Last day of the year

For me the year 2007 is exiting in an ordinary way. There is laundry to do. Work clothes have to be pressed. I need cash to fill my wallet and food to fill the larder. While in town, I'll stop by to see my mother. I missed going out yesterday because I was taking youngest daughter to the airport. It was a nice drive and a sweet farewell. She's a very good person.

I am enjoying reading Christmas books, listening to newly downloaded (son gave me a most generous iTunes gift card), and watching a few movies. One daughter is an artist, the other daughter is a trained actor, so they look at film as an art form. I look mostly at the film's story and whether it has a something that might prove helpful to my patients. For example, "The Final Cut" with Robin Williams did not garner great heaps of critical acclaim nor will it make any one's list of all-time favorite movies. The movie is technically awkward in places but what it says about the nature of human memory is profound, i.e. that what we think we remember has frequently been distorted by our emotions. What may appear to be a clear cut memory may be a composite, a screen memory which blocks more emotionally intense memories, or even a complete confabulation.

This week I watched "The Ref". Embedded in this fluffy Christmas comedy are the themes of taking responsibility for one's own decisions and to stop blaming everyone else for your own misery. I lent it to son and once he's done, it will go out to some couples I work with.

Christmas memories

-As I waited for daughter's plane to arrive, I watched one traveler after another pulled into welcoming bear hugs and kisses. Delighted parents asked their weary daughter and husband how their trip went with their three small children. "It was hell" replied the harried young mother while her little sugar plum of a daughter literally danced and twirled through the crowd. A nervous Dad was reunited with his equally nervous gangly daughter, who probably had grown several inches since he last saw her. One Mom was there in a Santa hat to greet her twenty something son. A reserved Japanese girl let out a muted squeal when she saw her family. One young woman traveler just looked totally exhausted. A college student after exams or one of those delayed by the Midwestern storm? Maybe both. And finally my own lovely daughter arrived, twenty minutes early no less. What a blessing!

-Singing along to The Messiah with daughter on the long drive home and seeing the brilliant full moon with Mars nestled next to it like a mini-moon.

-Watching"It's a Wonderful Life" with the family on Christmas eve. I hadn't seen it in five or six years, so it was fresh and inspiring again. It's my favorite kind of Christmas service.

-Visiting my dear old mother at the nursing home and seeing the tears in her eyes and her face light up when she saw two of her grandchildren. My gratitude is great for the men and women who work on Christmas while the rest of us have the day to be with our families.

-The wonderful, thoughtful presents I received. And the strange, "what-were-they-thinking?" presents I received.

-Son and the Hubster burning up all the Christmas wrappings and a t-shirt I gave to Hubster. He hadn't seen it in the box. Son noticed it when something burned oddly. Memo to self: don't wrap items inside a t-shirt, even if it were inside a box which was wrapped with paper.

-My sister-in-law is a fabulous cook. Her daughters and son are also excellent cooks. All of the above create an amazing Christmas feast. My contributions were two pies, the classic green bean casserole and a big green salad. I spent all of Christmas eve afternoon baking. My body still aches.

-Other daughter calling during the family dinner and passing the phone around so she could wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

-Closing the tailgate of my car after loading up the presents and dishes to return home, I looked up at the stars in the clear crisp night sky and said with all my heart "Thank God, it's all over!"

2:21pm
Agenda for today:

Drink fancy coffee and mess around on computer(done)
Finish crossword puzzle (done)
Take a walk (done)
Eat leftover coconut cream pie (done)
Drink fancy tea from Dean&Deluca (doing)
Take a nap (next thing to do)
Drink more fancy coffee which daughter brought from place which roasts beans on premises (the next next thing to do)
Do another crossword puzzle (optional)

Bill

Recently, a woman I know pulled me aside. She had something to tell me. Last week was the anniversary of her marriage to her first husband. I knew she dreaded this time of year because it brought back up so many sad memories of her husband's last days and his death just before Christmas. She was left a young widow with a small child to care for. I've known her for ten years, but until that moment I never knew his name was Bill and that they'd been married on December 15. In the past, she fell into a dark funk each year which deepened as the fifteenth approached.

This year, however, she went nearly all day before she even remembered that it was the fifteenth. She thought it might be connected to a dream she had the year before in which Bill had been murdered and she had been wounded.

I answered "You were wounded, but you didn't die. It seems you needed to have that one last bad dream."
She nodded in agreement and added softly "I think I'm healed."
"So you think you've done enough grieving?"
She laughed "Yes, it only took thirty-some years!"

Sanity Island

I really love going to work this time of year. One would think that the holidays would bring out all sorts of nuttiness. They do indeed. A colleague mentioned recently that Christmas started around Halloween this year. The reference was not to holiday merchandising blitzes which come earlier with each passing year, but to the ghosts of Christmases past and those of Christmas present which unsettle the people we treat. Those who mourn, who are depressed, who are sick, who are damaged feel their pain more intensely in contrast to the holly-jolly-very merriness of the season. There is always so much disappointment when magical fantasies do not come true.

And there are the annual family battles which get played out with renewed, reflexive vigor. Where to put the Christmas tree? When to put up the tree? Whose family do we grace with our presence, for how long, in what order? Where to attend services or if one attends services? And what if other members of the family are feuding? How do people avoid picking sides? Fa-la-la-la-la..., la-la-la-LA!

Yet, when I go into our little building and the door closes behind me, I shut out the Christmas carols blaring out over loud speakers and lights blinking in the park next door. I enter an island of sanity, where I don't think about shopping, wrapping, cooking, decorating, tinsel or to-do. I don't decorate my office except for a little sleigh which was made by the grateful wife of one of my patients. I welcome other people to my island and do my best to help them get through the season. When they leave I hope that they take some of the peace with them.

Christmas thought

Recently I heard this Scottish prayer set beautifully to music by Alfred Burt.

I saw a stranger yest're'een;

I put food in the eating place,

Drink in the drinking place,

Music in the listening place;

And in the name of the Triune

He blessed myself and my house,

My cattle and my dear ones;

And the lark said in her song:

Oft, Oft, Oft,

Goes the Christ in the stranger's guise.

Oft, Oft, Oft,

Goes the Christ in the stranger's guise

Dee

In my work, I've learned to always check what people eat. So many people eat horribly. A pop tart washed down with diet soda may pass for breakfast. Fast food or convenience store nachos might be lunch followed by frozen pizza for dinner. All you have to do is peek at other people's shopping carts at the grocery check-out to get an idea what passes for nutrition in a lot of families. And if someone I work with comes in looking awful, it's not unusual to find that they have been living on junk recently.

That said, I confess that I am a bona fide card-carrying hypocrite. Last week I bought a box of Captain Crunch. This box of high fructose covered sugar nuggets was not for me. Even worse, it was for the Fire Department's Christmas food drive.

The box of Captain Crunch was my tribute to Dee. This amazing woman was for years the force behind the cub scout program in our area. She was the power behind the local toys for tots program, a bell ringer for the Salvation Army and a key member of the annual food drives. For several years I helped her sort and pack up toys for children referred by social service agencies. I always found her alone at the church Sunday school room where she worked. A few others like me would help for an hour here and there, but mostly it was just Dee going through the donated toys trying to fill a bag so each child would have some special gift and a little surprise or two. There was a boom box playing Christmas music and the unfailingly cheerful Dee was always delighted to have a little help and someone to talk to while she worked.

