Free Write Friday-Kellie Elmore: Coyotes Are Not Dogs

Coyote scouting around (Photo credit: jibber11)

It’s high noon. Sun blazing. You awake in a field and birds are pecking your skin… GO!

I know that human people were making noise and complaining about us, we know, all of us. But hey, that’s what we do to survive don’t  they understand that? If they left their “fur babies” (what an obnoxious title) outside alone to play, than it’s anybody’s game. Can you believe there were towns that were thinking about hazing us? Actual plans to get rid of our pact. On purpose,  We are a species of animal, just like everyone else. People have dogs and treat them well, why don’t they respect us, the coyotes, the champions of the world? Snatching their little puffy dogs is just in our nature it’s not something we plan to do, it is instinctive. Can’t you human people consider that? It’s our food just like the food you crave.

We know that we have the been in the news, in the papers, that town meetings overflowing with people wanting to destroy us, make us extinct, that’s a little harsh don’t you think? We are just following our nature, is following your nature to kill and destroy us? That’s what it sounds like to us. I’m not going to lie, we do get some enjoyment of seeing the terror in your eyes at first sight but that is like a game for us, we really mean to do no harm. Just go calmly back inside. I know there was some person who said that you should come at us yelling and screaming, making noise and clapping pots and pans together but do you really want to annoy us? It’s your choice. I can’t promise that if you do those things we will back off immediately. Sometimes yes, sometimes,no. Here’s the thing, we are not dogs, we are not reliable, we are not dependable and we don’t like you or love you. We care for only ourselves, that’s right and we would never deny it. That is who we are. Do you get it now? We will never be your pets, your brothers and sisters, we are your enemies and we will eat your little doggies or your diapered babies as fast as we can grab them in our steely mouths and fly away with no remorse whatsoever. That is the nature of our life.

So, I perfectly understand that the crows are now pecking at my skin, it’s not a bad feeling, just a bunch of pinches and I know I will die. I don’t have a problem with that at all. See, coyotes don’t expect to live forever, problem free. We know we are here on earth for a short time but it is a time that we spend in adventure, a fast life, a one only based on our needs and wants. Am I happy a bigger lion caught meand brought down? No, I can’t say I am but it was inevitable and I understandable. It is what we do. The crows pecking at my skin, well, they are just doing their job, to survive, to eat their meals as fast as they can.

I’m dying now, I can’t move anymore.

Coyotes running (Photo credit: Nature Pictures by ForestWander)

Photos are property of the owners.

Plinky Prompt: Describe Your Perfect Rainy Day

Bentley Tea Cup (Photo credit: snap713)

• 
• Safe inside, toasty warm, while water pitter-patters on the roof… describe your perfect, rainy afternoon. See all answers

• Edit answer |
• June 26, 2013 by hibernationnow

• Thinking in the rain

• Actually, my perfect rainy afternoon would be living in a climate where it doesn’t rain BUT, I will be good and play along:

  A cup of jasmine tea, sitting on a window bench, looking outside, my dog sleeping peacefully near me so I can hear her breathing, daydreaming, a fire in the fireplace, writing an entry into my blog, no stress in my life, matching my breathing with the pattern of the rain, no thoughts, mindful meditation. Relaxation.

  

  English: A snail on a rainy window (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Plinky Prompt: If you could switch blogs with any blogger for a week…

A self-portrait of the Bloggess, also known as Jenny Lawson, an Internet blogger. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• If you could switch blogs with any blogger for a week, with whom would you switch and why?
  
  See all answers
  

• Edit answer|
• June 4, 2013by hibernationnow

• Jenny And Me

• I didn’t even have to think about this for one minute, the answer is

  easy. I would trade blogs with one of the funniest people who I feel I

  know. She’s my friend ( in my mind at least ) and I respect her and

  laugh with her and think she’s a very clever and amusing person. The

  only person that it could be, in my world, is Jenny, The Bloggess. If

  you haven’t heard of her, where have you been living? I have to say that

  she is downright honest, a little crazy, (those stuffed, dead animals

  she collects ( taxidermist??) creep me out a little but hey, she lives

  in Texas and she learned some stuff from her dad.) I’m a complete city

  girl but I’m not judging. So NOT judging. She’s open, honest and funny

  and if you get offended by some of her comments or language just move on

  and keep going, don’t come back. I think this woman, this writer is

  the type of person that will put on paper what you will try to come up

  with ten minutes later.

  I too, keep Xanax in my pocketbook for anticipatory anxiety, Jenny,

  and I’ve got your back. For real. I’m so proud of her success that I

  could burst and that has nothing to do with my blog whatsoever. BELIEVE

  ME. I am happy for HER. Jenny started a Christmas program for people in

  need, a few years back, and that was one of the nicest things anyone in

  the world could have done. It still brings tears to my eyes when I think

  about it.That’s heart, people, true heart.

