Let 'Er Buck, Chuck!!

The world just might end today, I actually slept late! Nah, not late like you probably do, but pretty darn late for me, almost 6 am!  The more I think about it though, the more I think I just hoodwinked myself about it. I didn’t get to bed til real late last night because Rob had a client photo shoot at the Cowboy Saloon.  So, in actuality, I didn’t get any extra sleep, just moved my times around, I’m thinking.  Oh well, I feel pretty refreshed and that’s the whole idea, right?

We had a good time at the Cowboy Saloon last night.  Hadn’t been there in quite a while because Rob and I are creatures of habit and we had gotten out of the habit of going there. After one of my besties sold the place, we just stopped going.  It used to be the center of everything for a few years when Beth and Bobby owned it.  Jim, the present owner is trying to get that started back up.  He’s got a permit for off-track betting there and I hear that’s going well. Ran into Junior last night, who was working the betting window and he says so, too.

The Cowboy is just about the only place to dance besides the Moose & the Ox (Occidental) these days. I don’t count the Hoot-N-Howl because that’s where the “young-uns” hang out.  Anyway, we went last night to take photos of Check Belus and the Let ‘Er Buck Band.  We’re going to be doing their website.  Well, Rob is going to be designing it, I just go along for the ride.

They are awesome! Gave me chills, they sound so much like Chris LeDoux with some of their songs! The place was pretty packed, too, with lots of cowboys and their ladies cutting a rug. I wish I’d been able to dance but with me on crutches, that just wasn’t happening.  I kept rhythm with my good foot, though.  I hope Rob got some good pictures because most of mine didn’t turn out because of the light. He’s the one with the fancy cameras, I just have a Nikon Coolpix.

I bet ole Chris Ledoux is smiling down on Chuck Belus and feeling pretty good that someone is taking over for him.  Chris had a special brand of music, what I call rodeo rock.  Chuck is banging out new music faster than he can think these days and it’s all good stuff.  He’s got some great musicians working with him, too.  Cindy, who plays the fiddle, is our county assessor.  I hear rumors that some people in town think it’s not appropriate for her to be in a band and be an elected official.  I think they need to mind their own business!  She has some real talent with that fiddle and she’s not doing anything that interferes with her public job so what’s the big deal?  Everyone, especially folks with stressful jobs, need an outlet.  Lighten up, Buffalo, would ya?

That’s the only problem with living in a small town like Buffalo.  Everyone thinks they have a right to have an opinion about your life.  I always wonder what people say behind my back. I mean, if they get all in a tizzy about something so benign as an assessor playing a fiddle, what are they saying about the County Planner’s wife spilling her life all over the internet? I really don’t give a puppie’s patootie but I’d love to be a fly on the wall!  Most of the people who seem to feel the need to gossip about others have monsters in their own closets and shouldn’t be gossiping in the first place.

Anyway, we are really looking forward to the new website for the band.  Rob loves doing that sort, gets his creative juices flowing.  When we get a new client, they just give Rob an idea of what they want and Rob designs the site around what he thinks they want and they go from there.  Most people don’t know exactly what they want until they see what he comes up with.  It’s a fun process. Of course, the more interesting the subject matter, the more fun we have designing it. 

Since today is Sunday, we’ll be taking it pretty easy today. Got a lot of mundane things to do, nothing exciting yet.  I’ve learned, though, that exciting things can pop up at a moment’s notice so I’m not worried about what the day will bring.

I hope you find your life as exciting as mine.  You just got to start looking at everything as a miracle.  I consider it a miracle that I wake up in the morning!  I am so grateful for the beautiful sunrises here, they are God’s miracles every morning to me. I have a routine I follow every morning. I get up and make some coffee and while its brewing, I go outside into the stillness of the early morning and I look up into the crisp dark sky and look at the millions of stars and the dark outline of the mountains in the distance and I thank the Lord for another day.  Do you ever do that?  You should, you should be thankful that you are just where you are and not in some war torn village in some backward nation.  It was fate that allowed you to be born where you are, and you should thank your lucky stars! We should stop being so mean to each other and learn to get along.  The world, our nation, our towns and our homes would be so much better off if we were all just a little more grateful and a little less mean.

“A person however learned and qualified in his life’s work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant” ~Hazrat Inayat Khan

friday surprises!!!

Heading into the snow at the Johnson County line

Boy, did I dip my foot in some fun yesterday! Wednesday night, my girlfriend , Gin, called me and told me there were some  buyers in Sheridan that were at the Holiday Inn looking to purchase old jewelry, coins, silver, gold, whatever.  She thought we should dig through our jewelry boxes and take some stuff over there.  Well, I’ve never done that before but I was game, especially on the gold jewelry end of it because I don’t like gold anyway.  I’m a serious silver girl, always have been.  Gold makes my neck and fingers turn green.  Doesn’t matter if it’s 24 carat gold, on me it looks like cheap brass.  Some kind of weird chemical reaction, I’ve been told.   All of the stuff I wear is silver or white gold or stainless steel. 

