Do People Ever Think of the Cost?

We've all heard the chants: Global Warming, Climate Change, Pollution, Green Movement, etc. It's been going on for as long as I can remember (50+ years) and no doubt much longer than that. Still, I'm always astonished by how short sighted people can be.

We know we're all 'supposed' to drive 'green' cars. You know, the ones you plug into your local coal fired power plant (if you live where there's no hydroelectric power generation).

We're all supposed to use those CFL bulbs - the ones with mercury that are 'supposed' to be disposed of as hazardous waste - except the manufacturers don't bother putting that little tit bit on their packaging because it would ruin sales. If you want to read about that, here's an article for you:

Alliance for Natural Health website-CFL Bulbs

And, if one of those gets broken, here's how your supposed to clean it up:

EPA Instructions for Cleaning Up a Broken CFL Bulb

This is the text from that website - the Environmental Protection Agency:

Before Cleanup

• Have people and pets leave the room.
• Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment. 
• Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
• Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:
  • stiff paper or cardboard;
  • sticky tape;
  • damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
  • a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.

During Cleanup

• DO NOT VACUUM.  Vacuuming is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken.  Vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor.
• Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.  Scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard.  Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. Place the used tape in the glass jar or plastic bag.  See the detailed cleanup instructions for more information, and for differences in cleaning up hard surfaces versus carpeting or rugs.
• Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.

After Cleanup

• Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials, including vacuum cleaner bags, outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of.  Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors. 
• Next, check with your local government about disposal requirements in your area, because some localities require fluorescent bulbs (broken or unbroken) be taken to a local recycling center. If there is no such requirement in your area, you can dispose of the materials with your household trash.
• If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.

If you have further questions, please call your local poison control center at 1-800-222-1222.

 Oh, yeah baby! I want those in my house!

Then we have the latest gadget. They seem innocuous, harmless. After all, it's just a little tiny cup. What harm is there?

How about 9 billion - 9,000,000,000 of them going into our landfills each and every year? And that was last year alone. The market is still growing - Coca-Cola is about to leap on board - a machine on every counter, a drink for every occasion.

But they're small! Well, yes, they are, individually. But they add up. Imagine 9 billion of something that's only .035 inches in area. That's no big deal, right?

Uh, actually it is. When you multiply .035 x 9,000,000,000 you end up with 316,250,000 square inches.

So? Yeah, that's a lot but who cares? Okay, we'll convert that to square feet: 13,176,900 square feet.

Now, according to a variety of websites, the average American home is 2,600 square feet in size. That's all of the houses averaged.  So let's divide that square footage, because we can all envision the size of a house, into that square footage of those little innocuous cups.

5,068. That is 13,176,00 divided by 2,600. 5,068 homes - if they were all one-story and 2,600 square feet.

So let's see... According to the 2010 Census, there are 2.58 people per household. Divide 5,068 x 2.58 = 1,964.36 homes.

That's the equivalent of a good sized town - all covered over in those harmless, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable k-cups.

Yep, you know the ones - those little k-cup things you might have gotten your coffee from this morning.

And that is just one year's worth. What about next year, and the year after, and the year after that. The market is growing. Are we really going to pave over our planet for a tiny bit of convenience? Really?

Think about it. 

Best~
Philippa


Follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Greece, Rehypothecation and Slavery

Rehypothecation – do you know what that is? It’s a really great big word that means stealing. Slavery is a hot button word that is alive and well in societies around the world.

The stealing part is what’s happening in Greece right now. It’s what happened in Cyprus two years ago. Puerto Rico is on the verge of bankruptcy, unable to meet its obligations on $70bn of debt. Spain has a weak economy and might be next. Will they follow the examples set by members of the European Union?

As an individual, when you put your money – the dough you earned by working and earning a living – into a bank or mutual fund or other ‘paper’ investment, that money is no longer yours. It is theirs. The place into which you put it takes it. It does not go into a little box with your name on it. It gets pooled with everyone else’s, and then it gets loaned out. On one dollar deposited, they can borrow ten.

Now, if that person or entity to which the loan is made defaults, if they don’t pay their debt, there’s usually an asset of some type. A home loan is made against the physical structure. If the borrower defaults, the bank takes the house. It can resell that house and collect at least some of the money it loaned against it.

In the case of a loan to a nation – like Cyprus or Greece – there is no single physical asset that stands as collateral. Because of that, the loans made to countries with weak economies are bad investments.

Because the European Union, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) made loans to economies that were teetering on the edge of default and bankruptcy, the lenders – the other members of the European Union – are in a fix right now. There is nothing they can sell to get back their money – your money, since you’re the one who put the money into the bank in the first place.

