I decided to delete my breathy post on 9-11. I found that my words were terribly inadequate and on the verge of being insipid. What I would have needed to write to really express all the facets of my sadness today would have been longer than The Brothers Karamazov (War and Peace seemed a little trite). So, I got rid of it to honor the real complexity of the day.
Yesterday I was really wound up and anxious. Today I am better.
Last night in group intervention class I was able to work through some things that had really been looming heavy over my head--mainly how to deal with long-term disappointment with work and feeling trapped in a profession that no longer fits my goals. Even though this is a class where we learn the complex functions of group work, we are lucky to benefit from the experiential training of doing group with classmates. It's a real group where we talk about real issues. I never really knew much about group work, but I am finding it to be one of the most fascinating parts of my education in clinical social work. I think every person in the class is finding the group rewarding. We spend the first half of the 3-hour class in lecture and then conduct group for the last half of class. Confidentiality is taken very seriously and we are told (and reminded repeatedly) that if we share anything from the group outside that room we will immediately be terminated from the entire program. I can talk about my own experiences but not those of others.
My other class, psychopathology, is always interesting as well. We began the class watching videos of various people who had Alzheimer's Disease. Three people at various stages of the disease were given a mental status exam with questions as simple as "show me how you brush your teeth with your left hand." One gentleman, who was only 54 years old and had been a chemical engineer, could not complete that command. He didn't know the year, his age, what year he was born in and couldn't draw a clock face. He was confused by almost everything the interviewer said.Others in the videotape were not as advanced in the disease, but would suddenly show agitation or sadness about not being able to remember things. One man would suddenly become so agitated that he was shaking the table and looked as though he would become violent. It was a heart-breaking eye-opener to the devastating effects of Alzheimer's.
This Sunday is my 7th anniversary...and we haven't killed each other yet!!! Love you snook'ums.
I forgot to mention an odd occurrence last night. I was taking Sadie for a long walk to curb her alpha-dog behavior upon being reintroduced to Pickles (everything is complicated at our house) and I passed a couple of ladies with their small children. There were some interesting things to observe.
One lady was pushing a stroller, the other had one of those leash/harness things on her approximately 2 year old boy. The little boy had done something wrong and the stroller bitch--er, I mean lady, grabbed the boy's arm and gave him a very stern talking to for at least a couple of minutes, giving his tiny arm a hard shake now and then. I thought it was pretty excessive for a 2 year-old. His attention-span probably expired after the first 10 seconds of her blabbing in his face anyway.
First of all, the harness the kid had on had straps about 2 inches wide and would have held back a team of Siberian tigers. For cripe's sake, the kid is only as tall as two-drawer file cabinet; not to mention we were within an enclosed park and the lady holding the "leash" didn't even have a stroller to tend to and was walking normally. I felt bad for him as I passed--at least Sadie had a retractable leash that allowed her to explore a bit here and there. What is up with these people? I can maybe see it in a busy airport or if you are physically unable to keep up with a child, but????
After being angrily bitched out, the little boy started to cry and Sadie, the most independent "I don't need your opinion or anyone else's" dog in the world stopped dead in her tracks and turned around and stared at me. It's so weird how dogs react to children's cries. I said, "It's okay Sadie," and she turned right back around and trotted on with her hound nose to the ground. I've never seen her ask me a question like that before and it startled me. I also know that I probably lied to her.
 | Well, Pickles came home groggy, with stitches (see the photo to the left; click for full size) and equipped with a bottle full of antibiotics. There's nothing worse than seeing an animal post-sedation. They are so pitiful. She's gotten the royal princess treatment all evening complete with a couple licks of ice cream. I took Sadie for a long walk to calm her nerves down so she wouldn't get pissy about the whole unscheduled event. Pickles is laying in bed with daddy as we speak. She's still really tired from the anesthesia. Usually she is bouncing off the walls, so it's sad to see her all exhausted. I think she's going to be just fine though. The bill was $120 which wasn't that bad except I'm broke and now even more broke than before. Sheesh, we're squeaking by. Bleh on that! Pickles, honey, you're worth every dime and more.
