Ever Super Glue a Frog Back Together?

I have been known to attempt good deeds, but sometimes I'm not sure I've done it right.

*
Once our cat caught a frog and when I took it away from him, I saw that it had a long open cut in it's skin exposing stuff that should not be out in the open. I decided stitches were out of the question, and the vet said they would kill it, in a humane way, if I wanted to pay for it. I'd have just left it with the cat if I wanted it dead.
So I had this great idea that I would super glue the skin back together and set him free near the creek. Don't know if it helped him or not. But my family laughs about how silly I was to do it. Silly!? It was f'n brilliant. Thinking outside the box...

*
One winter, about three years ago, I found a toddler wandering around outside a deserted gas station. I took him inside and asked the clerk to call the police, which he did. I stayed behind the counter with the clerk and the baby. He was coatless, not dressed to be outside. I was not handing this kid off to anyone who might come in until the police got there. My mommy instinct was rapidly taking notes: the kid was clean, diapers seemed pretty freshly changed, genial and sweet, no visible bruises, didn't seem to understand English, French or Spanish.

It was taking forever for the police to get there, when a group of Arabic men came into the store. On foot, no car. They immediately locked in on the kid and the kid looked back with recognition. One of them spoke to the baby and he responded and leaned toward him, so I was pretty sure this was his family. But I was not handing over a kid I had found wandering around, until the police got there. The clerk was telling the men that the police were coming, and that I had found the baby, etc...
When the police car pulled up, I gave the man the kid and explained what had happened, to the cop. The men said they had a restaurant in the shopping center and the toddler had just walked off. I believed them, so did the cop.

*
Once I took the kids swimming at the local YMCA. I was sitting by the shallow end of the indoor pool watching my kids, and noticed the beginning of the first swimming lesson for little kids. There were three perky teenage girls talking to the kids. They had maybe 15 or 18 kids sitting on the edge of the pool with their feet dangling in. Some of these guppies looked like they weren't two years old yet. The kid at the end of the line, right in front of me, silently slid off the side and was sinking to the bottom. I jumped up and grabbed it out of the water.

None of the "teachers" had even noticed. I made sure the kid was OK, then I got in the face of the nearest "teacher" and gave her a talking to. I wanted to stay and talk to the child's parent when they came back to pick the kid up, but we needed to leave, so on the way out I told the girl at the front desk what had happened. Something told me that the parents would never be told how close their kid came to drowning.

*
When my first son was 4 or 5 years old he choked on a peanut butter sandwich. I had to stick my finger in his throat and dig a glob of it out. Then I picked him up and with his head down, leaning over my arm, I rapped him on his back. The Heimlich maneuver would have been next, but he was able to cough out the rest.

This is a warning about "health food store" peanut butter. The kind where the oil separates from the mixture and sits on top, and you have to stir it back in every time you use it. As you use up the peanut butter, there is not any oil to stir back in near the bit at the bottom of the jar, so it is very stiff. This is what the sandwich was made with.

I cursed this "health food" and myself for using it, and never bought it again. Skippy, and Jiff etc., are always creamy and stand a much lower chance of choking your kid to death. If A.P. had passed out before he made it to the kitchen, where I was, I wouldn't have known he was choking, because he couldn't make a sound. I'll never forget the look of terror in his eyes, the color of his face, and his throat's unsuccessful attempts to retch it loose. I'll take additives over a dead kid any day.

*
I experienced periods of starvation, on and off, during my first marriage. I remember being jealous of the pets I would see in people's yards. I knew someone was making sure they would be fed. I only tried begging once, in Eugene, Oregon. I couldn't do it. I broke down crying in front of the store and a student asked me what was wrong and gave me the bottle of grape juice he had just bought. His kindness has never been forgotten, but I felt like shit, taking what wasn't mine. But I had a baby to nurse and a husband who was a selfish jack-ass. Thank you, kind stranger, whom ever you are.

The store was across the street from the University in Eugene, Oregon near Skoob Doog. I think that was the name of book store, 'good books' spelled backwards. We lived in an empty apartment behind it, across the street from the hospital. Our side window looked out onto a grassy area where a tempura restaurant next door had picnic tables set up for their customers. Years later, one of the Architecture Professors at the U. of Texas told me he was at the University in Oregon at that same time and ate at the picnic tables at that oriental restaurant next to us.