Greece, with 26% unemployment and 30% of its citizens retired has more people unemployed or retired than working. More of their working citizens work for the government than for private business. Their debt to GDP ratio is astronomical – they are spending far more than they are earning. It’s like you, earning minimum wage and spending like George Soros.

As a result of its profligate spending (17.5% of GDP) on social benefits – pensions and such - it is in no position to repay the billions of Euros loaned to them in the past few years.

This leaves the ECB, IMF and the Greek government with limited choices.

They can do a public bail-in, like Cyprus did in 2013-2014. That was a very popular move. Take the money from depositors – steal it – so you can shore up a failing institution. Now, out of the kindness of their good little hearts, the bankers didn’t steal the money of the mom and pop depositors. They focused on the big kids – depositors with more than 100,000 Euros – with ample warning beforehand so those big depositors had time to shift the bulk of their wealth off-shore.

Right now, this week, Greece is quietly doing this – without the forewarning Cyprus offered. After all, the wealthy investors from Russia and other European countries probably didn’t make the same mistake twice. Instead of depositing in ‘iffy’ places like the Med, they’ve probably already shifted their deposits to more stable places – like Switzerland, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.

In the meantime, hurting those mom and pop depositors the most, banks in Greece are closed this week. The Greek stock market is closed, at least through Tuesday. Depositors who have their savings in the bank, if they wait long enough through the queue and if the reserve isn’t drained by the time they get to the front of the line, may (with the government’s permission), withdraw a whopping 60 EU per day - the equivalent of $66. No checks will be honored. In other words, the money that people have in their bank accounts is no longer theirs. It belongs to the bank and to the ECB and IMF.

Why is it like this? It’s simple. It is because the socialist model doesn’t work. They, the noblesse oblige governments, have run out of other people’s money.

They ran out of their own, from their own citizens, several years ago. Then they turned to the primary members of the EU and held out their hand, ‘help us, please’. The EU obliged by handing over billions of their citizen’s money to failing economies.

Socialism has never worked. Not once. It’s a wonderful ideal – if you’re lazy and don’t want to work hard to earn your keep. Take what others make – the ‘from each according to their ability’ theft of another’s labor.

Socialism is, in its most fundamental definition, slavery.

Stop and study that Marxist ideal: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

In other words, simple words, take from those who are able and give it to someone else.

When you have a society that hands out more than it takes in – the second half of the Marx ideal of ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their need’ – you have a failing system. It is not sustainable.

At a ratio of 2:1 non-workers to workers, it becomes a slave state. Look at Greece.

The one worker is toiling to support two people. Never mind that the worker wants to enjoy the fruits of their labor, too. They do not willingly get up in the morning and go to work so they can be slaves who support the non-workers. At that point, they are slaves; nothing more, nothing less because their effort is given away to support someone else. They are not a free individual, using the gifts given to them by Fate or God or whatever. They Are A Slave.

That’s where Greece is now. The workers are working harder and harder to pay the taxes and the fees and the levies that provide the pension funds to the non-workers.

It didn’t work in the Soviet Union – the Soviet Socialist Republic that died in the 1980’s – a mere 70 years after starting. It isn’t working in Greece now. The only question remaining is how long it will take to collapse and who will be next.

Scarecrow and Chapter One

I feel like the Scarecrow from L. Frank Baum's 'The Wizard of Oz', the line after they've been attacked by the Wicked Witch's flying monkeys and the Cowardly Lion and Tinman are re-stuffing him: 'That's you all over'.

It's been crazy around here this morning - dashing hither and yon, trying to catch up with myself. I finally have and now I'm too worn out to think of anything to write here. Not amusing, not boring, not same-old, same-old, so I'll post a couple of chapters from one of my books and get back to writing.

This is from 'Matters of Friendship' which is available for reading at Authonomy. It's free to sign up, totally spam free, and a place to read up-and-comers.  https://www.authonomy.com/book/294687/

Have a lovely day!

Philippa
Follow me at Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Matters of Friendship

Chapter 1 - Resurrection

The ‘Resurrection Party’ was supposed to be a celebration of my divorce, but it wasn’t. It was anything but a celebration.

“Did you hear…?”

“Isn’t it awful? Poor thing.”

“Poor Peter! What’s he going to do…?”

“I wonder how the kids are dealing with it…”

Moving from group to group in my role as guest of honor, I overheard at least a dozen conversations, all on the same theme, but I didn’t mind. How could I?

Some of the people there were friends from other times, other places. The rest, the majority, were colleagues and work friends. These people also knew Peter and some had met his wife, Lara.

The first group wanted to spend time catching up, to ask how I was doing, what it was like to be single again. I circulated through them, answering questions, asking my own, and hearing about kids grown up, moved away, new grand babies and the lives I had missed. Some also wanted to meet my other, newer friends, the ones they might have heard of from me.

