POLLEN

Almost a four-letter word, right?

You wish you could use it in a sentence like this . . .  “Oh for pollen's sake!” But instead, you can't speak because the little critters are stuck in your throat and only a dry cough escapes your pollinated lips.

I wondered this morning what our lungs would look like if x-rayed. Would they be yellow and coated like a smoker's would be due to inhaling a foreign substance for days on end? To that question, I looked up the word 'pollen' in Wikipedia. Don't go there! The little buggers are photographed in minuscule and you can see what they really look like . . . little round or irregular shaped universes that make your life miserable if you are allergic. And believe it or not, some even have wings. Yes! So you can't get away from them. They can fly.

Did you know that the smallest pollen grain is that of the Forget-Me-Not? I'm sure you will remember that fact every time you sneeze now. Achoo!!

Did you know that the study of pollen is called palynology? I wouldn't say that pollen was a pal of any kind. I'll leave it up to you to decide a better name for its study after you've spent weeks at the pharmacy counter studying old and new remedies for the seasonal pests.

If you read what Wikipedia has to say on the subject, you will see that these little devils have sex. Right under your noses!! Literally. If I look out of my window at this moment I can tell that these creatures have been up all night having fun while I slept. It must have been quite a party.

If you continue reading you will learn new spelling bee (excuse the reference) words to add to your voluminous list. Words like: microsporangium, sporopollenenin, eudicots, colpate, intine, cuticularized, etc., etc …

These words flow from your tongue like honey from a beehive. (There's that 'B' word again).

So the question remains . . . what to do?

Stay indoors as much as possible and write a blog about it!

© nancy 4.7.2010

LIFE AND DEATH

AND SOYLENT GREEN

Whoa!!! That's a heavy subject. Are you really going to write about that you may be asking yourself?

Yes. I am.

If you are a baby boomer like I am then your mom and dad are in their 80's or 90's. But some of you
at this point in your life have already had the big boom laid on your heart and watched your precious mom and/or dad go on before you to the land where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, no more tears. That's a good thing, right? That they are in a better place . . . without you?

I feel extremely fortunate that I still have my mother and father, both who are 91 years old and counting. My Dad wants to live to be 100. (And he did.) He has the genes. His family lives long and prospers. I am praying I have those genes and the good health that goes with it, bypassing any heart problems in the bloodline. Excuse my pun!

But my mother didn't fair as well. She has struggled through two triple bypasses and recovered famously. Then she found out she has old-age diabetes like her mother had (here again I pray that passed me by while swimming in the gene pool) and has to prick her beautiful, thin-skinned fingers three or more times a day. The first time she did it, I was with her and jumped when she jumped when that little needle came out of nowhere when she pressed the button and poof! . . .  there was that little bead of blood that would tell her if she was traveling up or down on the sugar road of life. It's no big thing now.

Lately, she hasn't felt so good. We tease about Soylent Green, and I tell her that if there was a Soylent Green factory around I would take her there when she was ready, and we would get her laid out on the table where Edward G. Robinson had lain and pick out the scene she would want to see playing on the big screen surrounding her bed and pick out the music she would like to hear. We'd say what we needed to say, and she would close her eyes, take her last breath and go on, leaving all her aches and pains behind. She could go with dignity and with your mind.

But there isn't any Soylent Green factory around so she has to go through the drudgery of these last days, and I have to see her do it. That's what you get with modern medicine. We are all living longer than our bodies wanted to live and are glad of the extra time to make memories but the end is still there for one to go through. We don't get a “Get out of Jail” card.

I hope that all of you out there reading this blog can send a prayer up for my precious mother and father that they may be able to get through this . . .  what words can I write? It's awful to have to let someone you love go when you know you won't see them again any time soon.

That's what hope is for . . .  hope for the day when we all get together in a place where all our sorrows are no more, tears are no more and we are with our loved ones forever.

© nancy 3.19.2010

THE BLACK PEARL:

PART TWO

Okay, so I just wanted to show you a picture I took yesterday of the "two cats snuggling" scenario. Doesn't the little black thing look too cute with its paw resting under its sleepy head? You can't see it 'cause she's black? I know what you mean. I have to use the magnifier in PhotoElements to get in closer to see the details.

