ATTENTION EU SUBSCRIBERS!

Attention EU subscribers!

When you visit this blog, please note that Google uses certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. If you don't want them to use these cookies, please unsubscribe to this blog. I have no way of knowing who is subscribed! Blogspot does not give me a list of subscribers. I am sending this as a post, knowing that everyone who subscribes will get it. There is an unsubscribe line at the bottom of each emailed post.

How Lessons in Humility Helped Me Understand Donald Trump Supporters

Recently a dear friend of mine let me know she had to put down her old dog. I grieved with her and as a token of sympathy, I looked up and sent her the post I did a number of years ago when I had to say goodbye to my dog. The post made me cry; I could remember the event clearly. Just to distract myself, I read some of my other posts, and wondered what on earth had happened to make me stop writing.

I have recently started blogging again at my other site, Raven’s Cruise Log, because David and I are finally seeing the end of our land-based exile. But that’s the first writing I have done in almost four years, and it’s mostly just sharing what we are doing on the boat, mostly to keep me motivated. I know every month I must post progress, so I’m more inclined to slog on and make some.

After several years of working to have a successful business (I tried several), my high point earnings were about $17,000 and David gave me the Look and said, you have to get a real job. So I got one. It required I spend all day on a computer basically doing data entry. My days turned gray with the boring work and I had little enthusiasm for looking at a computer screen when I got home in the evening. We moved from the boat to an RV to have more space and life didn't seem very exotic at all. Time for writing also took a back seat to a Tuesday night Bible study and Thursday night choir practice.

About the same time, I got really, really sick. I knew something was going on because I was just exhausted all the time. I was losing my hair, I caught every cold that wandered by, I had shingles, and I was a total insomniac. I was finally diagnosed as having Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. I am treating it with thyroid meds, but also with a very strict diet (Google “autoimmune protocol” for details – it does work!). I monitor my nutrition, I cook 98% of all my meals. I investigate root causes and side issues (digestion, inflammation, nutrition, stress reduction, etc.) What energy I had was completely absorbed in finding out about and dealing with this disease and in slogging to work every day. That left very little time and no enthusiasm for writing.

The good news is, at this point I am almost symptom free and have no antibodies attacking my thyroid, we have moved back onto the boat, and – Holy Toledo! I am retired! All of those things are very good news!

Although it was quite painful, the whole experience at work was an eye-opener, both in terms of knowing myself better and in terms of understanding the life experience of the vast majority of people who have not had my advantages. I discovered I was being ham-strung by pride on both ends of the spectrum. On the high end, it was “You are bright and experienced and way too good for this job.” On the low end, it was “You are pathetic, this is the only thing you can do to earn a living.” Both ends were equally unlovely.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with my job except that it hurt my feelings. It didn’t feed my vanity in any way. I was never consulted (even about procedures having to do with my own job!), I was never thanked or recognized, I was not rewarded financially, and my input and insight were neither desired nor valued. My business sense was ignored. I was a cog. Pretty deflating, right? 

And yet, I am grateful for this experience for it has been very good for showing me my pride in all its glory and for allowing me to cultivate the virtue of humility. Humility is just the quality of accepting things (and yourself) as you are, neither more nor less. That’s not to say we don’t strive to be our best, but it’s a striving that has to do with quality and satisfaction with one’s performance, not the esteem of others. Good practice for someone who has always been overly motivated by others’ opinions.

Another valuable insight from this experience is seeing how working people (the working class we pretend we don’t have in America) live and think, how they are routinely ignored, devalued, exploited, and shamed. It isn’t pretty. I see this in the remarks made in the media that show that the people making them have no idea that people of value can be poor, uneducated, ignorant and also generous, humorous, wise, and honest. No, not everyone has those virtues, either in the working class or anywhere else. But those virtues are at least as apparent in the men and women who strive to earn a living working with their hands. They seem to have a better grasp of reality. The reality of struggling between customers and suppliers, of juggling government regulations, taxes, lack of health care, and the weather. The weather shuts down lots of our customers (and guts our sales). Heavy rain for a week? No income for the boat painters and maintenance folk and no income for their suppliers.

I hear their worries about charging their usually well-heeled customers full price for supplies. They underbid each other all the time for work, and that cuts them out of a decent income. The next time someone is doing work you cannot do, don’t begrudge them their wage. You can’t fix your own car? Then pay someone to do it, and realize that your hourly wage is probably six to ten times more than the person you have just hired. They are saving you that amount of work and income by doing the work you would otherwise have to do yourself.

I’ve spent the last year stripping and varnishing the teak below decks on our sailboat/home, Raven, and believe me, whatever you are charged for that sort of job, you need to pay and then some. When you don’t work with your hands, you don’t realize the time involved. It takes time to do things properly, and that means the hourly labor cost is going to be higher than you expect. So if you suspect foul play, go and watch the process. Honest folks don’t mind, and you might get an education.

These are the folks who are solidly behind Donald Trump. They are the left behind, the ignored, the forgotten, the dismissed, the demeaned. And they are some kind of angry. They don’t care what Donald has done or will do, as long as the folks who have left them behind, ignored them, forgotten them, dismissed them, and demeaned them are booted out of power. Now. So what if Donald Trump is a moral degenerate? They (politicians) all are. At least he’s different. That’s what I would hear from the front counter when I walked by. And no matter what he does, he’s not One of Them.

It’s not a mindset that is amenable to reason or facts or deeds or analysis, because the root is too deep and too emotional and too long endured.

It's complicated.

It’s easier when things are simple. Black and white. Yes or no. Up or down. Right?

