Today on the Knoll

 Today I saw

Yellow butterflies 

Wrens are making nests 

Carpenter bees are thugs  

Let me tell you about Mike

Mike is my dog.  He was Mark's dog before, but now he's mine.  

He's a PiniPoo.  Mom was a pedigreed MinPin and Dad was a poodle.  Someone tried to create a "boutique" breed without knowing what they were doing and the owner surrendered the mom and six puppies when they were a month old.  The puppies all looked like Tramp from Lady and the Tramp which is actually what PiniPoos are supposed to look like.  

Mike was due to be euthanized on Monday.  He was the last of the puppies.  We had lost three dogs in the previous year (I think my neighbor poisoned them) and I mentioned on Facebook that I was looking for a puppy with the right face.  

One of my friends posted Mike's picture on Sunday and asked if that was the right face.  It definitely was.  I told Mark that we needed to go to Plano to pick up a puppy.    He told me I was out of my mind and he gave me major funk and then got in the car with me.  We walked into the PetSmart and everyone said "Are you here to see Mike?"  I said "minpin mom and handsome stranger dad?" and they all smiled and said "That's Mike."  

He was two months old and they brought him out to visit with us and he ran up to Mark and said "I love you."  We went home with a puppy.  

Mike has had issues.  He went blind from cataracts when he was three.  He's got poodle knees and is a nervous licker and scratcher.  He's still one of the best people I know.

I took him to the vet recently and they said it was obvious that he was very loved.  He's such a sweet boy.  

He was attacked by a pit bull today.  I take him with me outside so he can potty and smell the world.  We took the trash out and a boy was being pulled up the alley by a large pit bull and Mike is such a lover that he doesn't understand that there are mean people in the world.  He is very social and he smelled the other dog and ran over to say hi and the pit bull picked him up by the head and shook him like a rabbit.  He's got teeth marks around his head.  I can't believe that this dog didn't break his neck.  

I have a neighbor who raises pit bulls and they are certainly scary because they are very protective of the children.  They are sweet dogs though and they know Mike and play with him.  I talked to my neighbor and he said that the dog that attacked Mike was a trained fighter who used little dogs for "bait" dogs and they are trained to do what that dog did to Mike today.  

The boy that was walking the pit was about fifteen and I doubt there were thirty pounds difference between them and he seemed scared of the dog too and was having a horrible time reigning it in.  He was headed for the park.  I wonder how that worked out. 

Mike is upset, I don't blame him. I'd be upset too if someone abused me like that and left bloody marks all over my head.  We're going to the vet tomorrow to get checked out.  

Gallimaufry

I spent a good part of my afternoon "taking care of business."

It's so odd.  I am now the sole support for my home and I hope that I can pull it off. 

Okay, all the laundry is mine.  I have to own it.  All of the dishes are mine which is not really a big deal because I'm OCD about rinsing dishes off.

I am moving things out of my room so that I can have a different view.

I've taken out eight bags of trash and still have so much to do.

Whoever said "Life's a bitch and then you die" didn't have to clean up after a deceased hoarder. 

Processing

I've been kind of numb today.  I think I've been, "feeling" so much that it wore me out.

James just called and I got to talk to Chloe and hear Michael get a bath and we talked about sewing and made a date.

I thought about Becca a lot today.  I'm leaving her alone because I know how hard this is and she has to deal with things in her own way.  Obviously, not the same way I am, but in her own way.

I've got to remember that everyone processes grief differently.  I vary a lot.  I scream until I can't scream any more.

I don't like being by myself.  Family should be together.  I've been alone most of my life and I don't like it.

Across the Universe

I woke up screaming his name.  In the dream we were looking for our daughter Virginia and we had found her, then I couldn't find him.  It's like he was in a line and was 8 places ahead of me. 

The Virginia that I found was three and such a happy child.  She wrote songs about love.

When Virginia was three she was a happy child.  I remember the day she said "slip and slide" and the day she came home from school and said there were two states named after her.   She's always had the best sense of humor and the one that I enjoyed the most. 

I've got to get over it.  I've got to give her up, but I have a lot of stuff to process and she's a big part of it. 

Today, I watched Mark breathe for a long time.  I talked to him and he said "help me" and he said "momma"

I told him that it was time to go, but he's got the strongest heart known to mankind. 

I need to sleep, but I keep waiting for my phone to ring to tell me he is gone. 

