CHRISTMAS EVE

Never, by any stretch of the imagination, a traditional Christmas--much to my sorrow.
Eric is at work. He works every Christmas Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, etc. My son is in Texas working. He works trauma in an ER. No hope of seeing him or the grandchildren this year.

Today, I'm wrapping a few little gifts for Eric to put out tonight. Tomorrow, I'm cooking a turkey breast and a couple of special little fixin's from recipes I got from Ruthie. She does an absolutely lucious cranberry relish and whips up a delicious whipped yams dish. The cranberry relish includes apple, celery, crushed pineapple and a scattering pecans. It is really quite incredible. I fix a turkey breast because there are only two of us and neither of us like turkey dark meat.

I'll be writing a long addendum to a report I submitted 2 years ago. There's a deposition scheduled mid January. All the research has evolved in the two years the defense attorney has stalled so I have to write an addendum to the original report. I don't have any time unscheduled between now and the deposition. So, I have to get it done and submitted over the Christmas holiday. I also evaluated a man yesterday with really high risk scores. That has to be written up and submitted by Monday. He's being released on the 5th so I have to get an entire report written and into the AG before the 1st. We'll have to go to court on him before the 5th. So, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Saturday and Sunday--I'll be churning out reports! I leave for Danville Monday to evaluate yet one more. Every single case I got assigned for December and January look really bad and I fully expect that I'll have to churn out reports on all of them and go to court and testify on all of them.

Oh well, it helps pay the bills and it helps keep sex offenders off the street. So, you just keep plodding along---doing the work, winning some, losing some, just keep pushing that boulder up the hill.

Memories and Carrot Cake

Many years ago when we were living in Austin, Texas, Mom and Dad were visiting. Apparently, I asked Mom for her carrot cake recipe. She had made it many times in her life and grabbed a Graybar Electric Company memo pad, which happened to be nearby, and jotted it down for me.

Today, I was searching through old boxes--throwing things away. I found the faded copy of the recipe in her own handwriting. Mom has been dead 30 years and yet, the minute I saw it, I recognized her handwriting.

Here it is:

Mom's Carrot Cake

1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees. If I remember correctly, she used a Bundt pan or a ring pan.


4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups Wesson oil
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 tps soda in some of the milk
3 cups flour
2 tps. cinnamon
1 tps salt (she always cut back on this)
3 cups grated carrots
1 tps lemon extract
1 cup pecan pieces


Put sugar & oil in mixing bowl. Mix. Add other ingredients in this order: eggs, milk, flour, spices & extract, nuts, carrots. Mix.

Pour into oiled & floured pan and bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. I'd probably spray a pan with Baker's Joy, but that was not available 60 years ago.


Glaze with Orange Sauce:

1/2 cup orange juice
1 tps orange rind---nowadays we call that zest and use one of our fancy zesters
2 cups powdered sugar

Dreams

I’m a psychologist and I understand that dreams are made of distorted fragments of day residue. That means that we take tiny fragments of things that happened during our day and distort those fragments. Some times, we distort them until they are no longer recognizable. Some times we distort them into images, events, and fantasy that momentarily allow us to bear our pain a little more easily.

Yesterday on 10/15/09 at 5:40, I euthanized my eldest dog. I had known for many months that he was moving into death. Upon awaking every morning, the first thing I did was go check on the dogs. I fully expected that God was going to answer the prayer I was ashamed to admit I prayed every night. I kept praying to God that he would take him in his sleep to save me the pain of euthanizing him. I wanted his heart to simply quit beating so that Jake was never frightened or in pain. And, I wanted not to be forced to euthanize him. Sometimes, God says no.

