Goodbye Callie

I've had Callie for close to 18 years.





 My daughter brought her home after I lost my favorite cat, Emma, to a car accident. She was a sweet little calico, thus the name Callie.  She was a normal little kitten until she became sick, had a fevor and I really don't know what happened, but her personality changed.  Sort of like a child born normal, and then at about two years old is diagnosed with autisim.  Callie was declawed, something I do not recommend.  But she was.  After her illness she didn't like to be touched a lot.  She was a good pet though.  She didn't require a lot, and we all loved her very much.

When we moved to Arizona about six months ago we gave her a sedative from the vet so that she could survive the 18 hour drive with two dogs and two humans and lots and lots of 'stuff' stuffed into a car.  Funny thing, the drugs caused her to purr like crazy and they actually changed her personality. She loved Arizona.  When the temperature rose to triple digits, she always stayed in the house and slept on top of our huge, oak dining table, or she'd fall asleep on the cool tile behind the curtains.


About a month ago I noticed that she would shed like crazy...just being around her you would get  hair on your clothes without even touching her. Plus, her coat was blotchy and seemed dry and not the normal shiney coat.  I don't know, maybe she was in pain, I just don't know.  She would always be very vocal about her needs. I would know if she was thirsty or hungry. That's all she 'spoke' of.  She wasn't demanding except for her basic needs.

Yesterday was cooler.  I went out back to water some flower and do a little yard work.  I remember she came out with me.  And that was it...that was the last I remember seeing her. We have a 'cat' door, so she could get in if she wanted to....she was always an indoor cat.

I know, deep inside of me, that I won't see her again.  I checked the park across the street, I checked all over our yard, and of course, her favorite indoor places.  She is not to be found...nor is her body. I didn't want it to end this way.  I wanted her to die peacefully in her own little home...her own space.  What the hell happened??? It hurts not to know. I knew the end was near, but honestly, I wouldn't have been surpised if she lasted another two years.  But nope, she's gone.



I have always had a cat.  I don't give a damn about what people think, the smell etc.  (although I keep a very clean house.) Yet to get another cat, at my age, I'm just not so sure.  I lost my dog Murray, and that was painful as hell...my little Lexy is getting old and that is difficult.  I'm tired of getting attached and then that old death knocks at the door, like a frost after a beautiful summer day.  It doesn't get easier. 

Anyway, this is for you little CalCan.  You were a great addition to our family.  Rest in peace sweet baby. I miss your voice already. :-(

Another Birthday Coming Soon....

It seems like it's been a while since my last post.  Much has happened, but much has stayed the same. Isn't that the way it is with life?  Soon , oh very soon, I will be the big 6 - 0 !  Yep, sixty.

 It blows me away as I feel like I'm possibly 35 and look about 45.  So there ya have it.  Life is odd, so odd, and it zooms by. I have a friend, who, like me, feels exactly the same as I do about turning  60.  She had her 60th I think about three years ago. She's amazing, and looks amazing, therefore she's sort of my example.  Even my husband is younger than me, so this birthday is  new territory.  Anyway, my friend who has already had her 60th, decided that she would just plan her own celebration.  It was a fun party and all had a great time, including her.  She helped me decide that I wouldn't  depend on anyone other than myself to give me what I want. I searched deep down and decided that going dancing is exactly what I want to do.







I'm telling everyone I know to meet me at a place where there's a live band and help me bring in yet another year of life.  So far, I have been  pleasantly surprised at the response.  Because I'm relatively new to the area, I don't really know that many people.  I do, however, love zumba and the instructors are sort of my dance idols.  They have smooth moves and each one of them has contributed to my renewed interest in keeping myself fit and moving.  Zumba is like a dance party every time.  The girls (mostly girls that do zumba) are wonderful and I love getting to know each of them.  And each of the ladies are awesome at zumba, and have a way of being warm and friendly. Hopefully a few, if not all, will show.



So, there ya have it.  The weather is changing, the cool air is moving in, and life goes on.....Happy Birthday to me!

Church, Community and Other Thoughts

This is where I write about what is going on in my heart. 




Today, and for quite a while now, I have been a bit troubled by my lack of interest in sermons at church.  It's not the pastor, or the person talking. I know that! It's me!  Maybe it's my age, I'm not sure, but I am sure that I want to make going to church a continued part of my life.  Trouble is, I can't find a place that sort of relates to where I am, and a place that challenges me.  Right about now I hear judgmental voices in my head from the past.  Voices that say, "Well, she's just being picky and she needs to 'listen' to what God says."  Or voices that say something like this, "Just go where they preach the gospel."  (Yeah right. Well my question is, whose gospel...whose interpretation?)




