a shadow on the stairs
where there should be none
— a black cat asleep
river stone 1-19-11
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Category Archives: animals and pets
river stone 1-18-11
From a small mound of snow emerges the head of a squirrel, who seems to take a breath and then disappear. Above the mound hangs what’s left of a bird feeder that the squirrel had demolished before the snows. Up and down, he pops and plops, delighting in the fact that the birds can’t get at his stash.
river stone 1-11-11
It’s the old 11:11 again.
we watch a bare-branched bush by the fence, filled with birds — three Cardinal pairs, a Titmouse, a Flicker, a Junco, and a Sparrow — all having their fill of feed until a bully Blue Jay descends
don’t know about any handbasket
but we’re going anyway
You can’t convince me that life (especially human life) on this planet is not on a downward spiral. The following disturbing news clips are from Harper’s Magazine Yearly Review.
Not only are we screwing with other lives on this planet….:
Exposure to antidepressants in the ocean was making shrimp suicidal, and female snails exposed to the chemical TBT were growing penises from their heads. A pair of swans stunned staff at a British wildfowl sanctuary by becoming only the second couple in 40 years to divorce. Seventy-five starlings fell from the sky in Somerset, England, and 10,000 birds were trapped in the twin beams of light projected up from the World Trade Center site, dazzled and unable to return to their migratory paths.
…we are screwing up our own:
A three-year-old girl in South Korea died of starvation while her parents played a child-rearing game online, a Kentucky man was charged with wanton endangerment after he got drunk and put his five-week-old son to bed in an oven, and a Georgia mother punished her 12-year-old son for his bad grades by forcing him to hammer to death his pet hamster. The body of a registered Japanese centenarian was found in her son’s backpack. A video surfaced of an Indonesian two-year-old smoking and propelling himself around on a toy truck because he is too out of shape to toddle.
And here in America, where it’s “don’t think, don’t care”:
“Not to be funny about it,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told the FCIC, “but my daughter asked me… ‘What’s the financial crisis,’ and I said, ‘Well, it’s something that happens every five to seven years.'”
The Texas State Board of Education voted to revise its social-studies curriculum, mandating that the U.S. government should not be called “democratic,”
A Texas newborn with a heart defect was denied health insurance because of his pre-existing condition.
There’s even more such frightening 2010 news bits at the above link to Harper’s.
And you think 2011 is going to be any better for the likes of us?
The Deathwatch Diary (Four)
Atheist though I am, I still marvel at the awesomeness of synchronicities.
All afternoon today, as I cried and blogged and cursed, and my brother argued, and my mother lay still and panting in her hospital bed, the fat gull flew and strutted around the roof outside my mother’s window, screeching, The sound was like fingernails on a blackboard. There was no ignoring it.
So, I googled “seagull totem” and found this, which I share here:
Spiritual Messengers
Sea Gulls are messengers from the gods, especially ancient Celtic deities.
They bridge the gap between the living world and the spirit world.
Opening yourself to their energy enables you to communicate with the other side.
Sea Gull can also give you the ability to soar above your problems
and see things from above. Seeing all the different viewpoints.
Better than any fortune cookie.
And then, went I went outside to get another book from my car, I found the item in the photo below in my book bag, and I hung it on the rack on my mother’s bed that is supposed to hold IV bags.
It’s the talking stick that I and my five women friends jointly and ritually made from a root, stones, feathers, ribbon, yarn, thread, spangles, and even a golf tee. Crone magic of a very special kind.
My daughter chants to set my mother’s spirit free. And I embrace roots and wings for my own spiritual sustenance.
Such everyday magic, these synchronicities.
The Deathwatch Diary (Two)
Go here to read Deathwatch Diary (One)
Every day, a fat seagull spends the afternoon sitting on the roof outside my mother’s hospital window. A nurse told me that, several years ago, a woman staying in the room next to my mother’s would leave some of her food outside her window for the birds. This last one is still hoping.
My brother thinks that my mother could beat the odds and become aware and pain-free enough to go home to live out the rest of her hours (or days). He wants a miracle.
This morning her blood pressure dropped and her pulse quickened. By her bedside, I sit and watch the read-outs for the meds that are keeping her comfortable and pain-free. It’s all about the numbers.
It’s all about numbers.
“You can never know for sure,” the doctor tells me this morning when I ask him how long she might have. The turbaned doctor is very kind, compassionate. Even his handshake is gentle. He is angelically patient as he answers the endless questions that my brother has in hopes of being able to have my mother wake up and see him one last time — see him so that he can say goodbye. When I am not angry at him I see that his constant arguing is a way to keep himself from feeling overwhelming grief.
I tell my brother about an “Allie McBeal” episode I remember in which an elderly dying woman on a sedative wakes up and asks to be put back on the sedative — because, while sedated, she is having an extended dream that she is living her young life, that she is young and alive instead of old and dying.
