Plinky Prompt: What was the last movie you saw?

• At the Movie Theater
• A most amazing film……
  I felt honored to see the film “The Intouchables.” It was one of the finest films I have seen in a very long time. It is a film about friendship and love, about two men who become great friends.Both main characters were incredibly talented, there is absolutely nothing I can complain about. The soundtrack was brilliant and worked beautifully with the movie. I would recommend this movie to everyone. It’s a foreign (French) film and if you have the chance to see it or rent it, please do. I guarantee you will love it. Trust me.

Haiku Heights – True

Bleeding hearts, mine, yours? 

Transparent on the face, soul

Struck down like wildfire.

***************************************************************************************

 

Life Is To Be Lived: Mmmm For Chocolate

I don’t often order chocolate desserts in restaurants. I’m more the carrot cake or vanilla/coconut cake kind of gal. Tonight, I just needed chocolate, nothing else would suffice. I ordered “Chocolate Mousse with Hazelnuts and Raspberry Coulis.” Oh my dear Lord. It was divine in every sense of the word.

It was milk chocolate mousse wrapped in dark chocolate (I know, right? The best of both worlds) with hazelnuts adorning the  little raspberry syrup spots on top of the white plate. It was not only breathtakingly good to eat, it was also pretty. Or as they say in “Hells Kitchen” the plating was magnificent.

I generally eat very little during the day, I think I had a snack pack of “Fig Newtons” for lunch and water to drink; it was so hot outside I wasn’t hungry. At home, where I proclaimed it was too hot to cook we decided to splurge and go out to eat. There’s something about not cooking that makes one ravenous in a well air-conditioned restaurant surrounded by your non-fighting family.

Tomorrow, I think I will stick to “clean” foods, fruit and vegetables and maybe chicken or a veggie burger. Tonight, however,was meant for only chocolate; rich, smooth, velvety, creamy milk chocolate and dark chocolate. It’s what the end of the week should be, a celebration for getting through it. Enjoy the weekend, everyone.

I Love You More

Never Changing With The Season (Photo credit: dprotz)

There, I said it, in print, published in black and white. You can call it or I can call it when we first see each other in the morning or at 3:30am for a bathroom break but I think this counts a hundred times more. I am the “I Love You More” champion because truly, I do love you more. You can’t call me a cheater, either. To my husband: I’d be lost without you. I know, way down deep, I could get through it, if I had to, but I don’t even want to contemplate that situation.

You accept me for the: overly sensitive, moody, quirky, hungry, anxious, mean, hurtful and impatient person I can be. I know I am also loving and sweet and funny but it’s the bad qualities that are harder to accept. I haven’t even mentioned the Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and chronic pain that I have. You support me with driving, if you can, or help me upstairs or out of the car with an outstretched arm at the ready. Your never-ending kindness is (mostly 🙂 ) always there. That means so much to me and I thank you.

I know when we first met you COULD NOT BELIEVE that I had NO sense of direction and you that I would get lost on purpose. HA! Why would I do that? You couldn’t understand if I had driven someplace once or twice or thirty times before how I couldn’t reenact the same route again. My answer: genetics. My father was the same way. The kids make fun of me (mercilessly) but I truly cannot picture in my mind where things are and how to get to them. Thank goodness for the GPS, the best invention ever and yes I know, I still get lost but it helps.

However, I will recognize a person I went to seventh grade with in a different state, in a different setting (like a bakery) and go up to the person and say “Nora?” and know, without a doubt, that she was my friend 40 years ago. I am always right too. You can meet someone an hour ago before, meet them again in five minutes and have no facial recognition. Our minds and brains are wired totally differently. What do we both say? ” Valuing differences.”

You make me a cup of coffee each morning, in my favorite flowered, thin-lipped mug. When I am sick you bring it upstairs to me, with love and a napkin. Sometimes there is a dish of strawberries, blueberries and blackberries already washed, in a dish in the refrigerator. You do that for me. FOR ME. I buy you dark chocolate covered apricots for Father’s Day and tell you they are from the dog because my dad is no longer alive and even though you are my children’s father, it is a lonely, miserable holiday for me. You understand that and you are blessed to have both of your parents still alive. You even understand that I am envious without holding it against me.