When things are complicated, we have to take into consideration conflicting viewpoints, competing and equally important needs, and years of misinformation, misunderstanding, and mistakes. It feels like untangling a wad of yarn, with knots, frazzled ends, breaks, and endless frustration.

Nobody likes complicated.

Unfortunately, everything, every issue, is complicated. Immigration. Funding for public services. Political objectives. National security. Gun control. Abortion. Racism. Gender equality. Job opportunity. Marriage. Civic engagement. National discourse.

It’s all complicated.

How can we start untangling the threads and move forward? The first things to cultivate are patience and respect. Everything takes time to understand. Everyone needs to weigh in. Everyone needs to listen to all the opinions, even the ones we don’t like. Everyone needs to put themselves in the shoes of their opponents, to look at things from their point of view.

It’s kind of like the art of mediation. The first thing a mediator does is listen – really listen – to opposing sides. The second thing the mediator does is check with those sides to see if he or she listened well, and understands what is being said. The third thing the mediator does is take what he or she heard and present it coherently to the other side. Without emotion. Without arm-waving and shouting and posters. Here is what your opponent thinks. Wants. Fears. Hopes. And then the process reverses itself, and the mediator takes the thoughts, wants, fears, and hopes of the second side back to the first.

Step by step, each side begins to hear the other. Step by step, each side begins to understand the other. Step by step, both sides start to come together over the things they have in common. They agree to disagree on some things. They stop name calling. They stop using the words “they” and “them” and start using the words “we” and “us.”

Let’s learn a lesson from the art of mediation. Let’s start listening to our opponents. In the process let’s teach them how to listen to us.

After all, in our national life, it’s not about “us and them,” regardless of how that tactic has been used to sell newspapers, boost ratings, and prop up careers.  It’s about “we and us.”

Every last one of us.

Choose Life (Deuteronomy 30:19)

I have a number of friends who have no interest in coming to Christ because of their experiences with the church. They confuse what I call churchianity with the living reality of Christ. Most of the church-burned have been hit over the head with a heresy I label “Bully God.” Bully God is the cosmic policeman. He is the author of a very long list of prohibitions. If you don’t do what He says, Bully God will hit you with a huge taser – you’ll be cursed; ultimately you’ll go to hell.

Jesus showed us that the idea of a Bully God was completely off base. He told us that He did nothing outside His Father’s will. What did Jesus do? He loved us. He healed us. He taught us. He showed us the way to act toward one another. He insisted we quit seeking our own way all the time. He comforted us. He saved us from the evil in the world and from the evil in ourselves. Not once did He tase anyone (although he gave the money changers quite a story to take home to their wives). Instead of tasing us, He died for us, taking on cosmic Evil to defeat Death once and for all and to open to us a way Home.

I do not believe our choices are ultimately between right and wrong or even between good and evil. I believe our choices are between Life and Death. God is Life and His way brings Life. When we stray from the path of Life, we end up wandering toward Death. This is not coercion, this is simply cause and effect. If you jump into water, you will get wet. If you walk of a cliff, you will fall (and get hurt, most likely). If you eat too much, you will gain weight. It just is what it is. God does not point His finger at you and say “If you jump into water, I’ll make you wet!” or “If you walk off a cliff, I’ll hurt you!” But often, that is how we interpret His curses. His curses aren’t an action on His part so much as they are a consequence of our choices when we choose badly.

Following His laws ensures that life works for us. Think of God’s laws as signposts, pointing the way. “This works; that doesn’t work.” Disobeying those laws generally brings trouble and strife, sooner or later, either individually, collectively, or both.

Jesus showed us that these laws are not only concrete, they are spiritual. “Don’t murder” becomes “Don’t hold resentment against others.” Murder takes a life, but resentment corrodes a soul. Both actions result in Death: of another, of our contentment, and of our ability to live peaceably with other people. The wages of sin are death – not because God is after you, but because sin always results in Death: death of relationship, death of happiness, death of spirit, death of hope…the list is long.

Jesus said that the only way to Life is through Him. His way is love of God and each other and obedience to God’s laws. It is not an easy way, but it is the way that leads to Life. Don’t get lost; follow the signposts.

Deuteronomy 30:19

Shingles: itching cure!

Bless my friend Giselle!!! She told me the secret to "scratching" itches that you aren't supposed to touch - such as poison ivy, chicken pox, and my current foe, shingles. Take your hair dryer, set it to hot, and blow over the affected area. Waggle the dryer back and forth so you don't burn yourself. Blessed relief! Thank you, Giselle!! The blow dryer method also lessens the pain. I wish I had known this years ago.

Shingles: treatment and resources

It started with a burning sensation on my skin, following by the most dreadful itching. I thought I had been bitten by a mosquito. The bite, in the middle of my back (aren’t they always) didn’t subside. It got itchier and itchier. Friends of ours mentioned that there is a new strain of mosquito on the Gulf Coast, an Asian import that features allergic red whelps as part of the bite. I decided that was the culprit when red whelps emerged.

A day or two later, to my astonishment and horror, the bite had spread! It followed the line of my bra strap, a burning, itching rash. I could feel the little bumps of the bites and was terrified that I had leaned up against something and become host to a zillion baby spiders. Meanwhile, the rash not only itched, it burned like the worst sunburn I’d ever had. Finally, about the 5th day of this experience, I called my dermatologist. It was after hours and I had to leave a message on the dermatology hotline. It will tell you how freaked out I was to know that I didn’t even laugh at the idea of a skin emergency.

