Thoughts of the meandering type

I’m up early-early after sleeping not-so-well. I took Tylenol PM last night, as I have the last three, but this time it didn’t work even a little. So I saw each hour on the clock, waking in annoyance from image-and-thought-crowded dozes to wide-blinking-awakeness as I flexed my throbbing, gravel-filled digits and wished for hands less demanding of my complete attention.

The single, bed-time Elavil tablet my rheumatologist prescribed – which I looked so forward to as a solution to the two a.m. ceiling stare – worked only half-heartedly and erratically to help me sleep. But it worked enthusiastically to increase my appetite. This is aggravating. I don’t need help with my appetite; in fact, I’ve only just this year gotten the beast under control after a lifetime of bad eating habits. To suddenly crave buttery Ritz crackers, salty-crunchy tortilla chips and sweet slice after slice of Thanksgiving spice cake with fresh whipped cream – and to mindlessly indulge the craving – is to look away as Doom creeps in the back door, quiet, breathing the rancid-sweet breath of the ketosis-plagued diabetic.

Bleh. I’ve shoved the evil Elavil to the back of my pill cabinet (yes, I have one, to my chagrin) and put ranks of vitamin and supplement bottles in front of it. I’d rather lose sleep than regain those hard-lost pounds. Besides, I gave all my fat clothes to the local hospice thrift store. My wardrobe consists now only of lesser sizes. I like them.

 ******

 Yesterday Mr Wren and I took a ride down the mountain to Home Depot. The reason? To buy door levers. Our house is currently equipped with nice, small, round, ubiquitous doorknobs. I’ve never given them much thought. But with my hands in a seemingly endless flare, it hurts like a _________ (fill in the appropriate curse) every time I open a door. My right hand protests loudly at grasping the knob and then shrieks when I twist. The result is me standing in front of the still-closed door, clutching my angry hand to my chest as I turn the air around me blue. And sometimes, the door does not open.

This is not good.

When I told Mr Wren that I wanted to change all the doorknobs in the house to levers (and this after 12 years during which the knobs did the job just dandy), he didn’t even blink. Off we went.

After perusing the door-paraphernalia aisle and exclaiming in dismay over the stunning prices, we bought five “brushed antique” door levers. Two with deadbolts for the front and back entry doors, and three with thumb locks for the bedrooms and bathroom. That leaves one bedroom and one bathroom still to change out, but as I don’t use either of them very often, they can wait for their levers. If I need to get into one or the other, I’ll either grit my teeth or holler politely for assistance.

The hard part will be the actual removal of the old knobs and installation of the new levers. Mr Wren will do his best to procrastinate this unpleasant task until Hell freezes over, but I can’t wait that long. I’m going to give it a try myself today. And if I can’t do it, then perhaps Matt will come to my rescue. One way or another, I’m going to be able to open doors with my elbows if I need to before the day is out.

 ******

 It took its sweet time arriving, but early winter (such as it is) has tentatively arrived here in the California mountains. The daytime temps are just reaching the mid-50s; nights are down into the mid-30s. I realize that for most people, these temperatures are downright balmy for this time of year, so I have no right to complain. And I’m not. I like the cool weather. In fact, I live through the warm springs and sizzling summers dreaming of the chill breezes of late fall and the hard frosts of winter. Over the next three months or so we’ll have some snow – more than a little, if we’re lucky – and plenty of rain, also if we’re lucky. I know this sounds perverse to those of you who dread the cold and damp of winter because of rheuma or simply out of preference. But along with the fact that California’s well into its Third Official Year of drought conditions (more like five years, if you ask me), I just prefer bundling up to stay warm to stripping down to stay cool. I like wearing sweaters and thick socks. I adore hot soup – the aroma as it cooks and the flavor when I eat it. I love working and playing outside in the cold so I can go inside and warm my hands and backside at the living room wood stove. I love the way snow transforms the world and the sound rain makes when it spats against windows and drums on the roof.

Yeah, I’m cracked. So what’s new?

Why I love Autumn

This photo was taken from my kitchen window at 4:10 p.m. It’s been a chilly, breezy, rainy Sunday.

This one was taken about five minutes later.

What more can I say?

