Tripping, Tipping on Tips...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...Too many places online tell you that no matter how shitty the service is that you MUST tip! I don't agree!

If a waiter or waitress wants to keep their customers, keep their job and keep their employer in business they need to do their damn job!

I've gotten really tired of the, "but I'm OWED a Jooooob!" whine by whoever is making the current whine. I've served at counters. I've done my time at fast food. And garnered tips! which is harder than hell! I've served bar at pizza places! I've sold jewelry on commission. I've had some pretty crummy jobs to make ends meet and to help pay my way through college and I get that waiters and waitresses don't get minimum wage. Thus it behooves them to serve their customers.

Because you want to know a secret? Lean closer....MOST CUSTOMERS FEEL DAMN GUILTY IF THEY DON'T TIP! So if we aren't tipping, there is a good reason! And it's not that our panties are in a twist, or that we're in a bad mood! Normally it's that we've gotten such crappy service that we just can't justify laying down any more money we really can't afford to reward such crappy behavior. I don't reward toddlers' crappy behavior; why would I do it with adults? They don't learn from it either.

So here are the rules I learned from my Dad about tipping (this was a while ago, but my income hasn't gone up since 1996, so my tips probably won't either. Your income probably does, so you can adjust for income!)

Excellent service:
20%+
Fair service
10%-15%
Borderline
5%
Maitre de: (bribe for seating)$50+ depending on snoot factor of place and maitre de
Note: doesn't normally work for females, females either have to dress the part, or end up by the kitchen door, or equivalent. just sayin'
Chefs or Bus boys 5%
Bellhops $1-$10
Maids $5-$20 depending on length of stay
Bar waitresses the change from next closest denomination or 10-20% of round
Hairdressers, box people, door men, valets $1-$10 depending on location

VERY BAD SERVICE, so bad you want to tell them you would have tipped, but their service sucked!!  $0.01

But nowadays I always feel like everyone has their hand out for a handout. I'm on a fixed income and I compute a tip into the cost of my meal when I go out. But it also means I go out much less frequently. Those dollars are hard to come by in my life.

So when that time is ruined by shitty service. I don't take it quietly, or lying down. I only have about 4 or 5 restaurants I can even still eat at with my medical conditions anymore since most of them use food with additives or preservatives I can't physically eat. So the few I CAN eat at, I work into my schedule selectively.

I know I'm probably a dinosaur. But this dinosaur has a very limited food supply and a limited budget like the rest of the world is coming to, and gee, maybe if more people valued their pennies and realised that the single penny they saw on the table was actually the message of one MIGHTILY PISSED OFF customer, they might mend their service and keep their restaurant, their job, and the economy going.

I've been told by friends of mine that women are the WORST tippers so they get the worst service. Especially women in SUITS. It always makes me giggle. Because I would probably be one of the better tippers, if I'm treated decently. But when I'm ignored or treated rudely, watch the f* out! I will be in your face. I will take my cane and my drink up to the drink station and fill it. I will tell your manager I had a crappy meal AND I will report it on the website. Because I am just THAT fed UP with SHITTY service. So the next time you think you have this little old lady with the cane in the corner with her book pegged. Think twice! of course, they might be spitting in my food? who knows?

just my 1 or 2 cents of a tip...ped off goddess....

Pieces of my past...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...for some reason this last year and the deaths have been especially hard on me. When Michael Jackson died in 2009 it was sad, but it wasn't as emotionally wrenching for me as this past year has been.

It started a year ago with the death of a legend. When David Bowie died 2 days after his 69th birthday of liver cancer. It hit me really hard for some reason? Maybe because I'd always considered him to be one of the most innovative artists of my generation and he was just...gone.

I'd loved watching him in "Labyrinth," hated the ending. I'd so wanted to change the ending and wanted her to fall asleep and have Jarrod show up the next day at her school as the "new kid." LOL Too bad we can't change endings the way we want. He was the best part of the movie. Him and Udo.

With each new name listed and passed around Facebook I felt another piece of my childhood or youth slipping away and gone...Alan Rickman, Dan Haggerty, Glenn Frey, Paul Kantner from Jefferson Airplane, Joe Alaskey who was Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Maurice White from Earth, Wind and Fire, Edgar Mitchell the Apollo 14 Astronaut, George Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, Keith Emerson from Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Patty Duke, Merle Haggard, Chyna, Prince, Morley Shafer from 60 Minutes, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Arnold Palmer,  Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, William Christopher, George Michael, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Alan Thicke, John Glenn, Greg Lake from Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Janet Reno, Fidel Castro, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russel, Robert Vaughn, Florence Henderson, Ron Glass.  Good, bad, noble, evil all had felt like portions of my life's journey to get here and pieces of my past, now gone. They are connected now only in my memories with how they impacted my life and the lives of so many, many others of these times.

Glenn Frey was the All Nighter...LOL Miami will never seem the same, Alan Rickman made sexy villain in Harry Potter. Dan Haggerty almost made Grizzlies look cuddly. Patty Duke made me believe in Helen Keller. Chyna had attitude to spare and so did Muhammad Ali. John Glenn was a man I could respect and admire and helped build my love of the space program. Fidel Castro made me hate politicians. Leonard Cohen taught me to love composers. Leon Russel to love Southern Fried Rock. We all thought that Florence Henderson would be a great mom. Robert Vaughn almost convinced me the CIA would be a good career path if I could get a partner like Ilia.

Ron Glass as Shepherd in Serenity was played with grace and conviction. Thanks to Carrie Fisher Princesses do their own butt kicking and rescue the rogues, in harem girl outfits with blasters no less! And they can even have dorky donut bun hairdos doing it! LOL Debbie Reynolds is a final memory with my parents at a casino show when she was singing one of her numbers from the "Unsinkable Molly Brown."

There are so many memories of my life wrapped up in these people. So many lives they touched. I'm sure they touched just as many others. This was a tough year for us all. Just remembering the good times they brought...

