San Fransico Magnets

I went to San Fransisco to celebrate Christmas. My husband, mother and I stayed for a week as guests of my sister and her husband. My sister put us up in a hotel across the street from their apartment. The apartment was in central San Fransisco so it was easy to walk to Chinatown and just about any type of store you could imagine. Mornings were free, because we didn't want to interrupt my sister's family, her husband slept late and she had her hands full with taking care of her three year old daughter and her six month old son. So mornings my husband and mother and I went walking, and it became my wish to visit the major museums in town and collect art magnets for our refrigerator at home.

The trip was difficult because of my illness. I loved seeing my sister and brother who just a month ago moved out to the area and is supporting himself as my sister's nanny. My brother is trained as a massage therapist and hopes to start his own business. He is looking at the challenge of moving from the East coast to one of the most expensive parts of the West coast as a challenge. He has a lot of belief in himself, at one point during the visit he said that he has the tendency to make his dreams come true. Not many people can say that this is the way they operate. He loves where he has found an apartment, just steps away from his back door is a wildlife preserve with miles of trails for hiking and mountain biking. My brother is very healthy and looks ten years younger than he really is. He is a survivor. I am not. I am fragile. I survive, but it is with the grace of others whom I am dependent upon.

Sometimes during the trip I felt overwhelming fear. It is hard to look at great art when you are experiencing anxiety. I was afraid of losing connecting airplane flights, I was afraid of not finding taxis, I was afraid of even saying something that would displease my sister. Sometimes the muscles in my upper back ached from all the tension that were in them.

But the days had a rhythm to them, a morning adventure upon the town, an hour or two of rest and a little more medication, then afternoons and evenings with my sister and her kids. I learned that I am not one to immediately bond with a child, it was the right decision for me not to have children. I do better with owning a dog. The energy my sister expends with her children is mind boggling, and she has a nanny and a night nurse hired to come into her home and help her. Some of the time she makes extra work for herself, she is careful with her children to the point of being neurotic about their feeding and sleep and general wellness and safety, but this doesn't harm the children, it just makes mental stress for herself. My sister was always a perfectionist and has the tendency to worry.

My sister asked that I come to California and live close to them. To fold up my life in Vermont and start a new one just so that I could see her family more often. I told her that when her husband becomes a billionaire I would do so. She asked if it was possible I do so just if he becomes a multi-millionaire. Its sweet that my sister loves me so much, but she is used to people marching to the beat of her own drum, that's what having money does to you. It makes you used to being in charge and getting your own way. Its funny. She has a three carat diamond on her finger that is so pure that in the sunlight it sparkles with all the colors of the rainbow, more big diamonds in her ears, and she wears old navy sweat pants and a coat that she got for $15 at a used clothing store. All their china is miss matched and her husband sleeps on the floor in their gigantic, penthouse closet. That's so the children and his wife don't wake him. When I visited my sister last I saw that on their bed they were using a tee shirt for a pillow case. The husband owns his own internet company and drives a Porsche. From one angle they are rich, from another angle they are poor. They are so busy living the height of civilization that sometimes they skimp, too busy, too distracted, too forgetful, and they endure the strangest situations.

My sister told me a story. The night nurse was telling her ways that she could be helpful. "Can I do this for you and can I do that for you?" was the way she was talking. And my sister said to her, "Will you just be my friend?" It was supposed to be a joke but in a way it was no joke. Her husband works such long hours that she rarely sees him and it is understood in their family that he earns the money and she takes care of the kids and the apartment. If it weren't for all the hired help my sister might be very lonely.

So I got a good view of another person's life and I concluded that I preferred my own life. I am certain that my sister feels the same way - she has always wanted to have children be the center of her life. And she loves diamonds. I was passed down the diamond earrings that her old boyfriend, fifteen years past, gave her - tiny things but real. I wear them all the time. They remind me of my sister. And they make me feel cultured. I can feel sophisticated in thrift store clothes and cast off diamonds. I guess so can my sister, even though she doesn't have to wear thrift store clothes.