The rest, the people who knew Peter or Peter and Lara, wanted to talk about them and her cancer. They ignored the others, the strangers or waiting-to-be friends, and clustered together shifting from place to place while they dissected the gossip.

Balancing both groups with all the undercurrents was an uphill battle. It was a challenge that would stump the best hostess in the world, which I wasn’t. Still I tried.

As usual for summer in Sonoma County, the afternoon started hot but cooled rapidly when the fog came across the coast. The fuzzy edge of it trimmed the tops of the distant hills while the wind carried its chill dampness inland. Sundresses and polo shirts were no match, so the patio cleared and we all moved into the winery tasting room where the drinking, nibbling and gossiping continued.

When the sun began to set behind the encroaching fog, the party wound down. People stopped on their drift toward the doors to say all the usual things people say at a time, in a place like that. As the group thinned, the strains of light jazz coming from the built-in speakers grew proportionally louder, filling the fresh made gaps. Outside, evening grew and someone turned on the inside lights.

After making one last circuit of the room, pausing by the laggards to offer my thank yous for their coming and encourage them to leave, I caught up with Karen and Stan. They were my friends who had organized the party and had spent the evening behind the bar, pouring drinks and replenishing the trays of food. With them was Brendan, the winery owner and Stan’s boss. As I approached, Karen looked past Brendan and offered a rueful smile.

“Hey, Allison, there you are!” She stepped forward, proffering a swapped air kiss when I came to a stop. “It’s a shame about Lara, really terrible news. I hope it didn’t mess things up for you tonight, and you still had a good time?”

“I had a wonderful time, given the circumstances.” Looking back down the long room, I allowed myself a sigh. Of all the people Karen had said she would invite, Peter was the only one I had really wanted to see. The others would have been the cake, but he would have been the icing.

Oh well, no regrets, remember?

Turning back, I smiled and took her hand in mine. “It’s awful about Lara, and I feel terrible for Peter and the kids. So sad for them, but it was thoughtful and kind for you and Stan to put this together for me. I can’t thank you enough. It was great to see everyone again.”

“Oh, good, I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“I did, so thank you again, but I also came to say good night. I’ve got to feed Charley and get some stuff done for tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” Her dark eyebrows rose, “We were just talking about going out to dinner after we shoo everyone else out of here.”

“Gee,” a flash of embarrassment swept through me as my eyes flicked over to Brendan.

He was a good looking, tall, barrel chested man in his mid-fifties with a creased face and brilliant blue eyes. To me, he looked more like a cowboy than a winery owner.

Still, I was nowhere close to being ready to start going out or dating. Not even a casual dinner that felt like a set-up so I smiled at him, a ‘no hard feelings’ gesture because he was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

“That sounds really nice, but… I’m sorry. Perhaps we could do it another time?”

Karen looked faintly hurt and I felt badly. She had been generous with arranging the party and was trying to be a good friend.

Smiling, I offered an alternative. One that I hoped wouldn’t feel quite like such a trap for either Brendan or me. “I am sorry, but I really can’t tonight. How about you all come to my place for dinner next Saturday and we’ll do a barbecue?”

Brendan shifted and looked away, the muscles in his face tighter than they had been. Was he irritated, resentful, embarrassed or was it something else?

Stan tossed a grimace at his wife, who looked only slightly abashed, and said, “That sounds good to us. How about it, Brendan?”

“Uh … yeah, sure, that sounds good.” He didn’t look thrilled. There was no smile or brightening of the eyes as he glanced from Stan to Karen and then at me. It looked as if he was searching for an excuse and not finding one. “When next Saturday?”

“Why don’t we say six o’clock? Would that be okay?” I thought my voice sounded unnaturally cheerful and it was my turn to squirm, hoping no one else noticed.

There were murmurs all around while I smiled at Karen, even though I wanted to throttle her for putting me on the spot like that. Instead, I just said good night and left, waiting until I pulled the car door shut behind me before saying what I was thinking.

“Geez Louise, Karen! The ink is barely dry on the decree, and you’re already trying to set me up!”

I had to laugh, at both of us, and did as I slipped the key into the ignition and backed out of the parking space. As I drove away, my laughter fell behind as sadness crept in with the thoughts of Lara and Peter.

Chapter Two - Introductions

Four years before my ‘resurrection’, the company at which I had I worked underwent a massive reorganization. In the course of six months, half the upper management left in either forced ‘retirement’ or terminated disgrace. New management transferred in or came onboard. Departments were reconstituted, streamlined and became new things.

