Sum of all parts

The Shape of Things to Come

2009-06-14T23:36:00.000-07:00

I am in awe. Completely, and unforgettably in awe. You see, we live in a time when there is something miraculous every day of the week, even faster. We have our heads filled with so many new things, new technology, new gizmos, new ideas that it becomes next to impossible to remember it all.

But somehow we do manage, because it becomes urgent at some point to keep up the pace, and accept the changes as philosophically as we can.

I wonder....what people would have thought a hundred years ago if even a minute portion of what we take for granted today was present then.

Jack the Ripper--foiled through forensic science;
The miracle of space flight in a time dominated by dirigibles and hot air ballooning;
Deep sea divers--more real than the stories of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne;
Instantaneous communication across the world, regardless of your original location;
Digital photography, quicker, easier and less bogged down with camera equipment;
Modern medicine--a doctor back then would have scoffed at heart transplants, operating rooms, sterile conditions;
Personal computers--whoa: that one will cause the "vapors" in anyone!

I have in my iGoogle page a gadget for looking at webcams around the world. Many of the images seem to emanate from Europe, and seeing as it's night here, it's only natural to remember that most of Europe is also dark for the same reason. And then a brightly lit-up image is sent from Italy--an image that appears to be of traffic. Marina di Torre Vado in Puglia--Torre Vado, Italy is certainly not dark!

And then it strikes me, as it has done so for quite a few years now, that the world is never far away anymore. How in times gone by, letters and packaging, and other very slow forms of communications could delay "news" for months and more. How even the most patient person could go stark raving mad without hearing from someone.

We have grown accustomed to the frenzy of lives in the beginning of the new millennia. We have, sometimes, become slaves to the newest technologies, but only until we have mastered them. And mastering them means having enough knowledge to understand their basic design, and implementing that knowledge. I'm old enough to remember the absolute fear that computers wrought in the middle of the 20th century: how people were going to lose their jobs to computers, how computers could and world replace people in every facet of their lives, and how non-personal life was going to get. But it didn't happen. People instead found the opposite true--with microchips, the computers didn't need to fill a whole room, or weigh a ton. Instead, computers became personal, and became assets for both work and home computing, and brought people from all over the world together in ways that still can cause jaws to drop and realize all over again that we live in an amazing world.

What will it be like a hundred years from now? Do we even dare to consider how far ahead we will be by then? Someone I knew once said that we are progressing exponentially in technology--every twenty-five years, our knowledge doubles, he said. And I have to give him that, because even though he's not with us here now, he would likely have just nodded and smiled.

an open letter to adoptees and adoptive parents

2009-05-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

I don't know where exactly to start. It's one of those topics which make people shift uncomfortably in their chairs, and while it's not illegal or immoral, it evokes very strong images and feelings in many people.

Let me therefore start with myself. I was adopted when I was a baby--the actual adoption happened when I was about a year and a half old, with me going to the adoptive parents when I was just nine days old. The biological mother, however, remained in my life, as she had given me to her brother--my uncle--and his wife to raise. So I knew my biological mother as my aunt throughout my life. Seeing that it was an open adoption, there were no secrets involved--at least not at the time it happened.

This is the hard part though--it wasn't until I was 18 before my mom tried to tell me about it. That was a stressful situation, and made even more stressful by the fact that I had known since I was 11 that I had been adopted. No one knew, though, that I was well aware of my status--I'd kept that from everyone for over 6 years. And as far as life changing event in one's life, this one is/was a doozy. Imagine having such a secret throughout the most tumultuous years of one's life, and it is easy to see how my life was significantly changed as a result.

Did I have my father's eyes, his smarts, her bad habits? Did I inherit the tendency for being overweight, for my love of animals, the streak of independence I possessed? My biological mother was an alcoholic, a smoker, a sex addict and had heart disease. I vowed as I went through my teen years that I would never be like her--the thought of doing so frightened me significantly. But while I never smoked, drank that much or even had much sex, I found there were some things I could not shake, as I inherited heart problems relatively young, even having a heart attack at the age of 43.