Every Christmas, Dee asked that her cub scouts bring in a box of their favorite cereal to give to the food drive. This was a kid to kid gift she explained. Soon boxes of Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops piled up and eventually made their way into the Christmas boxes. As a nutrition conscious mom, I would never have donated this junk. I would pick a big box of oatmeal to give to the needy instead. But deep down, I smiled at Dee's idea. I had visions of some happy kid on Christmas morning digging into a big bowl of sugar coated smackers, images which were no doubt generated by TV advertising. Each year he was a scout, son was the one to pick out the box of cereal that he took in for the food drive.

Dee moved away from here many years ago. I think of her each Christmas. No doubts she is now working quietly in another Sunday school room somewhere. Dee, this Captain Crunch is for you!

Reindeer Hoofbeats

Well, the annual stampede has begun. I had to hit the big box emporium yesterday which almost as frantic as I thought it would be. If this store is any indicator, it will be a very good year for their stockholders. Actually I've accomplished a lot on my seemingly endless to-do list. In less than three weeks, we'll all be sitting around digesting the enormous dinner we just consumed and thinking about the day.

I have my own little Christmas traditions which I like to observe. For the past few years I have created my own Christmas mix made of favorites songs from CDs and downloads from iTunes. This year's mix is as eclectic as ever with songs by Third Day, the Weepies, Barenaked Ladies and Brad Paisley mixed with Bach, Delius, and an interesting duet featuring Bing Crosby and David Bowie: "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy". The last track is Louis Armstrong's delightful "Zat you Santa Claus?". The new mix will join my Christmas CD collection that serves as my personal soundtrack by which I wrap presents, iron, fold laundry, cook or run around town in my buggy.

I'm not a big scented candle person, but Vermont Country store sells the most wonderful pine and holly berry candles which are an utter delight to sniff. I like to arrange big candles on the fireplace mantle which is my nod to Dad who loved Christmas. Then there's the creche set which I bought when the kids were small. The figures are plastic so little hands could play with them. Sturdy little pieces they are. In the past thirty years only one has been damaged, a sheep who had a leg broken when someone stepped on it. He still is able to carry out his once a year job with the rest of the flock who guard the Christ child.

The Hubster has never shown much enthusiasm for outdoor Christmas displays. No, that's not quite correct. There was the life size wooden cut-out of Santa seated in his outhouse which was given to us by his brother. Brother-in-law and wife thought it was hilarious. They'd ordered it made just for us. It was the gift that unfortunately kept on giving. Every year, I hoped and prayed that Hubster would forget about the outhouse Santa; but every year he'd haul it out and set it down at the end of our driveway. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, he lit it with flood lights so the passersby could enjoy our seasonal decoration. Only he was sad when the thing finally fell apart.

That was Hubster's only voluntary contribution to outdoor decorating. I finally concluded that if there were to be anything tasteful, it would be up to me. I would be the one to hang the lights and I would be the one to take them down. Therefore the decorating would be very simple and would not entail the use of a ladder. I've taken to hanging multi-colored lights along the deck railing which I can enjoy from the kitchen sink and from my comfy chair. The lights are simply there for my own enjoyment. The first year I draped the lights in a way that impeded the Hubster's access to his bird feeders. There was not peace on earth at our house until I rearranged the string of lights. Each year I confer with him asking if he's absolutely sure that he doesn't want me to decorate the pole that supports the rope that goes to the pulley that raises his bird feeding station so that he can fill it. He now gives me a weak smile in response to my poor attempt at humor. Some things are just not funny to birders.

Baggage

Not long ago I met a woman. She told me that she'd had to overcome a horrible childhood. It appears her mom had some mean boyfriends, one of which tried to smother her when she was sleeping. There were many, many moves and perhaps some time in foster care.

Fortunately she had a good mind. She entered the military, where for the first time she encountered order and discipline. She thrived. She took advantage of the educational opportunities in the service and earned her bachelors and masters degrees. She has also been through years of therapy working through the mess of her childhood. She had made a good marriage and built a successful career.

She is an articulate, independent and intense young woman. When she was talking about all the moving around she did as a kid, she pulled her small duffel bag in to herself. "I always have this with me" she announced solemnly. "I never, ever want to lose my stuff again!"

When I tell this story, people always want to know what was in that duffel bag.

Orientation

Mother was really confused yesterday. She fell nearly a month ago. There was no obvious injury beyond some bruising on one ankle and soreness. She was x-rayed and CT scanned from top to bottom. Nothing was broken and there was no apparent stroke. Since the fall, her mind has been seriously scrambled.

Yesterday she didn't know where she was. Once explained, her distress was relieved...for a moment. Then she was confused because she didn't know what she was supposed to do. Orientation to time and events have pretty much slipped away for good. There are calendars, clocks and seasonal decorations all over her unit to help the residents of this hermetically sealed world stay in touch with time and events, but not much registers with Mother any more. This, however, was the first time I was aware that she didn't know where she was. It was sad to see her frightened look. The nurses placed her out by the nurses station so there would always be someone near. That was reassuring to me. Still, another piece of her mind is crumbling away.

9:22pm Mother is back in isolation again. Happily she was less confused but sadly the culture that was taken from her skin lesion grew MRSA. This strain is sensitive to Bactrim so a course of it has begun. She doesn't act sick just unhappy about being cooped up. Fortunately some a new CD from my sister arrived. Music helps fill the lonely hours.

Turkey Shoot

Sunday, the Fire Department held its annual turkey shoot out at the police firing range. I was looking forward to using use my new shotgun this year and enjoyed the day immensely. Hubster raked up by winning the 50/50 raffle and two turkeys. I was a hair's breadth away from winning my own turkey. I've saved my target as proof. Oh well, two turkeys is more than enough. TA was there and he won a turkey as well. Except for one brief shower, it was a wonderful day to be outside.

The fellow, who beat me out of my turkey, won 12 turkeys last year. He talked enthusiastically to us about frying his turkeys. He is obviously the cook because he knew about oil and meat temperatures and even recommended a favorite concoction to inject into Mr. Tom before immersing him in the hot oil. I was sold, so today I went out to my favorite farm supply emporium to buy a turkey fryer, a big box of oil, a digital fork thermometer and several jars of flavoring to shoot into the bird. The picture on the box shows several smiling men hanging around the fryer perhaps telling hunting stories and throwing back a couple of brewskies. Around here, it will be me (knocking back a cup of herbal tea) and the dog, keeping an eye on the turkey as it fries to a deep brown crisp.

Is he cute or what?

This is Iggy, my nephew's miniature greyhound. Recently Iggy was playing with another dog when he decided to take a flying leap down the stairs. He didn't stick his landing and broke his leg. At the doggie orthopaedist's office, he jumped off the examining table and broke the other foreleg. It was a bad day for Iggy and a very expensive one for my nephew.

Happy Birthday Son!

Look at all those candles....



and all that smoke!







You make us so proud!
love,
Mom and Pop

Best Pumpkin Pie

I love pumpkin pie. I love pumpkin lattes, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin muffins...pumpkin anything. Every fall, I enjoy picking out a fat pumpkin to sit on my front porch until the Christmas decorations come out. When it rots, I enjoy my annual tradition of lobing the late pumpkin over the hill to bounce down into the woods.

Last week, I was given a pumpkin. This was a pie pumpkin. In all my years of making pumpkin pies, I had never baked one using fresh pumpkin. I accepted the challenge, using the recipe that came on this cute little orange guy from Trader Joe's. While I microwaved the pumpkin, I measured out the ingredients and rolled out a Pillsbury pie shell. The meat from the pumpkin didn't get as mushy as I wanted, so I ran the filling through the food processor before putting it in the shell. That did the trick. The results were, in my humble opinion, spectacular. My friend Mavis told me that her kids refuse to eat any pie not made from fresh pumpkin. I now know why.