I am lucky to have you in so many ways. We are best friends. Sometimes, I need some space but begrudgingly, you have come to understand that too. Through the years I think we have become more like each other, which to me is still puzzling. I used to be the one that liked to stay home and you used to like to go out, now it’s the opposite. I want adventure, you want peace.

Let’s walk together now and hopefully in years to come. I’ve already slowed down and you have tried to walk slower for me. Maybe we can find a shady bench in the park in the future and sit, side by side holding hands. I pray we can get old together, this is my dream. I want nothing more than that; that itself would be heaven.

Dedicated to my husband, Danny

Swimming In The Swamp

English: Pink Puppy Designs, http://www.PinkPuppyDesigns.com/ Category:Dog equipment (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Staying in my house, bored, is utterly detrimental to my health. I know this for sure. I need to get out, to have adventures and while I used to have more people to have adventures with, I now have adventures with myself or…..with my dog, Lexi. Maybe this is the bonding she and I need, maybe our adventures together are her way of showing affection. I really don’t know.

Today was a lovely, breezy summer day; the sun was shining, the sky a brilliant blue and clouds formed to make unusual, thick shapes. I took our 4 and a half month “mutt-a-gree” puppy (so much nicer than saying mutt, don’t you think?) and opened the back door of my car for her. “Come on, Lex, we’re going for a ride.” We ended up in a park that has trails and a walking path, a pond, a playground for children and an ice cream truck. What could be better?

We met a few other dogs, white curly-haired dogs, large, german shepherds, a couple of big dogs in various shades of gold, red, brown, beige and white. Some were big and fluffy with full coats, others were small and yappy; some were off leash, others were on. Not every dog was happy to see a puppy, an (over) enthusiastic four and a half month puppy but a few dogs put up with it. Lexi is like a politician and very much like our son when he was three years old. Our son would say “Hi” to everyone who walked by and would wave his chubby hand, if people didn’t stop to chat, admire, wave or smile, he was personally insulted and it showed on his face. Lexi is the same way, she takes all rejections personally and gets upset when a dog doesn’t want to play with her.

Determined to take her for a walk, I pulled her away from the other disinterested dogs and off we went. About five minutes into the walk we came upon the smelly, dirty, big pond (I’m being nice, it was a huge, disgusting swamp). I love water and had always hoped my first dog would love water but she was terrified of it. Lexi was not. She went to the edge and was fascinated by the muddy water. She played in the water with her paws and we both were thrilled. Yes, I was encouraging her, I admit it. She went out a little further but I still had the leash clutched in my hand. (Another mea culpa I had not brought the long leash with me since this was an impromptu adventure.)

The next part I see in slow motion. Me, wearing new white pants and a navy and white striped tee-shirt and my favorite and expensive sneakers (that are the only kind that fit my old lady messed up feet) were at one point standing at the edge grinning at MY dog, proud, cell phone in my pants pocket. Half a second later, my super-strong puppy pulled me in with such great strength that I fell into the stinky, grimy water. My first thought was “my husband will kill me if my phone is broken” my second thought “who saw me because this is so embarrassing?” and finally after the nice gentlemen in back of me asked if I was alright, I said some silly thing like “well at least she likes the water” with an embarrassed, goofy grin. The entire left side of my body was drenched in black slime, my right side apparently hadn’t made it in the water.

We stank. Both of us, like dirty, muddy, black-stained sea urchins. Lexi was wet and wild. I laughed the entire ride home calling our friend Christina to ask her to take a picture on Instagram for Facebook. If I can figure it out, I will try to repost the photo here, if not look there! it’s worth it. My son and husband’s first question was:” Why didn’t you let go of the leash?” “Because I’m a mother, that’s why!” I didn’t know if she could swim, and I didn’t trust her if she could swim not to swim to another state. It seemed instinctual to stay by her side, and so I did.