Well, now you've heard my story, and it's now time for me to address the reason for this post. If you are an adoptive parent, please do your children a big, big favor--tell your child the truth. Don't hide it from them, and certainly don't wait until they're almost an adult before owning up to the fact that there is a set of biological parents out there somewhere. Don't make them feel like they're second class citizens, either, for being adopted. And certainly, NEVER use their adopted heritage as any kind of punishment, even in the worst of arguments.

During the years in which I was aware of the truth, but kept it a secret, I often viewed myself as the scum of the earth, a child so hated that someone "threw me away" rather than keep me and raise me. As an adult, I know that is ludicrous, but a child doesn't know and certainly doesn't understand. Imagine feeling so unwanted that you question your worth, and come up wanting. Imagine that you look in people's faces on the street, wondering if you look enough like some man that you think he might be your biological father? I grew up looking at my biological mother quite often, but after finding out the truth, I was repulsed by her hypocrisy.

It's a fair assumption that a lot of adoptees feel like this, but usually, they have the support of their family when nagging questions arise, and indeed, most adoptees never find out who their biological parents really are. As I had stumbled on the truth and felt I couldn't tell anyone, both options were out to me. I always thought I wasn't achieving a lot in high school because I was too lazy, but there is a part of me that says I was, in fact, traumatized. Okay, so now there are some who believe that I should have picked myself up and moved forward. That's fine; but how many out there were 11 years old when they found out something similar, and who could move on from there without any problems? You can't just go on. If you talk with someone about it, you might be able to recover faster, but when it happened to me, there was no one for me to talk with.

I sit here now, wishing I could go back in time to hug my younger self and say that it's okay, and things will work out in the end, and to give her hugs and kisses, and promise that they will have a better life. I can't obviously, and obviously, no one did. It has altered my life, though, and in some ways extremely negatively. I rarely dated, rarely trusted anyone enough to trust them with who I really was, and if fact, while I had many good friends, I rarely had any close friends. Even now, I don't carry a lot of trust for anyone I don't know very well.

Still I try to keep going. At my recent birthday, when I turned 53, I reviewed my life and realized how much I'd lost simply because I had no support group to help me move beyond the shattering things I lived with for so long.

To other adoptees, was it any better for you? Or am I part of a eclectic group who faced similar doubts and fears with their revelations? How did others cope with this kind of dilemma? It might not be too late for me to learn something and apply it to my life, just when I need to feel that life isn't as unkind as I believed it be so long ago.

Jean-Luc: February 1994-February 2009

2009-02-12T10:50:00.000-08:00

I lost Jean-Luc a little over two weeks ago. My big hearted and vocal fur-child died just hours after I brought him to the vet. I kind of knew it would happen--I knew as I held his body and patted his head, and wondered just why his health deteriorated so quickly from my "bubba" to an emaciated and unresponsive creature within the space of a week.

JL loved for me to rub his fuzzy tummy, and he would put his front paw over his ear while I did so. He was never one to let me hold him, but he loved me without a doubt.

oliver had developed an upper respiratory infection which healed with no trouble, and then JL had it. But no one, especially myself, could predict the outcome with him: perhaps a condition brewed just under the radar with him--the combination was just too much for him to handle. And so I lost Jean-Luc, with nothing left in me this time to console me.

Garibaldi in June, Jean-Luc just seven months later. I am finding it too much to handle, with my fur-kids, like dominoes falling, one at a time, with me hopelessly watching as they leave me. And now there are two. The little one, Delenn, last of those I brought home with me, now 14, and Oliver, at about 6--there is just such resignation in me to be on the verge of giving up, just so I don't need to see any more of them die before me. The pain and grief are terrible, and I just want to not feel this aching anymore.

One of the problems I have is that I love too much, too deeply, and can't just let go, even though I should. I also fear the reality that my mom is as close to death as well, and know I face the reality that she, too, will leave me soon.

I haven't got the religious faith to see me through, and there is a bleakness in front of me that watches as everyone I love and care for topples and dies. I've cried myself out, and I look at a tomorrow rife with sadness and lack of love--where do I go if there is nothing in front of me?