What little I slept last night was fitful. I kept waking to the thought that he is dead and crying myself back to sleep. Finally, I slept to a dream of him running and playing in our backyard—young, healthy, a rascally little scamp with spotted Dalmatian like paws. The dream reminded me of his escape to the school soccer field and refusal to return home. I bought an entire meat lovers pizza believing I could toll him back with it. I couldn’t. He loved freedom more than pizza and he really loved pizza. The dream also reminded me of several escapes in Kentucky when he would charge up one of the Appalachian mountains and then stop, look back and wait for me to struggle a little farther up the mountain and a little closer to him. Then, he’d run higher. I awoke with all the hope in the world that he was young, healthy and vibrant still. I shook myself back to reality and tears. Every time I fell asleep, I awoke to memories of images like him strolling from my bedroom into the living room with one of my cigarettes hanging from his fleshy lips. He looked so much like Joe Camel when he did that. He alternated that entrance with him strolling from my bedroom with one cup of my bra perched on his head as if it were a beanie and the rest of the bra dragging along side. I remembered catching Jake having his way with a little fluffy white dog wearing a red sweater in our back yard. Didn’t matter to Jake that he was shooting blanks. I remembered him walking the perimeter of our backyard right up against the new privacy fence. The four of them together marched like ducks around the very edge of the back yard keeping weeds down and intruders out of their backyard. Every time I fell asleep, I awoke to the reality and to my tears.

I went downstairs to check on Savvy Jo. She was his litter mate and his incubator mate when they both had Parvo as infants. He was “over the hump” faster than her and the VET was afraid to send him home because they were so attached to each other. He kept Jake extra days so that he could keep him in the incubator with Savvy Jo. As adults, they each have their own beds, but they usually slept together. Sometimes, they played a game of musical beds. Savvy is very upset and won’t sleep in their bed. At some level, she knows.

Eric left for work and I went back to bed for a while. I went back to sleep and the dream was of Jake beautiful and alive except that we had removed his back legs. He had nothing wrong with his back legs, but he kept collapsing. I guess that is the distortion. Amputate his back legs and he won’t be dead. I told you dreams are distortions. Sometimes, they are so distorted they are unrecognizable and psychotic. In the dream, he had learned to get around the back yard without his back legs. He had somehow even learned to climb to the top edge of the privacy fence and perch atop it looking into the distant freedom.

I’m praying there is a Rainbow Bridge. I’m praying that my mom and dad, my daughter and Eric’s mom & dad are looking out for him. I’m praying he’s reached that distant freedom, that he has no pain, that he can run free without fear of cars or mean people, and that God has a lot of Beggin Strips on hand. He loves Beggin Strips.

I’m in so much pain, that I have got to believe in something.

GOVERNOR OF IDAHO

The Governor of Idaho plunked down his $11.75 cents so that he could go slaughter a wolf on 9/1/09. That's all a wolf life is worth---$11.75. I am sickened.

Wolves are social pack animals who mate for life, raise their pups in couples, and grieve when they lose a mate. When they lose a mate, they will attempt to raise any orphaned pups alone as single parents.

They have no chance against men and women with $11.75 and guns. If the slaughter is not stopped, their species will be wiped out. Only in the last year, has their species been brought back from the very brink of extinction by scientists. Only 2 years ago, did we have cubs that were sturdy enough to be released back into the wilds of Yellowstone.

Salazar and Obama have decided to allow the great white hunter to get their rocks off slaughtering defenseless father wolves, mother wolves and infant wolves. Palin is wiping out the Artic wolf and the polar bear. Salazar and Obama are wiping out the wolves in Yellowstone.

What if your life was worth $11.75? $11.75 will allow anyone to slaughter a wolf.

DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE desperately needs donations to mount a lawsuit to stop the slaughter. PLEASE HELP. Their lives are depending on us.

IDAHO WOLF SLAUGHTER

The great state of Idaho is aiming for an unprecedented wolf slaughter this Fall. On Monday, the department will begin selling 70,000 permits to hunt an kill wolves in Idaho. That's 70 guns for each wolf mother, wolf father, and wolf pup in Idaho.

The will be the worlst wolf massace in the Lower 48 since the 1930's. Hundreds of completely defnseless wolves will be shot, with many surviving wolf pups left to starve to death.

Idaho's wolf hunting season is scheduled to begin in just 14 days.

We must stop this slaughter. DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE is accepting tax deductible donations right now to help fund the legal fight and mount a national mobilization campaign to save the wolves in Idaho and Greater Yellowstone. No amount is too small. Anything, you can find to donate will help them fight this battle. Please donate to Defenders right now. Call 1 800 385 9712 to contribute over the phone. Please call and donate. The lives of each and every one of those wolves depends on us. They can't fight back and they don't have guns. PLEASE DONATE NOW!