Through it all, I kept my head down and my powder dry. Too many of my co-workers received transfers or terminations. Many others quit. I didn’t want to join them, so I trod carefully, balancing on the precipice, never quite sure where the edge might be. That edge got narrower when my boss, the general manager, called me into his office one day.

The Transition Manager was sitting in front of the desk, watching me. I sensed something, a tension, so I closed the door.

“Allison,” Bryce looked pale, shaken. He stopped, shook his head and cleared his throat, took a moment and then looked up at me. “I’m being let go.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it and took a step closer to the desk.

Bryce had founded the company, had built it, grown it, and then sold it to a multi-national company in the same industry. They had kept him on, let him lead, and now … this?

He just looked away, down, and nodded. The strain was painful to see and my heart went out to him.

We had not always worked comfortably together, but we had made a good team. His approach to managing people was sometimes overbearing. Occasionally he would verbally club people to try to get them to perform, but he had always been fair, treating everyone the same without favorites.

After the first time I had seen what I thought was unfair and unreasonable, I went into his office, supposedly to get his signature on some letters.

“It’s a shame about Morrie.” I was standing at the end of his desk and spoke neutrally.

“Oh?” He looked up. His dark bristly eyebrows had already drawn down over his frosty eyes.

I didn’t back down, but didn’t challenge his stare, either. Instead, I looked at the sheaf of papers in my hands.

“Mm. I heard his daughter was in an accident last week, hit by a pickup truck. Seems one of her legs and an arm are broken, and she’s in a back brace. It must be awful for him and Marie.” I watched him through the corner of my eye, to gauge his reaction. “I can’t imagine the strain that’s putting on him.”

He shifted on the chair, his pen hovering over the latest page. The pen landed and moved as he said, “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t think so, but I think that’s why he’s been so distracted lately. There’s probably a lot going on at home.”

He grunted and shoved the letters into my hand, looking at the wall across the room with that crease still between his brows.

“How old is she?”

“Six and her name is Sally.”

Without another word, I left and went back to my desk from which I could see into his office. Perhaps a minute later, he stood up, came to and paused in the doorway before sauntering off, heading in the direction of Morrie’s workstation.

From then, when I thought he had crossed the line, I tried to find little ways to let him know that sugar and honey attract more than vinegar and brine. He gradually learned and I was always careful not to step into things that were strictly performance related.

Now, he cleared his throat again, “I’ll be leaving in a few minutes, but I wanted to let you know,” he looked up at me. Tears edged his lower eyelids, “you have been a great assistant. I appreciate it and I’ve put in a good word.” He shrugged and a ghost of a smile tugged at a corner of his mouth. “I don’t know what good that will do, but I’ve done what I can.”

It took me a moment to gather my wits, and then I nodded, “Thank you. Thank you for telling me, personally.”

The woman we all resented and feared rose, her face smooth, as if she felt nothing about what she was doing to Alan, to me, to everyone else who had worked there.

“Please excuse us.” Her perfume caught in my nose when she reached past me and opened the door.

“Of course,” still in shock, I stepped through, glanced back and then closed the door behind me.

Back at my desk, it was impossible to work. I kept looking at the office door and the narrow sidelight through which I could see the woman’s shoulder above the chair back.

Things gradually balanced out, settled down. The new general manager came in. Carolyn, the Transition Manager who had dropped the axe on Bryce introduced us, and that was that. Stay or leave, take it or leave it, and I decided to try.

I was still as jumpy as a cat in a dog kennel five months after the change when Cecily, the Director of Manufacturing Processes appeared at my desk one morning. One of the newcomers, a transfer from another division, stood behind her.

He was a tall lanky man with a mop of brown hair over a long narrow face slightly marked by long-ago acne and warm brown eyes.

“Allison, we need your help. This is Peter. I don’t think you’ve met.” She waved at him, briefly, but didn’t wait, “Adam and Dave want us to revamp our technical procedures, make them more consistent so they’re easier to follow.

“Peter is our new document control specialist, and he has some ideas but needs help implementing them, standardizing everything. He thinks templates might be best, and I’m hoping you can lend a hand.”

 

I Hate That Saying...

I don't know if it was original to the 1960's and '70s, or if it predates that, but the saying 'This is the first day of the rest of your life' makes me want to commit an act of violence. It's so... Argh!

However, it is because this is the day I start remaking myself. Not in the superficial hair dye and highlights manner, or the polish and puff manner, I'm just not like that. Instead, it's in the rebuilding and realignment manner.

When I was a kid, I was skinny. Rail thin with ribs from here to there, then I hit puberty and wham the fat found me. When I was fourteen I was wearing size fourteen clothing, and it wasn't age-adjusted. It was what fit. My friends were all wearing, or all seemed to be wearing, size six or seven or something that wouldn't fit one of my thighs.