Kid won’t mind? Taze her.

A police officer in Little Rock, Arkansas “tazed” a little girl, with her mother’s approval, because the child refused to take a shower.

Officer Dustin Bradshaw’s report states that the girl was “violently kicking and verbally combative,” so he darted her with his Tazer, giving her a “very brief stun to her back.”

Is it just me, or does this seem a trifle … overboard?

I mean, this was a 10-year-old, not a 180-pound man hopped up on angel dust and waving a tire-iron. A 10-year-old girl. Unarmed. Kicking and screaming and obviously out of control, but this is not necessarily abnormal behavior for a child. Annoying, aggravating, even infuriating behavior, certainly, but who in hell would shoot a 10-year-old with a Tazer gun?

Apparently, an American policeman.

Officer Bradshaw has been suspended from duty for a week, with pay. I know the suspension will go on his records, and that’s not so good for him, promotion-wise, but otherwise, it’s like he’s getting a free week of vacation for electrocuting a child in order to stun her into submission. And you know what? He wasn’t suspended for shooting the child, but because he forgot to attach a video camera to the gun before he fired. Seems he broke department rules when he did that.

The little girl was physically unharmed, according to the story by the Associated Press, though one does wonder what her mental state must be, given that her mother called the police on her for not taking a shower when she was told – and then gave the officer permission to shoot her with a Tazer because she was throwing a tantrum.

This is incredible. No – it’s monstrous.

The child is now staying at a youth shelter. Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniel wants the Arkansas State Police or the FBI to investigate whether the use of the Tazer on the child was proper.

Holygods. This is a question?

What’s next? “9-1-1? Hurry! My 14-year-old son won’t clean his room! Have the police come and taze him! That’ll teach him to do what I tell him to do…”

Sometimes I wonder what we’ve turned into. Where are the brakes? We accepted that our government was torturing people – most of them innocent people. It was, I guess, a kind of revenge for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, along with two wars. Now we stun children into submission with high-voltage darts for not minding their mothers.

America seriously needs a time out.

Correction: Frequent commenter Der Schildtraeger points out that I misspelled Taser. It’s an “s”, not a “z”. He’s right. Oops. He also has the mistaken impression that I dislike policemen. Au contraire. I like policemen, generally. But I dislike policemen tasing 10-year-olds, for whatever reason. Thanks for the comment, DS.

Your Word is “Fearless”

You see life as your one chance to experience everything, and you just go for it! You believe the biggest risk is being afraid and missing out on something amazing.Sometimes your fearlessness means you’re daring. You enjoy risky activities. And sometimes your fearlessness means you’re courageous. You’re brave enough to do the right thing, even when it’s scary.

What’s Your Word?

Blogthings: Free Quizzes for Everyone

Isn’t that funny? And here I thought my “word” would probably be “cautious.” If I think about it, though, I have always liked to do unusual things. Like join the Air Force. Like fly a plane even though I’m afraid of heights. Like shoot a gun (not at anyone!). Like go off and live in another country for six years. Maybe “fearless” is the better word for me. Hmmm … What will I do next?

Tip o’the hat to Blue Girl… 

A preemie’s story

I was born on October 25, 1956. My timing was a bit off; I wasn’t expected until the second week in December, a sort of early Christmas present from the stork. Instead, I was an early birthday present for my mother, who was born in mid-November.

I jumped the delivery gun by seven weeks.

I didn’t actually plan this. If I had, I’m sure I’d have been in the proper position for launch. As it was, the first part of me the startled doctor saw was my tiny, skinny, wrinkled butt (a physical state I’ve never been able to duplicate, though at this particular age, I’m working on the wrinkled part and feel sure I’ll achieve it before long).

It was a real big pain for my mom, my premature birth. Dad was caught off guard but he took it all in stride. All he had to do was pace the waiting room, smoking, wondering which flavor he’d gotten and hoping he’d know soon so he could go buy cigars to hand out. Mom was the frightened, brave girl-woman with her feet up in the cold steel stirrups, though, unprepared for any of it, no anesthesia, no Lamaze training – hell, no cigarettes. They had a hard time getting me out – I guess maybe I realized my mistake and changed my mind. Anyway, my birth took a long time. Mom endured it, terrified as she was.