But today is a big day. The little critter is trying to open its eyes! They really are glued shut at birth, and I swear they have to pry them open one micrometer at a time once they are about a week old. For this kitty, it has started at the corner of the eyes near the nose and so it's just a tiny peephole to the world beyond that has been as black as she is up until this point. Maybe it works that way so that the retina, lens, and what have you get adjusted slowly? It didn't reckon with the flash on my camera! I keep checking every hour to see the progress. You KNOW I'm going to take a picture of the thing and blind it with the flash once it opens its beady eyes completely.

BLAM!!!

What I really wanted to write about is . . . 

do you ever wake up in the morning and feel BLAH for no apparent reason?

The coffee you had for breakfast doesn't get the motor running. The birds chirping merrily outside because Spring is springing, and they are telling the world how happy they are about it, but you feel like a rainy day on the inside so their singing is lost on your ears? You might even be asking yourself, "Is this as good as it's going to get?" as you remember the days when you wished you had more time to do all the stuff on your list . . .  take Cookie to dance practice, pick Ricky's shirts up at the cleaners, take your mom to the doctor, do laundry, shop for the dinner party you thought would be fun but is now looming in front of you and you still haven't gotten number 15 and 16 done on that list. You didn't have time to feel yucky. Or maybe you just didn't allow yourself. You took two Advil and continued checking things off your list.

Now you have more time on your hands and more time to feel everything. Maybe it's finally caught up with you so you have to feel it all now 'cause you didn't take the time to feel it all then. Great. What do you do with it? You stare out the window and feel as cloudy as the sky above and heave a sigh like Eeyore when he heard Winnie-the-Pooh's exclamation of "Good Morning!"

Eeyore responded by saying, "Good morning, Pooh Bear. If it is a good morning . . .  which I doubt."

He goes on to say that we can't all be "Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush." 

I agree Eeyore. What to do . . .  what to do.

Is this depressing enough? Here you thought you were going to read some charming, witty Part Two and it's done a 180 on you and you're feeling a bit unnerved. "Thanks a lot!" you exclaim towards me. "I thought I was having a McDonald's have-a-nice-day day.

Go get a coke and try to rev yourself back up to the happy place you were in before you read this blog.

Cheers! (That was me raising my coke to you).

Or you might try this approach. I think sometimes about a song I heard growing up. I believe it may have been a Disney cartoon based on Brer Rabbit talking to Brer Bear about his Laffin' Place . . . a secret place that Brer Rabbit likes to go to laugh. (Uncle Remus stories).

It goes something like this:

"Everybody's got a Laffin' Place 

a Laffin' Place, I know ho-ho.

Take a frown, turn it upside down 

and you'll find yours I know ho-ho."

Where's your Laffin' Place? I should use a dose of my own written medicine, find my Laffin'/Happy Place, and transport myself there right now.

Ahhh . . .  I can picture myself on a lounge chair with the breeze blowing my hair. The air smells fresh with the hint of the scents all around me. Like the water that is flowing under the pier. It has its own smell, not like the ocean or a lake, that is trapped in one place. Like the warm sun on my face that smells like sunshine and feels like a caress. Like the myriad birds flying overhead, and the leaves in the trees brushing against each other in the wind. I hear the sound of a distant motorboat and the cry of an egret. I can picture it all, breathe it all and see it all in my mind's eye. That's my Happy Place. It makes me smile.

And wouldn't you know that my beautiful momma cat, at this very moment as I am writing about a happy place, jumped up in my lap, put her paws on my chest, looked into my eyes, and began to purr?

Suddenly all's right with the world.

 

(c) nancy 3.12.2010

THE BLACK PEARL

March second, two thousand and ten at two forty-five in the afternoon saw the emergence of The Black Pearl (now affectionately known as Little Bitty).

It was one of those things where you ask yourself, “Is she or isn't she?” I've had cats all my life on and off. When I was young, I even had a cat who went into the neighbor's old, wooden shed that was part of their creepy garage. But it was 'the' spot the cat decided was good for her to birth her kitties. I didn't think it was so great. Wasn't there some spiders or possibly some snakes in there too? Somehow the kittens were brought over the yard line and into our household. They were given weird names and from that point on I have always given my cats names that others shake their heads at and comment upon its absurdity, but they had to relent in future, seeing that it was the purrfect name for that specific cat.

