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August 14th, 1945 was the day that Japan surrendered. The footage below of the spontaneous celebration that broke out was shot on the main street in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Yes. I know it is Wednesday…
Until Tuesday is the name of the book written by Iraq war veteran, PTSD and traumatic brain injury sufferer, author and veterans advocate, Luis Montalvan. Tuesday is the name of his service dog, and the book is the story of the road to recovery that started just at the other end of a leash.
Montalvan appeared on David Letterman last night. The story of how he sustained injuries is chilling. If you read the book you will find it both miraculous and telling that he returned to service and continued to deploy after sustaining those injuries. That is the kind of man he is; the kind that, like many service members, seems always going into places that strike fear, not because it is easy, but because it is important; to be shaking off their own injuries for the sake of their troops, their country or the mission.
It seemed to me, as I watched last night, that Montalvan struggles to keep it all together. It was clear to me that this was not an environment well-suited to his peace of mind. I suspect that he launched himself once more into the fray for the sake of so many returning veterans. This was his stage to advocate for support for those who suffer invisible injuries. It was his stand for better access to service dogs for veterans.
Once more shaking off his own injury for the sake of his fellow servicemen.
You can see the entire interview here:
You would think that goofing off would come pretty naturally.
It certainly does to me.
The beast is also, pretty much, a natural. When I drop her off at day camp I used to tell her to play hard because I am paying good money. She always got my money’s worth. The beast plays like it is her job to have fun.
She’s very, very good at her job.
Dash Two (Dryfus) does not seem to have had a lot of experience in playing, nor is it something that apparently comes as naturally to him as it does to the beast.
In our early experiences in the backyard, Dash Two stood nearly motionless, watching in fascination at the frenzied cat and mouse game the beast was attempting. There were brief interludes of chase, but then he would lapse back into the watching game. Later, he transitioned into zombie-play. Toy in mouth, he would walk at (not to) the beast; stepping on her, bumping into her. There were no come hither looks; no play bows; just a bizarre-looking “have toy, must play” diligence.
With practice though, Dash Two is getting better. While his long legs give him a speed advantage over the beast, the beast does a fine job of out maneuvering him as they race around with toys in their mouths. Just today they have begun to box, an entirely normal mode of play. It is what makes them boxers, although it is a bit nerve-wracking to watch. Though it is play, it still sounds and looks quite fierce, and I am on constant watch for the slightest change in tone.
Nerves and all it is still a joy to see, as Dash Two develops the fine art of completely blowing an entire afternoon on goofing off.
This afternoon is sunny and lovely. Only 55 degrees outside, it feels much warmer. A gentle breeze is drifting along. The trees are in bud. The grass is greening up. (Not my grass, mind you. My lawn is a complete mud pit, but other people grass…).
Some flitting insect (moth, fly, bumblebee, I don’t know) wafted across the backyard. I saw the sun glinting off its wings. Dash Two noticed it, too. I watched as he danced and circled after it; his face all optimism and intrigue…and joy.
I’ve had a few sleepless nights. I have a few new pee stains on my carpet. I can’t keep up with the mud coming into my house. All of that seems trivial, though, in the face of optimism and intrigue and joy.
There is an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (ok – I admit it, I am a fan) where one of the main characters steps up in the face of extraordinary danger and finds herself with her hand on a piece of unexploded ordnance, stabilizing it so that it does not go off and kill her patient.
This happens late in the first of a two-part episode arc, which closes with a close-up of her standing stock still, verbalizing the panic that her own actions have caused her.
“What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?”
I’m feeling just a small fraction of that right now…after succumbing to a good cause; perhaps even a righteous cause.
It is, after all, Easter Sunday.
It is a time for redemption. It is a time for second chances.
This morning an email came that I could not ignore; and, trust me, my ability to turn a blind eye is quite impressive at times. It was one of those “If not me, then who? If not now, then when?” moments.
Today I said, “Pick me. I’ll do it”.
It should be noted that I do not have my hand on a piece of live ordnance right now; far from it indeed.
I agreed to foster an “unadoptable” boxer; “unadoptable” being code for a far worse fate.
He should be a happy boy!
I find, though, that it is me that is happy. I have, you see, been contemplating getting a second dog for quite some time. Who? When? What breed? From whom? All can be insurmountable questions…until you get an email asking for some help. And it is a temporary arrangement, so I don’t have to panic….just yet.
The advantage is all mine.
Little does my poor boxer friend know that he is about to have the vet visit to beat all vet visits. Ugh!! He will also be subject to frequent bouts of mandatory play time, as designated by the beast and will undergo excessive snuggling. He must also face an abundance of treats if he ends up here.
And there is work, too; new things to learn, a new routine to get used to.
So…I will keep you posted.
