Rectal Cranial Inversion Syndrome

I suffer from two unknown syndromes.  RCI (Rectal Cranial Inversion) is an intermittent syndrome where my head somehow finds it's way up my a**.  Lately it's been in a constant condition that is starting to feel like the new norm.  The second is FFS (fat finger syndrome) where it doesn't matter how hard you try to hit the right key you always hit the one next to it.  And with my current state of nails, even a larger keyboard poses a problem.

Why am I sharing this?

In Frailty to Faith I was talking about how scared I am about starting school Monday (Feb 5, 2018).  And I'm sure you can understand that given where my head has been lately.  I got my confirmation from school today to start June 4, 2018.  Somehow my lack of clear thought and fat fingers signed me up for the wrong class!  If I can't extricate my head from my rear soon, I may never be able to watch Jeopardy again.

I'm terrified.  I don't know if I'm going to get the right date at BAMA, I don't know if I can financially survive until June 4.  Ideas like Lyft, Home Instead to be a granny nanny, Trader Joe's to work the register and I'm still trying to get back on board with IHSS to keep my insurance. I know it will only be for a few months, that is if I can keep the job with my head so firmly up my fanny they don't fire me for blatant stupidity.  I'm not being hard on myself, trust me, this isn't the first RCI adventure in the last week or so.  The others are more embarrassing than this one.  I seriously felt my IQ drop at least 60 points....it was really, really, stooopid bad.

Faith is the key.  I keep telling myself to have faith, to have courage and to just trust in the Lord....but I'm still scared.  I tell myself I have faith, I have faith, I have faith.  Courage, like faith, is an action word but I don't know how to act.  Trust is a rare commodity for me, but I am trying.
While working on the resolution for this kerfuffle I blundered myself into,  it occurred to me there are things that I can do in those four months that would really be useful and would give me time to piece my brain back together again.  So, if money wasn't a problem, would it really hurt if I had to wait until June?  I dunno.

=========

Resolution: I was able to change my class back to Monday.  Now I just need to get rent covered and everything will be fine again.....well, once I pull my head out anyway.

I'm Baaaaaaack!

I know, I took a loooooooong break.  I was hoping to get back into the fray when Trump won the RNC vote as their candidate.  There are so many things that could be said, jokes that could be shared, but we all should agree that hands down he is the most vile person ever to inhabit the oval office.  I don't care if you are a #dumptrump or a #makeamericagreatagain, nothing is going to change the fact that he is a vile, misogynistic, self-important, arrogant, lying, deluded human being.  (If you think it's okay for men to grab women and kiss them against their will, or grab their private parts, please, by all means send your beautiful daughters and sisters to meet him and see if your mind changes when he violates them.)  The bright side of Trumps reign is we have learned no Presidential legacy is indelible, meaning the day after our next president takes office everything wrong he's done can be struck out with a signature.  Everything that favors the 1% will be struck down.  How do I know that?  It is the only way anyone is going to be elected.  By the time he is done raping the middle class the middle class will rise up and we will either have an all democratic house and senate or we will have moderates that are willing TO WORK TOGETHER LIKE GROWNUPS.

The next three years of the megalomaniac in chief isn't going to be easy for anyone in the 99%.  Like I said, I don't like him as a person, he is not someone I would even cross the room to meet.  I would help him if he were bleeding or needed help crossing the street because that's who I am.  If he touched me inappropriately I would break his arm, but I would help him.   What realty irks me is there is really nothing I, personally, can do about him.  We as a country need to require him shovel his manure off our streets and start doing the work he has promised, at least to the people that voted for him.  Being in California and in the sites of his anti-democrat revenge schemes I really know I personally don't have a lot of power to make any changes on the national level.....that doesn't make me powerless.

I've adopted the adage "Humanity is my race and love is my religion".  I am Christian, and in some opinions, overly so.  And like every Christian it is required of me to love my fellow human beings (yes that includes Trump) and I have a sacred responsibility to help them when I can.  People are going to be hurting these next three years because of the cost of government will be redirected away from the 1% so the burden will be on the rest of us.  If you can help someone eat, feed them.  If you see someone cold give them warmth.  If YOU are hungry or cold reach out to someone.  Service is a two way street...both to serve and to provide the opportunity for service.

I challenge you to stop wasting time complaining or joking about the president to find a way to solve the problem....either join a protest, a letter writing campaign (like Amnesty International), work with the candidates you feel have the chance to topple this house of cards and put the government back where it belongs....in the hands of the duly elected officials chosen by the people, for the people.