In my late teens I finally got it under control. I went from 160 pounds to 135 pounds. I felt good, I looked good and I could finally shop for 'cute' clothes in size 10/11.

Then I got married and, as marriage often does, it brought weight. It's like a wedding gift from the Fates or something.

Now, thirty-five years on and I've decided to struggle with my weight, again.

Several years ago I weighed 217 pounds. That was my all time high. Even when I was pregnant the most I ever weighed in at was 204 pounds. Then, I lost the baby-fat, got down to 160 again and then ballooned. Packing on fifty-seven pounds because I ate when I was bored. When I was tired. When I was angry or depressed or just because it was there.

Try and lift that, it's shocking to think that's what I was hauling around everywhere I went.

Over a period of a couple of years, between 2010 and 2012, I took off thirty-seven of those pounds. I got down to a relatively trim 180 and I was proud of myself. But I was also depressed. I mean, after all, there are football players - professional, adult football players - who weigh less than I do! It's depressing and it's irritating.

Last night I finally worked up the courage to weigh myself for the first time in months.

Damn. I knew I had gained weight because I haven't been 'careful'. But I didn't think it was that much.

After all, I still fit into most of the 'skinny' clothes - those garments that are numbers that don't include an 'X' in the size - that I bought after my last weight-loss round.

It was that much, so now I'm determined. I want to get rid of this... stuff because I want to be active for a lot longer than I will be if I'm packing a giant sack of kitty litter with me everywhere I go.

Forty pounds, that's my goal. Eighteen months, that's my timeline. So, let's see here.

40 pounds x 3500 calories = 140,000 calories.
30 days x 18 months = 540 days.
140,000/540 = 259.26 calories per day.
2,000 calories is the standard for a normal adult human being's daily caloric needs.
1,700 calories should be my daily goal.

That's do-able. 1,700 calories per day, or less, if I can manage it. And I should be able to, because I have before.

It was boring. It was dull. It was a gigantic pain in the butt, but for months I tracked and estimated the cost of everything that went between my lips. I got pretty good at it, too. It will be a nuisance again, but it won't be hard. And even though I'm starting from a place higher than my recent low, it's still substantially less than where I began last time.

So, despite the fact that I want to strangle the person who started that sing-song happy crap of 'This is the first day of the rest of your life', it is. It will be, and I'm going to keep track and do my best to do my best to get down to something like a reasonable weight. Forty pounds. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but I can do it.

Now, I'm off to get breakfast - packaged oatmeal = 160 calories. 1 tbsp of flax seed = 30 calories. 1 banana, medium = 105 calories. Breakfast = 295 calories. Balance remaining = 1,405.

Have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Friday!

We made it to another Friday! I know that for most of us worker drones, this is a 'hooray!' day, the day before a weekend. For many, it's just another day because they're working tomorrow. For some, it's a scary day - the Day of the Pink Slip. I've heard on the news that some companies, big companies, are getting ready to lay off thousands.

I've been there, that last one, several times and it is no fun. It is survivable, but first it is shocking (even if you know it's coming), hurtful (even if you know it's coming) and ego bruising. It's just the way it is, but it is survivable.

Yesterday I was talking to a work-friend about life and stuff, including some of the bad things that have happened to me. I told her about 2012. My 2012. What I think of as My Year of Growing Up.

Being between 50 and 60 I think a lot of people would think I had already grown up and, yes, chronologically, they would be right. But there is always room for growth, strengthening and improvement.

Between about October 2011 and September 2012 I was tested - severely, but I survived, sanity intact, stronger and prepared for just about anything.

The family wars had escalated, with me as Switzerland. They started early on in our child's life. The dynamic between father and child was a disaster because he could not (not 'would not' but could not) let our child grow up. He could not accept that our child is their own person, liable to make their own choices and mistakes and achieve their own failures and victories.

I tried to stay neutral, out of it, when the hammers and tongs flailed. The combatants would shout and scream, throw imprecations and demand that I take sides.

Sometimes, when the situation was too egregious, I had to. I would step or get dragged into it.

As bad as those battles had been prior to that, they were escalating, more frequent and it was taking its toll on all of us.

Inside myself, I could feel the changes, the almost desperation for it to STOP. A building need to have it end. Finally, I put my foot down - our child, who was an adult, had to leave.

I hated to do it. It broke my heart that it had come to that, but the situation was untenable. It was the best possible answer for all of us. What was going on certainly was not healthy. It was, in fact, about as dysfunctional as it could be.

That was in January 2012 and I set a deadline of March 1st. By mid-February it was done. A mourning period followed. My husband was miserable. I was miserable. Our reasons were, I believe, vastly different. He had lost control over that person and it was 'killing' him. If our child had stayed, nothing would have changed.

