Missing Cielo

I was supposed to leave for Cielo last Saturday. Last Thursday I decided, with encouragement from family and medical peeps, that it would be in my best interest to stay home. Hard, hard decision to make, what with the situation in Haiti and any potential impact it could have on the Dominican Republic, and the situation with my silly back and sciatica stuff. I made the right decision for me and my family.

But I still miss Cielo. Yesterday the group went to the Haitian church in Cielo. I’ve never been to the Haitian church, but I hear it’s amazing. Mission Emanuel is bucking the trend in the DR that tends to treat Haitians as a little less than human. The mission ministers to Haitians through church, school, medical care and employment. Typically Haitians living in the DR are treated very badly. If you search the news, you’ll find the story of the history between the two countries. It’s ugly.

It’s hard for any of us to imagine the devastation, and desperation, in Haiti right now. I went to Slidell, Louisiana, about six weeks after Katrina. I thought I new what I was getting myself into. I didn’t. Unless you’ve seen, touched, tasted, smelled the results of epic disaster, up close and personal, you really can’t wrap your mind around it. It’s hard to understand it when you DO see it for yourself.

I’ve seen the construction “techniques” used in the Dominican Republic by the poor. They are horrendous. And the Haitians are poorer by leaps and bounds. Yes, Haiti has been through a lot of unnecessary tragedy–think deforestation and the resulting flooding. Forget the reasons. Forget the railings of senile “men of God” here in the states. Forget the absolute corruption of the Haitian government that also holds much of the responsibility for the abject poverty of its citizens.

The Haitian people need help, quickly. The shock is wearing off, and the desperation is setting in. And with desperation comes violence. The island of Hispaniola is a ticking time bomb right now.

I still miss Cielo. I miss Rosa. One of the other women who went down Saturday took a prayer shawl I knit for Rosa. I hope she likes it. I hope she gets the chance to enjoy it.

 

knuckle-draggin’ Neanderthal…..and proud of it

So, back in October of last year, congress-critter Alan Grayson (D-Fl) called Republicans “knuckle-dragging Neanderthals” for not supporting health care reform legislation begin rammed down their throats, unconstitutionally by the way. Can you say “conference committee”???? I can, and that’s not what’s happening in Washington to reconcile the house and senate versions of the bill.

But, that’s not the point.

Evidently, the phrase has taken a life of its own. (Notice that this Neanderthal knows the difference between its and it’s.) Anyone who, in any way, thinks that the Tea Party movement might be onto something is a knuckle-dragging moron. Translation: anyone who exercises his constitutional right to free speech, free assembly, or who dares question the motives of those who were elected to represent THEM, and then do whatever the heck they want once in office, who opposes anything happening in the current administration, is a moron. If I remember correctly, it didn’t work the other way. Anyone who opposed anything the previous administration did wasn’t a moron, he was just exercising those same rights.

And I did oppose many things done by the previous administration.

So, being the Neanderthal moron I am, this confuses me. In a city where you can’t smoke a cigarette unless you stand in oncoming traffic, the government is there to help you properly shoot up.

So, I put it to my kids. “Does this make any sense at all to you?” The 15-year-old, without hesitation, said, “Isn’t heroin illegal?” The 20-year-old said, “Are you serious?” I showed him the evidence. Then he said, “Heroin will kill you.” and “I can’t find the words to even begin to express how absurd this is.” I guess he’s having trouble finding words because he’s a product of public school education, whereas the 15-year-old, who immediately wants to know why the government wants to help people who are breaking the law, is now being home-schooled.

Since I’m a moron myself, I’m having trouble finding words to explain all of this. I have a theory, but it doesn’t quite hold water.

Heroin users need to know how to safely shoot up so they don’t kill themselves right away. Granted, heroin overdose, hepatitis C, or worse, might eventually get them. Just not immediately. As long as they’re shooting up safely, they can still pay their taxes. (Notice also that this moron knows the difference between there, their and they’re.)

The reason my theory doesn’t hold water is this: the same folks who write and enforce this kind of legislation also support abortion. How many potential future taxpayers are eliminated in this country every day? Recent estimates are somewhere between 3000 and 3500. Daily. I could do the math and come up with an annual figure, and then estimate what their annual contribution to the tax base at current minimum wage and federal tax rates would be. But that would just be showing off.