I now have a beautiful cat whose name is Kitty Lou Bensonhurst . . .  and that is another story.

She was supposedly abandoned as a tiny thing along with her siblings. My daughter's friend rescued them, and when I saw Kitty Lou I couldn't say no. She's as soft as a rabbit and has light blue eyes, beige body fur, and light grey-tipped ears. She's about two and a half years old and has a boyfriend. He loves to come around and sit on the window ledge and peer in adoringly trying to get a glance of his loved one. He's smitten. Can you be a smitten kitten? I digress. At any rate, my neighbor found her one day in flagrante delicto with the boyfriend in bright day light on his front porch. Thanks for being discreet, Miss Bensonhurst!

But it wasn't her time to get pregnant so they played cat and mouse (excuse my play of words) until MEOW !!!  I had to ask myself, “was she or wasn't she?” When she threw up on the rug I had a thought but vanished it. Then she began to eat and eat . . .  hmmm . . . and sleep a lot . . .  uh oh . . .  and be all lovey-dovey. I thought I better check the internet on cat pregnancy and how long it lasts.

OMG!

If my calculations were even remotely correct, I would be seeing some babies the next week!!!

But Kitty Lou wasn't very big and my friend said she thought that Kitty Lou should be bigger if she was near her due date. And I thought that maybe it meant she wasn't going to have but two kittens at the most. So I asked friends for empty boxes because the internet said you would need one for the birthing chamber and one to put the freshly licked kittens in along with a heating pad under some fresh towels.

March second came on a headache at four in the morning. One of those that last all day no matter what you do. If you could put your head in a vise and squeeze it until it all popped out, you know you would feel better and the pressure would be gone. So I stayed in bed all morning with my door closed so Kitty Lou couldn't jump up and startle my head back into more pain that I was trying desperately to pray into oblivion. Luckily, a friend had planned to come over that afternoon and at that moment when he came into the room to check on me, so did Kitty Lou. I thought she was being nurse-like, as cats can be, to make sure I was alright.

“Meow!”

“Yes, darling” as I petted her head in acknowledgment of her sweetness.

Her eyes were as big as saucers, and I thought it was because I had all the lights off for my pounding head.

“MEOW!”

“Yes, I know” as I continued to pet her head.

“REOAR!!!”

“OMG . . .  I think she's getting ready to have her kittens !” I exclaimed to my friend, lifting my poor aching head off my pillow.

“Go get some towels and the box !!” I ordered, ready to rock and roll.

Kitty Lou kept looking at me for help and all I could do was tell her she was “doing great” and soothe her by petting her. True to form, she wanted to bite me one time because of the pain and I thought of all the women who bit their husband's heads off while in labor yelling, “It's all your fault!” 

It was amazing to watch. Kitty Lou grunted just like a human when it was time to push. She meowed with fervor when the contractions made her stomach roll from her chest down to her . . . well, you know. And when her one, lone baby came out she knew just what to do without me telling her. The Black Pearl was evidence that the boyfriend had gotten lucky and Kitty Lou had gotten pregnant about 60 days prior. I'll have to check the calendar and see if it was a full moon because it had been a full moon during the night and I thought that was why I had the headache. But no.

Things happen for a reason, a friend of mine likes to say, and I'm beginning to see the light. Looking back, I had planned on being out of town on that day. But plans had changed because of my headache, so I was home instead. Also, I was supposed to have a massage the afternoon of the 2nd during that specific hour of the day. 

So there you have it!

Sometimes when you open an oyster you get a natural, white pearl and if you're really lucky, you get a black one.

I guess I got lucky.

Kitty Lou has stayed with that little critter from dawn to dusk. She's curled around it to keep it warm. But today Pearl is 5 days old and Kitty Lou meowed to go outside for the first time, so I let her. She better come back 'cause I don't know how to feed a newborn kitten, but I know I would step up to the plate and get kitty with it.

Puuuurrrrr.

