A Mouse?

I am also amazed by how my mind can trick me into conjuring up things which have no basis in the evidence before my eyes.

I live in the downstairs apartment of a house halfway up a hill. It is surrounded by nature - quite lovely. A drought resistant garden, boasting succulents and lavendar bushes.  A bamboo hedge on the kitchen side, and on the living room side a hibiscus tree,  shrubs, herbs, and succulents.  In summer I sit outside to admire the setting of the sun as it drops behind Mt. Tamalpais.  Stripes of crimson, fuschia, orange, and deep gold shimmer on the bay.  On the other side I sit on the patio and contemplate the humming birds flitting in and out of the hibiscus tree.

My microwave sits on a shelf near a water closet. In the space between are wooden chopping boards and a wooden tray. One evening when I moved the boards to take out the tray I saw cumin seed in the corner,  next to the water closet.  I do use cumin seed quite often, but hadn't used it recently. Also, there is no reason on earth that I would spread it in a corner.  But that is what I saw, so I cleaned the shelf and thought no more about this.  A couple of nights later, the same thing.  Hmm, I thought, interesting how the cumin seed must cling to the chopping boards and succumb to the laws of gravity overnight.  Again, I cleaned them up, and carried on with this ritual almost every morning.  Always more cumin seeds, and I hadn't used them the night before.  Fascinating.

My landlords  returned from one of their exotic vacations, and I was no longer alone.  This allowed me to consider the fact that these were probably not cumin seeds.

I emailed an SOS and down came the landlord to check. I showed him the seeds and he confirmed my buried suspicion - mouse droppings.   Mice freak me out - they feel to me like creatures of the underworld, deeply disturbing. I went off to ACE Hardware and invested in a couple of humane traps. My landlords assured me they would take the trapped m;ouse away and let him go in a field far away.

According to instructions I placed a blob of organic crunchy peanut butter in the trap. (The instructions did not call for organic peanut butter, but I was quite pleased with my largesse.)  The next morning i checked the trap;   droppings,  no mouse. And the next morning.  The morning after that, neither droppings nor mouse. The rains had stopped so I presumed the mouse had left for outside.  After a week of neither droppings nor mouse I replaced the boards.  The next morning, droppings, but no mouse.

I am bamboozled. Does anyone know why a mouse (or mice) favor wooden boards?  I am not sure if I can cohabit with this creature.  Where is the Pied Piper when I need him.

Advice - help

As we are now

And then there is the one about the middle aged Jewish man who would like to live forever.  He asks his Rabbi if he can give him the secret to eternal life. The Rabbi thinks for a while, scratches his beard and looks at the earnest man seated in front of him.

"Yes," says the Rabbi. "Go home and read the news everyday."

The man looks at the Rabbi with raised eyebrows. "OK," he says, "I'll do that, but how will this help me live forever?"

Clearing his throat the Rabbi says, "it will cure you of your desire to live forever."

I have no desire to live forever.  What I would like is to live a somewhat peaceful life, free of constant negativity and concern.  This desire is increasingly difficult.

I have stopped listening to the constant bombardment of news items. I have never had alerts on my phone. I don't watch talk shows with their endless discussions of who said what, and what the latest polls indicate.

When reading the newspapers (which I still do) I try to look for small glimmers of hope.  The Monarch butterflies have returned to Mexico in their hundreds of thousands.  First I read this in the paper, and then, the same day, listened to an interview with an environmental scientist. Yes, they have returned this year, but no, in fact it is not a glimmer of hope - and then he went on and on about the degradation of the environment, the pesticides, the fact that although concerned citizens in the US and Canada are growing milkweed it is not nourishing like it used to be .....  lets not be overjoyed at this bountiful return this year.

Then, later the same day a talk on the coral reefs.  Oh my goodness - by the year 2050 there will no longer be coral reefs, no species of fish, no this, no that - all caused by climate change ....

I have beautiful vivid recollections of snorkeling in he reefs in the Sinai desert - a surreal and glorious insane artist's rendition ...

The elephants, the giraffe ........

And this all in one day of not really listening with attention.

Oh, test tube fetuses - how could I forget that tidbit!

This isn't even broaching the ghastly political climate - Government shutdowns, an insane President raving about walls and drugs and terrorists, and fake news, and how scientists don't know what they are talking about ......