Right now I am at a cross-road in my life. My therapist yesterday was horrified when I told him I had given up on my book project, what I spent the last year working on. Today I drew cats. They weren't cats from my imaginations, they were cats from pictures in books. They are part of a larger composition with two elegantly dressed women, one whose upper head is blown off, just intended to be a mass of smeared red. I can't seem to avoid violence in my artwork. Drawing cats was slightly boring, just compare, analyze, correct, compare again. Wish to work only in a limited sense from photographs because I get bored quick. I'm straining to go in a new direction with my art. Have to buy more art supplies. On my list; a pallet knife. Painting with a pallet knife will loosen me up. Wish for tiny details and big smears.

I'm going where the wind blows me. Working, but not with any long range plans. I'm praying, when I pray, for strength to walk this road that seems to be enveloped in fog. I would like, and I do ask God for this, for a style of painting that will sell. I would like to sell artwork. But I don't know if the talent is in me. More then this, I don't know if the fate is for me to sell my work. Some of what you get is luck, some of it is hard work. I'm starting, just barely, but I think I'm starting to ramp up to doing hard work.

Angel Dog

This is my first drawing in about two years. It is about death and a dog.

I'm crude, I'm simplistic, and I'm raw. It will take some time to become refined again.

I'm not going to write a book and make a lot of money. I doubt I can even paint and make any money. I've seen some artists I'm better than, and seen some artists that are better than me. But for people with schizophrenia, I'm doing pretty good. In all this drawing took me about four hours to make. Looks simple, but it took a little work. Just a drawing, then color in with oil pastels, manipulating the pastels with my finger tips.

Since I've given up on making any money, I'm going to make art just to please me. I know I did some fantastic stuff on zyprexa, and that on Geodone I'm not as good, at least according to my husband. Right now I suffer the most from rusty syndrome, not having a pencil in my hand and the command for my brain to come up with imagery. There is a place you go to in your head when you have a blank piece of paper in front of you. I haven't been there in a while.

After I finished this drawing (total time; two creative periods, two days) I had some time left so I started on the next drawing. Best to keep going as long as the mind doesn't shut off. Eventually it shut off, like on all days. The window that my brain can be creative is about 2 to 3 hours long. I assume I have that window because of my illness and how my schizophrenia has configured my brain structure. Its about the same time window for painting or for writing. At least it is concentrated time, no dithering, no distractions, pure concentration. At art school they wanted in studio class you to concentrate for 3 to 5 hours making art and I couldn't do this; got suicidal during class or after because of the stress of the situation. Realized I could never get my art degree because of my limitations. So quit art school after one semester. Can't force the brain to exceed these invisible limits or else the brain starts cannibalizing itself and you get schizophrenic symptoms. My symptoms are always, self destruction. Its my form of delusion.

Feeling tired but fit after today's creative effort. More work tomorrow. A new window to of time to be creative in.

Every day several hours of creativity. They add up. And the product is a finished work of art.

Visiting Puppies

Visited the German Shepherd breeder today. She walked us through her home, gathering fresh bedding. When we got in the heated shed where the puppies are being kept in she told us to take off our shoes and changed the pads in the puppy's box. Then she put down a blanket next to the box. We sat on the blanket and she picked up every puppy and kept loading them into our laps. Some of the puppies spilled out of our laps, didn't matter. The puppies could be scooped up again and then gathered in, some on each other's head, some falling into the crevices of our legs. But I think the puppies liked the heat of our bodies. In this litter there is one female and one male that are light colored, the rest are all dark with little tan strokes over their eyes. Odds are we take home a dark colored pup, and I do hope this happens. In all there were two males and 5 females. We will take home a female.

Two puppies complained about the mother leaving and our presence. I hope these vocal ones are not one of the ones the breeder picks for us. I'd rather a puppy that simply goes with the flow of life. The ones that cried we kept petting and holding them close until they got used to our scent. In the end, they all quieted. We stayed for about 50 minutes. The breeder stepped out of the cage that surrounds where the mother and her puppies are contained and closed the door. She sat on a chair about six feet away and talked with us. She wanted the puppies to get used to our scent, they are already familiar with hers and it is good for them to have to get used to something new. Humans are a fact of life it is best they get accustomed to as young as possible.

