Sometimes this human is just a slow learner, evidently. Under the mistaken notion that if I left a costuming project on the table that the cats would leave it alone, I did just that. Teeny decided to educate me on that idea by making it her new “kitty nest”. Coated in fresh long haired cat fur, I decided that the linen had to be washed before I could return to my project. I’m guessing that was the wrong idea. As I began gathering up 10+ yards of fabric for the washer, Teeny hopped up on the table and plopped down in the middle of the fabric daring me to move it. Until this point, Teeny has been fluent in human and English, but when I told her “down” and “off the fabric” she decided that she no longer understood those words and glared at me. When I moved my hands in to pick up the fabric and pull it, to quietly physically urge her off, she placed her paw on my hand and narrowed her eyes. We spoke about this one cat to human and human to cat. Being the determined human that I am, I finally picked her up and put her back on the floor then swiftly grabbed up a few yards before she bounced back onto the table where we began again. This time I didn’t bother with telling her “Off”, I just picked her up and put her on the floor. Nonchalantly she turned her head over her shoulder and did an annoyed but non-threatening hiss at me before raising her royal head as high as it could go with her tail straight up as she walked out of the room. Human:1, Cat:0. I’m sure she gets points for nerve and presentation.
Kitten Wars 8/17/14
17 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in journal, Kitten Wars Tags: cat, Cats, determination, fun, journal, kitten wars, teeny
Kitten Wars
14 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in journal, Kitten Wars Tags: cat, dog, humor, Kitten, kitten wars, relationships, slice of life
Well the battle grounds have moved from the living room to my bedroom once more. While it was once a war, we are living in a strange glow of peace for now. Where once Cleo ruled supreme as queen of the quilted comforter, I am finding more and more that Teeny has decided that her daytime rest area and night time haunt happen to be my bed. I have found where she has arranged my covers to suit her over and over again. Of late I am now finding a cat occupying that place and not the fluffy tail of the one who would slink away. She has become much bolder as she knows us all. Cleo does not seem to mind being usurped as she has been making it a habit to curl up next to Teeny while they clean each other. Buddy feels quite neglected by all this because he has known from a very early age that DOGS are NOT allowed on the bed. Being the mostly rule abiding canine that he is, he puts his head on his paws and sighs when they start up with the girly cat-ness that they are.
Robin Williams and Koko
13 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in Uncategorized Tags: film clip, friendship, fun, Koko, language, laughter, love, Robin Williams, sign language
This is one of my favorite films of his. Robin Williams is so gentle and sweet with Koko. The Gorilla Foundation recorded it. I found it on youtube and just fell in love with it. Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GorgFtCqPEs
Bright and Shiny, Fresh and Filled with Hope
10 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in journal, teaching Tags: hope, remodel, remodeling, school, school year, teachers, teaching
The new year began on Wednesday and the students all came with their excited faces and laughter. They brought energy to the freshly remodeled school that had remained empty over the months of summer. With them came the actual heat of summer as Georgia has had an unseasonably cool June and July. As they trotted, skipped, and danced their way around the fresh paint and the workers still making the “final” adjustments all of the flaws from the tired old school of last year faded away making this truly a new year.
Last year we were forced to become accustomed to a school that had no ceiling tiles, wires hanging all over the place, and a depth of dust from the remodeling that no one should ever be required to be around. We came back from Christmas 2013 to find our school a shadow of what it had been with all of its assorted guts beginning to show. By the end of 2013-2014 we knew intimately the innards of our school and it was not pretty. Its strange how that became the accepted norm while bringing all of our morale down despite any attempts at the hope of the fresh school of the future. By the end of May we were all trudging along, frantically sorting, chucking, and packing all of our belongings so that the workers could get to their main work while wondering what they had been doing since January if summer was to be their main work. Admittedly, tempers were short, sleep was even shorter. More fights broke out than normal. The students truly didn’t understand why they were constantly upset, but it was the tiredness of their surroundings, the feeling of hopelessness from the dirt, the dust, the wires, and everything else weighing upon them. As a faculty and a school, summer could not get there fast enough.
So, coming back to this new school, and it is a NEW school, with its bright paint, tiled floor, and new classrooms with shiny equipment, is a true blessing. The students feel the hope that is there and are building from it. May this year continue in its cheer, its laughter, and its fun.
Kitten Wars 8/3/14
03 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in journal, Kitten Wars Tags: Cats, dogs, early morning, heat, journal, kitten wars, waking up
Teeny is in heat. Any cat lover out there knows that each female cat has her own version of heat. While Cleo tells you about hers vocally and loudly in the middle of the night, Teeny is fairly quiet with purrrupping and bumping galore. While she is very receptive to human interactions (PET ME NOW, HUMAN) as she bumps her head into us, she is NOT receptive to dog interactions what-so-ever.