Anyway, the point of this was that I sometimes buy $10.00 worth of groceries for people on the side of the road with "will work for food" signs. And I used to keep granola bars in the car for when a short shopping trip wasn't possible. I'm a real sucker for hungry people.

*
I tried giving blood to get money for food. Actually I gave plasma. They separate it out of the blood and put what's left over back into your vein. I only did it twice before they told me I didn't weigh enough to give blood anymore.
I did learn that many of the people in line to give blood were the street people, the ones who had fallen through the cracks. This was before AIDS. You may have to thank a wino or that person sleeping on a heating grate, if you ever get a blood transfusion.

*
I had my purse stolen outside Ken Keesey's brother's store in Oregon too. I had applied for food stamps, and they were in the purse (macrame, of course, made by me, stupid hippy, string was cheap). No one would help us. The food stamp office people treated me like I was the hundredth person who had tried that story on them, and they turned me away with no suggestions for how to survive with no money and no food. So it was graveyard cherries and food my husband stole from a friend's house, while she was out of town. He was going to water her plants for her, so he had her key. She only had a little bit of food, and I think he probably drowned all her plants. She was probably too pissed to ask where her food went and why her plants were dead. She avoided us after that.

It was really nice of those people to plant cherry trees in the grave yard. Oregon cherries are sweet and good!

*
I wish I had known that in bars, they serve free food at happy hour! I was such an innocent, ignorant, idiot, and hadn't really been in a bar before (except for one creepy time that doesn't belong here). I was vegetarian brainwashed anyway, but, if you are hungry, that's the place to go! And people will send lots of free drinks down the bar to you! Even if you only want to drink soda. And some of them will want to kiss you, too! Who knew?... It beats the hell out of begging.

I found out about happy hour food too late. I had ditched Hub#1 and had a job waiting tables in Austin by the time I saw how it worked. And the bartender was my boyfriend, so kisses were strongly prohibited, not that I was looking for them (or drinks or food). If I was at the bar, I was usually just resting my feet after my shift, and watching the "Cocktail" show the bartenders put on. They would twirl bottles, fling stuff around, slide drinks down the bar, etc...It was a wild, crowded scene at happy hour.

*
O.K. the creepy time:
I was about 19 or 20 years old and I was taking the bus between Indiana and Nashville, and the bus stopped at the station in Louisville for a while. It was daytime, I may have had to switch busses, I can't remember. Anyway, an old man came up to me and started talking to me about how he was lonely, and would I just sit and talk to him for a while, in the bar near-by? I thought he was a sad guy, and if just talking to him for a while would cheer him up, I should try to help. (God, I was gullible! Don't you just want to smack me?!)

We went into this dark little bar. The people behind the bar seemed to know him, and he took me into a back room. I don't remember the conversation, but I remember he wanted kisses. I may have let him kiss me on the cheek and then I left pretty quickly. As I left, all the possible motives for the guy's actions began to flow into my pea brain.

I had no idea that I was raw meat on the street. I thought I could take care of any situation that might come up. I didn't know that to the professional predators, I stuck out like a baby lamb.

Where Are the Good Psych Dr.s?

I'm feeling better than I did yesterday. Savant was having a troubling spell of delusions. <- That makes it sound like they last less than months. Get real.
Last week was spring break, so he was home. I was happy to have him here. It is difficult for him to adjust to different surroundings, so going back to his apartment on campus was another hard adjustment.
I've got to find him a new psychiatrist. One that will actually give a shit.

Most of them work like vending machines with ants in the candy.

More Dirt Than Fancy Today

Welcome to another episode of the winey, sad, little, sensitive, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus girl. I stole part of that from a suicide note. Not mine.

I feel it would be so redundant to bring up anything I've already talked about here. The triumphs and tragedies are repetitive: the same, the same, the sa..., can't be fixed, can't fix, can't fi... Savant, Savant, Sava...

Just when I imagine that calm is here at last, the bucket of ice water hits me in the face. I'm just glad you came back.