Yuletide Cheer and all that stuff...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I love the holidays. I love entertaining and seeing my family and having people over. I always have. But I don't like the drama. I really just want everyone to get along and have a life supported by loving people. My mom was a drama Queen. She was in a tizzy any time we had people over and would clean a clean house for days. ;P

 I SO wasn't going there. I was informed by my soon-to-be-ex many years ago that I was turning into my mother. I would get all tense before we left to go anyplace and scream and have fights...I then realized it was because I was always ready 30 minutes early and he was always 30 minutes or more late and didn't have his stuff together. So on top of doing my stuff and being disabled and feeling like crap I'd be trying to organize his at the last minute and get the kids moving, because they knew that the time stated meant 30 minutes or more late, and it was ALWAYS more stress than I wanted to deal with. LOL My daughter still fudges times with us both to get us going "on time." She's starting to realize that I'm actually getting ready at the time she says and now am considering HER late. LOL My son...well...we're always walking out the door while he's still brushing his teeth or getting his coat or something 10 minutes after it was time to go and waiting for him outside.

But all of this aside, making food for people I love and seeing them enjoy it. Being able to give them some small gift of my heart even when I'm broke. Letting them know I thought of them and love them and welcome new members to the family table. No matter when the holiday is celebrated.  (and no matter how many pain killers I need to swallow to get through the day!) I'd almost  prefer Christmas or a Yule celebration in July...just to divorce it from all the rest of the crazy of the season and get the family together for some gathering time to bond in a time less fraught with stress for all. But then employers don't give time off for the Summer Soltice do they? and when you are baking and sweating it just doesn't seem as fun to get together with family as when you can go sliding through the ice and snow.
from the puzzled goddess shivering under her nice warm blankets on this Christmas Afternoon.

Why the Garbage and Litter people?

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Civic Dr. in Gresham, Oregon
 

 This is symptomatic of a growing problem I see everywhere and hate. Our beautiful scenery despoiled constantly by garbage and litter.

I had just gotten off the light rail MAX train this particular evening following a mother and her two children and watched her throw the farthest away white sack out into this field right in front of her children as if it was the proper place to dispose of the garbage. As if it was the proper thing to be teaching her children. As if she wasn't two steps from crossing the street and half a block from a garbage can where it could have been thrown away correctly. And I could do nothing. I and my walker This is shared space of us all and they are trashing MY living space and it PISSES ME OFF!

I'd really like to see a few more littering tickets written and the laws enforced. Maybe then some of these people would get the point that their careless disregard for their environment is sickening and they are polluting the world that others have to live in.

From a pissed off goddess on a soapbox....climbing down...

Tie me Up, Tie me Down, Tie me all Around...

Wikimedia CSD 2

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I was starting to read an erotica novel last night, or was it the night before? Anyway...(Oh come on you didn't think the interwebs invented porn do you? Libraries were there long before that! And still have great collections! And streaming that shit is SO much easier now. LOL) So anyway, to explain, erotica is kinda like romance novels but kinkier. In a romance, two people get together and work out the kinks in their relationship and deal with some of their baggage. In romantica, two, but maybe more or less or other deal with the kinkier in their relationship(s) and create baggage for unsuspecting readers who may need mind bleach before finishing a paragraph or two. All kidding aside there are as many types of sex and gratification as there are people. Most of the time I can flip merrily on my way and not really be bothered too much by stuff that just doesn't particularly play for me. I'm old enough that I figure what consenting adults agree to consent to do is their own business. I don't like abuse, bullies, or hypocrites and that's where quite a few of my objections come into play in the real world.


But reading about stuff? I generally have pretty strong stomach.


which is why I couldn't understand my reaction to reading about a Master/slave commitment ceremony in the BDSM world. But I'm figuring based on some other work I'm trying to do lately with facing my fears that the gut clenching knots of terror are directly tied to my childhood trauma of being abused and the PTSD I've had since. I found it strange that I wouldn't even have noticed the fear response if I hadn't been reading, a book by Ana T. Forrest called, "Fierce Medicine." Forrest was the originator of Forrest yoga and strongly believes in facing fears and confronting them in order to control our reactions to them and tome down the stress they leave our bodies under.
I can totally understand the value in this. She suggests keeping a few journal with steps you've taken to combat the few and to isolate the causes. Since this is a first realization for me. I've got to figure out if the root of my terror is really what I suspect and how I'll go about desensitizing myself to it. Maybe I'll read the book instead of throwing the thing and my phone into wall at least.
from a puzzled goddess...terrified of nothing but words on a page...

Catz Daze

This is Aria. She likes to be under the covers. And when she's not, she likes to attack feet!

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me..

But woe betide any human subject who wakes her furry butt up!

or not...some are just curious...

But Aria has one MAJOR kitty trait...

and can't help looking into the well, or laundry machine as it were to see if Lassie might have fallen in.

She just HAS to sniff out any possible place a D.O.G. might be.

And her human sister has one very Human trait....throw the cat down the well...

And some get pushed in by a helpful sibling who just can't resist....

HELLO? Any Doggies down here?

until Mom has pity on them and lets their poor, beleaguered, neurotic furry butts free.

 And you thought helping someone recover from surgery was all fun and games,  huh? Work I tell you, it's all work!
from the goddess of puzzling kitties....

Things my Father taught me...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...going introspective as I and my daughter visited my parents' graves last month. I try to make it a habit to visit their graves at Willamete National Cemetery on my Dad's birthday so it's a happy memory, not a sad anniversary, like a death anniversary. I want to think of them as they were while alive.

I got thinking about the eulogy I gave for my dad at his funeral. Up until the last minute I wasn't sure I was going to but it just felt right. Dad's world had narrowed so much in his last years as his health failed and he wasn't working. He seemed to retreat more toward the past and family became ever more important to him, and I've come to understand that. The family I love and the things I had left undone for them became much more important to me after I had a heart attack scare a few years ago. I now know that my dad was told that he had a limited time to live because he had congestive heart failure and was trying to set things up so that my mom would be in good shape to be covered and okay. He always cared for her in his quiet way.

But back to the eulogy...the one huge lesson I remember from my dad is that you can learn just about anything you want to do from a book. And he put that into practice most of his life. He never let the fact that he didn't know something stop him from trying to do it. It was just one more challenge he hadn't learned about. I think some of that attitude came from his life's career (and one of mine) which was as a computer systems analyst. Which, if you are a good one, means that you intimately understand all the processes around the computerized systems you are bringing into being so that you can streamline them, design the correct supporting data structures and implement the training necessary for all people who are impacted by the system. To do this you have to have a deep understanding of the business process you are automating. Books can definitely come into play in this process. My father in fact possessed a business degree, as do I. His was in Management I believe, and he had certificates as a Data Wiring Operator (early computer programmer), and Systems Analyst well before colleges or universities offered the degrees as well as classes in COBOL, FORTRAN and a few other languages like me. My degree is in Project Management (probably following in Dad's footsteps...we were both Aries! And I wrote code in even more computer languages than he did. LOL and ended up a Systems Analyst and Computer Network Project Manager.) My Dad had also worked as a Draftsman and worked on a graduate degree in Engineering which he had never had the time to finish with his growing family.

