9/29/07:
Today was rainy and overcast so we opted to not go to the outdoor Octoberfest at Rexville, despite the lure of German beer, food and music. Instead we headed to Bellingham for dry excitement.
We have been eagerly awaiting the opening of a Trader Joe's store in Bellingham. The closest one has been in Everett and we really don't get down there very much. Trader Joe's is a small specialty grocery with stores more on each coast than in the middle of the country. They carry quality items at a surprisingly low price. I like to pick up kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, a particular brown/wild rice blend, and sundry other items they happen to have (the stock changes a lot) when I am there, in addition to very good inexpensive wines and good beers. The last few times I was in the Everett store I asked about the new store in Bellingham— "It's coming" they said.
The Bellingham store was supposed to open this summer, but got delayed. The grand opening was yesterday, featured in the local Bellingham Herald. I guess the parking lot was packed for the opening at 9am, local high school marching band and everything! Today we took a leisurely scenic drive along Chuckanut Drive up to Bellingham, then headed to Trader Joe's. It was no surprise that the parking lot was packed in the mid-afternoon, but inside was something else. Wall to wall people greeted our eyes on entering, with carts for check out lined up throughout the store it seemed. We quickly decided we were not buying anything because of the lines, but we made our way about to check out the store. Yes, lots of nice products and foods, and great prices. We will go back, when the insanity subsides… maybe in October. Yikes!
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.— Albert Einstein
9/25/07:
I am always reading something, slowly but surely. I recently finished a slim volume of short stories by Anais Nin purchased at a thrift store. The stories were set in France, mostly in Paris— I liked that.
Anais (1903 to 1977) is described as a surrealistic writer. I agree. I liked some of the book, other parts were too odd even for me. An excerpt from one of the stories finishes this entry. The story talks about a woman's diary, started when she was young, and it reminded me of my writings on cindysworld. The girl to the right was on many of my pages a few years back… quite a few yesterdays ago.
I was eleven years old when I walked into the labyrinth of my diary… I walked protected by dark green shadows and followed a design I was sure to remember. I wanted to remember in order to be able to return. As I walked, I walked with the desire to see all things twice so as to find my way back to them again… The repetitions prevented me from counting the hours and the steps. The obsessions became infinite. I was lost. I only stopped because of the clock pointing to anguish. An anguish about returning, and about seeing these things but once. There was a definite feeling that their meaning could only be revealed the second time… Enormous rusty keys opened each volume… The white orifice of the endless cave opened. On the rim of it stood a girl eleven years old carrying the diary in a little basket.— excerpt from "The Labyrinth" by Anais Nin
9/22/07:
We are still waiting for the county to approve our variance request before we proceed with plans for a small addition to our home. At present we have no garage, so the plans include a garage, albeit a small and simple garage. Because of the complicated building rules here on the flood plain we are limited to building a one car garage and it will not be allowed to be attached, although we can do more improvements in five years so attachment is a possibility at that time. So what?
Well, throughout warm months I run into spider webs strung from my car to nearby flowers, bushes and trees. With late summer and fall weather this abundance explodes. It seems like spiders are everywhere outside, most especially around our cherry tomato plants. They sit on their big webs watching me pick the little gold and red fruits, seeming to enjoy someone noticing them, even though I invariably destroy some of their webs in the process.
I have always been rather terrified of spiders. I remember sitting on my sister's bed and having my foot down in the crack between her mattress and the wall, then screaming as a spider used my leg to crawl up out from the crack. My family abounds with stories of my eagle vision, me lying in bed in a dark bedroom staring at the ceiling and walls, yelling at my mother to come because I saw a spider up there in the dark. And, indeed, there was always a spider up there. They thought I was goofy, a big baby about spiders. They were right. I taught my daughters to be afraid of spiders, simply by observing me.
I still jump when a spider surprises me, but now I can mostly take care of spiders I encounter myself, often moving them out of my way rather than killing them. Whew! I am brave! Nonetheless, they'd best be staying off my body, if they know what's good for them, or they will be toast. I think most of the spiders outside here are cross spiders, orb weavers. Click on the picture for some info. I will still have to go outside even with our new garage, at least for a while. The outdoor spiders and I will stay in close proximity, watching and wondering about each other.
Everything is so dangerous that nothing is really very frightening.— Gertrude Stein
9/18/07:
Sometimes it is just hard to believe how quickly time seems to fly. Mrs. Becker is now in her 90s and tells me time continues to accelerate.