Poor Buddy was sound asleep on his bed this morning when Teeny went to bump into me. She was bumping my legs so forcefully and constantly that I was tripping over her. Evidently, she wasn’t looking where she was bumping and when I stepped by Buddy, she bumped him instead of me. In utter shock that the dog made contact with THE CAT, Teeny bounced back and hissed fairly loudly at him waking him up. As he opened his eyes very slowly from his deep slumber, Buddy got an eye full of angry cat telling him just how wrong he was for letting her bump into him.
In true dog fashion, Buddy lifted his head, looked at me, then put it back on his bed, covering it with his paws as Teeny flounced away. Its hard being the only male pet in this house sometimes and a dog at that.
Drumming Therapy Anyone? 8/3/14
03 Aug 2014 2 Comments
in journal Tags: djembe, drumming, drums, friendship, fun, middle eastern drumming, relationships, therapy
I had the most fun yesterday. I always knew that drummers usually have the biggest grins when they are playing their instruments. Well, I may have cracked the reason why. Drumming releases stress in the best way!
By nature, I am that person that shies away from meeting groups of new people. I much prefer one to one interactions with good friends. So, it was a huge step for me to actually go to the drumming circle in the first place, but I trusted Rick since I’ve known him 30 years now. He and I have sung in all sorts of chorister guilds together and have maintained a very strong friendship, if distant due to my living anywhere from 100-2500 miles away at any given time. So whenever we would get together it was always hugs, catching up, and fun.
Over time Rick has stayed true to his music and even cut a CD with a group of Middle Eastern musicians, while I have gone in and out. So, when he asked who would be interested in joining up for a percussion group, I contacted him and said, “Sure, but I don’t have a drum”. He gave me the places to go to and offered to join me in hunting out a good one at a decent price. Well, somehow the day of the meetup came and I still didn’t have a drum. Let’s just call it life.
We met up at a store before the circle and he told me I needed to go to another store, but that the circle was due to start. He said that there would be spare drums so I could still participate! Nervous, shy, scared, didn’t begin to tell the story of my emotional grid, but there was a thrumming excitement coating all of it. I met up with everyone. My son joined us and for almost 3 hours we played, we learned, and we drummed our hearts out.
I left with directions to the third store in the Atlanta area to look at drums. Rick told me straight up that when I found the one that was mine, it would speak to me. So, I entered the store and when the guy asked if I needed help, I told him that he was gonna need to really help me a lot ’cause I was there to buy my first drum. Instead of taking advantage of me like so many others could have, this guy joined the excitement bandwagon and began pulling down doumbeks and djembes of all sizes. Then he brought a chair over and showed me how to sit and the proper tilt. He didn’t try to sell me the most expensive one. Matter of fact he told me it was too big especially for me to learn on. He brought me a wide range of prices. When I hit this one drum we looked at each other and grinned. It spoke with a clear sweet sound that was all for me 🙂
So yesterday was day one of my drumming experience. I’m sure my neighbors will get sick of hearing middle eastern drum patterns after a while, but I’m sure gonna have fun until they do!
New Year, New Students, Fresh Start
01 Aug 2014 3 Comments
in journal, reflections Tags: art, bulletin board, expressionism, learning, moon, night, painting, reflections, starry night, stars, students, summer, teaching
Each school year I create a “mega” bulletin board that guides the theme for the year. I’ve done paper rainforests, waterfalls, and jungles. Sometimes I choose a science topic that the kids will be studying. The 2013-2014 school year found me doing Space Exploration. I’m guessing that I was quite the strange one at my latest school because people would drop by just to see how far along I was with that bulletin board. Once I finished it, I had a couple of teachers asking if I did murals for side money. I don’t. I make my murals just for the kids. If I did it for money, it would cease to be fun.
At the end of last year, when I was taking down my bulletin board, I was approached by a few colleagues who asked me what I planned on doing with my star burst bulletin board as I was rolling it up and putting it into the trash. They were dismayed that I had spent a few days painting it only to throw it away at the end of the year. I think one of them actually took it out of the trash and carted it away later, but I can’t prove that one. I only know that it developed legs of its own before the custodians came around to pick up the mounds of end of the year trash.
Of course, the follow-up question was, “Well if you’re throwing that one away, what do you plan on doing next year?”
Not giving it much thought, I said, “I think I’ll do something like ‘Starry Night'”. I know better than to answer questions off the cuff like that. It always sets me up for something later on!