If someone doesn’t do something to stop Washington from spending money like a crew of drunken sailors, we’re going to need all those taxpayers! Maybe that phrase should be “crew of congress-critters punch drunk with power”??

/sarcasm off

The truth is sarcastic enough.

And darned scary.

 

symptoms in some cephalopoda approximating apoplexy

Don’t you love that quote? It’s from “Cannery Row”.

However….

Hubby now has issues with Cephalopods, Gastropods, Bivalves and Crustaceans that caused him to approximate apoplexy yesterday. Darn it.

The culprit was shrimp. Never had a problem eating shrimp before. In fact, one of his family’s Christmas traditions has always been the boiling and consumption of large quantities of them, w/ his dad’s homemade shrimp cocktail sauce. And his dad’s shrimp salad recipe still rates pretty high among the clan.

Saturday he boiled some shrimp and we had shrimp alfredo. Yesterday after church he consumed a few more–I went for the leftover Brunswick stew he made on New Year’s Day, which was delicious BTW. Ever seen the movie “Hitch” with Will Smith? There’s a really funny scene where he has an allergic reaction to shrimp. It was sort of like that, only not as amusing. First he said his throat felt “funny” and thought he was coming down w/ something. Then he started itching a little, and noticed a few hives. In about thirty minutes time the hives were popping up everywhere. We debated waiting it out vs. going out in search of medical attention, and opted for door number 2. There’s an urgent care place not far from the hospital, so we went there. It was closed. Apparently you can only need urgent care on Sunday from 7:00 AM to 12:30 PM.

So, again, door number 2….ER. Fortunately, they take shellfish allergies pretty seriously. Had him in triage in about 20 minutes, then in the “red zone”. They started IV fluids and gave him some heavy-duty steroid something-or-other. It was amazing how quickly his BP dropped to something scary like 65/43 and he was bright red and itching like crazy, constantly trying to “clear” his throat. Then, magic. Steroids went in, and the hives visibly faded. Oh yeah, and Benadryl, lots of it. And an EKG, and oxygen.

Then we waited for a couple of hours to make sure it didn’t come back.

I remember having a nasty case of hives when I was about 5. I don’t remember itching, but I do remember these white blister-looking things, on my arms maybe. He had some on his back that were the size of my hand.

He’s home from work today–supposed to be home until Thursday according to the doctor, but Ron, the amazing nurse that took care of him, said that if he felt better to use his own judgment. He’ll go back tomorrow, probably.

So…no more shellfish, cephalopods or otherwise.

———————————————-

Love is an amazing thing. Yesterday I spent two hours in the ER, watching the one I love get pretty sick, pretty quick, receive amazing medical care and treatment, and recover very nicely. I fed him ice chips, and watched him sleep. Just looked at him, totally focused on him. I haven’t done that in a while, to my discredit.

We were lucky yesterday. Living where we do, with quick access to excellent medical care. We learned something new, something we’ll have to be careful about from now on. If it ever happens again, don’t mess with it. Go straight to ER, or call 911.

And I was reminded, again, of the power, the intensity, of love. How deep, how profound it is.

And how lucky I am to have him.

 

Dreams and nightmares

Mostly dreams, I think.

My mom had major back surgery last week, got to go home from the hospital on Christmas Day. It’s been a nightmare for her, one that we hope is almost over.

Seems I’m about two years behind her. She started having issues with sciatica about two years ago, issues I’m having now. Between the “normal” fibro and the addition of sciatica (and yes, CG, I’ve hula-ed, but it won’t go away!) I’ve been feeling pretty crappy. Had two injections in my back. Have some pain meds that I don’t take on a regular basis, but probably should.

And had some interesting dreams.

Mostly too complicated to try and write down, but I could talk through one of them w/ hubby enough to remember that I “floated” through the entire thing. Floated from one scene to another, thought I was watching a movie, actually. Floated into and out of and back into several different people in wildly different circumstances, floated through a yarn shop and had to touch all the yarns and feel the textures and admire the colors, then floated through a foam rubber ceiling and back into myself, woke up in sleep paralysis and waited for it to go away.

Now that I think about it, each of the people in that dream was me. There was a professional, a socialite, a young girl, and old woman, a spectator, a participant, a nurse, a patient….all me.