She didn’t call back until late in the evening and because my phone had fallen out of my purse onto the floorboard of the car, I didn’t hear the call until mid afternoon the next day. She told me that if the bites were from a brown recluse spider (my worst fear), it wouldn’t be spreading – chunks of my back would be falling out! I was immediately cheerful to have that fear allayed. Then she said, “Sounds like shingles to me.”

Shingles! That’s what old people get! Oh, right, that would be me. It’s hard when your internal age clock stops at 35, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Bless the internet. David went straight to Google images for a view of shingles and voila! There was my rash, in picture after picture. Some of the pictures looked like advanced cases of purple acne or leprosy. But a lot of them looked like mine. Red rash in a cord of Rorschach blotches, little “bites” or that awful word “pustule” (always makes me think of Prince John in the 1968 version of Lion in Winter).

Once I knew what I had, I went straight to my book, Nutritional Healing by James F. Balch, M.D. and Phyllis A. Balch, C.N.C. It’s my health Bible. I know that regular herpes is aggravated by arginine (an amino acid found in food such as peanuts). Those of us who get cold sores keep lysine (another amino acid that blocks arginine) on hand to suppress the virus that causes cold sores. The cold sore virus is a herpes virus, cousin or the same as the virus that causes genital herpes, chicken pox and (drum roll) shingles!!

Here’s the shingles treatment:

• Take lysine, 1,000 meg a day, for a start. (I am taking 1500 meg.)

• Quit eating any food that has arginine. I discovered that my favorite bedtime snack of almonds and raisins is chock full of arginine – great.

• Take 2,000 meg of vitamin C four times a day.

• Add cayenne pepper, 100 meg of Vitamin B three times a day, 80 meg of zinc a day for a week.

• Fast, to get that arginine out of your system and let your innards rest. Use 1 T grade B maple syrup, the juice of one large or two small lemons, and 1/8 teasp cayenne pepper in a large glass of water and just sip on it all day. it tastes great, like spicy lemonade. At night I eat a peeled fresh pear or peeled fresh apple to give my digestive tract something to do. This is a great fast and you will not be hungry or cranky - just keep sipping.

• Then work to boost your immune system. A lowered immune system (common complaint of those of us who are mature) opens the door to shingles. Nutritional Healing has a whole section on this.

I am putting fresh aloe vera on the rash several times a day. Aloe vera cures all skin problems – I have 35 years of experience with this plant, which is a living miracle. Bottled aloe vera is almost useless, by the way.

Two days later, I am very much better. I have only one area that is still hyper-sensitive. The bites (I refuse to call them pustules) are crusting over as they should. The rash is several shades lighter.

All of which is fairly serious because three days from today I am getting on a plane to New York to attend my dear daughter’s wedding. And I AM going to wear a bra!

As Long As Our Love Shall Last

We attended a lovely wedding not long ago where I heard some guests support the “no-fault, opt-out vow” that has been popular for quite awhile. The vow goes something like this: We’ll stay married “as long as our love shall last” or “as long as we mutually benefit one another” or “as long as we are growing spiritually”. My guess is that what all those phrases usually mean is “as long as it feels good”. Feelings are wonderful arbiters of the head, but in my opinion aren’t reliable enough to base life decisions on.

What about when marriage doesn’t feel good? Does that mean love is gone, spiritual growth has stopped, and we are no longer of mutual benefit? Consider what love is and what spiritual growth is and what mutual benefit is – and who the author of love and spiritual growth and mutual benefit is. I am firmly convinced it isn’t us. I suspect it is the utmost in arrogance and folly to believe we can fully understand the dynamics of love or recognize all aspects of spiritual growth or point out all mutual benefit, much less that we know when they have come, abide with us, and depart.

An analogy: in the winter, the grass appears to be dead. It is brown and dry and does not grow. However, underneath the soil where we cannot perceive it, the root system is alive and growing, using the energy that causes it to grow upward in the summer to push the root system outward in the winter. The growth only becomes apparent when the season turns. All of which is a long-winded way to say that we plant, hoe, water, and prune, but only God gives the growth. If we pull up the crop before harvest to check on it, we kill the plants we’ve worked so hard to establish.

The long-married enjoy seasons of growth and closeness, but they also endure seasons of seeming death: when love seems pallid, when passion and desire cool, when they don’t have much to say to each other and may not even like each other very much. But in those times of seeming death, who is to say that spiritual growth is not occurring? Like the grass, it may be spreading underground. Tolerance, respect, patience, endurance, empathy, compassion, and egoic death may be the fruit of a winter’s growth. Another fruit of binding commitment is trust. Often it is only when trust is long established and secure that healing and growth can take place.

“For better or for worse” accepts all seasons of life. Real love, the love that creates and heals, is the love that makes it safe to have bad days, bad weeks, bad decades. It creates a spiritual incubator in which eternal growth is nurtured. Sometimes love feels good. Sometimes it doesn’t. The way we feel doesn’t alter its essence, because love isn’t just a feeling. It’s also a decision and an attitude of trust and a very long series of actions. It’s the way we love our spouse back from their mistakes and the way they love us back from our own. It’s the way we love each other through mental and physical illness, financial disaster, and tragedy. Thankfully, it’s also the way we share joy.

It’s a wonderful feeling indeed to trust your partner’s decision to love you regardless of how they (or you) are feeling. If you let Him, God will carry you through the winters of your life together, enabling you to be faithful and true to your beloved while your love, spiritual connection, and mutual benefit continue to grow. Even when you can’t see or feel the growth.

Plastic Free Life?

