Mother's Need to be Needed

I have mentioned that my mother has a very bad heart which is one of the reasons that I moved here. I've done my best to take care of her. The last couple of days, as I've had to baby this sprained ankle, she has taken care of me and has looked better then she has during this past year since I moved here. She drove me to the doctor yesterday morning. She has been making meals and actually has been eating properly herself. She has decided to do her Christmas cards because the computer and typewriter are up here where I have been resting. I think that being able to be a "mommy" may have been what she needed. I'm a very independent person and like Mom I'm more likely to be the one doing the nurturing then being taken care of myself. I think that she feels needed now since I can't be on the foot very much and the doctor won't let me go back to work until Friday. It makes her feel important to do things for me. It is something I must remember. In my concern for her I sometimes forget that she needs to feel needed too and doesn't like being fussed over. Sometimes I have to let her be the "mommy."

Thoughts on Snow

Have I mentioned it has been snowing and icing up here? Seven inches in one day and temperatures below freezing? Another big storm coming on Wednesday?

Normally I love winter however the thought of two to three weeks in an air cast and on crutches in this garbage until the inflammation in the left ankle goes down and I can walk without fireworks of pain is not my idea of fun! Fortunately it isn't broken however that little slip that I thought didn't do much damage since I didn't hit the ground apparently did enough damage to the ankle so that it looks like I have no ankle bone, just a white and red swollen mass where it use to be.

Merlin is playing nurse. Of course at the moment that happens to be giving lessons in how to take a nap. He does get up with me if I have to use the bathroom just to make sure I can get there and back okay. Considering that if he stands on his back paws he can wrap his front around my waist he could probably give me support if he had to. ;-)

The picture is called "Chariots of Fire" and that is how the ankle feels.

Sunday Morning in the Snow

Sunday is a good day to be contemplative about life. Listening to U2’s "The Joshua Tree" certainly helps one to be in a reflective mood. I was thinking today how it was to grow up Catholic. I know my mother says her faith was the only thing that got her through my Dad’s death. He was the only man she had ever loved. She was in her teens when she married him and he died a couple of weeks after their 55th wedding anniversary.

When he was on Charlie Rose’s show Bono said something that really resonated with me. He attributed his social activism to "good old Catholic guilt." While it made me smile it also is a good description that many of us raised Catholic understand. We were taught that Jesus died for our sins and we have to make up for that in our lives by helping others. Bono does that with DATA (Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa) and his tireless campaign to help the Third World countries. Father Damien did that in the last century in Hawaii with his work on Molokai in Hawaii and his care for the lepers there.

It is so easy during this time to focus on the "abuses" in the Catholic Church and ignore the realities. According to his article on "Sex Abuse in the Church" Father Andrew Greeley says, "if the Ratzinger/NYT estimates are anything near the reality, 98% of American priests are not abusers, a point the Times neglects to make and which ought to have been the lead in an unbiased news report. I suspect that the Ratzinger/Times estimates are too low, but double the number to 4% -- which I suspect is closer to the truth -- and one still finds that 96% of priests are not abusers." He says one abuse is one too many but the reality is that the number of abusers in the Catholic Church is no higher than in any other organization. By focusing on abusers and ignoring the good priests a distorted view of the Church is being presented to the reading public.

Faith is a personal thing but I think I learned a lot in my time of nuns and catechism classes. Some of the things I learned were personal responsibility, the existence of good and evil, helping others, compassion, and for me the most important lesson of all that we are on this Earth to help our fellow human beings not for selfish reasons.

I’ve been on a newsgroup dedicated to the show "The Prisoner" for many years. While I don’t normally try to be argumentative there were two instances that I refused to back down on what I perceived as abuses. One was a slur against Aspergers sufferers that a troll used to try and slag off some people on the group. I have a nephew that suffers from this affliction and I was very vocal in saying that when you use a term that depicts a real illness for the sole reason that you want to insult someone else that you denigrate the suffering that people from this affliction are facing. Their suffering becomes nothing more then an insult term and that is wrong. The other came when a regular used foul language to insult another member and used the forum in a way to try and destroy the reputation of another member he did not like. Unfortunately that person fell into the trap and gave the obscenity user the ammunition he needed. I took both of them to task. In my eyes they were both at fault one for using an obscenity laced post after an apology had been made that he knew would push the other over the edge and the other for breaking a trust and posting personal emails. The obscenity user railed that my views were "twee" and I was a prude to object and that he couldn’t be ranked with a person who broke a confidence. Two wrongs do not make a right and yes two can be equally guilty.