So, I dutifully dug through the ole jewelry box and came up with an assortment of old silver dollars, a few broken silver watches, a lot of broken gold chains, some old wedding bands and such and off we trotted yesterday to see the buyers.  The girl and guy who were there are by no means professionals.  You could tell they had certain things they were looking for but not a lot of knowledge.  Mostly, they were just going by weight on the gold and silver.  Anyway, after looking at everything and sorting it into piles and testing with little chemicals, they brought out their calculators and scribbled a bunch of stuff down.  After they entered it all in the computer, they printed out a sheet for me and handed it to me.  I tried not to flinch, I swear I did!  But this big wide ole grin just started seeping across my face, I couldn’t help myself.  I’ll never be a good poker player, I swear!

They offered me $388.00!  Holy guacamole! You have to understand, this was crap stuff to me! Things I have no use for at all, broken stuff.  It was just laying in my jewelry box gathering dust for years! Heck yes, I’ll take it, I told them and they promptly cut me a check.  Gin did pretty well, too.

We left there feeling like two pretty lucky ladies and nodded to the people out in the lobby who we’d talked to before going in that they were indeed, in for a good time! 

Our next stop was a new little doggie boutique that’s sprung up in Sheridan.  They have great stuff for dogs, apparel for people and one of those doggie washes.  I got a zip up hoodie that has a really cool saying on it about dog codependence.  I’ll put the words at the bottom here.  They also have this great dog treat that is liquid, comes in a bottle.  It’s almost like one of those roll on deodorant bottles, the dog can lick the surface and it rolls to give them more liver flavor.  I use one to train Thistle. You can carry it in your pocket, the dog can’t smell it until you remove the lid and each lick is only 5 calories for the dog. Brilliant! I could go crazy in this store, but despite having that big check in my purse, I didn’t.  Was quite proud of myself, actually!

Gin and I always have so much fun when we’re together!  We are about as opposite as they come, sorta like me and Rob, actually.  I keep teasing her that if we were ever on a deserted island together, we’d have no problem with the food because she doesn’t like anything I like. We’re kinda like yin and yang. Sometimes I wonder why we do so well together because we are so different.  She challenges me, though, that’s one of the reasons I like her.  She’s from Minnesota and is very straightforward, honest and well, blunt.  I like people who are brutally honest, you always know where you stand with them.

Anyway, after the boutique, we had to stop at Walmart for a few things. I wasn’t going to go in because it’s a big store and I’m on crutches but Gin convinced me to go in and get one of those geezer motor carts to ride in.  Boy, am I glad she did!  I had a blast running around scaring half of Sheridan with that thing! Good thing those little carts have a governor on the speed or there might be some Walmartians with tire marks up their backs this morning.  Do people check their brains at the door at Walmart? I think so.  Why is it when you see someone you know there, you both have to blockade an aisle so no one else can get through?  Having a motorized cart, I was being a little aggressive yesterday, tee hee.  Felt good to give a little back to some of those little ole biddies.

So, that was our adventure in the big metropolis of Sheridan yesterday.  We had the good fortune on the return drive of only hitting a small amount of snow on the way back.  There’s a curtain almost at the county line between Johnson and Sheridan County.  As soon as we got into our own Johnson County, there was the snow again. It was bone dry on the Sheridan side.

Last night we had another big crowd at our happy hour table at the Moose Lodge.  Our little Moose is growing quickly all of a sudden and that’s so great!  We recruited 5 new members last week.  All the money that the Moose makes goes to fund things for the kids of Buffalo after they pay for the day to day operations of the Lodge.  Makes me feel like my getting tipsy on Fridays is a noble thing!  But really, our Moose is great and I’m so glad to see it growing.

Today, Rob and I are going to take a morning drive down the old highway to Kaycee and see what sorta wildlife and scenery we can capture on our cameras.  Our prize in Kaycee is an Invasion burger at the Invasion Bar downtown.  They have the best burgers in WY, in our opinion.  They still do handmade ones and their French fries are handcut and the fryer is the perfect temperature.  I’m a medical vegetarian but I throw that out the window when we go to Kaycee and get myself a big ole jalepeno and swiss burger! I highly recommend it if you are ever passing through on I-25.  Don’t blink or you’ll miss Kaycee, it’s only 200 and some people. But they are awesome people, salt of the earth ranchers.  Downtown is only one block long and ends at the big memorial park for Chris LeDoux, who used to live here.

