In spite of having people who endorse me for my wellness and nutrition advice on LinkedIn, I love cake. Not healthy, nutritious cake (oh sure, like there’s healthy cake…) but ordinary white cake with blue and green frosting. Like this cake.
It’s not overwhelmingly sweet, it’s soft, easy to eat, not at all filling – pure fluff and nonsense. I’m away from home in a somewhat captive environment and am hoping I don’t eat the rest of this before the day is through. Help me.
Relax. I’m not announcing an accident or illness. Once again, up in Jacksonville, I’m checking in on the lady veterinarian who now has a new, additional workplace. She is still all about horses but doesn’t want to get out of touch with the smaller species either. Enter, the Oceanway Animal Hospital and it’s friendly staff.
I came on a quiet, Friday afternoon and was able to sign up for the afternoon tour with guide Stephen. He was manning the front desk, phone, delivery door, etc… and was able to do it all while giving me the tour. He is a biology major in his junior year and still relatively new to his job. I think this may have been his first tour. He seemed a little surprised.
Like many smaller animal hospitals, I thought this one could have been a house at one point. We walked through the various rooms and were back in the reception area in about five minutes, well… maybe three. But all the necessities were there – exam rooms, lab area, med room, kennel, surgery, x-ray, kitchen. Stephen and I had a little chat while waiting for Dr. Julia to finish with a patient. There seemed to be a lot of laughing and talk going on in the exam room so I assumed it was a happy visit.
Dr. Julia took a moment for my requested photo op before starting on her next client, a large orange, tiger-stripe cat who had arrived in the arms of his owner. People love their cats and dogs. I’m sure it will be an interesting place for Dr. J. to work, and it might come in handy at some point since she has her own dog and three cats.
Yes, I can imagine every one of these being true, and they are well said! Canadian friends, you will love. And Seattle daughter, #7 is for you to laugh about.
Reverse culture shock is an interesting beast. It’s been six weeks that I’ve been back in Canada after living in Japan for four years, and I am in a weird headspace. People ask how the adjustment is going; it is certainly bewildering. I feel that I have not actually adjusted a single bit, but that I have simply been plucked mid-step from one life, one world, and shoved straight into another.
I’ve always felt a certain affinity with the little green men.
Here are a few things I’ve noticed about this strange land since arriving/returning. I realize that some of these points might touch on sensitive subjects, so please take them for what they are: not criticisms or statements made to be inflammatory or offensive, but raw observations and unguarded thoughts of a person seeing their home country with fresh eyes.
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I love to travel. I love to be home. Even though there is a lot here to be responsible for, and when I’m gone nature does it’s thing pretty much unchecked (the husband did mow the lawn) it is still a place that restores me. It begs me to take part, to pull a weed, pick up a few fallen branches, smell the mint and the rosemary, touch a mossy rock, marvel at a single strand of spider silk floating from somewhere to who knows where, hold my ears when the cicadas get all fired up. At some point there will come colder weather and it will change, but for now it is still the hot, humid, green glory of summer. Nature is more than amazing, it is God’s gift showing his thoughfulness, his love of beauty and drama, his attention to detail, his desire to nurture and uplift, his power to take down and start anew
If you need a spot of beauty in your day, come take a morning walk with me through the Oneacrewoods.
One of my summer projects has been to read the book of Psalms as if it were a blog, which is why one of my pages is called David’s blog. Looking at it in this different way has made me notice some things I hadn’t thought about before. Last week, reading Psalm 119 I was reminded of how it is divided into 21 parts, each part starting with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet – aleph to tav. It was David’s A to Z Challenge! This, of course, means a whole lot more to me this year after doing my own A to Z Challenge for the first time. Writers are writers, and apparently it is nothing new to stimulate ideas and creativity with challenges.
I’ve also noticed how many different writers are collected in the Psalms. Lots of them are labeled “of David” but others have interesting introductions like “a maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite” and “for the director of music. According to gittith. Of the sons of Korah.” One of my favorite writers was Asaph. I wish there had been more written about who he was and what he did to inspire some of his writings. Some of the introductions sound like things I read today, but in much nicer language. For instance this one “a prayer of an afflicted man, when he is faint and pours out his lament before the Lord” (Psalm 102). I’ve been in that place more than a few times and tried to express it in my writing. I have a bond with that guy.