I work a couple of days a week in a really lovely woman-owned boutique surrounded by luxurious textiles, hand blocked fabrics, unique garments which are not made in a sweatshop.  I go to the gym, and to art classes.  I participate in a writing group, and an enneagram group.  All these activities enrich my life.   And yet, yesterday after yoga I sat on the bench putting on shoes after class. Someone I haven't seen in years sits next to me and groans as he bends his leg to put on his shoes.   I jokingly commented on how our bodies are now protesting smaller amounts of exercise.

"Courage," he says to me, "it is only going to get worse."

Today at the gym I met two women I haven't seen in a while.

"How are you," "good" we all reply, then comes the qualifications.  "As good as can be expected with this ......... and on we all go about all the 'unbelievable' that is believably happening.

So this is a brief summary of my life as it is!

And here is my latest piece, in oils.  It is from a photo I took in Carson City in summer of 2017.
 

Photos

OK - here are some photos, not in particular order.

The top one is an oil painting I did from a photo I took while in Seattle on the ferry to Victoria

The next two are quite self-evident.  Ireland

That adorable child is the latest addition to the family

The skull is my latest painting, a meditation on death. The title is:

"Underneath we are all alike."

Again, love and light

2018

Well, 2018 hurtles to a close.

"Another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust"

I think no matter where anyone is situated on the carousel of life; to the left, to the right, at the top, at the bottom, this has been a hell of a year.

For me personally it has been punctuated by some lovely events - a trip to Israel, a trip to Montreal and Quebec City where I was graciously hosted by family members I had not previously met. So interesting, we are born in different countries, at different times, but I experienced the same warmth and ease as I do with family I have known all my life.

I think of the word family, and all that it means really and truly, deep down in our marrow. For me it conjures up feelings of warmth, and caring, a shared 'something' that surpasses time and space. Invisible silken threads
- fine filaments, which float and connect to us, and tie us together.

And another trip, to Ireland, a country I have always wanted to visit, for some unknown reason. It is nowhere in my DNA as far as I know. It was a really lovely, interesting, fun trip.

A beloved aunt passed away - and although it is, of course, sad, it was also a good end to a good life. A blessing, and a leavetaking.

I have not written much this year, but I have painted. Indeed, I shall try and post some of my paintings. In fact, I shall endeavour to post some pictures from this year. (in due time)

So, to one and all, here's to a return to the light.

Love and blessings

All I want

HHHHHHHEEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPP

I want to go back to the time when all you had to do to look at a TV was to turn it on.

I want to go back to the time when all you had to do to drive a car was fill it with gas and turn on the ignition.

I want to go back to the time when all you had to do to wash clothes was put them in the bin and turn it on - OR, even better, put the clothes in a sink, wash them and hang them outside to dry.

I want to go back to the time when you enter numbers onto a phone pad and call someone.

I JUST CAN"T TAKE THE RIDICULOUS STRESS OF ELECTRONIC DIGITAL LIFE. Everything is difficult enough without all these added nonsenses.




HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPPPPP

A Physical

On Saturday evening my iPhone 6s was scheduled to undergo a battery replacement at the Genius Bar.

Around the time I had paid off my iPhone 6s - i.e. at the end of the two year contract, I began to receive e-mails from Apple and Verizon, my service provider, that I am eligible for an upgrade. At the same time I noticed that my battery was slowing down. The same thing had happened with my iPhone 5. It simply died at the exact time my contract ended, and I had paid it off. Planned obsolescence was my diagnosis, but I nevertheless traded it in for the 6s, and swore I would not do this again.

Around the same time that my 6s began to slow down, articles were published about the fact that these phones were intentionally programmed to slow down. Apple now offered to replace the batteries for $29 instead of $80.

Aha - vindicated. I really do not need an upgrade, no matter how much quicker, lighter, better, more flash, better cameras etc. etc. the latest models are.

I am old enough to remember a time when one could have parts replaced, and objects fixed, instead of being discarded. Workmen took pride in their skills. They had work, landfills were not clogged. And may I remind anyone reading this, it was not that long ago.

In order to prolong my battery life I closed apps that kept running in the background. I did everything I could short of not using my phone at all to prolong its life. This did help for quite a while, but about two weeks ago it appeared to go kaput. I decided to have the battery replaced. Not feeling competent to carry out this operation alone, I made an appointment at the Genius Bar.

Upon my arrival I was greeted at the door by a smiling technician/assistant/greetperson - whatever the correct terminology is, and was directed to the Genius Bar where another smiling polite person, iPad in hand, greeted me again, and after checking my name motioned me to take a seat at a table until I was called.

I am not oblivious to the dazzling displays of everything Apple. I left my seat to look at the enticing items displayed on the walls. Immediately a smiling young man, Zack, walked over to me to inquire whether he could assist me. Actually I think he probably said he would be glad to be of assistance to me.

