We have been harvesting tomatoes from our garden that we planted in spring- they are yummy. The green beans have also started being eaten, as have the cukes.
Click on the tomato chick above and she will take you to a heritage tomato site...
Friday night, the first evening of August, we popped over to the city of Anacortes, on Fidalgo Island, for their arts festival. We checked out some interesting juried art and voted on our favorite (different for each of us) and then listened to some free jazz by Pearl Django. Their logo and picture each links to their band's site.
They were nice to listen to, and then we went on to amble through a small gallery and talked to a fellow showing his photos- many pictures of old local sites and one in particular that Jay had taken a picture of over twenty years ago and, as it turns out, the artist had taken his almost as long ago too.
A quote on NPR caught my ear this morning, and since this piece includes music it seems not all so tangential...
It's all folk music.- Louis Armstrong
Time for a joke!
Click on the picture at left to link with a computer/e-mail joke... it does take a long time to load, so be forwarned...
Joke courtesy of Carol.
On Saturday Jay and I went to Lynden to look at antique farm equipment. Among the many interesting things was a selection of "old" Ford tractors- this one is like the one my Grandpa Jardot had when I was growing up...
Click on the picture of farmer Cindy on the tractor to go to the site for The Puget Sound Antique Tractor and Machinery Association. When I was younger and anxious to leave the farm and move on to big city life, I never would have thought I would be going to antique car and farm equipment shows They are fun and so interesting- a lot of memories. C'est la vie. Yes, I remember my grandpa on that tractor, and my uncle on it when he was a teenager.
Funny how important memories become.
The big things that come our way are... the fruit of seeds planted in the daily routine of our work.- William Feather
The great soul surrenders itself to fate.- Lucius Anneaus Seneca
Jay and I went to the local, Skagit County, fair (click on picture at left for link) Wednesday night and enjoyed those familiar sights and sounds...
We purused the 4-H exhibits: arts, crafts, cows, sheep, etc., and some pretty bizarre 4-H cats on display. The poor things were in small cages like chickens are, but the cages were decked out like diaramas. The cats did not look like they were having fun- I liked the one of the cage made to resemble a jail cell and Jay liked the one set up like a traditional Japanese house.
We had a vegetarian, health-nut dinner consisting of cotton candy, elephant ears and curly fries.
At the time I had NO idea that curly fries are so controversial...
Apparently they send out subliminal messages and can create an addiction so strong that it incites violent behavior. Follow the underlined words (click on them) for links to informative sites about these important issues and warnings.
The biggest shock, however, was learning that curly fries are enmeshed in a controversy about who was the original "Third Stooge"! Oh my God! Jay and I are innocent, I swear. We neither support nor condone any of the positions I have alluded to, although we do think it is extremely important for all of us to educate ourselves about the unconscious messages our food choices contain. In that light, click on the Stooges picture below for more information about that particular controversy.
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.- Sir Winston Chrurchill
A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children...
"You all have obsessions," he observed.
To the first mother, he said, "You are obsessed with eating. You've even named your daughter Candy."
He turned to the second Mom. "Your obsession is with money. Again, it manifests itself in your child's name, Penny."
He turns to the third Mom. "Your obsession is alcohol. This too manifests itself in your child's name, Brandy."
At this point, the fourth mother gets up, takes her little boy by the hand and whispers. "Come on, Dick, we're leaving."
When I worked on a geriatric pych. unit at a hospital we admitted lots of patients with dementia of one sort or another. It was always interesting to have the families embarassed and apologizing for their mother's "sailor" language- mom had always been a lady, until now.
One elderly woman with dementia was subdued and I can't even remember why she had been admitted from her nursing home, perhaps she was wandering or something. Her daughter came in every day and the nursing home social worker told me that she came in every day to visit her mom there too.
When I met with the daughter to get some history on my "patient" the daughter told me about growing up with a verbally abusive, denigrating mother who had clearly conveyed to her that she would amount to nothing. As her mother became more and more "senile" she also became more and more subdued, and then sweet. She told me that her and her mother would visit daily and just sit on a bench there at the nursing home and hold hands. Now I have the mother I always wanted to have, she said quite simply.
Maybe Mick is right, maybe we don't always get what we want but [eventually] we get what we need.