   

My 1,000th Post, THANK YOU!

Yellow roses (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Can you believe it? 1,000 posts? I can’t either but I am so excited.

I started this blog when I was going through a very rough time and I wanted to hide, to hibernate (hence the title hibernationnow) to just get through one day after another. I was sick, I hurt everywhere and was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease. This blog has helped me grow up and get through many important things in my life. Some very good and some very bad: It’s LIFE as I have known it; I’ve always tried to be honest. (Although there is a lot of fiction and non-fiction mixed together and sometimes I love trying to trick you!)

I want to THANK YOU sincerely from my heart for reading/following my bog.You don’t know how much it means to me. There have been people from the start that still follow me and I am so grateful. There are new people every day and I get excited with each new follow. WELCOME. I enjoy the comment section so much and I try to write back as many people as I can even if it is a simple “Thanks for writing.” I read EVERY comment and I think about them too. You make MY day.

I know I can’t stop writing, writing keeps me centered. It’s in my heart and soul. But, I need to make a few decisions down the road. Some of you have suggested that I self publish some of the posts into a book. I’m thinking about it but I know it is quite expensive. In the “old days” people had agents who did this for them. Blogging is an absolute joy to me and I will continue writing, no matter what.

There’s a new chapter in my life now, both kids are in college and while I was sad and angry for a while, I’m now excited and looking forward to my new adventures. It’s not the end of the road, it’s just the beginning of another chapter and the possibilities are endless. Knowing me as you do, some of them are quite…..interesting! I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you, again, for your support of me, for your suggestions and your kind words. Please keep them coming. I truly appreciate you.

Love, Laurie aka hibernationnow.wordpress.com

p.s. of course you knew any image would be in my favorite color…….

I’m Participating in NaBloPoMo. May 1, 2011, “Maybe”

Image by MediaStorm via Flickr

It’s my mother’s birthday we are all celebrating with her. I also have to go with my son  a senior in high school to get fitted for a tuxedo for the prom. I’m being pulled in two directions at the same time. Maybe, I should stop worrying so much about what other people think and just do the best job I can. I’m not perfect but I am trying to be kind to everyone. I don’t think it’s working. I feel stressed.  I want today to be fun for everybody but I just can’t shake the feeling that my mom will be upset that I am leaving her brunch (after two hours) to do something for my son. The “Sandwich Generation” I truly cannot win but I know I am not alone in this situation. I thought I was over being a “people-pleaser” I guess not.

The Map To Nowhere Fast

Image via Wikipedia

I have a weird feeling of unrest and stress, slimy blue- green and flourescent orange winding its way around my brain is how I picture it, how I feel it. No soothing colors of white and yellow and beige. Fake colors, unnatural.  I frown more than I smile and as hard as I am trying to focus on the positive it’s not easy. There is so much going on in my life that it’s hard to focus. I don’t think it’s just me though, I think it’s a lot of people.  It’s a feeling, not a good one, somewhere between the roads of anxious and depressed, stopping at weary.

There are natural disasters all over the world and I am sure we all feel, not only heartbroken for other people, but scared. There is too much sinewy stuff whirling around and no happy place to settle. What happened to my “happy place” images? Why am I only seeing the rain battering the purple flowers instead of the blooming of the flowers alone.

There is tension inside my house, we are in “the sandwich generation” that I used to read about. It isn’t fun, it’s scary. The “baby boomers” who have restless teenagers and aging parents who are alone or ill or depressed. I am that “baby boomer” now except I have the added affliction of my own “chronic pain.” Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis do not do me any favors, I walk along slowly, painfully, I stumble through different medications and expectations. Very low expectations.

I also have narrow-angled glaucoma which is a dangerous disease or as one unfriendly opthalmologist put it “you could go blind in an instant.” Quite a bedside manner, don’t you think? Needless to say, I stopped going to him. It’s funny that I barely write about this condition, maybe it’s pure, frigid fear. Maybe there is only so much pain I can handle. My brain and eyes get hammered, with laser shocks, every few months by a doctor that I once believed was very good. I don’t think so anymore. “In twenty years of practicing, I’ve never had a patient whose eyes kept closing up like yours do.”  Every time I go to the city he lasers my eyes again, because the hole he drilled into me has closed. He does this procedure either in his office or in the hospital with no pain relief; imagine barbed wire going through your eyes and brain, quickly, twenty or thirty times in a row. The eye drop he casually puts in gives me incredibly painful headaches (migraines?) I do know that the pain I feel is barbaric, no pain medications, no anesthesia, no break. Over and over again; fast and furious.

