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Welcome

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Make yourself at home. Put your feet up. Grab your favorite beverage and prepare to enjoy the reads.
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Saturday

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers is a "creative" non-fiction memoir.

The author begins his story as a young man about age 20 whose father and mother die of cancer 5 months apart. He's left to raise his 7 year old brother. He suggests that parts of his writing is fiction. Ah, well. I suppose any autobiography writer doesn't remember all the details and has to make up some parts.

Some people in my book reading group didn't like it. The first chapter is pretty graphic in descriptions of his caring for his mother in her last days. They would have preferred it to be a cleaned up version without what they considered the awful reality of his experience.

They also objected to use the F word through his descriptions of how he and his friends related as they enter into adulthood with one another.  In his immaturity, his saving grace is he is very careful to raise his little brother with high standards protecting him from growing up too soon. He takes special care in attending parent teacher meetings at school, for example, even though he worried that he might lose his brother due to people thinking him an inappropriate guardian because of his age.

Yet, of course they still related as brothers rather than a parental figure and child.

He doesn't have any opportunity to grieve or have closure, yet it's all expressed in his behavior throughout the book. Life has to be lived. His responsibilities come first. It's difficult for a young man who hasn't reached maturity.

It appears to me that the author is a bonafide manic-depressive with a little bit of paranoid tendencies. Either that, or he is in permanent panic mode because of his circumstances. Yet he copes and is successful enough to hold it together eventually, and in collaboration of friends, sets up his own business.

I really loved the book because the writer has an interesting prose style that goes against anything we've ever been taught is the standard way to write. I was fascinated by his style.

I also liked the book because a great part of it takes place right where I live, in the San Francisco bay area. I'm not sure readers in other parts of the country would relate to his descriptions of neighborhoods and travels in the region which  viscerally touch me.

Hope I didn't share too much.

Read what happens to Dave Eggers after he reaches maturity


You also might like to read chapter one in the NY Times.


Note:
My photos are San Francisco scenes. First is, Lombard Street. Second is the Dutch Windmill. Third is the Golden Gate Bridge.

Wednesday

Happiness

What ever happened to happily ever after? That was all hype, like Santa Claus, Leprechauns, Fairies, and all that other bunch of lies that were perpetrated upon us as kids. There ought to be a Law!!! Am I being cynical? You betcha! Well, with a little tongue in cheek, too.

Seriously... I think happiness is what we make it. As the Buddhists say, one of the first truths is that we all have suffering, none can escape it. I think once that sinks in, we can work from it, or around it or with it. Got suffering? Make the best of it, if you can. Though, sometimes we might just have to muddle through and hang on before happy feelings return.

My life has often seemed as though it has all been one big dark pit of suffering, and a lot of it I brought on myself by my attitude towards things. But, I didn't know any better. How could I cope if no one I knew had the skills to be an example to me? A good excuse then, but as I  grew into adulthood, opportunities arose that pointed the way.

The person I am today is not who I once was. Somewhere along the way I learned that happiness is not meant to be a permanent condition. What a shock when I found that out! I thought I had missed out on something everyone else had.



Though, truly, it is a good thing we don't have an abundance of joy. We would get bored with it, I think. So, in order to appreciate it, thrill to it, we must be deprived of it, before it fills us to overflowing. (Shades of "My Cup Runneth Over").

It is funny how the littlest things make me happy now, that I never even considered worthy of the title. Plus, just forcing myself to smile makes me feel (a fake) happiness that catches on and becomes real the more I do it. Sounds crazy I know, but I am probably somewhat that, too.

