Can you guess who we are?

Jamie is JD from Scrubs. Nikki is London Tipton (a rich Asian -American teenager!) from the Suite Life Of Zak and Cody. I am a cow. Julie is a witch. Mr. Joe is a crocodile!

TRICK OR TREAT

• Survey: Parents report less mental stress than non-parents

http://www.yahoo.com/s/722810 Well according to this survey of over 33000 Americans.
My first response is, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING. The report goes on two say that 9% of parents report having serious psychological stress as apposed to non parents. (Non parents rate a 12%.)
I really should dig into the research methods of this report. Now if by "reporting" they mean seek the help of a mental health profession then the most obvious response is "well Duh" when you are a parent you do not have TIME to get mental health help. You do not even have time to be sick!
Donnie uses his sick days at work every year. But I think its been almost 20 years since he used one because HE has been sick. He saves them for when he needs to take off when a kid has a doctors visit or is ill.
And what about the simple fact that many people are not childless by choice and those non parents have a whole bunch of stress added to their life because of the very circumstance of their childless state?
Then there are those who choose to remain childless. Yet they have the almost constant criticism of family and friends who seem to believe that everyone must desperately want kids. (I think its just harried people -with small children or ornery adolescents- who are jealous of the perceived freedoms of the non parenting lifestyle.)
The difference between nine and twelve percent is very small. The gap is smaller still if you consider that a person prone to mental health issues may have already chosen to remain childless.
Quite frankly I stand by my first observation. Parents do not have time to be ill, do not have time to climb back into bed and not get out. Yesterday I made three trips to the high school for various kids and events. Then I did a 4H run and a Special Olympics run. Then to Shaws. No time to feel anxious or depressed or tune in to voices inside my head. The day was spent at a near dead run. It was a lovely day. A day to blog and catch up with my two kids out of the house (college and marriage.) A day to struggle with sixth grade bar graphs, fifth grade geometric terms (did anyone use tessellation in a sentence yesterday?) and eighth grade angst. A day where Bambam had to get ready for obedience class and where two of the baby chickens had to be corralled back into their pen. A day where six little friends called and just HAD to talk to various children on the phone here, in spite of seeing them all day at school.
Meals and snacks to be prepared, Halloween costumes to go over, dishes to wash and a mystery to solve. (Just where are all our towels disappearing to?) NStar was contacted and paid off on shut-off day. Decisions about certain birthday and Christmas gifts needed to be discussed. A Gaelic website was found so Joe could learn another Irish phrase besides the one he knows now...."Póg ma thoin." (Ok yes I taught him this phrase, some phrases just get stuck in your head and NO I will not tell you what it translates to. You won't think well of me or Joe!)
I find it hard to believe the findings of the above study. I do not believe parents suffer less mental stress than non parents. I just think they are too busy living to notice!
"Mo sheacht mbeannacht ort!"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN- carved by Aunty Deb

My Mary's photo at the Red Sox parade

Check out her blog, link under my favorites, for her reporting of Red Sox Day.

Time to pull out those Cranberry scoops

Imagine this as a 1000 piece puzzle

Nikki infront of the Cranberry harvest

Fall

Harvest time

Adding to the blog

I originally had a free counter added to my blog, way back in 2005. But then when I changed the template I lost the counter. Or it lost me, I am not sure what is more accurate. So I put a new counter on today although it was not as easy as it should have been!
It seems like anytime I want to move things around on my blog it requires an act of Congress. For instance it appears my blog title and little comment can not go to the right of my top picture. It can only go over it. Now why is that?
I like the look of some of my Mac friends have to their blogs but I think you can only get that look if you Mac it and I am a Dell laptop gal.
Anywhooo (as Henry Blake would say!) My new counter starts today! For the convenience of my readers/devoted followers I have made the blog print a little darker and a little bigger. I cannot be the only one whose eye sight is going! Enjoy.

Remember MARGO the Exotic Chick?

This is Margo when she was a few days old.Below is Margo with Joe. Notice her exotic "blue feathers." Ok they look gray, trust me in the animal kingdom it is considered Blue.
Can you see the great intelligence in her eyes? Clearly Margo the exotic chick was well named.