At this age the puppies can see but they don't trust their eyes. They can walk but they are they wobbly. I got little licks on my hands, and even, one puppy tried to put a finger in his or her mouth. Mike bent over and got licks on his face. Lucky him. Mostly the puppies want a safe place where they can sleep. At least our presence, after alarming some of them, made them sleepy.

I asked Mike to look for auras. He said that the puppies all share one big aura at this young age (almost 4 weeks) and it is rainbow in hue. He met a pregnant friend of mine once in the grocery store and told me afterwords that around her stomach was a rainbow circle. So I guess babies get rainbow auras. On our adult dog Mike saw an aura that was gold or yellow in color, the same color of a human who is in a stable and healthy frame of mind. But each puppy did have something special to them. He said that right around where their heart is were white sparkles. It sounds magical to me, someone who doesn't have the gift to see auras. Auras are extensions of our souls, a little spill over from what the body doesn't capture, and it soothes me to know that someone is seeing in living creatures the touch of the divine. My husband thinks that babies have a gift of heaven still in them, being so close to coming from heaven, and this gift makes us love them and want to take care of them and protect them. Heaven makes babies lovable, whether they are human or animal, because babies are so helpless and fragile.

On the way home from the breeders we had to stop at Wal-Mart and buy my husband some more socks. I couldn't help myself, I wanted to look at dog toys. We bought two. Last week we bought two baby gates to keep the puppy we take home on the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Of course we will house train the puppy as fast as we can, but if she has accidents, best it is on linoleum floor for easy clean up. During the day while my husband is at work I will make drawings or paintings on the kitchen table with the puppy on a leash clipped to my belt. Plan is, and my husband is quite serious about this, I take the puppy outside every hour on the hour. My last dog (also a pure bred German Shepherd) was taken home as a puppy at 8 weeks of age and potty trained not to go in the house in three weeks.

Little by little we are preparing for the new gift of life to enter our home.

I wake in the morning and it feels odd not be hustling a dog outside to have a bathroom break. I know that the luxury of only worrying about myself is about to change. It feels like the calm before the storm.

New Puppy

I've been accepted by a breeder of German Shepherd dogs to buy one of her puppies. She made me fill out an on-line application and have a personal visit before she would agree to sell me a dog. And in this arrangement, she picks the puppy from the litter for me - all I know ahead of time is that I'm getting a female. The breeder is in complete control, and God help me, I'm paying a lot of money for this pure bred puppy so I pray she gives me a good one.

The breeder is very cheerful, very humorous, and has been raising German shepherds for decades. We get 8 obedience lessons from her with the purchase of the puppy, and I would like to take the offer, but she lives 1 hour and 20 minutes from our house. This distance is an annoyance to my husband. When we went to visit the puppies and the breeder for the first time we were traveling after my husband came home from work, in the dark. Driving in the dark was very stressful for my husband and unfortunately we got lost, even though I had mapquest directions printed out. Our downfall was a road that had no marking sign on it, so we did not recognize the turn. Happily Emily (the breeder's name) picked up the phone when I called on my cell, and she talked my husband through the twists and turns to her home.

The first thing the breeder did was show us the dog kennels. She has many German Shepherds kept in kennels housed in a barn. Amazingly the dogs hardly barked. She let out of the kennels our puppy's grandfather and grandmother, and some other relative. These dogs happily greeted us, and then scooted back into their kennels on a command. Very impressive. I think the breeder was trying to demonstrate the character of her dogs, and what would be hopefully inherited by her puppies. She said that people called her nuts for going all the way to Canada to find a male for her female to mate with, but she was very picky. I think about how careful she was in selecting us as owners, I imagine that to breed her dog she was even more careful. I described to her in my application Plum Pudding as being nervous and dominant and needing a lot of training and she replied in the next email that both the parents were easy living with dogs, and that the puppies should be very "tractable" and less difficult to raise than Plum Pudding.