© nancy 3.7.2010

A New Decade

Even when the calendar rolled over from 1999 to 2000 it seemed futuristic to me. Yet to write the numbers 2000 as the year, when writing out a check, wasn't hard to do. It was easy. A  2 and then three zeros. And if someone in the year 2000 talked with me about the year 2010, then I would think E.T. or something equally as far out and unreal. Wayyyyyy in the future. Not happening for a lonngggg time. But here it is. And writing 2010 as the year on a check shortened into 10 quickly, as in 1.1.10., That was weird. I looked at that number and it became very binary.

So does that mean we should get back to basics? Get simpler in our interior decorating style? Get back to raw fruits and vegetables? Dial it down a notch on texting and e-mails? Get back to the basics on everything?

Like relationships. Take the stress out. Love regardless. Love unconditionally. Accept imperfections. Be kind. Be generous. Without thinking first. Just be kind. Be sweet. Give and don't expect anything in return. Give regardless. Give unconditionally. Accept help unconditionally.

Like work. Am I happy? If not, change things so you can be happy. Happy is very basic.

Like play. What? You forgot how to play? That's what we learned how to do first when we were kids. Go swing on a swing or smush some play-dough. But don't eat it like you did when you were a kid. You really do have to learn from your mistakes. Make time to blurt out “I Love You” for no apparent reason and throw your arms around that person and then go back to playing with the sand in the sandbox. Make sure you're barefoot.

So . . .  is your life too complicated? It's gotten into the higher digits and the stress level has increased with the numbers? You're not happy as many minutes as you used to be? Your relationships have fallen by the wayside along with your sense of humor?

Break it down to zeros and ones. Breathe deeply and take a moment. Get back to the basics in this decade. Dial it down and take time to enjoy living. Breathing. Being.

After all, we were supposed to stroll in a garden. Stop and smell the roses.

© nancy 2.11.2010

THE GOLDEN YEARS

I would like to meet the person who made up the term, The Golden Years, and give them a piece of my mind! The Golden Years. Really?

I think the golden years of a person's life is when one is young. That's when you have all the energy in the world. Your body is in the best shape. Your mind is less cluttered with all the life experiences you will have, both fantastically good and tragically sad. The world is your oyster and there's a pearl growing inside your shell. You haven't lived long enough to be pessimistic and jaded. There's a blue bird singing on your shoulder and the future is bright.

But . . .  then you get older. Not only is the future not as bright as you imagined but your eyesight is getting dimmer to boot. Thanks!

All that High School football you played is catching up to you in your joints, and every time the weather takes a turn for the worse, so does your neck, back, and knees which got clobbered over and over on the playing field to the roaring cheers from the bleachers. Now you ask yourself, “Was it worth it?” and you reply with a smile that you'd do it all over again if your knees weren't bad.

So, you take up golf, but as you have gotten older, so has your thumbs which can't quite grasp the club as elegantly, your back is out of alignment most of the time as well, so your swing runs wide and the ball lands in the rough or you try to dig it out of the sand trap like a cat in a litter box. Thank God for the nineteenth hole where you can soothe your golden aches and pains with a drink, and I'm not talking coca-cola.

And if you're a woman, you just don't age like a fine wine as a man does who, if they were a nerd in High School, look like Clark Gable at sixty. But you, on the other hand at the ripe old age of fifty-something, look like an elephant with all the wrinkles and the sags and your memory is on holiday for good.

The Golden Years? Bah humbug. And then The Market crashed and all those who were trying to tell themselves they were in their Golden Years and could relax with their arthritis are now greeters at Wal-Mart.

Something's wrong with this picture, right?

If you are reading this and you are young . . . it's your golden years!!!! 

If there is something you want to do . . . like climb Mount Everest . . .  DO IT NOW. Don't get old and think it's getting better and you find yourself making a Bucket List of the things you wished you had done when you were younger. DO THEM NOW. Do you really want to jump out of a plane when you're eighty-five? Yes? Go for it, then. But go for it NOW while you have good knees to land on. Don't wait for your golden years in the sunset of your life. The key is the sun is setting and then the light goes out. Do it while the sun is up in the sky and you can see!!!! There's no time like the present. At least right now in the present moment you have that moment, so take a bucketful of those moments and DO IT NOW. Your moments aren't going to roll over like your cell phone minutes and you'll have more minutes the next month to live. Nope. It's like a woman's ovaries. They only have, at birth, a certain number of eggs to fry and when the carton is empty, there ain't no more.