Random Musings

1.Why in Heaven's name would ANYONE want to brush their teeth with toothpaste that had both baking soda and peroxide in it? Blechhhhhhhh. I like my breath minty fresh but the buy one get one free Shaw's deal of "Complete Care" was too good to pass up. Please learn from my mistake and DO NOT buy it, dis-gust-ing-!
2. How can a boy who plays in the chicken coop and does not wash his hands before sitting down to dinner, be grossed out when his brother "touches" his spoon?
3. Mid-October and still have not needed to turn on the heat. How great is that? I know global warming is bad, but the lower heating bill is very appealing.
4.One of the fifth grade vocabulary words is TESSELLATION. Have you ever heard of it? It goes with a group of words that include "right angle" and "congruent." Tessellation is an arrangement of shapes that covers a surface completely without overlaps or gaps.Please try to use this word in a sentence today and let me know how you worked this new vocabulary word in.
5. Heard the phrase "clean the fish before we catch it." in regards to some Christian Faiths, really really resonates with me. I will make it my Facebook musing. Do we clean the fish before we catch them. At our church we said parents had to come to CCD, with their kids or their kids could not go.Then a whole bunch of people who use to just dropped their kids off at CCD stopped sending their children. Now we do not reach those adults OR those kids. We cleaned the fish before we caught them...
6. Love Jakoby Ellsbury, love him. Love him. A little disconcerting though. In my childhood I dreamed of being the first woman pitcher for the Red Sox. As a teenager I could enjoy the players and had a few day dreams about dating a couple. (Dennis Eckersley was a hunk.) But somehow I have aged and the players have not. I watch Jakoby or Pedroia and think oh God they could be my sons. Now that is NO fun!
7. Mary is in Town watching the Red Sox duckboat on by, how surreal is that?

Zip-line fun!

RED SOX

One of my very earliest memories is remarkably detailed. That happens I suppose when a traumatic event occurs. In this case I was four and a half and my mother and Dolly, the neighbor across the street suddenly began shouting and banging the pots and pans with wooden spoons. I was shocked and stunned. They actually dented the pans. We had to cook with dented pans for years afterwards!
Not only did they dent said pots but then they began rifling through drawers looking for red socks and white sheets. They were laughing and shouting and hugging and my little four year old mind was stunned by such a display. It is crystal clear in my mind to this day.
What brought about such a dramatic display? Why the Impossible Dream Team of the 1967 Boston Red Sox pennant win.Such was the brouhaha that I did not know until years later that they did not take the World Series.
My parents strung a huge banner made from sheets and socks across our city street (from the second or third floor.) It hung there for quite a while until a huge truck knocked it down one late fall day. My sister Margie remembers that the socks were filled with rocks to help them hang straight.
As for the Boston baseball team, there was not a summers day that did not have the game on somewhere in the background. My sister and Nana were huge fans. (Nana spent many winters down at spring training in Winter Haven, she had a thing for Ted Williams!)
I can remember the game in black and white on Nana's tv during Sunday dinner. (Does anyone still do Sunday dinner anymore?) My Dad worked with a girl whose Dad was big in the Red Sox organization and he took Margie to games while she was still very little.
I began more closely following them in the 70s (whoo hooo Bill Lee, The Eck, Yaz, Butch, Rice, Freddie Lynn. El Tiante, Evans...) Tim as I recall began focusing on baseball when he was about four as did Corey (although he always had a thing for the A s. As long as no child of mine is an Yankee!)
One of the first things Don and I did as an engaged couple was take in a Sox game. Then of course three years ago the Red Sox did what they had not done in 86 years....take a series.
When they made the last out, I leaped from Donnie's lap shouting and cheering....then burst into tears with such a longing to experience the moment with my mom, Dad, and Nana.
Apparently I was not the only Red Sox fan who had that family yearning. Many a Sox pennant decorated a grave stone that Fall. The Red Sox, such a part of our past and present. The game was on in the back ground for almost all our lives.
I tried to impress upon the younger kids last night how historic this time is, how they will remember it all their lives, in the way I remember my Dad waking us up for the lunar landing, or my Mom and her friend Dolly denting the pans for the Red Sox victory.
Go Sox, Nana would be proud!

Halloween as 4H Science

The Nature's Navigators had a different twist on the typical Halloween party. Everyone was in costume but they used Science to perform a variety of ghostly tricks.