A couple of my recent posts have been about keeping your eyes open. In Driving Lessons, one of my major points was the lifesaving property of watching the actual movement of vehicles around you rather than the rather uncertain implied intentions of a turn signal. In Look, I wrote of the welcome reminder to simply look around you at the good that is a happening right under our noses.
And then I forgot to look.
I have had my head down for days; plowing through a large share of work that is due, getting my taxes done and sorting and filing the mass of paperwork that remains in the aftermath of IRS and State calculations, reviewing documents, updating forms and returning calls. It has occurred to me on several late night occasions that I had not written a post, but in all the churn of administrative details I found no inspiration for writing; forgetting, of course, or at least temporarily ignoring, that part of my pledge is to write something everyday.
Once again I have missed an anniversary. I started writing two years ago yesterday with two posts; as an explanation of my chosen blog header I wrote Metastable, and in an admission, in The Morning After, confessed that the act of starting a blog may not have been entirely well-thought out.
At that point I had been home, retired, for about four years. My mother had been in a nursing home for more than a year as her dementia had advanced, yet her general health was remarkably, dishearteningly good.
At that point in my life, the beast was still a mush-faced bundle of random energy who peed on my floor, chewed on my hands and pulled like a sled dog on a leash. My circle of local “friends” consisted nearly entirely of caregivers and residents of long-term care facilities. I was working a job that ultimately would leave me feeling expendable. I had things to say but no forum for saying them. My experience as caregiver felt isolating.
My how things change…
So I missed the anniversary yesterday, but today I stopped to look back and see how far I have come. Thanks to all of you who have joined me on this journey.
We’ve all had days that go from bad to worse; where one bad decision or unlucky event snowballs, and everything we do to correct it gets us deeper and deeper into trouble. Most of us have the benefit of doing that in the privacy of our own homes or the not quite so private, but still contained arena of our offices.
Yesterday, pro golfer Kevin Na had one of those days on national television, on a day that he had agreed to wear a microphone as tv crews followed his play.
A tee shot into the woods left his ball unplayable. Biting the bullet and taking a penalty shot he returned to the tee for a do-over… which also landed in the woods. Na’s next shot hit a tree, hit him (also a penalty) and landed further into the brambles.
When all was said and done, between penalties, a swing and a miss, both left- and right-handed shots around obstacles, Na finished the hole with scratched arms, a tear in his shirt, leaves and brambles stuck to what had been pristine white slacks, a 16 on his scorecard, 12 over par, and a smile…
…because sometimes you have to laugh or you’ll cry.
And he emerged a hero to the every-golfers around the country. He took a beating on this hole. He wrote down the unimaginable score of 16. And he went on to play an otherwise respectable round of golf.
Taking away the 12 extra strokes on this one disastrous hole, Na was 4 under par for the day.
It is not how you fall. It is how you get up.
You can see the whole misadventure here:
Look…
That’s what a friend of mine posted on their social networking site.
Now, if that had ended up as one of my postings I would have claimed pre-caffeine fog or that the beast hit my hand before I finished typing. In this case though, I’m not entirely sure that this is not the entire thought; a simple, one-word goal for the day.
Just look.
In contemplating the wisdom of that advice, I am forced to acknowledge that there is much that I may be missing as I wander through this life.
I already know that to be true when it comes to housekeeping. I just don’t see it…until, of course, 20 minutes before company is coming and I am forced to look at my house through fresh eyes.
Not being able to keep up with the rate at which it was being dragged into the house, I had stopped seeing the mud. Since it was not recycling day, the stack of folded cardboard had come to cover most of my dining room table. And just exactly how long had the 12-roll package of toilet paper been sitting on the stairs? Had I passed it a couple of times? A dozen? A hundred?
Of course, once I actually “saw” the disorder, I was able to deal with it; stopping just shy of shampooing carpets 20 minutes before my guests arrived. Still, though, I am dismayed at all I had not seen before I looked.
Truth be told, though, I am more worried that I am missing the good stuff, too. Housekeeping being the one exception, I fear I am, in general, hardwired to be over-critical. I look in the mirror and I see the extra 15 pounds and the wrinkles without noticing that I am healthy, well-rested. I look at my work and I wish I were better at it, more efficient. I look at my writing, and I see the typos.
I spent a few minutes outside with the beast this morning. While I was out I noted the muddy path she has worn through where I have tried to re-seed the grass. I noted the clump of hosta that I forgot to transplant last Fall.
I saw the weeds.
Outside again with a cup of coffee and a new mandate, just now, I saw that the lilac bush I was certain I had killed has leaves budding on it. I noticed that the daisies that my fence builder and I dug a posthole through seem to be coming back too; as are my herb boxes.
I looked at the happy expression on the beast’s face as she raced through the yard and decided the grass-less strip was worth it.
There’s some good stuff out there.
You just have to, you know, look.
