, but at least I will know that she was here with me if something should happen and not out stranded in the wild or being harmed by strangers.

Malice v. Stupidity

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." ~ Unknown

I need to put this one somewhere I can see it often, I think.

Missing

 I writing this because I have to do something to stay busy and give myself the illusion of control, or I'm just going to stand in my yard and scream until I die.

Chewie and Roux are both missing.  I let them out yesterday about 3:00 for some outdoor time.  I almost never let Roux out off her leash because she is prone to do things like wind up stuck in a tree or disappear for half the day.  However, she enjoys it so much that occasionally I do let her roam some.  Since Chewie came, they have been very reasonable about coming home before it gets late.  Her 12-hour adventures have been more like 5 or  6 hour jaunts.  He doesn't like to be away from the house for that long, and he's a good shepherd for her.  Also, she's not nearly as young as she used to be, and it's harder for her to be away for that long.

11:00 last night came and went, and no panting faces had pressed themselves against my front door looking for food and companionship.  I started to be uneasy, and I went outside and called them.  Then I waited.  1:00 came, and the Topamax said it was time to sleep.  I went out and drove around before I went to bed, something that usually brings them in.  No dogs.  I went to bed, and woke up twice during the night to check if they were outside.

At seven, when the light was good, I got up and went to the woods.  I called Mom.  She came.  We searched pretty much the entire section I live on and most of what is adjacent that my uncle owns, too.  There was no sign of them, no high pitched yelp signaling that Roux was up to her old tricks again and had gotten herself into a jam and needed help.  There was only distant birdsong from areas we weren't calling for them in and the sound of us moving through the woods.

I drove around the roads nearby, went out on a logging road across from my property on some land owned by UA to see if perhaps they had ventured out into that huge area.  There wasn't a single sign, no white curling tail, no bouncing red body.

It has been 21 hours since I saw them last.  Right now, the sweetest sound in the world to me would be the distinctive jingle of their huge collar tags, the noise I always hear as they shake their heads coming up on the porch just before I see them looking in.  I feel like a part of me has been torn out and destroyed.  I always knew that I might possibly lose one of them to an accident of some kind, conceivably to natural causes, and inevitably to old age, but to lose them both on the same day is probably going to be more than I can stand.

Cleaning Out

The end of the year is finally here.  It's been one hell of a year.  And I mean that in every possible way that it can be taken.  All the shouting is done now, and I have no obligation left to it or for it.  That is a much nicer feeling than I can express.

At the end of every year, it is necessary to clean out the debris that builds up, throw away and toss out what is no longer useful.  Some of that is physical; some of that is not.  The important thing is that you don't carry that worthless dross with you into whatever is coming next.  Unpack all the bags, debride all the wounds that have gone unattended, fortify and patch where needed.  These are year-end tasks.

Sometimes the mental cleaning is worse than the physical labor ever could be.  As teachers, I think we tend to become too attached to our jobs.  It's dangerous, and I am not sure it is good for us.  I watched person after person today who was retiring from our little home say that they had let this job become their whole lives, and they were hurting as they left.  I recognized myself in them.  I have, for eight long years now, lived for this job.  It has been my great joy, my happy game, my serious obsession.

And then, because there are the times that it is all these things, there are the times that it has been like a knife twisting in a wound.  When one of my students took his own life.  When I got word another one had been shot for reasons unknown.  Other things far less dire but somehow more hurtful because they were deliberate and without cause, just random acts of pointless jackassery lobbed in my direction, because, I suppose, a target was needed.

When it's done, though, beautifully, it's over.  The choice about whether or not I keep packing it up and hauling it around with me is mine.  I choose to take only the good.  It was there.  Lots of it.  Running over the top and washing out the other.  I will keep the good, the sweet, the precious, and the rest of it can go...well...frankly...wherever it likes.  It's not my problem anymore.

Things They Don't Tell You

Life would be so much easier if people would just TELL you things.  I know experience is supposed to be the best teacher and we all learn better by doing, but some things should not have to be mysteries wrapped up in enigmas wrapped up in things I have suffer and  to go Google to find out about.

Like my recent tetanus shot.  My arm felt like it was going to fall completely off yesterday.  Most of the other symptoms had gotten manageable, but I literally could not raise my arm without it feeling like someone was stabbing me.  It was as if I had a very bad cut and huge stitches through that muscle.  There's a hard place there, too, and it's a little red.  It itches some.

My mind IMMEDIATELY begins to think, "Okay.  This wasn't exactly covered by 'mild irritation at injection site.'  Maybe I need to be worried?  Do I need to be worried?  Is this too much, or is this normal? Am I in the range of symptoms that needs to call the doctor?"