I think at one time or another I was each of those women during 2009. And will probably be each of them again in 2010. There were experiences during the last year that were lovely dreams, some of them so lovely that I will be surprised beyond belief to have them again, and it makes me sad to think that they were “once in a lifetime” things. But they probably were.

Then there are those things that I hope and pray were “once in a lifetime” things, because I don’t ever want to go through them again.

It’s the same for each one of us, every year. Dreams, and nightmares.

I’d like to think that 2010 will have more dreams and fewer nightmares. But dreams and nightmares are like mountains and valleys: it’s hard to appreciate the magic of the dreams until you’re in the nightmare, just as it’s hard to really appreciate the mountain until you’re in the valley.

Still and all, I’d prefer more dreams and fewer nightmares, more mountains and a fewer valleys.

So, in the words of Colonel Sherman T. Potter,

“Here’s to the New Year. May she be a damned sight better than the old one…”

and, for anyone who might be looking for it…

“…and may we all be home before she’s over.”

 

Lost

Obviously I haven’t been writing much lately. We lost Simba the big fat Kitty in November, and I kept putting off writing about that. Now I just don’t have the energy to do it. I miss my cat. I’ve had a fat, male orange tabby cat since 1986. First Chester, then Simba. And for a little while we had both of them. We still have an orange tabby, but she’s a she, and she has issues…definitely a different personality type from the boy orange kitties. I want another male orange tabby cat, please. I know it’s stupid. We already have two cats, two dogs and a horse, and I keep saying “no more animals”. But I miss him terribly and I want him back, or another one like him. At the very least, I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye to him before he left.

Speaking of stupid things, I did one recently. Sent a friend request to someone on FB that I haven’t talked to in, oh, thirty-five years maybe? It wasn’t stupid because of the number of years that have passed since we communicated last; there are other people from that time in my life that I’ve reconnected with recently and it’s fun to catch up on how our lives turned out, finding out how we’ve changed, how we’ve remained the same, how much we still have in common, or not.

But this one was different. This person really mattered to me during a time in my life when the number of people I could count as true friends was extremely small, and I was in the process of moving away and losing those friends. At the time I thought I was losing them forever. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case with a couple of them (you know who you are.) The night before we moved there was an end-of-the-year party at school, and I spent that evening with him. So, sort of on a dare, I gathered up my courage, what little of it there was, wrote a nice little note, and hit the ’send’ button.

And nothing happened.

“Is it too much to hope that somewhere inside she knows she matters?”

I guess it depends on who she matters to, doesn’t it?

 

when October goes

So, I’m sitting here looking out the window at another cloudy Friday with rain forecast for Saturday. The breeze picks up and another shower of leaves falls. The poplar tree in my neighbor’s back yard is a little more golden today than it was yesterday.

Another October.

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smokey roofs
I watch the planes go by

The children running home
Beneath a twilight sky
Oh, for the fun of them
When I was one of them

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years

I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see October go

I should be over it now I know
It doesn’t matter much
How old I grow
I hate to see October go

For the unenlightened, that’s a Barry Manilow song. Barry’s corny, true, but that song…not so much. I rediscovered it after Daddy died. November, 2004.

The past three weeks have been a reminder of just how fragile life is. I finally got around to watching Defiance. What a great movie. After watching it I did a little research into Jewish tradition, which I really should know more about. I was interested in the blessings: “Blessed art Thou oh God, King of the Universe, who…” When we were watching the movie, hubby asked me why they break the wine glass at the end of the wedding ceremony, and I didn’t know. So when I was reading about the blessings, there was the answer.

To remind the couple that life is fragile.

Two weeks ago there was a shooting just down the road from our house. Two police officers were shot as they tried to apprehend a suspect who was threatening to kill his estranged wife, who was at work at the time. She was the manager of a local fast food restaurant. The suspect was killed. One of the officers also died a week later from his injuries. The community was devastated by the incident.

Life is fragile.

Last week we learned of the sudden death of a friend back home in Virginia. We’d known him for thirty years. He died of a massive heart attack. He was 58 years old.

Life is fragile.

Next week it will be November. It will have been five years since my dad died. Five years since my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, and my father all died, one right after another.

Life is fragile.

In Cielo, little Brenda had heart surgery last week. She is doing well. I don’t know how things are with Rosa, but hope to hear soon. I’m not going to be able to see her in January. I don’t like it, but it’s how things are.