No anxiety today! I had an adventure, with my puppy who is way too strong and needs discipline. Puppy classes start Sunday and I can’t wait. Now, I need new sneakers (I’ve already tried washing the ones I had on) the cell phone is nestling in rice and the dog had so much excitement she is sleeping, down for a nap. I still smell like the swamp lady but I had fun, a lot of fun. We should do this more often, though next time I will bring a much longer leash and a few, old towels. All in all, I have to admit, I haven’t had this much fun in a long time; it was a perfect day.

My Bad And My Apology

Mea culpa, mea culpa (Photo credit: VanessaO)

Yesterday I posted a blog (“Worried Sick-One Crazy Ass Blog Post”) that not only scared me but many of my followers and one in particular, a friend I haven’t met named Mike C. First, THANK YOU for caring.  I figured out exactly what happened and I was a complete jerk. I am on the medicine Synthroid for an underactive thyroid, (and an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis for which I take Synthroid. We were away for a few days at our daughter’s orientation to college and in the hotel I had no idea if I had taken my Synthroid in the middle of the night as I usually do at home. In the morning, when I woke up the pill was still there. I vaguely remember taking it in the middle of the night but…I wasn’t a hundred percent sure so I played doctor. Mea Culpa.

Stupid me, as it turns out TOOK IT…AGAIN, double the normal dose. I was off kilter all day and had no idea why. Yes, I was super-duper anxious and fearful but couldn’t imagine why everything felt so wrong and intense. I apologize to all of you who were concerned and I apologize for making you concerned. I only realized at the end of the night that was what happened and yes, I felt like the stupidest person on earth.

This dear, as yet unknown, Mike was worried about me. My friend Judith and Wendy and others were worried about me as well and I’m so sorry. I am not denying that I don’t get anxious at times, I do but yesterday was like an anxiety bonanza. I could have been the poster child for Buspar or Xanax or perhaps a new drug called “Scared-out-of-my-nutty-head.”. Also, while I feared (in my panic mode of all future imagined illnesses) I never said I felt the symptoms. It was an endocrine mind game that truly put me off my game and frankly I should have been given a “Do Not Stop Go” to the Emergency Room.

Thanks to Mike C. he reminded me of how I USED to be funny and I used to enjoy writing Pop Cop and being sarcastic and witty and sentimental and all the other things I used to write about. It’s been a very rough year, that I can’t deny. I’m trying to look forward to not let the major (and they were major) stressors of last year stay with me. I hope to get back to writing on a variety of topics too. And yes, hopefully I’ll be funny too.

Thank you readers, for caring. We just got home from our seven hour trip but I refused to rest until I sent this out to you. You don’t know how much your comments meant to me. I am fine, I do have meds and I do see a doctor so please don’t worry. Just give me a virtual kick in the pants and tell me, like you did yesterday. I love you all.

Again, I dearly apologize for causing anyone any stress, but I can’t tell you how touched I am that you cared enough to write me back.  Hugs, kisses, pizza with jelly (sorry, Mo),  orange carrot cake and honey baked corn bread with a glass of cold milk for us all. Cheers, to friendship!

Love, Laurie aka hibernationnow

Worried Sick: One Big Crazy-Ass Blog Post

Emotion: Fear (Photo credit: Cayusa)

I. Am. A. Robot. I have no affect. (Great psychology word, so expressive for non-expression) I lie on my bed with my computer lounging on my bulging stomach, my legs are crossed at my ankles. I still have a French manicure on my toes. I have no extreme emotions, neither sadness or happiness. No smile on my face, no frown. This is not me. I have felt like this for about a week; what has happened to me and why? The last few weeks have been busy and exciting, my daughter graduated from high school, she went to her prom, we went to her pre-prom party; all that was wonderful. I had feelings then, why not now? Here I am, not loving my new dog, not hating her, just coexisting. I don’t feel any emotion in any extreme way. “It’s a phase” I say to myself, “It will pass…you are tired.”