I got some good news tonight. I was accepted into the Foothills Craft Guild for my handfelting! That will allow me to get into some more fine craft shows. I really never thought I could do this kind of stuff and actually get recognition for it. Pretty cool. Yippee and hurrah! Well, I'd chat more, but I have a paper to finish for class and it's due tomorrow. Later 'taters. |
This morning I took Pickles to the vet for her ‘possum-inflicted wounds. It’s always a chore to take Pickles somewhere without Sadie getting all bent out of shape. Sadie has major alpha-dog issues, so I had to let her in for "inside time" and then make the switch and let Pickles in, then leash her and leave. They can’t come in the house together because Sadie gets so jealous of Pickles that she will start a fight. It started about two years after we added Sadie to the pack. I took her to a great behaviorist, Dr. Shull, at the UT vet school and she helped me learn alpha dog language so we could control the situation. We’ve been conflict-free for quite some time now. When I get Pickles home today Sadie will be very pissed that she got to go somewhere (even if it was to the vet).
Speaking of the vet, they are going to have to sedate Pickles to clean out her wounds (poor baby). I had no idea opossums had such long, vicious teeth! She was so stinky this morning that I’m going to have her bathed at the vet as well. Maybe that’s money I shouldn’t have spent, but she has a fit when we bathe her at home and afterward runs straight to a dirt pile and rolls in it. If she’s inside she runs straight to the couch and does the same thing…and you never totally can get the stink out of this dog. But, stinky or not---she’s one of the sweetest dogs in the world--and a daddy's girl to boot.
The exorcist has visited our house (sorry Barry, I have dibs) and the cat pee smell has been delivered from the soul of our dwelling. Read: My mom found it. She spent some time with me this weekend and she was the lucky miner who found the gold nugget. The area rug is no longer in the area and Frantic-Scrub-Down-Operation '03 is complete. We can breathe again. Still no clues on who the offender was. But, I'm watching--just like George.
BUT, just to make Sunday night exciting, the dogs attacked an opossum that unluckily wandered into our backyard. During the ensuing battle, Pickles was bitten on the side of the face. I flushed the wound out, but it looks like a vet trip for antibiotics tomorrow to prevent possumitis. Aie!
I was going to post photos of all the silks I dyed over the weekend, but I'm too damn tired. Photos forthcoming.
Note to self: NO, REALLY, TAKE THE RED AND WHITE TARGET OFF YOUR BACK.
That's right...all work, no play today. I've been wrapping, stitching and dyeing all day--making stuff for the TACA fair in Nashville at the end of the month. Considering how freakin' tired I am I have precious little to show for it, but I have a pole full of arashi bound silk that can't come off for at least 24 more hours or more, so I guess I am just impatient. The dyeing happens fast compared to the felting and figure-making (the slowest). When I need somewhat immediate gratification I dye; when I need to work out anger and get physical, I felt; when I'm in need of serious "existential tuning," as one person put it, I work on figures. My different stages of heaven depend on how long my attention span is for the day.
I didn't get to go the local blogger get together last night. Hubby was out-of-town and I'm not enough of an extravert to just show up at a table full of strangers. But I did go to my first "gallery reception" where my stuff was being displayed. It was weird quite frankly. I almost had to make myself stay. Thank goodness Michelle showed up because I was getting itchy in my own skin. I felt like I was walking around in my underwear. Michelle took pity on me and bought me dinner to celebrate (thanks, M!!!). That was so cool of her, especially considering I don't have a freakin' dime right now. I mean, if it ain't necessary, I don't buy it. I know this dry spell is temporary, but it's tough and at times, scary.