I ask my brother if it might be that my sedated mother is dreaming she is young again instead of old and dying. His answer is that maybe she’s not.
In reverie or not, I don’t want her disturbed. He wants a miracle.
It’s all about numbers: 94, 88/55, 1mm, one or two days. I watch the second hand move around the clock. I count her breaths — 18 a minute.
accepting adjustments
I’m beginning to realize that this part of my life is going to be require a constant acceptance of adjustments. These days I’m making adjustments to articles of clothing that I made, specifically this, which originally blogged about here
.
I need to add pieces down the front so that I can button in. I’ve gotten a little wider. Heh. And I am almost finished lining it so that the ugly yellow sweatshirt-base inside is hidden, finally.
There are other adjustments too — medications and expectations. I just don’t have the energy and stamina to do what I used to do. That’s the downside of aging, unless you are wealthy enough to afford massages and personal trainers and hot tubs.
And now I have to adjust my budget to adjust to the fact that I’ve spent whatever cushion I’ve had for fun stuff for me and my family. Many college classmates of mine, as well as relatives my age, have homes both here in the Northeast and in the South, and they enjoy the best of both worlds with plenty of resources to spare. I’m envious. But then again, there are college classmates and relatives of mine who are no longer alive.
I guess I fall somewhere in the middle, and that has to be OK; I will keep adjusting to a simpler life.
Although if we add a puppy to this family, life will not be that simple for a while — but it will be more fun and more work. My grandson, an only and often lonely child, needs a dog who will be more than a pet — more like another sibling.
I like the idea of having a dog. Maybe she (I want to get a female) will encourage me to get out and walk more.
I’m thinking of smells
One of my brother’s college-days girlfriends is staying in my old living space here for a few days. They were out at the Woodstock “Roots of Woodstock” concert last night and are out somewhere this afternoon doing whatever she felt like doing during this her brief vacation.
When I went upstairs to get something out of the refrigerator that’s still there, I caught a scent of what must be her perfume. I liked it. It freshened up the whole area.
I haven’t worn perfume since I started wearing hairspray and the scents conflicted.
I remember finding the cologne I used to wear in my teens and twenties (maybe even 30s?) as making me feel light and airy — a feeling I wouldn’t mind having again.
You might remember that scent: Windsong. “I can’t seem to forget you. Your Windsong stays on my mind,” the commercial sang.
I don’t know about him, but it certainly stayed on my mind, and I’m having the desire to smell it again.
Maybe that’s because it smells a little sulphury around here due to the well water, which needs to be run through the softener — which can’t be done until my brother cleans out the residue and puts in more softening and deodorizing agent.
It just smelled so darn nice up there where my brother’s friend has hung up her clothes for a few days.
I have somewhat solved the cat litter box odor in my two-room personal quarters back home by strategically placing bags of zeolyte around the premises. But that doesn’t make the air smell “nice.”
I don’t like the strong scents of air fresheners, so I’ve just ordered a bottle of Windsong cologne to spray on my sheets and in my closet.
I wonder if it will smell the same to me as it did a half-century ago.
there’s a dinosaur in our back yard!
My daughter is getting ready for my grandson’s “Jurassic Park Birthday Party” scheduled for next week, when he will turn an enthusiastic 7. The dinosaur that she built behind the fence will remain there long after the party is over because my grandson loves it, and we all think it adds a certain sense of adventure to our back yard. — which already is a haven for all kinds of creatures anyway.
The little plywood play boat that my daughter built last year has deteriorated into the perfect home for a couple of friendly garden snakes. A shy newt makes an occasional appearance among the foliage near the fire pit, and our weird resident bunny keeps the clover crop in check. The ever-fatter ground hog periodically lumbers out from his home under the shed to nibble on what the bunny has left behind, and the chatty family of cardinals joins the flickers and finches each morning to make short work of the bird feeders’ seeds.
So why not a dinosaur!
the cat came back
He scooted out the door one day. It took him more than two weeks to get hungry enough to walk into the trap. And for those two weeks the family kept vigil.
Cuddles is just what his name says — soft and cuddly and affectionate. My grandson chose him at the pound several years ago; Cuddles is his cat.
For two weeks food was left out for him (the raccoons and possums and other cats had a feast). Two humane traps were set. Two outdoor cameras were set to catch any possible sight of Cuddles.
And every night Cuddles showed up on the cameras, but he was too smart to go near the traps. Until he got hungry enough.
He’s home now, much leaner and very tired. My daughter got all the matted fur out of his long black hair. My son-in-law checked him for ticks and removed several. My daughter have him a flea and tick bath and repellent. He looks half the size of what he was. His green eyes are tired.
Cuddles is home. The back door now sports a spring hinge. All’s right with the world here in the valley.