If you are discouraged in trying to avoid plastic waste and poison in your life, here's a good site for tips and information.

http://myplasticfreelife.com/about-me/

My Very Best Dog, April 1996 - July 2011

My Very Best Dog

I hadn’t realized how much Schnitzel’s breathing had become the background white noise on the boat. As the tumor in her nose grew, it pushed its way into her nasal cavity so that she alternately snored, rasped, and panted as her breath whistled and gurgled past that bloody lump. Her nasal passages filled up with the intruder and she began to sleep with her mouth open, her tongue bulging against what was left of her teeth while she sucked her breath in and out.

When the tumor bled, which was not constantly, the blood and mucus dripped from her tongue and pooled under her head as she slept. I’d sponge her jaw with a wet paper towel in the morning. Some mornings she would lean into the towel as I rubbed her jaw, as if it soothed her. The seepage didn’t seem to hurt, but it made an awful mess.

The worst part was that it clogged and distorted her once black button nose and cut off her keenest sense. She couldn’t see much and had been mostly deaf for some time. Being unable to “snuff her snuffs” must have been confusing and equivalent to a human going blind. The last few weeks she hasn’t been able to smell anything but fried grease. Her head would come right up whenever I fried chicken or made pancakes. The last few days she has been feasting on once-forbidden pancakes and syrup, bread and butter and honey, and other diabetes-instigating treats. What the hell.

But the tumor, messy and invasive as it was, didn’t kill her.

Her back legs have weakened steadily over the last four years and finally failed her. The same dying nerves caused her to lose feeling in her insides. As long as 18 months ago she didn’t realize she had to poop, and only much later, the last month or so, she has been unable to pee without help. For a short while, lifting her back end with the harness triggered the reflex and she was able to urinate, but over the last few days even that trick failed. She’d release on her bed, and while I didn’t mind gathering up the soggy dog training pads, she was constantly damp, either from urine or from her twice daily backend shampoo.

Her paralyzed back legs didn’t kill her either.

It was her liver, swelling up until it looked as though she had eaten a softball and hot to the touch that told me it was time to let go. I knew it wasn’t a fat stomach filled with what she ate, because she didn’t eat much. Mostly bits of Wal-Mart roast chicken infused with butter, another forbidden treat. Her insides were just shutting down, and instead of helping her release the toxins from her body, her kidneys and liver were storing them up. I could see that those poisons were bound to make her miserable, like having a worsening case of the flu, with all its attendant aches and pains. She slept 22 hours a day, sometimes running and barking in her dreams, something she hadn’t done it the waking world for months, if not years. When she woke up she was alert and herself enough to growl menacingly at other dogs from the safety of the little blue cart she rode in when her legs went limp. She never lost her spirit. Her little body just gave out.

Finally, after it being not right, not right yet, not now but maybe soon, it was time. So we put her on some towels on the front seat of the truck between us, where she has ridden thousands of miles over the years. We went to Burger King, where they prepared a small bag of salty hot fries hours before they usually do, just for her. She was wide awake, head cocked toward the fast food window. She knew those fries were coming. I cooled the fries in the draft of the truck’s air conditioner and fed her bit by bit and she gobbled them up as she always does. We drove to the vet and sat in the parking lot and waited, me feeding her those salty treats one by one.

The vet and the tech came to the car to give her the knockout shot. It stung and she whimpered a little, but it was over in less than 30 seconds. Then they left us and her attention was back on the warm French fries. She was scarfing them eagerly when she suddenly lost interest and went limp against my leg. Her breathing evened out and slowed. We waited as her body relaxed as it hasn’t relaxed in months, if ever, as she drifted deeper and deeper to the floor of consciousness and then sank through it.

I tried the handle of her harness. Usually no matter how deeply she is sleeping, she feels my tug and bursts awake. Now she hung limp as a rag dog. I handed her gently to her bed that was waiting on David’s outstretched arms and we walked her into the clinic. The techs had prepared the cold steel table with a brightly striped blanket. Maybe some who bring their dogs in don’t know that those operating tables are cold and hard. I was glad Schnitzel was sleeping on her own bed.

The vet was kind and solemn. She shaved part of Schnitzel’s leg and inserted the needle. She and the tech screwed in a vial of cheerful pink liquid and depressed the plunger. They followed with a vial of neutral clear liquid. Then the vet listened until Schnitzel’s heart stopped beating. Schnitzel never moved from her deep sleep. We stayed with her the whole time, our hands on her head and neck, combing her curls with our fingers. They said they’d dispose of the bed and her body.

I came home and bleached the bloody, urine-soaked towels and threw all her things in the dumpster.

I pretend that she is staying with friends for a few months. I imagine her chasing squirrels, 18 pounds of pure silver thunderbolt joy.

It is awfully quiet.

Jellyfish: they're not just for breakfast anymore...

How many times have you been late to work because you had to pull a jellyfish out of your air conditioner? I thought so.

The warm waters in the Gulf make jellyfish happy and prosperous. At this time of year they drift up the channel and into the waters of our marina. Unfortunately, as interesting as jellyfish are, they are a bit on the dim side and don’t understand air conditioning intake systems. Actually I don’t either, but I don’t swim in the marina water (yuck) and I am far too large to be sucked into the intake. Jellyfish slurp right in and, gooey as they are, jam (pun intended) the A/C flow. The happy trickle of water over the side, which means a functioning A/C and relatively cool boat inhabitants, stops dead when a jellyfish is sucked inside. The fan whirs but nothing happens and in a matter of minutes the temperature rises 3-4 degrees and we’re all sweating. This morning it goes off while I am dressing for work.

