Welcome September,
Changing in One Place...

On Saturday of the Labor Day weekend Jay and I went to the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe. We checked out the days of old, the 4-H exhibits like I used to do, and glanced at the rides... We went in to the rodeo arena, but seems they wanted us to actually pay money to observe the goings on, so we skeedaddled...

There is something about a fair- it makes you more, better, than tired and sweaty, yes.

Speaking of sweat...

Recently I went out to the apartment of a client to meet him and do an assessment. I got the referral and had been wary because it only said that he was mentally ill and unable to take care of himself at times. We are always on guard, you know, keeping those mental health clients from trying to sneak in and get our services when their own system is supposed to meet their needs (which it doesn't, but that is another story...).

I had called the case manager at the mental health center and asked her what physical needs he had, such as walking or feeding himself. She hesitated at my brusqueness- maybe wondering herself if he was indeed ineligible. She said that, well, he had just been diagnosed with cancer, that he was taking chemotherapy for his blood cancer, that his walking, well, he was falling a lot even with the cane and wheelchair. I asked her if he sustained injuries from his falls. Well, he does come in with black eyes and bruises a lot, but no real injuries...

She went on to tell me that he has scars up and down his arms from self-inflicted cuts and burns. I asked her if these were suicide attempts or a form of release- they were for release she said. She told me that she thought she should also warn me that he used to always be drunk when she started going out two years ago and they had refused to serve him if he was drunk when she went out. I asked if he was agitated when drinking, or just drunk. Oh, just drunk, she told me, explaining that she was not comfortable seeing him at those times. Yeah, yeah, yeah- the least of my worries.

When I called him to schedule the visit he was very confused and I could not be sure if he had been drinking. I explained several times that I needed to come out and see him, and he finally said that it was ok but that he could not get his place clean in the next couple of days, before my visit. I told him that did not matter, that the purpose of my visit was to get someone to help him with that, but, that I did know that he had trouble with drinking and that I needed him to not drink before I came out. He told me that would be no problem, that he had not been drinking for about a month. I looked at his chart... yes, a month, about the length of time he had known he had cancer. Funny how mental health clients sometimes have such advanced illnesses once they are discovered, as if maybe their symptoms were not given a lot of validity for a while...

I got out there after calling to remind him I was coming- basically the same conversation over again, trying to explain why I needed to come out. He was about my age, long hair, bib overalls, looking a bit like a disheveled Neil Young... Everything neat, although dirty. We went through the excrutiatingly long interview that the powers that be have determined is needed for people to demonstrate to us that they, indeed, are our clients. I skipped around, trying to go to sections I thought that he could tolerate at the moment, given his obsessive disorder, his bipolar (mostly depressed) disorder, his anxiety, his discomfort with being around other humans.

We finally made it through the assessment and I explained to him about meals on wheels, about a caregiver coming in to help him, about installing a lifeline system so he could summon help if he couldn't get up after a fall. I explained also that I would try to see if he could get an electric wheelchair, since it was becoming so hard for him to get his manual wheelchair to the bus stop now. And I appologized for all of the forms I needed him to sign. He signed the first and kept on signing, saying that I had "done a good job". I demurred, and he went on to say that, indeed, I had done a good job and that he "of all people, should know... people bring me in all the time... ask me questions... come at me from here and there.. and they make me sweat".

Once again, an unexpected compliment, a jewel in the rough. I am good- I did not make him sweat.

I felt very good about my work and recounted the compliment many times to co-workers- regaled by my accomplishment of not making him sweat. Maybe I was absent that day, but I don't remember them telling me in grad school what a compliment it could be to have a client tell you that you had not made him sweat.

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

It's A Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong, CD released 2/27/96

The lips at the bottom, right of this page link to a recording of Louis' song, courtesy of a Korean site (http://my.dreamwiz.com/swanson/songs/WhatAWonderfulWorld.htm#top) I found.

One more song, courtesy of Carol... Song

Interesting article on MSNBC about autism.

"That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder."- Calvin comic strip, William B. Watterson II, CALVIN AND HOBBES

To feel better, click Mr. Smiley at left.