I spent most of Saturday morning out of the house. I left mid-morning for a quick meeting with the other officers and board members for Veterans PetReach; a meeting sandwiched between obedience classes. Although I don’t volunteer for the morning classes, everyone else does so it was easiest for me to come in early rather than try to reassemble the group after many had begun to wander off.
What else was I going to do with a Saturday morning anyway?
For a year and a half, my Saturday mornings typically started here anyway. The beast and I, being slow learners, attended several rounds of obedience classes. Even now that the beast and I are done (???) with school, I have been coming in on Saturdays, as a volunteer, for the midday class for several weeks. By that late hour, though, the guests who frequently come down to watch the training and see the dogs have returned to their floors for lunch.
The noon class is just dogs, trainers and handlers.
The noon class, as you look around, could be the basement of nearly any building in the city. Attending the earlier classes was a reminder that this was basement of a nursing home; the nursing home where my mother had lived.
My early arrival re-exposed me to wheelchairs and grey hair, to frail bodies and decaying minds; familiar friends, although unpopular, sometimes forgotten. But I haven’t forgotten them. It was actually nice to have the same conversation I have had a thousand times with Z. once again. I discovered I had missed J.’s sweet smile.
It was nice also to chat once again with aides and volunteers; many of whom knew and cared for my mother.
And it was easy to have those conversations in the basement; where the dogs take center stage, where I am comfortably removed from memories of my mother.
Life doesn’t always stay easy, though.
The combination of the weather and school break meant that Saturday’s noon class was particularly small; small enough to manage a visit to one of the nursing home floors to see how these therapy-dogs-in-training might react to the sights and smells and sounds of a long-term care facility. It just so happens we landed on my mother’s floor; the place I had come nearly every day for nearly three years, where I had sat vigil for 9 days last Fall, where my mother had taken her last ragged breath.
Stepping off the elevator I had to remind myself to breath, too.
But there would be no tears.
This is a place where people die, which is no secret, but it is a place built for the living.
It is a place where aides stop lunch service for a second or two for a hug, where old patterns resume and I was told to grab a plate and have something to eat, and where even fragile minds lapse back into old patterns.
“Ah there’s my girl! Come sit with me,” I heard from the gentleman at mom’s old table.
There was no longer a spot for me at my usual table. The nameplate on my mother’s room is one I don’t recognize, and, while many of the faces were familiar, several more were new to me.
And so it is that life goes on; even the end of life continues…
There are any number of media outlets that offer comparative shopping features. The internet is rife with “services” that will help you get the most for your money. Many will compare online prices from hundreds of retailers. Some of these are better than others, and some will help you compare apples to, well, Apples; one being a tree-born fruit and the other being a laptop. Pound for pound, I’m guessing the fruit is the better buy, unless, of course, you were hoping to surf, edit, video-stream or email.
Other sources offer slightly better juried comparisons. One of the cable networks carries a series on real estate, comparing what you can buy in various markets across the country at a given price point. The NYTimes offers a similar series of cross-market studies.
Consumer Reports has made cost and quality comparisons for a variety of goods its business for 80 years. Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds.com help us determine what to pay for new or used vehicles and any number of folks would like to tell us how to play the stock market.
This is good.
As a Nation we buy a lot of stuff.
As one cheap bastard, I, for one, don’t want to pay a penny more than I have to for any of it…which leads me to my latest quandary. While I have come to accept the unlikeliness of getting something for nothing, I am mystified by my occasional impulse to get, well, nothing, for something.
Ambrose Bierce, 19th century cynic and author of The Devil’s Dictionary, called the lottery “a tax on people who are bad at math.” I actually can do the math, and at odds of something in the neighborhood of 95 million-to-1, depending on what game you are playing, I get that this is not a game where persistence, or anything else, for that matter, will pay off.
Still, I buy lottery tickets.
Not every week.
Not when the jackpot gets big.
I buy them when the mood strikes me; when I happen to have a few singles burning a hole in my pocket.
Sometimes I grab a couple scratch-off games from the vending machine at the grocery store. Sometimes I do Lotto or MegaMillions quick picks. I never pick my own numbers. In this game of chance, I accept no responsibility even for choosing the numbers.
I’ve never won a penny on the Lotto. I occasionally win back the value of what I spent on the scratch-offs. I am not getting rich. Rationally, I know that I probably never will.
I play anyway. I play because for the duration of the trip home with scratch-off tickets in my purse, or for the 24-48 hours until the Lotto drawing, there is the possibility of being a millionaire. The “what would I do if…” scenarios dance in my head. The lists of to whom I could write a check to make a difference in this world grow. And yes, my musings are peppered with the odd splurge purchases as well.
I’d like to think that the money wouldn’t change me, but it’s nice to take a look at “what would I do if…” just in case.
It is in watching the scenarios play out and in re-reading my charity lists and critiquing the splurges that I learn a little bit more about myself.
And all that insight only costs a dollar…
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