I investigate the strainer. Located under the sink in the head, it’s really hard to get to for me, since I am left-handed. I have to sit on the stool, reach in and behind with my left hand and shine the flashlight in the darkness with my right, while pretzeling to see what I am trying to get to. Then I unscrew the top of the strainer tube, pull out the little plastic basket and…eeeeeeew. Jelly. It’s clear as glass and looks just like soft-set Jello. Fortunately there are no tentacles, eyes, or condemning looks from the deceased, just a big glop of clear goo. Out comes the strainer, in goes the spare. I have to hold the new one in, twist it around until it fits, and hold it down while putting the top back on the tube and screwing it down. Not an easy job for someone with only two arms.

Not done yet. Then I get the hose off the dock and turn on the water. I attach that hose to the hose under the port side settee (which involves holding the long sofa cushion up with my head while I fish around in the storage area below), turn the valves, and turn on the water. Water from the dock whooshes through the system, chasing out the air bubbles and priming the pump, so to speak. After about a minute, I turn off the water, unhook the hoses, reverse the valves, stuff the settee hose back in the hole, toss the dock hose back out on the dock, turn on the A/C, and scramble up the ladder to see if there is a little waterfall out the port side of the boat. If so – rejoice and sit in front of the fan for a bit, since the temperature rises from 79 to 85 in the cabin while I am doing all that. If not, cuss like a sailor and do it again.

Try explaining that to your boss.

My dog is dying. She is a little over 15 now. I’ve had her for almost exactly 15 years. When she came to us, she was barely a handful of black fur. Now she is 20 pounds of gray fur, mostly deaf, mostly blind, but still herself. She hasn’t played in years, so maybe not exactly herself. When she was a puppy and a young dog and even a middle-aged dog, she’d run like a rabbit after squirrels or a ball, growl ferociously over a game of tug of war, and pull ahead on the leash like a sled dog. Now it is I who pull her, coaxing but insistent. I don’t take her for a walk, I joke, I take her for a drag. It isn’t funny, but I don’t want to cry. And she still stops now and then to sniff another dog’s passing. She doesn’t do that much any more either, because of the cancerous nose tumor that’s killing her.

We thought we had lost her this past weekend. On Thursday and Friday she refused her food, which she has been noisily gulping down all through her illness. She turned her head away from the water dish. She wouldn’t accept the pill pocket stuffed with her meds. That last was the scary part – one of those meds is a pain pill, and if she didn’t eat that, she’d hurt. I have no idea how much she hurts, because like most animals she doesn’t groan, moan, or otherwise tell you she’s in pain. I have been told that’s because in the wild that sort of noise would get an injured or sick animal quickly found and eaten. I do know she sleeps most of the time, hard, and barely walks, and wants to be lifted up and down the curb.

We made an appointment for euthanasia Saturday afternoon. They were booked, but they’d fit us in. Not a good situation, to say the least, but she still hadn’t eaten, and I was afraid the meds would wear off long before Monday. Our plan was, and is, to have the vet come out to the car to give her the knockout shot. We’d sit there, or drive around awhile in the air conditioning, and only when she was under would we take her in for the final round. Needless to say, I had to hold myself very stiff, mentally and physically, to keep from weeping. We sat there in the truck for 45 minutes, with no sign of the vet. David got madder and madder and finally we agreed just to go home and take our chances.

When we got home, I decided to try one more time. She’d refused chopped fresh chicken (cooked chicken thighs), honey, chocolate milk, jam, and cheese by this point. All of them are her favorites. But I had the chicken thighs out to feed our ancient cat (age 17) and had the thought to try a chicken shake for Schnitzel. I whirred up a thigh and some chicken broth to a nasty consistency, poured it in her bowl and….she ate it. No, she devoured it! Oh, glory! At least she wouldn’t have to be hungry, even if she did hurt.

Sunday morning, I made pancakes. It was sort of a “last meal” idea – she loves pancakes. I didn’t know if she’d eat one or not, but by golly she scarfed a piece down. So I wrapped her pills in more pieces, and she ate the lot. Later I tried dog food, pill pockets, etc. but she was adamant. Nothing but pancakes and chicken shakes.

She is still going to die. But maybe not today and maybe not at the vet.

Coming home. Just the phrase evokes a sense of well-being and comfort. In my mind’s eye, I am walking over frosted fields toward a small, isolated house sitting in a copse of bare-branched trees. An icy wind is whistling around my ears; it is early evening and the first stars are appearing on the horizon. I keep on, toward the house, toward the lighted windows, toward the winding path of the gravel driveway. The scent of woodsmoke reaches me from the chimney, and someone steps out onto the wide porch and waves to me. Come on! I’m waiting for you. I walk faster, toward light, warmth, companionship, and a hot bowl of soup.

That is the way I am feeling on my spiritual journey. I have been away a very long time. I used to live in that spiritual house and then a traumatic divorce made me suspect it. I couldn’t understand how I could live in that house and yet feel as though my life had been ripped open and emptied and cast aside. I ran as far away as I could and looked for other places to live. I found some beautiful houses, but I was always the guest there. I read the texts and adopted some of the practices and considered the world from those points of view. Some of the beliefs I encountered centered on the power of the individual, some on purification, some on self-actualization, some on the importance of keeping God’s laws.

As beautiful as those ideas and goals may have been, none of the spiritual houses I visited seemed to understand the idea of the love God has for His creation, including me. None of them seemed to see God’s hand stretched out toward us. None of them offered me the chance to talk to the Creator of the Universe, and much less did they allow that He would be interested in the fact that my car died or that I really needed a new job or that a friendship needed to be mended. None of them offered relief from the spiritual burdens I carried. None of them helped me look at the dark places of my soul and helped me to heal from the filth I found there, gently, firmly, and completely without condemnation.