I wonder if the fact that the person who refused to accept personal responsibility for his action is a victim of his atheism? When you throw out God in your life are you throwing out morality as well? Is that Catholic guilt that Bono spoke of really a good thing?

I think without a sense of morality that you can learn from religion a person risks the damage to the soul that turns the person from the right path towards the evil and darkness of the devil. You need a moral structure in your life. I like the idea of earning your way into Heaven. Of course my idea of Heaven is closer to the Simpson’s episode that Liam Neeson did. I want the Heaven with the step dancers, Guinness and yes there better be chocolate. In it I will meet again the little Irish priest in the picture, Father Paddy. He was a sweet man who was an enormous comfort to me when my marriage broke up. He died of a heart attack suffered when he was saying Mass.

Lots of White Stuff Out There

Nature has a way of making you do things you have been putting off. I haven't got my Christmas stuff finished yet. I've been hitting the sack early because of a cold coming on. Well I'm behind because the cards have to printed here since I do my own designs every year. Since I do half sized cards I have to print on both sides. I have a great HP printer but the designs are intricate and it takes a while to print.

About one o'clock this afternoon it started to snow and hasn't stopped yet. They are predicting about eight inches. I had to shovel almost four inches of snow off of my car at 4:30 this afternoon. Mother and my brother are working and there is no way I'll be able to sleep until Mom gets home safely. Even when I go to bed early I can't fall asleep until I hear her come in and know she is okay. She doesn't get off until eleven tonight and I'm not getting ready for bed until she gets home. She has her cell phone in case of trouble but I want to make sure she is home safe and sound before I go to bed. While I wait for Mom I'll work on Christmas cards etc. Now if Mother Nature could just be a little more subtle I would be happy.

The picture is called "Chicago WInter Dreams" and came about when shortly after I moved to the Midwest we had a horrible winter with over three feet of snow at one time and I wondered if the city of Chicago could dream what would it dream about?

 

So I'm A Geek Deal With It

It isn't easy growing up different. I was one of those weird people who thought school was for learning. I wasn't all that fond of school sports. You could find me at the debate club rather than the pep rallies. I was more interested in national politics than school politics.

Then as now I loved science fiction and fantasy. I was the dreamer who cheered when we landed on the moon and cheered again when Rover landed on Mars. I fully support the space race with its quest for knowledge. I cringe at attempts to suppress knowledge and replace it with superstition. I believe in God but I believe in a God that's powerful enough that he can use science to do his creation. Even if you take creation all the way back to the primordial atom you still have God. Where do you think that atom came from if not God? I find a God powerful enough to create an atom that starts it all infinitely more satisfying then one who has to make things one piece at a time.

I love science in all its complexity. I believe there is life on other planets. It would be a foolish waste to think this universe just contained us. Sometimes looking at mankind you wonder about our intelligence but God doesn't make junk.

I love the Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Star Wars. I can converse for hours about them with fellow geeks. I love science fiction conventions. I use to run one. My desk has a computer made to my specifications, a digital camera, a camera cell phone and a pocket PC. Card carrying member of Geeks R Us.

Being a geek however doesn’t mean that I have to let my body go and wear nothing but jeans and T-shirts and no makeup. A shallow star once asked me why so many unattractive people are in fandom. The answer is simple because growing up we were told we didn’t fit in with the beautiful people crowd at school. We were the brainiacs. We were supposed to look dorky. That isn’t true. We can and should take pride in our bodies as well as our minds. We should maintain a healthy weight. We should avail ourselves to hair stylists, makeup and beautiful clothes. We have just as much a right to look good physically as the "beautiful in-crowd." After all we are the brains of society. They can’t make it without us.