Then, of course, there's Chocolate Happiness! 


~~~
Note: photo of my mother, Genevieve Borden Deane was taken by my sister, Suzan Simpson

Monday

Ebb and Flow

"The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even.

Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.


One must accept the security of the winged life, of the ebb and flow, of intermittency."


Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gift From the Sea

Friday

Lost Internet Service

What happened to me last month: I saw a commercial on TV where AT&T said you don't need a home phone in order to have internet service. I believed it and had my phone shut off, only to discover my internet had also been discontinued! LIARS! Okay... misleading advertising!

To make a long story short, after much fussing about (for weeks), and having to go online with my laptop at Starbucks. (bless them!) But, still not the same as being comfortable at home with my cat and computer, I considered an offer by Verizon, my cell provider. They have a way to go online with computer same as when someone is using a droid or iPhone. I signed up and it was a disaster. I couldn't get online in a reasonable amount of time. It was like having dial-up, and whenever I went to the site I moderate, it constantly timed out. 

That was a big eye opener for me. Having cell towers provide the service was not going to work. Thank heavens I was able to discontinue my service within the Verizon "changed my mind" period and got all my money back. To be fair I later learned I was really located out of their area.

So, now I have been forced to sign up for internet service from AT&T. I got the hard sell for their U-Verse TV and cell bundled service. After much run around I finally told one of the many service representatives I spoke with over those weeks that I did not have a TV. So they stopped with the hard sell and now I have a one year contract with AT&T for internet service only. Can't wait until I can get back to my regular, local ISP! I truly miss Cruzio!

Wednesday

Shadows at Dusk



What is life?

It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.



~ Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator


Note: Photo by Elizabeth Munroz, taken at Capitola, California

Monday

In Memory of


~
When Death taps us on the shoulder, 
and we cannot run away, 
we encounter a 3D vision of life. 
When we escape the inevitable, 
and return to life, 
it's like a beautiful gift 
wrapped in black ribbon.  


For all the chondrosarcoma patients who passed to the other side, I mourn you and hope you found there the beauty I once saw on a short visit.

For all the chondrosarcoma patients who now have that 3D vision of life, I know you share that new inner knowledge with your loved ones and I hope it enhances everyone you meet.

My biggest wish, my greatest prayer is that soon, SOON, there will be a cure for this very rare type of bone cancer and no more need suffer.

Saturday

It's Not a Tragedy

This is my granddaughter singing , "Tragedy" 
(a cover for Christina Perri)





Tragedy lyrics
If you could envision
The meaning of a tragedy
Ooooooh
You might be surprised to hear it's you and me
When it comes down to it
You never made the most of it
Ooooooh
So I cry cry cried but now I say goodbye
And I won't be made a fool of
Don't call this love

When did you decide I didn't have enough to buy
Forgive and forget you a thousand times
For the fire and the sleepless nights

And I won't be made a fool of
Don't call this love

Don't call this love

Lalalalala-love Lalalalalala-love
Lalalalala lalalala- love

Why did you feel the need to prove that everybody else was right
No I won't fight

Ohhhh your my Tragedy... Tragedy
You're my Tragedy ooohh
This is ohhh no no no no no

Wednesday

Reminder of a Gift



Treat the earth well: 

it was not given to you by your parents, 

it was loaned to you by your children. 

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, 

we borrow it from our Children.

~ Native American Indian Proverb



Monday

Decline

My parents never thought about their inevitable aging. Mom always called others in her same age group, “Little Old Ladies, saying she still felt as though she were much younger.

Dad continued working long after retirement, by choice, and last worked in his eighties. His last contract to install electrical wiring in the attic of an old building refurbished for a small church community which he did voluntarily without pay except for reimbursement for necessities.

Mom’s first stay at a nursing home ended when she called 911 because she was constipated and in pain, and the nursing home “would do nothing to help her”. EMT's arrived and took her to the Emergency Room. She received treatment and was returned.

The following Monday, Dad was asked to take her back home. He took care of her himself from that time forward while denying his own frailness another couple of years. Mom was legally blind, having lost 85% of her sight due to Macular Degeneration, getting hard of hearing, incontinent and could no longer walk without assistance. Several times they fell down together as Dad tried to help her get into bed. Due to the fact that their income slightly exceeded the poverty level, they did not qualify for any of the services that would otherwise assist them. They ended up without house or car.