By the way, Salazar and Obama paved the way for this to happen.

INCREASE IN INSULIN

My blood sugar has been a tad better. It's not good enough, but it has been a tad better. Two times, it has been under 100, but that was 2 hours after I'd taken my insulin. That is to be expected. Only once has it been above 200. That was not expected. That was related to "breading" a chicken breast in Special K and baking it in the oven in a pan sprayed with Pam. Except for the 100 calorie whole wheat Sandwich Thin that I've been having every morning, I've had no other bread, cereal, pasta, potatoe, rice, grain products for a week.

So, after a week, my food diary tells me that I have been able to keep my caloric intake to between 1,000 & 1,400 each day and equally as important it pinpoints relatively accurately the culprit in blood sugar spikes. Clearly, it was the cereal. The green beans and tomato don't cause blood sugar spikes and 4 ounces of baked chicken doesn't cause a blood sugar spike. Either it was the 1/2 cup buttermilk the chicken was marinated in or it was the 1/2 cup cereal that I used to coat the chicken before baking. I'm betting it was the cereal.

So, I faxed all the numbers and the food diary to Dr. Saltman. He told me to keep doing what I'm doing and to increase my insulin by 3 units (from 5 to 8 units before bed). If I weren't so miserable, it would be like hunting down the clues and solving a mystery. But, the misery outweighs the mystery right now. Maybe someday.

For non diabetics (people who don't know), blood sugar should be 115 or under. If it drops below 75 you probably need to eat something relativey rapidly. Over 200 will fry your kidneys and cause kidney failure eventually. Every single time blood sugar goes over 200, it does some kidney damage.

BREAKFAST

My endocrinologist always sends written lab results after I see him. They came yesterday and they were not good. My A1C was significantly elevated meaning that my sugar is out of control which will destroy my kidneys, heart, cardiovascular system, and lead to somebody amputating my feet.

So, something must be done about this. He added insulin (before bed) to my Byetta and Glipizide routine. I take the insulin before bed because I'm one of the many diabetics who will have an acceptable or low blood sugar before bed and then it will soar to a high spike during the night (without any food going into your body). There are lots of diabetics who do that and have to take an extra dose of medicine before bed. It defies logic to me. It seems like if no food goes in that our bodies would burn the sugar it has not create more. But, apparently, research has shown that there are lots and lots of diabetics who do that early morning sugar spike. Byetta and Glipizide are good medicines, but they are not doing the trick alone.

So, I'm taking my medicine and have been keeping a food diary so that he & I will know every single bite that goes into my mouth. One of the major problems with diabetes is you must exercise severe portion control so I am always hungry. A growling stomach is healthy for me. The second problem is that if it tastes good I am not permitted to have it.

For example, I believe that food is supposed to eat vegetables--cows, chickens, pigs, etc are supposed to eat vegetables--NOT ME, NOT ME EVER. If I must eat vegetables, I'd just as soon not eat.

Breakfast is my absolute favorite meal. I dearly love a Hardees Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit. Clearly, I cannot have a Hardees Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Biscuit--not ever. They are something like 500 calories or more for just one not to mention the triglycerides and cholesterol. They are forbidden totally.

So, this morning I had my version fixed at home. It wasn't that bad. It satisfied my hunger. Start with a 100 calorie Arnold's Sandwich Thin. These are round, sort of look like a bun, but are very thin. I use the whole wheat ones. They remind me quite a lot of thick cardboard.