But my Dad also was in the Air Force during the Korean War as part of the DEW line as a control tower officer and pilot. And when he got out he built a mobile home for he and my mother, and my older brother and sister, from scratch. Then a site built home...by reading about the codes and looking at blueprints and doing the wiring and the plumbing and the metal work and the rest of it pretty much by himself, or with his wife and kids help. As one of his kids I can attest to it. He had an almost endless belief in his power to learn anything, and he could. He passed that on. Before I entered high school I sweated pipes and soldered them and wired the electrical in our house and helped put up the sheetrock and do the taping, did the rebar and helped pour the cement, placed pier blocks and did rough and finish framing. The only thing I never did was lay carpet. (Thank you, God!)

 I really hope I've passed on this same type of belief to my children. I think I have. Because when something new comes up as a question that needs to be solved or done they don't necessarily turn to a book, or Mom or Dad, but the computer comes out, the internet is fired up...google is queried and youtube's brain is sucked dry. And low and behold the answer is found and the project is accomplished! So Thank You Daddy, we love you still and we appreciate your legacy!

from the puzzled  goddess of knowledge....

The lovely month of May...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
it's that time of year, even bunnies are out to play. I saw one on my way to the MAX the other day and had to stop and snap his mug shot. Yeah, it was a really cheesy thing to do, but come on, I live in the city. How often do you see little bunny foo foo hopping out of the forest? I mean I live in the third largest city in Oregon. I was seriously looking around for the good fairy and his magic wand. No joy.

But dreams of hossenpfeffer and grilled thumper thighs followed me to bed that night. Num. He just hopped faster than I could deploy my mad skills with the folding cane and walker. Drat it!

But we've had some beautiful Oregon Spring days.

Like this one from the first of the month when I went to pick up my prescriptions 2 miles away and it was sunny, but it hailed back near where I live. That's Spring in Oregon for you. But the sun has been visiting, making us all think that we might have some warm days this year, even the flowers are approving.

I'm seeing more and more on my walks around the neighborhood. The vacant lot has nice wild weeds and the townhouses next door have lovely gardens. My own apartments are kind of blah though. But I can deal with it since I would much rather look at the pretty flowers than smell them coming in my air conditioner all the time.

These perennials are a lovely addition every year.

And these blue flowers form hedges that are waist high.

Who doesn't like Roses?

As for the last few days? It's been raining..

.It is Spring in Oregon after all....from the puzzled goddess of nature



In any color?



I don't have any close friends anymore, but I somehow always have conversation...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I meet the most interesting people on the transit system, but then, I find people fascinating. I almost feel like I'm having too much fun when I commute, that it should be more of a hardship, like for my early twenties son.

 I feel so sorry for him. He invariably gets these half, (or totally) potted older women who stink to high heaven of booze, body odor, cigarettes and gods know what else that INSIST on sitting in seats next to him. And then edge closer and closer pushing their elbows and more of their bodies into him as the ride goes on. Anyone who knows him knows he's REALLY fastidious about his personal appearance and cleanliness, and then he gets the same migraines from toxic volatile chemicals as I do...and having someone shove it constantly under your nose...UcK!

But he and his sister are probably right that if he said something, being a white male in his 20's, a member of the "privileged class," that a whole scene would be started, and he would NOT come out of it well. I don't really understand why it should be so different. Though I do know it will.

 I can watch it play out in my head like one of those TV shows about moral choices and watch the strangers react badly to him when he is the wronged party.

It's taking liberalism and Political Correctness too far. Don't Get ME WRONG!
 I AM THE POSTER CHILD FOR PC AND LIBERALISM.
BUT NOT. I REPEAT. NOT---
WHEN IT VIOLATES COMMON SENSE!
And that is where that pendulum is starting to swing, both ways--- liberal and conservative, both are violating common sense and common decency, compassion and empathy for their fellow human beings.

I didn't mean to start this to lecture, just to update on how many interesting conversations I can have on the transit system going to appointments now that I had to get rid of my car.

A good friend of mine from college, Rory A. Miller, who writes the Chiron Training blog, as well as many excellent books on the subjects of martial arts and responding to violence, used to tell stories about riding the Trimet buses over school breaks and living homeless on Portland streets, and he'd make all of us see the humor in the situations that really weren't that humorous at all. But he has a special way of looking at things. I remember his slightly warped view of life as I look at my new world through my cloudy-mist eyes and talk to the people in it.

I met an older black woman who was so stylish she put me to instant shame. The turban was a kicken' 1930's look and the raccoon long coat draped over her shoulders set off her black pantsuit and leather alligator shoes. It all looked vintage. But vintage with style and flair. When I complemented her outfit we hit it off immediately, and we got to talking about our lives and her loves and her man that was still coming around looking for, "somethin', somethin'. You know how those men are. He cheated on me, but it may be worth it just to sample it again before I kick it out. Opportunities don't come by so often anymore at our age." We laughed so long before she got off the streetcar... We were like young girls being naughty in the corner and embarrassing the poor boy sitting across the aisle. I then, of course, being totally oblivious to his blushes got off at my stop 5 minutes later with my walker and a small chuckle. Bet he never makes the mistake of thinking old ladies don't giggle over old men. LOL


And then there was the young man in his late twenties or thirties buried in a book talking about sailing around the world. He thought it would be amazing to build a boat and do it. I could see the spark in his eyes. Maybe a Thor Heyerdaul, who knows?

There were the Water Engineers from England, the World Championship for track and field? I believe, where I was at the correct time to meet the families of the Australians, Germans, and some of the English, and the young Spanish émigré who thought Portland was the most accepting place she had ever lived though she laughed and said she would remember my description of being, "self consciously weird." That it fit quite a few of the Portlander's she had met...others just reveled in their weirdness. lol

I thought I would read many more books while riding transit, and I do keep a book or two with me. But far and above more interesting are the people and their stories and their lives.