Even now, three years later, he will not speak our child's name. He will not allow me to see them (unless I want a scream fest directed at me, along with threats of divorce). I am not supposed to call or communicate.

I still do, on the QT, because I love my child. I want to share my life and their life, to be a mom and, at this stage, a friend. But I can't because of control issues in my domestic partner.

Distraction came in February when we all got sick with a chest cold. My mother-in-law got it and it was so bad one night, we took her to the ER. They admitted her and she spent two weeks in the hospital. Hers developed from bronchitis to pneumonia. Her kidneys failed and she was put on dialysis. We visited every day, spent an hour or two, and went home and worried.

In early March, she was released and sent to a nursing home. It was her birthday, her first day there, and I stopped in after work. My husband had been at the hospital when they moved her, had followed her there, and was with her when I arrived.

Over dinner that evening he said he was worried. 'Mom' hadn't eaten much that day but the nurse had given her a different kind of insulin and he thought she had given too much. He fretted and fretted until, at nine o'clock, I said, "Go back. You're not going to sleep if you're worried. Go on back and check on her, make sure she's okay."

He did. She wasn't. When he got there she was, according to report, drenched in sweat, delirious, in and out of consciousness - in insulin shock. He called me, frantic. I made a frantic call to the hospital from which she had been released, to ask the doctor who had cared for her to call the home and talk to my husband. No luck. In the meantime, according to what I heard later, the nursing home staff did nothing. He was the one who got sugar packets and water from the coffee station and gave them to his mother. He was the one who dialed 911 and demanded the paramedics.

The reading on our glucose meter when he first checked her blood sugar was 55. It's supposed to be between 90 and 120 - that's ideal. The paramedics, when they arrived shortly after, got a reading of 62. Probably because of the sugar water she had received.

Back to the hospital for treatment.

The next morning we went to the hospital to check on her. She had been transferred back to the nursing home. 'Horrified' doesn't cut it. We raced to the home and spent an hour extricating her. The director battled with us until I asked, loudly enough for anyone outside the room to hear, 'you people almost killed her last night. Just how many bites at the apple do you want to have? Would you leave her here after what happened if she was your mother?'

At home, we rearranged the house while she rested in the car. She couldn't possibly climb the stairs so we moved furniture, carried her bed (the one that weighs probably 100 pounds because it has a motor on it so she can raise the head and foot) downstairs and got it set up. Then we got her settled.

For five weeks we nursed her, did what we could to get her back.

At first she had trouble breathing. She wasn't getting enough oxygen into her blood and would panic, making things worse. Her husband, gone since 2003, had an oxygen tank and hose. God knows why that came with her when she moved in, but it did and had sat in the garage all those years.

There was a little pressure still remaining and we hooked her up to that. It helped and, for about a week until the tank ran out, it kept her calm. When we didn't have any more she had recovered enough she really didn't need it. A couple of panic attacks, a couple of times of sitting her up, supporting her, and telling her to breathe, coaching her through it, and she was better.

In the meantime, still in March, I noticed one of our cats had a lump in her face, along her jaw. She kept rubbing at it and drooling. We took her to the vet. It was cancer. Squamous cell carcinoma and was going to kill her in a matter of months. She was started on morphine, administered three times a day.

We were still coping with Mom's situation. She couldn't get up to go to the bathroom on her own, so we had to move her from her bed to her wheelchair to the toilet to her wheelchair and back into bed.

In April, when I was moving Mom from her wheelchair to her bed, she got lightheaded. Thinking she was going to fall, she twisted - away from me. I got a hernia when I caught her and managed to get her back onto the bed.

I had felt a twinge at the time but didn't think anything of it. A few days later I found the lump. Not knowing what it was, my first thought was cancer. I called the doctor. He examined me and said I needed an ultrasound. That led to surgery. By the time I saw the surgeon four weeks later, I was in pain. I couldn't sit. I couldn't stand. I couldn't lie down. Anything I did hurt. A lot.

I was early for my pre-surgery appointment. He was late. I waited in his office for more than an hour and, by the time he came in to see me, I was in tears. Frustrated and in a lot of pain because the insides were pushing out and I could not get them back.

I had to wait two weeks for the surgery, which I had in June. Two weeks of recovery before I could go back to work.

On July 7th we put Katrina down.

On July 12th, after seventeen years of working for the company, I was laid off from my job.

In August, after complaining for weeks about swelling in his temples and terrible headaches, my husband went to the doctor. A biopsy later we got the diagnosis: Temporal Arteritis. A condition that can lead to blindness, strokes or death.

In September, capping off my year, my mom passed away at 93.