The gray, dreary day does not help me since I feel overwrought and unfocused. I am dealing with both chronic pain, (Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis) and new back pain that feels like my back bent and broke itself during sleep like a twisted pretzel you find in any mall. I am trying to accept my life for what it is, both bad and good, often simultaneously. Change is in the air like a dog-sniffing a new scent, it’s just hard to predict when and where things will happen.

I read an article in the NY Times today about a young couple with a young daughter. Each parent has cancer. That, is a problem I say to myself, not the dreary workings of an often too-emotional, anxious and pain- filled mind. I am so sorry Nathan and Elisa. You and your baby have my prayers because perspective is the greatest gift of all. I will speak no more.

Why Can’t We Just Say “Life Sucks?”

When someone asks me how I am doing I usually say” okay.” ” Good” works too in a pinch, “doing well is always a favorite”; a real crowd pleaser. I ‘ve tried the honest, or blank, neutral face and the politely depressed pout too but that just turned people away. Some people just don’t REALLY want to know how you are simply because they don’t care or they have their own stuff to deal with. I  don’t want to confront or ambush innocent people nor do I want pity (ok, I admit sometimes I would like a little pity).

When someone asks me how I really am I refrain from saying  “life sucks,” even though at the moment (or for the last two years) it has. Why?  Is it just not polite enough? Is there some filter we need to uphold appearances even when life is giving us a beating? Do people not want to hear the truth? If someone told me that their life sucked I would be more than willing to listen, to advise, if appropriate, to help them feel better.

There’s: Unemployment. Health and Safety problems. The Economy. The BP Oil Spill. Cancer. AIDS. All illnesses. Death, Dying and Despair. The Environment, the World at large, Fighting, and Abuse. There’s also Terrorism, Uncertainty, Crime, and Fear. In addition there are the “ism’s” : Racism, Sexism, “Religiousism” and” Ageism”. I know we can’t dwell on these things because we would never again want to leave the “relative” safety of our homes but once in a while why can’t we acknowledge that we’ve gotten a raw deal, the short end of the stick, even the much wanted last piece of milk chocolate that someone just popped into their mouths with a  greedy, toothy, lopsided grin.

I know it’s not polite to use the “S— word but it feels so appropriate. Life stinks doesn’t pack a punch. “Life is life” sounds too esoteric. “Life is” sounds like a Philosophy 101 class. Maybe that’s why I have this blog to vent because it isn’t appropriate to tell the truth, or to tell the truth the way I want to. Life can be difficult at times. Let’s leave it at that.

” Hello, my name is Laurie and I am a……”

Technophobe.  Idiot.  Computer moron. Welcome to this club where computer illiterates will feel right at home. We welcome you. We don’t make fun of you if you don’t know that the Apple sign on the Mac looks like two squiggles. We understand. Everyone told me “Get a Mac, they are so EASY, you don’t have to do ANYTHING!”  Are you kidding me? I have a Mac, I think it’s complicated and I didn’t grow up (like my children did) learning about computers since first grade. Macs are not easy for me, no computer is easy for me and as much as I appreciate e-mail (although somehow it got interchangeable with the stamp icon and I am totally confused)  and a few other things like IM, I am not comfortable on the Mac. Don’t feel singled out, I am not comfortable on any computer, but your commercials were so cool!!

My husband works in the computer field, my daughter and son know all about computers and there are 4 Macs in this household. I use the Mac mainly for this writing blog and e-mail but I don’t know how to upload or download pictures. And for all my friends who say “send me a new photo” basically, I can’t. My son, 17, who gets frustrated the first 9 times he shows me, gives up after that. My daughter says “I already showed you.”  My husband who has sat with me numerous times AND I have taken notes during the lecture, ok tutorial, I still can’t follow what I have written down and so I can’t do it by myself.

I’m hopeless. Generally speaking, I either BEG for someone to do it for me (and yes, I do pay attention) or threaten to call one of the companies for impaired people like me. I don’t know why people can’t be sympathetic with this type of impairment. I think we should be covered under the ADA.  So, Dear Mr. Jobs, admittedly you are a complete genius, and pretty much everyone that works for you is probably very intelligent too. Of course, they probably could be my sons and daughters, if not grandchildren. But, what about us “old” folks? How about a computer for real dummies not just a book which we don’t understand either.

Mr. Jobs, I respect you and admire you but to tell you the truth I admire you and your wife for your incredible generosity to charity and funding for various institutions more than I do this incredible computer company.  You make a fine machine, Mr. Jobs, but you and your wife are finer human beings just being in this world and giving of yourselves. That, to me, is a club I would be honored to join.

p.s. I AM SO SORRY but  I was just told that I mixed you up with Bill and Melinda Gates but I am sure you do good stuff too. And, somehow I pushed a button which made this whole blog disappear except for the first 3 words and it took my daughter AND my husband to find it again. Sorry again about the mix-up, maybe YOU can forward it to the Gates’ ? If I do you know I will lose it again…