I try to analyze myself: am I hiding emotions, protecting myself, WAIT, I did feel something the other day that felt like strong responses. I felt RAGE and I felt IMPATIENT. But, now I’ve forgotten why–oh no, forgetting things again!! That IS indeed scary. I’ve also been worried lately about my health: I think I have Multiple Sclerosis, (which is now considered an autoimmune disease like my Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis? really?) Ovarian Cancer, Stomach Cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease (both for me and my husband) and various other horrible illnesses. All life threatening. I feel scared of the unknown, yes, it is known as ” anticipatory anxiety,” I am fearful. Should I just take a xanax (anti-anxiety medication) and shut up? I’m thinking maybe it’s time….I bet my pal, Jenny Lawson, Bloggess, extraordinaire, would urge me to take one…okay, maybe two. I should take medication “as needed” the trouble with anxiety is that while you are going through it you think you are sane…..when you are REALLY NOT thinking clearly (little crazy voice in your head says “but maybe you are….”) at all.

Am I just having a full-fledged anxiety attack? (sounds like it) Probably (now on paper too!!) You know, ever since I made that damn appointment with that neurologist it’s been hounding me like a dog with it’s smelly barbecue flavored chew toy. I should know, I have a dog, and let me tell you she does not let go of her bones, she grips it with all her meaty strength. She will bite me or anyone who gets in her way of food. I can understand the love of food but those bite marks hurt.  They make us all look like heroin addicts with her baby teeth bite marks. Where was I? Oh yes, neurologist: my internist suggested I go a few months ago for tingling under my feet and in my hand. I don’t think I even have those symptoms anymore but it’s one of those things I can’t cancel…..(because it’s bad luck) because I should check it out. In my mind, I see Ellis Grey from Grey’s Anatomy one of my favorite television shows and that scares me. neurology, neurologist, even going for an appointment scares me to death.  I may indeed have a diagnosis; I believe it’s called FEAR.

I don’t feel anything yet I worry, not a good life to be living. My own post is scaring me. I’ve been there before, I will get out of it again. Maybe I just need more sleep. Or take Albuterol since climbing up all those flights of stairs today at my daughter’s orientation at college made me wheeze and it won’t go away. (I have no medication for asthma). I just need to slow it down, in my body and in my mind. I have a solution: a nap; that would do me a lot of good and some herbal raspberry tea. It will put all my FEARS to rest and give me the sleep I’m lacking. I can never sleep well, the first night someplace new anyway. Maybe they have a term for that, I can add to my list of phobias.

p.s. the photo scares me too.

Carry On Tuesday: “So good to be be believed in once, so good to be remembered…..”

Newborn child, seconds after birth. The umbilical cord has not yet been cut. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The dreams of childhood – its airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond ; so good to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown.”

I am the mother of two children. “Children”, I laugh to myself, “children, no more!” My daughter is a skip away from eighteen, my son, soon to be twenty in a few months. Once I was everything to them, now, nothing much. Yes, they still come to me when they are hungry but they do not come with sticky kisses and hugs that curl around my knees like sloppy green caterpillars. No, it’s been many years since that has happened.  They yell throughout the house “what’s for dinner” or “I’m hungry” and even though they are fully capable of cooking their own meal but it is still nice to be needed, once in a while, in this small, insignificant way, although I am quick to reprimand them. It ‘s something. I know they love me, they just don’t show it; my husband and I have done a good job bringing up two wonderful, independent young adults. It’s not their fault that once in a while I feel so lonely.

When they were three and five, it was a magical time. A time for believing in Batman and monsters, pink princesses and glitter pixie dust. An innocent time and I was the one they truly believed in for anything. I could right any wrong, make any hurt feel less painful. I could vanish fears before bedtime or sing them lullabies, sitting exactly equally between their rooms so they could fall asleep. It was a truly special time, it felt “so good to be believed in once.”

Now, that is all left in the past. We are all moving on, this childhood home will be child-less come late August with two teenagers headed to college. Yes, there is a small part that wonders what my husband and I will talk about, what do we have in common except our off-spring? Perhaps we will talk about the puppy I adopted to avoid the complete empty nest. I don’t know, I will have to wait and see; we are all in this together. Together but alone.

Last year we adjusted when our first born son went to college and the three of us shifted in our dynamics, making more time to chat with our daughter, our “baby” and watched her grow an incredible amount. Dynamics between siblings are often fraught with competition and jealousy. It was nice to see our daughter for one year sans her older brother. I am the younger sister too, I understand her feelings.

