You talk'n to me?

got the no write blues

out of the dark and into the pink

I had such a dark evening last night as was reflected in my blog, that I decided to put a little cheer in my life today. Here is a rose from my inherited garden. Light, floaty, pink, and peaceful.

part 2: hugs & kisses

docu foto

Just wondering

late card game

Late night pair of deuces.

king of talk

four of musicans

two of paws

ace of roses

The Two of Irises

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzy

I'm really not sure how I can be unemployed and yet still be so busy. Moving is I suppose the big part of it and putting it all away. My new washing machine just arrived. Good thing cause I now have more laundry then I have laundry. Moving it has made it reproduce in quantum. and another Dr. Science question is how can I move from 800 square to 1400 square and have nowhere to put anything. Does anyone remember Dr. Science on NPR?

My dogs love their new digs...Literally. that Lu Mastive/Rottie. With paws bigger than my hands. Already with the black holes the size that a mastiff can disappear in. My bed from Ikea for me to disappear into came in three box's and one was the wrong thing. So I be sleeping on the floor for awhile. One of midnights ups and downs. The mattress is A-Okey so not all stinks at late night rendezvous in the bedroom.

Well its time to go sign so 401 c3 papers for a nonprofit I'm member of. All for the love of dogs and dog parks. Pictures to follow at 5 I'm certain.....

another slice

ain't nothen but a hound dog

tiny bubbles

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/arts/music/15ho.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

tired

I feel like I've been hit by one of these. Moving is such an exhausting thing. I am really thrilled by my new house so it makes it worth it. I'll sleep good tonight.

night into dawn

and so it goes

Kurt Vonnegut, Counterculture’s Novelist, Dies

By DINITIA SMITH
Published: April 12, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.


His death was reported by his wife, the author and photographer Jill Krementz, who said he had been hospitalized after suffering irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.
Mr. Vonnegut wrote plays, essays and short fiction. But it was his novels that became classics of the American counterculture, making him a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and ’70s. Dog-eared paperback copies of his books could be found in the back pockets of blue jeans and in dorm rooms on campuses throughout the United States.
Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well?


the rest of the story

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=obituaries

the chase

dog chases squirrel while outh dog chases her

eat water

Dog goes crazy for water

Tattoo rising out of the ashes of a hysterectomy

Solar cat

don't have anything good to say don't say it at all.
Say What?

discussion

"You can photogragh anything now."
Robert Frank

reflective

getting geared up

Well my new house closes on Friday the 13th. Always had an affinity with that day. Like two negatives make a positive. At least in the world of old math. Who knows in the world of new math what ever that is. The New Math. Could that be quantum theory as opposed to Newtonian Thought? Red shift or blue shift? apples versus oranges?

My significant other is buying me a new stove, fridge, and dishwasher. Good kitchen gear. I get to do the painting of the walls. Its so unreal to me. Like someone else's life and I get to live it. I think I'll grow roses too.

late night

happy pictures

another late nite picture

and it also makes me happy

late nite picture

I just love this picture. It makes me happy

Who'll stop the rain

A little rain in Arizona is a good thing. makes the grass green, helps lessen the the fire danger, cools down the temperature, no static in my hair, my skin doesn't feel like parchment, makes everything smell good. So why is it I start getting depressed when a little wet weather blows thru the area?

I spent 22 years in Oregon and by the time I left I was in such an emotional funk I wasn't sure if I would survive it. I had a great support group, wonderful friends, a thriving buisness, but happeness eluded me. Of course not all was good. I had been diagnosed with Hep-C, and my husband was dying of lung cancer. when the rain would come...

Sort of an uneuphoric recall in my sub-concious feelings. The tendency is to just be depressed. Painfull, unrelenting. But when I take a closer look I can see it isn't just the rain but body recall that sends me down. I can work with at. Visualizing better times when I was younger and rain was a good thing. How that felt to be happy in the rain. Just knowing where the depression comes from helps and that it won't last forever.

