My Craft

catching grasshoppers

Pete finding a little ray of hope

It's my lucky day. My liver Dr. said I will be able to do interferon again. the first time I did it was two years ago, I had to work the whole time because I was single and had to pay cobra prices for the ordeal. I felt lucky I even could do it. I was clear of the virus after 3 months of treatment and was feeling pretty good. But my white cell count kept plummeting. They put me on a drug called neupogen that made me feel BAD. I had to take pain meds when I went to work or I never would have made it. Usually I only had to take the neupogen a couple of times a month and then only one or two shots consecutively.

But at 10 and 1/2 months I was instructed to do three shots. I got sooooo sick. Couldn't keep anything down or in. Had to crawl to the bathroom, ect... this lasted a week. And the Doctor took me off everything. And I still had no virus. After about a month I started to feel good. Really good. And at six months better then I felt in years. And I did an other test for the virus detection. IT WAS BACK. And now for the last two years it has been eating away at my liver. That Dr said I was no longer a candidate for treatment.

So I played the waiting game.. when would I need a transplant. What would be the signs. Should I enroll or something. I no longer had insurance as the company I worked for cut insurance benefits for all their massage therapists, nail tecs, hairdressers, and estheticians. I couldn't even buy insurance. I would have to marry into it:+{.

Then I met a woman who had been thru the ordeal. She told me about a Dr. in Phoenix that had a good reputation but was had to get in to see. She was a wonderful mentor in the next phase on my journey. She gave me hope. And has always been there when I'm down. Just a phone call away as she now resides in another state.

I wasn't sure I wanted to even have a transplant. I new a few people who had been down that path. Some had died. All gave the virus to their new liver and one had to have another transplant 5 years later and was working on getting a third. I questioned the integrity of that. I questioned karma. I questioned Gods will. And I questioned my new Dr. about ridding myself of the virus.

The best I thought I could do was keep this liver I was born with as long as I could and hopefully there would be a cure for hep-c by the time my liver number came up. The thing I really wanted was to do interferon at a low dose to keep the hep-c from degrading my liver any more. This is relatively new thinking in the medical world and the State Insurance I receive is not very receptive to it. But my wonderful Dr. said he can make it happen. Hooray Hooray.

But.... I'm gonna get really sick when all this starts. It will probably be at the end of July or into August before approval will happen. After that I have to be monitored weekly. Stay close to the home front. Sooo I need to figure out a way to do a road trip in the mean time. I'm working on ideas. And that dear friends is another post. I'm tired and my fingers are getting forgetful.

between the wall and the cactus

I go to the Dr tomorrow. I was supposed to see him 2 weeks ago but he took the day off. His office neglected to call me. I drove 2 hours and found out. So today I decided to be sure he would be there. As I didn't have the Payson # I called Phoenix to get it. The Phoenix people said yes indeed I had a 9am appointment. Funny, I wrote down 9:45. So I called the Payson office whos # I now have and they said 9:45. I wonder what will happen if a liver does arrive and my name comes up? Well I'm really just grateful I've been given the opportunity to go through all this. Geez my live would be sooo boring other wise.;+}

I guess I'm between the wall and a cactus.

Tucson cats

Black Stallion

Tucson tear

I went to a workshop and a woman spoke of her brush with death. As she talked about the ordeal and the many feelings she had about her situation and relationships with the people around her, I found tears running down my face. At that moment I knew something had given inside and I would not be the same after that.

Maybe it was compassion for her because I knew, or maybe it was just identification and an understanding of what was coming down the pike. All I know is it was ok. I am not alone as my fractured thinking has led me to believe. Theres power in that.

Tucson

Pete goes hiking and admires the veiw

I wish I hope

From Mandala Messenger

Although we seem to be living in a "hurry up" time, Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo pointed out in last Sunday's teaching that we tend to spend a lot of our energy waiting. "I wish I wish I wish I wish. I hope I hope I hope I hope," is what she called that tendency.

Not the "waiting for the plumber/waiting for the phone repair guy" kind of waiting, rather, the kind of waiting that involves us in passive expectation, miring us ever deeper and deeper in desire, holding us suspended in ignorance--and in anger-- when our expectations aren't met. Waiting for more love to happen to us, waiting for more money to come our way. Jetsunma said, "If we're waiting for more love, waiting for more money, what we learn is waiting."

She urged us, "Try to remember above all that as Buddhists we learn about karma: cause and result." The lack we experience today arises from the causes we previously set in motion, and waiting simply creates the causes for more waiting. We must, through practice and meritorious activity, create the causes in order to experience the future result we would like to experience. That is how to handle life: create the causes!