Then, put 1/2 cup of egg beaters (60 calories) and 1 slice of Kraft fat free chedder cheese (25 calories) into a Nordicware "egg mcmuffin" cooker and put in the microwave for 1 minute. This was the first time I tried the Nordicware "egg mcmuffin" cooker. I think it needs a few seconds more than 60 seconds. Egg beaters were not completely set. Toast the Sandwich Thin. When the egg beaters and cheese mixture has cooked the 1 minute or more, put it between the two slices of sandwich thins. Top with 2 slices of tomato. It's not terrible. It does fill you up. It's 185 calories (plus the two tomato slices, substantial protein, 0 fat, 0 cholesterol, and miniscule carbs. It's a good breakfast alternative. And, it doesn't taste that bad. I will admit that the Arnold Sandwich Thins remind me a lot of cardboard, but I am saving several hundred calories and cutting out scads of fat and carbs. And, I'm full. The bottom line is that I have got to get my blood sugar under control or I die. I have 4 dogs and 1 cat depending on me. I can't just allow myself to die.

ROUTINE ENDOCRINOLOGY APPOINTMENT

Every four months, I have a regularly scheduled appointment with my endocrinologist who has been attempting to treat my diabetes. I have other doctors also. Dr. Brown is attempting to manage my high blood pressure so that I don't have a stroke before the cardiovascular surgeon (Dr. Allen) can get the insurance company to approve him removing the clots from my carotids and before my high blood pressure completely fries my kidneys (treated by Dr. Rothstein). They are good doctors, I like them all, but there sure are a lot of them and there sure is a lot of medicine.

I have finally caught on that I should never darken the door of any one of their offices without having in my hot sweaty hands all the labs all the others completed, a complete list and dosage of all the medicines I'm on, and all my twice daily blood pressure readings, and my twice daily sugar levels.

Today, the bottom line was my blood pressure is still much too high which puts my kidneys in further danger of simply quitting and puts me at greater risk of a stroke sooner than later. Additionally, my sugar level is out of whack (big time). I've been keeping a record of every bite of food that enters my mouth so I not only had the readings to show him, but the food diary. He increased my Glipizide and added a small does of long acting insulin to my before bed routine. So, we'll see if this helps.

When you have these problems, there are only two options. First, you can give up and die. It's not quick or painless. And, they usually cut your feet off before you die. Right now, my feet are good. The other option, is to keep trying: 1) do the food diary every day, measure and weigh all food; 2) stick your finger no less than twice a day/record the data and fax it to the doctor; 3) take your blood pressure no less than twice a day/record the data and fax it to the doctor. You just keep on trying and keep on keeping on. Rather, than willingly giving in and sacrificing your feet, your kidneys, your brain to a stroke--the second option seems the best of nothing but bad choices. It's not fun.

New Driver's License

Recently received a post card that said my license was expiring on 10/5/2009. We renew them every six years in Missouri. Six years ago, I had forgotten to get it renewed and let it expire. So, I had to take the written exam and go for a ride with a policeman. Pain in the butt!!!! So, when I got the card, I gathered up all the documentation they require and headed to the license place with my zip lock plastic bag. After 2001, Missouri decided that no one would have a MO license who was not a "legal", who was a terrorist, etc.

So, we are required to show up with a minimum of an official birth certificate with a raised stamp to prove we were born in the USA and an official social security card. I have a SSN, but the card disappeared many years ago. It was the cheapest of cardboard and I obtained it when I was 16. I'm now 63. I have no idea how to get a new one, but I'm sure getting a new one involves standing in line no less than 7 to 12 weeks.

Lacking an official social security card, you must know your SSN # (I do) and have at least one of the following:

1) most recent bank statement with your home address on it (to prove you live here).
2) most recent voter registration to prove you live here.
3) most recent pay check stub with your home address on it to prove you live here.
4) most recent utility bill to prove you live here.
5) it goes on and on and all of it has to do with proving you live here.

I had an entire zip lock plastic bag of "documents" proving I live here. I also had my most receent statement from social security telling me how much I will get a month if I they don't run out of money & I live long enough to collect any of it.

So, I sat sweating buckets with my heart pounding in my chest on a bench waiting for hours. Finally, it was my turn. I approached with trepidation. Would I have enough documentation to prove that I was not "illegal" and was not a terrorist. Would they accept me as a real American.

It went smoothly and I was awarded a renewed license. I'll be nearly 70, if I live that long, before I have to go through this again.