Once the car was gone and Dad’s independence stripped from him, it was painful to know the situation they were in. Because they lived far from other family members, we arranged for them to move to assisted living a few blocks away from their granddaughter. Since she was a nurse she was able to at least keep an eye on them. Dad’s COPD was getting worse and he needed oxygen, but he felt it was important to save money, so he used it as little as possible. At the same time, not using the air conditioning that would have helped protect him from the Southern California smog.

With my older brother in NY, younger one in AZ, my baby sister in TX, and I in northern CA, was heart rending for all of us to watch this demise. Previously, younger brother lived near them and was Dad’s shoulder to lean on. My sister, also living in Southern California at the time, drove up to four hours in order to be there in person to help them out as often as she could tolerate it after putting in a full day’s work. Then cutting her work hours so she could spend more time with them. It seemed miraculous how she did it in her mid-fifties like that. She sacrificed so much in order to care for them.

I felt helpless, but because of my own chronic medical issues, I could do nothing tangible to help out. So the telephone became our bridge. Daily calls for the reports of the day, mostly complaints of the new disappointments that life was bringing them. But, the joint pleasure that sustained them both were their pet Abyssinian cats. I could always depend on being able to bring a chuckle out of Dad, or a giggle out of Mom and help soothe away the troubles they were challenged with daily, simply by asking, “How are the Beau and Boo doing?” Suddenly cute stories of their observations and interpretations of the cat’s behaviors came pouring out. So, being telephone support person, became my way of being there.

Then came the day when my daughter, the nurse, informed us all that “Grandpa has made some mistakes with Grandma’s medicine. And he really is not well enough to care for her anymore.” So the decision to encourage them to move into the nursing home together arose. Of course, my father would have nothing to do with it, until we were able to get him to understand that it would be best for Mom.

To keep them from having broken hearts, I promised to take in their precious cats. The day they moved into the nursing home, my niece put them in her car and drove 400 miles to bring them to me.

Saturday

Big Brother is Watching

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When you wonder how your personal information is being used, don't think it is some kind of cyber stalker or someone who uses computer phishing techniques. It's the government.


Under the Freedom of THE PRIVACY ACT OF 1974 various agencies are allowed to share information about you whereby "Computer Matching" allows cross referencing of information about yourself.

In order to read the document properly in it's enlarged more readable form, left click your mouse one time.


Remember, even if you do not want to have this done, you have no choice. Think about it.

Sunday

PEACE and POSSIBILITIES

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May today there be peace within. 
 
May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. 
 
May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. 
 
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones.

Allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. 
 
It is there for each and every one of us.

 
 
Note: Photo is of Santa Cruz, California Wharf 

Wednesday

MY PROTECTOR

MY PROTECTOR
(1968)

Dr. Mindell, tall, slender, well-composed, did not behave like a normal orthopedic Surgeon.  The one’s I had met before were all too high and mighty to be human, to look you in the eyes as if you were an equal.  They were accustomed to everyone idolizing them and took it for granted they were Gods.  I did notice that when he made rounds, he carried a little bit of that remote untouchable aura, probably for the sake of his entourage, but when he arrived in my room, he did not stand at the farthest corner nor at the foot of my bed like other physicians.  he came right up beside me and leaned against the mattress as he taught his students about the rare condition being treated.  Rare condition or not, in the presence of Dr. Mindell, I still felt like a human being, instead of a “case”.

Even though’ he hacked away  a large part of my body over several years of surgery to save my life, I don’t necessarily think of him as my protector for the reason of his medical expertise. Just one incident clings to my memory making me grateful for his existence.

After many weeks languishing in the hospital bed, I became well enough to be placed in a wheel-chair instead of a gurney to be transported to other departments for tests or treatments. One day, after a long wait in the radiology dept.  a staff-person wheeled me in for a set of x-rays.  And when all the required pictures had been taken, I was wheeled back and parted in the long empty hallway.

 “Aren’t you taking me back to my room?” I asked.

  “No.” I was told, “Someone else will take you up shortly.”

I sat there in the cold corridor until my butt became numb and the pain in my legs screamed for release.  At which point, I unlatched the lock on the wheels and began to impel myself toward the main hallway.  My arms were weak from having been abed for so long.  The chair, at least a hundred years old, was made of wood, with a very high backrest and huge wheels.  It was very unwieldy to operate, but, struggling mightily, my determination drove me further and further away from Radiology.  It surprised me that no paid any attention to me.  Dressed only in a short backless gown with hair splayed about my head, it was obvious I was a patient making her way alone in the busy hallways.  Visitors passed me by giving wide berth.  Hospital personnel bustled by sometimes blindly brushed up against me