True love is Bodhichitta, the Great Compassion. Jetsunma said, "If we wait for love to come from outside, we will never experience the Bodhichitta. We will experience waiting." Yet, she said, "You can change this moment and every future one," for "the point of power, cause and result, is in this moment."

In this moment, we have the opportunity to generate the meditational deity, the focus of any Vajrayana practice. "If we take the opportunity we are given to generate the deity, we've really accomplished something: the qualities the deity represents." Using Guru Rinpoche as an example, she cited the qualities: "Kindness, dignity, regard. The certainty that he would always appear for the sake of sentient beings."

The demands of modern life make us think we can't really commit to practicing deeply. She referred to the example of the Indian princess Mandarava, already, at 16, ensconced in a cave, ready to dedicate her life to spiritual practice. She laughed and said in today's world, the truant officer would be after her! But, she pointed out. what really makes that kind of commitment hard for us to accept is our "thirty-minute sit-com attitude." We want everything to be resolved in one "episode."

Jetsunma said her greatest joy is the chance "to practice quietly in my own time and place. It is my opportunity to be with the one I love: the Samboghakaya Lama," that is, the meditational deity, generated in a focused, committed way. Jetsunma pointed out, "If we practice in a certain way, we attain the result of practice. Give rise to the cause; the result is interdependent."

That doesn't have to mean formal sit-down practice. We can practice on our feet, she said, when we're out and about: "Offer whatever you see as a great mandala to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and the Samboghakaya Lama." We can, she told us, "Enjoy--and gather merit."

Why should we do this? Because, she said, "The ability to build a storehouse of merit is what makes this a precious human rebirth. Only in this form do you have the freedom and opportunity to change this moment, and every future one!"

In one way, she said, "It's simple. It's in the palm of your hand." In another way, it's hard. You can't just say, "I wish I wish I wish I wish I hope I hope I hope." The point of power is this moment: Generate the deity. Give rise to the Bodhichitta. Gather merit. Continue to practice, moment by moment, until you achieve recognition of the primordial wisdom state. Do this, she said, "So that you too can return for the sake of beings."

Pete does pilates

Feed back on C-F

I cut this post as it was this morning because I didn't feel like it came from the right place. To all who responded with there wise words of wisdom, thank you. Maybe tomorrow I can come up with something politically charged and stir up some other aspect of my inflated ego. maybe I'll go back to visuals.

Mothers Day

Gotta check out Two Dogs blog and witness the miracle of Mother Hood. and a wild and crazy guy although a bit squirrelly. Yuk Yuk

http://twodogsbarking.blogspot.com/2007/05/happy-mothers-day.html

Crapfuck

This is just a crapfuck day. Nothing I can lay my finger on and squash, no reason I can find to thrash and thwart. Just inky dinky stuff to annoy me. Federal and State paperwork...They need to talk and they want me to interpret. All much to grueling to discuss... I just sent them each others paper work. Let them find there own rendition. That's why I'm making the little bucks. Cause I can't think anymore. I'm certified,bonafied and adentified as dead in the water. At least in regards to being employable.

I sure didn't think about all of this sort of thing back in the day. More like I'd live forever frozen in fun. Fame was minutes away and life was a piece o' cake, no problem. In spite of the evidence building to nigate my dillusion, I fed my novella life the magic potion of "sex, drugs, and rock & roll"-- The glory song of the sixty's. And what seems like just minutes ago has turned a new cheek. I'm old before I should be old. My lament is often not so sweet.

Some days its just all dead rot in my brain. Nothing to give and no receiver in working order. Things are changing fast for me and I can't seem to absorb the changes at full throttle. Some recollection of how it used to be continues to act as if but I keep realizing I'm really not capable of computing all the crap. Like the invasion of the body snatchers I've been snatched. Spooky. My best game today is: Pardon? I missed that. :+) And hope I don't take off screaming banshee style that I am inclined towards when I get confused. but even that is beginning to be only a memory.

The Doctors say its the ammonia in my brain from the cirrhosis(via Hep-C). I have medicine for it but its gruelling medicine. ME NO LIKE. so I didn't take it yesterday and I'm surprised by my condition??? But of course. Typical, keep thinking the results will be different. Just like that cup of coffee I drank this morning. IrRItatED me as I shake, rattle, and roll without a plan. Just got to laugh at it all. I may be the only one laughing. Screw um if they can't take a joke. Don't see anyone wanting to walk a mile in my moccasin's. But it does give me so much compassion for all the others whose life is no longer optimum. It just IS well... Life on life's terms. Oh ya, I do remember that.

