Dogs

I woke up at 3:11am.

I was in a borderline panic attack when I saw the time. This could be a red night; 3am is the witching hour. I tried not to toss for about twenty minutes before finally getting up, taking a couple of pillows and retrieving a blanket from the hall closet. I made my way to the living room couch and attempted to settle in. My muscles were tense and my head too foggy to find a good position.

The blanket kept twisting wrong and I was cold. I gave up as my Charlie the cat came down to inhabit my lap. He settled in and offered his exceptionally loud purring as his consolation as he began kneading his paws gently into my tummy. I threw an arm over my eyes and tried to breathe deeply.

He found me unwilling to cuddle him properly so after about ten minutes, he abandoned me and curled up on the neighboring chair.

I sighed and tried to not grit my teeth in aggravation. The house was silent. The couch was sagging, the pillows were lumps of potatoes and just as my urgent desire to sleep was about to peak into a tearful tantrum, I heard the bedroom door squeak open.

Padded feet softly made their way into the living room. I heard the whisper of fur, watched a shadow pass across the room and then my Sal laid her head on my stomach over my anxiously folded hands.

I love dogs. I love the relationship you can build with them. I love the way I know when she is hurt or anxious and how she knows this about me too. I took a deep breath and ran my nervous fingers through the silky hair around her ears and then took another deep breath. She took deep breaths with me and calm slipped through my hands and spread up my arms.

After a couple of minutes, Sal sighed quietly and lay down next to the couch with her head on her paws so that I could still lightly touch the top of her head.

The tension in my mouth and my thoughts calmed from chaotic colors and disjointed dreams to a blur of purple and yellow. The past relaxed and stopped twisting my fingers into knots. Sal sighed again and I sighed too and finally I fell asleep.

Hansel and Gretel

I have never felt that I understood or was informed about certain events of World War II that happened in Poland and in Hungary. Of course this topic was touched on in various high school classes and I of course know that the one of the events was the Holocaust. I knew that terrible suffering occurred and that there are nations today that dispute the events, such as Iran, by saying that these things never happened. The number estimated was that six million Jews were murdered.

I hadn’t realized that Seventeen Million people died. I did not know that those who perished included teachers, gypsies, catholics, Jehovah witnesses, persons with mental illness and varied leaders of so many villages and towns.

I believe it was my teenage combination of inattention and self-absorption that blinded me to this time in history. I think it was also that I could not relate to or comprehend the black and white photos and elderly who told their story.

I came to realize that my understanding of history is not only incomplete, but that I was missing an entire library retelling human history and choices. History and choices that included an astonishingly defiant desire to live and a shockingly brutal desire to destroy.

I heard the comment in the news that “Our diversity… is our strength”. I cannot agree with that statement. Diversity is dividing. It is conflicting. Name me one country who has diversity in gender, race, culture or religion and has it without conflict. Only by overcoming, learning to live with, and/ or by looking beyond that diversity, are people and nations able to find what does not divide us. When we find what we have in common despite our difference, that is where we find strength. The most common thing we share on this planet? We all love something. We all love our family, our community, our memories, our pet dogs, good food, safety, gardens, success (however you measure that) and most of all- We all love respect and acceptance.

The more I learn that I possess a perspective unique to myself and that so does everyone around me, the more I understand that it is not mine to judge, to measure, or to understand their perspective. It is for me to learn about what is different from myself, to protect what I love, and to strive to do the best that I can.

My mother gave me a book to read, as she regularly gives me books, this one called “Hansel and Gretel” by Louise Murphy.

The book has taken over my thoughts since I started and completed it. I think about it when I eat a meal or put on clothes for the day. Lately when I hold my husband’s hand or smile at my dear friends, Char and Sal, I think about the luxury I have in these simple acts. I think about how much I don’t know and would like to learn and how I have the ability and time to learn as much as I want.

I have caught myself looking at all the items I own and seeing them as treasures. Perhaps I do not have the best whatever it is or the most stylish shoes, but I have things. I have a new purse, I have nice older ones -I have MORE than one. I have so much and it rattles me as I think about this family, whose fear and worries I cannot understand. This family who lived through horror and with crimes that I cannot comprehend.

I don’t know that I have their strength, their tenaciously impossible will to live, but I will remember their story, in hopes that I can in some way give my respect to their courage.

Sunday Morning

Q-tip

I gave Charles a q-tip this morning.

Hehehehehehehehehehe… I love this cat.

This was possibly the best toy ever. Better then the hair tie I gave him yesterday. Although that could fly from my fingers at a fascinating speed it wasn’t multi-textured. I gave him a bobby-pin the day before that and that was pretty cool, it’s shiny, slides across tile well and it’s easy for him to toss in the air but it is not very chew-able.

His take on the q-tip? Soft cotton on both ends and a soft yet straight stick in the middle; this was the superior toy.

He threw it in the air and threw himself under the curtain. He dashed into the hallway, catching it as he went by and rolled around growling at it in the funniest way.

Bravely he torpedoed his generously proportioned little self from the table legs, but he miscalculated and crashed his head into the garbage can instead. After a shocked moment of staring at this mysteriously placed item he turned and raced in the right direction and caught it as it slid away. Busily he chewed at the cotton head until it stuck in his teeth and then he hurried to me to extract it before leaping back into the battle.

Satisfied, and a little winded, he surveyed the twisted stick and then …he copied Sally. Charlie parked his little tubby behind down and grumbled, growled, groaned as he scratched his ear with his back foot.

I laughed out loud.

I grinned and scooped him up for a morning cuddle. He cuddled back, drooling a little as he does when he is very happy and then he remembered he was a dangerous and heroic hunter and indignantly pulled away. For forgiveness I let him down and then tossed the q-tip back under the table and he hurried to snatch it up before it could get away.

Drool

I know my cat loves me because he drools on me when I cuddle him...

Moscow

I had a dream Sunday morning that I was in Moscow not by plan but by a series of spontaneous incidents that resulted in my arrival.

I have a half remembered memory that there was a fuss about this by other parties and that the unintended visit created headache and worry for a few but selfishly I was only excited in the dream.

Because the visit was impromptu, my entrance was by subway and train through a neighboring country.

I entered the city by a bridge in the late evening and saw the most strange and gorgeous city along a river. There were bright lights in store fronts, people walking everywhere and statues of unfamiliar characters posed about in squares and streets.

Cold air bit my cheeks as I grinned at the incomprehensible dialogues circling around me and the serious looks I received back. There were shadows, far off shadows that I could see were towering building complexes that ominously reminded me of the New Orleans housing projects.

Perhaps this is all a figment of my imagination but I really would like to see Moscow now. To see if this idea is true and that if it is a center of human nastiness and human aspiration.

Pay or Go to Jail

http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/06/committee-confirms-comply-with-pelosi-care-or-go-to-jail/

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

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“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]

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“Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]