Not wanting to push the panic button, I ignored it most of the day, and, well, did stuff that didn't involve raising that hand.  Or raised it anyway and went, "Owowowowow" in my head.  Finally, though, when I got home, it was so stiff and sore that I decided I would look up what a bad tetanus shot might be like to find out if I needed to be concerned or not.

The answer was a resounding no.  In fact, according to the information I found, tetanus shots are worse for everybody on the second day after.  They can give pain for up to a full week, but day 2 is usually the peak of the agony.  Well...isn't that...nice?  But it did explain what was going on, and I felt better knowing I wasn't about to have some exotic bad reaction to the injection and...explode...or something....

Here's the thing, though.  If apparently everybody has that problem, why didn't the information sheet (front and back, both sides) include that?  If the way to mitigate the pain is ice packs and Tylenol, why isn't that recommended....ANYWHERE?  All the information sheet covers is "You may feel bad. Here's how!"  And then it's vague and scary with its three classes of symptoms.  Be practical.  Be specific.  Tell people, "You're going to feel like a damn Greyhound bus hit you at high speed.  In the arm.  Twice.  It will leave a red spot and a hard place. That's okay.  You're not dying (well, more than usual, anyway). Take some Tylenol.  Put a cold pack on it.  Go to bed.  Get some rest.  And tomorrow?  Hahahahaha.  Tomorrow, well, plan to wear clothing that doesn't go on over your head.  Oh, and we also hope you're not a side-sleeper...."  Sigh.

Tilt-a-Whirl

For a day with no students, yesterday was incredibly busy.  I started the day by cobbling together a summer reading brochure and did the necessary dance steps/divine invocations to get it printed and into report cards in the tiny fragment of a year we have remaining.  It went out much later than I would have liked, but, drawing on one of my favorite kid quotes of the year, "Sometimes it just be that way."

I started work on the program for the National Honor Society induction for Thursday as well, changing out what I could and putting in all the names of candidates that I have so far.  Students continued to run in throughout the day waving forms.  The deadline was not until the end of the day yesterday.  I will have a few stragglers today.  This is just the way these things go.  I will finalize that this afternoon before I leave and print it, one less thing to worry about tomorrow.

In addition to the program, I took care of printing individual student certificates for each inductee.  We try to make it nice, and these things are heavy paper with a gold seal.  They come from the national organization.  It takes time to get it all done, but I think it is worth it.

I did all of this, every last piece of it, feeling like the living dead.  There were moments when the room was doing a merry little flamenco complete with castanets and swirly skirt.  I would stop, put my head on the back of my chair, and just hold onto the arms until the ride stopped or at least slowed down a little.  There's nothing like having your own personal roller coaster ride, I guess.  Actually, if I were to compare it to a carnival attraction, it was more like a Tilt-a-Whirl, that pause and spin, pause and spin......

It's funny.  As a kid, I always loved the Tilt-a Whirl.  It was one of my "must rides" at the fair.  I absolutely loved the swoop and dive of the spinning cars.  I've discovered that it's just not as much fun when there are no lights, no bright colors, and no machinery moving me.  Tilt-a-Whirl courtesy of big bad crap going on inside my body is not cool at all.

A Real Pain

If I ever find that mule that snuck into my room last night and kicked me in the arm...for NO GOOD REASON...and ran away, I am going to skin it.

Yesterday, I had finally finished all my school mess enough to turn my focus to my upcoming trip to Brazil.  I am way, way behind on some aspects of preparation, like getting my travel shots.  Fortunately, there is still enough time for me to get the first doses and still be safe, so I started trying to find out where I needed to go to get them.  This was not as easy as you'd think.

My doctor started by throwing up huge great warding signs and telling me that he could not do it.  I would have to go to the Health Department.  Okaaaay.  I looked up the location on Google, font of all knowledge, got their phone number, called them, found out I'd have to be there by 3, left school early, and sat around waiting in an empty waiting room for a long time.

The overly-cheerful TV health channel, something I have come to hate in health care waiting spaces, spouted out recipes using ginger and sharp cheddar and horseradish, talked about infertility and bladder weakness and exercise.  I stared out the window at the slice of a rooftop of a very old building I could see wondering how sick the shots I was going to have to get might make me.  The information sheets the person who had signed me in had given me were full of happiness.  There were three categories of symptoms.  I thought of them as "Bearable," "Survivable," and "Good God."

I also remembered the last time I'd taken some of them.  It was in my sophomore year of college before I went out of the country for the first time.  They'd made me fairly sick.  D. had sort of taken care of me which had mostly meant he'd come and carted me around to make sure I ate and then laughed at me when the sickness made me space out.  Lovely.