Fresh Pumpkin Pie:
2 beaten eggs
1/2 C milk
3/4 C brown sugar
2 C cooked pumpkin *
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Mix ingredients. Puree if needed in a food processor. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 35-40 minutes until the custard is firm.

* Pumpkin can be split in half and seeded. Then bake it in the oven upside down in a little water until soft. Or cook it in the microwave. Poke a couple of holes in the skin to vent steam and cook until soft.Times will vary depending on the size and tenderness of the pumpkin. I think it took about eight to ten minutes in the microwave to get this 6" pumpkin cooked, turning it every two minutes.

Birth order

In a recent issue, Time magazine's cover story was about the intriguing subject of birth order. There is no doubt that our birth order is a strong influence in shaping our personalities and is one explanation why children in the same family are so different. The Time article, alas, ignores the influence of gender which is seriously stupid. There is a great difference, for example, between a boy who is the middle of three sons and another who is the middle between two sisters.

My favorite book on birth order is Family Constellation by Walter Toman who conducted groundbreaking research in both the US and Germany on the subject. This book is not conjecture but the fruit of serious scientific study. Toman discusses personality traits which are commonly associated with various birth positions and what are the best birth order matches for marriage. If two oldest children marry, they often butt heads and jockey for leadership in the relationship. Two youngest marrying frequently fruitlessly look to the other to take charge.

Recently a young couple consulted me. Their marriage of three years is failing. The husband is heartbroken. I am the last ditch effort to save their marriage. The wife wants out. She feels she has outgrown him, doesn't love him, so why prolong the misery. If the wife wants to work on the relationship, I have a shot at salvaging this mess. Since she doesn't, I'm not very optimistic.

In our time together, I learned that they were both unplanned babies. Her mom didn't think she could have any children. She was born via C-section prematurely. She spent her first weeks of life in the NICU hooked up to monitors and tubes. There was some concern about a heart murmur but she outgrew that. She is an only child.

The husband was also unplanned. He is a twin. He too was premature and spent several weeks in a NICU. In fact, it was the very same unit as his wife's . He also had a heart murmur that he outgrew. He and his twin brother were his mom's only living children. During his mom's first marriage, she had given birth to a premature little girl who had lived only a few days before she died. Mom's first marriage ended shortly after that tragedy.

This couple's history is a nightmare. There is so much pain, fear and sadness here. But the birth order alone is intriguing. The young wife is an only child who was catered to and most likely was indulged by her parents and her grandparents.She was the center piece of her birth family and the first grandchild on both sides. Now she wonders what is wrong with her husband. He just doesn't get that she is a princess. She is still a child, the only child whose mom and dad are at her beck and call. He, on the other hand, had to share with his brother from the moment of conception on. He is used to taking turns and sharing, but there is the chronic frustration of not getting enough from his mom. He got half the love and attention that a single birth baby would receive and he's now married to a gal who may have gotten too much. Does this mean that the marriage cannot be saved? No, but one key part of the treatment would be to instruct them in what ways their birth order influences how they conduct life and how they react to each other.

Our very own Mummy

The Hubster felt we needed this mummy for our front porch. Since Herr Mummy arrived a few weeks ago, he has been standing guard by the piano. A few days ago he was moved outside and Hubster spot lighted him with a rather dramatic result. Methinks Hubster wants to scare away any potential trick or treaters so he can have all the Halloween candy to himself...that is if any is left. He and son have already made a big dent in the candy stash.

Restraint

A while back I was working with a woman who had a history of unrelenting childhood misery due to chronic intestinal problems most likely due something akin to Hirschsprung's disease. Her first bowel surgery was shortly after birth. Her childhood was filled with hospitalizations and surgeries.

I found myself telling her about a little boy, who after surgery on his mouth, was put into arm splints to keep him from pulling at his stitches. He had to wear these restraints for three weeks. In response to the word restraints, her whole body jerked as if I'd poked her with a cattle prod. I inquired if she'd ever been put into restraints. She teared up as she told the story of one hospitalization where the staff insisted she wear diapers even though she was already wearing big girl panties and used the potty. When the nurses tried to put a diaper on her, she fought so hard that they tied her legs to the side of her crib. Can you imagine the fury and the humiliation that little kid felt? She was no more than three, but she's never forgotten the indignity.

Back home

It was a full and interesting week visiting oldest daughter and her husband and playing with the big boys and girls at a shrink conference. The conference proved to be quite intense and intensive so there was less play time that I'd hoped for. Still, there were many good times with darling daughter. I saw her new place of work at her distinguished university, had a tour of her end of the campus, and broke fish tacos with her at the student union. I found some handsome university logo attire to bring back for the hubster and son.

Later in the week we ate at a cool and tranquil Persian restaurant which was quite a contrast to the noisy crowded Italian place where I had dinner the night before with some fellow conferees. After knocking back my lamb kabob, we went to see Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, which was a delightful nostalgic romp from beginning to end. Frankie was played by a school friend of oldest daughter which made it even more fun.

The next night we ate at a Russian/Georgian restaurant where the tea is served in glasses and the food is abundant and sumptuous. Poetry, sayings and comments in many languages have been written on the walls and doors. The rotund and ebullient chef from time to time circulates among the patrons. I was waiting for my turn at the john when he arrived and demonstrated how to use the bell mounted on the outside of the bathroom door. He took up the spoon which hung by a chain besides the bell and clanged it loudly grinning the whole while. "That will hurry them up!" he said. He was correct. The lady who shortly came out from the bathroom was not amused and of course by then, the chef was nowhere around.

Sunday we went to the beach and out to visit a lighthouse. The perfectly blue sky very suddenly grew hazy. Daughter thought she smelled smoke. I wasn't sure. But the haze thickened and soon we all smelled smoke. We were way too far from Malibu, we thought, to be getting the smoke from there. Once we got to the car and turned on the radio we found out another fire had broken out. Daughter and hubby told stories of other wild fires. It was quite unsettling even thought the fires were many miles away. The air quality deteriorated rapidly and the sun shone bright orange through the smoke.

I flew out very early the next morning. Our flight path took us over the fire. Talk about a weird sight, to look down on a giant gray cloud with glowing patches erupting through the thick layer of smoke. Of course, more fires have broken out since. Daughter and husband are fine as of this morning though her university is closed for the time being. Life in California goes on, the kids who don't have school hit the mall. Daughter on the other hand, used her time off to go donate blood. That makes her mother proud.

Blue Highway - Wondrous Love

Westward Ho

Tomorrow I fly out to the west coast to hang with beloved oldest daughter, her delightful husband and to learn the latest about fear at a professional meeting. This trip comes a bit soon after my cabining trip. The timing elicited some mild protest from several patients. When I shared that my conference was on fear, without exception people thought it was an excellent topic to study and expressed hope that I would learn something that would help them. No doubt there will be interesting stories to tell upon my return.

I hope I don't miss fall in the Midwest entirely since it has, at long last, come. Speaking of fall, leads me to apples and a new-to-me variety called Honey Crisp. I haven't seen this apple in local stores, but I picked up a bag at an orchard just because I'd never tried them. My oh my! They are juicy, crisp, tart and sweet all at the same time. I can't remember ever eating a better apple. The Hubster loves them too which is great because he's a Granny Smith guy married to a Fuji/Pink Lady gal. We have found common ground. In Wisconsin, Honey Crisps go for premium prices and are credited for keeping local apple growers in business. It is still possible to invent a better mousetrap.