Sitting Vigil

I had to look it up.  What is it when you gather around a loved one who is leaving you soon?

You sit vigil. You wait and you watch.  I look and I do not see my life mate.  He's overnight in the hospital and I hope I can bring him home tomorrow. 

Sleep?  They told me to go home and sleep.  Are you kidding me? 

Yeah, well, the alarm is set so that I can be there the minute they will let me in tomorrow.

I just talked to a chaplain who was a very sweet man.  I just can't keep from crying.

Hospice Transport

A lot of tear drops.  I hate that he hurts and cries to me to help him when I cannot

But they took him away today.  He's at the hospital.  I look to my right and he's not there.  Even though he called all night long for help, I could not help him.

Now he's not mine to take care of and I am alone. 

Good Coffee, Bad Coffee and the Cancer Center

To my daughter,

I spent my 40th birthday in the ER at Baylor when they told me he was going to die.  I spent my 25th anniversary doing the same thing, he had a 106 temp and I whispered in his ear "Doc says you're gonna die.  You gonna make a merry widow out of me?" and then there was that time in San Antonio with the 106 temp and they were amazed that he survived.  In 1994 they said he had two years left.  I was 35 with four small children.  Talk about stressed out, especially with the extended family that was local who thought it was fun to put others down.

I am watching him every day now and I don't have sisters to talk to like you.  I have been dreaming of how the cancer ate my father.   I remember the last time the medics came and took him away.  I ran around and generally stayed out of the way as they brought the heavy leather padded stretcher in and made sure he was comfortable.  He had striped pajamas and looked like a refugee from Buchenwald.

Rush Limbaugh ate my other father before the cancer took him.

Buddha

Mark has begun hospice.  It's sofa king surreal for this to be going on during the Coronavirus on Cinco de Mayo.

He's been the image of the Buddha much of the day. 

He just said he didn't want to hurt me and the next thing from his lips was "Help me."

Why do I work so hard to be so poor?

A retired teacher went viral.  This almost retired art teacher can certainly agree. I saw a child today (freshman?) with the most expensive new iPhone and wearing $200 shoes and he's not passing any classes. I'd bet money that the home phone is no good (Are the odds really 50/50 or in my favor?) I have had high school students say "YOU may NOT command me" and put their hand in my face when what I said was to pick up a pencil and make marks on the paper. I can do four function math in my head faster than my kids can pull out their calculator. 


The children don't play outside anymore. They worship the false idol of their tiny screen. There is such an unearned overabundance of specialness going on that I want to be sick. Yet some of these children have stories that would just make your heart break because of the generational poverty and ignorance. People who can't raise kids shouldn't have them.

I've been having a hard time.

Here's the deal, my father died when I was small and my mother yelled at me a lot.  My stepfather was amused by me until my sister was born and then I was an uncomfortable object to have around.

He ignored my accomplishments a lot but appreciated that I was pretty like my mother and there are things I will take to my grave.

I married into a family that didn't appreciate me.  I wasn't a rich girl.  I took their name and I raised four exceptional children without a lot to work with.  They treated me like trash and they treated my children like orphans.  Trailer trash was something that was bandied about.  My mother in law has 9 grandchildren and 4 have college degrees.  2 of them are mine.  One was a national merit scholar.  1 of them is a veteran, that's my child also.

I now have the financial care of my mother in law.  This is the same woman that made certain that I knew that I wasn't and my oldest girl were not her blood relations.  My other three children are all her blood relations and have done so well without the advantages that were given to their cousins.

Every one of their cousins lived with their grandmother and were taken care of for years.

This woman complained about having to take care of two of her grandchildren while their sister was born because she was going to watch a football game.  Our neighbors were going to watch them but they were at church.

This woman told me that it was not her responsibility to help when I gave birth to her grandchildren although she lived nearby and didn't work.  She said it was my mother's responsibility to help me although my mother lived across the country and had a full time job. 

The time has come that my Mother in Law has dementia.  Her youngest daughter used her money in ways we don't understand, but nothing is left to take care of my Mother in Law.

At this point, I'm the one that is trying to pay her bills, but her own daughters have excuses about why they can't help.

I can't afford to take care of her.  If I had the money I would regardless of earned resentments, but I cannot disregard my own medical care in order to pay for her upkeep.  She wouldn't pay for mine.  Holy christ, I had an ovarian cyst blow and was in excruciating pain and my doctor told me to go to the ER but I couldn't get there because I had no car and my husband worked for his father.  I called my MIL for help and she told me she had to pick her other daughter up from work.