So, on the way home from the reception, this 95-pound college chick in a big red SUV cuts me off. This really irritated me since we were all going to stop at the red light anyway and there was plenty of space behind me. So I pull up right behind her, lips pursed, cussing under my breath. The light turns green and apparently she's not too good with a clutch. She rolls back a little. Then a little more, then SMACK--right into me. I honk my horn. She pulls her little 95 pound ass off into a church parking lot and we get out. Luckily, the bump did no damage, and since I did not feel like dealing with this shit, I say "don't worry about it." She's repeating, "I'm so sorry" in a very practiced tone, like please don't tell my dad, he'll make me pay for something. I just want to go home you know? It's been a weird day. So, we get back into our cars and I'll be damned if she didn't almost run into me again going through the parking lot. On the way home she pulled off into some very expensive fat-daddy-subsidized college apartments.
Today I get up and our mailbox has received it's monthly beating, except this time it's nearly twisted off its pole with the actual box being totally upside down. I keep trying to figure out how I can set up a booby trap for these boobs, but I can't come up with anything that's feasible and legal, so I have to let it go.
And I still can't figure out where the cat pee smell is coming from. I've had the windows open all day trying to air the place out.
Note to self: take big red and white target off back.
I think one of my cats is campaigning against me. The downstairs smells like ammonia, you know, cat pee. I admit I have logged a lot of doggie time recently and the cats have not gotten their usual brushings (which they love), but, jeez, do they have to pee on my stuff? Too bad they don't have opposable thumbs; they could make use of a complaint box and just LET ME KNOW what I've done wrong.
What's worse is that I can smell it, but I can't find it. It's just around, wafting, making me nauseous. For some reason I think it's Atticus because he's been meowing like a mad kitty lately-"gimme this...gimme that...pick me up...let me have some of that...pick me up...now...now! NOW!!!"
| The Suspects: | |
Atticus  Age: 11 Make: male feline Model: orange domestic Criminal Tendencies: Chewing into coffee bags, chewing through treat bags, peeling caps from treat canisters and gorging himself (and puking it back up), getting miffed if other cats come around while he's getting his "mommy-time," tripping you by making "crazy eights" around your legs anytime you head toward the kitchen, stealing socks by the dozens as soon as the lights go out, trying to get into the laundry chute, opening cabinet doors and hiding in the recesses of storage, staring at you while you are on the loo, sitting in chairs at the table while you eat and begging like he's going to die without a bite of your dinner, chewing on really noisy plastic bags, attacking the other cats after inhaling catnip or getting brushed. | Baxter  Age: 13 Make: male feline Model: white, obese, deaf, domestic cat Criminal Tendencies: Puking a lot, lying across your face while you sleep and thereby suffocating you or depositing large amounts of cat hair in your nostrils and/or mouth, purring insanely loud directly into your ear, yowling deaf-cat-yowls in the middle of the night, scrubbing his face and teeth on the wrought iron headboard as soon as the lights go out (clunk-clink-clank-clink-snort-slurp-purrrrr-r-r-rr) until you have gone quite mad, sneezing snot across your face, commandeering your pillow the moment your head moves from it, pooping just over the edge of the litter box (he stands in the box, but isn't quite aware where the chute is aimed), sleeping and depositing hair all over fresh laundry, chasing the dogs and giving them the spread-paw pffwwwwaaap! |
Rooney  Age: 10 Make: male feline Model: white and tan Manx Criminal Tendencies: Slobbering in your hair while you sleep, "making biscuits" in your hair while you sleep (i.e. ripping your hair OUT), licking wildly, sneezing snot on your face, meowing constantly until you pick him up (for as long as it takes), jumping up on EVERYTHING, staring until you give in, sneaking out the door, butting up against your black pants and leaving a giant swath of white hair, attacking the other cats with the bear-hug-takedown tactic, fighting the sheets while you put them on the bed, whining and giving the dogs a wimpy smack before running away in protest. | Grayson  Age: 9 Make: male feline Model: grey, brown, black domestic (we suspect some Maine Coon) Criminal Tendencies: Boring inch-deep holes into your leg when startled, staring at your face from 1 1/2 inches away in the morning and effectively scaring the shit out of you when you first open your eyes, refusing to eat the "soft" treats and waiting to the side for his special little pile of tartar control crunchy treats, impatient meowing while you brush your teeth because he knows his breakfast is next--"hurry up, you slob, I'm hungry!!" Hiding for an hour at a time just so he can watch you run around in a tearful panic searching for him, hogging the catnip by laying himself spread-eagle across the entirety of the stash, and last but not least, torturing moles and bringing them to you as presents. |