I feel that I know Jesus, to a degree. What I mean is that I have, in faith, accepted that he is the person he said he was/is,  and that speaks volumes.  However, my interpretation of what he taught and who he said he was/is may be a little different from what others think or see, or perceive.  I know for sure that he was a crazy radical.




 He totally didn't care what people thought of him as he challenged his own religion by taking the law to the limit.  He constantly challenged people with power and money, and even said that it was 'good' to be poor.  That's a concept! He talked about love instead of law, accepting instead of exclusion, letting God judge instead of religious aurthority proclaiming what is acceptable.



He told people to LOVE their enemies. 




He basically said that if someone was without, and you had two of something, then give the second one to them. He also told us to love ourselves.  Wow....that's odd.  Love ourselves...I thought humans were all no good sinners.  Nope, he said to love others as we love ourselves. Something worth thinking about.  I know for a fact that some people have very low opinions of themselves so how can they actually love me or anyone else if that's the case.





Ah but forgive me, I digress. Back in Kansas City I had a great chruch where I attended and almost each time I left I left with ideas that caused me to think and  caused me to deepen my own faith.  I will tell you this, I have been in churches in my christian life where the powers that be told me how to think, how to raise my kids, how to judge people and how to remain in the club, the christian club. Part of this was my fault though, I chose to be in a place that taught things like this. However, it turned out to sort of put a damper on all I believed when my faith was tried by the proverbial fire.  Don't get me wrong.  Even in those churches I learned a lot about the bible, community and Jesus.  Some of the dogma though, I had to unlearn.  It's all good isn't it?



In any case, I realize that once I choose a church, I should just go and wait.  I didn't love my KC church immediatley.  I want to go to church because I like the routine of getting up on a Sunday morning and just going.   I need to sit it out for a couple of months and see if it's the best place for me. 

As of now, I work on  Sundays and  am hoping to get time off to go to church. When I wasn't working, I did go to church.  Not once though, did I go away feeling challenged.  Remember, it's not about the pastor or the speaker, it's about me.  In the meantime my husband said something like he felt 'spiritually starved'.  I get it.  I'm not quite there, but I know that I am ready to have some sort of spiritual addition in my routine other than private prayer and meditation.  People need community, and that's what I'm looking for.  I'll keep you posted.
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To My Boy On His Birthday

So, today is my baby's birthday...his 30th to be exact.  I can't tell you how time flies.  Truly!  If you're reading this and you're a young mother (any age under 45) then take my word for it...soon you'll look and they'll be gone.  Life totally caught me off gaurd and I didnt' realize the time factor.  No one told me that years turned into months, months into weeks, weeks into days, hours into minutes and well...you get the point.  I do NOT exaggerate either.

Even while in the womb my son was a mover and a shaker.  I felt it, believe me, I felt it. Especially at about 3 in the morning when trying to get back to sleep after he kicked me in my ribs.  Maybe that explains why he's a night person.  Ian is a power house of energy and determination. Yep, that's the word for Ian when he was growing up, determined.  In spite of the teachers that constantly were 'concerned' about his energy. (Get real teachers, I am a teacher too and I LOVE the ones that are 'difficult'.  They turn out to be the leaders. They lead, whether in good directions or bad...they lead.) Such is my son.


Although I  am a "christian' one of the worst teachers he had was 'christian' at a christian school. To this day I still have a hard time forgiving her, but hey, I do. And so does my son...he sees her for what she is...just human with human weaknesses like us all.  Oh well.  But that is why I'm proud of him.  He is a loving, forgiving person who wants to live life to the fullest. There were a lot of obstacles my son was able to hurdle..and hurdle them well.

I can't tell you how proud I am of my son for thinking the way he does, feeling the way he feels, hoping the way he does and of course, loving they way he does. I would give him the world if I could, but it's already his. 

Here's to you Ian.....You are the perfect son. I'm so happy I had a boy all those years ago.

What Could Have Been, or Sliding Doors

After a great day antiquing and having lunch in the city, I was watching tv with my husband and relaxing on the couch.  The heat had been an almost record high of 114 degrees so we were both exhausted.  My husband decided to go up to bed and I wanted to watch the rest of House Hunters International about a family moving to the south of France , I love France.  At eleven the show ended and the next House Hunters looked boring. I turned off the tv, checked email and facebook. I thought about falling asleep on the couch because it seemed too much to get up and go to bed.  Instead I went upstairs to bed.