....reflections of a puzzled goddess...

passing of a friend and companion...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I hate being this cliche. EVERYONE blogs about losing their animals. EVERYONE blogs about losing family. I think I did that too...maybe. That one hit much harder, for longer, and still hits on a daily basis so maybe I didn't...I don't really remember right now.  But EVERYONE blogs about their dead pets...I'm going to too...

She was named Shadow. My husband called her Shallow kitty and taught her how to speak on command.

It was very weird. She's been trying to convince him for the last 16, almost 17 years, that he REALLY likes cats better than dogs...REALLY.  No go.  I called her kitty rat, and bitch-trichs, and bitch-kitty, and the black bitch. (You had to be there. LOL) SHE WAS the top of the ALPHA pile in this house and knew it. We  were all her slaves.

When she started going downhill a few years ago the kids convinced me to take in a stray feral cat a friend of theirs had saved. He has a personality and is the most intelligent cat I've ever met. And he ended up outweighing Shadow cat by about double, but he always kowtowed to her Attitude. They somehow thought he was a female originally and called him Lilly. He's been renamed Leon... Or Lee-Lee.

Then 6 months later a little runt of the litter was brought to us by neighbors to try to save. My mom in law saved her. We named her Mystique and she adopted my son.

She doesn't weigh more than a minute and always sneaked around under queen Shadow's radar.

 The dog and the fixed male cat were a whoooole 'nother story. They were ALWAYS on her growl screen.

I think we would have had our Shadow kitty for a few more years, but I let a teenager put the flea treatment on the animals this last time.

We order the same brand for all of them from PetMeds. One size for the little kitty. One size for the bigger cats. And a different one for the dog. I kept the flea treatment for the cats in the bathroom, and the one for the dog in the livingroom. But the teenager hadn't ever gotten out the treatment for the animals before, and I didn't double check the tubes.  You can guess what happened. The little cat got the correct dosage. The bigger cats got the dog flea treatment.  It took me over a week to figure it out. I didn't clue in until I went to get the dosage for the dog and realized that there was only one tube left...there should have been 3.

I'm told that was the beginning of the end for our older cat. The younger male has seemed to shake off any ill effects, but Shadow kitty always was asthmatic and wheezed. That got worse. She got infections. Her feet broke out in open sores and we tried to treat them.

4 months later as things just won't heal for her she was worse and then 8 months later and she had open sores on her back that we were told were cancerous and tumors growing on her sides and the back of her neck. She pulled out her own claws and took out her own eye.

I've never hated the fact that I was poor more in my life as I held my loving friend and watched her suffer this last month. I treated her feet and back and looked into euthanasia and realized that my budget just doesn't stretch that far right now.

I can't even afford a doctor visit for my kid, let alone for my cat. What a way to make you feel like you are one of the absolutely disenfranchised.

I finally decided to bathe her today. She didn't much like baths, but she'd had many of them throughout her life with us. I was hoping being clean would make her feel better; instead I have the guilt of knowing I brought about her final convulsions and seizures that led to her death. At least I was there and holding her...but I wish I'd been comforting her...not making her do something she disliked as her last memory.

My daughter tells me I should take heart, that now she's with our old dog that she used to get into trouble with and she's pushing chocolate donuts off the table so that he can scarf them down when no humans are watchin'.  I can only hope they stay that happy.

from a goddess who misses her kitty...even though she didn't much like anyone...

Pain full thoughts...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I've had low blood sugar, migraines, colitus, acid reflux, back problems, and high blood pressure since my mid teens. Fibro in my late teens. Chronic fatigue, hyperthyroid, thoracic outlet, and carpal tunnel in both hands in my late twenties. I got pregnant and my migraines went to clusters and then daily clusters. Then they gave me drugs that made me obese. I developed high cholesterol, hypothyroid, high spinal pressure. Now finally diabetes, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and uveitus.

Now by the luck of the draw the pain isn't upping my blood pressure, it's lowering it.  Which I didn'..t know could happen. So now if I bend over at the wrong time or move too fast I pass out. Orthostatic Hypotention...? WTF?  Sounds fun, huh? Wee.... yes, that's sarcastic. One more weird ass thing to explain to people that doesn't kill me,  or put me in more blinding pain than I've been for the past 17 years, but one more time my body triumphs over my mind.


I watch others who I know are in so much pain, and I try not to make it a contest about pain. Just getting through each day is a miracle, so how can pain become a contest? But when you so constantly feel like you have failed at all life has thrown at you, it's hard not to see it as one more in a long string of things you've failed at...pain tolerance....you just don't measure up there either....no wonder you just can't take any more...

Knowing that I'm going back to biting, grinding, soul numbing pain that never ends, of the sort that if you were an animal and could bite a limb off to it stop you would and that there is no medicine or trick or activity or meditation or THING that I can do or NOT DO in my life to stop it from coming back to me scares the hell out of me. The medication is not as effective as it was...soon it won't be effective at all...again

The pain doctor, and the psychologist she sent me to, think I'm giving up, and that I have a negative outlook. I don't think that's the case, or I would have swallowed a gun long ago. I just don't think either one of them intimately knows pain. Most of the people who try to regulate it I don't think have ever known or lived with much real pain in their lives or they wouldn't really give a rat's ass about the small percentage of people who abuse medication and would have more compassion for those who have to live in the pain. If crawling into a bottle or a bottle of pills would give me back some of my cognitive function or reasoning powers around the pain, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Hell, I'd do it if only to get a teensy break from unrelenting agony occasionally.

But I'm not dying and so I have to live on in unrelenting agony because my government wants to be my mommy and knows what's best for my body...even better than my doctors...and they've known so well what is best so far....

yeah...from the sometimes goddess of sarcasm and pain

Floriography---or not, Botanical Symbolism in the Middle Ages

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
Presented by HL Sannan Cairngorne of Hauksgarðr
October 9, 2010

The Victorians called it Floriography. We call it the "Language of Flowers." To the Ancient and the Medieval mind, it was their gods, or God revealing himself or herself to them. We have fairly standard lists of meanings nowadays between the internet and florists. Victorians used to carry lists around with their meanings and they could vary from city to city and country to country. It wasn't much better in medieval times, but there was a bit more agreement on what meanings were attached to certain flowers and what they represented or who.

The use of botanical imagery in painting proliferated especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as artists became increasingly interested in the realistic depiction of objects from the natural world; the purpose of this imagery was often, however, twofold. Beyond their decorative properties, plants and flowers usually had a symbolic meaning or association that related to the subject of the painting. Thus, a plant could be depicted either as an attribute, giving clues to the identity of the subject or sitter (as in 43.86.5), or as providing a moral or philosophical annotation on the subject.

