Sunday, January 30, 2011

Cake boss!

Ok, hardly, but I have been enjoying baking lately, as a way of both getting through the winter blues, and of making nice things to keep me happy here.

Last week's treat was carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  It was fantastic, and for about $6 it kept me from buying takeout, and from treating myself elsewhere.  So, both an economical choice, as well as an enjoyable one.

This week I made a walnut, apple vanilla bundt cake.  It didn't turn out as well - got stuck in the pan, but it is pretty fantastic tasting.

Where I want to be in 10 years?

So, I'm doing this damned teaching degree.

I need to know what to do with it.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but being stuck in a classroom is really the last thing I want to be doing with myself.  I want to make a difference.  There is so much pain and hurt and hate, and awfulness in the world, and I don't think that teaching little people spelling is going to make a gnat's worth of difference to any of it.

I don't want to be stuck in a classroom full of kids from nice homes who are easy to teach, and easy to deal with, and who all do pretty much what they are told.

The kids who fascinate me are the ones who I have no idea what's going on with them, and who I know that something is wrong, and I want to help. 

Do I have a hero complex?  I'd be just as happy being someone who does a single unsung good deed, at least I think so.

Now I'm chasing grad school. I've found things I would like to study, cross your fingers for me, that it works out.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Winter in the Frozen North

So, today I cleared 6" of ice off the back steps. Lots of Ice Melter, my trusty cats' paw, and brute force. Go me!

No, it wasn't an Ice Storm.  Just the result of dripping from the meltwater from the eaves.   It's an ongoing battle.  The gas guy came and chipped the ice off the the gas meter with his Leatherman tool, then he installed an ice shield over it.  VERY entertaining to say "Leather Man" to the Gas Guy... tee hee.

The exterminator came, with his trap, and a pocket full of sardines (a can) to try and catch the occupant of the crawlspace.  I hope it's just a squirrel. 

I have also MacGyvered a drip-track for the run-off from a 12' piece of siding so that it directs the meltwater off onto the patio.  It's still going to be a huge pain, but maybe it will be manageable.

I made carrot cake yesterday, with a cream cheese & butter frosting, it's spectacular!  I've been eating it delightedly.  I debated making it, but it was definitely the right decision.  

Finally got the pipes unfrozen, they seem to be OK so far.  Unless we get another -37 day, I think I'm good.  So, off to knock the ice off my drip-track, and get to bed.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

A terrible tragedy, but not one of inaction...

Woman, 66, Wanders, and freezes to death.

 This is a horrible tragedy, but I don't think it is a tragedy of impersonal community, rather a tragedy of inadequate social services, lack of community support, inappropriate elder housing, and the very personal nightmare of dementia/alzheimers.

I know that I've lived places with lots of noise, as well as being a contributor to that noise at times...
You get used to it, and it becomes part of the background.   

The sad things, is that people with dementia often CANNOT be cared for in their homes, as with my grandmother, who had Alzheimers, and would literally shove my frail grandfather out of her way in her need to escape a place she could no longer remember.  It was a danger to her not to be in a secure facility.  My family had to move her, because she was escaping.  At times, neighbors saw her climbing the fence in the neighboring churchyard, and trying to get into the ravine.

The Alzheimers society includes suggestions such as disguising doors as walls, keyed door locks, alarm mats, barred windows, proximity alarms, hiding ID, purses and keys, and other jail-like methods to keep the person from "wandering". 

As a caretaker, the grief involved in having to watch your beloved's mind deteriorate, and then to have to cage them as well: horrendous.

My heart aches for her husband, and for her family.  Demonizing the neighbors, and the neighborhood isn't going to solve anything.

We could try providing more respite care,  alzheimers/dementia daycares, encouraging caregiving that is not always gender-determined, and re-thinking women's roles as automatic caregivers, more compassion in our eldercare facilities, better funding.