I’m flip about this now, 53 years later. But the fact is, Dad was terrified for my mom and for me, because being born prematurely in the middle of the 20^th Century was pretty dangerous situation. It still is, but today medicine can save the lives of premature babies who would surely have died back when I was born. I was terribly early and breech to boot. I’m lucky to be here at all.

They kept me at the hospital, in an incubator, for seven weeks. During that time my parents visited me every day, but they weren’t allowed to hold me. A nurse would get me out of the incubator for a minute or two and bring me to the window so Mom and Dad could look at me. At least once she held me up, cradled in and balanced in one hand, so my Dad could take a photo.

I gaze at that old, faded and yellowing black-and-white print in something like awe. My head wasn’t even as wide as her palm. My bare feet – each with the correct number of toes – couldn’t have been more than an inch long. And my toes: think baby corn kernels.

“You were like a baby doll,” Dad used to tell me, wonder in his voice, “but you were alive.” I had yellow jaundice because my premature liver wasn’t ready to work on baby formula yet. I had yellow fuzz on my head. Today my left ear lacks the curl-over along the top, making it sort of pointed, like an elf’s ear, because I wasn’t quite finished when I came off the assembly line.

I like to think that perhaps there’s an elf in my ancestry.

I’ve never met another preemie, but I know of one other, a man who’s a year older than I, and who, in a quirk of coincidence, is also of Finnish ancestry. Stephen Kuusisto is a poet, an author, and a professor of writing and disability studies at Iowa State University. He’s a speaker, a blogger, an advocate for people with disabilities and a Fullbright Scholar.

Kuusisto is also blind, a victim of the pure oxygen that was pumped into his incubator to help keep him alive. The trouble was the oxygen sometimes damaged the delicate eyes of premature babies.

The medical world realized this mistake the same year Kuusisto was born, 1955. Unfortunately, the practice wasn’t stopped in time to save his vision. By the time  I was born, they no longer used pure oxygen in the incubator. My peepers were just fine, though I wear glasses and have for the last ten years or so. My eyes are getting old right along with me. Once again, I was very lucky.

I was a preemie, but I grew up to become an average-sized woman. I was on the slow end of the pediatric growth charts for the first seven years of my life, though, prompting my doctor to worry, privately, that I might be a midget.(He only told my mother years later.) Then I had my tonsils out and started growing like a weed.

Sevens have always been important in my life.

According to the March of Dimes, there are 31 percent more babies being born prematurely since 1981, the year my own daughter was born (right on time). Prematurity is the number one killer of newborns and can lead to lifelong disabilities. These babies aren’t only diminutive. They’re unable to suck, and often unable to breathe on their own. Their tiny bodies – their organs, brains, circulatory systems, renal systems and lungs aren’t ready for life outside the womb yet. That’s just not good. In fact, it’s tragic.

The March of Dimes – and millions of moms and dads and prospective moms and dads all over the world – would like to know why so many children are born before they’re “done.” Because right now, there’s no good, solid answer. Premature births happen without warning and often, without discernable reasons.

Many people are donating funds toward finding the answer, and a solution, for premature birth. You can be one of them, as I am. Visit http://marchofdimes.com/prematurity/index.asp for more information about how to do that, and how to raise awareness of this serious issue during November, Premature Awareness Month. Join us in the March of Dimes’ Fight for Preemies.

Thank you for your interest and for reading this post.

Arguing with the “good”

Someone please explain to me the mindset of a mature woman who calls herself a Christian yet casually opines that she really, really hopes that health insurance reform dies on the vine.

She can’t imagine why regular insurance isn’t good enough for people. The ones who want a public option, she says, are those “Medicaid types.” They don’t work. They’re lazy. They want something for nothing.

She was exercising next to me at our local Curves gym. She’s a friendly woman, talks a mile a minute, is clearly opinionated about everything and, except for her stunning disregard for people who are less fortunate than she is, a kind person. She told another woman there, who’d recently survived breast cancer, that she was looking wonderful and that she and her group had prayed for her.

“Thank you,” the woman said.