Botanical symbolism has its origin in the literature of antiquity, where plants are often used in metaphors for virtue and vice. In classical mythology, human beings are transformed into plants as a reward or punishment, as in the story of Narcissus, the vain youth who fell in love with his own reflection and was changed into a flower that bears his name. Certain plants are also mentioned as attributes of gods and goddesses: grapes for Bacchus, god of wine, and corn or wheat for Ceres, goddess of agriculture. Classical texts on farming and natural histories by Pliny, Cato, and Lucretius also recorded some of the traditional lore associated with plants. Many of these ideas and associations were passed on to scholars and artists during the Renaissance, a period of revived interest in classical texts.

Religious writings also provided a wealth of plant symbolism. The Bible and the Apocrypha contain many references to trees, fruits, and flowers in moralizing similes and parables. The Song of Solomon is particularly rich in allusions, as in a verse proclaiming "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys," possibly referred to in Procaccini's Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Dominic and Angels (1979.209) by the inclusion of a vase of roses. Christian writers from the early medieval period through the Renaissance also used botanical imagery as a means of explaining and interpreting religious beliefs.

A third major source for plant symbolism was the medieval herbal. Herbals described the natural properties of plants, the method for their cultivation, and their use in cooking and in medicine. These properties, as well as the plant's shape, color, taste, smell, and season of blooming, usually lent themselves to a moral connotation: the poisonous hemlock represented evil and death, while the clover, with its three leaves, was a symbol of the Holy Trinity. Used also as a salve against snake bites (according to Pliny), the clover was sometimes regarded as an emblem of Salvation, where the bite represented Original Sin, encouraged by a serpent in the Garden of Eden. (1)

(1) Source: Botanical Imagery in European Painting | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bota/hd_bota.htm Jennifer Meagher, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

There are hundreds of examples of botanicals in artwork in the middle ages. Looking at it again with a fresh consideration to another layer of symbolism or meaning that the artist meant for there to be extant in their work brings more depth to the appretiation of what the emotion is they are trying to convey. The following pages are a table with a few flowers to give you a start at identifying some of the flowers and herbs that might have some meaning when you are looking at a work of art and just might be telling you a lot more about what the artist is trying to say.

Related research:
Source: wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_flowers
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/flowerinfo.htm
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index.asp?i=16
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/FlwrsPer/FPtitle.htm
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/FlwrsPer/FlwrSent.htm (list of meanings from 1840's)
http://www.victorianbazaar.com/meanings.html
http://www.thegardener.btinternet.co.uk/flowerlanguage.html
http://www.terrafolia.ca/flower-dictionary.html

Period source referenced by marygardensmain.html site for botanical naming in Middle Ages
"De Plantis A Divis Sanctisve Nomen Habentibus" by Johannis Bauhin, Basil, 1591

don't take my energy...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I am, as those overly PC people put it, "differently-abled." I've railed against it, against my genetics, against gods, and all involved.

Most people don't get it because it's invisible. Over the years I've commiserated with others in similar situations because they too, understand...that's why I'm frustrated and get pissed off when they blithely steal my family's spoons. Yes, I consider it a theft. Because otherwise I was in an untenable situation and would look bad...

So it was that I use energy I and my family didn't have to waste on somebody that KNOWS how little we have because they are in the same boat, or look like awful shirkers who leave these poor people stranded alone to pack up all by themselves.

It is worse because my husband has now joined the ranks of the uncontrolled diabetics again (no insurance), with other problems that go with it like high cholesterol and high blood pressure and his sleep apnea. He's losing weight. But somewhere recently he lost his backpack that had his diabetic blood sugar monitor in it, and half of his medicines and of course we can't afford to replace it without insurance. A doctor visit alone to our doctor is well over $200, but it's getting critical.

So I've been rationing his energy, like I ration mine, like I ration that of the rest of my family...others think of it as how many spoons they have to get through a day. It's a good analogy to get the point across. Your energy is finite and people who have an energy reserve don't get that...but people who are disabled themselves SHOULD!


I've had to tailor my family's life to our reality. It used to be what do you want mommy to do, this school thing with you, or a movie with the family over the weekend? A family night? or some one on one time? It was always mommy and always an either/or. Now it's daddy as well, or both.


I ration my energy day to day. I ration my husband's energy. I ration my family's energy.


I even explain to people that we make choices between what we can do and what we can't based on the disabilities and amount of energy it takes to deal with it.


With small children and disabilities we found we couldn't event. We especially couldn't autocrat as we loved to do. I stopped going to most events and my husband went alone to some of them. I stopped cooking at events. We stopped putting up an elaborate period camp. All of our activities got rationed. Saying "no" became a hated skill I had to learn for my sanity and my family's ultimate survival.

We went to few events, even fewer activities because my disabilities made daily life a chore and just living it to raise children took all my energy.

Now my children are old enough to be a help. We are learning how to streamline our SCA lives to sometimes be able to still be able to afford the energy it takes to go to and sometimes even to run events, but I need my entire family's energy to do it for us all to get there and we plan our vacations from the everyday grind of pain and "can't do thats" accordingly. We all pitch in to make it work for our family.


Now, there is a down side that I have found with our love of our new group. My husband hasn't learned the ability to say no, and I find myself feeling responsible for people who are availing themselves of our too finite family energy reserves so that we are left with less than nothing when we return home. It will really mean fewer events for us, that's the bottom line.

I can't allow my husband, who is our only almost able-bodied bread winner at this point, to cripple himself like this for multiple days on our return from what is supposed to be a "fun" event. As a family, we can't afford it. Individually, he can't afford it, health-wise.


I can't afford it, selfishly, when he is my only support for transport, and the only support for transport for his disabled mother as well.

Don't get me wrong. We had so much fun with our friends at this last event, but we knew our limitations, and the limitations of our conditions and didn't even do our normal volunteering. My husband didn't fight; crap, he didn't even marshal. That should have clued people in to just how messed up he was. He went to bed just after dark on Sunday. This, from the man who like the night owl he is, normally helps me greet my pain filled dawn.