New picture of me at bottom of page is of my mom and me, June 2003. Rev. Will requested a new picture of me to go along with the newer one of Jay...

Life's trials and tribulations can be challenging, and painful. Perspective is important when you are amongst the depths.

Once again, for me, context is everything (click).

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it."- W. C. Fields

"I like to have quotations ready for every occasion. ...They give one's ideas so pat, and save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one's feeling."- Robert Burns

Click on either picture...

"These, then, are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create that fact."- William James, The Will to Believe

Image at left is picture taken by Craig Baker on his trip to New Mexico, I think last year. Click it to connect again to his site.

Free Verse

Pulling back from the dyad that never really existed
I reacquaint myself with the blanket of loneliness.
She was the flower that blooms on the desert of my imagination.
She was the stiff drink that made me forget myself.
She was the ghost formed in the smoke of lust.
When I cross over into the next world
And this one ceases to occur
The image I want to take with me
is the image of her.
Must familiarity make mundane
the exotic and rare?
And a din and noise
of a supplicant's prayer?
May the gods of fate
take the bait
of my request
And at my behest
grant me the rarest of commodities......Time.
But not Time only
but another chance too.
And a dance in the moonlight with you.

Craig Baker

Excerpts from the past:

[from an e-mail to Jay, 3/10/03] This morning I started a new document on my computer, writing about the last 4 years or so with Kira and how that affected me and our family. It is not possible to convey what all of that was like, but it helps me to write it down and I thought of doing it now as I drove home this morning. Those years were the most incredibly stressful, gut-wrenching odyssey, surpassing in pain anything I could have imagined or would ever wish upon anyone else, yet through it all I learned so much, as did Kira. And it brought me out to the other side, to a better place for myself. Some lessons come at such a high price that not everyone involved is willing to step up to the plate, yet if you don't it seems like the price is higher still. I know what I mean anyway.

But today, in the present, ... my hope is that you and I can keep this that we have until the end of time. It really does not seem like too much to ask of life; the miraculous is really not too much to ask for at all.

[from writings I started of my rememberings, the day of the email] 9th grade, Sept. 1999: Shortly before school started that year we had poured concrete for the addition to the house, for Pat's office, and Kira had helped some with that arduous task. Pat had sat out in the yard in the evening shooing the cats and animals away from the drying concrete, and later Kira settled into sleep in the small enclosed porch that we used for a "family room". In the morning I got up to go to work, and then heard Pat swearing outside- there were Kira-sized footprints in the cement, where she had walked on it during the night. I went into the family room, where she was sleeping on the couch, and woke her up, asking her what in the world she had been doing walking on the cement during the night. And as she laid there telling me to go away I looked at the camera bag she always seemed to have with her lately and realized for the first time that I should look in it, that I needed to look in it. Kira saw the expression on my face and grabbed the bag, pulling it to her body. I wrestled with her, eventually sitting on her chest, and pulled the bag out from under her, finding what would mark not only the next few years but mark and change the rest of her life, and mine. I pulled out a bag of pot.

Many times we physically held onto her, not letting her go. She swore at us, saying "Why don't you just let me go? Other parents do." She was talking about her friend who had been in foster care, and out on the streets and in residential care, because her parents did "just" let her go. I told her that she was shit out of luck, that we were not going to "just" let her go.

One year of sobriety, 9/11/2003.

"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."- Aldous Huxley

Hurt

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of shit
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stain of time
The feeling disappears
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Lyrics by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, A song Johnny chose to do a cover of on his last album.

Still, in the final year of his life, Aldous Huxley offered words simple enough for everyone. "It is a bit embarrassing," he admitted to a lecture audience, "to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and to find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.'"

Each of the three pcitures links to a different site...

Daphne e-mailed me a few weeks ago with an interesting article about the powerful use that President Bush makes of language. If you click on the baby's picture it takes you to a copy of it.

Marshall was right about the medium being the message, but there is a rainbow of meaning in messages, regardless of the medium.

The gal in the article has an internet site with interesting articles and references- click on her logo at the right if you're interested.

One of my daughters has lots of aches and pains and seems to require frequent visits to the doctor's office. I ran across an interesting article about hypochondriacs- both pictures link to it.

