January 6, 2016

Never, never, never leave the dogs out of their crates anymore at night.  It wasn’t too bad, but the whining was a bit much at 5:17.  Was pleased to get a house concert ticket for the Ball-Point Birds at the end of the month in Chico.  That'll be cool.

Meet…meeting…mee…meeting.  Back-to-back-to-back-to-back.  4 meetings (the first and the third were the same one, I only caught parts of it), the second one was regarding juvie, the fourth was at juvenile.  There was no supervisor here, which made it more fun (I was told, as this was my first).

I’m enchanted with the way circles continue to close.  I’ve met the kid now – I worked with the parents before and so much has made itself more obvious.  I am going to make a statement which isn’t necessarily evidence-based, but I will say that kids do not turn out the way they do when they have family support.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to be there.  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is true, though there are always outliers.

Ok.  I am not really like this all the time, but:     

 As I left the hall, there are a series of locked doors (obviously) that I had to be let out of by the guards.  There’s a system with the doors: some you wait on, some you push/pull as they buzz you through.  It clearly requires someone being in there.   I signed out, talking to dude guy, and then buzz, buzz, buzz I was out in the rain, loading things in my car.  Then I saw the yellow prog note…which should have been inside in the office.  So I quickly threw things in the car, and ran back to be buzzed in again (buzz, buzz, buzz).  This is my beginning here and I do not want the initial impression to be that I’m a blonde ditz; intelligent professionalism is my goal amongst colleagues and co-worker, but I swear unless I get a pocket sewn into my body where I can keep spare keys, I’ve got my work cut out for me.  Of course you know where I’m going with this – I get to the car and of course I had no keys, they are locked inside, so I grab my cell-phone which I had fortunately put into my back pocket and called my ex-m-i-l.  There was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to walk inside and say “hi, I also just locked my keys in my car.”  It wasn’t raining very hard – it is actually my favorite weather – a soft, warm (43F) drizzle).  I walked up to the library, looked around the books for a bit, headed back to the hall and just walked up and down the street as if I had a purpose.  I didn’t want to wait in front of the hall by my car, they probably had cameras outside.  Soon she pulled up and I got my keys, explaining my foolish mistake before walking to my car.  After about 30 minutes later, I finally opened my car to grab my – nothing.  I soon realized my keys were left inside when I had returned the yellow prog note.  I had to buzz back in, after all – and there they were, given to me by the guards on duty through the bullet proof glass.  Oh, Pride – you are a joy.  Always present. 

 

Quick run to the store to grab some bread, lettuce, fruit, and at home the kids showed me the box John had carefully packed and sent from Wisconsin.  Inside – 5 delicious cheeses and two packages of fresh cranberries.  The kids and I sat down and enjoyed the most divine “snack” we have had with a warm,  toasty fire making for a perfect evening. Thanks, John – you really turned my day around . 

Pictures: Wisconsin cheese from John!; Inuit dude takes a ride;  There's my car, sitting around waiting to be opened; What a day....

January 5, 2015

Back to the grindstone.  I love this grindstone.  Getting up in darkness, prepare, off to school and …my kids.  A girl from a far-away impoverished island and a kid who didn’t simply fall through the cracks, he was never given the chance to rise above the surface to be able to do so.

Paperwork – or more accurately, computer work.  The new program is a dream and will eliminate a lot of time-consuming filing/searching/writing, etc.  For the first time ever, I have mastered a program (?) and am so proud of my electronic signature (which must be re-written on each legal doc, but still, for the first time, not bad, huh?).

A farewell begins from an incredible male colleague who has been so inspiring to me.  He gifted me an abalone shell – which symbolizes, emotion, the ease of flow of sensitivity and feelings to others, connection to motherhood or family, & harmony in relationships.  What a significant gift from a fellow therapist.  And then there’s Steve.  This guy. He makes my heart smile every time I see him.  One.Good.Human.

Off to pick up the boy and we headed home to some dogs who were overjoyed to see their guy.  Girl was with a friend.  As he and I spoke, I noticed some things, much to my chagrin:  I’ve long said “dude”, but about 10 years ago “rad” entered my vernacular.  More recently, “stoked” has been making an appearance and this frightens me that the “California” is beginning to sink in.  Granted, I’m a “y’all”er in Texas, but that’s where I was born….  So, I worked on re-sending the letters I’d sent off before Christmas to get the Swiss stuff going.  7 months is not a very long time.

 And that’s about it.  I will have 40 hours of work per week shortly, but am looking forward to it.  Juvenile Hall, especially.  

Pictures:  Chart-love; My rad signature; This.  I'm the point where I'm getting goddamn love advice from a Freud Magic 8-Ball.  