At last we met the mother with her puppies. The mother was sensitive and looked very worried upon our arrival. However she didn't bark or growl. She allowed herself to be led away. Occasionally we would hear her leap at the closed door that separated us from her. The puppies were just a little over two weeks old and they were starting to open their eyes. In addition to being mostly blind they didn't really crawl or walk yet. What they wanted to do was to snuggle into one big puppy pile. The breeder encouraged us to pick up a puppy. What I did while I was sitting on the floor was to lay out the puppy on my arm, cradled against my stomach, and simply stroke it. No puppy whimpered, no puppy struggled. The breeder said with a smile that when they were born they looked like rats, and then moles, and now they were at the woodchuck phase. She said that they did all kinds of "mean" things to the puppies, like turning them over on their backs, to get them used to being handled by humans.

I'm a little bit scared at how expensive this puppy is. Before finding this breeder I emailed a whole bunch of breeders that were in a two hour radius from our home. I explained that my German Shepherd had died the previous week and that I was now doing research on puppies. One breeder answered me with an estimate, high and low, of how much the average breeder will ask for a pure bred German Shepherd puppy. What we found has a cost that falls in the middle. I didn't even consider the breeders who did not start their answering email without a line of sympathy for my lost dog. If a breeder said, "I'm sorry for your loss...." I wished to work with them. If a breeder just sent a business email I didn't want to work with them. Funny how sensitive I am about Plum, expecting other people to be sensitive as well. And of course, if the puppy was on the high end estimate of expense, I rejected that breeder as well. One breeder I rejected because on-line they had a picture of their huge house, very rich people. I'm silly.

My best friend and my therapist both thought I should get a mutt or at least a rescue shelter dog. I wondered at myself why I didn't get the easy breed Labrador Retriever puppy that is so popular right now. They are friendly dogs who wish nothing more than to please and they don't cost nearly as much as a German Shepherd. I can only come to the conclusion that I am trying to replace Plum Pudding. She was difficult to raise and had flaws (one trainer said she was a good dog but not a great dog) but I loved her despite being difficult. The fault must have lain with me not being a good enough trainer. For the past two days I have spent my mornings on-line reading articles about dog training. I'm not a natural dog trainer, and as ignorant as I am, I know my husband is even more ignorant. But we are both committed to doing better with this puppy than we did with Plum Pudding. I agree with what I've read; loving the dog is never enough. They have to see you as the leader of the pack and an authority figure. Any weakness and the dog feels insecure. Dog minds are no way near like human minds and it is important to know the dog perspective.

One thing that my husband and I will do is keep a leash tied to our waists at all times and have the dog clipped to the leash. It was a method suggested in a book and seen again twice on-line. I've read nothing that indicates it does any harm. It is useful for instance if the dog jumps up on something, you pull the leash and the dog gets corrected, by seemingly, its environment. Hopefully we can also guide it on what to chew and what not to chew. We will also be crate training the puppy. So if we leave the house the dog is crated and it can't go on a nervous chewing rampage and destroy our furniture. In the crate the dog will feel safe and protected even if it is left alone. Also, the dog shouldn't go to the bathroom in the crate. I read that a dog either goes outside or it goes in the house, it is an either or statement. You can't have a grown dog a little bit house-trained, this is like being a little bit pregnant. While housebreaking the puppy accidents can happen but in our circumstance where there is a person at home during the day, the message should get through quickly. I've got the advantage that I can go outside every hour. Plum Pudding was housebroken in three weeks to a month's time. I read an article that said the average age for being trained was 6 months but I know that I can do it much quicker. Every time the puppy is put in the crate it is learning bladder control and strengthening its bladder muscles.

I have memories of Plum Pudding leaping up to take things off of counters and table tops. Just a piece of paper would be for her a find, she would grab it and tear it to shreds with furious glee. If you have the puppy clipped to your waist on a leash that type of behavior can be stopped immediately. I think Plum was given too much freedom. Eventually I did have a trainer say this to me. And the more I read the more I don't think Plum was crazy (as I had assumed) rather, she was just being a puppy. Correct, correct, guide, guide, play, play - this is what I will be doing all day long at first. Fondly, I remember too Plum's exhausted slumber. Trainers will say "a tired dog is a good dog" and I know this to be true. Happily puppies need a lot of sleep. This will save my sanity. And the fact that when my husband is home I can pass the leash to him and let the puppy be his responsibility.