Too much death, too much abandonment, too much fear and sadness. I can only move forward a day at a time. Make no plans for the uncertain days ahead--there is no sense in long-term goals or dreams. I'm reminded every day of my own--and others'--mortality.

I get so tired of life, so very tired. And yet I move on, eyes glazed over, stunned at the devastation and looking for a way around it. But it does no good--we live and we die, and it becomes a race to see if we can outlive it all. I take no joy or consolation in reaching the finish line, because everyone I love is gone before the end of the line.

I have memories of course, but memories can't be physically held, or loved, or cared for, and in that end, there is nothing quite so tenuous to hold fast as a memory, half forgotten and half lost in time.

If there is any justice, my own world will close before I see any more death, feel regret, or know unending pain again.

My mom

2009-02-12T01:27:00.000-08:00

taught me a lot of what I know, and I will give you some highlights about growing up with her.

1. Authority figures, but mostly police: Don't trust them--in fact, call them swear words when they're not looking. This is true--my mom doesn't have a lot of patience wirh police.

2. Unmarried adults: "Shack up with them for a couple of years to see what living with them is like, and go from there."

3. Get a lot of experience in different skills, so you will always have something to fall back on. And if the company has three shifts, choose graveyard because you don't have as many distractions.

4. Be your own person. Don't count on others if you can handle something, go it alone. Then there is no one but yourself to blame, regardless of the outcome.

5. Don't take the first job you are offered. You might look at it as good luck, but the truth is, they're low-balling you right out of the gate. Unless you are starving, such offers could stand some negotiation.

6. Get fees for some services or under the table pay upfront if possible. Never be afraid to say something if you feel uneasy with a current situation.

7. Ask for an estimate for repairs or such and make them stick to their estimates.

8. The wife or mother has full control in all domestic scenarios. Husbands or fathers will only blow the wad if they had it.

9. Go out on Friday nights, It doesn't matter where, just that you break up the monotony at home.

10. Travel. It's great to go someplace new, and if you plan it right, you will have a lot of fun. Why stay at a huge hotel, when it's more fun to stay at a B&B or a pension instead--and cheaper, usually. You won't meet locals if you're bound for that expensive hotel with too many gauche Americans--if you can, grab a room near the bathroom at least!

11. Live without hesitation, but pick your future with caution. Live without interfering with others snd their agenda, just as you hope they will do the same for you.

12. Love--if you have an abundance of it, give some to everyone; if you don't have a lot, give others what you do have. You'll get it back, threefold. And just as important, receive love as well. Everyone can love and be loved, but you need to know when the time comes to share it.

That should do it. :)

How Weird Is That?

2008-12-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

Ever ask yourself that question as some coincidence crosses your path, and you just find something very difficult to believe is little more than such a coincidence?

I frequent the Internet Movie DataBase quite a lot. As someone who was involved with the entertainment industry, it has proved its worth to me time and time again, and I have been quite happy to have such a reference available.

I was over at IMDB this evening looking up on one of my favorite guys, William Gaunt, and accessing the new IMDB Pro, a premium area that I just recently joined. The new area includes the titles available on DVD that are for purchasing, and I was making notes of what I could buy. One of the titles was called "La Femme Musketeer" and I looked it up, and it mentioned the director was this stuntman turned director named Steve Boyum.

Flash ahead about 1/2 hour later, and I'm getting ready to watch the episode of Numb3rs which was on this past Friday. I am watching it as the credits go by, and usually the last credit before the credits go off is the Directed By credit, and my jaw drops lower than the floor when I see "Directed By Steve Boyum"! Okay, I've never seen this guy's name before, at least not consciously, and even if I had, what are the chances that I should see his name twice, on different projects just minutes in between?

Another time something like this happened, Steve and I were in the car, and I was telling him about this new book I'm reading, and how the bad guy is someone named Dr. John Dee. It's a fantasy trilogy about Nicholas Flamel and his antagonist, John Dee. Well, just minutes later, we go by a street named, I kid you not, John Dee Road! This had been the first time I ever mentioned the series to Steve, as I was reading the first book in the series at that time.

It could be read as a mere coincidence, or serendipity, but heck, I'd understand if it happened days, or ever hours apart, but not in those contexts, not in the way these kinds of things present themselves!