I got the call to come but, because I was unemployed, looking for work, and in the process of getting a background check done for my first temp assignment in the two months since being terminated, I couldn't. A day later, just before midnight, I got the call from my sister. Mom was gone.

It still beats the shit out of me every time I think of it. I'm crying now because I feel so damned guilty. But I know her. I know what she would say: "Do what you have to do, it's not going to change anything here. I'm being taken care of. You take care of yourself."

She was a great lady, and I miss her.

The result of all of that Year from Hell, what I had come to say was EOMD, things improved. When it ended, I had survived, sanity intact, and was stronger for it. It tempered me, like passing through a crucible and, despite everything, with Millie the millipede dropping shoes every inch, I didn't lose my sense of humor.

In 2012 everyone was talking about the Mayan calendar and how the universe was going to crash down on us in December. I decided what I was experiencing was preparation. A kind of cosmic boot camp and I started to refer to all the bad things happening as Early Onset Mayan Disaster.


Now, looking back, I would not wish, for one single second, to spend a moment in that year but those experiences, that time, made me who I am now.

Five years ago I would not have the courage or strength to stand up for what's right against someone who holds sway over me. Now I have and I will. I've done it. Surviving all of that was just a matter of standing upright, of forcing one foot to move, and then the other, to keep going, keep trying and, above all, keep hoping.

Even if it all seems pointless, pick through the rubble. Find the flowers. Pick them up and count them. Be patient. Be strong. Above all: Be kind to yourself and to others.

Have a lovely day.

Best~
Philippa

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I Hereby Declare Myself...No. 5

I had a thought yesterday. More than one, actually, but this one stood out because I had it while walking from office to office and I decided to use it for my post this morning.

Then I tried to decide how to frame it. I picked a word. Then, wanting to be sure of that word's appropriateness for this - would it need nuance? - I looked it up. It's another word to love and I have decided I am number 5 on that Word's list:

From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/earthy

Earthy

adjective, earthier, earthiest.

1. of the nature of or consisting of earth or soil.

2. characteristic of earth : an earthy smell.

3. realistic; practical.

4. coarse or unrefined: an earthy sense of humor.

5. direct; robust; unaffected:an earthy, generous woman.

6. (of a mineral) having a dull luster and rough to the touch.

7. Archaic. worldly; pertaining to the earth. 

 

I like that: direct, robust and unaffected. Yep, yep and yep, 100% on all counts.

 

Okay, now for the reason of picking that word. It's because I'm going to tread into the meadow. The one occupied for weeks by cows or sheep or goats, take your pick because as a Number 5 I am going for Number 4 this morning - coarse and unrefined (no 'or' available, sorry). I promise, though, to keep it short - get to the point and beyond quickly.

 

Yesterday's post, what led to it, the middle and the end, made me think: 'It'll pass.' And it did. Then I thought of my recent incident with flax. It passed, too. So I thought, 'Hm. It's a bit like constipation. Wait long enough and it'll pass.'

 

And it did. Painful, uncomfortable for a while there, but things worked out and all is well with the world. For the time being.

 

So, a quick recap and then I'll get back to giving the tour of the meadow.

 

What started all of this is that my words became paragraphs. I set them free into the world.

 

Those paragraphs caused a riot which led to someone else releasing their paragraphs, which beat up my paragraphs. My paragraphs were left bloody and bowed so they called in reinforcements.

 

A war was waged and... peace broke out. Terms were reached, hands were shaken (metaphorically. Really, it was an 'I'm sorry' / 'I understand' exchange.) The Respect-o-meter swung wildly for a time but then settled back in the green - near the upper end, I hope.

 

All that it took was time, and words, and more words and a willingness to stand up and say 'hey! wait a minute!', a meeting of the minds, discussion and a better understanding on both sides.

 

More than anything, though, it was the clock winding down the seconds, the passing.

 

They (who, according to Gary Larson in his 'Far Side' cartoon strip, are two guys who work out of a basement someplace), say that 'this too shall pass' and 'all good things come to those who wait' and all sorts of other stuff. And they're right.

 

If you're patient, if you wait, choose not to react and respond and create a dust storm, things pass. Sometimes, as in my situation the other day, a prod or two to wave the dust storm aside helps clear the air. That waving around set this particular situation straight. It helped the matter pass more quickly with less pain that not waving. Even if I had waited, though, it would have passed, eventually.

 

It's one of those things I've learned over the years. The fullness of time is remarkable because:

 

1) if you wait for the blockage to pass, it will; maybe soon, maybe late, but it will;

 

2) if you are patient and calm, what you think you need to know will be revealed, eventually, and you don't have to look like your pushy or nosy by asking or poking; and,

 

3) oftentimes what you think you had to know, over time, becomes meaningless, so you really didn't need to know in the first place.