A few years back, Kaycee almost got wiped off the map by a big flood.  It took out most of the town when the Powder River unleashed its 100 year flood.  The folks of Kaycee took it all in stride and even had a “FloodFest”, complete with hilarious t-shirts.  Everyone from all of Johnson County pitched in and rebuilt,  no one grumbled that FEMA wasn’t there, we just did it ourselves. When they rebuilt, they really did a nice job.  It’s like stepping back into the 1890’s when you walk down the street.

Well, time to find that adventure today.  I wish for you that you see your life as an adventure as well.  Just pretend you’re a kid again, remember how everything was such a wonder?  You can still find that wonder, you just have to put a stillness in that adult mind of yours and turn off the worries and find the joys of discovery instead.

My new jacket says: on the front

Where I go…dog follows

Where I stop…dog settles

When I am lost…dog finds me

When I am joyful…dog joins me

Who I am…dog knows

What I need…dog becomes

On the back it says:  Dog. Codependent

the object of my codependence, Thistle

science fiction......

View of the mountains from one street over on Wyoming Ave where Thistle and I walk frequently

I was one of those nerdy bookworm kids growing up. Books are still my life, actually. Movies often disappoint, my imagination is way better than any production set, although some of the special effects they are doing these days are pretty awesome.  When I was young, the teachers used to give you a reading list for the summer, said list being maybe 6 books, if I’m remembering correctly. Well, that was in elementary school, as I got older the list got a little longer.  I would arrive back at school in September (although, usually not the same school I left in May) having read a minimum of 30-40 books.  I dutifully wrote down each book I read and a short synopsis.  A lot of teachers called me a liar back then until they quizzed me on contents. Growing up, my favorites were whatever my mother was reading at the time. I got hooked on science fiction pretty early because of that. Asminov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke, H.G. Wells, these were the friends of my youth.  My favorite was Frank Herbert, though, and his book series “Dune”.

The reason I brought this up is that yesterday I actually felt like I was living in one of those science fiction novels I read as a kid. I remember when I was reading all those books that everything they talked about seemed so far fetched, so surreal.  I’ve just decided I need to go revisit my childhood author friends because everything they wrote about as science fiction is now science fact! Of course, right now I have a stack of books about 10 high next to my lounger that I've been trying to get through.....

Yesterday, I had my first “skype” conversation. Talk about science fiction, wow!  Here I am, sitting in little Buffalo, Wyoming, in my living room, talking to a friend, face to face, who is sitting in his living room in Rio, Brazil!  I know, some of you have probably been skyping for a while but this was my first time and the experience just blew me away.  Sure, I’ve done “go to meeting” but I didn’t have my laptop with its built in camera then. Something very different about listening as opposed to actually “seeing” someone in front of you.

My friend, Steven, who I was skyping with, had visited Rob and me here a few years ago.  He was on a world wide trip, having lived in Australia his whole life.  He decided when he went on this trip that he’d like to stay with friends he’d met on the internet.  I met Steven on Stumbleupon years ago and we had developed a friendship due to our shared interests there. So, I jumped at the chance to show him Wyoming.  We had a blast while he was here!  He had never seen snow falling and we had a very large unusual fall snowstorm while he was here, so he got his money’s worth. He spent an entire week with us and we took him as many places as we could fit in to give him a full Western experience.

Skyping with Steven

Anyway, Steven met a wonderful lady in Brazil while on his world trip and has since moved there. He’s the one who suggested we do the skype call. It was just so amazing.  I got to “meet” his girlfriend and his cat.  He got to meet Thistle.  We carried our laptops around the houses to show off our scenery….just magical!  I even saw that huge Jesus statue that he can see out his window in Rio! I’m still reeling from the thought of the technology that went into that little meeting. I’m sure kids these days are laughing at me, as this has been a part of their lives already.

I feel blessed to have grown up in the times I have.  I’ve seen so much progress in the human race. Of course, we’ve had our backwardness, too. We are gaining technical knowledge at a mind blowing pace these days, though. I subscribe to a lot of nerdy science stuff because even if I’m disabled physically, I don’t want my mind to rot. I look forward every month to my copy of Scientific American and run off and read it cover to cover.  Last month, they had an advertisement for a cruise to Alaska with S.A. that I’d kill to go on. Not only do you get to do all the cruise stuff up the inner passage, on board is going to be an astronaut, several molecular biologists and an astrophysicist to give evening lectures!  You are probably really laughing now, Rob did.  I’m not, though, that would be a dream vacation for me.  Can you imagine being out on the deck in the Inner Passage of Alaska, next to a guy who has used the Hubble telescope and he’s showing you the stars?  Or listening to the glaciers crack while you talk to someone who has had his feet on the moon? It’s just a dream, though, I’ll never get to experience it that way.  Rob keeps promising he’ll take me to Alaska and I think we may actually get there in the next few years if I stay alive long enough.  Things keep coming up that are more important and that’s a very expensive trip the way I want to do it.  I want to take a cruise and go first class and do all the little side trips of panning for gold & fishing for salmon & cruising the inlets to get close to the glaciers. If I’m only going to see it once, I’m going to do it right!