Obedience training will begin immediately. Sit and come first. Come is really easy with puppies because they want to be with you. And before letting the puppy eat a meal it will have to sit, even for a few seconds, in front of the bowl of food. I'm not expecting a lot at 8 weeks. Just some familiarity with words. Saying "outside" every time we go outside. Saying "get busy" while the puppy is in the middle of going to the bathroom. It used to always tickle me how I would praise the dog to the sky for pooping. It was a habit I never stopped. Plum must have thought I was nuts. But boy, was she perfectly housebroken. The only time we had accidents was when she had diarrhea, and she couldn't help herself.

Irrationally, I'm afraid my new puppy will die like Plum died. I'm afraid my heart will be broken again. I'm scared of illness. I'm scared of cars. I'm scared of choking on small objects.

We had lunch guests last Sunday. An elderly couple from church and my mother and best friend Rocki. The night before I had to cook for four hours straight. But before I cooked, I had to go grocery shopping. In-between the shopping and the cooking I needed to rest. I do have a form of schizophrenia after all and my drive and focus is limited. I tried sitting and drinking two cups of tea to summon up the needed energy to cook. This didn't do the trick, so I retreated to the dark bedroom and laid down. A place where there was no stimulation, no distraction, and all senses are in retreat from the world. I pulled the bed comforter up close to my face. And then I smelled her. I smelled Plum Pudding in my bed comforter. I had taken up a corner that often lies on the floor, and Plum liked to rest curled up on the floor next to me. I smelled Plum and burst into tears at the pain of the loss of her. So anticipating a puppy is joyful, but I'm still grieving.

Our cat Frannie is almost constantly sitting on top of the couch with a clear view of our kitchen door. When Plum was here all Frannie wanted was to lie on the bed where it was soft and warm. I had to kick her out after 8 or 9 hours and say, "go pee, go eat some food". Frannie was raised with Plum as a kitten and it is clear to me, by her odd behavior now, that she is waiting for Plum to come home. I am amazed but I am certain, Frannie is grieving. She wants to see Plum come in through the kitchen door and be there to greet her. Her universe, the sense of what is right in this home, is in disarray because Plum is not here. And unlike me, she has no future thoughts of a new puppy to distract her. My mother said, "Tell her Plum had died" so I petted her and told her this but all she did was lean into me and purr.

We go back in a week and see the puppies again. The breeder suggested it, so we are not being a pain in her ass. And from what I've read, the more contact with humans, both sexes, the better the socialization of the puppies. So by visiting again, and handling the puppies, we are doing the breeder a favor as well.

I am looking forward to this visit with a joy that overshadows any other activity that is planned for this week. We are supposed to go out to a fancy restaurant with another couple, my husband works with the man. But I couldn't give a rat's ass for this opportunity to socialize with nice people. Nothing, in my world, compares with holding a puppy once again. I'm focused and driven, probably because there is so much pain lying hidden in the center of me.

I think, next time I hold a puppy, I'm going to smell it.

Good-bye Plum Pudding

Last night we had to put our dog to sleep. She got bloat. When she was a puppy I was warned about bloat, that German Shepherds are susceptible to it. I was told not to let her eat after exercise, and that small meals, twice a day was better than one big meal. We followed the rule about not letting her eat after exercise, but we fed her one meal in the evening.

Last evening, after eating, she wanted to vomit so my husband took her outside. It is not uncommon, if she has eaten really fast, to throw up her whole meal. But my husband said that what she threw up was white and milky. And when he took her into the house she was moaning and whining and looking terrible, head hung low, tail dragging. At first we thought, "throw it all up baby, that will be the best" and my husband put an old blanket down for her to stand on and throw up on. He said, "touch her side" and I did and it was very hard. Her stomach was hard too. She threw some more of the white stuff up and I said, this is really wrong, I've never seen anything like this, I'm calling the vet. Our vet had an emergency clinic's number on the answering machine since I was calling at 7pm. The emergency clinic told me it was probably bloat and to bring her right in right away. I said, "will she die in the car?" and they just repeated, bring her in. The clinic was 40 minutes away, but they said that they were closest to us.