Another breeze. Another shower of leaves.

Another October goes.

 

Sanidad del Cielo

I don’t know how to start this post.

Over on the Cielo page, at the bottom, there’s a picture over several women sitting together under a huge stand of bamboo. Rosa is one of the women in that picture, and I referred to her as a sister.

Yesterday I received the latest newsletter from the director of Mission Emanuel. Included was a story about Rosa:

I knew that Rosa had breast cancer. I did not know the extent until yesterday.

Wubby and I helped build that house in the picture. When I saw Rosa in June, she asked if I was coming back next January. I told her that I didn’t know, but I hoped so. I also told her that, whenever I came back, I’d be able to speak GOOD Spanish. She laughed, as if to say “Yeah. Right.”

There’s a group headed to Cielo in mid-October and I wish I was going with them. I feel helpless. I’d like to make something to send to her, but I don’t know what. Prayer shawls in the Caribbean? It’s too hot in October. January, when it’s beautiful, temps in the lower 80’s, the Dominicans wear sweaters and the Americanos don’t sweat. Much. So maybe a prayer shawl would be ok. I don’t know.

There was another story about another family. The youngest child, Brenda, is eight. She is sponsored by a friend of mine. Last January I got to spend time with my friend at Brenda’s house. She is adorable, spunky…and faces heart surgery.

This post is not about the condition of health care in the Dominican Republic, or in the US for that matter.

It’s about what one person can do to help another person, what one family can do to help another family.

The mission has established a fund to help defray the cost of major medical care for families in Cielo: Sanidad Del Cielo.

Healing from Heaven.

The first time I went to Cielo we dedicated a very small children’s medical clinic, in two rooms on the second (then, the top) floor of a small building that served as pre-school and church. Next month there will be another dedication for a children’s medical clinic. Ten-thousand square feet, located just beyond the bamboo stand, state of the art physical therapy, vaccinations, dental care.

I don’t have much of a voice with this blog, but with what little voice I do have I am asking. One person donating twenty bucks can’t make much of a difference. But a few hundred people, donating about twenty bucks a month over the last 15 years, have made a huge difference in the quality of life for families in Cielo.

Think about it.

Mission Emanuel

Sanidad Del Cielo

1220 E. Concord Street

Orlando, FL 32803

——————————

Right now the distance between Rosa and me feels like so much more than the 1500 miles between North Carlina and Santo Domingo.  And the distance between me and God feels insurmountable.

I’ve seen You calm the waters raging
in the rivers of my mind
Your spirit blows a breeze into my soul
And I’ve felt the fire that warms the heart
Knowing that it comes from You
Then I’ve let it turn as cold as a stone
Sometimes I feel like I’m as close as your shadow and
Sometimes I feel like I’m looking up
at You from the bottom of the

Grand Canyon, so small and so far
From the Grand Canyon, with a hole in my heart
And I’m a long way from where I know I need to be
When there’s a Grand Canyon between You and me

I’ve had the faith that gave me strength
for moving any mountainside
I’ve felt the solid ground beneath my feet
But I’ve had the bread of idleness while
drinking from a well of doubt
And it shakes the core of all I believe
Sometimes I feel like I’m as close as your shadow and
Sometimes I feel like I’m looking up
at you from the bottom of the

When there’s a Grand Canyon between You and me

Sometimes I feel like I’m as close as your shadow and
Sometimes I feel like I’m looking up
at you from the bottom of the

When there’s a Grand, Grand Canyon between You and me

Hopefully I can send something to Rosa next month that will help close the gap until January.

The distance between me and God? We’re working on that.

 

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Yeah. Love.

So I’ve been turning the past few days over in my mind, looking at them from all directions, thinking about everything Alecto already said about them, and wondering what, if anything, I could possibly add.

Not much.

But I’ll try.

I was blessed with the opportunity to meet Alecto at Hatteras back in July, so I knew what to expect as far the campground goes. Plus, I’d already gotten past the weirdness of meeting someone in person for the first time after getting to know her for the previous two years or so.

There was no weirdness to that first meeting, though. Not for me anyway. I don’t think there was for Alecto either. We met in the parking lot, I followed her to our cabin, got out of my car and into hers, and off we went to the grocery store for dinner fixins’. It was like we did this every day.