Anyhow, I'm flabbergasted, and have decided that something, somewhere exists that makes these kinds of events happen for some reason, though what that reason is, I can't even begin to understand.

I'm ready to commit felinicide!

2008-12-11T19:30:00.000-08:00

To the uninitiated, which is just about everyone, since I think I made up that word, that means one of my cats is about ready to die a horrible death!! :D

Oliver and I have had a lot of disagreements about what is and isn't permissible in my household. It's one of those many trials that all people owned by cats must go through, simply because they can wait us out almost every time. Or perhaps it's just that after awhile, admitting that you had a staring contest, or other test of will against a cat, with them, and they won, is sort of like talking about fight club.

Oliver, for instance, wants to be let out. He has escaped a couple of times, but I was appeasing him for awhile by letting him go down the back steps, but that ended when my neighbor let him into his place for a few moments, and Oliver returned with the worst kind of uninvited guests--fleas. Since then, I've been battling those little bastards non-stop, with all three of the "youngsters" and myself having allergic reactions to them. As a result of the resolution of THAT argument, Oliver has been content (yeah, right) to "sniffing" outside air through one of the bedroom windows, where a small hole was created next to the air conditioner in the window. He takes deep breaths from this hole, I'm sure partially to elicit a big "Awwww" from me, feeling sorry for him that he can't go outdoors.

Well, that hole in the window has become the next Waterloo. It's already gotten quite cold around here, and I have had to cover the windows in the bedroom with plastic, to try to keep myself from being too cold, and to help to keep the oil heating bill to a level where I can still heat the house over the winter, and eat. Well. Oliver discovered that shredding plastic is something he does quite well. The area of the plastic over his "air hole" was almost immediate! And then he widened the hole. And then I got cold again, and fought back, taking a piece of heavier plastic in the form of a trash bag and covered the hole in the original plastic, and denying Oliver his precious cold air in the process.

Well, Oliver got back at me, and decided to try a different tact. He shredded the plastic on the OTHER window instead, and now I have to go and put more plastic over that hole, and I can't use the trash bags to cover that hole, because it's the only other source of light that comes into the bedroom. So I have to go with the sheer plastic again, and our battle will likely be continued over the next couple of days until he decides that I have more resources than he does to combat the situation and he gives up.

I know it's not entirely fair, but I'm the human here! Oliver will (hopefully) give up and we can all spend our fierce winter in relative comfort, or at least not wishing we were dead in the middle of a blizzard with temperatures at 20 below zero. Come spring, I might be able to accommodate his wildness by setting up the wire cage on the very small outdoor porch and letting him stay out there for part of the day. But that is still (than goodness!) about 5 months away, and I don't have to think about it until then.

But I'm telling you--any more shredded window plastic, and I might as well strangle him if I get any colder!

Kitties once more

2008-10-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

Or how to spend a portion of a long drive preoccupied with a cat.

I went with my friend Steve on Monday on a two hour plus drive into New Hampshire. We also had to traverse a part of Vermont in order to get to the location in New Hampshire, on the west side of the state. The major route north is route 91, which is a nice drive, especially at this time of the year.

We made it to our destination easily enough (Dartmouth College) and he made the drop-off, and we started to head back home.

As the passenger, I got to look around more. We'd seen a lot of roadkill on the way up to NH, and it wasn't any different on the way home--foxes, possums, squirrels--it's always an unpleasant reminder that cars and wild animals don't mix very well. So imagine my surprise at one point, when, glancing into the ditch that runs parallel to the highway, I saw a cat. This cat wasn't really a full grown cat--as someone who has long been owned by the feline species I answer with some authority--it looked more like a 6-9 month old, with its slenderness and long, gangly legs. I think it was probably a male, only because it was white with orange, tabby spots. I yelled to Steve that this kitten-cat was there and alive, but we were too far from the location to stop. I called the 911 operator, and told them about it, and they said they would keep an eye out for it. But then Steve did an amazing thing. He got off at the next exit, and went back on the highway north, to see if we could rescue the kitten.