What's on my reading table

A few weeks ago, a friend ran up to me in the grocery store parking lot. She said she'd thought of me often as she read The Memory Keeper's Daughter. "Had I read it?" she wanted to know. I said that I hadn't it. She said she really wanted to know what I thought of the book and wanted to discuss it with me at some point.

With that lead in, I picked it up and read it. From an analytic point of view, it made no sense. The doctor husband never would have picked orthopaedics as his specialty. He would have been a cardiothoracic surgeon. That said, I really had to wonder about my friend. She seriously thought this book was an accurate depiction of the life of a doctor's wife. The wife in this novel became a drunk and had several extramarital affairs. Gee, somehow I'm not too flattered that my friend thought of me.

The book is a soap opera of implausible plot developments and a disappointment. I really wonder why it is a best seller. But I wonder why a lot of books become best sellers.

Another odd book, What Therapists Don't Talk About and Why was bought based on the glowing review in a professional journal. Reading about the myriad of possible professional quagmires, a strong case is made for therapists to undergo their own analysis. Psychoanalysis directly deals with the emotions that surface when treating other human beings. Have I found such a recommendation? Why no. Not so far.

The third book Cat's Cradle is a gem. Kurt Vonnegut has been compared to Mark Twain. I like to think of him as America's Voltaire. To the end of his life he was perennially the little kid shouting out that the emperor wore no clothes. Vonnegut was a German prisoner of war during World War II . This book was written during the height of the cold war when the US and Russia were busily building bigger and badder bombs by which they could annihilate each other. Forty years later things haven't changed a lot. It's just a different cast of characters. While he pokes fun at political inanities and scientific irresponsibility, he illuminates his readers with incomparable wit laced with dark realism. The plot centers around the fictional inventor of the atomic bomb and his children who inherit the means to end the world. He throws in a cardboard banana republic, a xylophone virtuoso, a Russian dancing dwarf and a calypso religion. What can one expect? It's Vonnegut, not Tom Clancy.

Anniversary

A man arrived in my office in obvious distress. His mother, he told me, keeps calling his house wanting to speak to his teenaged son. She calls seven or eight times a day ignoring whatever she is told. She might be told that the boy was at school or would be at soccer practice until six. It didn't matter because she'd call back within an hour asking once more if he were there. She's hoping he'll take her out to eat.

The obsessive phone calls usually mean she is heading for a breakdown. Her son has been down this path many times with her. It is he who has to take matters in hand and insist that mom go see her psychiatrist once again. Her doctor is competent, thank God, but she is one of the chronically insane that can only be more or less managed medically.

Something is familiar about his mom's behavior. Hadn't she been seriously wobbly this time last year I queried? He went silent, pondered my question and then turned to look at the wall calendar beside his chair. Yes, he replied and he knew why.

Fifteen to twenty years ago, in mid-September, his family had been rocked by a tragedy. His brother's wife and son were both killed in a car wreck. Many times we had discussed the impact on him and on his brother, but we'd never talked about how his mom had dealt with the deaths of her daughter-in-law and oldest grandson.

It seems that on that day, she had called her daughter-in-law asking if she would take her out to eat. Her daughter-in-law and grandson were on the way to pick up Mom when the accident occurred. It took a moment for me to absorb what he was telling me, but his mom's compulsive phone calls suddenly made sense. She was calling her grandson wanting him to take her out to eat. She was unconsciously trying to recreate that fateful scenario of so many years past but this time, there would be a living grandson and maybe on some level a happier ending.

Anniversary reactions happen to us all. Sometimes we are aware of the anniversary. Frequently we are not. Sometimes it's the anniversary of a significant event like the death date of loved one. It may be an anniversary year like turning the same age that that loved one was when he/she died. An anniversary year can line up with one's kid's age. For example a man whose baby sister died when he was seven years old melted down physically when his own son turned seven. These are a few examples of different types of anniversary responses. The unconscious mind of this man's mother was talking loud and clear but it took hard work to be able to understand what was being communicated.

Victory

One of Dr. Milton Erickson's main treatment objectives was to make people productive members of society. With some patients it is necessary for them to understand that having a disability is not the same as being disabled. Dr. Erickson contracted polio when he was a teenager and had to fight its after effects all of his life. I doubt that he had much sympathy for people who whined, were lazy or were full of bitterness or self-pity.

A man I see went back to work this week. He had been unemployed for 24 years! He lives at home with Mom and Dad. He lost his last job when the factory where he worked closed. He was also a drunk back then. He eventually lost his license due to DUIs. His truck has been up on blocks since 1984. He got sober in the late '80s and has stayed dry since. That in itself is miraculous, but coming out of the drunken fog he realized that all the guys he grew up with had jobs, were now married and had kids. He vegetated another ten years before his parents finally tried to get him some help. That amounted to a psychiatrist telling him to apply for disability and then tossing some pills at him. He didn't tolerate the meds well and the idea of disability made him mad. On one hand he was scared, lazy and immature. On the other hand, he knew he could work and he was insulted by the insinuation that he couldn't. I told him later that it made me mad that his doctor had given up on him.

Now I am a stubborn woman but I am also patient. For one solid year I treated him with his parents in the room with him. Little by little he has become a lot more helpful around the house. Last summer he painted two porches on his house. This year he and his Dad replaced the guttering and he has been re-roofing the large wrap-around front porch where shingles have to be individually trimmed to fit. He has also been fixing up his truck. It is now drivable.

Last year he was evaluated by my esteemed colleague to the east. The testing confirmed my belief that he was ready and able to work. There was still a lot of anxiety and I said that if it became too great, I knew his family doctor would prescribed some "nerve" pills for him. That has not been needed. He not only managed his first week of work well but he even liked it.

I'm looking forward to additional changes in him. He has lived in a strange time warp. A part of him was stuck back in the year he graduated from high school because he had become so isolated from people his own age. Living and interacting almost exclusively with Mom and Dad, he acts like an old person discussing his health, doctors appointments and who had died recently. He may not interact much with his co-workers at first but he'll be listening in on their conversations. And learning.

Old Time Religion

It's hard to believe how far my mother has come in the past twelve months. A year ago she was pretty well bedridden and was on morphine to control her pain. I really didn't think she'd live until Christmas. I recall having one of those end-of-life talks with her back then. It didn't quite go the way I had envisioned. I talked about the richness of her life experiences. With her eyes shut, she nodded along in agreement as I went through the summary of her life. When I came to the part about joining her husband in heaven, she suddenly came to attention and snapped "I'm not ready yet". Oops, now what do I do? I didn't know so I backed off.

But now a year further down the road, she trolls the halls with her walker and other than a tremor in her right hand and poor vision, she's pretty darned healthy. And her pain is well controlled. She continues her slide into senility but most days she is quite content.

I hated the idea of nursing homes before all this. Now I am exceedingly grateful for the fine one we have here. It is short on frills with a plain decor but kindness abounds both from staff and from the many volunteers who serve the people on the unit. There are frequent religious activities: hymn sings, Bible lessons and devotions. The area churches do a fine job in that respect.

My only complaint is what many pastors chose to preach about to these people. The religious activities are attended by folks who would be in their pews on Sunday if they could. They are not reprobate heathens needing an altar call, yet one preacher after another seems to launch into threats that you better get saved before it's too late. Who do these Bible thumping pastors think these old people are? Do they think at all?

