My Commonplace Book

        THERE'S ANOTHER TRAIN

The beginning is now and will always be.
You say you've lost your chance
That fate brought you defeat,
But that means nothing. You look so sad,
You've been listening to those who say you've missed your chance.

    There's another train -- there always is,
    Maybe the next one is yours,
    Get up and climb aboard another train.

You feel you're done and there's no such thing,
Although you're standing on your own
Your own breath is king.
The beginning is now, don't turn around,
Regrets of bad mistakes will only drain you.

    There's another train -- there always is,
    Maybe the next one is yours,
    Get up and climb aboard another train.

We crawl in the dark sometimes and think too much,
Then we fill our heads with crazy things
That only break our hearts.
And I know you've seen what the world can do,
When it's dragging down another load of worrisome fools

    There's another train -- there always is,
    Maybe the next one is yours,
    Get up and climb aboard another train.

I know it's hard when you feel cheated,
You can crown yourself with fear
And you feel you cannot move,
You're building worlds that don't exist
Imagination plays the worst tricks.

    There's another train -- there always is,
    Maybe the next one is yours,
    Get up and climb aboard another train.

    There's another train -- there always is,
    Maybe the next one is yours,
    Get up and climb aboard another train.

    There's another train -- there always is,
    Maybe the next one is yours,
    Get up and climb aboard another train.

    There's another train -- there always is,
    Maybe the next one is yours,
    Get up and climb aboard another train.




I have this on a CD by Olympia's Daughters, a women's a cappella choir (modeled on Sweet Honey in the Rock). They came to my Unitarian Universalist church last year, doing a concert on Saturday night and a program the next morning for the service. I loved their music, and bought two of their CDs. "There's Another Train" is on Big Ovaries, and they do it beautifully.

Poem for an Inked Daughter

I did it too you know, just differently.
Way back then
when I was angry young
I pierced my ears with a rusty ice pick,
and willfully wore dangly earrings
(and a smirk) to Christmas dinner.
My scandalized mother
referred to me for days as
“my daughter, the dirty gypsy.”
I let my ears jingle silver music, ultimately
dancing right over her Victorian disapproval
out of that house forever.

And now here you are,
fresh from a different kind of parlor,
with that defiant dragon
curling dark over your shoulder.
No, of course you know I don’t like it.
Another gauntlet thrown down
in the ongoing Mother-Daughter Wars.

But hear this, my own gypsy girl:
I know something you don’t.
That under that fierce fire-breathing dragon,
claws bared, ready for the next battle,
under the skin where the purple ink turns to blood,
your blood is my blood,
rushing red to red, flowing in a long bond
linking my heart to you no matter what,
like the swirling, twisting lines
of an intricate intimate tattoo,
invisible, indelible, forever permanent.


                        —Jean Wyrick, in UU World magazine

I haven't been posting because I've been feeling really upset.

( Cats )

( Cars )

I'm not good at making decisions in general, and it's even harder for me when it's an important decision. I have too many important decisions to make in too short a time, and it's really getting to me.

Thanks so much to those who have been commenting on my entries about my travails ... even though I don't always answer, I always appreciate the support!

Giving Val pills is ... interesting. I didn't know how good I had it with Friday. Friday is skittish but otherwise passive -- for example, although he loves belly-rubs best I can pet him any way I want and he doesn't mind. He'll hang around hoping to get something but is never intrusive -- the most he'll do is meow softly and plaintively. But Val has always been very strong-willed. You can only pet him certain ways, and at any given time it has to be the way he wants to be petted right then. When he wants something, you know it! He'll meow and pester and do whatever he has to to get dinner, or petting, or whatever.

So I didn't appreciate how comparatively easy it was to give Friday his pills. For one thing, Val is much bigger, and the big bath towel I had been wrapping Friday in wasn't big enough to hold him. Actually the beach towel I dug out isn't big enough either, but I'm afraid a blanket would be too big. (If anyone has any ideas of what I might have around the house that would be larger than a beach towel but smaller than a blanket, please mention it!)

Friday allowed me to push him down into a lying position and basically lay there while I rolled him up -- Val sticks his legs straight out and makes it impossible! I'm afraid to force him too much because he obviously has arthritis, and I'm afraid to hurt him. He's been making "hey, that hurts!" noises when I try to push him down. He goes every which way to escape -- I really need four hands for this job! But he does love those treats, and I've been giving him a couple to soften him up ahead of time, and then giving him more as soon as the pill goes down. If he realizes he'll get treats afterward, maybe he won't fight as hard.

Fortunately I only have to medicate him for a week, while Friday's medication is (or was) ongoing. Friday stopped vomiting so I think it was the anti-thyroid pills, but I guess we're going to have to try again -- but after Val is off the medication. Pilling two cats a day (the hard one twice) is too much to even contemplate.

