Alecto's Ophelia

2010 - Coming Home

The last 90 minutes of 2009 frizzled out while I was sleeping. When my contacts are fogged enough I'm stabbing myself with a needle every third stitch it's time to go to bed. I left the girls in front of the television, gathered up my animals, peeled the contacts off my eyeballs (and I do hope I'm going to find them in solution) and went to bed. I wish I'd brushed my teeth. Sometime in the night a small tribe of Pygmies set up camp and decided to have a rain dance on my tongue. It was dry, dry, dry in there. This morning I staggered to the bathroom,spit them unceremoniously into the sink and proceeded to beat the hell out of my mouth until I looked into the mirror and noticed I was just South of rabid. That's usually a good indicator.

The alarm on the iPod went off at 7:30 like it does every weekday morning. I was dreaming it was something else until I woke up enough to turn it off and then climb back into bed warning the dog that it was technically still the middle of the night. Somewhere. I haven't bothered to turn that alarm off because it makes a good 15 minute warning before Little Girl needs to head out to the bus stop (which is the end of the driveway) and on weekends it doesn't go off at all although Simon will generally put his great slobbery face right up against mine (or the back of my head if I'm lucky) and breathe heavily while moaning pathetically about the fact that he's not going to be able to keep his legs crossed forever. Simon has no trouble getting my attention in the morning. He is 79 inches long snout to tail tip, 31 inches at the whithers and his head is massive. Someday I'll figure out how to weigh it. Maybe I can slide the flat digital kitchen scale under his head while he's sleeping. Remind me to try that. The drop from the top of my mattress to the floor is 36 inches and while that's five inches above his whithers we must consider the length between whithers and snout. Unless I'm sleeping in the middle of the bed there's really no escape and if I don't want St. Bernard slobber ON my sheets I need to respond fairly quickly even if it means telling him to lay the hell back down and go to sleep. If his need is not immanent he will. He's a good boy. 

Little Girl let him out this morning. I was out cold. I have no recollection of the door opening and closing again after my baby boy lumbered across the threshold, made an abrupt 90 degree right turn and galloped down the hall coming to his usual skidding stop at the top of the stairs. When he's got his bearings he tip toes down the six carpeted stairs and stands patiently at the front door followed shortly by the manic Rat Terrier. The only time the Rat Terrier is not manic is when he's overslept and slinks up the stairs from the lower level hoping I won't notice but knowing perfectly well he's been caught sleeping on the couch again. Sometimes he hides until I'm back upstairs. He's sly and has great bladder control.

I nuked a cup of yesterday's coffee and here I sit thinking about what to write while my fingers typed out three paragraphs (which I just read) while I wasn't looking. I was thinking about resolutions.

I have no resolutions. I don't do resolutions. The only time I made a resolution was in the first few minutes of the last year of the twentieth century and that was more of an invocation to the fertility gods (it worked too, I delivered Little Girl on December 11, 2000).

I have nothing to invoke this year except maybe patience, perseverance and the strength to let be the things I have no right to control. I know perfectly well what those are too I just have a really hard time not panicking and grasping a float that has no intention of being grasped. The float does like to be grasped at though. I think it makes him feel wanted and needed. I think that's poison for me.However, invoking a negative does not create a positive. So here they are, my resolutions in spite of not doing resolutions (because God forbid I don't keep them):

1. Bake more bread. We lost that in 2009.
2. Order the seeds and actually start the seedlings.
3. Repair the fence and till the garden hopefully one week after the last hard freeze (sometime in March most years).
4. Compost. Everything that ought to be composted. Lost that in 2009 too.
5. Put the seedlings in just after Mother's Day and protect the tomato plants with plastic bottle hot houses. Pay attention to the weather and don't boil them.
6. This year pull UP all the volunteers from last year. That was fun but unproductive.
7. Cultivate early and often.
8. Order more broiler chicks. Maybe even eggs if I can work out an incubator and commit to turning them every day.
9. Get back on the elliptical in the morning at least until the heavier garden work is in full swing. Bikram is not enough.
10. Walk away from 2009 and don't look back. I can't imagine turning into a pillar of salt particularly pleasant.