Since July I’ve found myself lapsing into Alecto-speak. I likes it. And I’s keeping it.

This time I got to see CG meet Alecto in person, and the magic happened again. And CG and I got to meet Florkow, and there it was again.

I’ve probably mentioned somewhere on here at some point that I moved around a lot growing up. Girlfriends? Had a couple of them, early. When we left CG’s hometown I was fourteen years old. Leaving those friends hurt so incredibly badly that I swore I would NEVER allow myself to hurt like that again. And mostly I didn’t. Spent the rest of high school and college all by myself in the girl department.

CG and I have known each other a long time. We lost each other for a long time. When we found each other again she said something that floored me. You know how you wonder sometimes if anything you did or anyone you met as a kid made an impact on the world in any way at all? Maybe not, but I do. After that first reconnection I knew that I had indeed made a difference in her life, and was amazed at that. Confession, repentance, acceptance, love. All of it. She’s been there ever since. And, through CG, along comes Alecto and damn if lightning doesn’t strike twice.

Sunday was a bad fibro day for me. These women saw me at pretty close to my worst. And it was OK. I did grab my sunglasses a couple of times so I could hide behind them, for a couple of reasons. One was to cover up the ouch-face. But the other, well, that was to hide a bit of sadness because I knew Monday morning was coming, it was coming VERY early, and we’d all go our separate ways.There were these moments when my brain said “girl, you better enjoy this ’cause it’ll never happen again, not in a million years.” Other times I thought “so this is what all those girls did after graduation when they ran off to the beach together”, only I think this was better, deeper, more real than any of that.

What will I remember? Everything. Who knew you can’t actually see the battery underneath the hood of a BMW?? Not us, and not Jack the weener dog’s daddy either. You know the little green plastic plug-thing that comes with a bottle of camping fuel? We learned what not to do with it. The best food to eat for lunch on the beach: leftover pancake and link sausage pigs-in-a-blanket, and peanut butter, jelly and potato chips on white bread. The best food to eat at the campground: stuff we cooked that had ingredients grown in the backyard, or on the farm. I learned that I can indeed eat raw clams. I have the shells to prove it. And three of us were wishing for a demonstration of Demond. There are surfers at Hatteras that really know how to surf, and waves big enough for them to show off their skills. They has skills.

How do you explain to anyone that you’re going to the beach with people you’ve never met, but you know in your heart that you’ve known each of them for a million years? For me, the answer still is: you don’t. There’s not a soul in this part of my world who would understand it, except my husband. And besides that, I’m greedy and if there was someone who could understand it, I wouldn’t share it anyway.

Because it’s mine; it’s ours. And I’s keeping it.

 

my friend, the house

(Yes, the girls are home. Yes, the girls had fun. Yes, there will be blogging about the trip when the road stops rushing by.)

Someone new found my blog while I was out with the girls. She read the “what is a house” post and made a very nice comment, and I remembered that I haven’t finished the story.

We sold the house to the guy who made the offer, the first-and-only-showing guy. Only we didn’t close on June 30. As often happens, things didn’t go quite as smoothly with the sale of his house as had been anticipated, so closing was delayed until July 20. Three extra weeks of nail-chewing.

Within the first week, all of the remaining landscaping, with the exception of two trees, one hydrangea bush, and a few hostas, was gone.

The old basement door and front door were replaced.

The porch and deck have since been rebuilt.

He’s started a retaining wall at the end of the driveway.

Everything is very pretty now, as opposed to the remaining shabbiness we left behind.

I still drive through the neighborhood on a fairly regular basis, picking up and delivering kids for riding lessons and church.

In one way, I feel like I’m looking at Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, after Linus says, “All it needed was a little love.”, wraps his blanket around it, and proceeds to decorate it with the lights from Snoopy’s doghouse.

And I feel guilty about how I treated my friend, the house.

(Darned tears…makes it hard to see the computer.)

But then, I remembered.

The new owner of my friend, the house, had to sell his old friend, his house, because of a divorce. I don’t know if he has children or not, but suspect that may be the case because of his desire to find a house with three bedrooms in the same area. His old house was only a mile away, in the opposite direction from the house we live in now.

He may very well be hurting, badly, separated from the children he loves. So, he loves the house instead.

And we loved it too. It might not have showed as much on the outside as it should have. But it was there, on the inside.

And we brought it here.