He's only like this when his diabetes is messed up like it was this last weekend and the injuries are stacking up from the weather and the packing. I doubled my meds. I'm not supposed to, but I can't pack otherwise, and I was relieved it only took us about 4 hours to pack our own stuff up. We woke up and immediately got to it like we normally do, all of our family pitching in and doing what we can. We even ate as we packed and just got it done. I was thankful to the bit of help we got to fold up the one tent and tote the couple of heavy things I can't lift. It was all of about 10 minutes to help us finish up or so I would guess. I probably made it longer trying to get in the way and bend over myself, but for some reason people kept being concerned I'd faint on them or some stupid sh*t like that. ;D (Thanks Aislin for the assist folding the tent!)

I had to think long and hard why I've been so upset the last few days while we've been recovering and pretty much bed bound. And I think it was so hard because the next 2 hours was spent packing up a camp with only half the people who had shared it helping after they had made an INCREDIBLY slow start to their day and it had put them way behind everybody else. I found it hard to not feel resentment as the kids all sat in the car and Mom in that camp did most of the work, disabled as she is.

It bothered me most because, while I don't mind helping, I expect EVERYONE to do what little bit they can if I am going to be using up energy my family doesn't have to spare, and I felt like my husband and I and a few others were paying the toll so that the disabled gentleman in that camp could overuse his own energy and enjoy himself that weekend. We paid HIS price. My husband even warned him not to pack so much and was ignored and we still paid his price. As well as the price for the non-disabled people riding with him who could have been helping but sat in the car instead for various reasons. They may have been valid reasons beyond getting food; I don't know. I just know that energy was fading fast that would have been conserved if there had been more help and more fellow feeling.

Courtesy requires that people not be able to say things when they are so angry they are being abused and they feel they are being taken advantage of. That is wrong. It is discourteous to us all to take advantage of us by relying on our courtesy and goodwill to do your work.

A two hour drive home took 5 hours because of the stops we had to make to calm the spasms of pain my husband was having ,and I was in no shape to drive because I'd had to double my meds to "help" pack up when I went beyond my limits. I felt absolutely helpless. I didn't have anything I could medicate him with and I was too medicated to drive. All we could do was wait for the muscle spasms in the back and shoulder to lessen enough for him to drive again.

Then he had to race the clock to get home to help a disabled mother try to get a battery for her car working so she could see a doctor. He ended up back out on the road, muscle spasms and all.

So...I need to get this said. I may be seen as the wicked witch of the west or of the local area. But, I did my volunteering in the background and what was within my energy to do at the event, or would have been, based on what my family packed and what we knew we had to do.

I've had 2 eye surgeries in the last 4 months and have been fighting medication changes that are swinging my blood pressure and blood sugar up and down, and I'm lucky if I can bend over without fainting. I make us pack only what we need. My husband didn't volunteer to do the things he loved because he hurt himself helping people a few days before the event and knew that packing up and slogging in the mud would be too much for our family energy to absorb.

As adults we make those decisions daily, and yes, we made the decision to help the pople we did, because their being left behind to do it on their own would have reflected badly on our own group and ultimately, on us. So we made the choice not to look like slackers who had no conscience.

But they, as well, are adults, who have been disabled a long time. Long enough that they should know their energy limits and not ask others to give them spoons. Aislin doesn't have many spoons to spare. I don't have them and my husband doesn't have them to give. We were put in a position to be made to look bad if we didn't and that's what made me upset.


Many people in our group are disabled. We seem to have an overabundance of "differently-abled" who need to steward their energy wisely and, as such, we need to help each other as a community, but we need to NOT count on abusing that help. Because those of us that help are giving up our energy and spoons and future days of being able to take moms to hospitals and go with kids to events at their schools to you too! These are things that have been missed...


I recognize it when I have to ask for help, and I sure don't expect to receive it. I am amazed and humbled by the willingness of our members who can give of their help and do, but expecting the help is an abuse that will see the help drying up and blowing away for everyone.

Why am I cowardly bitching here instead of in an open forum where I can be answered face-to-face, or in a one-on-one meeting where I can address the problem diplomatically with the major individuals involved?

Mainly because of my old nemesis, disability. I can't string sentences together and when I have an issue to address when I am upset the ability regresses even further. My IQ drops by 20 to 50 points and I spend many minutes fighting the fog and being frustrated and losing the point of the whole exercise, and by then, so has the person I'm trying to confront. So I have found that writing, with the ability to stretch it out, find the right word, and ask for the person's feedback, can actually facilitate one-on-one communication for me. It is still just as hard for me to confront someone as it ever has been. I still need to get my courage up so I'm not walked over and then I need to find the words so that I can hope they'll understand my feelings, and not just blow it off as unimportant. Because if I sat down and took the time to draft it out and write, it was majorly important to the future of that relationship.

from the goddess who has been hibernating with her god for 2 days recovering...

The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino

For those who don't quite 'get it' when I talk about managing my energy during a day, or only having so much or being out of it....or what it's like to live disabled. This is the best analogy I have EVER read.


The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino

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Not so Eye to Eye...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
Today I got the scare of my life...my vision started to decrease again in the eye they just did surgery on. I spent 4 hours pacing and rereading, or failing to read, the same set of letters.

I finally called the on call opthamologist. We had to go down there and meet him at Casey Eye. He was a sweetheart and looked up and down and all around in the eye, looked at my chart and the notes and let me and the hubby know that it looked like some pigmented cells from them cutting around the pupil and freeing it to dilate were floating in my eye and obstructing the vision worse than it had been on Friday.

I also had a shocker and learned that my uveitus doctors hadn't bothered to tell me that one of the times they were treating "swelling" in the back of my eye they were actually treating me for a cyst on my retina. I HATE it when doctors don't tell me shit. This is a prime example of why I trust doctors SO MUCH! (Feel the heavy sarcasm?)

I'm home. I need to double up on the steroid drops I'm using and use them twice as often, and I have a whole new set of scarey symptoms to look for, but he really reassured me about how the eye was doing. And the pressure in the eye is down to a normal level from 30 on Friday to 16 today which is WAY good news.

from the two eyed goddess

Of favors and Being the inspiration...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I have been my fighter's inspiration before. I've made a favor before, and had it hang on his belt. He fought for me in a Crown. I watched him lose in two rounds, and then I commiserated with him over his loss. I knew much less of fighting then, having never marshalled or gotten into armor myself.