Okay, I’m calming down….Yesterday just sparked some imagination juices that haven’t flowed so freely in a while.

It’s Friday!!  Time to shake off your work week and get your happy on!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend and you get to experience something amazing. Don’t just sit around the house and watch tv.  Get out there and do something that will stretch you...physically or mentally!

“Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works, Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things”~ Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt)

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it” ~Douglas Adams (from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

letting life flow.....

Mr Bull Elk and his ladies lounging in Kendrick Park

Since I was supposed to get surgery yesterday, I had a full day with nothing on my agenda.  Sometimes, days like that are the ones that end up being the fullest!  It all started pretty quiet, sitting around playing with Thistle the Wonder Golden and wondering how the heck I was going to make it, gimping on one leg for two more weeks, with a torn knee.  That got me realizing that my usual bravery to pain was just not going to see me through this time. 

I think I told you that I really do not like narcotics/painkillers.  For one thing, I have a children’s reaction to drugs, always have, in that I need far less than normal adults.  Also, I really don’t like that feeling you get when you are taking them.  My head always feels like it’s ten times its size and sound becomes magnified, feels like everyone is yelling at me. For me, it’s just a creepy feeling.  Add to that, my sensitivity to others emotions already and you pretty much have a blithering train wreck when I take painkillers. But sometimes, you just have to take them.  Do painkillers really kill pain or do they just mess you up so much you aren’t paying attention to the pain anymore? That’s a question I’m not sure has an easy answer. I’ll be letting you know in the next few days because I broke down yesterday and asked for some.

Dr. Q, my orthopedic surgeon, does not believe in dispensing prescription painkillers before surgery. That’s never really been a problem with me before, as my surgery has usually been right away. Heck, I say usually, like I get surgery all the time...  I’ve only had him operate on me once before, for a damaged shoulder.  He had to remove about ½ an inch of my clavicle because my AC space was too tight, causing lots of damage. I also had mondo bone spurs in my rotator cuff. He prefers that you just take ibuprofen or some other over the counter pain relief before surgery and save the “real” drugs for post-op. 

So, yesterday morning, I’m sitting there playing with Thistle and my knee is playing the drum solo (or so it feels) and I realize that I’m not going to handle this next two weeks very well.  So, I decided to drop in on my family practitioner and see if she could help me.  The wonderful thing about this small town is you can actually do that here.  I got to her office about 9 am and no one else was there yet and I explained that my surgery had been postponed.  Now, I had just been to see her last week because I wanted a full physical exam before surgery to make sure I was physically ready and also so she could send Dr. Q. a copy stating such.  When you have no immune system, you have to think about things like that.  So, she was fully aware of everything I’ve been going through.  After giving me a big hug and some consolation, we decided that yes, indeed, I needed some help. I’m very picky about the drugs I’m willing to take.  Most of those drugs, like I said, make me feel worse, not better.  I have learned that the only one I can take and still continue to function normally on is Demerol.  Most doctors will tell you that you may as well take a placebo as take Demerol in pill form.  For me, though, with my child reaction to drugs, it’s perfect. It helps dull the pain but doesn’t dull my brain so much.  So, that’s what I got.

This meant I needed to go to Sheridan to get it filled as you can’t fax in narcotic prescriptions. Turns out, it worked out great because all my other prescriptions just happened to be there waiting for me to pick up. Serendipity strikes again!  Now, anytime I have to go to Sheridan and it’s anywhere around lunchtime, Rob gets real pouty if he doesn’t get to go along and hit his favorite Chinese buffet!  Since I can't drive real well with my left foot, he was a neccesity this time. We also had our new magnetic signs for our photo business to pick up there.  Oh, they are gorgeous, by the way! 

New sign panels for the truck and my car

So, my day of doing nothing turned into a lunchtime trip to Sheridan with Rob.  We had to go check the Elk pen at Kendrick Park while we were there, of course.  You never know when that million dollar shot of the big bull is going to be waiting for you.. We didn’t stay long, the sun was not really cooperating but Rob did get a few nice shots of Mr. Bull Elk.

So, we got back to Buffalo after lunch, nice full tummies from the Dragon Wall buffet, and Rob dropped me off at home to go back to work. Next thing I know, a friend who is moving to town called and I got to go over and visit with her while she was unpacking at her new home. It was wonderful because usually she’s got her two little ones with her but she came over the mountain alone this time so she could do some pre-move cleaning.