One week I happened to hear two of these zealous preachers give more or less the same "salvation" plug on subsequent days. I went away saddened. The old folks tuned out. They are good at that. But the next week, I caught a whiff of the Holy Spirit. A man was singing to the patients. And miracle of miracles they were singing along with him.They were even smiling. In his warm baritone, he was singing about laying burdens down and about what God has prepared for those that love him.I teared up when he launched into "One day at a Time, Sweet Jesus". I left the hospital with joy in my heart. I had a long tough day ahead, but from time to time I found myself singing softly "One hour at a time, sweet Jesus..."

Breaking up is hard to do

Last week, I saw a fellow for the first time whose wife of thirteen years has told him to move out. I am also treating a woman who is going through a divorce after thirty some years of marriage. And there's the fellow who has been in love with a gal for ten years. It's been on and off again but she's moving to another state this week. She has another man. And there was a teary conversation with a gal who thought the guy she met on the Internet was the man of her dreams. He stood her up for the second time. Only she believed that he would magically get over his 'fear of intimacy' and come around.

Having walked enough people through break ups, I've learned a thing or two.

1. The person initiating the break up is having just as rough a time as the person who has been dumped. Dr. J, a wise analyst, taught me that the next relationship the initiator runs to is usually disastrous. That's what I've seen too.

2. It is grief that is experienced with its concomitant denial, rage, sleep disturbances, and depression. It comes in waves, some manageable and some so strong that it almost bowls one over.

3. The underlying strength of the personality is a huge factor in the ability to withstand and heal from the experience. For example one woman, pooled in misery, wailed that this current break up only proved that no one could love her. I pointed out the difficulty might not be any inherent unlovability but her skill at picking men. She found men who were cold, distant and rejecting replicating the cold, distant and rejecting parents of her childhood.

4. The acceptance that it is really over takes some time. One gal didn't totally accept it was over until her ex-boyfriend married another gal and he gave his wife the baby his ex-girlfriend had always wanted. He had told her he didn't want children. She was furious at him even though she had been married and divorced in the interim...which leads me to:

5. Break up rage can spray everywhere if it taps into old unresolved infantile rage. The greater the frustration and unmet needs from childhood, the more intense and global the rage will be as a result of a breakup. The headlines are full of this stuff.

6. Basic support is helpful. Feel good platitudes are not. Sometimes people just need space and time to lick their wounds. They snap at anyone who approaches them.

7. People can and do heal. With some help, they learn what went wrong. Not infrequently they can look back in a few months and see what a blessing the break up was.

I like Skeeter Davis' song Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now where she sings:
Gotta along without ya before I met you
Going to get along without ya now...

Skeeter has several other very fine heartbreak songs such as The End of the World. Some of my favorites are Neil Sedaka's Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Travis Tritt's classic Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares, REO Speedwagon's Time for Me to Fly and don't forget the broken heart sobbing operatic Italian arias and of course the blues. Oh yeah....

Ira Glass did a wonderful show recently on This American Life about break-ups where he introduces us to a woman who decides after listening to endless hours of break up songs to write her own even consulting Phil Collins in the process.TA gives book after book after book on grieving to those who are mourning...until the bereaved one becomes sick of grieving. There are also only so many break up songs one person can stand.

The Designated Patient

When Mom or Dad consult me about their child, I request that the parents come in too. In later hours, I'll even bring in the entire family which is always an illuminating experience. The child who "needs" help is the designated patient. If that kid gets squared away, the family tells itself, everything will be great. It's that kid who has the problems, not us. No, it's the family system that is sick and the difficulty is typically between Mom and Dad. The kid malfunctioning actually keeps Mom and Dad together. Mom and Dad can gripe about the kid instead of looking to their own marital problems. They even use the kid to attack one another. For example the parents may undermine each other's discipline of the child. If the child is treated alone, he/she will get yanked out of treatment once there is improvement. In some cases, another child in the family takes over the role of designated patient.

Recently I began treating a family whose thirteen year old daughter talked about killing herself. I'd seen the mother one time five or six years ago and her history was unbelievably sad. It didn't surprise me that her daughter was having problems. The girl described a life of being a social misfit, the butt of every one's jokes and years of being excluded by other kids. Now I'm asking myself why this is so. The kid seems immature and perhaps would do better hanging with kids a year younger than herself. I find out later that she has done exactly this successfully. So the social skills are there. She is very thinned skinned. She is the only girl with four far older brothers. Mom pervasive anxiety has engulfed this girl and this is a good deal of the problem. Dad wants the girl to grow up. Mom is afraid of he daughter's growing up and leaving her.

The marriage is horrible. There are lots of screaming matches. I thanked the girl for doing an excellent job of getting Mom and Dad some help. She had to pull the suicide trump card to do it but it worked. The kid grinned as she sat safely between Mom and Dad.

Wingshooting

I'm not sure if the gal on the left had a bad day on the range, or if the boys wouldn't let her play or what. I'd say to her, come with me girlfriend and we'll blast some clay pigeons together.

Yes, Gemother played with guns yesterday. I participated in a wingshooting clinic for women. Actually we were two women and two girls in the morning. In the afternoon two more women joined us. Wingshooting is the style of shooting one uses for hunting doves, pheasant, quail, geese, ducks etc. It is a totally different style of shooting than is used for deer. We used .28 gauge shotguns which are light and don't have much of a kick.

I'm pleased to report that I did not disgrace myself. Each time I shoot I get a bit better. And I enjoy learning from a variety of instructors.

Some poor DNR employee spent the day crouched behind a sheet of plywood. His sole purpose was to release a target every time we called "pull". The targets were thrown above our heads, away to the right, away to the left, and away from in front. The most fun were the doubles because there was a second chance.

One of the gals had never done much shooting. She couldn't hit a thing at first but was a really good sport about it. It had come up in conversation that she had recently left a bad marriage. The instructor laughingly suggested she imagine each target was her ex-husband. She did and she started hitting one after another. She did the best shooting of the afternoon.

The Great Outdoors

The cabining trip was a rousing success in spite of a few mishaps like a wasp sting, the fire extinguisher falling on my head (got a goose egg from that), the skewers of shrimp falling in the coals and a burnt baked apple. The shrimp got rinsed off. Damned if I'd waste it. It crunched a bit but it was edible. I think should there be further attempts at baking apples in coals, I'll add the sugar later. I believe that's what cause it to burn.




I hiked a lot and found fishing more enjoyable than I had imagined. Didn't catch anything but I had some bites and more or less got over my squeamishness about handling night crawlers. I was too tired to read. I listened to music, napped, did crosswords, and played solitaire...with real cards..the kind you shuffle. The last night I just listened to music and watched the fire and the fading daylight.

If I go back I'll have to take the canoe. The big lake would be great fun to explore. I wonder if Cabela's makes some kind of canoe hoist. I doubt highly if I could get our canoe up onto the top of my car by myself.

I came home to a wonderful surprise. Son had picked up the old teacher's desk I won at the auction. Hubster had stripped it and revarnished it. At first I thought Son had picked up the wrong desk, but at second glance I saw that it had already been refinished to the original oak. I hope it doesn't cause old heretofore unknown school phobias to surface in my patients. If so, we do what we always do: analyze.

Cabining

Hubster and I did marvelous work in the basement. Decades of old toys, junk, dead mice and odd things that we've been given over the year have been hauled outside to a pile which will sit until son's buddy from the fire department hauls it away. Oldest daughter moved to California seven years ago. I had consolidated the ten boxes she left in her room after college into five. Today there are none! I did unearth a few finds like her old Gameboy that still works great, three power strips, two screwdrivers, a box of 80 Band aids, and a nice pair of gloves. Squatters rights here unless she wants to wrestle me for them.