It is interesting how we as a culture like to deny that people are experiencing what they are presenting with. If someone is distressed we often tell them that it's ok, everything will be alright. But at that moment it is not. Children cry and we discourage them from feeling their feelings too- it's not that bad we tell them.

Nursing journals have written about the denial of the pain and discomfort of patients by caregivers. This is particularly rampant in hospital settings. Recently Md and RN programs have begun instructing students to inquire about their patients' perceived level of pain and to address it as reported by the patient. This has had to be taught to them.

Healthcare is interesting work. So much good is done and yet we also experience far more than our share of the pain and suffering in this life, and in the end of this life. On top of that our tests and treatments themselves inflict pain. Healthcare providers are humans. To acknowledge the pain patients experience has been something that has had to be taught because it is painful to realize. We try to protect ourselves and as humans we often do this by denying that the pain exists. Hmmm, denial, an incredibly powerful mechanism. Unfortunately burying it often makes it ferment and become silently potent.

It takes time to learn to be open, especially to pain. It takes time.

"Facts don't cease to exist because they are ignored."- Aldous Huxley

Shamik Shadat, a 20-year-old Islamic theology student: "You know when you recite it the thoughts in your head reflect straight back to 9/11. This prayer I did was for those people, those innocent lives," he said. "It is not for us to say that because you are not a Muslim I cannot pray for you, or if you are a Muslim I have to pray for you alone. We have to pray for everybody. That thought came to me and touched me."

Both pictures link to VOA site with story.

Chart gleaned from Fark.com... click on it to go there.

Last Sunday on the local NPR station, KPLU, the program This American Life carried an interesting story about a young 11 year old girl (from the upper peninsula of Michigan) who happened upon Manuel Noriega as a sort of "pen pal" way back when the other Mr. Bush was president.

You can listen to the whole, one hour, radio story via real player there. I found the story all very interesting but near the end it became rather poignant. You can fast forward, if you wish, to 43:00 and that part will be about the invasion of Panama and all that it meant to this young girl and her family. At 45:00 Noriega's attorney makes a statement that is chilling...

The picture of Panama links to Lonely Planet; the picture of Noriega and his pen pal link to the NPR site.

Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect.- Margaret Mitchell

Some medical humor from funpages.com.

Click on the bull to go to an interesting truck accessories site... :)

The Rexville Grocery that I wrote about at the end of the year last year is coming along nicely. They added an outdoor area for an ongoing farmer's market and used it last night (9/19/03) for a little Oktoberfest gathering, with an oomp-papa band. We got there late, after my long drive up from working in Seattle. The beer and the sausage with sauerkraut were good...

Click the pictures...

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."- Jack Handy

For more beer quotes go to: Beer Quotes.

On Sunday the Galileo spacecraft will crash into Jupiter's atmosphere, fourteen years after its delayed launch in 1989. The New York Times has a short series of images Galileo has sent: Click.

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.- John A. Shedd

Life demands from you only the strength that you possess. One feat is possible- not to have run away.- Dag Hammarskjold

(Click on picture to right...)

"All of us necessarily hold many casual opinions that are ludicrously wrong simply because life is far too short for us to think through even a small fraction of the topics that we come across."- Julian Simon, Professor of Business Administration (1932-1998)

A Reuters site has some interesting pictures to view and purchase- click on any of these to go there.

"Whereever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it, there the life becomes genuinely significant."- William James

"It was just an any old kind of day; the kind that comes and slips away."- Harry Chapin (1942 - 1981)

Positives and Negatives
A linguistics professor was expounding upon the differences in positives and negatives in different languages. According to this professor:

1.) In the English language, a double negative makes something a positive.

2.) In Russian and some related languages, double negative remains a negative.

3.) And the professor asserted there is no language, however, in which a double positive makes a negative.

When he made this last statement someone in the back of the room piped up "Yeah, right."

September 27, 2003 "Car Talk" Mail Reading- click picture for link...

Just a reminder...
many pictures posted here link to somewhere in the cyberworld... click on them.

Afterall, this dimension that exists on your screen is representational- it 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 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 09/01/03) WALT WHITMAN