  Probably 20 minutes later, as I was dozing off  a loud crash caused me to sit up faster than I could say "what's that?"   I thought  maybe someone tried to get in the house by breaking our glass patio door.  Phil said the cat might have knocked down our glass lamp in the living room.  On the way downstairs we saw the source of the crash.  A mirror about five feet long and four feet high had slid down the wall, toppled over and  shards of mirror were all over the couch.

The back of the mirror was facing the ceiling as it was lying on the couch.  The top part of the mirror had hit the coffee table and caused it to slide a bit.  I was concerned about my computer which had been on the coffee table.  I didn't think it could have survived the accident, but there it was.  It had fallen off the table and onto  the floor.  I figured the screen was probably shattered but when I opened it, it was all in one piece....thank God! Computers are expensive.

Then it occurred to me that I could have been on the couch, that I WOULD  have been on that couch had I decided to go with plan A for the night. I couldn't shake the thought and knew that God probably sent his angels to hold the mirror up until I was gone.  The mirror had been on that wall for almost five months without a problem.  We checked the screw the mirror was hanging from and it was still tight with no signs of failing.It was the frame that the wire for holding it up was attached to that broke.  Phil and I have no idea why, last night, it decided to break.  There doesn't seem to be a logical reason.  If you have any ideas, please feel welcome to share them with me.

 I  couldnt stop thinking about how my life would have been  different had I stayed on the couch.  Perhaps  I would have been killed.  As I surveyed the damages the sharp broken glass made  me wonder.  All of the pieces; big, medium sized and small   looked like knives.  I wondered how the leather couch was underneath the edges and points of broken mirror.  Fortunately there were no rips.

Both Phil and I were processing it all, saying things like, "Oh my dear God,  dear God!!! And of course I said "thank you God" more than a few times.    Did you ever see the movie "Sliding Doors" with Gwenth Paltrow?  I kept thinking of that. 


"'Sliding Doors', is a great look at how quickly a person's life can change in a matter of moments. By taking one path instead of another, forming a tantalizing 'what if?' In fact this movie gives the impression that some things are meant to be known, while some things are not." (quote from IMDb moving internet review site)

Well, for about an hour I kept thinking about the "what if".  I could almost see me lying there on the couch as the accident happened.(The next few sentences are not for those who feel faint at the sight of blood and gore.)  I saw the shards of glass.  But instead of being all over the couch, they were all over ME on the couch. They were stuck in my body in some places and other places lying on my body.  The wooden edge of the mirror left my lying there, blood pouring out of me in  so many parts of my poor, broken body, probably unconscious...(Although Phil really thinks I would have been aware and screaming and that would have caused him to wake up.  I think he would have slept through the whole thing.  And if the accident didn't kill me, loss of blood would have because he would have slept through the whole ordeal.  Just my thoughts.) The thought did occur to me, by the way the  glass broke as it  landed on the couch, that one of those knife-like pieces could have just cut my jugular.



Phil and I just sort of sat there in a daze for a few minutes and took it all in.  We decided to clean up in the morning as the mirror frame was pretty heavy and it would take longer than the usual clean up.  Back in bed I kept seeing the "me" if I would have made the choice to stay on the couch.  At one point I imagined, "Maybe this is a near death experience...or maybe I'm really dead.  Maybe I'm really lying in a hopital somewhere and I'm dreaming that I'm okay." You know, it's like "is this a dream, or is the dream dreaming us."

If I am in a dream, this is my main dream and I'm okay and I'm convinced that God sent angels to help me.  I'm convinced there are probably so many moments like these in our lives where God has protected us and most of the time we don't even have a clue.  You know, the auto accidents that could have been, the downed airplanes that missed tragedy by someone's choice to go back and check that thing that didn't seem right. Whatever, I am convinced that I am loved, and for the most part, protected (until it's my time to die) by a good and loving God who has not only his son, but minions of angels who are good, and who help.

I also realize that some people do have tragedies and wonder why. I too wonder why.  These are the mysteries we'll never figure out in this life. I wish I knew.



 I am so grateful.  I am grateful that I'm alive.  I am grateful that glass didn't rip through my body last night and cause me an undue amount of pain.  Saying that, I'm off to the gym to take care of this body that is whole, uncut and serves me well. Thanks be to God!

the fear

Sooo, this blog may not be the most encouraging, but I will be open and vulnerable.  I am afraid as hell of being fat.  I know!  Some may judge me, some may sympathize with me and some may relate way too closely.  But it's true.  I don't think I"m afraid of anything as much as I'm afraid of being fat.  You see, I was once...and it stole my whole identity.  At first, because it was easy, I believed that I was fat because I was just greedy.  Now I know better.  I realized so much about the reasons why I was fat and a lot of it was based on Freud's theory of the oral stage one can get caught in.  I'm not going into that just now though.  Yet sorry Sigmund, it was also so much more.