That's it. I'm stopping at ten because I'm an over achiever and usually bite off more than I can chew without choking. Those ten are probably a big mouthful but maybe there should be an 11th:

    11. Give myself permission to fall down and get up again. You know, permission to be a bona fide member of he human race. The expectation of perfection is a horrible conceit.

Happy New Year, peoples. I wish you joy, love, passion, strength and surrender.

Peace out - Alecto

 
Borrowed without permission from an artist who's name I can no longer locate.

Getting dirty, living clean

It's been too long since the last post. The garden grows fast, the weeds threaten to eat up all the space and the world moves at a pace it's hard to keep up with sometimes. Last weekend was prom 2009 and my big girl had a date with a very hot football player. Not her style but all she wanted was arm candy at that point. Her heart's still too tender over so many things. She wanted a princess moment and she got one. Don't we all sometimes?

Simon is growing at an alarming rate. He is not as big as we'd estimated but 154 pounds two weeks ago at 9 months is still a scary proposition. Getting him in and out of the car is not so easy but doable as we discovered. All it takes is some patience, two people and a fairly good quantity of chicken parm. The dog is a fool for anything covered in tomato sauce and cheese. He also likes his doggy pills (to clear up what looked like doggy leprosy that probably came from an infection from a bite from some unknown thingie in the swamp). He eats his doggy pills like candy and aside from having trouble with them getting stuck in his flews he usually has them consumed in under a minute.

Here are gratuitous doggy shots to go with the gratuitous princess shots:

He considers and weighs the risks against the benefits of eating bees. He hasn't done it yet but Homer does occasionally with the expected results. As soon as the swelling goes down on his face he finds and eats another. This guy might just be too lazy to work that hard. 

Here comes swamp dog toward the back of the garden. I should probably have posted the entire series because he's just cute as hell but that would have been too gratuitous even for me. 

 

I love this. My girl and her dog. OK, he's my dog but they do love each other. She didn't go to prom like that she just didn't get dressed at the house. I think she kept my denim jacket on for most of the night though. Reminds me a bit of Molly Ringwald in whatever movie she altered a wedding dress for. And it wasn't Sixteen Candles.

 

This is what my compost bin looks like so far this year. The path to the left is the doggy trail leading to the swamp and woods. I am hopeful that they will stop covering the lawn with landmines and just contain that stuff to the back of the property. It's not as if there isn't enough room back there. Everything a doggy, not to mention small children, could possibly ask for. Except a tree house. Haven't quite gotten around to that yet. Maybe this summer. I think I need to modify the bin a bit to make it easier to turn. I read something about building or containing a compost heap with bales of hay or straw and I'm thinking that might be more effective and certainly easier to maintain. I don't much care for the big plastic rotating things that put the creation of hummus on light speed. Makes me nervous happening that fast.

 

If this isn't enough to get you to stop and slow down, or better yet just sit in the dirt getting your hands, nails and feet encrusted I don't know what is.

 

The wild buttercrunch is getting ahead of itself. I'm thinking a graze through this patch would make a good start to breakfast. Although I think I'll pass on the bug protein and stick with eggs. My replacement chickens and little guinea babies are due in the next week or two. I still need to build an incubator but I should have everything I need. We went and bought a light and a heat rock for a rescued Ball Python. Somebody threw the guy in his aquarium stuffed into a plastic bag into a trash compactor and was rescued by the maintenance people in my building at work. I took him home and we called him Steve after the The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove  (Christopher Moore). We were just getting to the point of walking around the house with Steve when he made a break for it one night and is now living somewhere in the house. If the Rat Terrier doesn't get him he'll take care of any rodent issues we may have. We miss him though and would really like it if he'd come out now and then for a cuddle. In any case, the snake habitat can be converted to baby guinea home fairly easily and if Steve decides he want's to come back to his nice safe cage he's just going to have to wait until they've outgrown it.

 

Silly pre-prom girls. They'd make fabulous garden accessories. Sort of like a useful version of my pot smoking Garden Gnome that has yet to be located and installed this year.