Once I left her, I went for a drive by myself up a little into the mountains, just for a little thought collection I desperately need from time to time.  Nature always centers me and I do this quite often.  The air was so crisp and the mountains so clear up there, always crisps and clears my head, too.

After that, I stopped to get a newspaper and ran into one of my other besties, who was heading to happy hour at the Moose.  I got the great idea that we should join her!  Now, usually I only go out once a week for drinks but, hey, I had a free day and my knee was throbbing….good excuse as any, right?

I’m so glad we went to Happy hour because one of my other besties, Kim, had just gotten back into town from her snowbirding trip down to her property in Nicaragua just hours before!  Poor Rob, though, had to sit with six women and listen to us chatter for a couple of hours!  Luckily, he’s quite comfortable in his masculinity and can handle all of us women!  We even had a dog at our table last night as friends brought their latest addition, Agnes, along.  It was a fun time had by all.

Agnes, the rescue pup, at her first ladies bull session at the bar

I really ended up having quite a day for someone who had nothing planned yesterday morning.  I’m sitting here this morning feeling very grateful for the life I have. I share it with a lot of amazing people here in Buffalo, too.  As I say often since I’ve lived here, I can’t imagine being anywhere else on earth.  Okay, maybe somewhere warm on occasion but I get such warmth from my friends, I really don’t need the temperatures to follow suit…..

I hope that you can see the little joys in your life like I do without having the drama of death hovering over your head. I wish for you to see that life is a miracle every day and that ordinary things can be extraordinary, if you just look at life through a grateful eye.  My life is nothing unusual….it’s how I approach it, that makes it magical.  You can, too, friend!

“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with knowledge that you’ll never walk alone”

~Sam Levenson

Operation day.....not!

Magnificent horses!

Well, got myself all psyched up for nothing on the knee surgery, folks.  Got a call yesterday, late afternoon, informing me that there had been a problem in the orthopedic operating room at Sheridan Hospital and all surgeries for today have been postponed.  On further digging, found out through a nurse friend of mine that works there that an operation went awry (not my surgeon, thank goodness) which caused an arterial spray all over said OR.  They need several days to decontaminate and re-sterilize the room. I sure hope the person that was on the table is still alive!  I’ve been in surgery as an RN when someone’s artery has been nicked and it’s like something out of a horror show.

I did a short stint in cardiology at Harbor Hospital in Baltimore many years ago and we had a cardiac catherization go wrong on us once.  The blood from the poor guy’s femoral artery shot all the way up to the ceiling like some eerie, macabre, bloody water fountain. We couldn’t get the weighted bag we keep reserved for those emergencies on him to stop the blood flow fast enough. Needless to say, he did not survive. It rarely happens but when it does, it’s devastating! There’s nothing anyone can do but watch helplessly as all their blood exits in less time than it takes to react. I forget what the force of blood volume is in your arteries, it’s been a while since I was in school, but it’s an amazingly forceful pressure.

Soooo, my surgery has been rescheduled for February 27^th.  Gonna be gimping around with the ole lavender crutches for another two weeks.  It’s okay, though, as Rob’s 60^th birthday is next week and I now won’t be in the early recovery time and can enjoy his day with him. Things always work out, I’ve learned. No sense in getting all flustered about things you have no control over.

When you have diseases like AIDS and MS, like I do, you have to learn to give up a lot of control in your life.  I never know what my body has in store for me on any given day.  My friends have learned that sometimes I make grand plans and have to bow out at the last minute because my body is not cooperating.  It used to really make me angry but I’ve lived with this fact so long now it’s just part of “me”.  I still get frustrated though, as I like to be a person of my “word” when I make plans.  I used to be involved in a lot of volunteer things here in Buffalo.. I was a member of the Wild Bunch, the ambassadors for the Chamber of Commerce and I ran the Mountain Plains Heritage Park Board and many other little things here.  I’ve had to step back and only have one volunteer job now. I can’t keep letting people down because I don’t feel well on a given day.

The only volunteer thing I do now is run the Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) here in Johnson County, under Marilyn Connelly, the Homeland Security Officer. It’s my job to make sure the animals are taken care of in case of a disaster. I’m the desk jockey supervisor.  I like this job because I don’t really have too much to do unless something major happens.  All of us on the team have been trained by the group, American Humane, out of Englewood, CO. These amazing people are the ones who were on scene with Michael Vick’s fighting dogs rescue…well, actually they respond to every natural disaster involving animals as well as hoarding, abuse and puppy mill violations. They are also on the set of every movie involving animals to make sure they are not harmed in any way.  Let me tell you, that part of the training (the abused animals and what we’d see) almost killed all of us volunteers emotionally! How some people can be so cruel is beyond my comprehension!