At some point, I received the grace to see that all these beautiful homes were empty for me. So I turned my feet toward the home I knew best, the one I knew I could trust even though I didn’t always understand why it was trustworthy, the one that was full of light and power and grace and truth and healing. As I turned toward it, the One Who Loves Me opened the door and came out on the porch. He waved to me, a huge grin splitting his face. Then He ran down the steps and out into that frosty field and threw His arms around me and welcomed me home.

If you are lost, as I was, if you are hurting, ask God to come into your life, ask Him to show you your shortcomings and your rebellion, and give your life to Him. There is forgiveness, mercy, love, and plenty of room in this house. I am joyful to know in my bones that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light – and that His house is mine again.

"This Train Is Bound For Glory" By Terry Mcmillian (FULL)

Direct response marketing - who knew?

Under the heading of “Old Dog Learning New Tricks” I am listening to a weekly internet broadcast called “Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio”. The link to each broadcast is sent to me by http://www.copyblogger.com/, to which I subscribe because they have great tips on business writing and sales writing and a number of other writing for money styles I am exploring. Currently, I am trying to master the basics of direct response marketing so when I launch that new money making website I keep dreaming about, I will actually make money.

Unlike mass media marketing (think of all the Coca Cola jingles you know) or direct marketing (a mailbox full of junk you didn’t ask for and intrusive calls by people you don’t know selling things you don’t want), direct response marketing tries to match a product with people who are actually interested in the product and who are willing to respond in some way to let the seller know they are interested. Sounds kind of civilized, doesn’t it?

To practice direct response marketing on your blog, you must include all sorts of things. Here are the six major Must Dos:

Direct response marketing tool #1: Speak with authority. That basically means know what you are talking about. I’m mostly talking about my life, so I’ve got that one down. Most of the time.

Direct response marketing tool #2: Be likeable. I am uncertain how to accomplish this. If you are my friend, you either like me or you are kind and if you aren’t my friend I guess you read this blog because I am going through some of the same things you are. Either way, this doesn’t seem like something I can cultivate.

Direct response marketing tool #3: Bring commitment and consistency to your blogging. Ooops. The consistency thing has not gone well so far. I’ve been too busy kidding myself that I can make a living at $15 an hour. For those of you who follow my woes as a free lance writer, you will be thrilled to see that this is up from $10 an hour…

Direct response marketing tool #4: Social proof. What a new century phrase that is! It means, get people who like what you write to tell other people about your blog so they will visit it and read other things that you write. The radio show today said you should ask people to do this, so I am now asking you to send this post and my blog site address (http://unedame.blogspot.com) to two other people. Then we will see what happens. I am also to ask you to “follow” the blog if you enjoy what I write. I am minding my teachers and asking! I even have a button for you to advertise the blog on Facebook and Twitter. Very mod of me.

Direct response marketing tool #5: Reciprocity. I am supposed to give you compelling content so that you will be interested in what I have to sell. Unfortunately, I have nothing to sell at present. If any of you have ideas to get the money rolling in, please feel free to comment! Meanwhile I will try to write compelling content.

Direct response marketing tool #6: Scarcity. I’m afraid I nodded off at this point and am not sure what it refers to. There is only one of me, so I can assure you I am scarce. Perhaps they were referring to the use of the old-fashioned “limited time offer”.

Now you know what I know about direct response marketing. I am serious about asking you what I could sell online. I love to write for myself, I have a lot of stories to tell, but I am so busy writing 500 word articles studded with key words for real estate sites, travel sites, and legal sites I am not squeezing out much for myself.

In the meantime, if you visit Copyblogger, be sure to tell them I gave them a plug!

It's been one of those weeks

Back in the day when my daughter was about five years old, I had a good friend with two girls, ages 5 and 7, who was trying to balance a career as an assistant district attorney with motherhood and marriage. Her observation was that as long as everything went as planned, it was completely worth the effort, but if one thing went wrong, down went her carefully constructed house of cards. The “one thing” could be anything from a sick child to a husband’s out of town business trip to forgetting to do the laundry and having no clean socks. Those of you who have been there can relate.

We’ve had a spate of that “one thing” this past week and David and I are going glassy-eyed coping and trying to stay centered enough to know that it will all work itself out eventually. The downhill slide started Halloween weekend with a quick sailing trip to Offat’s Bayou. Offat’s Bayou is a really nice anchorage right behind Moody Gardens on Galveston Island. There is plenty of room to anchor out and a small marina for anyone who wants electricity. We’ve been down there only twice since we moved here, but enjoyed the trip tremendously both times. Weirdly, both trips involved stormy weather, but even the bad weather was fun because 1) it was warm weather, 2) we know the waters around here really well, and 3) Raven sails wonderfully regardless of the weather. We joined some other Cape Dory owners on the trip, had a dockside party, and enjoyed ourselves very much.

Unfortunately on the way home things began to unravel. David started sneezing and coughing with a bad cold and Hobbes, the cat, peed all over the settee, which was completely out of character for him. Then as we approached Redfish Island, the exhaust coupling sheared off, filling the cabin with diesel smoke! We turned off the motor and sailed in toward the channel on 22 knot winds with no problem, but called Tow Boat U.S. for a tow down Kemah channel to our slip. The next day it was clear Hobbes was in a bad way, having peed all over his bed and not even moving to get out of it. The vet confirmed diabetes and dehydration and our very sick cat spent the next 5 days in the cat hospital. Now he is home, being hand fed, dosed with insulin, and placed periodically in the cat box, since he is still very wobbly on his pins. In the meantime, David suffered through his cold and then generously shared it with me. I am still hacking, but better.

