November Changes,
Turning 50- YIKES!!

Going My Way...

And so it is November... how quickly we are moving on. By mid-month I will be 50 and half a century into this current adventure of mine. Time is truly amazing. If only...

Ah, yes, there are lots of things that could have been done better and as I spend time scanning and saving photos from the last 20+ years I think about the things I did not do or could have done better for my children. It is funny how the mind wanders there so easily and requires conscious energy to think about all of those things you did do well, or at least adequately. Sigh, how does that song go? If I only knew then what I know now, or knew now what I didn't know then, or knew then what I should know now... well, something like that- we are learning as we go it appears.

The last several years have been very hard, but I have learned a lot. And in the last several months I have been blessed with good days and happiness has visited with me. Tonight I was given a glimpse into my future on a litle piece of paper tucked into a cookie- From now on things will be going your way. Yes, that sounds good. Thank you.

"My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence."- Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964)

Jay likes to keep on the cutting edge of scientific discoveries... and he knows that I do too so he shared an article he ran across with me- if you click on the picture of the scientist at left it will take you to the New Scientist article.

So it seems that we are finally breaking down the communication barriers with other beings on our planet. Click on the gas sign below to hear a fish talking...

Rev. Will was quite taken with the scientific research on herrings and sent me a fascinating link that you can go to by clicking on the picture above.

It can also be of interest to those of you with musical leanings.

Enjoy!

Speaking of music, NPR had an interesting piece on today about Buddy Holly and some songs he did just before he died that were never released.

Click Buddy's picture and it will take you to the NPR site and then click on the links there to listen to three of the songs.

The "brainball" at left links to an interesting article in the Guardian Unlimited that I linked to via scitechdaily.com. It is about a drug that my old friend Craig told me about year before last. It is called Iboga and the hallucinogenic experience that it causes leads to significant changes in people- most notably it seems to cause addicts to come clean. It is an interesting read.

CONGRATULATIONS DAPHNE!!!

Daphne moved to a new job closer to home recently. She is enjoying her short commute and her new co-workers and supervisor. I am happy for her. Best Wishes Kiddo.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

Jay and I had the one year anniversary of our first "date" (when we met) October 27th. He is a Mac guy, I have a PC. Relationships can thrive not only from shared interests and preferences but also from divergent ones. That's the theory, and I'm going with it.

I am happy.

"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly."- Rose Franken

Men and women both struggle for identity in this world. Women have made their struggle more open, "liberating" themselves from the bondage of the roles that society ascribes to them, only to find themselves yet again in similar circumstances.

In the mid-1800s Coventry Patmore wrote a poem devoted to his wife called "The Angel in The House". He glorified the selfless dedication of the female to her spouse, and exulted her denying her own needs. It pissed off Virginia Woolf still in the 1930s.

Today women are once again, although "liberated" and out of the house, still in that responsible, caretaker role- supermom. The current ideal has the woman juggling everything to take care of her own family even to the point of denying her own needs. She works outside of the home, but still maintains major responsibility for the home and children. It is a struggle for teen women to come to terms with who they are inside and who they are outside- or who they should be or act like.

I understand that 90% of divorces are initiated by the women- maybe men and women are experiencing something different? It is a struggle to come to terms with many things in this life.

The role of women in our society is not a conspiracy foisted upon us by males. We changed the definition of how women are in the home, yet how different is it? We are caretakers. I am, I know. The power of role modeling in our lives cannot be over-emphasized. "Children will copy what you do, not what you say." Yes. We internalize what we learn of our place in this world, and the extent of that internalization is profound.

Men have their own struggles with the ideas of society about what a man should be- the strong, silent provider. How do they become "soft" fathers and husbands and remain "men"?

Divorce is rampant, our children are unsupervised after school, and families seem to require both parents to work for adequate income while society has not devised any means to make up for this loss of a stable, in-home parent within the household.

We are all finding our way, minute by minute, day by day, year by year, lifetime by lifetime. I guess society, life itself (and my own life) is a work in progress. I hope it gets its shit together.

Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves.- Betty Friedan

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CINDY!!!

I was born 50 years ago today: 11/12/1953. Life is interesting- it goes so slow and so fast, all at the same time. A half century. And it can be all over at any second, or there can be another half century yet to go. I remember as a child thinking about how it would turn into another century in my lifetime- the year 2000, but that I would be 47 and too old to enjoy that occassion. Perspective is interesting. You cannot step into the same river twice.

I guess Neil Young is 58 today. We share the same birthday- did I already know that and learn it again, anew today? Craig probably knows if I knew that already.

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."- Douglas Adams (1952-2001), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Life has felt like quite a struggle much of the time. But what is one to do? You put one foot in front of the other, stop and look around, enjoy what you have. My two daughters are wonderful people, each in their own special way. I am so glad that I was allowed to be their mother. I wish I could have done a better job for them, but wishes do not bear fruit. I have made it so, and it is. I am human.