Our DART booth at the Business Expo, signing up families with pets so we know who's house to knock on in case of emergency, homes with pets now registered!

If you are ever looking for a great charity, these are the folks I recommend donating to. They were at Katrina, well, like I said, they are the first responders anywhere in the country to help the animals.  They’ve been responding to disasters since World War I. Right now, my team is awaiting our next level of training from them “Animal Rescue Training for First Responders” and then I think we are going also to be learning large animal rescue skills for helping horses and livestock.  Right now, we are only qualified to set up emergency shelters for domestic pets.  There’s a lot involved, keeping sick animals away from healthy, aggressive away from the others.  It’s not just about throwing them into a shelter like you can with people. You have to worry about air flow and people traffic and a myriad of other things I had no idea about until I got involved.

I’m also looking forward to one course they offer because the title is just darn funny.. “Officers and Canine Encounters: Bark..Stop, Drop & Roll techniques”  Huh?  Who barks, me or the dog? Guess I’ll find out when I take the class.  Several of the ladies who are on my team have gone on to get certified for the “ready teams” nationwide.  Anytime there’s a disaster or major hoarding/abuse case, they’ll get called to fly in and participate in the rescue. I’m jealous, I wish I could be on that team, helping all over the country at a moment’s notice. Nothing fills my heart more than helping an animal in need. 

Okay, well, I’ve emptied my head for another morning.  I’ve got to get ready for my day of cripping around. The nice thing is that I had set aside this day and the rest of the week for recovery and thus, have nothing planned!  I think it’s a good couple of days to go visiting girlfriends I haven’t seen in a while.  Nothing like coffee and chewing the “fat” with your friends to make a day sparkle!

Today is my daughter’s 34^th birthday.  Happy, Happy Birthday darling! We’ll be calling her this evening and I can’t wait to hear her sweet voice.  As I’ve said, she may not be my biological child, but I love her as if she were!  We are actually the same age difference as my mother and I so I could have had her, right? Did I tell you I was working in Balboa Park in San Diego, right next door to where she was born..on the day she was born?  The universe is a serendipitous  place, full of  amazing coincidences. I may have told you that Rob and I actually lived within 3 blocks of each other back then, unaware that someday we’d be together! Gives me chills to think I may have winked at that cute Navy Chief (Rob),  roller skating on my way to work back then!

“A coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous”

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle”~ Albert Einstein

The past makes us who were are today...

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!  If you are alone today, it can be a rough day, right?  Well, don’t let it be. It’s pretty much a manufactured holiday created by Hallmark to sell cards these days, anyway.  When did we get so ridiculous with holidays?  It seems we slide from one holiday to the next almost seamlessly now.  I’ve already seen Easter stuff out, for Heaven’s sake!

I’m lucky to have an amazing man in my life.  It took me a lot of false starts to find him, though, and I had to quit looking before he found me. Seriously, I had pretty much sworn off ever dating again when I met Rob.

I got married the first time when I was just 19 years old. I think I was escaping my parents with that one, now that I look back with wisdom.  Joe, I’m sorry you got caught up in that and I hope your life turned out well.  He was (or is) a Merchant Marine Engineer. We thought it would be a perfect marriage because he had to be at sea 6 months out of the year. We thought we’d never get tired of each other and it would be nothing but romance every time his ship docked. I set up our little nest in a lovely apartment in downtown Baltimore and played the dutiful wife while he was away, looking forward to his return each time.  But, something happened to him out there at sea, alone with his thoughts. He started imagining I was doing all sorts of things back here on dry land (which I was not, I am super faithful, even when dating).  My problem was that every 6 months a stranger would come home and expect to pick up where we left off.  It was a disaster.  The last time he came home from sea, he told me was arriving on a certain day and came home early and was trying to spy on me to see if he could catch me cheating, which I wasn’t.  I fled to California and never looked back. Out of the two years we were married, we actually only spent 8 days together because of his job.

My second husband I met when I was rebounding once again from the relationship with my perennial boyfriend from high school, Cliff . Cliff and I, thank goodness, never tied the knot, but lived together off and on for years. He was a serial cheater and I’m so glad I finally broke that cycle! Last I spoke with him a few years back, he is still not married but told me he was gonna make an honest woman of his girlfriend “someday”, geez… Poor guy never grew up. He’s still hanging out with college kids in his 50’s.  When we broke up for the final time, I gave him the book “The Peter Pan Syndrome” , evidently he didn’t read it.