We will watch them grow up through tales of college and on vacation, perhaps they will see us in a different light, slightly removed. It’s not a bad thing, it can be a very positive and mature thing. Maybe they will appreciate us more or understand one day in the future, what it is like to be a parent. To love a child so unconditionally, with every fiber of your being that while the umbilical cord is cut, the attachment is forever. I hope they understand one day what it is like to be a parent and even more, I pray that I am alive to see it. I hope to be sitting on the lumpy beige sofa with matching fluffy yellow and red pillows with you, my dear husband, chatting, joking and whispering to each other about what OUR children were like, joking with our grandchildren: because once your own parenting days are over it feels “So good to be remembered when outgrown.” It is their job now to parent, not ours any longer, we have moved out of the inner circle to the outer circle and we need to accept that as graciously as we possibly can. It all falls under the circle of life. People change; we all do, we must accept it, not fight with it, with God’s blessings. Amen.

Haiku Heights – Support

Private moments (Photo credit: Colin-47)

My chin droops slightly

You kiss the top of my head

I close my green eyes.

*****************************************************

My friend, darling one

let us grip each others hands

when the night scares us.

******************************************************

Please lean against me

angle to my soft body

so I can feel strong.

Broken

English: Blue Baseball Cap (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I saw old Mr.Tom in the produce section of the gigantic, glitzy grocery store; all bright lights and big orange”sale” signs. I hadn’t realized I had gasped inwardly so sharply that I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. This is not the man I remembered at all: the jovial, beer-bellied friend of my mother’s, the man with a hearty laugh and a baseball cap was now just a whisper of his former self. His pants hung low on him, his eyes vacant yet deeply troubled, his complexion was pasty. He was running on auto-pilot and even though I tried to say “hello” and ask about his wife, who I knew was sick, his whole tone of voice had changed completely. “She’s terrible” he spoke sharply and I feared he would yell at me as he had once but he didn’t seem to have the energy or the inclination. He just pushed his grocery cart away and told me that he was “behind schedule and that he could not stay and talk”and then he slipped away through the aisles, like a ghost.

I knew there was nothing I could do,  I knew that there would be worse, much worse things that would happen before,  IF they got better at all. I had been more friendly with Mr. Tom’s wife, a good friend of my mother’s. Mrs. Rae had been ill for years, very slowly weakening, but now she could no longer walk, or eat, or move by herself. She refused help of any kind except for her husband’s help and he was killing himself to accommodate her.

My mother always said they had “the perfect marriage.” I always answered that “no marriage is perfect.” As Mrs. Rae is left dying, taking care of her is killing him too. Is that a perfect marriage? The term “hospice” is never uttered in their house. He is killing himself to care for her and I pray he doesn’t kill himself first. It is a definite possibility. She has every right to die at home if she wishes, but she refuses for anyone to help him too. That is not the perfect marriage, I would not want my husband to die for me while taking care of me.

I don’t know how much Mrs. Rae is suffering from dementia and how much is control. I’m sure it is some of both. He has taken care of her for a very long time, years. Their children stay away. “Why?” my mother fumes and judges? I ask her not to pass judgment but she doesn’t listen to me. I tell her again and again that there are always “two sides to a story” but when her mind is made  up, she will not consider any other thoughts. She never has.

I see Mr. Tom as I peek through the aisles. He doesn’t look at anybody just carefully and slowly lifts one item off the shelf with two hands and places it gingerly in the cart. He doesn’t see me, he doesn’t see anybody. What he is going home to is his loving, dying wife, whom he watches, day and night. She sleeps with her eyes half closed and her mouth open. He has to go over to her sometimes, bending his head over her chest to see if she is breathing. She wants to die and he wants her to die to get them both out of this long, horrifying painful process. It’s a real life horror movie. If only he could get someone to help him it would be better but she will not allow it.

Nobody will listen to them, especially the doctors. So, he sits next to her, night and day, cooking and cleaning and smiling for her, pretending that everything is alright. He will do that until she takes her last breath, this beautiful, dying sparrow, and he will be there to watch it leave her frail, weak, body.