Last night I sent in a contribution to the EYE Want My Country Back project that A Moveable Beast is doing. I felt a little weird about it, but I think I'm glad I did it. It's a real experience I had in a social work class called Oppression a couple of years ago. We often had guests from other cultures come in and I will never forget the Guatemalan man who came and spoke to us. He talked about how thousands of his fellow Guatemalans had been slaughtered by his country's terrorist regime. The atrocities he spoke of were so horrible that it made me sick to my stomach. I had never heard of such evil before and tears rolled down my face. Then I learned that many of these terrorist leaders were trained at School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia.
The speaker was a boy when his community was attacked and he had barely escaped with his life. He described running away from the scene with his friend but his friend fell behind. He no longer has family. That was the first time I really felt compelled to learn anything about foreign policy. I have always hated politics and I still do, but it was obvious to me that I needed to know and understand more. I really wish I had either taken copious notes or had recorded the presentation he made because there are more important details I can't remember. It left me heartsick for weeks. We are so spoiled here, intoxicating ourselves with media candy, play and luxuries. It's so easy to not pay attention. EYE need to pay more attention.
I moved some links around, which means I UNblogrolled some folks so I could make a separate list for the Rocky Top Brigade. And I AIN'T paying for Blogrolling Gold... So, if you actually care, don't get your panties in a wad---you're still there, you just got relocated about 500 pixels south...
I have always paid close attention to my dreams. I was plagued with nightmares nearly every night of my life until I was about 30 years old, so I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. My dreams during this time made reading Stephen King a real bore. Of course, the dreams were all related to the unresolved conflicts I had about my family, the ensuing absence of self-esteem and real despair. The more I worked through my “stuff,” the fewer dreams I had. Now I only have a nightmare every two or three months and only during difficult times. Back in those days, it was almost like going to the cinema every night, but like most scary movies, you were left with an uneasy jumpy feeling for all of your waking hours. Since I knew nothing but nightmarish slumber in my younger years, I didn’t know what it was like to be at ease from a good night’s sleep. I also had severe insomnia. Although my psyche was under attack most nights, I did find the dreams fascinating and very informative in the healing process.
Last night I did have my requisite quarterly nightmare (which is nothing compared to the ones I used to have). I dreamed that I was dying. I was in a hospital bed and a homogenized-type of dream-friend came to see me. He brought Tarot cards because he thought they would be entertaining. Unfortunately, he wasn’t smart enough to take the death card out and it came up in every layout of the cards. Gee, thanks, asswipe. I was also undergoing treatment for my ear which, in real life, has been giving me lots of trouble. One team of nurses gave me one treatment, while the next two nurses said that the first two were incompetent and proceeded to provide another type of treatment. When I got out of the doctor’s office, everyone in my husband’s family was there. They weren’t there for me, but by way of the fact that they can’t operate as separate people. I got angry and stomped off, yelling and making everyone mad. I drove myself home and stranded my husband at the hospital. Then, suddenly I was running home in shorts and a t-shirt with shoes that hurt my feet. I put plastic bags in them for cushion, so I was running down the road with plastic bags fluttering about my ankles.