She seems to think that she was very sweet to me.  She gave me a perfume I was highly allergic to four years in a row.

She's old now.  She doesn't remember that she disregarded me and treated me like "trailer trash" for so many years.  She doesn't remember that she treated my children like they were less than.

I just don't want to have to pay for her.  Her children should pay for her, not someone she treated like trash for 37 years.

I just can't keep from crying.

All I ever wanted was for my children to have grandparents who made them feel as beloved as my grandparents made me feel.

All I ever want going forward is for my grandchildren to feel as beloved as they should be.  They are amazing and wonderful people and I love them all more than they know.

Smelly Burning Things

Wow, today I saw some things.

There was a fire in the building and it was put out and it smelled really bad.  Burning electricity and melted rubber coating and singed everything that poured smoke out of the bottom of a water fountain.

Gross.

We try to keep panic to a minimum with a student population of over 2500.

What's on fire and do we really need to get out of the building?

I do not think that my floor was in danger but I walked over to see if we needed to get the hell out.  We didn't.

Things are challenging in public education these days.  We have students who cannot read above a third grade level.

I am working on a training in my school where we work with a "random" word of the day.

Yesterday, I took the old dictionary and had a kid point out the word "hernia" then during pride time we talked about what a hernia was and talked about old men who had to wear trusses.

I'm really excited that my students were so thrilled and curious to talk about "hernia."  We found relevance and talked about ways to use the word.

My favorite was "Jonathan, I'm going to give you a hernia if you don't shut up and sit down."

The next class we had the random word selection and it came out "Jew" OMG what a learning opportunity to talk about the word and what it meant and how to use it properly in a sentence ( ignoring the verb form) Anne Frank was persecuted because she was a Jew.

I love that my kids are so open minded and still willing to understand how words change.  I cannot imagine what my next random word will be.

Oh, I had to report the water fountain close to my premises for making horrible noises.   It's a day in the life of what I saw today.

What is the truth?

It is the day after the mid-term elections and I am still alive.  No one has come for my guns.

I had multiple horses in this race and some results were good and some were better.

I had two Beto signs in my yard.  Actually, they are still there.  I need to go pull them out. 

I may need to update them soon.

I just pulled them out and need to clean them up.  I think they will have continued value or is that the hoarder in me? 

As an educator, I want to give out good information.  How do I tell my students what THE Truth is?  How do I determine that? 

All I can do is read everything I can about a subject and then ask questions when things don't make sense. 

Truth is important to me.  I loathe being lied to. About anything.  I can deal with the truth, whatever it might be.  I've had to deal with too many liars in my life.  People who lied as easily as breathing for no apparent reason.  I don't get it, because my mind doesn't work that way. 

It's getting harder in America to ascertain the TRUTH.  So many entities are involved with "spin" to change the facts to represent a particular point of view. 

I reject this.

I want objectivity.  I want to know the stone cold hard facts.  THIS is red.  THIS is soft.  THIS is emotionally charged because. 

I guess Truth varies from person to person.  My personal Truth regarding a very politically charged subject is very personal.  My response to that Truth is harsh at times and sometimes forgiving.  I'd be lying if I didn't admit that choices make profound differences. 

I am confident today that I've made good and bad choices.  The consequences are profound with all choices.   However, I can only deal with the path I've followed.   I cannot make changes at this point.  All I can do is move forward and hopefully make better choices an informed point of view. 

Coming Home on a Germ Tube

To begin with, please let me laud Virgin America Airlines. They are efficient and comfortable. On the way out I wanted a bloody mary with Tito handmade vodka. I'm not sure



I am an old person from Arkansas. Part of my linguistic upbringing involved learning correct grammar and later in my schooling correct pronunciation.

"Always seek the truth, then you're nobody's fool"

I've again been diligent on my news watching.  I've been reading the same political stories across the board from different perspectives so that I can ascertain the FACTS.

I am learning a lot about spin.  It sounds a lot like Educationese.  Instead of saying "he beats his head against the table and frightens other students," we might say "student fails to engage positively with his peers" which sounds a lot nicer.  

About today????? Today was described by people closely watching on the outside as both breathtaking and surreal.  

Tomorrow the next clown car rally gets going.  

Always seek the truth, then you're nobody's fool - Susan Embler