Workouts and Camel Toes

Getting back to my blogging is like losing weight. Slow, and difficult to navigate.
Wii fit mocks me. It tells me how many days it's been since my last workout, and asks if I've been too busy to workout. It is right here with me. It sees me sitting on my ass in front of the tv. It knows I have not been too busy, rather too lazy. I'm relatively sure it has heard me coughing and hacking this past week and a half, and hasn't bothered to offer up a single "Gesundheit". I mean, that's just rude. And it seizes every opportunity afforded it to get a dig in at my expense.
Like when it asks me to step on the balance board, then says, in an almost pained voice, "Oh!"
Little Wii-bastard! I'm grateful blogger doesn't say, "Fortune Cookies, I see you've been too busy sitting on your ass watching Oprah and playing around on Facebook to blog this week." I'd be in need of a new laptop in very short order if that were the case.

So where to start?
Observations!
Observations that you probably care absolutely nothing about, but gimme a break, here. I'm trying to warm my blogging-ability back up again.

1. When my sofa is naked, the dogs do not hesitate to jump up there and sprawl out, scratch the seats, and leave their hair and drool slathered all over it.
2. When I carefully cover the sofa with a blanket to protect it from puppy claws and drool and hair, they stand at attention in front of it and wait for permission to jump up there.
3. Vodka makes football almost tolerable!

OH! How could I forget to tell you about this?!
Ok. So my Sally dog...she's special. We've established that, right? I mean, the multiple rounds of obedience school, the eating of 9 leashes and 6 collars in 1 year...The need for special food because of her ear allergies.
Yeah. Special.
So The Wifester and I have joked about, forgive me for being crude here but for lack of a better term, her "camel toe".
Her little female anatomy has just looked odd from the beginning, and honestly, she looks like she has a "camel toe" issue going on. Anyways, recently, she has been scooting her little but across the floor from time to time, and having worked in the veterinary field, I know that to be a sign that their anal gland needs to be expressed.
No biggie.
So Saturday we take her and the Sunny-dog to the vet to get their yearly shots, and to have Sally's anal gland checked out. Turns out her gland was fine, it's not her butt that's bothering her. It's that damned camel toe!
The vet says she has abnormally shaped anatomy. Essentially, she has an inverted vagina, which makes tinkle drippings get trapped in the skin fold around her labia, causing irritation.
Now, here's the kicker. Do you know how I'm supposed to remedy this? Per the vet, I have to use baby wipes and clean her friggin' camel toe after she pees!
No shit!
So now, not only do I have that spastic dog that the whole neighborhood knows to be "The Wild One", now I have to be that woman who wipes her dog's crotch after she goes potty. 
Great.

Screw You Retinitis Pigmentosa!

because I can still do this

My friend, SuzBop, asked me to do a painting of her two daughters, but to make one a mermaid and the other a fairy.
I think it's just about done. I hope she likes it!

Renewed Dedication

So I've been very lackadaisical about blogging for the past year. Save for the sporadic posts here and there, and a chime in with a kiss and a promise to keep up better. Sorry about that.
The good news is that I finished school! That was the biggest hindrance to my writing time and creative flow. I'm so relieved to have finally accomplished that task, I can't even tell you!
I don't even care too much that I'm going to lose my sight and never fully be able to utilize the skills I learned. I mean, I care, but learning them was worth the time and effort. And I can still do what I can do until that day comes. Besides, it really has more to do with a self-satisfying sense of accomplishment. Does that sound awful? After all of my enthusiastic starts, only to be eclipsed by my seemingly inevitable lack of follow through, I'm just super stoked to actually have completed the course work and earned a for real and for true, accredited degree.

Anywhoodle, what I'm saying here is that I miss you! I miss my blog! And I miss blogging on my blog. I'm making some changes now, and coming back to my blogging self is one that I am committed to. I have to admit, blogging is a sort of therapy for me. It's cathartic. It's stress relieving. It's mood altering.

Another change I have committed to has been exercise. I know, I know...but this time I have stuck to it since Thanksgiving! That's a record for me. I'll keep you posted on the progress. I already notice clothes fitting much better. I got into a denim skirt that I haven't been able to wear in over a year! I figure if I'm gonna go blind, and deal with epilepsy, the least I can do for those around me and for the eventual guide dog is to get below the obese level, preferably below the moderately overweight level, and hopefully into a weight zone that is much easier to be dealt with by those around me when I'm incapacitated. Wish me luck!