On a Windy Night

Why Joe is my favorite

Parents are not suppose to have favorites right? But in our little childhood hearts we are certain they do. My kids have asked who the favorite is and I always say my favorite is the one who sleeps late.
Sometimes it is Mary who you can have the most fascinating conversations about what interests her and about what interests you. (Some people only like to talk about themselves but Mary is a generous person!)
Tim can be my favorite when we are discussing the Red Sox, or driving directions. Corey is of course number one when you want a good laugh. He is funny, makes great observations and don't you just love someone who is comfortable enough to laugh about themselves.
Julie is clearly the favorite to see things in a different way. She sees letters in color and swirls in music and angles and shadows and light in even the most modest of rain drops. Jamie is the favoritest person when some project needs to be tackled. Need to glue something? How about build, fix, or tear something down? No one does it better than Jamie. On the other hand,Nikki is the bestest person IN THE WORLD to shop with, hands down.
But Joe, now he is in a whole other category. He is a person who can make a remark, then badum dum ding! He takes it one step further to a higher level, the sublime.
As he went out the door to school this morning (after speaking to me for 23 straight minutes without pause, including while he brushed his teeth) he looked up and said, "Good luck on your job interview today. I hope you get the job. I know you really want it. Me too. I really want you to get that job. I prayed about it."
Now doesn't that just melt your heart? A ten year old little red head prayed for me. But then the badum dum ding... "Ya you really need to get that job so we can go to the restaurant on the first floor of the building and eat lunch there. They have GIANT Tabasco sauce bottles on EVERY table."
And there you go. Some people prayed for world peace this morning (Well at least all the Miss America contestants did.) Others spent their devotional time reflecting on the displaced Californians and their hellacious fire. But this morning as Joe got ready for school, He could not help but pray for giant bottles of Tabasco sauce (imagine on EVERY table!)
So now while I shave my legs, go over my Resume on more time, and practice sounding natural answering possible Interview questions I am comforted in the knowledge that someone prayed I would get this job. Someone who knows the meaning of priorities. After all it would really be COOL to eat a restaurant where there are giant Tabasco sauce bottles.
Even better to eat there with one small boy who prayed to make it all possible.

A Prayer from one of Scott Morin's kids

Sarah DeSilva (Malden High School) wrote
at 4:10pm on October 22nd, 2007

Our Father, who art at Fenway...
Baseball be thy game.
Thy Kingdom come,
Playoffs need to be won,
On Earth, then on to the Cask 'n' Flagon.

Give us this day, a perfect Papi,
And forgive us our losses,
As we forgive those,
Like Bill Buckner.

And lead us not, into desperation,
But deliver us from any losses.

For thine is the Power,
And the Glory,
To beat the Rockies,
Forever and ever....the Yankees still suck.

Amen!

GO SOX!

Half day of School

Kids had a half-day and its dreary and cool. Back is sore and no money to go out adventuring. So we did something we just about NEVER do. We hung around and watched tv and read and sat about like slugs. It was wonderful!
When I was growing up I can recall hours of tv watching and reading and hanging around. Now I feel guilty if I am sitting still, certain there is some laundry or some cleaning or some THING that needs attention. Or someone.
But Tim and Yon were heading out to work. Joe and Jamie had play dates so we three ladies played online, tv surfed, and read read read.
I have another big Interview at Brown tomorrow which I am very excited about. We girls will go out tonight so I can pick up some decent looking "interview clothes". Not being a REAL woman I hate shopping. Donnie gets to go do Shaws which I would rather do. Book stores and grocery stores are my idea of fun, not clothes.
All and all on a lazy dreary day, I feel rich snuggled on the couch with Bambam, chatting with the girls, talking about when they were small and their VERY BIG TANTRUMS. Nikki pops some popcorn "on the stove" like my Dad or as my kids think, the old fashioned way. (microwave popcorn being all that 21 century kids know!)
I look at the clock and its almost time for Donnie to come home from work. I get that feeling in my stomach, the anticipation of him returning....foolish huh? I wonder if it will lever go away, that excited feeling when he has been gone, waiting for him to get back?
The Red Sox are on tonight so we will rush about between five and eight tonight getting all the chores and important errands accomplished. But oh what a fun day. The mailman even brought a prize, a book I ordered for Don for Christmas (which I will not be able to wait to give him, bets will be taken to see if I can even wait until December), and I got Rosie's two books. Love them...

Just Saw My First Christmas Commercial

Awesome!

How Sweet It Is...