We went through a breakup as lovers do... I then had it given back to me and told that maybe I should give it to my new guy.... ? That was such a classless comment that I wondered why I had ever given out a favor in the first place.

It's also probably the reason that I've resisted making favors for any of the people that I truly love that I play with in the SCA that I should proudly ask to display my favor on their belt, arm, around their head, or neck....or anywhere else we deem appropriate. ;D

That new guy, became my husband of the last 17 years and my lord and the general guy that I consider an inspiration to live with. I took a favor and tokens class at Sport of Kings this last year given by Mistress Cymbric of the Isles, OL that totally rejuvenated my interest and love for the thought of being an inspiration and giving a symbol of that. But, since I absolutely suck at hand work, and it takes me forever, the real favor, a torse for my lord's helm is taking longer and longer it seems, but since his new helm THAT I BOUGHT HIM LAST YEAR is STILL not riveted so that he can wear it! I'm probably right up with his schedule. ;D

But my sweet daughter did her father proud and gave him a very meaningful favor full of symbolism to wear on his arm while he is fighting, it includes one of the first beads that she has made as a lampworker that was in his colors. It also includes two coin blanks for him to be placed on his eyes at "death" to pay the ferryman to cross the river. Such a creative addition to a favor! And each element has a symbolism to it that she explained at the firelit ceremony where she presented it to him.

I had to make do with a temporary favor to let him know how close he held my heart as he fought in Crown lists that day and how close he holds it every day. The picture at the beginning of this post was taken by Talon in the SCA who caught us as King Cedric was giving his invocation, and we were seriously considering the duties and responsibilities that go along with the wearing of the crowns of AnTir.

I'm still working on that favor. I'm still proud of my lord and the chivalry he shows and the love he shows for me daily, let alone the love and enthusiasm he has for this organization and it's ideals and fun. The group that is forming, it's people and our emerging traditions are just as inspiring to me as my husband is in everyday life. ;D

from a goddess who is inspired

No, he didn't hit me in the eye.

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

To those who have been following the progress, or lack thereof...the cataract surgery is a no-go, at least until after Christmas it looks like. Not like I was really looking forward to somebody that looks young enough to almost be my daughter at this point approaching my eye with a laser and breaking up the lens in the back of my eye. Then inserting a new lens through the incision and letting it unfurl in the place the old one was in before it was liquified by the laser...yeah, sounds like something I want to experience on a daily basis...not...for those who didn't catch the sarcasm that was dripping from those words. And the rank fear.

But, sight for the one eyed is not to be. In the photo eye scans they took two weeks before they would be doing surgery (it was scheduled for tomorrow originally) the doctor discovered that the uveitis is causing inflamation and swelling at the back of my eye again. The weird line drawing to the side is not a child's rendering of a hank of hair, or something else strange... ;D

The top line represents the normal shape, kind of, of the back of your eye in cross section.

The second line down is the original swelling I saw on the photos they took of the cross sections of my eye.

I still had some of the non-swollen area left in the back of my eye. My eye stayed free of any swelling for over three months after the initial injection of steroids into my eye socket to reduce the swelling.

Of course, this injection caused the cataract on my lens, which was kind of glossed over as a possible side effect...glaucoma was mentioned, and other effects were mentioned, but not the fact that the steriods themselves in that quantity would fog the lens in the eye and make it necessary to replace it. :}

The lower line is representative of the line the doctor drew for me this time of where the swelling is now that my immune system has decided to attack the eye again.

So, I got to go in and get another injection of steroids into my eye socket on monday.

Yes, fun and games boys and girls...it was almost as much fun to look forward to and experience as the actual cataract surgery, and now I still have that to look forward to as well. But now, I have even less sight in the eye until I can get the new lens in.

For those who are wondering, the reason they won't put the lens in while there is swelling at the back of the eye is because the surgery itself causes swelling at the back of the eye. The combination of the two can make you lose the sight in your eye permanently. Not something that I, or the doctors, want to risk. Even though I'm impatient to get back my depth perception, peripheral vision and all that.

Until then I'll just have to be...
the goddess of the lovely eye patch

My disability is better than yours? say what?

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
I heard a conversation recently that somewhat amused me, because I've heard variations of it before and the absurdity of it just struck me to the bone in this sense.

Two writer gentlemen, circling around each other all day and not really acknowledging each other, lol, amusing in itself, then, right before exit, one approaches the other and says the usual, "so, how have you been doing lately?"

"Between the cataracts, liver problems and congestive heart failure I've been doing fine, and you?"

The other, quick as a teenage boy's erection fires back in the same vein, "yeah, between the cancer, kidney failure, and blah, blah, blah I'm doin' okay."

I have to admit that I stopped listening in the middle of the second man's list to ponder the absurd aspects of the moment.

I've commiserated with people over their illnesses. You reach a certain age, and the talk has a tendency to run to kids and ailments for a bit of the time. And I've had people try to one-up me when I've talked about things that are wrong with me....normally I just try to let it ride and figure they're either right, and MUCH sicker than I am....or they should be. (Don't I wish I'd always been that sane? My DH has helped me in so many ways see the light. lol)

I've also had the other response, "oh, I know your headache pain is MUCH worse than anything I've ever had..." That one makes me grind my teeth as well. I know they think they are validating my pain by saying it. But it comes across as patronizing my pain.

I sometimes wish I could get a stage and the world's attention for 20 seconds and just say, "have compassion, pain is subjective, love each other." But I'm sure there would be much to fight over in the interpretation of those phrases as well. ;D

Pain is pain, sick is sick, limitations suck and you deal and go on with or without your friends and relatives help...pissing contests really don't have much of a place in the mix, but if it's what gets you through one day to the next, who am I to complain? My humor helps me out there.

from a mildly amused goddess of pain, in pain? causing pain? you get it anyway...

Bitchology...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
I had a great time last night, and last weekend, the weekend before, and the weekend before that...

All this summer socializing packed into a few weekends of seeing people I'd known for years and finally catching up because we all are in the right place, and space, at the right time.

We've made time to spend with family, and time to spend doing what we love in the current middle ages.

I also have been lucky enough to make some new friends that I'm coming to cherish as marvellous people who accept my slightly *cough* ascerbic wit, and my emerging compassion and can seem to understand that I'm trying to meld the two with the wisdom I've had to cultivate.

I don't think it's that I wasn't compassionate when I was younger, at least I would hope not. I would hope that it was that I was young, and arrogant, and being young and arrogant I was correspondingly impatient with the perceived weakness of those around me.