Week before last I stayed home and enjoyed pleasant days of morning clouds and sunny afternoons, perfect for dividing and transplanting over twenty plants from areas designated for building. I moved a lot of things from open sunny areas to other open sunny areas because they had done well there. Being September I had not expected the move to be too much of a shock… but life is full of surprises. My transplants spent most of their first week with a full sun beating down and temperatures around 80 degrees. I think they all made it, with the help of every evening waterings and my fussings.
New weather moved in on Sunday, with clouds and drizzle, soothing the transplants. It feels good. Jay harvested the last of our zucchini Sunday in the drizzle and I made my best zucchini lasagna yet. Our gold cherry tomatoes are thinking about finishing up their season, while the apples are thinking about pie… More about that later, enjoy what comes.
Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.— Abraham J. Heschel
9/16/07:
Bill Gates dies in a car accident. He finds himself in purgatory, being sized up by St. Peter.
"Well, Bill, I'm really confused on this call; I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you enormously helped society by putting a computer in almost every home in America, yet you also created that ghastly Windows '95. I'm going to do something I've never done before in your case; I'm going to let you decide where you want to go."
Bill replied, "well, what's the difference between the two?"
St. Peter said, "I'm willing to let you visit both places briefly, if it will help your decision."
"Fine, but where should I go first?"
"I'll leave that up to you."
"Okay then," said Bill, "Let's try Hell first."
So Bill went to Hell. It was a beautiful, clean, sandy beach with clear waters and lots of bikini-clad women running around, playing in the water, laughing and frolicking about. The sun was shining; the temperature perfect. He was very pleased.
"This is great!" he told St. Peter. "If this is hell, I really want to see heaven!"
"Fine," said St. Peter, and off they went.
Heaven was a place high in the clouds, with angels drifting about, playing harps and singing. It was nice, but not as enticing as Hell.
Bill thought for a quick minute, and rendered his decision.
"Hmmm. I think I'd prefer Hell," he told St. Peter.
"Fine," retorted St. Peter, "as you desire."
So Bill Gates went to Hell.
Two weeks later, St. Peter decided to check on the late billionaire to see how he was doing in Hell. When he got there, he found Bill, shackled to a wall, screaming amongst hot flames in dark caves, being burned and tortured by demons.
"How's everything going?" he asked Bill.
Bill responded, with his voice filled with anguish and disappointment, "this is awful! This is nothing like the Hell I visited two weeks ago! I can't believe this is happening! What happened to that other place, with the beautiful beaches, the scantily-clad women playing in the water?!???
"That was a demo," replied St. Peter.
9/9/07:
I have been writing cindysworld for six years this month, and as time goes on it is harder and harder for me to remember if I mentioned something here before, or if I just mentioned it in real life.
As many of you know or can imagine, working in health care is challenging. Health workers are witness to lots of pain, suffering, loss and death. Until fairly recently what is now called secondary trauma or compassion fatigue was not even recognized. Health care systems are incorporating some programs to address secondary trauma's impact on their workers, at least some are and this is good.
I haven't done much searching, but I have not run across anything about workers' trauma from being party to the denial of health care. The US health care system uses denial of care in order to funnel money from people paying for insurance to the pockets of insurance company executives and shareholders. It is an interesting dance to participate in, working and advocating for patients while being aware some options are closed off to them by the insurer they chose to pay their hard earned money to. I have had clients whose Medicare "supplemental insurance" would not pay for nursing home care regular Medicare would. Surprisingly, I was irate. I wanted to call 911 and report the insurance company was stealing my client's Medicare benefit. But I did not call the police because I was in the middle of the dance, the dance of pretending the patient is the hospital's customer when the insurance company actually is the one to be kept happy, preferred provider status and all. Some revelations make you want to cry with joy, some just make you want to cry.
The United States ranks 42nd in life expectancy for many reasons. I think you already know what I think one of the reasons is. I went to see Sicko the other night, simply expecting to see a movie preaching to the choir, preaching to a convert, and wondering which of the five million facts presented in the movie was the one that was wrong. I was not prepared to see insurance company workers crying about the truama they have inflicted, I was not expecting to cry myself as I saw health care workers in other countries simply doing the work they, like me, were called to do. They did not have to find out what insurance patients had, they did not have to get permission from an insurance person to treat the person in need. I saw a world where hurting people were cared for because they hurt.
We are a rich, rich country. We are not helpless babies, doomed to be victims of a ruthless predatory system. We are participating in a health care system that is the way it is by our own choice. It is up to us. Our health care system is the choice of our democracy, it represents who we are. Most people profess to believe in heaven, and in some sort of judgement. I always wonder if God will have Ricky Ricardo's accent when he says "you got some splaining to do!"