Introspection

I'm looking forward to waking up and realizing that I've just had one,very long, very troubling dream.
I know that's not going to happen, but I find myself looking forward to it.
I don't much like the idea of losing my sight, yet every day I have more and more realization that it truly is fading, and that there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Damn these defective genes!
Defective.
I've lived my entire life tying to overcome this innate, incessantly nagging voice telling me that I am, in a word, defective.
It took years of therapy, (sometimes twice a week!)to get to the point in my life that I no longer looked at myself as defective. And here we are, full circle. In an instant, a diagnosis of a genetic disease caused by wayward genes and embedded in my DNA at the moment I was conceived brings all of those feelings of inadequacy rushing back to me.
I suppose it's good that I spent all of those years in therapy. I have a pretty good arsenal at my disposal to combat that internal nagger now. I know I'm not totally defective. I know I am smart, somewhat talented, and ambitious. Those aren't the traits of a defective person. So what if I have some defective genes? No one's perfect. No one can be. I'm learning that, and how to accept me for who I am, for what I am. And for who and what I'm not. Will my vision loss affect my life? Absolutely. Will it stop me from doing the things I want to do? Absolutely not!
I feel like a big baby when I start to get down about it, and I tell myself to "Buck up, Buckaroo!" But then, at the same time, there's this part of me that just wants to wrap my arms around me and say, "I'm SO sorry! This sucks, and you deserve better!"
I don't articulate my feelings very well in person, in conversation, but I can write them out, and when I do they come out fluid,and languid. Like the steady, slow stream that ran through my back yard when I was a kid. Constantly moving, shifting,ebbing, and carrying with it the leaves, fallen dead from trees further upstream, to some unknown burial ground beyond the boundaries of my exploration. Making way, making room for new life, new growth to replace them.
I mourn the leaves that have fallen, the ones to fall soon...but with hopeful anticipation that is equal to, if not greater than the sadness, I look for those tiny new buds to appear with their promise of growth and beauty.

his old, blind, Aunt Tee

So, I went to the eye doctor a few weeks ago because, well, I need some new glasses. I haven't been in a few years, since I haven't had insurance and I've really noticed my vision getting very, very bad. Especially my night vision, which has always been really bad to begin with. So I'm in there with my pupils dilated, lights being shone in my eyes, and before I know it, three doctors have come in the room, each of them scratching their heads, each with that "ut oh" look, and each concurring that I most definitely needed to go see the retina guys, at the retina place. They would know more about what was going on. It's not the first time the eye doctor has been concerned about my retinas. They've been telling me for years that there was some "degeneration", but never has there been so much concern nor sense of urgency. They mentioned a suspicion of Retinitis Pigmentosa. Retin-what, you say?? Immediately my mind flashes to my dad's story about visiting his great aunts, the sisters, a deaf one and a blind one. His old, blind, Aunt Tee...Holy shit!
So I go to the retina center, and I saw what must be the kindest, most professional physician I have ever encountered. This was the man who would tell me that I do in fact have the dreaded Retinitis Pigmentosa, and that at best, I have 10 years before I'm left with only the ability to recognize light sources and general shapes with my best eye. My left eye will give out and be "legally blind" within 5 years. You know what my first thought was as I sat there in that white, crisp room? I thought, "how'am I gonna paint?" First thought. No shit. I mean, a million others flooded me, and I worried about how The Wifester would handle the news, or how the hell am I going to use my degree and DESIGN, when I can't friggin see?? I keep adjusting the color on my monitors. I even bought new monitors. Still cant get a good, clear image. I finally realized that it's not the hardware. It's me, my hardware. The doctor asked me if I was understanding what he was telling me, and I said to him, "Yeah, so I need to paint all that I can, like now." He gently patted my shoulder and he said to me, "Yes! Make all the art you can every day. Travel. Go everywhere you ever wanted to go just as soon as you possibly can. Don't put it off. Do it now, and enjoy your vision while you have it."
That was not a conversation that I ever thought I would have. I'm still trying to absorb it.
So today, I had to go in for my Visual Field Test. This shows us how much of my peripheral vision is affected. The way I understood it, you are considered "legally blind" when your visual field in your better eye is less than 20%. My best eye has a visual field of 10%. I didn't know I was so blind. I can still see! I can! OK, so you can sneak up on me pretty damned easily. Granted. And sometimes if you toss something my way, it's likely to hit me in the face, sure. I can't deny that...but I really can see...some stuff. Which has me seriously contemplating my art. I mean, I know what it looks like to me, but now I'm questioning how you see it. Holy crapola! I've been so proud of some of these pieces, and have been showing them off and uploading pics of them to facebook...and you know what, I realize now that they probably aren't nearly as good as I thought they were! Maybe I'm NOT a good painter. Maybe my About Me shouldn't boast "artist, blogger, poet, saint". But you know what? Screw that. I love to paint. I love to be creative. Even if every single thing I've ever painted is shit, I have enjoyed doing it, and I'm not going to stop. So if my art gets funky, and crazy abstract, and you are wondering what happened to the Marilyns and Joan Crawfords and mermaids and cityscapes that I've been doing, you'll know now that it's just that I'm going to have to adapt to my ever narrowing visual field. Man! Today sure has been a downer.