"Just looking," I told him as a smiling young woman, Melissa, approached me. She would be my Genius.

"What is the problem" she inquired, smiling. I told her and the first thing she said was that I can trade in my phone for the next and best.

"No," I said firmly. To my astonishment she confessed that she still has an iPhone 6s! So, with great understanding she told me she would run a battery of diagnostic tests on my phone. She hooked it up to electrodes placed at various pulse points on the phone, and ran impressive graphs of usage, times of use, battery performance, etc. The equivalent of lab tests to determine what is ailing the patient. After looking at these and nodding she showed me the battery's performance levels and declared that everything is fine. My phone does not need a battery replacement at this time. (Sort of like going to the dentist with a raging toothache only to have it vanish at the appointment time.) She assured me that the battery special is offered until December, so I should monitor its performance. If it REALLY does run slow (she made me realise I had been overly anxious) then I should make another appointment.

But I was not quite ready to leave. Kevin was going to outfit my current phone with an anti-glare screen. This required the use of a special machine to put it on, so that it would be nothing short of perfection itself on my VERY outdated artifact.

Fullness of Time

If there are any of you readers who have followed me from when I began this blog, you will know that I began it after my book Tree Barking: A Memoir, was published. At speaking events I was asked whether I would continue writing about my work. At the suggestion of a publisher, I began this blog in 2009, and have continued posting even though I 'retired' from this work in 2015.

When I first began work in early intervention in 2003 it was in the good old days before all the cuts in services had begun. I worked as an Occupational Therapist in the homes of high risk infants. I worked with the infants twice or even three times a week until they turned three, at which time they entered the school system.

In those days of plenty, high risk referred to any infant who had a low birthweight, or was born prematurely, who was at risk because of their environment, or who were diagnosed with any number of chromosomal abnormalities, syndromes, and so on. (If you have questions about this, please let me know.)

The work was both extremely gratifying, challenging, difficult, and frustrating.

It happened that in 2003 I was referred, amongst many other cases, to two micropreemie girls. These girls were born in the same month, in the same year, both in the city of Richmond, both from African American families. They were both born at just six months of age, and both weighed just one pound! Of course they remained in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit until they reached full term. Both of them suffered from all the problems of extreme prematurity, ranging from retinopathy of prematurity, breathing and heart problems, neurological disturbances, feeding difficulties, necrotizing enterecolitis, on and on. Each came with a page of illnesses they had both, rather miraculously, overcome. While they were hospitalized they overcame life threatening events. These girls never knew each other, and still don't. I entered their lives at a fragile time in their homes. Such births and difficulties place enormous stress on families.

It didn't take long before I was hopelessly in love with both of these tiny, fragile little creatures. Because I was there twice a week, in their homes, I became part of their families. I was witness to parental struggles and separations, emotional and financial difficulties, as well as truly awful life shattering events. One of the fathers was killed, and the other was incarcerated for 12 years at the time when his little daughter was getting to know him.

I was witness to the strong bonds of love and loyalty between the family members. I was in awe of both grandmothers who had worked and survived against all the crushing obstacles they had faced. I became like a member of the family, but all the while I knew that when they turned three, both in the same month, I would no longer see them.

Their mothers and grandmothers really worked hard with these fragile infants who quite quickly began to catch up to typically developing children. In fact, I realised that both these li'l things were quite exceptional.

From the time they turned two and a half I began telling them, as I told every child I worked with, whether their parents thought they would understand or not, that when they turned three I would no longer be seeing them. I was obviously a big part of the childrens' lives, devoting a full hour twice a week to be with them. They enjoyed my undivided attention,
and of course were most delighted to see me with my large black canvas bag of 'tricks,' (the toys and books I brought to them. They received me with delight and cried when I left, although I assured them I would be back soon. I never wanted to just stop seeing a child and never return. I told them that I would not be coming because they were doing very nicely, and were going on to new things. I told them I would always carry them in my heart.

This was, indeed the case. Thanks to social media I have remained in touch with their mothers over the years. And I mean years. These young ladies are 18 years of age and have both graduated. I was invited to their graduation ceremonies and festivities.

Over the past two weekends I have been out with both of these 'girls.' I was beyond thrilled to reconnect with them and their families and was received with the warmest of embraces from all members of the family. They have both done so incredibly well, and have blossomed into really delightful, insightful, thoughtful, intelligent beings.

It is so gratifying to me that we continue to share a warm and loving bond, and I am now watching them spread their wings and fly.