When at last I was called back, the nurse was very friendly and she quickly hit me with three shots, two in one arm and the hellish tetanus booster I needed in the other.  I felt the yellow fever and the Hep A/B almost immediately.  My whole arm was tingling.  The tetanus was quieter, but I knew better than to be fooled by that.  I went by the pharmacy to pick up my last step-down Topamax refill, and while I was there, I got some Tylenol.  When I got home, I took two and put my already sick-feeling self on the couch.

By eight, I felt like a bus had hit me.  The oddest thing this time was the stabbing pains in my back and shoulder.  I don't remember that from before, but to be honest, it could have happened.  Or it could be the yellow fever.  Who knows?  This morning, it all appears to be over except for the pain in both arms where it feels like I have been hit really, really hard by something.  It hurts to lift them or move them much.  Showering and washing my hair was a fantastic joy.

So, I'm still looking for that rogue mule who kicked me.  I'm going to take some more Tylenol to see if it will take care of some of the soreness and just in case fever might be lurking, low grade. Meanwhile, he had better stay away from me.

NightSong

Weird dreams are again plaguing me, no doubt the product of the end of school.  As if that weren't enough, I was awakened out of whatever sleep I was managing to get last night by the canine chorus around 1:30.  Chewie was going nuts, those deep throat barks that always make me think somebody is standing in the middle of the kitchen with a knife ready to do me harm.  It's more likely an armadillo is standing petrified just outside the window praying the giant noisy thing cannot get to it, but when I'm jarred out of sound sleep, what logical thinking manages to engage doesn't jump to the harmless little shelled mammal quivering in the yard.  It always jumps to the potential serial killer plotting maniacally near the fridge.

Once they woke me up, Chewie and Roux continued to rage for a good twenty minutes.  Maybe there was an armadillo hoedown going on outside.  I don't know.  I didn't go outside to see.  There are far more dangerous things than armadillos around here.  This is about the time of the year that the mysterious howling cat likes to show up, and I don't mean the type that one leaves out a saucer of milk for.  My neighbors say it's a bobcat.  We have larger things in the woods, too, panthers.  That might have been what the dogs heard, their sensitive ears catching the noise mine could not.  It might also have been deer or coyote which range through here on a regular basis.  I wouldn't necessarily have heard either of those things, but the dogs might have.

Or it could have been a stick dropping on the roof.

In any case, there's nothing like lying in the dark with dogs going berserk waiting to see if there is going to be another sound to go with it, one you're going to have to do something radical about.  Not fun.  Also not conducive to rest.  It's one of the downsides of living alone.  At least if there were somebody else in the house, I could sort of have that "Scooby-Doo" moment where we go see what's wrong together.  One has to make do with what one has, though.  At present that's just me, assorted cats who look indignant at being disturbed by my daring to move them in the middle of the night (something my sleep-addled brain should have taken as a sign of no-real-danger), and loud, protective doggage.

There was the one time, of course, when the thing that woke me was a stealthy knock on my door (not that I went to it that late/early) and the sound of someone trying to open the locked screen door very gently.  I suppose that time is the time that keeps me waking up startled in the darkness.  It was a very long time ago, and before I had any dogs at all.  All in all, I'd have to say that it's much better to wake up to Chewie, Roux, and the sound of potential canine violence than that eerie click of a door handle that isn't yielding.

Simple Pleasures

Things making me happy this sunny morning:

• Aveeno's Active Naturals Calming Body Wash - It has lavender, chamomile, and ylang ylang, and it smells like heaven.  I like lavender things in general, use laundry detergent, fabric softener, cleaning supplies, and powder that has the fragrance.  This is something special, though.  I don't know if it's the combination of the other two things in with the lavender or just because it's an Aveeno product, but it lovely stuff.
• Jello's Temptations Lemon Meringue Pie - These little cup desserts are all tasty, but there is something especially nice about the lemon ones.  They make a nice cold treat for warm weather, a quick pick-me-up in the afternoon, or a fast taste of something sweet after a meal.  
• Michael Angelo's Eggplant Parmigiana - Eggplant Parm is one of my favorite foods.  I make it myself, but it is a very labour-intensive dish.  Michel Angelo's version is frozen, and while that means that there are some of the issues you'd expect with frozen foods, it is one of the best frozen foods I've found.  It is comfort food.
• Downton Abbey on Amazon Prime Streaming - I'm watching it.  Again.  For about the hundredth time.  
• The Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman - I'm on the second book now, The Bloody Red Baron, and I find the mixture of the supernatural, alternate history, and constant literary allusion to be an enjoyable read.  In this book set in an alternate WWI, I've run across Poe, Gatsby, AND Jake Barnes.  How can you ask for more than this?
• My Pawley Island Hammock - This was one of the best purchases I've ever made.  I got it from Levenger last year, and I truly love it.  I had wanted one for years, put off buying it, and when I had money from my AP Reading, I took a little of it and splurged.  It's heaven.  Just heaven.  Every time I am suspended beneath the green canopy of the tulip poplars, I reflect on just how long I waited and I laugh.  In addition to the pleasure of using it, it is always a lesson in the silliness of needless waiting.  Call it an exercise in Carpe Diem.