So this is your still-small-blog-voice telling you to enjoy your golden years because it is NOW. If you've got air miles, then go now to St. Lucia! Or jump out of a plane. Or climb Mount Everest. Or tell that person that you want to spend the rest of your life with them!!!

Remember . . . NOW is your golden years. Tomorrow the sun may set forever.

© nancy 1.27.2010

The Fox

A few days ago I was opening a sliding glass door to my backyard and heard a rustling of remaining fall leaves. I looked towards the noise and saw that I must have caught an animal off guard who was minding his own business in the last fragments of warmth produced by the afternoon sun which would quickly leave us all a bit colder in about an hour when it would melt into the western sky. My mind at this point was trying to connect the picturesque dots to form a conclusion. Was I seeing a really big raccoon? No. At first glance, the marks around it's eyes along with its crouched position led me to that error of deduction. The animal was very still and looking right at me with great stillness. I continued to look back and realized  . . . Aha! It was a fox.

Even though the cold air was flowing past me from the chilly 30 something degrees, which was forecasted correctly the night before, I kept the door open to observe my wild visitor. It was unusual to see a fox during the daylight hours so I took it as a gift. I looked into his unblinking eyes and tried to send it a clear message through my own eyes, “I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay. Please stay.”

We remained like that until I decided he wouldn't go away, and I slowly slid the door closed and stood inside for a warm moment, watching. I decided to risk losing sight of him by backing away seamlessly from his view to stand behind the door frame. Now I could walk briskly to my camera that was on the bookshelves close by. Coming back into position, I once again moved in slow motion to bring the camera up to my eye so that I could capture the moment. After all, how many times have I had the pleasure of a fox in my yard during the day! He began to move and that was when I noticed that he was limping. It was hurt.

I happened to have my cell phone in my pocket and knew I had my Vet's number in it. My veterinarian's practice is literally just around the corner and rather than lose sight of this creature I pressed the vet's number in hopes that they would know who to call and do it for me. They did and I waited for a call back, taking pictures of this lone animal who had decided my yard was good for a late afternoon nap. I wondered if it was in pain as it settled in dragging its injured leg beneath him. Was it too painful to even sleep? My heart went out to it, and I was glad at the same time that my cat was inside and wouldn't come across a resting fox in it's own back yard startling it into a fuzzy, spitting frenzy.

What seemed like a billion pictures later, my doorbell rang and a lady animal officer was at the ready with a long pole with a noose at the end of it. I asked that he/she be taken to the Veterinary School here in town. She was excited to see the fox, but when I showed her through my camera lens where the sleeping fox was camouflaged in the leaves, she couldn't see it. I suppose if I didn't see him lay down earlier, and train my camera on him, I wouldn't have been able to spot him either since the sun was doing its thing, vanishing with rapid speed to parts unknown leaving the fox
invisible in nature.

On another note, but in the same vein . . .  I have a friend who has been teaching me about Animal Totems. It's nothing new. Indians believed in totems for centuries. You may have seen one or two wooden ones and were told the significance of animals to humans along with their meaning. So she looked “fox” up online and told me what seeing a fox could mean to me on that day. What follows is my rendition of a synopsis and not plagiarism, so please excuse any similarity in wordage (actually I'll put things in quotes for my own simplicity):

If I take this fox showing up in my yard during the sunlit hours as a sign, then it would read something like this: “It is a time to be careful and discriminating, aware of your communication abilities, and be alert to your surroundings. Fox teaches how to be still and silent and all qualities of patience”. The fox may be showing you “a new world and creative process opening up”. (These quotes are taken from starstuffs.com if you are interested.)

Interestingly enough I am venturing into a new world at this very moment in time . . . going back to school. At my ripe old age of 57, that's me jumping completely out of my box. But like the fox who ventured out into the light of day to become visible to me, I will take it as a good sign that I am doing the right thing but will take care to be discriminating and alert to my surroundings.

Thank you my foxy friend for showing up and looking at me straight in the eye. I hope I read your mind. Maybe you were just telling me it would be a good time to take an afternoon nap???


© nancy 1.13.2010