In between sessions in the basement, I have been pulling stuff together for the cabining trip. Since I'll be in a cabin, I can't call it a camping trip. I plan to do a lot of cooking over the old camp fire. I have been culling ideas from Camp Recipes and from Camping Recipes. There's the classic canned biscuit on a stick which you cook over the fire and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. A neat trick I'm trying is to marinate chicken breasts and freeze them in a plastic bag. They keep cold during transport and then you just plop them on the grill. I have shrimp marinating in a plastic bag for my supper tomorrow.

On the way I plan to stop at Lost Creek Orchards in hopes that their apples are ready. Apples can be wrapped in foil and baked in hot coals I've learned. There are marshmallows packed to roast as the sun sets over the lake. Perhaps there'll be an old owl hooting. No doubt mosquitoes to swat and a semi-tame raccoon wandering by hoping for a handout. Nothing much to do and that's precisely the point.

Down time

Last day of work and then I'll be off for a week. It's been a tough summer. August which is usually a light month has been full and intense. I plan to spend the first couple of days cleaning out the far corner of the basement where the discarded toys live. I have a storage box for each kid in which I will save some of the special toys. I hope I remember what belongs to whom. I won an old teachers desk at the school district aution which needs a new coat of paint. I might tackle that too. Then again I might not.

Next I head off to a nearby state park where I have rented a cottage for three nights and four days of loafing. I have my fishing license and fishing pole. The boat rental is a short walk from the cabin and there are lots of trails to explore. The picture is of sunset bridge at the park. The planning is almost as fun as the doing.

The woods here are too dry to have a campfire. It would be a disappointment if it is too dry there next week but such is life. My planning includes a nightly campfire but reality is often something entirely different.

To my oldest daughter:

May no one ever hold you back again!! Enjoy your special day and know that you will be on my mind all throughout. I love you!
Your adoring Ma

Conferences: the final chapter

A few years ago, having sworn off one day wonder conferences, I went to a two day one not too far from home. It was being held at a resort nestled deep within a national forest. It was October, so even if the conference were bad, I should get in some good hikes. Actually what I do is more of an amble. That part was great.

Our speaker for both days, Dr. Happy, had just published a book on happiness but the course was on another topic. The first morning he crossed the room to greet me as I entered the room. I was surprised to say the least. We past polite pleasantries and that was it.

He was an amiable speaker who told amusing stories but I noticed that his treatment stories all dated from his residency. It made me seriously wonder how long it had been since he'd treated anybody. He also name dropped a lot. And then he'd pull this annoying teaching trick where he'd set up a false choice eg How many people think this is A and how many people think this B? It would end up to be C because he hadn't given us all the information. I never raised my hand for that kind of silliness. Perhaps he noticed.

On the second day, I decided to buy his new book anyway and during a break I approached him to sign it. When I made my request, book and pen in hand, he became mildly agitated. Dr. Happy was definitely not happy. He launched into a rapid fire explanation. This was the wrong time to ask him to sign the book. The correct time was at the end of the day, at which time he'd be more than happy to sign the book, but he didn't have time to do it now. I'm totally puzzled. In the time it took him to explain why he couldn't sign the book now, he could have signed it. I bid him adieu, turned and walked away. As an afterthought he called out to me thanking me for buying his book.

I didn't stay afterwards for his signature because I had a fairly long drive ahead of me. I did read his book later. Now it collects dust on my shelves along with a lot of other pretty useless books. I know I haven't recommended it to anyone since nor have I given it out to any patients. I suspect Dr. Happy yells at his kids at lot.

More fun at conferences or Good Enough Mother gets attacked again

A few years after the hypnosis workshop, I decided to play on the international psychoanalytic scene. It was actually a really fun conference. Psychoanalysts do like to pamper themselves. There I had the pleasure of interacting with psychoanalysts from all over the world which was just fascinating.

One day, during a coffee break out in the hall, I was introduced to an analyst from South America. She was very nervous because in a few minutes she was heading up a panel discussion on patient confidentiality and she needed some case studies as grist. Suddenly she turned to me asking if I had ever encountered any difficult situations involving patient confidentiality. I said as a matter of fact I had just encountered one and gave her a quick synopsis. She brightened up and then asked if I would present the case to the panel. I agreed and she led me down the hall to the room where the panel would take place. I'm grinning inside thinking "wait until I tell the folks back home about this".

The panel was made up of South American psychoanalysts from several countries. There was an interpreter who translated into English. Anyway soon it was my turn. I stood in place and as best as I could told the story, pausing for translation, of a couple TA and I were treating. The wife had come in to get TA's help in telling her husband that she planned to leave her husband of 15 years for her new lover. TA worked with the wife and I began work with the husband. The tricky part came early on when he asked me point blank if I thought his wife was having an affair. I had expected this question might arise so I simply asked what he thought. I recall a woman analyst to my right made the "ca-ching!" motion. I gathered she liked my approach.

The panel began to grill me at this point. A tedious professorial type droned on and on, not doing much to illuminate anyone. What surprised me then was a woman analyst from a distinguished institute who got extremely agitated about the procedure. She wasn't questioning the treatment, but the orthodoxy of TA and I working together. The more I said, the more hot under the collar she became. I thought I was about to get banished from the conference, and sent home in disgrace. But I knew our results had been impeccable and I was very pleased with the work had been done. After all a marriage not only had been salvaged but revitalized, so I really didn't care what she thought. It was just that her anger was so unexpected. Finally a Canadian psychoanalyst commented that my working arrangement was not unusual in North America. My attacker backed down. I later thanked the Canadian for helping me out.

This strange encounter grew stranger still the next day. I was on my way out of the hotel as the woman analyst from the panel was coming in. She saw me, smiled and ran up to me. She then hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. She mumbled something complimentary to me and whisked passed me. Huh?? I took that for an apology. I keep wondering how I manage to get into these situations.

Good Enough Mother gets attacked: Monster Spray

A number of years ago I attended a clinical hypnosis workshop on the west coast. The faculty was among the best in the field and our classes were kept small. Over dinner one evening, several us attendees began to share some of our tricks of trade for treating kids. I said that I found Monster Spray most useful. It was my secret weapon which was discovered by accident one day when I was working with a small boy who had horrible nightmares.

I asked the boy to draw a picture of his scary dream on the chalkboard. He drew a big monster with great big teeth. I said we need to get rid of him. I meant, get rid of that bad monster completely. I grabbed a bottle of diluted window spray and handed it to the kid to spray at his monster drawing. I then handed him a towel to wipe away his monster. He really got into spraying and wiping away his monster. I found out that this ended his monster nightmares forever. I tweaked the formula a bit, and soon Monster Spray became a staple of my arsenal against bad dreams of all sorts: witches, giants, angry T-rex, giant spiders, wolves, and spookies. A variant was a take-home little spray bottle which was filled ceremoniously in front of the kid from my great big bottle of Monster spray. The kid would buy a bottle from me using one of the pennies or nickles which Mom and Dad had" just happened" to have given him earlier in the day for being a good kid. The kid could then kill off any monsters that lurked under the bed or inside closets at home.