Destroying Temples for the Machine of War

Went to the opera last night.  Love, love, loved the singing.  The staging was confusing to say the least.  Norma is about the Druids verses the Romans.  But it could be any two warring factions that are or ever have faced each other in battle.  Druids worship nature gods that demand blood while the Roman's worship a re-named pantheon of gods they modeled after the Greeks.  The opening scene the stage hands and the older priest/father of Norma are instructing the peasants to carefully raise the white sparkly tree off the ground to decorate the hall and so Norma can cut the sacred sprig of mistletoe.  The people scream for war against the occupying Romans but Norma, a high priestess declared peace. Vows were broken, love was exchanged and then love was lost and given to another this angers the powerful Druid Priestess and she plots revenge first on her children (shades of Medea) then on him by killing the woman he has recently fallen out of love with her for, and then finally the two die together as both a token of their mutual love and atonement for breaking her vows.

Norma's love for Pollione kept her from going to war with Rome against the obvious wishes of her people.  They were tired of bondage.....and I'm not going to go for the easy pun there.  Though she was preaching peace from the altar her personal behavior and love for her Roman made her position and link to the physical waned  as she slowly left everything behind to prepare for war.  Look at the picture below, in the beginning the trees filled the large door, in this picture they are almost all gone.

Sondra Radvanovsky as Norma @ SFOpera

Sondra Radvanovsky as Norma @ SFOpera 

Through out the opera, the trees go away and there are these white shapes on the stage that you really can't make out as anything other than junk.  The last thing that they had built was something that looked like a gun that would fit on a tank, but was twisted in a way so if it were a gun it would have blown up.   We were so enthralled by the singing we were confused by the bits and pieces which were being built for their "machine of war".  This was their sacred land, their holy place and they stripped it bare to have the pleasure to die for Priestess and country because she was scorned by her lover.  That is really simplistic of what happened and the message I took away from the opera.  In the last picture you can see what they made with their precious trees.

The horn is what I thought was a gun for the turret.

 Now, why would I spend a Sunday morning writing about an opera the night before when I could be snuggled safe in bed?  It got me thinking, how many temples/sacred places/items of worship have we destroyed in favor of our personal jihads or our public wars?  A jihad is a personal battle for improvement, to keep ourselves from becoming an infidel.  (Not all wars are fought with slings and arrows and outrageous fortunes.  Some are more insidious in slowly wearing down who and what we believe due to illness, work, family and/or friends.)  We all don't actually tear down temples, what would be wrong and illegal and a one way ticket to the bad place where they send those who hurt children and talk during the opera.  The idea for a journal discussion has been rolling around in my mind is the idea of putting other gods before Him.  You think you don't, but we all do.  No, we don't bow down before an altar and swear fealty to this god but it is a god none the less.  Some obvious ones are money, "things", hobbies (even the good ones if done to an extreme).  I keep trying to nail down what I think mine are, but nothing really comes out of the little box I keep my little secretes in (it's in my head).

I should probably define my gods.  Not just as a service for Him but for myself.  As before mentioned I have an unnatural and spiritual relationship with mega stuff Oreos.  I'm pretty sure you can put all sweet and fattening food on that list as well.  I love the opera,  The only thing that gets between me and the opera is church and I make sure there aren't any conflicts.  Money, or in my case the lack of money.  I spend days worrying abut how I can make the ends meet instead of laying my burdens at His feet and trusting He will help me pull the ends together.  I spend not enough time taking care of myself.  The lack of care that I show for my clay temple is appalling.  Lack of action is just as damaging as direct action sometimes. 

It took me a few hours and a nap for me to find an example.  I know I'm not above this but getting my brain to pull an example wasn't happening quick enough.  Stopped and got dressed for church, sat down on my bed to check my phone and there it was; the bed pulling me back in.  Gravity is even against me because I've had the bed long enough to have that worn in comfortable nest in the middle.  Sleep, sleep is my enemy.  Yes, I've mentioned in other blogs that I'm tired and I'm having problems sleeping and would really, really, really like to just crawl back into bed and never, ever get out again.  But, sleep, like the seductive Pollione, in a lot of ways has conquered me.  I have broken my vows of fealty to my covenants and have chosen to stay in my bed than in my sacred spaces....church...temple...meditation....(heaven help me) even exercise.   I don't have the option of turning my bed into a funeral pyre, but I can light a fire under me and try to rebuild, replant and reclaim my inner and outer sacred space;

Feast and Famine

Driving into work today listening to the radio I heard the story of the Medal of Honor inductee First Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing who died fighting with his men, refusing to leave them at the front alone even after receiving a bullet to the shoulder and one to the groin. (ouch!)  This battle was not in any war in our memory, it was Gettysburg. (Well, at least not in my memory, I'm not a reenactor...)