The night people wanted to weigh her, then take an ex-ray and put in a catheter. We said yes. It all happened very quickly. Then the vet came out and said that she had bloat, and that her stomach was twisted and they might need to remove her spleen as well. The twisted stomach could cut off blood supply, but we had moved fast and gotten her to the vet fast so there might not be much tissue damage. Once the stomach was untwisted they would staple it to her side, and she could never get bloat again. The bottom price for the operation was $2,500. Without the operation there was a 100% chance that she would die.

In the car driving to the vet my husband asked me what our price was for the dog's life. What the ceiling we said we would spend or put her down. She is almost 9 years old and she already has arthritis, which we are treating successfully. In the past I have said that we would not spend more than $1,000 but in the car last evening I said, $2,000. My husband agreed.

When the vet faced us and said the cost would be $2,500 I could not let Plum die. It was just 500 more than what we had agreed upon in the car, so I figured, it is only money and I want my baby to live.

The vet went away and then a nurse came out with the paper work. But the prices were different on paper then what the vet had quoted. What they wanted me to sign was that I agreed to be held responsible for all fees. All the medical procedures were listed, some that were necessary, and some that would take place in case of an emergency. Now the sum for the operation and recovery was a bottom price of $3,500 and a top price of $5,500. This could wipe out our savings account. And I said, finally defeated, we will have to euthanize her.

The nurse went away and a second nurse came out. This one said that they could do away with some of the medical procedures, take a little more risk, for instance do less bloodwork, and lower the price. But my husband and I still couldn't pay the amount they asked. They talked about payment plans, but if you don't pay everything in a year there is huge interest fees. And I just knew how my husband felt. He was thinking what new medical problem would appear because Plum was moving into old age? The vet had said that bloat was more likely in Plum at her age because internal ligaments loosen. If I had known this I would have switched to feeding her twice a day in smaller amounts. But I swear, I was never told bloat was fatal, and I was never told that it wasn't somehow connected to exercise. And we did not take Plum for a walk last night since it was raining. Nothing, I mean nothing was different from routine.

There are simply some things in life we know we can't have because we don't have the money. We live like this, every day, weighing the costs and benefits, and choosing usually what is cheapest. I would like an eternity band made out of diamonds to go with my wedding band. Can't have it. I would like to buy my husband a precision watch that is Swiss made and high quality, keeping perfect time, since the watch a man wears is sometimes the cause of much envy among men. But I settled for Christmas to buy him a new watch that was Swiss made and cheap. I will probably never own a winter coat that is new. And I will probably never buy a sofa that is new either.

We buy our groceries in two places, trying to save money. What we need at Wal-Mart, and what they have, we buy first because this is rock bottom prices for food. After Wal-Mart we go to the regular grocery store. And we almost never buy name brands, and we always compare prices to what is on sale and buy the cheapest. Then there are the foods that are quality, and that are good for you to eat, like ketchup that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup additive, or peanut butter that is simply 100% peanuts. If we can avoid high fructose corn syrup or trans fatty acids we do.

Two nights ago my husband said, "I am tired of leftover turkey and manicotti, can we go out to dinner at the Chelsa Royal?" I said, "I just did the bills for rent, electricity, the phone and internet, and now there is about $40 in our checking account for emergencies, but no money to eat out. I'm so sorry because you so rarely ask for anything for yourself. We can go to Taco Bell and spend $10 on Tacos." But my husband was sick of Tacos, and he wanted the sit down home cooked meal that they serve at the Chelsa Royal and probably too the micro-brewery beer he would have gotten with the meal. So he smiled really nice and said that he would try to find something at home to eat.