One of my best friends made the comment last night, "wow, S... is being more compassionate than I am, when did that happen?"

I understand that most people might have been insulted by this, but in my group of friends I was known as a tough bitch goddess who told it like it was...it was the only way I had learned to survive. I was brutal sometimes in the way I stripped people of their most cherished illusions, but the friends who stayed...mostly, loved that about me and the fact that, when they got inside my heart, I was this giant marshmallow who had a love and loyalty that stretched pretty much forever. I was the chief, I was mom, I was doomed to not be weak. Not even in my own mind.

That perception has changed over the years and it's only now that I'm working to rebuild my self image, but long term chronic illness has a tendency to do that in your life and this post is not about that struggle, or not entirely. ;D

Then another close friend told my daughter that I once was going to write a book called, "Bitchology." It sounds like something I would have said, but the title was probably all his, 'cuz he's a hell of a lot cleverer with words than I am. ;D

I think I could have made the book a hit...I think I could still make the book a hit! It's a great title! There is something to be said for being a bitch. My daughter has been gifted that title by my friends and she preened under it, and they praised her saying they were glad she knew it was a compliment.

And I think it is, because I think sometimes in this world that being 'bitch' is just another word for being a forthright, alpha female who can hold her own in the world. It will cause her problems. It already has.

But I would say much better bitch than victim if I have the choice between the two. Those were my choices, not my daughters', but I could only raise her as I knew to be raised as a female. She was a "girlier" girl. And she didn't have the sports opportunities that I did. She is so much more organized than I ever was and so much more her own person. I was very dependent on my friends' opinions, my family's opinions, everyone's opinions... but my own.

Seeing friends from long ago and seeing glimpses of our faces from long ago in them, I see the continuity and the beauty.

Being with old friends I just plain had fun catching up and hearing about all the stuff I haven't heard and where they've been and what they've done...even if they've blogged about it...It was still better to hear about in person.

ta ta from the goddess of bitchology

Levelling the energy

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

This is pretty stream of conciousness. It's the morphine and the temperature of 102....it tends to make me free associate weird thoughts...

People talk about energy levels all the time as if they understand them. As if energy would miraculously appear out of thin air and pump them up and they could go on and do more and be more. The say things like, "I'm getting my second wind." Or, "I hit a wall." I drink in the chi of the universe. Feel the energy flow....

Most of the energy flow I feel is right out of my body...and of course it bites me in the ass on the way out.

I remember my disability insurance company trying to send a private investigator to investigate my claim quite a few years ago. It was soon after my dad died. Karmic timing as usual.

It was laughable in retrospect. At the time, I found it far from funny that this physically active 20 something single guy who had never had kids, a college education, tried to be supermom, been a computer professional, or been any kind of professional for that matter since he couldn't even keep a scheduled appointment, was the one that was putting the hammer of judgement down on my life.

He looked around at an overweight mom, who barely had insurance to pay for her medication to keep her disability under control and her meds that would keep her alive, that couldn't do much housework and had 2 children under the age of 7 in an apartment 1/3 the size of the house they had lost in the bankruptcy the disability had forced them through. The apartment might as well have been used to shoot a scene from "Cops" in it. A husband that was fighting his own disability issues, but working full time.

The investigator met with me once or twice and cancelled one appointment. Then told the insurance company I wasn't cooperative and obviously wasn't disabled because I wouldn't meet him on 2 hours notice when he rescheduled an appointment in a town 10 miles away and I couldn't drive. But I was a flake in his mind because I had broken teeth and couldn't afford dental insurance and spoke of only having so much energy in a day to get me through.

When you look ill, or run a temperature, people expect you to go lie down. When you look....say it with me....JUST FINE! People make all sorts of judgements. They'll expect you to remain self-sufficient and when you aren't, they'll ask what they can do to help, but God forbid you actually have worked out an answer or call on them for help. That's when the excuses come out.

I guess I've been lucky? I can count the times my immune system has been healthy enough for me to run a temperature in the last ten years on my fingers. You'd think, because it's so rare, that I would immediately lie down and try to get better. Wrong! If I'm running a temperature I'm actually probably in BETTER shape than I am normally, at least my immune system is fighting.

I was running a temperature of 102-105 degrees the 10 days we had to move out of our home while it was being foreclosed. I didn't have the luxury of checking into the hospital. Luckily, my sister and niece helped my husband and I a bit and my parents watched our kids a bit or we would have lost everything else we owned. No one else could help. I still remember how dark that time was. I was very bitter about it for a long time. I felt like I had failed my family, lost our home, and lost all our friends all at once. I collapsed into bed in the den of my parent's home for about 3 months after we loaded up and moved all our stuff and got through the bankruptcy hearings. I don't remember much from that time but physical and emotional pain.

I'm only dwelling on this now I think because I'm trying to put things behind me and move on with my life. The bitterness is doing me no good. With the new meds, I'm out of the pain haze enough that I'm thinking again so I'm remembering more than just the day to day which makes me sad for all the people that I thought I knew. Because I'm dealing with the pain clinic again, I'm required to go into therapy, again, even though the therapist doesn't seem to think he has much to teach me. I'm sure there is...I've had 47 years to screw up this psyche...there's got to be something in there for him to fix! He's another one that I want to introduce this book to tho'. He seemed so absolutely floored that I could speak coherently and string two sentences together. And if I'm what he thought of as being a very cognizant and highly intelligent patient who had all my faculties....I'd hate to see what he deals with the rest of the time.

There are so many holes...so many holes were the pain has eaten through my brain and the cobwebs just can't spin to close them fast enough.

I'm running temperatures again, which means my immune system is the healthiest it's been in a year or two. Viva narcotics! I had so adapted to living with the pain and the lack of energy that I had forgotten why I wanted to live a life.

I have good days and bad days. The bad days had way started to outnumber the good and when I was delegating most of my living...I didn't really feel like I was living... I don't wait to recover anymore, I guess that's the biggest lesson I've learned. It's the lesson my husband hates the worst. He considers it giving in. I consider it adapting to the new situation and moving on.

It's time to adapt to the new pain level and move on. Luckily, the current level of narcotics allows me a breather for awhile to do that....3 months ago I didn't feel optomistic enough to have that option.

Now it's off to see what my fever induced dreams want to tell me....
from the goddess of night sweats or day mares