as they passed.

I grew resentful.  Not only had I been forgotten, left to rot in the drafty bowels of the Hospital basement, but I was for all purposes, invisible to the very people employed to watch after my health.  What if something should happen to me?  I would be ignored.  Fearful of my invisibility, I strained harder to reach my goal;  the huge main elevator that could take me up the many floors to my room. By the time I arrived, I was weak, cold and perspiring profusely.  The hospital, as ancient as my wheelchair had an old-fashioned elevator.  Every time I had been taken to it by a staffperson, they had hurriedly forced the wheelchair through the open doors racing against time to get me inside, before the doors clenched shut.

There were no safety features as there are today, no magic eye to bounce the elevator door back open should someone or something attempt to pass through while it closed.  So, when the doors opened, people traipsed in as I struggled to wheel my cumbersome chair through.  Needless to say, the doors clamped shut on me just as I pulled my arms out of the way.  I looked at the people inside, who would not meet my eyes. It didn’t occur to me that this was serious, until the floor raised up beneath me and the wheelchair tilted precariously.

Not able to move my lower body in any way to save myself, I sat there helpless, as the chair began to crunch.  The only view I had at this point was the ceiling.  My last thought was, “after being heroically saved from the bone cancer and surviving, I am going to go by way of an elevator! Oh, well!” There was nothing I could do. I just resigned myself to my fate as I awaited my demise.

Just then, Dr. Mindell scooped me up in his big arms and carried me down the hall and placed me on the nearest gurney and personally returned me to my room. I don’t know what happened to the wheelchair or the people in the elevator. At the time I was too tired and sick to even care.  I was just glad that my protector, my body guard was there to save me.

Monday

Old Memory Stays Fresh

Today is a day in my history I cannot forget.

It sticks in my mind like clay at the bottom of a potter's wheel. You might laugh that this is such an "important" day when you learn the situation. But, it is just one of those things that when the day comes up, I automatically realize.... "Oh, it was this date that happened."

My hair all blonde, teased and sprayed in Marilyn Monroe style, I walked with my new date, Jeff, recently returned from Viet Nam, when my new pair of high heels caught on a rise of the sidewalk where a tree root had lifted it.

No big deal for the average person, but this fall caused me to do a split in the worse way possible. I had only been out of the hospital a few days after my Internal Hemipelvectomy surgery and the three months it had taken for me to recovery and heal sufficiently that I could actually walk again and go home. All I wanted to do was start my life all over again, and leave those haunting cancer memories behind me.

My mind set the incident in slow-motion re-play. I felt the heel of my shoe catch on the sidewalk, saw my body going down, tried to catch myself as my legs, betraying me, slid out in opposite directions. Then, the split of the incision pulled apart deep within me, and the hot blood seeped into the area where bone cancer used to be. It had not happened in a slow motion dream but in a blink of the eye, and there I was sprawled on the sidewalk.

Jeff had been a Medic in Nam, his flight or fight reaction were instinctual. When I fell, an odd look came across his face, something empty and desperate. His automatic response was to get me up, and hurry me off somewhere. Anywhere, to take me away from .... what? Enemy fire?

While writhing on the sidewalk, I had to convince him we were not on the battlefield, certainly not with my high heels. I told him there was no place to take me, no place safer than where I was. I had remain calm as I instructed him to go into the nearest restaurant and ask them to call for an ambulance. Because of my cancer history and the familiar physical symptoms I was experiencing, I knew I would not be able to get up and walk any time soon on my own.

I never saw Jeff again. He didn't follow the ambulance to the hospital. Perhaps he was as traumatized as I was?

Long story.....short. I spent another two months in the hospital.

So, today I look at this forty year stretch and pause. Many other things have occurred in my life with even more intensity. Today I no longer dream of falling and tearing myself open. Today I can smile about it. Maybe it's the ludicrous-ness of it all; blonde bombshell, soldier boy, romantic walk to restaurant; it was something out of a movie, and then, the twist...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note:
Jeff, if you are reading this, I understand and I hope you got good treatment for your PSTD. Sending you love and healing.

Saturday

Grandma's Cookbook

 
 
 
 
We may live without poetry, music and art;

We may live without conscience, and live with out heart.

We may live without friends, we may live without books;

But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

- Owen Meredith
 
 
 
Three Meals a Day
By Maude C. Cooke
Published     1902
by The Educational Co.