Jeez, who would have thought that so much good could come with a bit of rain. A deeper relationshp with inner self that is usually buried to deep to touch. Today I can pick it apart as it surfaces, because I sick and tired of suffering. Today I have surrendered to the rain and became willing to brave the storm of emotions it evokes then trust the process that I won't, what, die? Guess it really isn't about drugs anymore.

Me ME me

I officially made the liver transplant list. My meld is only 11 so that gives me plenty of time to gear up for the big event. The alpha-fetoprotein does appear to be low but if that number jumps they would test for liver cancer and if liver cancer and it isn't to big, I would get a liver much sooner. Hope not though. I want to keep this liver as long as I can.

I thought I might put a picture up of a liver that looks like mine but decided to spare everyone as it probably only interesting to me. Really its a bit gross. Really its alot gross. What was I thinking. I'm glad I've gained a bit of impulse control today and I'm sure anyone how reads this is too. I must have done a bit of damage to the frontal lobes back in the day especially considering back in the day started when I was 13 long before I had a relationship with impulse control.

Today I send my life doing things to put back into life that which I had depleted. Its a work in progress and I may need many lifetimes to accomplish the ideal. Sometimes I find myself in the mist of another self serving debacle. Especially when my frontal lobes are snoozing with the "me me me" child up and running amok. Somewhere a little voice says "think it thru". The voice sounds quite reminiscent of my first sponsor.

Even this post seems a bit on the edge of to much information but who knows. The act of sharing of myself is what has kept me clean over the years. I've shared infinitely more and then this. And then there are times I just sit in quite reflection hearing the beat of the universe. Today the picture is on of rebirth. It is a little tree poking its head up where there had been a fire last year. I'm sure metaphors abound. Today is not my day to pick them out.

hAAlf nAAked Thursday: It must be Thusday somewhere

hAAlf nAAked Thursday: It must be Thusday somewhere

Some of my friends are made of stone

Slice of life

As I lay here on the couch surfing away and thinking about a possible move next month, my eyes are surfing all my belongings. Namely the book shelves. So many books so little time. And I haven't even read half of what is on the shelves(not to mention all the ones I have not unpacked since I moved to AZ).

Whats up with that? And I can't pass a B&N without buying another jewel for my collection. And my Ipod is stuffed, 30 gigs with very little music, missed episodes of Dirt, AND books on mp3. I fact I am currently on the Audible.com website anticipating the next great find. My wish list at amazon is chauk full tasty books I have lusted at in the past but couldn't justifying forking out the funds.

I know this far surpasses my obsessive - compulsive personality or my need to KNOW or even a desire to escape my present relative condition. It goes deep, deep, deep. Like the nautilus of the subconscious laying at the bottom of primordial oooos.

First memory's of books - my mother reading to me for hours while my grumpy father was at work. Bliss! warm, cosy, rocking on my mothers lap with the sun streaming in the window warming my little soul. Or me reading the books I new by heart and the new books I invented i with the special language of three year olds.

As I got older it was a red letter day when I was given permission to walk uptown with my allowance to by a Nancy Drew and have lunch at Kreskies. The smell of a new book was so exquisite in my 8 year old brain. I could spend hours touching, feeling, smelling the new books on the shelves. As my young life was riddled with socially uncomfortable moments, bookshopping was a time I cherished to the max.

Latter on in my LA Daze, I found a bookstore on Fairfax that sold books and SHOES. Nirvana -almost as good as dope. Fancy me toting a new book and stylin' down the street in my new Mootzie Tootzes. Some of the books on my shelf at this moment are from that store. Can't say as much for the shoes that seemed to have the shelf life of style.

Many years later when I got my first computer( it had Quattro Pro) I entered the disarray of my finances into the program and found I spent more on reading material than I did on every thing else put together. OOOOO Yikes says I hope they don't repo my books in the bankruptcy. Anything but the books.

but I think what really puzzles me the most is how did I manage to shlep all those books around with me for all these years. From state to state and back. Often times my only form of transportation was my thumb. i still have my original copy of the Lord of the Rings when it first came out. I remember reading it on many an on ramp back in the day.

Ah yes. but what is life really. Just another book that hasn't been written yet.