Being a Grown-up

Today I played at being a grown-up. I drove to the train station, ALL BY MYSELF, boarded, paid, got off at South Station. Then I negotiated the Charlie card machine and figured out both the Red line and the Green line. (In bound on Red, out bound on Green, any Green except A).
There are signs at all the terminals but of course which signs pertain to me and which should I ignore is an age old problem. Plus there is construction going on. Oh and crowds. And it smells.

I know I am a Hillbilly staring in wonder at the Cee-ment pond.



The T is endlessly confusing and of course when it spills you up and out onto the city street you have no clue what is north or south. People are bustling quickly past and are apt to mow you down if you stand and read the signs or heaven forbid look up to gawk at the tall buildings.
My goal was to find Newbury street where Mary works. Very nice and very yuppy, all the busy people moving past like ants, eyes straight ahead.



I never cared for cityscapes until after 9/11. Now I marvel at mankind's ingenuity. But how can people be so far removed from earth and trees and animals? I think of the two weeks at Boston Medical and the view from Corey's fifth floor window was of rooftops, buildings, and wires.
Mary's work is in an old Boston building that use to be a bank. She trots up and down the six flights of stairs in the narrow building researching genealogical questions. She has her own office and title and its still astounding to me that I have an adult married daughter doing her dream job!
After a work tour Mary and I walked down the block for lunch and then I needed to be directed to the subway station. Apparently you do not go down the way you went up. I had to say over and over in my head, 'Green is inbound now and Red is outbound.'
Each place I found myself I do the mommy check. Where are the fire escapes and exits? What do I do in case of an accident? I practice these things in my mind while others doze around me.

When I am with Mary I realize how much I miss her. She is so interesting and smart and very funny. It is fun to hear about her life and share my own as fellow grownups. She offers to help me find my way back to South Station but I am an adult on this Adventure and I find my own way back. I even hit the subway stations just right and make each train without waiting on the return trip. The cars are not crowded but I stand for a time anyway, holding a strap. It makes me feel giddy.
But to do that EVERY day, in and out of Town? I am glad I turned down Harvard. As much as it would be an honor and great adventure to work for them, someone is gonna have to pay me a lot of money to make that trip a regular part of my routine.
44 years old and I went in and out of Boston, all by myself.

How Sweet It Is...

FALL

Room Change...Again

Nikki changes her room like other people change their shoes. Gone is the netting. Now she has Christmas lights around her bed. Scaredy Cat is dozing while Miss Nikki chats on the phone. Oh to be 11.

Be Generous

There is a person I work with who is very unhappy. She holds every real or perceived slight in her heart and is always ready to pull those out and stew over them anytime something does not go her way. Interestingly things do not go her way a lot of the time. Is this because she brings on her own bad Karma, or because she wouldn't know a joyful moment if it hit her on the head?
Her bitterness always astounds me in the light of real suffering our patients are in. I always look to the patients and think: they have money trouble, and sibling trouble, and ADDICTION. They have children that disappoint them, jobs that don't go well and ADDICTION. They have money stress, and health woes, and ADDICTION.
But most of these patients do not complain as much as this person. You would think they have far more to be bitter and angry about. But on a moment to moment basis they are not as draining to deal with as this one coworker.
She claims to be trying to change. But at the instant moment things are not going as she feels they should, out come the old slights, and the past hurts and boom its a poor poor pitiful me moment.
I use to be sympathetic. Then I got aggravated. Then I tried to be very zenlike about it all. Sometimes though I just want to slap her upside the head!
On the home front one of the kids (nameless to protect the guilty) annoys the others kids more times than not. As the parent I have to simultaneously teach the annoyer alternative less aggravating behaviors and the annoyee patience and alternate skills to deal with the annoyer...otherwise there is hitting upside the head lol!
Because of my dealings with the high maintenance person at work, my sympathies usually lie with the kid getting annoyed. I can really relate! So I found the quote below. Now when I first read it the person I thought it applied to is the annoying work person and the annoying child. But probably it is meant for me and the kids getting annoyed.

"when in doubt, be generous. When angry or frustrated or irritated, be generous. When your self-interest or pride is being attacked, be generous. When longstanding sibling rivalries erupt, when sacrifices need to be made, when there's an opportunity for hospitality, be generous."(L. Gregory Jones is dean of Duke University Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina.)

Dead Drunk

He is no one to me. He is not my relative. He does not live in my town or go to my church. He has long ceased being a productive member of society and my taxes are paying for his care.