At this point, I need to inform you that I have no formal art training. Matter of fact the last art class I took was in fifth grade which was back before Star Wars came out. So, I was being a bit facetious in my reply, to say the least. I do not consider myself an artist, but rather a dabbler. Well, my colleague took me at face value and was fairly excited that I was going to go for it.
I had all summer to think about it, forget about it, and come back around to it. For some reason, the idea just wouldn’t leave me alone. If I wasn’t thinking about that painting, I was hearing Don McLean in my head with his version. Something somewhere was trying to tell me to try it!
So, here’s a picture of the bulletin board that I made for the 2014-2015 school year. I used navy blue bulletin board paper and acrylic paint. I did not overhead project it. I even went so far as to intentionally leave elements out. This is my impression of the picture only, but boy did I have fun painting it over the last few days 🙂 I’ve had lots of people dropping by just to see where I was with it. I’ve had people sharing stories about when they first saw the original, when they went overseas to the various museums, or when they listened to …. Don McLean.
In Whose World is Reality
30 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in journal, Short fiction Tags: #Article 94, #Mark Gardner, Alzheimer's, anger, confusion, dementia, Doll, dream, fury, help, illness, journal, loss, relationships
I wrote this a while back. Its from a dream that haunted me. Article 94’s Mark Gardner spurred this one to be brought here by his piece “My Own Monster”. While this is fiction, it has elements of fact in that my grandmother had one of the longest documented cases of Alzheimer’s. My mother kept her at home with home nursing for years. Doll was treated from roughly 1981 until her death in 2005.
********
“My car is missing!” I told them being outright ignored.
Doll just wandered around the kitchen picking up the newspaper, putting it back down before settling in a chair at the table. Opening the cabinet, mother pulled out a glass and walked over to the refrigerator, opened it, looked inside then leaving the door open, pulled out her cigarettes.
“Did you hear me? My car has been stolen! I need to use your phone!”
My mother lit her cigarette then replied without turning towards me, “Well you should have thought of that before you loaned it out. Not my fault you can’t make good choices.” She took a drag off of it then got some orange juice out to pour into her glass. Meanwhile, my grandmother sat there staring blankly at nothing in particular while our drama unfolded around her.
“Mother, I need to use your phone.” I said knowing that if I walked over to it without her permission, all hell would break loose, so I stood perfectly still ever watchful to see if she would acquiesce. Even though local calls were part of the bill, I was not allowed to call out without permission even as an adult.
“Judy, where’s my juice? I need my juice with my paper in the morning.” My grandmother murmured distantly as if just now waking from a long nap. That she noticed her juice was gone was a good thing. Alzheimer’s had done its number on her years ago taking her idea of what was real and now away so solidly that no amount of putting it in front of her mattered. She had her good days when she was sweet and loving, then there were the bad ones where everyone was a physical target that she had to overcome with any means necessary.
“OH good, the woman who looks like my granddaughter is here. My doll baby is much prettier than you, but she still needs to lose weight. I so wish she would come back from school to visit me.”
“Doll, it is me. I’ve just grown older.” I took a few steps over to her and took her hand in mine. It was soft, withered, with the bones showing through from where she refused to eat now. I tried, not thinking about it, wanting her to recognize me just once for who I am. I knew better. It never worked.
“Don’t you talk to your grandmother that way! You’ll just confuse her more!” My mother lit another cigarette from the one burning as if the first one had some kind of fatal flaw in it. She looked at me with utter hatred pouring out of her, the fury of it licking its way to me.
“I used to sing, “Hello Dolly” to her as a baby. She was such a sweet child.” Doll smiled with the kindest of smiles that lit up her face making her eyes glow with happiness. Then she began to sing in a hesitant but happy voice, “Hello, Dolly! Well hello, Dolly! It’s so nice to have you back where you belong!”
Tears came to my eyes as she did that, wishing that she was singing to me once more. My early childhood had been filled with visits to her when she would sing to me and talk with me, taking me places with her as if I was special. She had been so much more of a mother to me when I was there than her daughter was. I missed my grandmother, my Doll.
I never used a typical grandmother term for her. From the moment I could call her anything, she was Doll. Everyone picked it up from me. Even her friends called her that because my grandmother was so very special.
Mother turned, strode angrily across the kitchen and slammed the juice down in front of her mother, taking Doll’s attention from happy memories back to the confusing present. “Mother here is your juice. You know that SHE doesn’t love us enough to come here to visit.”
Turning to me she spat, “Use the phone. Call the police then leave. Don’t come back, you are not welcome here!”