Somehow the conversation turned again to health reform. “That Obama,” my Christian co-exerciser said, “he’s all for abortion. Now that’s not something that someone who’s for life can support. And old people! He said he wants to kill old people!”

I’d been quiet up to this point, but I couldn’t let that go.

“President Obama has never said that,” I snapped.

“But he wants death panels …”

“That was a bald-faced lie. All that part of the health care insurance reform bill would have done was to pay doctors for counseling people about end-of-life care and to make them aware that they can decide for themselves now what they want doctors to do should they be unable to speak for themselves.”

“Well, I know he wants abortion.”

“Yes, he supports a woman’s right to an abortion. But he doesn’t encourage it. Why would anyone encourage it? Obama supports abortion but encourages people to act responsibly and use birth control. He wants people to be educated about these things so that abortions aren’t necessary. But they’ll be available as a last resort.”

“Abortion is evil. It’s taking a human life.”

“You have a right to believe what you want. But you have no right to tell me what to believe or to make decisions, based on your beliefs, which affect my life.”

“Well, I don’t think we need health care reform. There’s nothing wrong with our health care system. People from countries with socialized medicine come here for medical care all the time because they can’t get it at home! So what’s so wrong with just having insurance?”

“Nothing, if you can have it and can afford it. But what if you can’t? What then?”

She just gazed at me.

“Look. I was laid off from my job. I lost my health insurance. Not long after that, my rheumatoid arthritis, which had been in remission, became active again. I had to wait quite a while, but I was finally able to get medical care through the Veterans’ Administration, since I’m a vet with a service-related disability. So today my RA is being treated by a VA rheumatologist. I take meds that help, with luck, to keep the RA under control. But if I didn’t have the VA, I’d be up a creek.”

“But— ”

 “And not only that. I have VA health care right now, but when I find work again, I’ll no longer be eligible for it. I’ll make too much money. So it’s imperative that I find a job that offers health care as a benefit. And then I have to hope to hell that the insurance company they use will accept me. Rheumatoid arthritis is a “pre-existing condition.” Some of the medications used to treat it are outrageously expensive. The disease is incurable. I might need surgeries in the future. Joint replacements. An insurance provider could deny me right off, or at any time thereafter. And then what do I do? I’m up a creek again.

“When health care insurance reform passes, even if it doesn’t have a public option, insurance providers won’t be able to deny me insurance or drop me because I have rheumatoid arthritis. And if I lose my job again, I’ll still be able to get good, quality medical care.”

“OK,” she conceded. “But the public option is just socialized medicine. It’ll be like Medicare, and everyone knows that’s a joke!”

The other woman, the breast-cancer survivor, spoke up. “I take medications right now that cost $2500 a month. I have Medicare. It covers most of the cost. Medicare covered my mastectomy and chemotherapy. It covered my hospital bills. There’s no way I could have paid for all that. I’d have gone bankrupt. Medicare saved my life.”

The good Christian went silent. So did I. We finished our workouts and, a while later, left at the same time. As we went to our cars I grinned and said, “have a really great day.” She smiled back, told me to do the same, and that was it. Off we went in our own directions.

I’m glad we were able to be civil in spite of disagreeing with one another, in spite of having political views that are, obviously, on opposite ends of the spectrum. I see this woman three times a week at the gym, and I’d rather not have to try to avoid her. I’m sure she’d rather not have to deal with that discomfort, either. Still, as I drove home the whole conversation bothered me more and more.

Because, to my understanding, being a “Christian” means caring about others. It means helping others in need. It means compassion, charity, love. It means doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Jesus Christ was full of kindness. He had a special eye for “the least of us.”

I wish I’d asked that woman “what would Jesus do” in regards to health care insurance reform. I’d like to see her try to explain how Jesus would say, “Tough shit. I’ve got mine. Why should I pay for you? You’re on your own, sucker.”

I wish I’d told her that people like her are the reason I have no respect for religion, particularly Christianity – or at least, her version of it. But I didn’t. And maybe, because I went back to being friendly and neutral again at the end of our short time together, she’ll think about the whole conversation today, just like I have. Maybe she’ll even change how she feels about health insurance care reform. Maybe she’ll see, suddenly, how she’s been lied to about everything from President Obama’s birth certificate to the horrors of “socialized medicine.”