It hurts to know that if I had $25,000 in savings I would have signed the papers for Plum's operation. She could have lived. I spent literally thousands of dollars training her - this was when I was married to a millionaire. I worked with three different trainers. The food trainer, the choke chain trainer, and the electric shock police dog trainer. Each trainer was a move up in severity because Plum didn't want to be trained. She was highly dominant and did not recognize me as an authority figure at first. I had to be trained too to be in control. The trainers toughened me up as they broke her down a little. That was just the way it had to be if she was not going to bite someone and co-exist peacefully in society. At last she turned into a sweet old dog who knew her commands very well, heel, sit, down, jump up, lie down, go away, come here. I knew her personality like the back of my hand. When the phone would ring, and I didn't hear it or move to answer it Plum would make strange moaning noises to get my attention. She did the same thing when the tea kettle was whistling and I was in a different room and didn't hear that. But when someone knocked on our door (we have no doorbell) her bark was loud and urgent. The tone of the bark was unmistakable and it meant that a person was standing outside. So no need for a doorbell. And I never feared that our house would be robbed. Her bark was super scary. When I opened the door I held her collar and said to our visitor, "Let her smell you and it will be o.k" and then Plum sniffed. After the sniff she would relax. Perhaps she would pick up on the fact that I was relaxed, and I wanted this person to come into the apartment. I am certain that if I were alarmed, she would have stayed alarmed. When we would take Plum on a walk through town so many people would say, "Can I pet her?" and I would say to Plum, "Go say hello" and sometimes, "Kisses". There would be more sniffing of the person and then with the command "kisses" sometimes a lick.

A trainer once said to me, as I complained on how hard it was to civilize the wild hellion of a puppy that I had chosen, that some people would love to have the dog I had. How come? I asked in amazement. "Because she wants to be with you and she will never run away". And this was true. In the woods we could go walking and she could be off leash. When I heard distant voices approaching along the trail, or saw someone, I would call Plum and she would come to my hand. Then my hand would reach under her collar and attach a leash. It got to be that when Plum heard someone approaching she ran to me even before I gave the command. She saw a pattern of behavior and was able to anticipate what I wanted.

Plum had brown eyes but when she sometimes looked at me, and she was happy, I swear her eyes shone and I called her "bright-eyes". There is almost no describing the phenomena of an alert German Shepherd, not when they are alert with tension, but alert with life and happiness. I suppose it is their intelligence. Dumb dogs can be happy, and are sweet, but a German Shepherd feeling really good about themselves is beautiful to behold. They seem to be electric, giving off energy. Always when I looked into Plum's eyes there was somebody home there. A presence, looking back at me.

Plum was such a difficult puppy because she wanted her way. She wanted to control the humans. Her rules meant that she would pull anything off of tables or counter tops and rip it to shreds. Her rules meant that she could bite and bark and run wherever she wanted. And while she was very dominant, she was fearful as well. That meant if someone backed her physically into a corner, and she felt fearful, she might bite. Training her gave her confidence, it told her that there are rules to the way the world worked, and that as long as she was following a rule, she was safe. For instance. If she was put in a sit, or down position, she was working and would not bark or lunge at strange dogs or other humans. For Plum there was either free time, where she could get her way, or there was work time, when she was following the rules. When we were in public we tried to get her to work as much as possible, and so, have her under our thumb.

In the house Plum really liked to stick with the humans. Where the humans were she wanted to be. She would follow us from room to room in the house. We have a tiny bathroom, but when my husband was in the shower, and I was at the sink brushing my teeth, Plum wanted to be in the tiny room with us. My husband called it sticking with the pack. Plum wanted to be part of the pack at all times. It was insecurity but it was love too.

The house feels really empty. One of the cats won't come into the warm bedroom, her favorite place in the world. She sits out in the cold kitchen. She was a kitten when Plum was a puppy. She had Plum's number. She knew Plum liked to chase moving objects so around Plum she walked really slow and Plum ignored her. Sometimes when she was on the bed, and Plum was on the floor, she would touch noses with Plum. We say right now she is out in the kitchen because she is waiting for Plum to come home. She knows something is wrong.