I have no doubt that he deserves it, just the groin shot alone would make him a recipient in my book, but common Washington!  We are smack dab in the middle of an economic crisis, political crisis, cultural crisis and you want to award a medal of honor to a man that has been resurrected in history and legend to what end?  Whose neck are you actually going to place the medal?  Yes, it needs to be awarded, valor and bravery should always be recognized, but is this actually a good use of your time?  Congress took the time to decide to push the limitations for the award for Lt. Cushing should be extended from three years to 150 years so they can award this rarified medal to a man/family that have no recollection of the event.  At 22, fresh out of the West Point I doubt he had time to get married, have children so his progeny can frame it an put it on their wall, or more than likely sell on eBay (oh, that was a little cynical, though not too far off the mark).

I'm not saying we should never recognize the heros of our past and present, that's not it at all, but there is a time for everything.  When we have a civil war going on in congress and the house every freaking day because no one is willing to embrace the concept that true democracy means no one is happy with the compromise we will be stuck in the economic, political, and cultural mire of our elected officials. When they spend time trying to reverse what the people have voted in, or when they push bills through because there is a sweet deal (meaning a load of cash) hidden in the fine print earmarked for one of their disavowed (during election years, anyway) special interest groups and the people be damned.  When they are more interested in their income instead of helping those without one and while schools fail and children go hungry we should be focusing on those issues instead of discussing whether or not a long dead Lt. should get his Medal of Honor.

Joseph of the Old Testament had a dream about seven fat cows and seven shriveled and skinny cows.  The pharaoh asked for the interpretation and Joseph spoke truthfully and said that Egypt would be blessed with bounty for seven years followed by a dearth of prosperity for the next.   The message was clear, in the good years you put your money in the bank, you spend your time strengthening your infrastructure so the people will have food aplenty during the lean times.  During the good years is the time when posthumous medal of honor winners should get their due, during the bad years each and every elected official should be working together to make sure that no one gets lost in the economic dust bowl of the 21st. century.

All that said, considering the snails pace of progress, and being this is probably one of the only few things they could agree on, it's probably as good as any time to grant it.  I'm just saying, well, if I ran the US......

A New Path

Picture Courtesy of viajaryamar.wordpress.com.  Check it out!

Word came down yesterday that my job is soon to be by-by.  As a contractor I am subject to the whims of management.  They hired someone to do my job, my exact job.  I'm assuming they are paying them less, which is fine, but they could tell me that instead of making me believe I pissed someone with a long memory off and they want me to leave.  I'm worried that they didn't find the right kind of stupid for this job, but that's really not my concern, besides, who wants to work for a company that doesn't want them?  Seriously.  This is just the kick in the rump I need to get my certificate back and start tying to find a job in the medical profession.  I don't know what your opinion is about Obamacare, I love it.  It has caused an uptick for secondary testing which means more blood tests which means more need for phlebotomists.  To be fair though, I have insurance through one of my jobs so I haven't had to deal with the website or any of the Scheisters out there that are trying to make a buck on the process.  I hear it's frustrating, but in the end it will be worth it because then you can have your blood tested by me.

So here's the dilemma/opportunity this poses.  I got a not from my bank inviting me to apply for a loan.  So, they refinanced my car once and the lady told me I could do it again in a year or two to try and get a better rate (I went from 12% to 5% which I thought was pretty good).  I thought about this.  With unemployment looming in the distance I was worried about my debt.  If I could get enough on my refinance of my car to pay off the approximate $3k in debt I've accumulated it would be easier to pay one payment once a month then trying to keep track which one has the 90 day or the 180 day payment delay and one of them (PayPal Credit) will only let you defer payment on items over a certain amount so the other things that I've purchased that weren't under that amount need to be paid now.  So, I have a small window of time to decide "To Refinance or Not To Refinance".  Opinions are welcome on this topic.  Fiances scare me.  Not enough to not open credit accounts and use them confidently....