The next morning our workshop instructor Dr. Trance was discussing common difficulties we might encounter with kids and how we could use the child's fantasy world to construct a therapeutic metaphor. He mentioned in passing his son's recurring nightmares, at which my colleagues snapped their heads in my direction crying out "Monster Spray!". Dr. Trance asked what monster spray was and I explained. He got very incensed and was highly critical because he felt the child should select the metaphor with which to eliminate the monster. That's fine, methinks, but monster spray works like a charm. I then pointed out that the dreams were already a product of the child's unconscious mind. He nearly sprang from his chair yelling at me "There IS no unconscious mind!!! There are only unconscious processes!" Inside I'm thinking "Hey bud, haven't you read any Erickson?" but this was not a moment for logic. The rest of the morning he continued to glare at me and he seemed to hate my guts. Needless to say, the lunch break was most welcome.

But after lunch, Dr. Trance was suddenly very kind to me and went out of his way to be helpful to me. I took it for an apology.TA thinks he was mad because I'd figured out a simple way to get rid of a child's bad dreams and he hadn't. I'm wondering if a bottle of Monster Spray appeared soon after at the Trance household to help young master Trance. I don't treat many kids these days, but my bottle of Monster Spray is displaced prominently in my office. You'd be surprised at the number of adults who ask me about it. When the story is told, they shake their heads saying " I sure wish I had some of that stuff when I was a kid".

Going to conferences

There is so much drivel, sham, smoke and mirrors out there that people needing help with emotional problems don't really know where to turn. I have worked with one woman for many years. Before me, she had seen something like five different people of various perspectives, running the gamut from a classic on-the-couch psychoanalyst to a new age guru of some ilk. One" healer" took her way up in the mountains, where he promptly had a melt-down. His disciples had to haul him down and take him home. I've told her she needs to write a book some day about her adventures with head shrinkers. It's always good to find out about a patient's previous treatment. If nothing else I learn what pitfalls to avoid.

I go to conferences and workshops where the posturing is unreal. The workshop is a vehicle to sell the speaker's new book, intensive (and expensive) week-long workshop or CD series. Many one-day-wonder courses are simply there to meet CME requirements. No one is there to teach, just to provide a service which is the selling of continuing education credits. It's a joke.

A while back I went to a one day course on grief. It was so incredibly stupid. A ridiculous amount of time was spent trying to delineate between normal and pathological grief. What bunk! Grief is grief. John Bowlby describes it best in his meaty book Loss: Sadness and Depression. Our lecturer lived and worked in a university town and described treating a college freshman who had fallen apart shortly after school started. The kid, she felt, was grieving for home. Hmm, it has been said that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem resembles a nail.

During lunch with a couple of social workers, I casually mentioned that if I were treating that kid, I'd be considering schizophrenia. Some kids can do decently at home where there's good structure but can't make it at college on their own without the constant support from Mom and Dad. The social workers were astonished. Why yes, the kid was the perfect age for the onset of schizophrenia! These professionals work in a major university. They teach social work and treat students there. I really wondered what these people do.

The first conference I attended as a lay analyst in training was put on by a family systems institute. I met a young psychotherapist there from my neck of the woods. I invited her to join me for lunch. Waiting in line for a table, I pulled out a book I'd picked up at the conference book table. She asked about it. I explained that I bought it because it had something about children who had a brother or sister die. She was deer-in-the-headlights stunned. She said she had two brothers who had died, one when she was two and another when she was fifteen. Oh boy, I thought. This is going to be a working lunch. And it was.

She told me more about the deaths of her brothers, her mom's depression, about her work and then about her two failed marriages. With sudden insight, she asked if her difficulty with men might be connected somehow to her dead brothers. I told her most definitely it was.

I asked her if she'd been in treatment. Her training had not required students to go through analysis or psychotherapy. Hmm, that means they are just as screwed up after years of education as they were when they entered the program. She had consulted a Gestalt therapist which was interesting but I gathered not too helpful. Of course, the overwhelming tragedies of her childhood were never addressed because no one ever asked. Once again I wondered what these people do.

Chapter 2: Good Enough Mother gets attacked.

The Barista

I am currently enjoying Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller of Blue Like Jazz fame. Within a conversation about gambling, Miller's friend, the owner of a coffee shop, observed that

Nobody he knows who is successful gambles; rather they work hard, they accept the facts of reality and they enjoy life as it is.

Miller: But the facts of reality stink.

Barista : Reality is like fine wine. It will not appeal to children.

Link-on

Some interesting links:

Lumosity is a cool and fun series of mind stimulating games which are designed to improve memory and mental speed. Many years of poor eyesight has led me to mistrust my vision. These exercises are forcing me to rely on my eyes working both central and peripheral vision. The games which progressively speed up are helping me overcome some residual performance anxiety. I am using the 2 week free trial and can sense improvement already, alas not yet in my daily on line trivia game.

Link number two is the Hobbit Rune generator . Good Enough Mother is depicted above in Feanorian. This is like Pig Latin only better.

And from my favorite shrink blog, The Last Psychiatristt, a test to see how well you can read faces. About a year ago I actually bought Paul Eckman's training CD. I'd went through the program and didn't think I'd learned much. Seeing as I read all the expressions correctly, something sunk in. Trust your unconscious to learn a lot more than you expect.

Weirdness outbreak

This week a weirdness epidemic broke out. I can only attribute it to the heat wave and perhaps the meteor showers. An atmospheric double whammy can throw people way off balance. I recall an unusual month with two full moons and another time when the vernal equinox and a full moon occurred in the same week. I suspect 911 dispatchers could tell some really interesting stories about this week and no doubt the emergency rooms have been hopping.

Broken hearts, broken marriages, legal threats, fights, rages, emotional meltdowns, physical malfunction, rampant confusion...it's been unrelenting all week. I'm spent, however I still have one more day of work. TA, in a moment of silliness, left plastic flies on everyone's desks yesterday. One secretary complained "That's so sixth grade ". Well, it made me smile and I found myself trying to remember the theme to "Superfly". Couldn't pull it up, so I hummed "I'll Fly Away". I tell everyone to seriously pump up their water intake and have been following my own advice. Being adequately hydrated helps tremendously. Water balloons or squirt guns would be good too.

And my life has never been the same....

Happy 26th Birthday to my dear youngest daughter!

Fraud and good service

Last week someone stole one of my credit card numbers. GAP called me inquiring if I had made a certain on-line purchase. When I said I hadn't, they said they'd cancel the order and suggested I contact American Express. I did and found out there were four unauthorized charges on the same day. The account was promptly closed, the stolen orders canceled and withing 24 hours I had a new card. I was pleased the fraud detectors at GAP were so vigilant, but puzzled as to how the thieves got my number seeing as the last time I used it was to book a flight to a conference using the American Express travel services. I have no idea how someone got a hold of the number. Youngest daughter had the same thing happen with a newly issued American Express card. Someone "bought" an armload of iPods with her card, which instantly set off the fraud meters. In both cases, there was no haggling about the unauthorized charges.

Amazon also gave me good service this week. I ordered some pressies for daughter's boyfriend which according to UPS tracking were delivered but were never received by the birthday boy. Amazon has replaced them, no questions asked. I was impressed.

On a different note, I had to laugh when a new shipment of talking books arrived for my mother. These were ordered many months ago. Sadly she can no longer operate the tape machine or follow the plot of a novel. Keep in mind, she is a wobbly 90 year old who lives in a nursing home.The titles are:

- Nowhere to Run
- The Case of the Dangerous Dowager
- Wisdom Sits in Places
- Breaking Her Fall

Nothing to sneeze at

TA repeatedly thunks me on the head to remind me that I cannot/must not accord more to others than is warranted. I should not expect others to think and behave like me. Obvious, you might say. I am learning but then there are those moments.