I don't have a solution.  I do remember how painful it was when my family was trying to do the best for someone we loved, I have seen other people trying to do the best for people they love, and I worry about what's going to happen to me.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Religious Incompatibility in Relationships and Atheist Life Philosophy

Having a tough while. In the midst of a bout of pneumonia, and it's making it hard for me to maintain perspective.

J and I agreed on a lot of things that were fairly fundamental, and that I took for granted.

Atheism is a big one. I assumed that my partner would be an atheist. I value my capacity for rational thought, and I really thought I would have a partner who would share that love of reason. Even when I am irrational, I know that I am being irrational, I can admit that, I know that it is something that I am doing for my own self-soothing, and I am ok with that.

I know that humanity has a drive towards connection, and that our minds create this interconnectedness where none exists. I'm ok with that. I go to the cemetary and talk to the dead grandparents. I know they're dead, and can't talk to me, but I miss them, and it makes me feel connected to them, to talk to them. I used to talk to them at the cottage too. Sometimes I talk to them at home, or camping. I KNOW it's not real, but if it mitigates the pain of their absence, then it's a form of self-reflection, more so than a form of spirituality.

K and I have had a few major arguments about "spirituality", in which I have asked that she not try to convince me that the stories are "true", or end them with a polemic. The last one ended with a statement to the effect that she can't believe that all of the most intelligent people she knows refuse to use the "full power of their minds", and refuse to open up their minds to the "full possibilities of the universe."

It's not even possible to have a rational conversation in that context, because one person is arguing that supersition is true, based on their personal experience, and the other is arguing that life requires rational thought, and scientific explanation.

It ends up degenerating into a "yes", "no" argument, to which there is no end, and in which there is no point.

I don't agree that this stuff is true. I am not going to change my mind on that. I think that people skew their stories in retrospect, to better fit the facts to their perspectives, and I think that coincidences happen all the time, which can be accounted for, but which also are really great, and there's nothing wrong with crediting the people involved, or the circumstances, instead of inventing/clinging to fantasy.
 
I understand why people want religion.  I want it. It makes sense to me to want to believe that there is something out there helping me. Some kind of purpose.  Most of my life is lived in terror and uncertainty over the fact that I am constantly facing the unknown.  I don't know what's going to happen to me.   I am afraid.  
 
I have people who love me.  I have community, when I can remember, and work myself up to get out and join it.  I have a brain that still works.  I am a glitter of cosmic dust, and a spark in the inky black of forever.  Overall, these are the things that mitigate the terror, and bring joy as well. 

As Douglas Adams famously said:

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Why I am not brave - living with a chronic illness

Bravery is a short term thing.

Bravery is the adrenalin-fueled get-up-and-go, that keeps you moving through a crisis, because you know it's going to be over soon.

When I got sick I was brave.  I faced the tests, and the diagnoses, bravely.

"Surely," I thought "this will all be over soon."  We are used to movies, and stories with a crisis, and a dénouement.  Things reach a peak of emotion, and then there is a resolution.  The brave hero is rescued, or cured, and the crisis is averted, and everyone is allowed to resume their previous life.

Only it never ends.  The illness doesn't end.
You have to keep getting up in the morning, and things don't change.

The adrenalin starts to fade, and the bravery starts to wane, as the realization sets in that there is no end in sight.  Instead of being able to hope for relief, there is the realization that it is life that will have to change, instead of circumstances changing, and permitting life to resume.

Then the grief sets in.  There is a period of shock during which you mourn the death of your previous life, your previous self, your previous existence, and your entire future. 

One morning, you eventually realize that there are only a few options: continue to wallow in grief; end your life; try to build another life within these new limitations.

It is still sad, and there are lots of days in which I mourn my previous life.  Maybe that will change.  I hope so.  There are still lots of days where I struggle with the choice I've made, feel like there isn't much of a future for me, and feel like so much of my life got stolen from my by this illness.

I am doing the best that I can.  I am working to build a life for myself, despite being in pain all the time, and struggling with getting up, and struggling with my day-to-day life.  It's a huge struggle.

It's not brave, though. 

It's the condition of my every day life.