************************
I woke up shaking, frozen stiff in my bed, still hearing their voices, smelling the cigarette smoke as it burned my nose. My muscles were ready for the fight that was coming. My brain was churning, waiting for the next verbal attack from my mother, but it wasn’t coming. They are both dead, long dead only their memories still haunt me; my dreams keeping them vividly alive.
Crafting the Change: In Reply to Goddesses and Doormats #queenofallevil 7/30/14
30 Jul 2014 6 Comments
in journal, reflections Tags: #Goddesses and Doormats, #queenofallevil, divorce, dysfunction, dysfunctional relationship, empowerment, eradication, journal, marriage, reflection, relationship, sharing
Lately I’ve read a few pieces written by queenofallevil that are really hitting home. She writes about empowering yourself and refusing to belittle who you are to someone else needs or expectations. She talks about how to achieve self-realization in a very straight forward manner. While blunt and to the point, what she says needs to be heard, read, understood, and used by so many of us. When you come from any sort of dysfunctional relationship, whether it was how you grew up or was a romantic one, the first step is to be aware of what happened to make it dysfunctional and eradicate it.
Personally, I am one of those people that over-cares and over-does. In my first marriage, my husband-to-be actually told the priest that the reason he was marrying me was because I made everything work. I made it easy for him to live his life the way he wanted to. In essence I was his executive assistant to be, not his future wife.
Being a helpmate is not a bad thing, but when I took care of all of the details constantly for someone who, while admitting that I did so, continued to use me in this manner without trying to change what was going on, I lost track of who I was. He did not want me to work saying that the military was taking care of everything and would stop if I worked a true job, so I was allowed only a small job to cover extra expenses. Over time my sense of self-worth and id just dissolved into who my mate needed me to be. I lost my voice, not physically, but mentally and spiritually. I left my interests and hobbies behind so that I could help him achieve his goals. I buried myself in his needs and wants to the point that others didn’t even know if I could talk or express an opinion of my own.
The best thing I did during that relationship was to go back to school during which I fell into my profession. I started out as a voice major. It was something that I loved, but something that was costly in time. He didn’t mind that I sang and practiced all the time. It wasn’t until I changed my major to speech pathology that things truly got rough.
During my second year of classes, I started getting job applications constantly sent to me with salary quotes. After he picked one up and read that I was going to make more money than he did, well things started getting rough. No longer did he allow me time to study or do my projects. I had to squeeze in all the extras that a graduate student is required to do during the hours that he was not at home because once he got home, I was required to be available for him at all times.
It wasn’t until he left on a year-long duty overseas, that I realized that without him and his needs, I didn’t know what to do. I was finishing up my master’s degree at the time, about to intern, when I finally got angry enough to do something about it. I realized that I didn’t want to continue to follow him around anymore. I wanted my own career, managed by myself without his interference or even his input. I wanted out in a big way, which was my first indication that something was truly wrong. I was growing out of the doormat stage of that particular relationship, unfortunately I had not grown enough to recognize and stop the pattern.
My first dysfunctional marriage led into my second one in which I continued to be the care-giver, the organizer, the doer of the relationship, and in this case one more step … the provider. Focusing on what had to be done and how to do it, I made it to where my second husband didn’t believe that he needed a job at all. He simply stayed home, played on the computer, or played at creating items for his hobbies. Was it entirely my fault that he chose this venue? No, but I made it easier for him to do so. After all, why work for someone else making a little bit of money, when your spouse has made it so simple to just stay home and have fun. I won’t say that we could afford what he was doing, we truly couldn’t but that part never truly bothered him, only me as I began the spiral of exhaustion of mind, body, and spirit.
So, this cycle repeated itself, in a slightly different manner, but the result was the same.
My lesson is to become less available to everyone else’s needs around me. It is very hard to not be the person that has the supplies, has the answers, and knows how to fix or do whatever needs to be done. It is harder still to stop wanting to help everyone around me. As a natural care-giver, I need to work socially on what I do professionally … teach others, not do for them.
As a society, we use the word help in a very positive manner in which the person helping is supposed to be doing a good thing. We have created a generation of people who have been brainwashed into being the end-all and do-all of their families and relationships, but this is not necessarily a good thing. In response to the care-givers, we, as a society, have also created a generation of users; people who think nothing of running their helpers, the ones who love and care for them, into the ground from all of their demands both necessary and unnecessary.
So, in reply to what queenofallevil is writing about, I believe that the answers lie both within and without. People need to recognize their dysfunction and work to alleviate it, but the change is not just for individuals. We, as a society, need to acknowledge the dichotomy and work towards crafting the change.
rhonwynalyna 
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