Serrindippity

Listening to radio - Pete Seeger "We shall overcome" and this picture came up on my way to searching for something else...Dorothea Lange takes the breath away sometimes...

credit to www.shorpy.com - a great place to look at high def restored photos that will use up hours before you even know it...

Can't help but think we are heading that way again all too soon - with any luck, we've learned a few lessons since the last time depression struck the world...

Back to the pool

It all started with one ankle swelling up - been to have it shot full of cortisone a couple of times but nothing really changed. Eat ibuprofen and tylenol like candy and it's okay. Then a tendon in one hand kinda gets bumpy...this is called a trigger. So, to the doctor for a referral to a new Rheumatologist cause the one I used to see seems to think a needle full of cortico steroids into whatever offending tendon or joint should be sufficient...$15.00 for the injection please...see ya sometime... Maybe something else should be done... Backgrounder over, fast forward several months - "didn't that referral go through?" she says at the last check-up. "Well, I've seen a Endocrinologist for my defective goiterish freakin thyroid so I figured maybe I was doing enough for the specialists in town already..." On the other hand, my left hand is pretty much useless without an opposable thumb...Fast forward again, 8 weeks from above noted conversation

Having been read the riot act, yet again, this time by a very well paid and extremely educated medical specialist type person - actually, he didn't read it in the usual way, just looked at my chart and said, "well, I'm not going to tell you to lose weight even if it would make a difference with .... mutter mutter.... you already know.... mutter mutter...." So I wait 5 minutes and, to keep the conversation going, ask, if I were to return to a program of physical fitness, would he recommend the gym or pool...mutter mutter, pool...mutter...low impact....best thing...mutter.

Actually he is considered one of the better Rheumatologists in town - or sort of in-town as he comes over here from Vancouver once a month. As I went through a round of blood tests, pee in the bottle and go upstairs for x-rays on just about anything that can flex; I learned from the lab & x-ray techs they always know when Dr. Tenenbaum is in town...The upside from each of them was that I was being put through the wringer by one of the best.

So, back to the pool. First morning I was barely able to make it from one end to the other. This is discouraging because I did used to be able to swim a couple of laps at a time before gasping...Anyway, after a week break, back to it and managed to get 5 laps - not continuous, mind you, but still, a full lap each time and only a brief moment before going for the next one.

It may not sound like victory but it means there is improvement. It also means I got in 7 laps total before everything was hurting. Y'see, the thing about arthritis is you really can't push through the pain. It's there to tell you it's time to stop pushing. You can warm up a bit and it goes away but when it comes back, if you don't pay attention, it's back with a vengeance in a few hours.

When I was 30 or so, it first came on. I was working in a restaurant and not in a position to slack off. Even though I was supposed to be running my shifts, the people working with me were all 19/20 and immortal. Hell, at 28 I figured I was pretty close to immortal myself. Anyway, I found myself asking these young turks to do things like lift the big pots full of water onto the stove for me - or bring in the 50lb sacks of potatoes or onions.

At first there wasn't a real problem but after a couple of weeks I began to notice the looks. So, like who did I think I was to shirk my share of the tote-that-barge aspect of working in the diner trenches? To their eyes I was taking my own sweet time just putting together the daily prep list--here's an experiment for the kids to try at home, put on a pair of leather ski gloves that are 1/2 size too small, pick up a pen and try to write. Then I'd go in the back where no-one could see me and have a good cry.

Anyway, that's when I learned you have to stop, take a moment to rest and if it still hurts, either figure a different way to do it or change the schedule. So I haul my carcass to the pool a couple of times a week now, paddle the barge up and down the lanes a few times. This week I went to one of the drop-in classes "Range of Motion" for us old stiffies. Man, I was the youngest one there - got chatted up by a couple of very old men and a few snotty looks from the old ladies who were probably part of the harem...It will be an interesting time over the next few months...

man the pumps...or something like that

When I was a child, women stayed home. They gave up whatever they were doing and were fulfilled as homemakers. This is what had been done for generations (well, actually, not quite but that requires an comparison of pre and post industrial revolution society, a few paragraphs about the evolution of guilds in the 16th and 17th centuries, the rise of the mercantile class and the growth of the middle class in the 20th century).

TV shows and movies told us this was the way life was and it would make everyone happy. If it didn't make you happy, well, then you just weren't trying hard enough.
I've been meditating on the differences in attitude between then and now. The biggest thing is that nowadays it is permissible - just barely - to admit to being unhappy. There are drugs available that help a lot and the stigma is, while not gone completely, at least at the stage where most people don't want to appear to be insensitive about the issue.

This spring I went through a medical assessment to see if the stew of pills I'm taking to keep me on an even keel are still doing their job or if things can be fiddled with a bit more. What fun.
In the time I spent chatting with the good doctor, it became obvious to me just how much attitudes have changed since I was a child. I'd long known mom struggled with undiagnosed depression because it wasn't something proper people got.

As we talked, I began to see how she was self-medicating with alcohol and at least one other member of her family had prescribed himself a continual rye & ginger drip (mum's favorite was brandy with a bit of warm water starting, usually around lunch just before 'sleepy time'). I never mentioned to him she got a sizeable supply of valium too, under the table, through one of my cousins when he was a drug rep.