The Sniff

Sometimes your the windshield and sometimes your the Bug

Sounds like a loosing prospect all the way around. Went to small claims court last Wednesday and got the results of the case in the mail yesterday. Ziltch, Zippo, Nill. Oh well, I really saved a nice dogs life. Made a promise as he layed there close to death that I would do everything I could to make him well. So thats on me. And I always have to remember I usually get what I pay for. Next time I'll choose a vet that cares. Not the neuter clinic in a van where I have no relationship with the vet.

Went to my Hep-C support group last night and I was about Hep-C and Ayurveda. What great stuff. How to balance Pitta(fire) which is what happens when the liver goes south. Avoid the usual suspects; alcohol,cigarettes, drugs, chemicals, ect... but what was interesting was foods to avoid; Tofu, pickles, tomatoes... to much acidity heats up the already to firey liver. Tumeric, cardomon, celantro, mint, all cooling.

And I still am not sure if I'm on the liver transplant list. At my last Drs visit he said I was but then I was called for onr more blood test so they "would have the most current info to send to my insurance company. Geez if it isn't one thing its another. Well like my friend said on her blog, "Just like winter, when I'm feeling defeated or depressed, spring is usually right around the corner if I can just hang on."

http://www.twodogsbarking.blogspot.com/ check it out. recovery orientated based on 12 step programs.

and of course I nee to find a pic. Something else I am invoved in is getting a dogpark in our communitee and this is a picture of Pete getting sniffed up by one of the cute girls. Aren't dogs funny? Weelll maybe another post might be in order cause add image isn't working right now

until next time

Going to the Dr.

The road ahead has few signposts and many choices. There has been some that have traveled it before me. Some have lived and some have died. All have left their mark on my heart. Most were strong in conviction and determined to make the best of the situation. I hope to join Champions of life as I do my best to make do with what I have, always knowing it is way more then I deserve.
I have partners to buoy me up when it gets rocky; my medical team, my family, my boyfriend, my friends. All but my medical are new to this and they certainly have trepidations about all this. I have been where they are now and can sympathize. Sometimes I set my expectations to high for them as well as myself and then the world seems to implode around me. I search for that power greater than myself to latch onto and know all will be exactly the way it is supposed to be and that I can accept.
I’ll let Pete the dog be my guide and watch the road up ahead. He’s good at that and it’s his job. Always vigilant and aware. Not much gets by him that sweet little Pete.
I go to the liver Dr. tomorrow and maybe I will find out if I will get on the transplant list. Tuesday I go to court about Pete.

The ongoig saga of Pete the dog

Well the time has come to take Dr. Scott Brucchieri to court on the botched neuter he did on Pete. It almost Petey's demise and cost me over $900.00 to save him. For all the details on that read my post on April 26, 2006. http://thefirstchakra.blogspot.com/2006/04/my-dog-pete.html. A person contacted me from a spay neuter clinic in Tucson and said he reeked enough havoc in her clinic the State Board of Veterinary Medicine saw fit to fine him $500.00. They only fined him $500.00 for the improprieties in the handling of Pete.

Its fine with me that that state is able to make money on cases like this. With out the ability to oversee the quality of our Veternary Medicine I'm sure cases like this would be rampent. But none of that money comes back to the pet owner. So I have to pursue a case on my behalf in civil court. That ought to be an interesting experiance that I'm really not looking forward to.

icky flu gunga crap

Have mounds of paperwork before me that MUST be done pronto or my fiscally sound life will become just a memory. I've been sick for almost 3 weeks and have really fallen behind. I made phone calls to all $ recipients and explained. As I have not the ability to work right now my phone calls are rather weak. At this moment I just have to laugh. I know it will all work out but boy sometimes life on the tightrope gets pretty spooky.

Here are some beautiful greyhound friends of mine. One of them thinks its race time every time the dryer buzzer goes off. They are rescue dogs and have some very interesting behaviors but but they are now being loved and nurtured and hopefully their old lives will become just a memory and they will be able to smile at life's abundance.