Working at geropsych was interesting and educational, I was always learning something about dementia, depression or whatever- maybe a little about life. Lots of dementia patients seem to be living in an earlier time of their life and some were agitated, upset, confused, etc. The docs said there are lots of theories about what that is about, and Bill explained it nicely. He said that there really are two schools of thought: one is that as the mind basically disintegrates old areas of the brain are randomly activated and that is what becomes present for the patient, and the other explanation is that the brain is processing the patient's life and issues and those unresolved areas are what is present. Bill went on to say that it really doesn't matter, that you approach the patient in exactly the same way in any event, that you go to them where they are and give them reassurance and what comfort you can. Bill is good, a clever man at times.
I am reading a book by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From The Sea, written in the mid 1950s. She speaks not only of the vision she shared with her famous husband and which is advanced by their foundation, The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, of advancing the balance between nature and technology, but speaks of herself, of women and men, and of finding that still voice within.
Anne talks about the need for quiet, the need to cease the distractions so that we can listen to our self...
For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication... My mind reels with it. What a circus act we... perform every day of our lives... This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. It leads us not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul... For the problem of multiplicity of life not only confronts the American woman, but also the American man. And it is not merely the concern of the American as such, but of our whole modern civilization, since life in America today is held up as the ideal of a large part of the rest of the world. And finally it is not limited to our present civilization, though we are faced with it now in an exaggerated form. It has always been one of the pitfalls of mankind. Plotinus was preaching the dangers of multiplicity of the world back in the third century... Mechanically we have gained, in the last generation, but spiritually we have, I think, unwittingly lost. In other times, women had in their lives more forces which centered them whether or not they realized it; sources which nourished them whether or not they consciously went to those springs. Their very seclusion in the home gave them time alone. Many of their duties were conducive to a quiet contemplative drawing together of the self. They had more creative tasks to perform. Nothing feeds the center so much as creative work, even humble kinds like cooking and sewing. Baking bread, weaving cloth, putting up preserves, teaching and singing to children, must have been far more nourishing than being the family chaufeur or shopping at super-markets, or doing housework with mechanical aids. The art and craft of housework has diminished; much of the time-consuming drudgery- despite modern advertising to the contrary- remains. In housework, as in the rest of life, the curtain of mechanization has come down between the mind and the hand.
She wrote these words in the mid 1950s as part of her personal quest and was surprised as they resonated for others also. Good food for thought- now go make some bread, fix a door, plant some flowers, write some words...
Last Friday evening Jay and I wandered up to Bellingham to catch some entertainment.
We went to Boundary Bay Brewery, a nice restaurant on its own with a great selection of mircobrews on tap and an outdoor concert venue. Both pictures (above and right) link the brewery's site, with their upcoming music schedule.
We saw a band I saw last fall at the Seattle Folklore Society series- The Barbed Wire Cutters. They are a great contemporary bluegrass band: bass, fiddle, mandolin, guitars. Click below for their link too... :)
Jay is, surprisingly, an avid internet "researcher". He helps to keep me abreast of the happenings of this world.
Click on either picture of interesting and quite special cloud formations found in Australia to go to a site describing this phenomena called a Morning Glory: a massive backwards-rolling cloud formation up to 1000km in length and a kilometre high which can travel at speeds up to 60km/hr.
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"- Gandhi
We decided that we would hit most of the fairs this summer. This weekend we went to the Northwest Washington Fair in Lynden, Whatcom County. We arrived in style- retro limo circa??
We checked out quilts, photography, sheep, goats, lambs, draft horses and hypnotists but were mostly fascinated by the mechanical bull ride. It is a dangerous but hypnotic sideshow.
And once again there were old and new trucks and farm equipment.
This time the culinary treats were fresh lemonade and warm scones with jam...
Reality can be elusive, or confusing. I remember a sweet, confused elderly woman who told me the first time we met at the hospital that her vision had become very poor in her left eye. I dutifully reported this to one of my favorite nurses, who looked at me askance once again and said "that's May's glass eye...".
Carrie recently went down to California and was pretty jazzed when she returned. She went to a Star Trek fund raising luncheon thing and both days one of the stars sat at her table...
Photo courtesy of my very own digital photo skills.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.- Blaine Pascal
Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.- John R. Wooden
What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.- Benjamin Disraeli
You can't bring back the past, and you're not promised the future, so enjoy life now.- Kimo Paki
Images courtesy of Explore4fun.com. Quotes courtesy of the quotee.
:) Later man.