I can hope, can’t I? Heh. Jesus would.

Autumn mist …

... the most beautiful time of year. Photo-illustration copyright Leslie Vandever, 2009.

Rain dance

Yesterday's fog heralded today's rain ...

It’s raining here in Northern California. Finally.

I know there are people out there who get rain all the time (Stankus, that’s you all over) and probably think I’m crazy, but I love water from the sky. Always have, even when I lived in Northern Germany, where it rained near continuously.

I like the scent of the rain. I like the way the wind spatters it against the windows. The way it thrums on the roof. After three years of drought, I can almost hear the earth sighing with relief as the moisture starts sinking in.

Here’s hoping that this storm will be the first of many to water parched California this fall and winter. I can take it. I have a raincoat. I have mittens and warm hats. I have thick socks. I know how to layer to stay cozy. I know how to make steamy, savory soups to warm me from the inside out.

And what’s nicer than wrapping chilled fingers around a hot cup of cocoa?

Bring it on, autumn. Let it rain.

Photo copyright Leslie Vandever 2009.

World Athritis Day 2009

Today is World Arthritis Day. People with arthritis from around the world join together to make their voices heard on this day. The aims of World Arthritis Day are:

• To raise awareness of arthritis in all its forms among the medical community, people with arthritis and the general public;
• To influence public policy by making decision-makers aware of the burden of arthritis and the steps which can be taken to ease it;
• To ensure all people with arthritis and their caregivers are aware of the vast support network available to them.

www.worldarthritisday.org

I have rheumatoid arthritis. It’s not a disease of the elderly, as is commonly thought. It can strike children, teenagers and young adults as well. It can be and often is disabling, even crippling. I’ve had it for more than 20 years, and while modern medicine has come a long way in treating the disease and making it, for some, more bearable, there is still no cure.

Please tell others about World Arthritis Day. Offer your concern, compassion and support to those who suffer with it all over the world. And perhaps, working together, we can find a cure.

Harvest time

Now that's a pile of tomatoes. Imagine spaghetti sauce ...

Decided to wander out to the vegetable garden this afternoon. Last time I was out there, about a week ago, there were two — count ‘em — two ripe tomatoes ready to pick off the thick, sprawling vines. The rest were all green. It hasn’t been the greatest summer for tomatoes; most of May and June were overcast and cool, so nothing much happened, garden-wise. By mid-July it was finally growing nicely, but many of the veggies we’d planted had died off. No eggplants, no red, yellow or orange bell peppers. Sigh. August got nice and hot. More growth, but no fruit. Same for most of September.

So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered RIPE TOMATOES everywhere. There were these gigantic heirloom toms and a whole slew of small romas (my favorites). I picked two basketsful and heh, here they are, ready to eat or make into spaghetti sauce immediately. I’m going to call my sweet next door neighbor and offer her as many as she’d like. Tommorow I’ll get busy making savory sauce to freeze.

And there are scads more tomatoes out there, nearly ready to pick. I figure by Tuesday I’ll have this many to work with again. It’s supposed to be chilly and rain buckets on Tuesday and Wednesday (yay!!). We sure need that rain. It’s time.

I also spent most of the afternoon out raking leaves and carting dry straw to the chicken pen and down beneath the red oak tree. The chickens like the straw for bedding and bugs; the stuff under the tree I spread out hoping to discourage foxtail weeds next spring. Now my wrists and hands are yelling at me, but my daughter Cary and almost-son-in-law, Matt,  and I will be going out again in a little bit to cover the firewood piles with tarps so the wood stays dry when the rain comes. Matt,  the love, has already brought a good load of sweet, dry firewood inside so we can stoke up the woodstove when it gets chilly and damp in a couple of days.

Then I’m making chicken soup. I love autumn.

Update: I changed my mind. I didn’t make chicken soup. I made fresh spaghetti sauce with four big chopped up tomatoes, a big handful of chopped pimiento olives, basil, oregano, garlic, a bit of salt and a couple of generous grinds of pepper. Spooned it over whole wheat spaghetti noodles cooked al dente and dusted shredded romano cheese over the top. Oh, my. yummmm.