Anyway, husband two was Bill, a really sweet guy from Carroll County who worked with Cliff at Amtrak.  Cliff was a rail sweeper at the time and Bill was a Block Operator. His job was to sit in a little hut out on the line and switch the rails to keep trains from crashing into each other. It was a very stressful but high paying job.  We bought a really cute little house in Baltimore and once again I set about being the perfect wife.  Sometime not long after our marriage, Bill started hanging out with a bunch of engineers, you know, the guys who drive the trains?  Well, let me tell you, after meeting those guys, I’ll never feel safe on a train. They turned my sweet little country boy into a raging druggie and alcoholic!  He got caught up in partying with them after work and one day came home after smoking PCP with them and threw my tv and my cat out our second story window.  I left that night and never went back. We were married about 2 ½ years.

Husband number three was the worst, though. This time, I thought I was being smart and decided to live with Brian before marrying him.  We met when we were both working at the Valley Inn in Greenspring Valley in Baltimore. He was a rock musician and bartended there to supplement his income. I was working as an Emergency Vet Tech then, waiting tables on the side.  Brian was one of those deep, philosophical, brooding musicians. He was Native American, Northern Arapahoe, with long dark hair, always dressed in leather and feathers when not bartending.  So, we lived together for 5 years before I finally said I’d marry him.  The day after we got married, his personality changed. By that time, I had started on my nursing career and was working at Springfield State Mental Hospital.  He would fly into rages, accusing me of dressing nice because I was seeing someone at work.  Can you imagine? Yeah, I’m dating one of the loonies,  Brian.  He ripped up my address book and told me I would not be hanging out with my girlfriends anymore. He got crazy possessive! I guess some guys think that marriage certificate means they own you.  The final straw came one night when I was getting ready for work and he tried to strangle me in his rage. I went to work that night with his finger marks on my neck and the other nurses, with little convincing, got me to go to my mom’s and stay there.  A few weeks later, Brian sent a suicide note to my Mom’s dog, for gosh sake!  Yes, I had great taste in men. Not!

After that crap, I decided I better just work on my career and forget men. I was having just a grand old time hanging out with my girlfriends, anyway.  One night, actually it was Sept 15, 1990, Rosh Hashanah,  at my house (Jewish New Year), I was trying to get away from the family dinner as early as possible and had set up plans to go to Fell’s Point with my girlfriends for a little pub crawling.  I had to stop at Tully’s in Westminster first, though, as a friend was having a birthday.  I walked into Tully’s and ordered a drink and they were having a thing where you flipped a coin and if you called it right, you won a drink.  I won a drink but was not staying so I turned to this guy next to me, who was in a three piece suit, and said “here, have a drink on me” and I left to go back to the house to get ready to go to Fell’s Point. Well, girlfriend Pam called while I was changing and said it was raining cats and dogs down at the Point and we should just meet at Tully’s.  So, back I went…  The guy I had given the drink chip to was still there and looks at me with one of those “hey, baby” looks, you know the one and says “I guess I owe you a drink now”.  Well, it was Rob, who had just come from teaching a computer class at the local community college.  I was not impressed because at the time, he was not my “type.” Back then, I went for long haired, rebellious types and here was a staid, lawyerly looking type trying to pick me up. But, something made me sit down and start talking with Rob.  I have never gotten up from that proverbial chair…. He’s intelligent and makes me think, and we can talk for hours and hours, even 22 years later and never be bored with each other.

Rob has been my rock now for 22 years. He has stood by me through a lot of scary things. Sure, we’ve had our spats but we’ve never gone to bed angry and we truly respect each other.  We are as different as night and day. I’m spontaneous and goofy while Rob is practical and a planner. I don’t know how it works, but it does.  Opposites do indeed attract.

So, I see you counting up my marriages….Yes, Rob is my fourth. I am his third.  Sometimes it takes a few goofs to get to the goodness in life. At least I had the brains to get out of bad situations, right?

Take heart if you aren’t in a relationship right now, it just hasn’t found you yet.  Stop looking and just be yourself and when you least expect, your world will turn upside down, trust me. In the meantime, know that you are worthy of great love!

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it” ~Jalal Rumi

Emotional sponge confessions



The awesome UM Ranch house, sits all alone, high on a hill. This is my "coveted" house, I love it so much!



Good morning, campers!  How are you all today?  I am fantastic, as usual, despite the early hour and the fact that it’s Monday.  I woke up with great music in my head this morning, just started my early morning off special.

Do you have an inner radio, too?  Mine plays all the time. I have no control over what songs play, sometimes it’s stuff I absolutely love and then on occasion, something obnoxious starts up, like disco.  I have to sing the disturbing song out loud to get rid of the darn thing! Since I’ve always had things in my head other than my own thoughts, I assumed everyone else did until a few years ago.