So back to the sunny side. who would ever have thought I would live through all beyond 30 anyway. And have a fabulous bunch of friends to buoy me up when I'm down. Sure didn't have that back in the day. And an opportunity for a new liver. That is truly amazing. Life's great when I can just laugh at my funny self. And ever so interesting beyond anything I've ever done. From a medical perspective it sure beats the blackout blodoo I used to so indulge. Now, if I can just remember this.... :+}

the light of my life

Girlfriend the dog was truly the light of my life for many years. When I was blue I knew that she cared. And because she was a one person dog I new I couldn't abandon this life and leave her. She died sadly a while back and I still can not think about at event for very long. Some day I will get another black Chow.

A bit of Alaska thought from utube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gMlHv2lDqA

On the fly

Why are the bees disappearing

Listen to NPR Morning Edition.

long, long ago

Long, long ago, in a city were time never stopped, a young girl wandered the streets of w. hollywood. Her boyfriends mother had givin her the boot, the bumbs rush, asked her to leave, NOW. the boyfriend didn't say boo. His lips never moved as they had been frozen by the reefer stuck in them. To high to inhale and talk or walk or really much of anything.

But this blue shift is about the girl as she hoofs it done Santa Monia to a familar place, the park, were a cheap bottle of wine could be consumed to take the edge off the large amount of go fast that just minutes ago had been swept away in one hearty bang. As the cool brew kerplunked into the pit of her tummy, the girl started making plans for her future. Not like the future when she retired but the future of a girl livinn in the here and now. Like were would she find a place to live as in a few more months the park would be a drag.... Rain, you know.

The sun was beginning to sneak its first rays into the predernatual sky of Los Angelees in the 70's before pullution standards. (God was the sky beautiful.) and a number of places came to mind. maybe on Vine in the place above the Japanese reasurant. Or over on Gower, there was a pool there if they had cleaned it this year. Probably still green with envey of richer pools. Then a tiny wimper from the Camillia bushes jolted the girl out of her slighty woobly thinking to see what was up in the bushes.

Jeez Louise, ITs Mary Ruby passed out again. Probably all those Gorilla biscuits she was inclined to overindulge in. Mary, MARY!!! wake up you can't sleep there. The girl knew what could, would, had, happened to girls that passed out in the park and by god she wasn't gonna let that happen to Mary on her watch. She finally got her vaguely to a standing position, one arm in tight embrace around the girls neck. Tight. The other rigorously flailing about like some preacher at the pulpit.

Slowly they made there way out of the park. The girl polished off the last of the MD2020. couldn't leave that parked behind as the place has lustful eyes for the likes of a half empty bottle of rot gut. Good thing about the go fast or it would be go slow and sleep for the both of them.
Finally they got to the bus bench. And the bus arrived and the bus left. Know room for derilect chicks on his bus. What a *$X)##@ he was. No sense of humour. Whats the world coming to. Jerk!

Eventually one of LA's finest bus drivers saw the two girls plight and said no charge; even gave them a a few kind jesus saves words. Godda love those Christians. And whisked them off to Gower Gulch. When at the apartments du jour, the girl half dragged, half carried, a snoring Mary. Like drunken sailors they made their way to the lobby where the girl propped up Mary Ruby with some of the couch cushions so she wouldn't look so.... fucked up. But the snoring was a dead giveaway. Hence it was no surprise to the girl that the Vacancy sign turned to a no vacancy. At least not for trouble these two seemed to have lurking about them like their shadows.

Yikes thinks the girl, can't save Mary and Myself at the same time. What to do... What to do. A faint mewing leaks from the couch cushions. Something like Warrens something... What? What are you saying Mary. Speak up. Take you where? I was thinking maybe the nearest dumpster for a while. But know. Mary wants to go to Warrens. The other side of town. And will she remember the apartment??? in her condition. or rather the condition she was in the last time she was there? oi vay.

So this brings me to my blog of yesterday. And Warren. And dropping off Mary in a pinch...with very few options. I say that day," what a nice guy" as he took dear Mary in, in her condition, calmed her down as she was squeezing out of her stupor and into the raging wild woman she usually became when the reds wore off. I noticed he had alot of books and filed him away for another day. Now that I could return to my own melodrama at hand. As the go fast was slowing down and the hangover was arriving right on time. The LA sun was high in the sky and burning with such a vengeance and I had become the reciprocator of its wrath.