The cabin is a wreck. I haven’t given it a good cleaning since before the Offat’s Bayou trip. There are piles of clothing and mislaid boxes on one side, bare wood on the other settee since we had to take out the one the cat peed on and haven’t had it cleaned yet, and a third of the cabin sole is walled off by seat cushions to make a “cage” for the cat. Meantime I cower at the nav station trying to earn enough to pay the vet bill. Even as reasonable as the vet was (very reasonable, considering all the time and care they gave Hobbes), it was $700 at the end of the day, which consumed every dime I made this week.

So. We are very, very tired and feel as though we are truly living a Matrix-like life on a real Nebuchadnezzar. I have always sympathized with Cipher and for today at least I wish I were plugged back in eating a phantom piece of steak.

Work Lessons

I’ve been floundering in the sea of self-employment for about four years now. The good news is, I have stayed afloat and I am learning how to swim. Here are four hard-earned lessons self-employment has taught me:

1. Don’t take it personally. When my services are not chosen, it can feel as though I have been personally rejected. I finally realized that my services are pretty much like a widget on a shelf. If a potential buyer is looking for a widget, the buyer will pick me up and examine me. I’m red, but the buyer wants blue. I am 120 volt, but the buyer wants 220. I am 2” in diameter, but the buyer wants 2.5” in diameter. The buyer puts me down and picks up another widget. There’s nothing wrong with a red, 120 volt, 2” widget. It’s just not what the buyer wants. Note to self: it is not all about me.

2. Face mistakes and learn from them. It’s easy for me to cringe when faced with my mistakes. Looking back, they seem so obvious. Most of them stem from impatience or fatigue or carelessness or misunderstanding. Most of them could have been avoided, if I had just paid attention. It’s very unpleasant for me to realize I have cost myself a job because of a character flaw or oversight. But that unpleasantness causes me to be much more aware the next time I am in a similar situation, and eventually those mistakes teach me to take a different and successful approach. Note to self: pay attention.

3. If you aren’t the right price, they aren’t going to buy you. Back to the store: it doesn’t matter if I could get $35/hr in 1990. It’s not 1990. I can price myself at $35/hr all day long, but unless the market will bear it, I won’t get it. I’m the same type of buyer: I am absolutely not going to pay $4 a roll for paper towels when I can get them for $2.50. Note to self: price to the market.

4. If you don’t have the right skills, they aren’t going to buy you. Not only do you have to have the right skills, buyers have to know your skills are desirable and worth paying for. That’s why tech skills sell so much better than language arts skills. Most English speaking people (myself included) think they speak and write terrific English, whether they do or not. Most people who don’t speak English as a native tongue know they need help with their text, but really have no way of knowing whether your English is terrific or not. By contrast, everyone knows whether or not they have tech skills and everyone knows they are worth paying for. Note to self: get more tech skills.

Temping has a new face

When we first arrived back in Texas, I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to temp. I liked the idea of working for a company for a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, and then moving on. Temping seemed to offer a perpetual honeymoon with any employer, that shiny new period when work is interesting, people are polite, and office politics and company viability aren’t things you have to deal with.

To my dismay, I discovered that temping, as I defined it, no longer existed. Instead of interviewing with the temp company and then being sent out on assignment, I found that most jobs being offered were temp to hire. Naturally, since they were looking for a long term employee, those companies wanted someone with more experience and background than I had. I have plenty of experience and background, but it’s all language skills and legal-niche experience and background; there just aren’t all that many legal firms looking to hire an estate planning paralegal on a temporary basis. As you would expect, nobody called. What to do?

A friend of mine called me about online work and directed me to a site called oDesk. That’s where all the temps had gone - online! Since finding oDesk, I have also found a site called Elance, and I’m sure there are others. To get started, I posted a profile, set an hourly rate, and started scouring the jobs listing. Jobs were listed in every sort of category. Thankfully, “technical writing” was one of them!

Potential employers from all parts of the globe post job notices for everything from copywriting to SEO to blog posting. The jobs are short term, long term, and everything in between. Most of the pay rates are laughable (paying less than $5 an hour, and obviously targeted to the third world) and some of the job descriptions are questionable, but there are enough reasonable offers to keep me fairly busy.

As time goes on, I am accumulating a whole new set of skills – not my work skills, but my skills in managing my time and dealing with employers from all walks of life. Many of my clients speak shaky English (granted, they speak much better English than I speak Arabic or Russian, etc.) and have different mores. I have made lots of mistakes, but I learn from each mistake. I am learning not to take rejection personally (I hit on about 1 out of every 20 applications) and I am learning what new skills are in demand.

I like working online. There are some drawbacks, like the fact that my office is the boat cabin, and the fact that I spend one to three hours a day applying for jobs rather than working. But it’s great to be temping, just as I expected.

Telling Stories

I subscribe to a dot com that is written for bloggers and other professional writers. Today’s update was somewhat unexpected. The message was about a forthcoming book that will focus on stories of political oppression in Burma. The point of the article was that here in the western world, for the moment anyway, we blog with impunity while the Burmese who blog do so at their own risk. Yet, at the risk of their lives, they struggle to tell their stories. Why do they take the risk?