I just want to hear about you today. How ya been? I've been so caught up in my own shit, I forgot to listen when you told me. Sorry. Kiss, kiss. Please pretend I'm not crying; I swear I'm really listening this time. I love you. Love you. You...

The Poetry Jar

Most of my jars tell a story, or are a visual representation of my thoughts. When you look inside this jar, you see, through the glass, poems written by Savant when he was about 18 years old. This jar holds so much of Savant and me that I could never sell it. The pictures on the outside are beautiful to me, but also have meanings. I liked the irony of putting a Federal frame around this beautiful Native American Chief. To me, he is much more noble and honorable, than any of the genocidal federals you usually see pictured in such frames.


The little girl at the bottom of this picture symbolizes the freedom of today's African Americans. She is happy and cherished, dressed like a little princess, looking out her window at the flowers and birds, at a world with few limits.

No Flies On Jesus
They move like matadors
to swat the flies,
and we, in turn,
move like flies
to kill the bull.

*****
This picture shows Christ holding up a warped church, standing on the Earth. His gaze is directed toward the suffering people on the left. That is his chosen focus, not the religions that were invented by others, in his name. Does he look like the kind of guy who would feel comfortable hanging out in cathedrals, being worshiped and Holy all day? I think he looks more like a guy who is ready to do the hard work.

This shows what the poems on the inside look like. The picture of the Navajo man is flanked at the top by semicircles that are halves of a plate made to commemorate the new millenium. They are there to symbolize that few his people, and most of the native peoples of this hemisphere did not make it to this millinium.


The central figure here is a little Native American girl in a photo by Laura Gilpin. The design around her is to honor her beauty. Below her are some pictures of other people from the past. Above her is a tattered American Flag.

At the bottom, the picture is of a bison hunt, and to the right is an old Native American looking back on what their life was like, what it will never be again. Above are pictures of flowers, a Japanese lady, Buddha and a native American "notebook drawing".

The bottom of all my jars have pictures also. The Latin inscription, roughly translates to, "Bidden or unbidden, God is here." The pictures on either side of the inscription are of, in vitro fertilization, on the left; and Gabriel, the Angel of the Annunciation (the one who tells Mary she's pregnant) on the right. Personally I think the old "virgin birth" excuse is a pretty lame explanation for being pregnant, but you know how stories can get stretched and embellished after a few centuries. The Jesus story is just as good without the stuff that requires you to suspend your common sense. Take away the virgin birth, the magic, and the rising from the dead, and he is still a wise man. Why do churches want you to believe absurdities to prove you are worthy of God's love? In that case, Andrea Yates, poor delusional sweetheart, and others like her, will be first in line at the gates of Heaven. You end up with people killing themselves because they think there is a Jesus-mobile behind a comet.

Keebler's cookies are not made by Elves. And the Mormon Boys said no matter how nice I am, I'm going to Hell.


You Are
Sad and sitting
in the rain
scrawling nonsense
on yellowing copy-paper
marooned
on the islands of self,
staring blindly
out at the world,
as it rockets by
at the speed
of sanity.

How I Waste My Time

I make jars.

I started making them in the late 1960's. They are decorated with pictures that please me.

Top, bottom, outside are all covered with pictures and a protective finish.
When you look inside the jars, you see, through the glass, a different set of pictures.

Returning The Genie To The Bottle

I'm amazed.

Savant, with his new determination to move forward, and the help of many kind people on campus, and his Dad and me, seems to have reversed his withdrawal from school.

I think he had not wanted anyone to know about his condition, but the Disabled Student's office has been amazing, once he contacted them. I contacted them first and urged him to work with them. They worked to stop the withdrawal process that was already in motion.

He met with the teachers of the last two classes he had not officially withdrawn from before he decided he wanted out of school. They were kind enough to let him know they would let him stay in the classes (Art History, and Fiction Writing). He is so happy.

I'm sorry that I mistakenly thought Mr. Buckley had taken over his body, when I talked to him on Monday. His Dad had to drive to the college to drop off his Rx refills last night. When he got back, I asked him how Savant had seemed. He said he seemed 21. I said that was wonderful!

Peeking Out From Behind The Clouds

Savant just called me.