Dirty life and times

It Ain’t That Pretty, That Life of Zevon’s
By JANET MASLIN
I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD
The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon.
By Crystal Zevon.
Illustrated. 452 pp. Ecco. $26.95.
One self-imposed epitaph Warren Zevon delivered after learning he had terminal cancer was this: “It’s a damned hard way to make a living, having to die to get ’em to know you’re alive.” Like so much of what he said, wrote and sang, it was quotable, savagely funny and true.
Near the end of his life (he died at 56 on Sept. 7, 2003), doing some of his best work in the face of adversity, Mr. Zevon remained stuck in a commercial vacuum. The great promise of his sensational early albums had never brought him the wide following he deserved. So he decided to make the most of a terrible situation, advising his manager to exploit his illness in any way that might advance a soon-to-be-over career. (The manager refused. Still, there were posthumous Grammys.) And he called upon his estranged wife, Crystal Zevon, to take care of him. He also wanted her to take notes.
Ms. Zevon fulfills his wishes with “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” a no-holds-barred oral history that captures a lovable but wildly aberrant personality, draws upon a fascinatingly diverse cast of characters and peers into the heart of the Los Angeles singer-songwriter community in its prime. The widow’s role is awkward, given her ex-husband’s gun-toting rages, heavy substance abuse, iffy parenting and unflagging ability to chase new women. She also uses an awkward format that has her writing in both the first person (as speaker) and third (as editor). And she takes for granted readers’ familiarity with the music of her lifelong companion. (This book has no index or discography.)
But her affection, candor and dogged pursuit of information make this book an unforgettable journey into the depths of Mr. Zevon’s mad genius. There is much for Ms. Zevon to balk at, but she has the temerity for this tough job. The rare thing for which she apologizes is not having tried to interview Bob Dylan, one of many stellar musicians who had a way of turning up at Zevon recording sessions, given the high regard in which fellow artists held him. “I guess I was just scared,” she says.
“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” uses Zevon song titles like “Werewolves of London,” “Detox Mansion,” “Mr. Bad Example” and “My Dirty Life and Times” as chapter headings. It doesn’t use the one that best sums up this story: “Ain’t That Pretty at All.” The Mr. Zevon on these pages is surprisingly image-conscious, abusive, petty, jealous, sordid, vain, shopaholic and even banal; among his obsessive-compulsive tics was buying the same kind of gray T-shirt over and over again. His diary entries often focus on such things, so they are less scintillating than the literary lyrics for which he is known. Among the livelier entries is this one: “Went over to Ryan’s. Later in the evening I got stuck in the elevator — Fire Dept. had to come. Not as much fun as it sounds.”
But this lack of show-business artifice is precisely what makes the Zevon story so telling. What was even more unusual than his dark thoughts — like resenting the fact that Jackson Browne and Neil Young had lost people close to them and written beautiful, much-admired songs about those deaths — was his willingness to admit to those thoughts. On his deathbed, discussing the merits of having a funeral, he said, “I just don’t want to have to spend my last days wondering whether Henley” — Don Henley of the Eagles, who did not attend — “will show up.”
Mr. Browne is one of many mentors who tried to help Mr. Zevon, knowing that their wild-man compatriot was his own worst enemy. “My role as benefactor took its toll on our friendship,” Mr. Browne says astutely, but it was a friendship that endured to the end of Mr. Zevon’s days. Mr. Browne also points out that when he introduced Mr. Zevon to an audience as “the Ernest Hemingway of the twelve-string guitar,” Mr. Zevon said he was more like Charles Bronson. “Warren didn’t have literary pretensions,” Mr. Browne says. “He had literary muscle.”
He also had literary tastes (he was the rare rock musician who went looking for bookstores while on the road) and literary antecedents (he is aptly compared here to Dorothy Parker and, by Bruce Springsteen, to Nathanael West). And he had literary cronies, some of whom he met by showing up at their book signings. “He was more self-deprecating about his talent than we were about ours, and we genuinely stink,” Dave Barry says about the Rock Bottom Remainders, the all-author band with which Mr. Zevon sometimes played.
“I don’t think his fires were out, but I think he’d banked his fires,” says another band member, Stephen King, who knew Mr. Zevon during the singer’s middle and later years.
Most of his friends from this period had no idea of the wreckage caused by Mr. Zevon’s early alcoholism. After years of hair-raising benders (many of them described in the book), he became sober for 17 years, only to be thrown off the wagon by a diagnosis of certain death. These last megabinges shamed Mr. Zevon and angered some of his new friends. “I said the one thing this guy should not do is die a cliché,” says the writer Carl Hiaasen, who worried that Mr. Zevon’s two children would have to read about their father’s fatal drug overdose in a newspaper. But they didn’t. And he had three months to get acquainted with twin grandsons.
The Zevon legacy, which will be greatly bolstered by this intimate portrait despite the warts it reveals, also carries on in other ways. In his diary, Mr. Zevon reported meeting a yuppie family who called their dog Zevon. With classic Zevon acerbity, he told them, “I don’t think this is what grandfather had in mind.”

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?