One time when I was working at the hospital I was very busy and had been meaning to interview a new patient but had run out of time. It was almost time to go home and I was glad to look in the client's chart and discover that she had very advanced dementia- she probably could give me little information, so I could talk to her, make an entry that I had started the assessment and then call her family in the morning to get more information. Besides, she was probably very difficult to talk to aside from the dementia. She had become unsafe at home and had been placed in an adult family, where she promptly got psychiatrically commmitted from after getting agitated and breaking a window. From the psychiatric unit she had been placed in a secure alzheimer's assisted living, but again had been unmanageable and gone out a window. She had been transferred to my unit from the psychiatric hospital. Yes, a quick introduction, agitation and then I could go home.
I found her sitting on a seat in the hallway, and sat down with her. I asked her some questions and her rambling, disjointed answers did not flow with information that is easily coherent and I wanted to simply let it go at that, call it a day. But once again life is not quite so simple, just as we ourselves are not. She was telling me as much in her body language, in the nuance of her expressions and the way she sat with me as she did with words. I sighed to myself, knowing there was more than meets the eye and knowing that this little lady had something she needed to tell me.
She talked in stutters and starts, giving bits and pieces of information and answering as I reflected back to her what I thought she was saying. She had had an abusive childhood, full of fear and pain. Her mother tried to protect her some and she had wished she could protect her mother.
She left when she could, she got married and loved her husband, she had a son. Later her husband died and she remarried. Her new husband never did take to her son. Her son was belittled and abused. She was so glad when he was old enough to leave home, glad for her son. He left, made good for himself, became an attorney. She missed him so. Her husband died, and now her son visits her.
She wished she had been a better mom, that she could have protected her son. She wished she could make it up to him, that she coud let him know.
I reminded her that her son visits often, that he takes care of her financial affairs, that he seems to love her. I asked her if maybe she too had done the best she could. She shook her head, squeezed my hand. I said good-bye and left for home, late.
The next day after several rounds of phone tag I spoke to her son, a busy lawyer. I told him what his mom had told me. The astonishment rang loudly in my ear. He explained that his mother calls him Jim, even though his first name is Steve. I told him I had figured that out. He said he couldn't believe it, that his mom had not been able to string together a full sentence for so long that he found it hard to believe that she had told me so much. I told him that she told me her story with bits and pieces of sentences, words, looks, tears. I told him that I thought she could successfully go to another placement, that the story she had to tell, the story that kept wanting to come out of her and that called to her so, had now been told. He knew the story, he just had never heard his mother speak of it.
Over the next few days I spoke with her son several times as we arranged for her to go to another dementia placement. I thought she would do just fine in a regular adult family home but they were all leary of her with her history, so we found her another secure unit placement.
One day one of the nurses came and told me that my patient's son was here visiting and wanted to meet me. I walked into the room they were visiting in, the son facing the door and his mom with her back to me. As I approached I heard him saying, "Cindy mom, the lady we were taking about." She turned as I touched her shoulder and looked up at me. "Oh, it's you. You've been with me all the time." She never knew my name, but she always knew who I was.
THE HORSE WHISPERER... (click dog and horse for links)
Cindy, now the horse whisperer, once again on an adventure.
Earlier this week I went out to a client's house, knocked on the door and found no one home. I left and got gas, then on my way back to the house encountered a beautiful chestnut horse trotting down the street, riderless, toward me. I pulled over and let him pass, then thought to myself, "hmmm, this doesn't seem right". So, I pulled across the street and parked in a drive, got out and went down a bit to where the horse was standing next to a yard. As I got close to him I could see that this was a smart, kind of bull-headed horse. Down the street a lady was running toward us, lead in hand. I called out, "If I grab him will he be ok?" and she responded, "I think so". But as I was almost within touching distance a german shepherd came running up barking ferociously. I turned to the dog and growled back, yelling, "Get out of here!" The dog's hair stood up along his spine and he turned around, running back to his porch. With all of that the horse was freaked, and so turned and ran on farther down the road, toward a busy, busy road.
I crossed back to my car as the lady ran on after her horse. I could see him turn into a cul de sac; people came out of their houses, watching but not helping. I got back into my car and decided I'd better see how things were going and help the lady if I could. As I came up to the cul de sac the horse came trotting out toward me. I pulled my car up to a stop and laid on the horn, hoping to stop him in his tracks. My move was successful, but as I watched him stop, startled, I fervently hoped that he would not go up on his hind legs and come down upon my car hood!
As his owner approached the horse turned toward the busy road up about a block and I thought to myself that no way was I letting him trot on up there and so I pulled my car across the road blocking his way. He was perplexed, to say the least, and reluctantly let the lady grab his halter and attach his lead, yanking his head back a couple of times as she did this. She turned to me and thanked me, looking exhausted.