I touched on this a while back here on my blog and I’ve decided it’s time to fess up a little secret about myself…. I’m an Empath.  Rut ro, you say….Lisa is getting really weird here. No, really, I am a sponge for the consciousness of others, be it people, animals, even plants.  I can SEE their emotions, they come in colors sometimes and I can FEEL other’s moods.  I used to think it was just a survival skill I had learned while growing up in a very turbulent childhood.  I went to a lot of different schools, lived in a lot of places and was constantly having to gauge others as I was always the “new” kid growing up.  It has really come in handy, let me tell you.  It has also been somewhat of a curse.  One of the reasons I love living in a small town is that there are less people’s emotions to deal with.  I used to walk down the crowded streets of Baltimore and feel bombarded with negativity, it was almost physical.  It would make me very depressed, absorbing everyone’s pain.

I have now learned how to work with it and am trying to use it to help others see themselves more honestly. You are certainly thinking I’m crazy by now, but I have scientific proof to back up my claims.  There’s a video you really need to see that shows how we can actually even change our DNA with our thoughts.  If you are interested the video is located here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHYsUlzR-6E  It’s a little long, about 25 minutes, but after watching, you may never view yourself or others the same.  And you may realize that you are not doomed by this life we live. It talks about how the scientists got it wrong and “matter” does not really exist!  I won’t tell you any more, you really need to watch the video.

Back to being an empath, though… it’s not an “I see dead people thing” I just feel when people are happy, sad, angry, worried, whatever.  I don’t know WHY you are having those emotions, I just feel you having them.  I am sensitive to the invisible as well as the visible and pick up on body language, voice tonality, choice of words (and words you avoid). It is not unusual for me to totally freak out or not be able to sleep for days…only to find that someone close to me has passed away or someone is going through either a very difficult time or a very wonderful time.  It happened with my Great Aunt Becky and thanks to my cousin, Camille, I finally know exactly what those pre-death feelings are because she called me in the process of Aunt Becky leaving us.  I get a real shuddery feeling, almost like my breathing has several levels.  In the past, I thought I was coming down with the flu or something and never really connected the feeling with someone I love dearly leaving this earth. While Camille and Libbie were going through their goodbyes with Aunt Becky, though, I really concentrated on the emotions and physical manifestations I was experiencing. The scary part is I never know who it is… You can bet the next time I get this feeling, I will be calling every relative and person I care about to check on them.

The first time I really remember experiencing this gift/curse was when my cousin, Jack, was killed in that car accident when I was in high school. I remember like it was yesterday the moment the phone call came from Uncle Charlie and Aunt Dotty that the accident had occurred. As Mom was reaching to answer the phone call, I actually screamed and crumbled to the floor….”something happened to Jack”. I just KNEW the moment that phone rang!  It was very scary for a 15 yr old troubled girl, let me tell you.  That whole few weeks after were a tumble of crazy emotions for me, because the whole family was grieving so terribly. I couldn’t even go to school for two weeks.

I think everyone has the capacity to be empathetic on the level I am. You have just shut it out at some point in your youth.  I have learned finally to embrace it and love myself for who I am. Mostly, I love the fact that people feel comfortable with me, even strangers, telling me things they would not normally divulge.  I am a listener and I do not kiss and tell. But don’t lie to me, because I can feel it. Your mouth may be saying one thing, but your body and your thoughts are projecting the truth of your feelings to me. I read faces like most people read books.

The world would be a better place if we all practiced using our intuition. Our education system, however, with its rote learning, stifles that gene in most of us.  We empaths are the rule breakers, the dreamers, the creative thinkers who won’t bow down to the status quo.  If you manage to survive intact through your years of institutional thinking, you might be able to help the world see that we are so interconnected, in our thoughts and feelings, that we CAN change the world from the ugly we are experiencing now.

Wow, I can’t believe I said all this out loud finally.  I’m gonna know if you are reading my blog, you know…I’ll see it in your face when I pass you on the street. It’s been weird, knowing so many people are getting to  know the real me. But it’s very liberating, let me tell you.  I had come to a point where I had lost my ability to cry.  I had built up so many walls to protect myself from your emotions that I lost mine in the process.  Lately, I have been able to cry again, not in pain or grief so much, but in joy.  Joy in the fact that this is an amazing life we have, so much of ourselves undiscovered.  Sometimes, I think I only need go up into my Bighorns, I don’t need to see the world anymore because the world is right here inside me.

Get out there and start trying to use your own intuition.  Start trusting yourself when you get a “feeling”.  Your heart knows much more than that silly gray matter lets you think it does. Start by approaching everything, and I mean everything, with love. When you start getting angry, take a step back and examine exactly what it is that is causing it.  If it seems to be totally irrational, maybe you, too, are just sensitive to others.  Google information on empaths, take the quizzes that are available.  My favorite site for this is http://www.mysilentecho.com/  They’ve really helped me.

Love to you all from the giant weirdness and love that is ME.

Me with my new hat..reminds me of "Where the Wild Things Are"