What? Who did this? To those of you reading who are not also bloggers, I will explain. One of the latest updates to WordPress, my blog host, includes a cute little “beep, beep, boop” message wiggling around in the center of a blank screen for a few seconds after certain commands are instituted. It’s a thing to look at while you’re waiting. Evidently someone thought that us bloggers would lose interest and wander off if we didn’t have something new to look at for three seconds while our post is being published. I’d like to meet the originator of this idea and try to figure them out. I’m always amazed at the things people will think to do. Actually, sometimes I’m also amazed at the things people don’t think to do – the old rule, never say never, applies equally to never say always. Both good things to remember.
This last week, every time I sat down at the computer I lost interest and wandered off. One day I didn’t even turn the thing on. But that’s ok. A week of inactivity online doesn’t bother me much and gives me the opportunity to write about what I have been into while I haven’t been writing.
– Equate extra strength Headache Relief, for the headache that doesn’t seem to want to quit. Although I’m probably not doing my stomach any favors, I’m grateful for the four or five hours of relief and super wakefulness that I get from swallowing a couple pills.
– Intraocular injections (shot in the eyeball), for the eye problem that was dramatically improved, in the doctor’s own words. I’m grateful that it’s working and that I don’t have to get another one for five weeks, although I am getting used to everything about them (except the cost…)
– Childcare, for several of my yòoung friends who I realize I’ve been missing. How come you guys can grow up in what seems like no time at all? Gracie, Lydia, Josh, Zeke, Shiloh – grateful for time spent with you that makes me feel younger even while I marvel at you getting older. I’m troubled by the fact that I’ve never played X-box. Is that weird?
– Old letters and old files, for the urge to purge and to organize. Lots of stuff has been burned or shredded, but lots else has been rediscovered and readied for the next project, memoir writing. I’ve always been alarmed by my lack of memory for details of the past. Not only did I forget all those details, but I forgot that I’d written them down in letters to others. This morning, reading letters written to my mother ten years ago, all I could think was “Really, I did that?” and “Did some other person’s life sneak into my letters?” Grateful for the written record of the past.
– Appliance shopping, because the washer and dryer that have wanted to leave my house for years, finally broke free. Grateful that within hours of starting to shop for replacements I came across a used set that is probableyten years younger. After only one session with the furniture dolly, the truck, the hoses, wrenches and plumbing tape, they are installed in my laundry room and functioning almost correctly. The printed message under the temp dial that says “all rinses are cold only” really means they are scalding hot only. I think I know how we can fix that.
– Air travel websites, for the supposed improvement of doing it yourself. Instead of calling a knowledgeable person and telling them when and where I want to travel I can now spend hours online hunting for the best connection at the best price. And American Express Delta Frequent Flyer card, how dare you revoke the companion ticket feature without telling me. Planning my revenge…
– the garden that was, the heat that is, that yard that will be. Grateful for the healing work that takes place in me when I’m outdoors. Grateful for green things, if they’re plants – not, if they’re worms.
– Face time, with friends and family who care. I am realizing that the purpose and value of life is all in the relationships I find and nurture. Realizing also that God is that friend and that family member who makes it all possible. Having less work away from home has given me more time to nurture the relationship with him and I am so grateful for that. Gives me some precious times of discovery, comfort, peace and excitement. Arlette and I took a lovely walk yesterday and talked of all these things.
I love and enjoy plants because…
Good morning, August. I can’t believe you’re here.
I didn’t feel very good yesterday, not awful, just not good. In fact the last three days have been full of supposedly easy things being hard, supposedly reliable equipment being unreliable, and a mostly tolerable body feeling less tolerable than usual. And the stress and pain culminated in a headache last night that was singularly awesome. Well, actually I can think of three times when I had pain approaching that level and each time one aspect of it was that it seemed it would never end.
This morning, on the other side of the worst of it, some words of a song came to mind – “and time shall be no more.” Frankly, today I am so thankful for the passage of time that I can hardly imagine being without it. When no change of position would bring relief, when nausea nearly became overwhelming, one of my only comforting thoughts was that time would pass and so would this pain.
This is not the first time I’ve thought about time (probably not the first time I’ve blogged about it either, but I forget). The husband says I’m going off into an “alternate universe” direction when I try to imagine a timeless world. And I wonder if that’s a bad thing or a good thing. It is hard to think about seeing things that exist not sequentially as they seem to happen to us but all at once, outside of time. To me it seems like this possibility could explain some of the mystery of God. But I don’t pretend to understand – it’s just a feeling that it could be connected.
Right now, I’m thankful for cyclical things, mornings and evenings, seasons, first and last, alpha and omega, even life and death. I know that this universe with time written all over it seems to have been made for me. I’m okay with that.
I Just Have to Say... 