Places to go and things to do

What one thing could you absolutely not live without? I don't mean sex or chocolate...I mean senses or physical abilities.
Could you cope without your sight?
How about losing your hearing?
What if you could never walk again?

Lets up the ante. What is your absolute favorite thing to do? Now, take away a sense or physical ability that would result in the loss of your ability to do your favorite thing. Say, for example, you're a dancer, and now you can no longer walk. Never. What now? What comes next?
Claude Monet became blind half way through his The Water Lilies series, but he finished them up, even without the gift of sight.
Julie Andrews lost her glorious singing voice, and now writes books, she simply found a new outlet for her voice to be heard.
How would you cope with such life altering changes?

What if your doctor told you, "Go everywhere that you ever wanted to see, and do it now, your time is short."
Where's the first place your passport would get stamped?

Me? I want to see everything...I want to see Carmel, California again. It's so lovely there. I want to go to Germany, Aruba, and I really want to go to Hawaii! I'd love to visit New Zealand, and the Netherlands, and Glacier Bay National Park...
I want to paint in Mew Mexico's Painted Desert, and I want to watch the sun rise over Key West just one more time.
I want to see the lights on Broadway! And, oh, there only about a million places in between...I know I can never fit it all in before time and money runs out, but those are the places and things I want to see. Then, once that the day arrives, I'll just figure out a new way to paint those images that are in my mind, yearning to reach a canvas. After-all, The Water Lilies were painted by a blind man...

American Dream or American Nightmare?

I'm appalled.
My mom called me Saturday to tell me that after working for the same company for 45 years, my dad's company shut down.

Dad is 63 years old. He was trying to hang in there for two more years so he could retire on Social Security. Since the company has been going downhill, they knew that all of their retirement benefits had already been lost. At 63 years old, after 45 years of dedicated service, my father is without a job, without pay for his past 5 weeks of work, without his health insurance, too young yet to draw Social Security benefits, and plagued with a laundry list of health problems, including disc and spine injuries that have required multiple surgeries and chronic pain treatment for the last 30 years or so, and he has some serious chronic heart problems, too. He applied for TennCare, our state run health care, and was denied. He was told that enrollment is closed at this time. I guess that's what happens when Americans demand cut backs to all those "socialist programs".

My father has worked for 30 years, while being in unimaginable pain every single day. My father didn't roll over and give up when he broke his back. He sucked it up, picked himself up by the bootstraps, and carried on. He did it for his family, for his own sense of self worth, for his future, and for his company. It is absolutely sickening to think about how he is being treated now.

You know, I think back to my childhood, and my memories are of my dad working for that company, traveling all over the place to teach employees at this factory or that one how to operate this machine he built for them. I remember him coming home from work, blue prints in hand, and heading straight back to his office, to continue to work on his projects, even at home. He put in his time. He dedicated his life to them, and this is how he is repaid.

This is not the American Dream that my dad told me about when I was a kid. This is not the American Dream that makes this country great. And this certainly is not the way we should be treating good, hardworking Americans.