Sister thoughts

My Sister arrived on the jetplane--nary a glitch. Dinner at 16th and Betheny Home-- exquisite.
All the time talk talk talk like it hadn' been ever so long. Hope to get one of her Christmas poems soon!!!!!! I gave her almost the last of the family trinkets... God knows what could happen in the next 4 years. Here kids will like them. I always was fasinated by these , never really understood what all the whoopla was about but boy o boy did I love the whoopla.

Then we did malls, Drs visit, more malls, franchise school of where she works, more food, moreshoping, and then poof she was off in that jetplane. missing her i cry for the years I touted as fun and prerogative that I missed out on so much of relationship with her.

Time is such a trickster I need a few more lifetimes for all the time I missed.

Goodnight little Sister

Spirit

Here is a quite lovely website sent to me by one of my bet friends. It is spiritual and what better a day then christmas for it to arrive. I signed up for the rest of it that come by e-mail for the next 12 days for a bit of personal meditation. Tell me what you think.

xoxoxoxoxo

http://www.theinnerchristmasmovie.com/

family

Well I'm off to Phoenix to spend a couple of days with my sister who is flying in from Minneapolis. Then Friday its of to the liver Doctor to see if I'm well enough to get on the transplant list. I'm pretty excited to spend time with my sister as we have never done that since we were children. Always with husbands, mothers, kids, boyfriends, etc.

I'm trying to remember money isn't the point. We grew up always wanting more. Seems like I never had enough stuff. I don't know about my sister but my thinking for many years has been based on how much I have.

I'm also giving my sister all the family treasures I have. Not many really because I spent so many years as the black dope fiend relative that would sell anything. It's taken many years to regain the trust off my family even though I never really sold any heirlooms and have been lugging there burden on for years.

and what would a blog of mine be without a pic. let me find one.





I'm finding that there is somthing else, an inside thing that I need to work on. Actually I Had a twinkling of the greater about 21 years ago but the work in prosess is finally stating to solidofiy

Tired

geez its been almost 2 weeks since I've put anything on this blog. i'm just so tired. My friend died a few nites ago. He had been in a chair since he was 18. Sure wish him a dance with me where ever we end up. Guess there where no livers available on the 28th.

My sister is flying in for my next DR appointment. It will be great to see her. hope I hav some money by then.Any Body wanna by chakra necklace?

Dog blessings

Angel Dog takes a snooze

I'm not really sure when I started leting dogs sleep on my furniture. One day I just noticed how cute Pete looked all curled up inthat chair so I took a picture. Seems like they have just always been there.

blue

Its a blue day
for a blue tree
not worth ferreting out the reason
it just is
I like the blues
I where them well
such camaraderie
I have with the blues

A child said, What is the grass?
by Walt Whitman
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.

out of left field

happy

I'm filled with joy
when the day dawns quietly
over the roof of the sky.

Life was wonderful
in winter.
But did winter make me happy?
No, I always worried
about hides for boot-soles
and for boots;
and if there'd be enough
for all of us.
Yes, I worried constantly.

Life was wonderful
in summer.
but did summer make me happy?
No, I always worried
about reindeer skins and rugs for the platform.
Yes, I worried constantly.

Life was wonderful
when you stood at your fishing-hole
on the ice.
But was I happy waiting at my fishing hole?

No, I was always worried
for my little hook,
in case it never got a bite.
Yes, I worried constantly.

Life was wonderful
when you danced in the feasting-house.
But did this make me any happeir?
No, I always worried
I'd forget my song.
Yes, I worried constantly.

Life was wonderful...
And I still feel joy
each time the day-break
whitens the dark-break
whitens the dark sky
each
time the sun
climbs over the roof of the sky.

ESKIMO SONG

more of my cactus garden

The Dalai Lama says " Children who have grown up lacking a positive atmosphere usually have more negative attitudes. This very clearly shows the basic human nature. Also, as I have mentioned, the human body appreciates peace of mind. Things that are disturbing to us have a very bad effect upon our health. This shows that the whole stucture of our health is such that it is suited to an atmosphere of human affection. Therefore , our potential for compassion is there. The only issue is whether or not we realize this and utilize it."