But Friday isn't eating the canned food, and I'm worried about that. He seems to prefer the dry food he's been eating all his life, and I think he's becoming dehydrated again. He's not drinking as much, and if he won't eat the canned food I don't know what I'm going to do ... I can't keep going to the vet for IVs! Is there any other way to get fluid into them if they won't drink or eat moist food? Has anyone ever heard of giving cats IVs at home?

I went to bed at midnight last night (early for me) and woke up at 7:00 this morning. (NB: "this morning" is Tuesday, despite what the time stamp says.) I had the alarm set for 10:00 since I had a dental appointment, but didn't think I'd need it -- however I fell back asleep and woke up with a start from a vivid dream when the alarm went off. I slept for 10 hours! I really needed it, and I'm glad I caught up. I hoped it would help alter my schedule so I could go to bed earlier, but it's 1:30 am already.... =sigh=

The dental appointment was mildly harrowing. It was just a cleaning and it was fine until the end, when both my general dentist and the periodontist were scheduled to come in together and confer. They have a huge amount of work planned, and the perio especially is really champing at the bit -- he wants to call the ortho and tell him the braces have been on long enough (since November 2003) and they need to come off so he can start working!

I realize that the sooner my teeth are treated the better, but I paid $4000 for these damn things and I want the job done right! I asked the perio not to rush the ortho, but this ortho is a know-it-all and I don't think he'd take well to being rushed anyway, so I don't think I have to worry about that.

But my dentophobia reared up from talking to the two dentists about what they want to do to me. And it's going to cost thousands of dollars. We haven't even talked about that, but I need a whole bunch of new crowns, and I don't remember what else because I was too traumatized.

We also talked about tooth whitening, which woofiegrrl has been urging me strongly to get. (She wants me to have it done so much that she offered to pay half the cost if I would. It was off in the future when we talked about it, but pretty soon I'm going to have to ask her if she really meant it!) If I do it I would have to do the instant Zoom* procedure, because I'll have a night guard and a retainer and I can't do the overnight trays at home.

I spent ten minutes in the back office talking to the secretary who checked me out about my dentophobia and how great everyone there is, and that was helpful. I mentioned the possibility of tooth whitening, and she saw an assistant named Nora who had had it done and called her over. She told me all about it and she also assists with it herself, so she even took me back and showed me the light. It sounds very scary, but then so does everything else we talked about today. I'll just have to ask for a new Valium script.


* Links for me to check out later: 

Zoom website
Animated-teeth.com
Dentist.net
Google for more

The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touched by the thorns.
                  —Thomas Moore (1779-1852), Irish poet

I hope all my friends who are mothers had a good Mother's Day today! I did! Meredith and A came up, took me out to lunch, and treated me to a performance of Mamaleh at the Spotlighters Theater in Baltimore. They also surprised me with a gift certificate to the Wild Bird Center and a wonderful card with an outside cover made of lovely handmade paper that actually has flower seeds embedded in it! You actually just bury the paper under a little soil (instructions are on the back of the card itself, which is made of card stock) and you get flowers! This is just about the right time of year to plant flower seeds here, so I'm going to plant it and see what happens!

The three of us also had a very good conversation about my thoughts regarding moving. One thing that made me feel much more at ease was A's assurance that they wouldn't just up and move away and leave me stranded far away from them. She said it's unlikely they would move out of the DC area, but if they did they'd make sure that I had choices and wasn't stuck here alone. That's been very much on my mind, and I feel much easier about the whole situation. We also talked about other options besides moving to a CCRC. I'm still going to visit Greenspring, but I'm looking forward to talking more with them about some of the other possibilities we discussed. 

Mamaleh was a wonderful show. When I found out it was going to be at Spotlighters over Mother's Day, I told the kids that's what I wanted to do for the holiday. It's about five Jewish women in New York City -- Frieda, a suburban wife and mother, and her relationships with her mother Sonya; her daughter Debra, who has just had a baby of her own; and her three best friends. The blurb says it's "filled with laughter and tears" and it definitely was for me -- it was a rare moment that I wasn't either crying or laughing out loud. I wasn't expecting quite so many tears, actually, but it recalled my mother and the milieu in which we lived so strongly that I went through several tissues. A was very sweet and put her arm around me or held my hand every time I cried.

( The show )

We'd taken my car to go up to Baltimore since the kids had just driven an hour to get to my house. When we got out of the theater I was pretty wrung out from all the laughting and crying I did, and Meredith noticed and offered to drive. It was very thoughtful, and I gratefully handed her the keys. We got home at about 4:30, and Meredith and A had to leave so A's mother's could have her turn to celebrate with her family.

Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man.
                —Louis Nizer (1902-1994), American lawyer, speaker and author

Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.
                      —John W. Gardner (1912-2002), American social activist and author; cabinet member under President Lyndon Johnson, founder of Common Cause

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy -- the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
                          —Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), American writer

A word, a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart; and like a shaft flying with the wind pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at.
                  —Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), Irish author

conuly posted something about a note in the Metropolitan Diary in the New York Times, in column to which people send in interesting or amusing anecdotes. This one was apparently intended to be humorous and/or demonstrate how bright their little grandson is: 

Dear Diary:

In an effort to motivate our 7½-year-old grandson, Nathan, to call us, I decided on a monetary incentive: $1 for calling me in my office after school, $2 for calling us at home in the evening.