The current plan starting November 1 is as follows:

1. Get re-certified
2. Start shopping my resume for any kind of Hospital/Clinic job
3. Finish the final chapter "House of Dragons" and prepare for submission for January 1
4. Do NaNoWriMo my way and edit "Hearts of the Mothers" all the way through so it's about 60k words
5. Get a job
6. Get published
7. Make oodles of money
8. Move to Oregon/Washington and live happily ever after

What's really exciting is Mom now has a daytime caregiver that will allow me to leave the house and do this.  I only have to be at home and take care of Mom from 3:00pm and weekends.  It's going to be totally do-able! (Well, 1-5 anyway I have some control over those....yes I know control is an illusion)

There will be some belt tightening, {sigh}.  Isn't there always.  I'm going to take out the cable and put in one of those year specials from a different company that provides phone, internet and cable.  Or I'll see if having three different companies provide it is better.  Take some of the data off my phone and hopefully I won't run out before the end of the month so I can finish watching The Walking Dead on the treadmill at the gym.  I'm not giving up my gym membership, but I will be giving up the spa membership attached to it.  Sigh.  I think I'll miss that most of all.  I'll have to rely on the kindness of strangers to give me massages and facials.  If you'd like to donate to the charity of keeping me well massaged and beautiful, contact me and I'll tell you where to send the money.

Though life is a little crazy right now with the what-ifs it's still really really good and promising right now.  Wow, life has changed over the past few years.

The Truth About Lying

Trust is a hot commodity these days.  If you can't trust your friends, how can you ever tell them apart from your enemies?  If you can't trust your family, how can you trust the world?  Words like trust, integrity, reliability, and so on.  These are fundamental building blocks for relationships.  It's a cold day when you realize a role-model has lied to you about EVERYTHING, you end up trusting NO ONE.  The truth may hurt, but it can be delivered in a less than brutal fashion, and then you can go forward and build greater relationships.  On a larger level if a street practiced kind yet exact honesty there would be harmony.  If it spreads to city, county, state, territory, national levels we will have peace because no one is hiding anything.

The flip side of this is: Do any of us really want the truth from our street, city, county, state, territory or nation?  Sometimes it's nice to be kept in the dark for plausible deniability or something to complain about later.  We might ask for the truth and they might even appear to be giving the whole truth and nothing but the truth but can you trust them?  Can you trust anyone?

Obviously, I'm dealing with trust issues at the moment.  Why I don't trust, whether or not I am trustworthy, is my integrity starched and pressed?  I'm wishing, again, that I can go back on my word with my Mom, I promised she could stay with me until she decides to leave.  I gave my word.  Everyone thinks I'm nuts.  I am nuts, I think we know that already. :-)  I feel I am trustworthy, it's just the rest of the world (and eternity) that I'm trying to trust.

I'd ask you to wish me luck, but I don't know if I can trust you to be sincere....

I'm So Tired Because.......

• I'm only sleeping a few hours a day
• I work 8 hrs a day with a 1 hr. commute round-trip
• Yea, I know that's noting really to complain about...some people have an hour both ways.
• I take care of my Mom in the evening and on weekends
• I'm trying really, really hard to be a good daughter
• I'm trying really, really hard to keep my head above water, barely moving fast enough to tread
• Anger still creeps up on me and puts me through a spin cycle or two
• I'm constantly running the list of things I need to do rather than watch TV in my head
• I listen to a baby monitor all night breath and humidifiers click in case my Mom might need me
• My job, thought without challenge is mind numbingly boring
• Play fetch for my Mom
• Take care of my parrot
• Try to keep a social life for myself
• Keeping up the daunting struggle to pry myself out of my shell
• Writing blogs and not working on my book(s)
• Trying to keep some semblance of personal upkeep....it's always the last thing for me to do, and it never gets done....so I rake myself over the thistles to make myself feel like if I didn't do it at least I've paid for it.
• Being my Mom's emotional dumping ground EVERY DAY
• Trying to get through Physical Therapy to move my neck properly again.
• Friends
• Okay, I'll admit friends are a good reason to not sleep, especially when they have opera tickets.
• The frenetic lifestyles of my sisters
• The guilt and self-doubt I've carried around since grade school
• Working on this, but working on this is emotionally exhausting too
• Trying to swing the money to go on my nephews wedding Cruise next June

Here's the thing: It is now 7:38am on a Saturday no less and I'm up, I almost want to get up and get my other things done but I'm really digging the silence and enjoying the darkness of my room.  (Dark room = clean room)  I know if I stay in bed I'll eventually go back to sleep, which is fine.  As I mentioned before, it's SATURDAY, you're supposed to sleep in on Saturday...unless you're a parent that has a child in some sort of sports program, or my sister who is probably on her fourth hour on her treadmill right now training for a 1/2 marathon.  The thing though, is that I know that little bit of stolen sleep won't make up for the days of lack of sleep from the weeks before.  I think at this point I'm hoping for a psychotic break for a vacation destination.  Think about it:

• You're own space to sleep in with a locked door
• Room service for all meals
• A comfy jacket that lets you hug yourself for hours
• Meds that take you on side trips without leaving the comfort of bed
• Being away from your daily grind.