Loose Ends

It's the time of the year to wrap up loose ends, finish up things undone.  I suppose for most people this happens in December, but for teachers, the year ends in late May/early June.  We run on a different cycle altogether.  Occupational hazard.  Maybe that's why New Year's never feels very much like a new start, or it feels like an artificial, forced one, anyway.  The true new year for me is always the when the new group of kids hits my room.

This is the time of the year to sort, file, clean out.  At the end of last year, I was so sick from everything that had gone on that I think I just sort of locked my door and ran away.  I found piles of stuff this year that I have looked at and thought, "Why in the WORLD is this still sitting here?"  My room looks better now than it has in a long time.  Then there are the chores that accumulated during the course of the year that I pushed to the side for later, unboxing new equipment and putting it neatly away, setting up notebooks of resources, passing along interesting tidbits I found here and there to others, dealing with the ever-rising tide in my inbox, and so on.  I am working along on it.  Every task completed brings a feeling of satisfaction.  Before I left school yesterday, I cleaned away two tote bags from conferences I'd been to over the last two years, and finally folding them away  and not having to see them staring at me accusingly from the corner was a good, good feeling.

It is also time to take care of a couple of non-school related loose ends, too.  Today was close enough to six weeks after my piercing (I hardly think two days makes a difference one way or the other) to change out my earring.  The tiny silver hoop I got on Etsy over a month ago is now in place.  I love the way it looks, and it feels worlds better than that jabby little stud.

The thing that makes the biggest difference in me feeling peaceful today was finally being able to tie up the biggest loose end of them all, though, the situation that had so bothered me with the student I mentioned previously.  An opportunity presented itself for a conversation, and as far as I'm concerned, anyway, there is resolution.  I could not let the year end the way things were.  I would have always regretted it.

Today, then, is all mine.  There is no grading, no schoolwork of any kind.  I might go to Dunn's Falls or to the junktique.  I need to mow the grass, start work on things left long undone here at home.  As all the bits and pieces fall into place and the darkness of the previous year falls away, whatever I do is all good.

A Pretty Accurate Description

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions." ~ Augusten Burroughs

A Scandal in Belgravia (Sherlock 2)

I was going to wait until the new season was available as one entire package, but I don't have the patience.  Tonight, I got episode 1 from amazon streaming, and it was worth every dime.  I love, love, love this show.  Sherlock season 1 was fantastic, but if this first episode of the new season is any indication, this new season is going to leave last time around completely in the dust.

It shouldn't surprise me.  It is, after all, a Moffat affair.  The writing is just so good.  There were a million lines I wanted to tweet and quote, sarcastic and witty, fast and funny.  The chemistry between all the players is balanced perfectly.  Benedict Cumberbatch could not be more perfect if he tried, and Martin Freeman balances him without being silly, stuffy, or weak.  The only bad thing about this show is that there aren't enough episodes to satisfy my craving for it.

I love how this Holmes is written.  He's brilliant and beyond and so rough with it.  Frequently people say things about him like, "You're about to meet Sherlock Holmes.  As far as possible, try not to punch him."  He describes himself as a high-functioning sociopath.  At times, he's totally childish.  The whole scene with the sheet and Buckingham Palace was a riot.

Tonight's had Irene Adler in it, too.  I loved what they did with her.  Add her to the mix of characters they took from the old, modernized, and made wonderful.  She was a balance to Holmes.  She's not good, either, but damn, she's fantastic at being bad.  I loved watching her pull his strings and vice versa.  I loved watching him wake up to the idea that there might be a woman somewhere who was worth his time.  I knew he was a goner when he knew her safe's combination.  I hope she continues to pop up from time to time.

From Moriarty (whose ringtone in the first five minutes was "Staying Alive," LOVE IT) to the line about "I always hear punch you in the face when you're speaking, but usually it's just subtext" to the beautifully sinister side of Sherlock they showed when someone dared to disturb Mrs. Hudson, it's all perfect.  The deerstalker even made an appearance, a completely logical one at that.

If you haven't seen the show yet, I can't recommend it highly enough.  Start from the beginning and catch up.  It really is one of the best things going.

What He Said

You see, making a living doing something you love isn’t only about making a living (in fact for many that’s not even a possibility) it’s about making a life. That means building friendships, respecting your own limitations, taking pleasure in your own creativity and in the creativity of others, and always, always, always reminding yourself to enjoy the moment you’re in.
~ Josh Ritter