Alas, kitty was gone. We finally figured out that there was some hint of civilization behind the wooded area next to the highway, and kitty wasn't so lost and abandoned after all. At least he wasn't spread all over the highway, as so many other animals were that day.

We finally got home late, but at least I didn't worry about the kitty anymore--I can only hope that he got home without any mishaps.

Just in case anyone was wondering....

2008-10-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

Purraghlas is one of the Scottish gaelic words for "cat." See? You learned something new. :)

Garibaldi

2008-10-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

Garibaldi was my tough bub. He was huge--at about 20 lbs, he probably had enough Maine Coon in him to make him look like a purebred. But poor darling Garibaldi was dumb. As dumb as one could possibly be.

He was always trying to play at being the alpha cat, but Dax (in the early days) and Jean-Luc (more recently) made sure he never got there. He was mercilessly whupped at every attempt that he made.

I would often yell at him, because I thought he was faking being dumb. But alas, in retrospect, I realise no one could be that stupid on purpose.

Sadly, even big bubbas get sick. Garibaldi ended up with diabetes, and I couldn't afford to get him to the vet. I have insulin of my own for my diabetes, and I thought to treat him on my own. Unfortunately, I was completely ignorant of doses and on the various kinds of insulin, and I gave him a dose which was way too much, and it lead to him having seizures and hypoglycemia.

The day before he died, I spent the whole day trying to bring his levels up, but in the end, the seizures and hypoglycemia claimed him, and he died on the pillow next to me about 4:00 in the morning.

RIP, my gentle giant.

Sleepy

2008-10-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

People should read medicine labels. It's sort of important to know if a medication is going to put you to sleep during the daytime when you can't afford to be fatigued. I've been ready to call it quits at least a dozen times today, wanting to find a quiet spot and fall asleep.

I guess I'll have to find another allergy medication which doesn't make me so sleepy. It's one of those situations where you have a choice between scratching your face off from the irritation and itch or falling asleep at the drop of a hat. Interesting choice. I'll have to think about it.

TTFN

Jessica MacGyver

2008-10-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

Meet Jessica. Jessie is gone now, at the age of 15, from diabetes and kidney disease.

Even when she was a kitten, I knew Jessie would break my heart. And she did. And there have been so many others I've seen passing away, with me helpless to do anything. It's one of the curses of being longer lived than our animal companions.

The old ladies, Sandi, Alyn and Piccolo were the first, really. Then there was Alex, and Jennifer, and Harry O, and Starsky and other small kittens. And since Alan, Sandi and Piccolo's deaths, there has been Dax, Kira, Amanda, Jessie, and Garibaldi.

There are now only three. Delenn, Jean-Luc and Oliver remain, with Jean-Luc being the senior, and losing weight. At 14, that's a pitfall that age carries, and I know now that I can't afford a kidney transplant for him. but I will try like hell to do what I can afford to do.

Gotta go--talk later.

Back to square one!

2008-10-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

I'm terrible at keeping up journals or anything like that, so I won't expect myself to post every single day. I tried that fairly recently elsewhere, and couldn't get through more than a week of it, so that's why I'm not going to be a real stickler for routine or making the effort to get through a post every day. I'll write when I have the desire to do so, and I'm not going to tie myself down to one particular area of discussion--this is how the last one died, trying to write about the same subject all the time. I have many areas of interest, and this blog will reflect that: television and films, writing, politics, animals, health, science, evolution, religious extremism, fears, graphics programs and producing images, and a whole lot more.

If you are here reading this, I thank you--it's nice to have a real person reading, and I hope there are a lot more of you to come. I don't want to offend anyone too badly with some of my opinions, but I have strong opinions on some topics and I will probably be discussing those things at some time.

Anyhow, this is #1. Written while being stared at by a 5 year old, long-haired, wide-eyed kitty named Oliver. Oliver likes to bother me when I'm typing--I'm sure he knows the computer is a rival for my attention, so he tends to bug me when I need writing time the most. Ollie is one of the three kits I currently have, and I will likely at some time get maudlin over those who are gone, so I'm forewarning you that I might make you cry at some point over lost companions and angel whiskers.

TTFN