I remember being locked out of the house, 6 years old, home from school for lunch and unable to get in. By the time Mom showed up I was panicked, crying and terribly embarrased because I'd had to go to the bathroom when I first got home and couldn't wait anymore - I ended up soaking my leotards and leaving a sizeable puddle on the steps. I still remember her look of irritation; she told me not to fuss so much and said maybe now I'd understand what it was like when I went to a friend's house and didn't tell her where I was.

It's just too weird. I know that's not like all the dramatic material out there about child abuse - the joke in my family is I got one spanking in my life and my sister thinks I'm exaggerating. I mean, is that the worst thing I can dredge up? There wasn't anything really big. But what is normal to a seven year old? I didn't grow up in some one else's house so I have nothing to compare it with.

6 degrees of meme

So, Rob Lee of Unconventional Wisdom blog has seen fit in his eponymous redundancy (yeah, I like big words...what of it...) to tag me with the "6 random things about me" meme.

I feel like Phylis Dyler in a hippie costume on Laugh-In....totally not right for a hip kind of show. Hmmm, I guess the modern equivalent would be for McCain to appear on Saturday Night Live blinged to the tits in a satin track suit performing a gangsta rap about getting repeatedly dusted at the Hanoi Hilton. yo-yo-yo y'all

Anyway, I have been tagged by Rob (may your beans increase) Lee and, after I list the 6 random things about me, I am to link to his blog and then tag six others so that they may do this too and there are some other details - rules to follow.

1. At the age of 53 I have started taking singing lessons.
2. I was born at the same location where my mother was born, in Edmonton. Her mother went to a "lying in" hospital (more like a small hotel with mid-wives included in the room service) located on the same property where, years later, the sprawling Royal Alex was built.
3. I don't like pickles or anything else preserved with vinegar except for sauerkraut.
4. I once cooked lunch for Peter Tosh and his retinue including band and back-up singers.
5. I don't drink but I swim like a fish that does.
6. I am one of probably 3 Canadians over the age of 6 who is unable to play Cribbage. Despite many tries, I can't remember the rules - every time someone tries to teach me it sounds like they're making it up as they go along: "15-2, 15-4, and a queen gives me 6 points - let's see, you have, um 15-2, 15-4 and, oh look, a red jack means you go back 10"...after a few hands I usually throw the cards in the air and yell "FIZZBIN" but no one else gets the Star Trek reference and I'm sent to room until I'm ready to play nice.

At this point I'm supposed to tag 6 people but I don't really know that many folk with blogs/pods AND Rob seems to have already tagged them.... Also, having been through a few years of talk therapy and told repeatedly by qualified professional (could tell she was a good shrink 'cause she was way more neurotic than most of her patients) to never participate in anything resembling a chain letter or I'd blow up in a cloud of tics and insecurities.

But because I've agreed to this thing my overdeveloped sense of obligation insists I tag at least two people. So I here-in-after name firstly someone I'd like to find out more about (and who, being a fellow Catholic, I know he is obliged to forgive me for this trespass...) and secondly the one other person I know hasn't already been tagged...



1. Sean McGaughey, aka the Duct Tape Guy and musician extraordinaire with his For the Sake of the Song podcast and his latest most excellent venture Catholic New Media Roundup.

2. Mark Blaseckie, at his brand new see[sic] blog the technical genius of my life and original resident at Babas Beach (who plays by the rules and thinks I should tag 4 more people but I'll leave him with that challenge...)

And now, the rules that this is played by - suspiciously like Fizzbin, methinks...

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on the blog.
• Write six random things about yourself.
• Tag six people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

you know you're getting old when

Some things just aren't funny any more...It's hard to say that because it echoes what my own mother used to say - talking about the brittle humour and facile jokes at surface appearances. It's happening right now with what is passing for political satire in the states.

Wow, that sounded pretty crotchety, didn't it? Well, unfortunately it is true. What is being satirized currently is little more than the surface issues. McCain is old, Clinton is a woman and Obama is running quickly in the opposite direction from his pastor.

By accepting these simplistic stabs at making fun of political leaders, we don't have to look deeper into issues and the more difficult solutions being called for.

What is the problem with the words spoken by Obama's (former) spiritual advisor? He wasn't saying the bombings of 9-11 were justified, but that perhaps there was a reason beyond one of blind desire to inflict unreasoning terror upon innocent people. It does tie back into the increasing use of guerilla warfare and the involvement of civilian bystanders. Of course no member of a western civilization wants to look at just how many of their civilians are killed by our unthinking actions - either by starvation or violence.

The need here is to examine why Americans have to demonize rather than understand their enemies. The love-it-or-leave-it philosophy leaves absolutely no room for examining constructive criticism and seeking a way to heal the past.

And I like Americans - my sister was born in Seattle, my dad went to the University of Washington and I can remember many summers spent in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and California. Canadians tend to get quite defensive about Americans, offensive actually, when mistaken for Yanks (which happens frequently-we share many similarities) but there are a lot of things we do share with them beyond television shows and blue jeans...but more of that another time.