 

I've lived through Number 1 often enough to know that it's true.

 

Number 2 is a work in progress. Sometimes something is said and I'm curious, and I want to know now. It used to be that I'd poke around the edges, or shove my way in and ask directly, as if it's my business. Now I almost always wait. Usually I'm rewarded with the information that I thought I had to have right now five or six or ten or thirty days ago. I survived. I didn't look like a busybody. All's well. Or, Number 2 morphs into Number 3 and it's moot.

 

So whatever is facing you today, whatever irritations or challenges or pain or frustration, take a deep breath. Hold it. Let it out slowly and repeat, if needed. Let time and the situation pass. After all, it's only constipation, right?

 

Have a lovely day!

 

Best~

Philippa

 

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Words Are Cool But Paragraphs Suck

Have you ever had something you've said, something that you thought was crystal perfectly clear, misunderstood or misinterpreted by others? Has that unintentional or misinterpreted comprehension caused friction, or hurt or anger?

I think that if you write or speak you probably have. We all have.

Tone, nuance, choice of words, where we choose to place the words, they're the problem. It's right back to that old saw, 'it's not what you say, it's how you say it'. Whoever said that was a genius, because s/he is spot on right.

Person A says so-and-so and Person B hears or sees it as such-and-such (or, in the spirit of this post, as 'suck-and-suck') and, there you go: misunderstanding.

It's not that the individual words Person A used were wrong, or that Person B is ignorant. It's just that when Person A strung the chosen words together, Person B misread or misheard what was written or said. Perhaps the phrasing was just a little bit off and the strung-together words came across in a manner different than what was intended. It might even be, in the case of written words in a letter or e-mail, that nuance is misplaced and what was intended to be clarifying instead comes across as accusatory.

In cases like those, it's not the Word's problem. It's the User's problem, or maybe the Hearer's problem. In either case, it's the problem of Language.

I love Words. I like some more than others. I wrote a post a while back about some Words that I like.  Plethora. That's a cool word. It slips around inside your mouth and glides off the tongue - try it. Try saying it out loud. Sublime is another one I like. I could go on all day (scintillating).

So it's not Words, by themselves, because Words are cool. They hang around, lounging in the corners of our minds, waiting for us to drop by and borrow them. It's when they get into groups that the problem starts.

Paragraphs are a group, a crowd of words that, when combined, can behave like a soccer crowd in Europe. That's the game in which football is played with round balls instead of 'prolate spheroid' balls. (Now THAT is a cool pair of words and that's how an American football's shape is defined.) Or like a bunch of protestors in Ferguson or Baltimore - breaking things up, burning things down.

You say something. You pick your words based on the meaning you want to convey. It's more than a couple of words. It's a paragraph, or maybe two or three. The individual words you chose and strung together were well-intended. It's just you, trying to be helpful and benign, but it's misinterpreted by your audience or, if to a bunch of people, by some.

In response, from someone else, another something is said. It's a sentence that begins 'You are'.

What does that sound like to you? Just those two words, standing all by their lonesome. Think about it, picture it in your mind. 'You are...'

'You are...' Hmm. To me it calls up a finger-waving scold. A parent leaning over a child, wagging that finger until it's just about ready to fall off.

One-on-one that is demoralizing. In front of a group, devastating because the scoldee is likely going to have to interact with that group and that scold will be there, front and center in everyone's mind for at least a little while.

Now that's a matter of interpretation, of course. Here, out of context, that 'You are' could precede 'brilliant' (yes, I am, thanks *blushes* and turns head). Or, it could precede a message that's intended to be helpful, clarifying, or corrective. But there we are, back to the Words.

'You' by itself is benign, unhurtful. 'Are' is the same, it doesn't do anything significant. Together, particularly if they follow an identifier, a name. 'Philippa, you are...', it takes on a different flavor. They are, together, forming that hooligan crowd. If the crowd grows to something bigger, to a Paragraph, it can become a riot - and not necessarily a laugh riot.

I write. I write a lot. I write at work. I write for simple pleasure. I write for outright fun - because I love words. Still, despite all the practice, I make mistakes with my Words that run into Paragraphs. What I think is clear might not be to someone else. It ends up causing trouble - my hooligans break free and start kicking things over. Someone else might come along and, thinking the canister they're holding has water instead of kerosene, they fling it and... conflagration.

The takeaway from all of this is that it's important to keep your Words in line. Straighten them up. Inspect them for potential fireworks. Move them or change them out if necessary. Be gentle with your Words, be careful with your Paragraphs and, if in doubt, ask for a monitor to make sure that your individual Words won't collect into a bad Paragraph.

Take your Words out and play with them today, and I hope you have a lovely time.

Best~
Philippa

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