January 4, 2016

I think making mistakes is probably one of my favorite things to do.  When I do this, I (hopefully) learn something in a profound way and there is nothing I like better than a good, hard, profound kick in the ass.  Am I going to change the way I feel?  Doubt it.  Do I try to please other people?  Not unless it’s their birthday or a similar event, and then only briefly.  I learned long ago that I am in this game alone: there are loved ones who will support me along the way for varying amounts of time, but this is my book and I get to write it.  However, in life, as we age gracefully, we learn about a thing called compromise and now I have been taught an incredible lesson about how to combine compromise with my passion in helping others.  I am a therapist – I should not take sides on subjective topics, rather I must attempt to alleviate difficult circumstances for individuals and families by facilitating self-discovery in  solutions which blend with their ideals and lifestyles.   In working as a therapist I must learn to keep my opinion on sensitive topics to myself, for fear of harming the client (one of the most important aspects in therapy is joining with the client so they trust their therapist enough to work through difficult issues).  As I was sharing with Ruth this evening, differences in religion and politics divide people – it is my job to help people come together.   I am going to do my damnedest to stay out of such topics and instead I will focus on music or writing or art: things which bring people together and help them to temporarily forget the reality which is so divisive and cruel.  I also won’t mention anything about the Dallas Cowboys (joking – I stopped with football when I moved to CA)  Baseball, however, is fair game (even year next season).

Juvenile Hall this morning – wonderful.  I truly enjoy that population. I’m back Wednesday through Friday.

I am so behind of computer lessons at work (A new system) – all which were due by January 1^{st -}  while I stuck my head in the proverbial sand.  It has not disappeared.  

Someone contacted me – a friend who knows I’m in recovery, and asked for help.  So I gave it, to the best of my ability.  I remember that horrible dark road and it is a journey I never wish to relive.  I counted my days of sobriety this evening:  1^st time 56 (it took 2 years to get back); 2^nd time 1,447 (it took 7 years to get back) and today I have 4,101 days sober.  I have poor math skills, but by my calculations it would take me a hell of a long time to make it back, if I ever did.

I’m still awfully dizzy.  I wonder if I’d be put on the DEAs watch list if I purchased another box of Sudafed?

Picture:  Into the Darkness

January 3, 2015

This morning I awoke with dizziness in my head, but less than usual.  Yesterday I had stopped by a pharmacy and, after signing my name and vowing I wouldn’t use this one packet of Sudafed to make and distribute meth, I walked out with a hopeful solution.  Today, I would put said-hopeful-solution to test.

Popped in two, and prepared for The Hike.  It wasn’t Christmas – people were going to back to work tomorrow, so families with kids would hopefully be at home, and I headed up the mountain with the pups.  It wasn’t 31 degrees like last time, but the slush was giving my tires a little bit of attitude, so I pulled over and threw on my chains: first in back where I’m supposed to (didn’t work too well), then in front (worked great but one side didn’t fit right), then one on back (the bad-fitting one) and one on the front, then - screw it – both on front.  Needless to say, I’m well versed in putting chains on a car.

The hike was picture-perfect: Not one person did I see – I only heard gun fire to the right of me and as we got to the lake, I heard some kids as dad was loading up the boat – but I didn’t see anyone.  It was quite a great multi-interactional hike – did a little mud-boarding down steep inclines, then mud-climbing as we came back up.  On the way back, a friend from Wisconsin texted to say he has a package to send me!!  Delicious cheese and fresh-from-the-march cranberries which will be in my Year End cranberry crunch.  I haven’t had a care package in decades and am quite excited.

Got home, cleared the dishwasher, discovered a sink-leak (which I will call about tomorrow), bathed the dogs, ate dinner and then…

 

I saw I had been unfriended on Facebook by someone whom I like and respect very much.  It seems my political comments were deemed rather hostile and insulting and this makes me very sad.  I label myself as an Independent because there are some aspects on the Democratic side which I find to be ridiculous and there are some issues on the Republican side which I see the same way.  Granted, I lean more in one direction than the other, but this doesn’t mean I believe everything they stand for, and to be quite honest, I tend to believe that while politicians may start out as wanting to serve and make things better, I think they end up working more for themselves and their bank account (most of them).  Something I have known about myself for a long time is that other than a few things (women’s rights), it is very difficult to put me “on a side” because I can usually understand the other side’s thinking.  It was very sobering for me to see that someone who means something to me was offended by my post.  So – what I am going to try to do is when I post on FB, not post anything political.  Now, I believe in women’s rights hardcore, but I see that more of a human right than anything political – I see same-sex love/marriage, etc the same way.  Instead, I’ll post music videos, since music makes everything better.  I really am sorry, Person-I-Offended.

Pictures:  Mabi on Ice (snow); A Really Tall Tree; Wood-stump hugging the snow;Dogs making sure all is safe for me around a long-fallen tree.

January 1, 2016

Things have kinda changed for me in the last few weeks, although they really haven’t – know what I mean?  In missing a few posts during the move, I realized it really didn’t make a difference (although, cognitively this is obviously something I knew) and so, in the coming weeks, if nothing really stood out to me, I wouldn’t write.  

Of course, I can always find thing to write about – this is simple, but doing a good job of it (which often I didn’t do) takes about an hour each night and lately, I just don’t have it in me.

I would make each day so focused on my 5-a-Day that I felt I was putting more energy into the writings than into my life and the time has come that my life demands more of me. 

I want to continue marking my days as I once did, but it needs to be done in a different fashion – less time-consuming.  I haven’t quite yet determined how to do so.

 

In my ever-seeking-quest of seeing patterns, signs, and Givings from The Universe, it looks like this year is beginning in a fashion of True North:  Going inward, reflecting, becoming introspective and learning how to make some tremendous changes in my life.  As Jane’s Addiction sings:  “Here we GO!”

Pics 'n Vids:  El Rey's marquee; Crackle clouds on the drive home from Chico; Jane's Addiction "Stop!", 1990