Make sure you click on the "megatron" device picture above. Later man.
Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!— The Queen, Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking Glass"
9/7/07:
Seems like those email jokes come in waves. It's not unusual to get a joke I received several years ago, and most of the time it is still good. I think that is why those are still around.
The picture to the left is from an email joke about a lady going to an auto repair place wanting them to give her a replacement "710" cap… If you click on the 710 cap picture you will be directed to an even better joke, sent by Carol Hammel. I put it up on my cubicle at work. It was taken down a number of times by people needing a copy. C'iao!
Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.— Peter Ustinov
9/5/07:
My folks live in the country, although it is getting harder and harder to discern where town and country part ways… They have a nice house with a walkout basement that we built when I was a senior in high school. Back in Michigan it is called a ranch style home, here they are called ramblers. We put the living room on the back of the house, to look out over the yard and farther on, past a field, a creek, and more. My dad sets out salt licks that the local animals, especially deer, come to take advantage of at the corner of the large yard.
When I call on Sundays it is common to hear they are watching animals out the window. They enjoy being home but like to get out and about a lot, heading into town almost every day. My mom likes to play slot machines at some of the many casinos now around, playing, laughing, watching and talking to people. They also head to the upper peninsula on overnight bus trips occasionally, for a change of scenery. I think my dad only kind of likes going to the casinos, mostly enjoying going for the drive.
Last week Don and Chuck (Charlotte) Jardot went up north on an overnight casino trip, in celebration of their anniversary— 57 years since September 2, 1950. My dad does not like to talk on the phone, so when I call every Sunday I talk almost exclusively to my mom. Last Sunday she said they had a good trip, followed by a nice dinner out with family to celebrate too. She marveled at the experience of time passing so quickly, then we marveled together. So much time together. Life becomes filled with so many things, things to do, things to possess, transitory things. It is easy to get side-tracked by things and doing, yet most people when asked would agree being and loving are more important. Some people are only interested in things and doing, insatiably questing for these transitory things which they never can get enough of. Funny thing is, being and loving are also transitory things with no "full" line. Despite so much time together, so much being, so much loving, there will also never be enough.
The memories of long love gather like drifting snow, poignant as the mandarin ducks who float side by side in sleep.— Lady Murasaki
9/3/07:
We have spent a quiet holiday weekend. Yesterday and today I worked a bit on a front area of the yard, tearing up sod in preparation for transplanting some perennials that are in the way of our addition. I made it into town yesterday to exercise at the gym, but had to stop to take some pictures after I made it over the bridge. Click on the picture of the smokestack to the left to see more…
Today the young man next door came over to chat while I was out in the yard. We talked of my addition plans and the arduous process it has been so far to simply get permission to proceed. I let him know I am planning to have the two quince bushes next to his drive pulled out because they are too much to keep up with, and my plan to put a fence there and some more plantings. He was surprised we had yet so many plans for our yard, saying we had the best yard on the street already.
I am taking this week off. I need a break from work and have some vacation time available. I plan to work some more on the yard and work on some online trainings the VA offers. I am still planning to move on, get away from reviewing other people's work and get back to working directly with people myself, back to a social services environment.
You didn't say potato fries. How would I know what you were talking about just saying "fries"?— Famous Co-Worker Quotes
9/1/07:
Where is that September page and when is it going to have something written on it???
Jay ran across the Alice in Wonderland picture at the top right of this September page and could not resist replacing Alice peering with the child Cindy.
Today we went to Stanwood and puttered about, hitting a thrift shop I have picked up bargains at in the past. We bought the two volume Oxford English Dictionary for 50 cents per volume. You can check out ebay to see what a deal we got. We had a lovely mid-afternoon meal of vegetable egg foo young and fried ice cream, then headed home cross country for an enjoyable ride. A nice day with Jay, once again.
I went by myself to a chick flick at the Lincoln, called Evening. It was a treat to see Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep together on the big screen. Vanessa gave an awesome performance. Reviews I found for the movie online were surprisingly mediocre. I think that is because they are written by people with limited life experience, or without a vagina. They think things are too trite or obvious because they do not know what life has in store… Old fart women like me will better undertand it— go ahead and see it.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next.— Lewis Carroll in "Through the Looking Glass"
Jardot's World: September Edition, 2007
All pictures on my page link to somewhere... go ahead, click!
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