Not long ago I was talking to a man who says that he really wants a girlfriend. His batting average with women is abysmal. He is clueless how to approach a woman. For example, he took one young lady out for a cup of coffee and within ten minutes was grilling her about her desire for children. She said she'd like kids some day and wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. He told her he didn't make enough money for her to do that. She was totally stunned. She didn't recall asking him to father her child. Any possible future with her ended right there.

He chews tobacco. He's asked me many times if girls mind chew. I said that a lot do. He's still chewing and spitting. He also works with his hands. I've pointed out that I know that it is just grease under his fingernails but a new girl might not know that. He has never owned a nail brush.

He asked me if he needed to buy new boots. Looking at them, it seemed that they just needed a good polishing. He commented that his father polished his boots every week before going to church, but it seems he did not have any shoe polish nor did he know how to polish shoes.

Next I asked him if he carried a knife. I knew he did. It's good to be able to answer one question right. Noting his bare wrist, I pointed out that a gentleman wears a watch. I knew he might not to wear one at work because he handled heavy machinery. Still a man ought to know what time it was. Maybe a pocket watch would work for him.

Next came this conversation:

Me:You do carry a bandanna or handkerchief, don't you?
Him: My Dad always carries one.
Me: But, do you?
Him: No
Me: So what do you use when you need to wipe your nose?
Him: (blowing his nose into his hand) This!
Me: A gentleman always carries a handkerchief.
Him: They do?
Me: Yup, so he's ready if he needs to wipe his nose or get the sweat off his brow.
Him sneezes into his right hand.
Me: umm, I don't think anyone would want to shake your hand after that.
Him: They would, if I didn't tell them.
Me: I doubt if any girl would want to hold that hand either. You need to start carrying a handkerchief.

Now this is man has a two years of college under his belt. He did not grow up in poverty either. Mom and Dad were solidly middle-class people, but some basic lessons never were learned.

I caught myself sniffing as I typed this entry. Truth be told I am a recovering sniffer. For some reason, when growing up nobody told me to blow my nose when I was sniffling. I just sniffed the snot back up into my nose, which only means it rolled back down a few minutes later. I knew to carry a tissue or a hankie, but isn't it curious, in a home where appearance and good manners mattered a great deal, that no one said that sniffling is annoying? Kind of odd, I'd say. I learned to say please and thank you. I wore white gloves. I was taught to curtsy but I didn't learn I should discreetly blow my nose when I began sniffling.

Some thoughts on senility

When the great medical hypnotist, Milton Erickson, taught hypnosis for pain control, he pointed out that there were three areas that needed to be addressed. First there is the pain that is being experienced presently, secondly the memory of the pain that has already occurred and lastly the pain that is anticipated. By creating an amnesia for the past pain, future discomfort is no longer dreaded. The amount of pain has thus been reduced by two thirds since the patient's mind is now only aware of the present moment.

The mind of the person with Alzheimer's functions much the same. There is an amnesia for the past and minimal thought to the future. All that remains is the present. Built in pain control is a blessing I did not expect. Mother's condition might appear sad to those who remember what she used to be, but it's not all gloom.

Some good things about Mother's dementia:

1.The amnesia means she is unaware of what she has lost and what she can no longer do.

2.She lives in the present so there is no fear of death.

3.She no longer has to be responsible as she has been all her life. I highly doubt she ever had an unmade bed, overlooked a bill that was due, left a dirty pot on the stove, neglected to take prescribed medicine or floss her teeth. Senility means she is finally off the hook.

4. Her weight, her grooming, matching colors and wearing tasteful and proper attire occupied a lot of her attention. Now she doesn't think much about her appearance.

5.She used to be very difficult to please. There are days now, I can make her happy.

6.A stiff and formal woman in younger days, she has grown to love hugs.

Even Alzheimer's has it's silver lining.

Food Rant

In some ways I was fortunate to grow up with a mother who was very nutrition conscious. Soda pop, potato chips and fast food were rarities in our home. I was 14 before I ever ate at Mickey D's. My mother was a fan of Adelle Davis and Carlton Fredericks.Both of these authors were highly controversial especially Davis who was held responsible for the death of a small boy.

Mother had a vegetable garden in the summer and her very own compost pile. She periodically tried to feed us coarse whole grain cereals. Those didn't go over well with kids who had already been seduced by Tony the Tiger and the Trix rabbit. Mother has always had a love-hate relationship with food. She must have gained and lost the same three pounds several hundred times. I recall once talking to her about my trip to New Orleans (in days before Katrina and her dementia) and the wonderful cuisine of that city. She had been to there as well. Her response: Oh, you might get fat. Sigh!

There is a lot of horrible stuff out there which is passed off as food. Breakfast for some candy bar and a can of Mountain Dew. I scan the carts of others at the grocery and am appalled what some people feed their families. Even worse is when they pay for it with food stamps.

So, in one corner is the huge convenience pseudo-food industry. In another corner is the organic, non-pesticide, free-range, hormone-free, nothing artificial pure natural foods. This can mean a lot of things. Natural may just mean real corn syrup for example. Given the choice between organic and non, I go organic. I can now buy organic milk, butter, eggs, some fresh veggies and fruit, and hormone free chicken in my local stores. This is a big improvement. I figure the fewer pesticides and alien hormones in my body the better.

The new food fad is sustainable food. Foods that are grown within 250 miles save precious fossil fuels we are told. Okay. I live in farm country, but this is not big organic territory. The local farmers use pesticides and fungicides, and give hormone laced feed to their live-stock. The farmer's markets and road-side stands, as wonderful as they are, do not sell organic products.The few organic farms ship most of their products to the organic markets in the city. The local dairy farmers sell to the big milk companies. I can get sustainable milk, but it's not organic. The organic milk sold here is from California.

Michael Pollan, in his Omnivore's Dilemma, certainly made us sit up and question the sources of our food. We should. E-coli in our spinach or poison in pet food are cases in point. Novelist Barbara Kingsolver's new book is a recent addition to the sustainable bandwagon. It's a nice story. Her book ought to sell well among city dwellers who been told to feel guilty about eating a peach from Georgia or an apple from Washington. It would appear that my mother is not the only one out there with a love-hate relationship with food.

I rejoice at the abundance of food in this country. I believe we have more food, more variety, more cheaply that any nation on the earth. So now I am headed out to the kitchen to fry up some bacon from Kentucky, toast bagels from New York, scramble cage free brown eggs packed in either Missouri, Ohio or Illinois, and pour out a glass of not-from-concentrate orange juice produced in Florida. I don't have a clue where those oranges grew up and what hen layed those eggs. Don't even get me started on the fat and carb police!

Recess time

From time to time, I realize the need to seriously lighten up. Over the weekend I thumbed through The Dangerous Book for Boys which I brought home from the office for my dangerous boys to read. The Hubster enjoys being thought of as a dangerous boy. Son knows he's a dangerous boy. The book is part Boy Scout handbook, part Boy Mechanic mixed with a bit of knowledge that you might pick up from your big brother if you had one. There are chapters on astronomy, how to play poker, naval flag codes, tricks to teach your dog, military history and of course, how to make paper airplanes.

Even though I'm not a dangerous boy, I do like making paper airplanes; however my planes usually nose dive and die crumpled on the floor. I followed the book's direction for a Harrier paper plane. It was not difficult to make and it flew better than any paper plane I ever made. Hubster, not to be outdone, folded paper into the Bulldog Dart. It, too, flew like a dream. Armed with our very cool aircraft we launched into a magnificent dog fight which ended with a grand head on mid-air collision.

Next chapter : skipping stones