On being catless

Catless is just weird, weird, weird. I’ve had a cat since I was four years old. There may have been a month or two after I left home before I got another but I’ve always had at least one. My daughter, all her life.

 

Now. No cats, no cats nowhere. We haven’t even removed the litter box yet even though it’s perfectly clean because before she went there was nothing going in and nothing coming out.

 

We don’t even know where she is. That’s the hard part. No smell, no sign, chance she slipped outside but hard to say. We know we have to tear the house up sooner rather than later but there’s been so much going on we’re in avoidance.

 

We talked about getting another but now is not the time. Daughter just wants to know it will happen before she goes to college. She has one more year of high school, I suspect we’ll have another rescue kitty by then.

 

Just not now. Now we are catless. Lets see how that feels for a bit.

On muscle memory, mind, body or soul

I am almost positive that I have had the same yahoo account for at least 8 years. Same user ID, same password.

 

Seriously.

 

I set the account up initially for the calendar so that my direct reports could see my schedule and request meetings or appointments. So they had the password.

 

Everybody had the password and as time moved on there were sensitive documents and I never made a change.  Nothing bad ever happened either.

 

The other day I changed the passwords on all of my email and other accounts. I did this for several reasons but mostly because my doctor TOLD me to and I actually listened to him even though it hit more land mines than I care to think about it.

 

So anyway, I changed my password, right? How long before I stop typing the old one automatically? I’d say it’s got a half life of…

 

Anyway, muscle memory, for one thing or another takes some getting used to and discipline to change. Focus and clarity and it doesn’t matter what you’re changing, change will occur.

 

 

Bikram - Part 3

Today, easier, today, more ass kicking, today, feel better on the way out and here now at home.

Today I found my toes with precious little effort. Today, laying flat on the floor with my hands on my center which is what I do before I open myself up, I reached down a little and felt these two strange yet oddly familiar bumps.

My hip bones.

How long I wonder before flat tummy. Maybe this is TMI but if you've been reading here for awhile, I tend to do that. So on the subject of flat tummy, here I am rapidly approaching 45 and losing weight at a pretty good pace and what the hell am I supposed to do with all this, um, skin?

Extra skin won't do at all. Have to work on that. I don't do cosmetic surgery (even though I fantasize now and then mostly about a boob job but the older I get the happier I am they're not doing much more than they did when I was twenty). So my skin has generally been pretty elastic and I bet with the right diet and plenty of fluids I can shrink that back too.

Segue back to the hot room. It was 120 in there at some point during the class and he opened the door to cool it down. I had not noticed until he said something. It is also easier to go in there twenty minutes early and just breathe. It no longer makes me want to run out of the room for air.

My lung capacity is increasing dramatically. This, in spite of smoking a pack a day (no lectures, people, it's keeping the top of my head glued on right now and I don't think I'll need it much longer). Anyway, lung capacity increasing fast. Feels good.

Balance was off a little and that is indicative of not eating properly again. Back to basics, three good meals a day and grazing. No more skipping for any reason, even if it's just a little. Need to hydrate more too.

Today is a big day for many reasons. Today I give freely. Love asks for nothing. It just is. (A Course in Miracles)

9/11 upside down

I didn't know how I was going to watch this today. To start with I thought it was 8 AM and figured, OK, I can listen on the way to the office. Then I find out I'm wrong and I'm thinking I can surreptitiously watch listen quietly on CNN at noon.

And then I got an IM from my boss about coverage in the large conference room and I went, the same way I went on 9/11 to watch with my co-workers as the second plane hit the second building.

The atmosphere was as stunned and speechless all these years later. As many people as possible jammed into this room staring up at that screen.

Except this time it was all upside down. The hope and fear and dreams in that room sucked the oxygen out and fed it right back in.

I counted six obvious nationalities, maybe more I just don't recognize.

We don't show emotion at this company other than anger.

What I saw and sat in today was a level of intensity and hope and belief that nearly wiped out what I saw and sat in not so many years ago.

And then, you know what? This time we went back to work. Hopeful.

Happy

There's a lot I can't change in this world. I can do a lot of praying and I can have a boat load of faith and I can be intent as hell on a result but I can only change me. I'm working on that. Hard.