When you are used to struggling it is anxiety provoking to have joy fall in your lap because you don't know if it will last. God has trusted me with a happiness I am not familiar with. I thank him for bringing Jay into my life.

Happy Birthday Cindy

My sister was so excited about me turning 50 that she gave me a special tee shirt when she visited in June. It says "I May Be 50, But Frankly My Duck, I Don't Give A Quack" and it is black. She said that it had been a gift to her last year and she cherished it so much she saved it for me. I will pass it on to one of my good friends.

In the last week I have gotten two birthday things in the mail from my family. My sister sent a certificate for turning 50 and my mom sent me a prize ribbon for the same. Such a supportive family...

Jay took pictures of me with all the paraphernalia, and my fish looked on.

I am pooped- only three more days of driving all the way down to Seattle to work. I will miss the many kind, friendly people who work in that office but I am glad to be moving on, both so that I do not have to drive so far and for a change in the work I am doing.

Today I saw a young gal and her mother at the hospital- it might be my last assessment as I finish up. Twice in the last couple of weeks I have met with 23 year old girls who now have different, new lives due to auto accidents. One is wheelchair-bound as a result and cannot release the wastes from her own body; the other now walks with difficulty using a cane, but cannot articulate the words she wants to come out of her mouth or open/see out of one of her eyes.

Both were working women before their accidents. Both have families who love them, who now have designed/rearranged their own lives so much more intimately around one daughter than they had planned. My oldest daughter is 21. I know it will be hard as I go to the hospital to see these women. How does one help? I offer the client and the mother so little in these interactons. Yes, it is true. How is it that God trusts us with so much?

"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Maybe not to "enjoy" ourselves, but I think to be happy, and certainly to share love.

I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can understand it.- Queen Juliana (1909 - ), of the Netherlands

(CLICK)

What men and women need is encouragement... Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits.- Eleanor H. Porter

Work Pictures- Click the bug-eyed guy...

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."- Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

Until I posted the bit about fish farts earlier this month, I did not realize that this was an area of special interest to Rev. Will (the farting part).

He sent me a link about a flatulence tax proposed in New Zealand (picture at right links to it) and then my in-house researcher routed me to the site to concoct the picture at left...(Click It)

On Tuesday the 18th my work unit (plus our cubicle neighbor, nurse Colleen) went out to lunch in honor of Judy's retirement, Trish's birthday and my leaving. I have added photos of the event to the page of Unit pictures- click on the small picture at left of our luncheon site.

I worked in Seattle two and a half months. It seems longer due to the "commute from hell", and it seems shorter due to the wonderful people there.

"Every man I meet is in some way my superior."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are looking good... click the eyes... :)

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."- Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000)

"Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades...

We all strive for safety, propsperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men."

The above is an excerpt from A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. It is an old book but one I had never read and Jay gave it to me for Valentine's Day this year. The illustrations are by Charles W. Schwartz, who did a lot of conservation art, and the buffalo picture of his links to a site about some of his works (it is pdf and netscape tends to want to save the document rather just send you to the internet site...). The centered picture is of Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir and links to a history site. Life is complexly simple- of that one can be sure.

"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."- Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

"There is very little difference between one person and another, but, what little there is, is very important."- William James

A fun site about communication- click on Elvis at the computer.

Click on the picture of cinnamon for a very interesting article on its health benefits. I am sending a copy to my folks.

"The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals."- Sir William Osler (1849 - 1919), In H. Cushing, Life of Sir William Osler (1925)

I followed a link on Craig's page (http://homelandabsurdity.com/) and found an interesting article about Bush's environmental policies- it is not a favorable review so Republicans might want to steer clear.

Just click on the Bush video at left if you want to check it out.

"Do we realize that industry, which has been our good servant, might make a poor master?"- Leopold, Aldo: A Plea for Wilderness Hunting Grounds, 1925.

Yes, plan a "perfect" Thanksgiving- click on both turkey pictures for Native American ideas about the holiday.

My old buddy Brewster wished me "Happy Holidays (forever)". Thank you. His picture is below, from two Thanksgivings ago. It links to information about his many times great grandfather who came over on the Mayflower.

We continue forward, one foot in front of the other, learning as we go, generation by generation.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.- Anne Frank

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."- David Viscott

Today is Jay's 52nd Birthday- HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR JAY!!!

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.- Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

Transformation in progress.

We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind... Isaiah 26:18

Enough of the farting references... see you in December.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer?"- George Price

Most pictures posted on my pages link to somewhere in the cyberworld... try clicking on each of them.

Afterall, this dimension that exists on your screen too is "real"- we are all linked.

I LIKE THE POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN...
He likes to put...(yes, the three dots...) in his work, just like I do...

The picture at right is Walt Whitman in 1887- by George C. Cox, New York.
Click for WALT WHITMAN poetry page. (Last added to 11/11/03)