        

You must remember though, that this blog is about me, not you.  It's about MY reasons and ponderings, not yours.  So there ya have it.  And my reasons are still not so clear.  And still I go back to this voice inside my head that says I'm just greedy etc etc.  Tell me to walk over hot coals, tell me to have mice crawl across my body, tell me to face one of my biggest fears that I feel I have control over, but don't tell me I'll get fat.  That scares the total hell out of me and makes me want to curl up in the fetal postion and die, yes, die. (Don't judge me, it could happen to you.)  It's a scary and horrible thing to be totally and wholly uncomfortable in your own skin.  Should I just be happy that I am healthy?  Well of course!! What an understatement...But I'm not.  And that's the fact of it.  You can't change me.  If I can't change me, you sure can't. 



My father used to say, "You're the pretty one."  Wow...that's a hard one to live up to when you're closing in on 60 and still feel like 30 and want to be the prettiest one in the gym.  It probably just won't happen. Or will it?  I still have this sort of  unreasonable hope in me that I will be...I'll be prom queen, you wait and see.




Our desires and our personal demons are complex and sometimes, in some, they are not even evident because of denial.  I'm not in denial and I know my fears.  It occured to me that my fear of fat is bigger than I think I realized.  As I get older I sort of see the battle between our fears and our loves more clearly.  I am not an island and I can not do this on my own.  I've had many great helpers.  My counselor (I love you Mary) was a huge instrument in a healing that has stayed with me.  My sisters are hugely responsible for always loving me unconditionally.  And of course my God who loves me unconditionally and sent legions of angels to help me.  Well, maybe not legions, but at least one in my opinion.



Still the journey continues and the battles with my self and accepting my own, very real, fear is ongoing.  I'm not an island.  I said that and will say it again.  I have no idea where my fear of this will end up.  My son in law's cousin died of fat this last week.  According to them he sort of gave up on life and had a staff infection in his fat cells.  He was extremely large.  He, according to people I listened to about his life, was an extremely caring person, but he just gave up.  He didn't die of drug overdose, or too much tobacco, he died of an infection in his fat cells.  How sad is that because that was just a cover of his own decision to give up on his own life.  Of not being able to live up to what he thought his life 'should have been'.  Yeah, just my opinion.  But what's yours?

So, I'm open and being very, very candid.  That's my biggest fear.  And there ya have it.

"forget about guns and forget ammuniton
cause I'm killin' them all with my own little mission
Now I'm not a saint and I'm not a sinner
and everything's cool as long as I'm gettin' thinner." Lily Allen

Angels Watching Over Me

Lately I've been thinking a lot about angels. 



So I went to Goodwill and bought a book and it has even furthered my interest. Too much has happened in my little life for me to deny the presence of "other worldly" creatures and experiences; it's also the icing on the cake of my life to know there is just more than what my eyes are able to see.

Unfortunately, there are those that are skeptics and that makes me sad, especially because I wish we could share the same beliefs. 





(Definition of 'skeptic'; . a person who mistrusts people, ideas, etc., in general) In my humble opinion, if an experienc or belief turns towards love and truth, then be open, right?  Not with skeptics.  I have no idea why people are skeptics but maybe it's ego.




(Definition of ego;

the “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought. ) I really don't have the time or energy to comment a whole lot on that definition, but if you think about it, the ego's main purpose is to "distinguish itself from the selves of others."

 

To believe in angels, according to some people, seems, well, just silly and childish,  only for those who are simple.  At least that's my reasoning of why skeptics are skeptics.  Maybe it's not considered intellectual to believe in other worldly creatures.  Perhaps to believe in angels would just seem a little too....uh.....crazy?  Silly?

 

 

Years ago I lived in Israel on a kibbutz.  My friend and I were trying to get back to the kibbutz on Friday, their Sabboth, when everything in that country totally closes down.  Instead of taking the bus, we made the not so smart decision of taking a ride with a stranger. Unfortunately, he didn't take us back to the kubbutz and we found ourselves in the middle of a desert, on the main road, which then was only two small lanes with no traffic.  We decided to start walking, hoping that a bus or something else would come and rescue us.  When what seemed to be out of no where, a young Arab boy came over the hill walking towards us.  My friend who spoke a little hebrew spoke with him, came back to me and told me that he said if we just stay put, the bus will come and take us to our kibbutz.  Then the boy literally disapeared over the hill..Probably no more thatn 5 minutes later a bus came and took us safely back to the kubbutz where we lived. I do believe he was an angel. 

 

So...let the skeptics doubt and let them live in a boring black and white world. Me?  I believe there are angels watching over me.