The picture is called "City in A Minor." Why? Because I'm a geek and can name my pictures with obscure names. ;-)

Waiting for Godot

It is snowing again here in the Midwest. It looks to be a cold snowy winter this year. I'm thankful that my mother bought me a Honda Accord about a year and a half ago. Someone was selling a 1994 for a very low price and mother got it for me. My 1978 Toyota was on its last legs and this new car runs and handles like a dream especially in bad weather.

Christmas is coming sooner than most of us are ready for it to be here. It reminds me of the play "Waiting for Godot." This is the time of year that little children are the most anxious for time to fly as they can hardly wait for Christmas Day. They will never have the patience that the characters in Beckett's play have waiting for Godot to show up.

I have learned to be more patient over the years although I still find myself muttering "God grant me patience and I want it now." I think being an artist is what taught me patience. Artwork does not come out full blown even if you are using a computer. Art comes at its own pace and if you rush it then it does not come out right. I will find that I have spent literally hours on a picture fine tuning and trying to get everything exactly the way I want it to look. Some pictures take weeks before I am finally satisfied with what I see. It takes an enourmous amount of patience to tell a computer to reproduce the pictures that I see in my mind's eye. There are times that I stare at a picture and try to figure out what that picture needs because I can tell something is missing. Sometimes it is only a tiny change that is needed a shadow or light that needs to be added. I work on the pictures until what I see in my head is on the computer screen.

Life is like that also. You can't rush things to come at the pace you may want them to come. When you take short cuts you can make things worse. My Mom always says that if you do something then do it right. You need to take the time to do it properly. If you rush into something, especially a relationship, then it often fails. I found this out in my marriage. If I had taken the time to really get to know that person I never would have married him.

I try to learn life's lesson that you can climb any mountain if you take it one step at a time which is the theme of this picture. To be human, however, is to make mistakes. There is no guarantee in my life that I won't rush into another relationship or situation in life where patience would be advisable. I am human after all and that does entail that I will lead with my heart and not my head sometimes. Oh and by the way Lord did I mention I need patience now?

 

What Do You Get

One of my favorite newsgroups has been plagued by an idiot troll for almost three years now. In many ways he reminds me of my ex-husband who was a very abusive man. It got me thinking about what do abusers get out of their behavior? What are the consequences? Do they gain anything?

On the newsgroup the troll is met with scorn, ridicule, and hostility. Yet he keeps posting. My ex has destroyed two marriages, estranged his only child, estranged his only sibling, been forced out of numerous jobs, lost all his friends, and is even ostracized from the "furry" community. I have experienced people in the workplace who are verbally abusive and they have no respect from their fellow employees. No one likes them and they are spoken of only in the negative behind their backs.

What all of these abusive people have in common are big egos. They think they are the most important people in their worlds. They have a pathetic need to be in control. They are loud and obnoxious and are constantly trying to bring attention to themselves by shouting "See I'm important! Really I am! Important!" They are the whiners that complain that nothing is their fault. Everyone else is to blame. They are perfect. No one sees how important they are.

These people are so out of touch with reality that they do not comprehend how the rest of the world sees them. They are the paranoid delusionals of this world. Their power is just smoke and mirrors. It doesn't exist. It is there only in their minds.

No man is an island. People have to interact with their fellow beings. Those relationships can be rewarding or they can be miserable. People should be treated with respect. If you give respect and friendship you get respect and friendship in return. My mother has a saying that "he is only happy when he's miserable." I think abusive people have shut out happiness and decent emotions so that the only thing that exists in their lives is self satisfaction. They are incapable of sustaining fulfilling relationships because they drive people away from them. They fail to realize that people can turn their back on them and they are left with no one but themselves.

My ex has ended up a bitter lonely old man. No friends. No supportive coworkers. No family. Abusers end up alone because no one  wants to be near them. They are scorned and ignored. They are on the outside looking in when it comes to friendship and the warmth it brings. They have no one in their lives but themselves and that makes for very poor company. What have they gained? Absolutely nothing.