I went on my way, on to seeing clients and doing whatever it is that I do.
One of Carrie's favorite cartoons...
Click falls picture for link to NPR Weekend Edition story The Kiss and The Dying if you missed it on Saturday. Just click on their audio link, with the story, about one third of the way down their page...
We love because it's the only true adventure.- Nikki Giovanni
This isn't the place I work out at, but I kind of like the conflictedness...
Reminds me of the story about the lights being out in New York- a lady got stuck on the escalator for four hours! We really were lucky out here...
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
Click on either computer cartoon picture to go to site of "Embarassing Predicitions"...
Jay and I were somewhere fairly recently and there was posted a quote attributed to the Dali Lama: The purpose of life is happiness. Ah, what a relief, now I can stop all that tumbling about in my brain, trying to figure it all out. My purpose is to be happy. That is easy, and simple, right?
We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.- Anne Frank
I guess Anne died of typhus, in the concentration camp, as a teen.
We deserve happiness, we know. Yet, we learn so slowly that happiness can only be found within... Combined we are as one big orchestra. The conductor reads the music and directs the movements. Being in tune with the conductor feels good. I can call it happiness. All I need do is play my part- Each Day a New Begining, Hazelden Meditations
Kira came to me recently asking for wisdom, for my insights about relationships with men. Yes, I too found it surprising that she would seek this knowledge from me. I had little wisdom to impart, mostly that I just don't know, just like everyone else. I guess the biggest secret is that, just like in The Wizard of Oz, we have everything we need inside of us, and it's been there all along. Look for the still spot in your center, listen and trust in your self. I think I forgot to tell her most of that. I think it is too simple to trust until you get older...
The trouble is not that we are never happy- it's that happiness is so episodical.- Ruth Benedict
The picture above, of Mars, links to an article about how it is going to be closer to Earth tonight than at any time since the dawn of human time.
See you in September.
In case you are wondering, discussing the subject of suicide does not make one suicidal. Considering whether one would under any circumstances ever consider suicide a viable option does not make one suicidal. I, for one, am not suicidal.
I agree with Warren Zevon (fellow cancer sufferer) that not wanting to live is somehow a sin.- Craig Baker, alias Catinside
The Warren Zevon picture at left links to a fan site and is supposed to be the cover of his newly released CD. The picture at right is of my old friend Craig in Ann Arbor, Michigan who is now bald from chemotherapy and links to his site- I recommend going to the bottom of that page and clicking on his weblog link.
I found Saddam- turns out there is a website for finding famous people fast. The cartoon below links to it.
The Bush picture links to a music video some of you likely saw many months ago...
The Bin Laden picture links to a site that aims to keep us updated about terrorism.
I've been told that anger is not a primary emotion- that it is always about something else. Everyday, every morning, on the radio we hear of the one or two US soldiers that are now dead in Afganistan or Iraq. Our country went to both places in anger, responding to their anger, just as Israel and the Palestinians have been angry and responding to each other for so long now...
"Hesitation is the best cure for anger."- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Spanish-born Roman statesman, philosopher (c. 4 BC - AD 65)
Just like myself, all of mankind seems to have to discover the answers over, and over again, and in the end we will likely return to the beginning. Maybe it really is best to just not think about it, or maybe follow Scarlett's example also set so many years ago in Gone With the Wind and simply think about it tomorrow.
"Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind."- General William Westmoreland
Or maybe we need only rely upon the government to inform and protect us. Life is probably much less complicated than I tend to make it.
And so I repeat myself... more safely this time: See You in September. Love, Cindy
border=0I LIKE THE POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN...
He likes to put...(yes, the three dots...) in his work, just like I do...
The picture at left is when he was younger, the picture at right is Walt Whitman in 1887 (Photograph by George C. Cox, New York). He lived from 1819 to 1892. Clicking on the left picture will take you to a poetry site about him.
If you click on the name Walt Whitman that is underlined, it will take you to a page that I have put some of his poetry on and will be adding to as I go along... :)
(Last added to 08/04/03) WALT WHITMAN
CLICK for ongoing writings/quotes from JUDITH VIORST'S book: Necessary Losses
(Last Added to 07/21/03...)
If you have comments on my topics or content, please send them to me at:
thecindyj@hotmail.com or click: MAILTO
Comments received from responding humans and my responses can be accessed by clicking on the picture of Grappler at right;
My dear old friend Ken, AKA: Grappler, was the originator of the idea for this...
Music: Click on the Licking Lips Page Created August 2003 |