Recently, as I emerged from the Columbus Circle subway, my cellphone rang. It was Nathan.

He asked me where I was.

I replied that I had just left my office on 20th street and was a couple of blocks from our 60th Street apartment.

He paused for a moment, then asked, "Is this a $1 or $2 call?"

Ray Simon

conuly was appalled. I was instantly reminded of my great-aunt Annie.

When I was very small and my grandmother was still living with us, her sister came to visit occasionally. I didn't like Aunt Annie because she always pinched my cheek -- hard -- and wanted a kiss on the lips. Besides, from the perspective of a normal egocentric preschooler, she was old, with an old-lady-perfume smell I didn't like and heavily-lipsticked lips. She probably had osteoporosis, because she was very short and hunched over, which made her even more strange-looking to me. She was probably only in her sixties or early seventies -- but that was considered "old" in those days, and she dressed and behaved like an old lady.

It was a tossup which I hated more -- having my cheek grabbed, or having to kiss someone I disliked. But she invariably brought me a Hershey bar when she came over, and I knew that suffering the cheek pinch and the kiss was the price of that chocolate. I couldn't get away from the pinch, but I usually tried to avoid kissing her. But she withheld the candy bar until I did, and the desire for the chocolate always won out over my repugnance. So I'd give her a quick kiss, she'd hand me my reward, and I'd duck out of reach as fast as I could.

Even at that young age I felt like I was prostituting myself (though I didn't know the word for it) and hated the way it made me feel. Looking back on it I don't blame myself -- a child that age doesn't have the moral fortitude to resist that kind of temptation -- but on some level I knew it was wrong to compromise my values for a reward. Or maybe it was simpler than that and I just hated having to go through what felt like an ordeal to get the candy bar. Either way, the Hershey bars Aunt Annie gave me never tasted quite as good as the others.

It was the very same as the boy who's being bribed to call his grandparents, and I reacted in exactly the same way: When she came in, the first thing I said was always, "Did you bring me a Hershey bar?" That was my association with her. Aunt Annie = Hershey bar. Being bribed for a phony display of affection is the only memory I have of her. My grandmother went to a nursing home when I was 4, and died when I was 6, so I rarely saw Aunt Annie after that. (Or maybe Annie died first -- I'm not sure. I come from a very short-lived family.)

Ever since I grew up I thought that bribing a child for love was wrong. Of what value is a kiss that a child -- or anyone -- gives with such reluctance, solely to get a reward? What on earth are those grandparents teaching their grandson about love if they pay him to call them? And they think it's cute?

Oh, man. The big event tomorrow evening is sure to be snowed out.

...Heavy Snow Warning remains in effect from 6 am Saturday to 6 am EST Sunday...

Low pressure located along the Gulf Coast will track northeast on Saturday... reaching the North Carolina Outer Banks Saturday evening. Snow will develop Saturday morning from southwest to northeast across the warning area. The heaviest snow will occur late Saturday afternoon through Saturday night.

Before snow ends early Sunday morning... total snowfall is expected to be 4 to 8 inches... with up to 10 inches possible in the central Shenandoah Valley and locations such as Charlottesville and Fredericksburg.

I'm so distressed about all the work that went into this! Here's the blurb that was just sent in e-mail to remind everyone.

Please join us for our Annual Canvass Dinner, beginning at 5:30 pm at OBIC.  Come for a bountiful potluck dinner, followed by some riotous, original, non-commercial entertainment, and hear about our Stewardship Campaign and our important goals.

All the folks who planned the dinner, all the ones who planned the entertainment, the whole Finance Committee ... all the work will have been in vain. Yes, they'll reschedule it, but a rescheduled event of this type never has the same energy that the original would have had. Fewer people can come, maybe some of those who are putting it on can't make it ... and if we do have the canvass service on Sunday morning people won't have had the push from the night before to give a good pledge, and the amount will be lower. And if we can't get in, that will have to be rescheduled too, except the minister is going on maternity leave so the canvass won't benefit from her energy either.

I'm disappointed for myself, and for everyone who was involved with this.

The strongest have their moments of fatigue.
                        —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher

I find that with me low spirits and feeble health come and go together. The last two or three months I have had frequent attacks of the blues. They generally are upon me or within me when I am somewhat out of order in bowels, throat, or head.
                    —Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893), American lawyer, nineteenth president of the US

You can't pay enough money to ... cure that feeling of being broken and confused.
                —Winona Ryder (b. 1971), American actor

If you understand, things are just as they are.
If you don't understand, things are just as they are.
          —Buddhist proverb

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
                  —Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), American author, editor, journalist, in The Devil's Dictionary

I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a  restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.
              —Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773), British statesman, author

A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
                —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1819-1892), American poet