Telling stories, whether about the clan or the individual, fact or fiction, is an ancient and universal human activity. I am fascinated with the act of storytelling, with the connection forged between tale-teller and audience, with the transformative power of narrative. We tell stories over the phone, on the porch, at funerals and weddings, in books and on blogs, in movies and in song lyrics, even in our advertisements. We tell our tales to our spouses, our children, our friends, and our casual acquaintances, to unseen audiences and corporate entities. Stories make connections among us. Stories are arguably the source of all art – an art form that does not make a connection doesn’t last long.

The stories we love best are the ones that give us a glimpse into our own lives. Think how the pleasure of hearing about someone’s vacation trip is increased when we’ve been there, too. When we add our stories to theirs, we enter into dialogue, enjoying the opportunity to mix and match our experiences. We can enter into dialogue with current acquaintances, or, through the power of the written word or film, with people in distant lands and distant times. We come away from those conversations satisfied, content, and affirmed.

In the context of storytelling, social networking begins to make sense. In our tweets and Facebook entries, in our blog posts and emails, each of us reaches out to everyone else, to tell our stories and to listen to the stories others share with us.

Some stories are hard to hear: stories of pain and death and disappointment, stories of sorrow and regret, of abandonment and loss. But when we allow others to tell us those stories, we give the gift of presence and compassion. When we truly listen to painful stories, we help the tale bearer shoulder the load and we give the relief of being heard. When we are heard, we can begin to heal. Ask anyone who has suffered through a divorce and whose friends picked up the phone to listen, over and over again.

Perhaps that is why some of the Burmese people take the risk of sharing their stories with the rest of us. They may want to educate or inform, but most of all they want to connect, to let all of us know what is happening in their lives. Theirs are the painful stories, the ones that heal when they are told.

The Hood

Boaters tend to walk up and down the docks and visit with each other the way I remember the grown ups walking up and down the street in the evening when I was a child. I think it has to do with the lack of a private drive; to get to your boat, you have to walk down the dock. As you wander by, everyone who is out says hi and stops to chat, offers you a cold drink, asks you if you have this or that widget, if you know how to fix this or that broken whatsit, or if you’re going out (on the bay) this weekend.

Liveaboards range from young families with children to oldsters whose bodies and boats are decaying at about the same rate. Among our acquaintances who are actively working while living aboard are two canvas makers, a hotel builder, a boat salesman, a teacher, a hospital worker, an IT contractor, a trial lawyer, and a jewelry maker. Among those who no longer work are those who want to cruise, those who like to sail the bay, those who haven’t got a clue, those who’ve just returned from cruising, and those who just like to sit on the stern of their boats every evening and watch the world go by.

There’s not much privacy in our little world, because everyone knows someone else, everyone has a story to tell, and when you tell your friends, they tell their friends, and pretty soon the entire marina knows and enjoys your saga. Of course, every story gets better if properly embellished. If yours is dull, it will be fixed.

There’s the foreign fellow who has been told in no uncertain terms by the INS that his visa has reached its sell-by date. Because of his age, he needs crew in order to leave. Evidently he is so incredibly irascible, no crew has made it past Galveston without jumping ship. I’ve never met him, but when I’m out walking the dog and he peddles by on his bike, we wave.

Then there’s the oldster who, although pretty much blind and deaf, set to sea for Mexico some months back. The coast guard returned him to our shores, boatless. His friends organized a boat rescue, set off for mid-Gulf, and returned towing his home. He is now busily engaged in fixing the damage he sustained and making plans to leave again. No one is worried. There are folks around here who have been fixing up their boats for ten years and aren’t close to leaving. No one minds; it’s the dreams that count.

In search of glass or wood or paper or cardboard or...

According to a friend of mine who is a chemist, plastic begins to react with food in a matter of minutes, meaning that food becomes contaminated with greater or lesser quantities of chemicals, depending on the food, the temperature, and the type of plastic used to make the container.

Minute amounts of these substances, if not eliminated from the body, will build up over time. What may not be toxic in small doses or eaten a few times may cause harm in larger quantities or when eaten over a period of years. We don’t know what health conditions, if any, different levels of different chemicals may produce or inhibit. Did you know that arsenic used to be a beauty treatment (it gave you lovely skin)? Then it was discovered that the body does not eliminate arsenic. It just builds up to that final, fatal dose. Terminal beauty, indeed.

Since these questions are of concern to me, I decided to quit buying food in plastic. After some weeks of grocery shopping with this in mind, I have to tell you I am shocked at my lack of choices. Try to buy food not wrapped in plastic! Even when I buy fresh produce from the bins, I have to put it in plastic bags. The only cheese I could find that wasn’t wrapped in plastic was Edam, still cheerfully packaged in red wax, or Laughing Cow, its neat little triangles wrapped in foil paper.

Consider bottled water. It sits in plastic for days or weeks waiting to be consumed, and it sits mostly in warehouses and on grocery store shelves, not in a refrigerator. I decided to buy Perrier, which I remembered comes in glass. I found that even Perrier has a plastic option – and that is the only Perrier option in Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.

I decided to store food in glass and was amazed at the prices I was asked to pay (and all the glass storage containers have – you guessed it – plastic lids). So I went back to my old practice of saving good jars for leftovers and buying only a few of the nicer glass storage containers for use in the microwave or for those leftovers that need to be frozen. Peanut butter jars and spaghetti sauce jars with wide lids and the squat little salsa jars make great storage containers for leftovers – and they’re free!

I have found that it is possible to decrease my exposure to plastic contamination, but I have to be persistent and inventive. To eliminate plastic containers from my life I’ll have to move to another country!