On the other hand, here I am again, back a lot sooner than I expected and I've discovered a couple of remarkable (to me) things.

1. I'm strong. As in Seriously, stupendously amazingly strong.
2. I am resilient to the point that I scratch my head sometimes and say, oh really, Alecto? You don't say.
3. I am persistent as all get out (Ok, I knew that).

And I am really, really happy to be here. In this space, with you.

Bikram notes from the master's trenches

I went online looking for Bikram philosophy and found a blog detailing the nine incredible weeks of instructor training  Bikram Blog.

This is out of context and it comes at the end but I wanted to share it because for me, it landed hard.

Let me end with a few more choice Bikram quotes from this week:

"The darkest place in the world is underneath the lamp."

"The only thing most Americans hear is ‘Take it easy, honey’, ‘Don’t hurt yourself’. Come to my class you hear something completely different."
 

"In America, you don’t say ‘cheat’, you say ‘compensate’."

"My yoga is the most incredible invention in all of civilization. Ask me why. Because people survived without electricity, without antibiotics, without air travel, etc. But yoga helps people survive. It gives you a better life. I can live without music, I can live without all that. I can live happily in a cave in the Himalayas. But we need heath to survive. That’s why this invention is more important than anything else anyone invented. Why am I talking that? Who got me off track??"

"My mother and father fight every 7 minutes. But they know when to stop. In American, no one knows when to stop. They are extremists, in America, they over do it. Yoga teaches balance, moderation."

"Did I clear myself?"

"Yesterday I explained to you why women get fat ass pretty quickly."

"PMS is American bullshit."

"Nobody on this earth knows the women character better than I do! (grunt) You women are bulletproof."

"Men don’t change. They are like used car: buy as it. No change."

"Don’t tell people what they want to hear. Tell them what they need to hear. Tell the truth."

"Which pain is good pain? How do you tell which pain is good from the pain that is bad? When you die."

"People act so weird, especially when they are upside down."

"Make your life and other people’s life better."

Bikram - Part two

Don't let anybody steal your peace. If you do, you are fifty percent responsible.

Much, much better this time. I walked out peaceful instead of nearly falling over. I felt good. I still feel good. He said something about 90 minutes in this room is fifteen days of good health. And I believe that.

I stayed through the end to Namaste which I missed last time or it just didn't happen (regular instructor this week). At Namaste I let go and released, released, released and then stood up and walked out of the space and into, well, into something peaceful at least.

At least. Funny statement.

So that's it for the yoga story today, nothing funny in the changing room (sweats is good to have!)

Now on with the day which is all about mind, body, spirit, soul. And maybe some laundry if the mood strikes me.

Oh yeah - Bikram Yoga - bring it on, baby!

Yeah, I know, this site's on hiatus and all that but I really do have something relevant to share.

Did something called Bikram Yoga today. 90 minutes in a 105 degree room with relative humidity at or about 40%.

Yikes.

I'm 44 and while not out of shape by any means, not so much your super flexible yoga goddess either.

There were moments when I thought I'd pass out. There were moments when I thought all that stuff I've got would just come pouring out of me in this incredible torrent. There were moments when I just could not believe what it felt like to just lay there and breathe. There were moments when I surprised myself and stepped back up into it again.

And then there was the moment when I tried to get my pants back on.

Pause.

We're in the changing room and it's full of half or totally naked women who have just sweat out sixteen tons of water and what have you. I think I have toweled off and I try to pull on a pair of jeans that are too big for me. I've lost about 10 pounds in the last two weeks.

I cannot get them on. There I stand in my itty bitty thong with my 44 year old ass in what I so dearly wished was a breeze and I'm fucking stuck! Halfway up the thighs.

I look desperately at my WORK friend and make whimpering sounds. She is sympathetic but working out her own modesty (I have 14 years on her for God's sake). The woman next to me says, yeah, I never get how people try to put jeans on after this, it's like when we were little kids after swimming trying to pull our pants back up.

I wondered how I was going to get home.

Lets just say they did finally and I did and next week I'll bring something else to change into.

Bikram Yoga, highly recommend it. Seriously. Not just for laughs anymore.