Okay, taking a nap now.  Maybe I'll get up-up in an hour or so.......who knows where exhaustion will lead me today.  I've accepted my fate...I will be tired, oh so tired, until I'm not either by natural or pharmaceutical means.  But some day I know, Ill feel rested, or so rested.

An Attempt at Snarky Poetry....

I Feel Tired

(Sung to I Feel Pretty)

I feel tired, oh so tired

I feel cranky and grumpy and trite 

And I pity

Anyone who talks to me tonight

I feel sluggish oh so sluggish

It's alarming how sluggish I feel

And so hollow

I really don't believe I'm real.

See that tired girl in the mirror there

Who could that tired girl be,

Dark circled eyes

Cracked pale lips 

Messy gray hair

Such a tired me!

I'm exhausted 

And I'm sniping

Hiding in bed would be a great joy

If I don't,

Men with nets they soon will deploy!

Labour Day

 

When did it happen that on the day we observe labour has become a day of rest?

Don't get me wrong,

I'm not complaining.

I Wonder If God Has Wi-Fi....

Obviously not a Meru School

I'm reading a book about prayer, about deepening my Spiritual practice.  It's something I've gotten away from, and to be honest my mind goes blank when my knees touch the carpet.  Coming from someone that is a returned missionary, that's pretty scandalis.  I find myself repeating the same plea, or asking the same things night after night like some unwritten rote prayer.  I sound mindless, witless and useless.  When I'm done I get into bed and remember everything that I meant to tell Him, then lie down and give him the checklist before I fall asleep or turn on the TV.  I know He 'knows' but we're still supposed to tell Him our problems, to ask Him for the solutions, to thank Him when things go the way He said they would.  You know, the basic manners your mother strove to teach you.

The thing is I'm much better at writing my thoughts than I am thinking and/or saying my thoughts.  I've thought about writing a list of things that I need to say/do in my prayers.  Then as I was forming this in my head, and as a contractor for a networking company, it makes me wonder if Heavenly Father has Wi-Fi?  Can I send him an e-mail and He can reply.  I know, I know, if we could start a written dialog with God, it would negate the need for faith....yadda, yadda, yadda...but think about it.  We could have a direct link to Heavenly Father via our Smart Phones, our computers, our tablets....anywhere there is a wi fi signal we can reach out to Him and Him back to us.  Hopefully He wouldn't be susceptible to carpal tunnel because typing with those restrictive braces on is a real pain.

That is my problem, I know.  I'm thinking of God as this orbiting satellite that is there waiting for me to pick up the phone and call him like some long forgotten grandfather.  It's not a uplink and downlink kind of arrangement.  Thich Nhat Hanh write, quoting Larry Dossey, an American Doctor:

"...our collective consciousness in not like telecommunications satellite.  We don't need to send prayers anywhere because God is omnipresent.  There is no need to convert God into some divine telecommunications satellite in the sky.  Prayer is unlimited by space or time. - Dossey

"What Dossey calls the omnipresent God, Buddhism calls the collective consciousness or the "one mind".  This is the store consciousness in which Buddha and we are one."

 On a pure intellectual level, I know this.  I've read that God is all knowing, all seeing, and all encompassing.  But have I put my faith in that?  Or have I built Him up as this rarefied deity that talking to Him is supposed to be this honor, this sacrament that, as always, I feel unworthy?  God, or Heavanly Father as I refer to him as, is just that. He is a father, my father. Though He is an exhalted being He is the Father of my soul, I should feel comfortable just talking to him. I did that not too long ago and I think I scared myself with how powerful the experience was. Like a hermit living in a cave coming out on the first bright day hurts ones eyes and every movement flutters the heart.

I know I'm a strung a little to tightly right now. I'm hoping rote chanting will help me focus my mind a little better.  Just because I can't doesn't mean I shouldn't try and continue to try until I find my father's hand once again and we can walk side by side together.