I guess those folks don't watch the news or read the papers. Florida just picked up 8 or 9 guys who were born in the USA, look remarkably like me, and have all the right papers. Yet, they had stockpiled all sorts of ammunition, weapons, diagrams, plans, etc. and had firm plans to strike American assets in foreign countries. State employees need to dig a littler deeper and spend less time terrorizing regular ordinary folks just trying to earn a living and obey the laws.

By the way, the picture alone is enough to shorten my life by several years.

NEW MULCH

I love the smell of new mulch in the morning.

Bob and his son are out back spreading new mulch all over and around my Spring bulbs. Hopefully, this will help keep a few of the weeds down. Pulling and trimming those weeds is a never ending and back breaking job. Quite overwhelming to saw the least. The bulbs bloomed beautifully this spring. It was a sea of tulips, daylilies, and Easter lilies this Spring. What's left blooming now are 4 Rose of Sharon--two snow white and two pinky lavender--quite beautiful.

Bob obtained a truckload of mulch for free from the city. The city collects yard waste, grinds it into mulch/compost and then gives it to residents if they have a truck. Eric has a truck (a very FANCY) truck. He does not haul mulch or anything else dirty in it. So, Bob obtained the mulch in his truck and hauled it over here. He and his son are spreading it.

I really am pleased that I found and hired Bob. We had been paying a huge amount of money to a company for maintaining the lawn. Their work was utterly dreadful. Thy were lazy, stupid & greedy. I fired them and hired Bob. His work is very good. Further, he is able to think. If he has knowledge of something that will solve a problem, he offers that knowledge/idea.

It's incredibly hot today. The heat index is nearly 105 degrees. It's hot hard work they are doing out back. It's too hot even for the dogs to be outside. Last time, it was this hot and we let Savvy Jo out------she had heat stroke and we spent the night with her in the Emergency VET hospital. So, hopefully, the guys will be OK.

The mulch looks wonderful--neat, tidy. And, it smells wonderful. I love the smell of fresh, new mulch in the morning.

THE SUN WAS NOT YET AWAKE

It was the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The sun was still sleeping. Eric and I awoke to repeated high pitched squeals and yelps coming from the back yard. Dakota was going to awake the entire neighborhood and someone was going to call the police on us. We were all still trying to sleep.

Eric went to the sliding glass door and attempted to "talk Dakota down". I know there is no talking Dakota down so I went to the basement and out the French doors. (The dogs have a door through which they can enter and leave the house at will. The back yard is double fenced. There is a 5 foot high chain link fence and then about 10 feet farther out from that is an 8 foot solid privacy fence. The idea is that they have to get over, under or through two solid fences to escape. So, we feel relatively safe in allowing them free entrance to the back yard. The fencing also makes it more difficult for strangers to enter.)

It's nearly 3 am and I'm in my nightgown attempting to grab the collar of a nearly 100 pound yellow "wolf dog". She's jumping, dancing, lunging, salivating, showing her teeth, squealing and yelping at something she believes is under the picnic table. I managed to get her into the house and lock her in. I went back out to see if there was something under the picnic table or if she was hallucinating again.

It was a terrified opossum. I'd never seen an opossum close up. My goodness, they are not one of God's most attractive creatures. This poor fellow was utterly convinced that a violent, savage attack was going to end his life soon. He was backed up against the foundation of the house under and behind the picnic table. Their faces look remarkably like a rat with a long snout. His snout was stretched open wide and he was emitting loud continuous hisses. Eric who knows more about opossums than I do assures me that they engage in that open mouthed hissing behavior right before they fall over and pretend to be dead. I felt terribly sorry for him. He was so incredibly frightened and even the ugly and the stupid do not deserve to suffer that type of fear.

I went in the house hoping that he would be able to make his way out of the yard. We still don't know how he got in although at my old job I did see an opossum trapped on a 15 foot high electrified fence topped with razor wire. I did not want to be forced to call animal control to remove him. As I went back in the house, Dakota is still jumping, dancing, lunging and emitting shrill yelps and squeals. Turns out, she was as afraid of the opossum as he was of her. An ugly stranger had intruded into her private enclave and oh my goodness, it might have entered the house through her door. I managed to get her quieted down although by the time I had her calm all three of the other dogs were up and shaking off their dreams.