Friday night, just as I went on duty, one of our regulars appeared at the door, very intoxicated and looking for Detox. I think Q has gone through our place at least a dozen times in the 6 years I have worked there.
For a long time he was just a drunk but these last few years he has added opiates to his repertoire and needless to say each time we see him he is a little sicker and a lot thinner. Q is a couple years older than Don, a red head, never married, does construction when he can stay sober.
The last few times he has not made it through the program without storming out half way through his protocol. When Q comes up for medication he exaggerates his symptoms in an effort to get the maximum medication. The mantra of every addict is MORE, more more more.
(I joke with our adolescent addicts that I am going to make up Detox t-shirts that read "one is good, two is better, and three is never enough!")
When an addict is faking symptoms they often employ the 'fake shake'. This is when they tremble both arms and legs in an effort to look like they are in severe withdrawal. An addict in real withdrawal tries to stop the shakes not exaggerate them. Also when I hold their arm to check a pulse or take a blood pressure, the fake shaker stops trembling that arm and continues with the other limbs. A person with a real withdrawal tremor cannot control the shake and the arm, even clutched tightly in mine, contains the faint tremor.
But is was different with Q this time. He is much much sicker and I think he is really scared. So on Friday as I did Q's intake he was as open and honest as I have ever seen him, and very very humble.
We finally finish all the paperwork and I get him a sandwich, the first solid sustenance he has had in about three days. He goes for the security walk around the now silent building with me because I am the only RA on and its scary going down the back hallway alone! He talks about the time when he lived out in our back woods and he nods with approval when I lock the link door.

We joke a little and he tries to find hope. This time he will quit drinking.

Sunday night when I came in I check on one of our young adolescent girls first (she was new to Detox and very frightened) then I go in search of Q. He is quietly talking with the RN who has cared for Q for close to 20 years now.
He looks awful, gaunt, clothes hanging off him. I offer to take him to the clothes closet to see if we can find something that fits him better but he politely declines. "Leave that stuff for the people with nothing" he says.
Throughout the night he dozes and then wakes and then wanders aimlessly about. The nurse is worried about his behavior and the sick aura that hovers about him.
Then just after 6 a.m. I am speaking with him and although he is very shaky and has a little trouble focusing he is certainly following and participating in the conversation. Suddenly the door bell rings and I hurry off to see who it is. In that moment according to the other RA Q suddenly dashed off to his room and then trots down the hallway with his bag of belongings.
When I heard that I race down the hallway and sure enough Q is desperately trying to repack. The doorbell to him signaled something in his brain and now he is a man with a mission. In his mind he is at home, and he has just missed his ride to work. He is frantic with worry and has to LEAVE NOW.
I try to orient Q to time and place but he is unable to hear me or comprehend. He has to leave now he has to go to work. I didn't know what to do. I cannot let him out the door, its cold, he is not in his right mind, and he is certainly not dressed for a cool Fall morning. But I cannot leave him to get help as he will be gone before I get back. Yelling down the long corridor would wake up 20 other patients and add to the confusion.
Plus I kept thinking, he was fine a minute ago, how can this happen so fast? Finally I go along with his reality in an effort to coax him back to his room. I figure if I can get him in his room its close enough to the nurse's station to get help. I don't feel totally comfortable in going along with his delusion but I cannot risk him getting out onto the road.
I tell him about his work clothes that he left hanging in the closet and offer to help him pack. He continues to mumble and moves with great agitation but I am able to get him to follow me. Once safely in his room I shut the door and sprint to the nurse.
After some serious conversation and redirection the RN is able to get through to Q and we medicate him and settle him back down. The nurse then informs the next shift because it is clear to her he is slipping into the real DTs.
I am off today and all I want to do is call and check up on him. How is he? Did he end up in the hospital? Will they keep a very close eye on him during the crazy busy afternoon?
He is no one to me. He is not my relative. He does not live in my town or go to my church. He has long ceased being a productive member of society and my taxes are paying for his care.
He is just a drunk, a drunk that is slowly but surely killing himself.
But I cannot stop thinking about him. I cannot stop thinking about how we were connecting like two normal human beings and then a doorbell went off and he went...where?....somewhere else, somewhere in a delusion. How his clothes hang off him because he is drinking himself to death. How he didn't want to take clothes away from people less fortunate than himself. How he came in to the Detox drunk as a skunk but had kind words for the young girl on her first night, when she was so frightened.

Day at the beach