The dreams I used to have would be so frightening I would have panic attacks. I would dream that family members were crucified in the back yard, that my mother would decay before my very eyes, that people would be cutting off my limbs with big scissors…you name it. I’m glad those days are gone. Now I have flying dreams; dreams where I am the hero and punch the bad guy out, etc. Dreams say a lot about your state of mind.
If I could now only stop daydreaming at work.
This was a t-shirt I bought during the first Bush campaign. Who knew I'd get to wear it again with no alterations?
A couple of nights ago I had a dream about Stevie Wonder. He was cutting my hair at a salon! The funny thing was, he was so intuitive with his hands that he gave me the best haircut of my life. Last night I was walking back to my car with a couple of my group intervention classmates and I told them about the dream. One of them said, "the analyst in me wants to ask you, 'What part of you is Stevie Wonder?'" The other said, "Her hands! She is an artist." Hee.
"So George, how do you feel about your mom and dad? Psychologist Oliver James analyzes..."
This article really makes me angry! I hate Bush, too, but to use your professional status to denigrate a public figure is just heinous in my opinion. Many people will take this psychologist's OPINION as gospel because of his professional training. I am really appalled that this person who is trained to HELP people would make a public statement of this sort. He may have a personal take on Bush's wacky psyche, but that doesn't belong in the news media as some sort of diagnosis. If the article was peppered with "probably," "may have," "this psychologist's opinion," etc., I would be LESS appalled. Has this psychologist spent hundreds of hours speaking directly with Bush? No. He doesn't know him within the intimate context of individual therapy. I think this is wrong, wrong, wrong. My ethics alarm has gone off and is shattering glass...
Hat tip: A Moveable Beast for the link to the article...
Well, now I can't complain...we had a pizza buffet. So, now I'm fat, but fairly happy.
And what the hell is up with the blog layout. One day it's fine, the next day it's gone berserk...same browser and no changes to the template. Oh, the worries of a wanna-be geek. Grrrrrrrr.
Turns out we were too lazy to even walk down to Boomsday. Who cares? We missed a few mullets and screaming kids. I got some studying done, which was well overdue.
So, living consciously can suck, despite the beauty in can bring to your life. You can be quite unhappy when you are working against the grain. I am working against the grain. Until I can move on, I will be working against the grain. It really wears me down...not to mention being incredibly broke along with it. We have our staff meeting today, which means I get to go to a restaurant that has probably has no vegetarian options and pay $10 for it. That's a $10 I don't have right now. It just adds to my irritation.
My husband has finally found a job he really loves. He never dreads work and doesn't come home and complain for hours on end like he used to. It's great and I am really happy for him. I just wish I could be in that same position.
Oh, whatever. Woe, blergh is me.
I did, after much scrambling, get my stuff to the Art Market for the month-long show. It was funny. I took five hats, three scaves and two large figures and it looked like almost nothing set up in the display. I have a lot of work to do before I go to the show in Nashville (at the end of the month--eeeek!)
Today is Boomsday in Knoxville. It draws, what, 200,000 people? I can't remember---all I know is you can't "stir them with a stick." We are lucky that we can just take a 1 1/2 mile walk and plop down a blanket to watch. Then we go home. Another Boomsday will have come and gone. My husband doesn't even like fireworks. I love them. He watches people, counts mullets and makes note of possible serial killers.
I emailed a note at the website of Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns. Although it didn't change anything, I had to express some response. Here's the email I got back with my short note at the end:
Dear Teresa:
Thank you for your kind message. We have received overwhelming support from the public and it has made the disappointment and outrage a little easier because you share it with us.
Thanks for your support!
Sincerely,
Paula Oswald
Webmaster
Teresa Nolen Pratt wrote:
You don't know me, but I just read what happened to the bears. I can't begin to express my disgust, horror and sadness at such an event. You were doing something wonderful. I am so sorry it ended in this way. Words are just inadequate, but I had to send a note of condolences. My heart goes out to you during this terrible time of sorrow. Teresa
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