He sounded good. He said he can read and study now. He was panicking before, because he had lost that ability, and it had always been easy for him before.

He wants to continue taking one of his classes, and if he gets an F for all his absences, so be it. That sounded, to me, like a mature decision, if the withdrawal from school has not been completed by the offices mentioned in the last entry.

He has completed a bit more than half of the make-up work for the class he wants to keep. I suggested that he find out if they can un-do the withdrawal. Hopefully, it didn't go through yet. Then talk with his teachers.

I am so happy that he wants to TRY. He wants to go, even if he has already earned an inevitable F. There are worse things than a bad grade, and if all this has helped him get his motivation back, I'm thrilled. I just hope he is still enrolled. He needs to be around other people, live on his own, take care of himself, etc.. and not much of that kind of growth will happen if he returns to living at home with Mom and Dad.

One foot in front of the other..

Wake Me From This Dream

I have the kind of brain that gets knocked down by the sad things. I have many joys in my life, but I won't list them. A heart that breaks for my child, takes my focus, when I know that all my tears won't change a thing. Will they?

We are living the lives our ancestors dreamed of. My life is more comfortable than, perhaps, the royalty of ancient times. I don't have to swelter in the heat of summer or freeze in the winter. Swat mosquitoes all night or have my food fouled by rot and vermin. Bathrooms, lights, refrigeration, photographs. I don't have to watch my children die from many of the illnesses that took our grandparent's children from them. Didn't they weep and ache for their children's pain, and their own helplessness to save them. Someone was so moved by that pain that they vowed to look for ways to spare future generations from that anguish.

I know I'd be one of the ones saying, "Why do we have to walk so far to gather water? Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could put dirty clothes or dishes in a box and then open it later to find them clean? Or some easy way to cook food without gathering wood to make a fire?" I'm just someone who thinks of impossible things, but I haven't the slightest idea how to accomplish them. What a miracle to give a potion to a sick person and have them come back to health, from the edge of death. I would have thought it impossible to have a box that plays music or shows pictures and tells stories. Or a device that would let me talk to someone far away. Wished that a journey to a far-away place could be faster and safer. I would have wished for a way to take the pain away from the injured; to fix a wound without it festering, maiming, and killing. These were some of the dreams of our ancestors. Impossible to them, but they dreamed them for us, and now they are real.

I don't think Cleopatra had it so good.

All the tears shed for the suffering are, in part, what has led to so many wonderful things. As you know the greatest sadness in my (and my husband's...) life is watching our youngest son experience schizophrenia. I thank all those people who develop new medications and, perhaps, someday, cures for all the incurable conditions that our loved ones suffer from. But today, I weep.

Savant is slipping away, but even he doesn't know where the stream is taking him. He has been panicking and miserable. I called his big brother and his wife to see if they could help him a couple of weeks ago. His sister-in-law has lots of knowledge about Savant's condition and how to help calm some of the panic. They took him to their house and fed and cared for him for a few days. They were wonderful.

He dropped class, after class, hoping that fewer classes would be the answer to his inability to concentrate, the panic and fear that has hold of his body. There are no classes left to drop. He was hoping that going back to school would be the answer to his boredom and feeling of directionlessness; to help him get... back. Can he get back?

School can wait forever, it's not going anywhere. It is not necessary for him to go.
But, this series of events, has brought home, again, that his struggles are so real, so lonely and painful for him. We haven't had a chance to move Savant's things out of his dorm room and he wanted to spend a couple of days there, so his Dad drove him to the town where the college is this weekend and dropped him off.

We spent last week going through the process of withdrawing him from school, through the Disabled Students Office. They said that for him to be able to withdraw, in good standing, the Withdrawal Office would need a letter from his psychiatrist. It was near the deadline to withdraw from classes with just a W, not a WP or WF; so as soon as Savant could get the letter to them, they would make his withdrawal date retroactive to the day I talked to them.

Savant had called us frequently, saying that he was miserable and just couldn't concentrate enough do the work, and he had not been going to many classes, and he hadn't been able to remember to take all of his medicine. Friday I took him to his psychiatrist's office and his counselor had the letter ready. He sighed the release and she faxed it to the University.