I think of the 18 year old girl who was stabbed 50 times by her drugged out boyfriend who then OD'ed on pills and is in a coma. Did he grow up lacking a positive atmosphere? Was he only looking for peace of mind? I think of the daugher I put up for adoption at birth and now that she was in a much more positive situation then the one I was able to provide for her. Having met her a number of years ago I know that to be a fact.

In the years of her childhood I was much to self-absorbed to being devoted to a beautiful daughter. And how lucky is that child for had I been just a little less self-absorbed I my have been deluded enough to believe I could raise my child in an atmosphere of self delusion. I had very little potential compassion. I had affection mixed up with sex. In my attempt of being a part of the big picture I had chosen the counter culture movment and ended up just being, with my predispostion toward addiction , an angry, violent, person incapable of loving or being loved.

Today I try hard to have commpassion for that boy in a comma, that robbed the little girl and her family of the chance to experience life without drugs. They say the cholla cactus shoots its stickers at people how walk by. But the truth is one actually has to reach out and touch them before they burrow into the skin. And they are aluring. They look soft and touchable. An understanding of this is nessasary and important to not get hooked. And a desire to not be hooked ; commpassion for ones self?

A bit pricckly these days

So what else but another cactus. I guess have to wait for the the frosty leaves for next year or maybe I'll search out some of last years fotos and rework them with all this new found time I have. The Doc said stay home at least until after December.

There are days when it is such a relief to not get up and I can't even imagine how I ever got anything done and then their are days that I feel soooo....???? guilty !!!! that I'm not out there busting my butt for at almighty dollar.

And now I'm among the ranks of the poor. 23 years ago when I first realized I was able to not only support myself I also had $ to spend. At first I felt ashamed that I had so much more than so many people in the world. My dear friend Crystal ( who I admired as being a socially concerned person, always working on a cause), said if you have any money left over after taxes you can donate it someware. I will help you.

Well..... I've donated a lot of time to the cause du juor but there never seems to be any money left over. And now there is just no money. ooooooo such a spoiled girl I have been. well heres the cactus of hope I hope.

Mona Lisa Pete

when all the tomarrows start wishing for yesterdays

The new important number in my life is my MELD score; just thirteen, but with the alpha fetoprotein floating around in my own personal solar system I just might make the transplant list a little sooner.

I don't know if it is good or bad, it just is. And its really gonna be the adventure of my life. The rest of them were just practice for the next chunk and it’s all unfolding exactly the way it is unfolding.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to Flagstaff and take pictures of the leaves turning; the aspen quaking and what have you.

Lost Dog finds way home

You read about it in the gossip rags at the check-out in the grocery store novels are written about them but dogs that find their way home always seemed like maybe a little stretch of the truth. I've found lost dogs... mine and others. In fact Pete is a found dog (found by me) that never found the people that lost (abandoned?) him. He was just a little quivering mass of bones, fur and fear facing a close brush with becoming road pizza a few blocks from my house. I brought him home to keep him safe until his people came to claim him. And he's never left. After losing my ever so precious Dog of Dogs it just seemed to make sense that Sweet Pete should stick around. http://thefirstchakra.blogspot.com/2006/04/my-dog-pete.html

So you can imagine how I felt yesterday when I lost him while I was at the Tire place and Petes leash got caught in a metal chair and he got freaked out and metal chair and all headed straight for the busiest intersection in the area, a junction of to major highways. He finally slipped his collar and seem to vanish into thin air at Taco Bell.

I searched from 3pm till 9:30pm and was up searching again at 6am. I called the Animal Control, Humaine Society, Police, radio stations and posted flyers. I talked with anyone in the area that would listen, Enlisted the help of my boyfriend, my girlfriend and her boyfriend.....

And he showed up this morning around 8:30 am hungry, tired, and full of burrs. Three miles (or maybe more depending on the route) he showed up at my front door. What a guy.

the big picture

more cactus

these guys must be aliens of some sort. From pluto the rock no doubt.

Well it must be the end of the garden scene here in AZ. Or at least it is at our house as Porky Pete broke in and ate all the veggies……. Accept for the zucchini. Guess he isn’t a fan. He even ate the peppers. And then his partner in crime aka Large Luther went in and pillaged rooted and took a Mastive size dump. Next year we will have a stronger defense system.