I wrote this entry in the morning. At 3:00 PM I called him to see how he was doing and Mr. Buckley, or Savant on --??, answered the phone. He has been writing, getting ready to go to his Fiction Writing Class. He said he had some realizations last night and he thinks he can do all the make-up work and is ready to be serious about taking this class and continue to live in his dorm room. I said I thought he had dropped out of school last week. Did he remember having the letter faxed to the school? Now he has me confused. He thinks he has to get on the school's web site and personally hit the button to finalize the withdrawal; and since he has decided to keep taking this class he won't be withdrawing. I'm confused. He sounds muddled. I assume he's not thinking rationally, so I tell him that I'm glad he's decided to buckle down and I hope his class goes well and hang up the phone. I'm frightened, confused, and I can't stop the tears. I call his Dad. His Dad calls him, and decides that we should leave him alone for today, hope for the best, and talk to him tomorrow, and hopefully he will make more sense, and we'll have a better chance of sorting it out if we aren't talking to Mr. Buckley.

Can't kiss this booboo and make it better.

We dream of an end to war and evil and suffering; for everyone to have food, health, shelter, love and to only weep for joy.

NOVA The Perfect Corpse PBS Bog People

I don't think I have ever written to a TV show with a comment, but part of this entry comes from an email I wrote to the PBS show NOVA after seeing this week's show on the well preserved bodies found in peat bogs. I love this kind of thing.

There will always be puzzles about them. Many other culture's had peculiar ritual killings as well as just plain old murder. But, it has always bothered me, that so many things assumed about ancient cultures, are supposed to do with the harvest, or religion, or pleasing angry gods or kings, or fertility, or warfare between neighboring rivals. Sometimes, can't it be something more simple? A mentally ill person would live in close contact with the members of the smaller communities of ancient times, and their behavior would have been very scary.

When possible theories about who these bog people were and why they were killed are postulated, one that is not mentioned is schizophrenia.
In our time, we have medication to help people with such conditions, but they still suffer, just not as horribly. Imagine the places they may have held in ancient societies. I can't even imagine the former, goode people of Salem, MA seeing it as something purely blameless and physiological.

It is truly awesome and frightening to witness the manifestations of schizophrenia. Some of the speech can seem prophetic, or rebuke the religious ideas of the community; foretell of attacks from "others"; hearing voices that could be interpreted as coming from good or bad spirits, etc.. They were probably revered in few cultures and persecuted in most.

When they were saying that the bog people were well fed, but their nails showed little evidence of manual work, high status was given as a possible reason; but think, also, an insane person would not be able to manage manual labor either. Perhaps they had family members that loved and cared for these difficult people, who might have been among the first in line to be sacrificed or culled from the community.

There is probably no way to tell yet, from DNA, or any other evidence, if it was a factor. But a burial, away from the other people, and in the bog, may have signified that the person might have been thought to possess an evil spirit, that did not belong among the living or the normal dead.

I would love to know more about the beliefs of ancient groups, trying to make sense of the transformation of a previously rational and intellegent person, when they became schizophrenic, and how they were treated.

The Mandarin's Beautiful Translations

I just read The Mandarin's latest publication in the magazine "Renditions", and found it very moving. It is a collection of quatrains written by women who lived within the confines of Tang Palace life.

His thoughtful translations open a personal view into the lives and thoughts of these women. Once the Emperor's ardor shifted to a new lady, most of the thousands that had once held his attention, languished in loneliness and isolation. That is why so many of these short poems are sad or melancholy. And beautiful!

Imagine writing a poem on a leaf and setting it to float away in a stream that runs through the grounds. Isolation, like that, would have led me to write poems and suffer. What a waste of beautiful, talented women. I have the feeling that an illicit relationship might have resulted in the woman's death, or demotion to latrine cleaner.

I look forward to reading his two new works when they are published:
"White Crane: Love Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama" and "Broken Willow: the Complete Poems of Yu Xuanji".

I'm particularly curious about "White Crane", because I thought the Dalai Lamas were celibate. (Personal Opinion: Celibacy seems like such an unnatural rule to impose on these bodies we are packaged in.) Are they songs of spiritual love?