Right before they euthenized Plum they let us have some alone time with Plum. All I could do was cry and repeat to her over and over "good girl". I thought of nothing original to say. But my husband was stoking her and telling her things, like he would meet her again in Summerland and that she was the best dog he had ever had. He's had a lot of dogs. I have nothing to compare, except the dog I had as a teenager that always was chained up on a run in the back yard. She didn't get much attention. Plum got a lot of attention everyday. I said to my husband today, after work, were you telling Plum the truth that she was the best dog you've ever had? And he told me about the different personalities of the dogs that he has loved, but in the end, he said that Plum was almost human.

All the trouble I went through with raising Plum. And I would do it all over again.

I hope, after I've had a period to grieve, to do it all over again.

You're in heaven now Plum. How I hate to be separated from you.

Holiday Hoopla

Dear God, give me the strength to write this post. It has been many days since I have written anything, many days of excitement and work, and now I am poor in spirit and bedraggled. It is my third day without a shower, and I would like as well as the healing to write this post, a little later on, the energy to shower.

I stopped all my writing projects when I started decorating for the holidays. But you just don't decorate, you clean as well. Our apartment was due for a huge cleaning. I'm lucky that my husband threw himself into the cleaning project with as much commitment and plunk as I did. All our efforts had an end in sight. This last Sunday we invited a couple and a little old lady that we know from church over to our apartment to have lunch. The lunch lasted over four hours. So I guess it was a success. Our guests were the sweetest, most down to earth people who have over this past year been very kind to my husband and I. We wanted to give back. We wanted to honor them and make them feel special. The husband of the couple is vegetarian so we served baked manicotti and meatballs on the side, with salad and garlic bread. I made brownie sundaes for dessert.

There is a second couple from church, quite elderly, who we have invited to lunch on Sunday December 12th after church services. That Sunday my mother should drive up from Connecticut to be with us as well. I'm going to ask my mother if she could bring my best friend, who lives in Connecticut as well, but has never been to our apartment in Vermont. My friend is schizophrenic and probably incapable of driving the distance to Vermont. Whenever I see her, I drive down to Connecticut. For that lunch I have to make some of the food gluten free, since my mother has an intolerance for wheat flour. I'm going to cook quiches (you can buy gluten free pie crust), and have corn bread and salad. For dessert I think I will make an apple crisp, served hot with vanilla ice cream.

I can't get through these Sunday's without some help from my medication. Last Sunday I took extra anti-psychotic medication and a small amount of a narcotic. Part of the plan is to cook and prepare as much food as possible the Saturday before.

Our propane heater is not working and we are waiting for a replacement part that had to be ordered and mailed to the service department of our propane provider. So we live in the bedroom with its one little 14" electric heater, close the door to the front room, and have another little 12" electric heater heating the kitchen so that it is just warm enough for the cats, and for us to walk through to get to the bathroom or the phone. We have discovered, through trial and error that we cannot plug in any more electric heaters or stronger electric heaters because the breaker will pop and everything will go dead. The house is old and it's electrical system is old. Sunday I went to church while my husband stayed at home and tried to heat the apartment thoroughly (because we don't expect our guests to brave the cold like we do), and cook the manicotti in the oven at the same time. He said the breaker popped three times. I sincerely expect that by our next Sunday lunch the propane heater will be fixed.

I tied garlands of plastic flowers and fabric leaves across all the windows in the kitchen, and hung bows. I took our small three foot artificial Christmas tree, put it on a glass side table, and hung all my decorations on it. I haven't had this Christmas tree out for about four years, not since my husband's daughter was living with us. For the dining table I bought a green table cloth with a bright red runner. Unfortunately the candles dripped wax and I spent Sunday evening after everyone left scratching the wax off of the glass candles with my fingernails, loosening it up with glass cleaner, and then scratching some more. The next morning my fingernails hurt but I found in the pantry a fancy box of smokeless, dripless candles that I am delighted to put in the candle sticks for when we have company again. The wax smeared runner was treated with Zoot, a wicked good stain remover, and then put in a hot water wash. I came out wax free, and perhaps, a slightly less intense color of red. I don't care, it still looks good. For a meal, there is nothing more delightful than lit candles and fresh flowers. Everyone had a cloth napkin that matched the tablecloth and that was tied on the jadeware plates with a bright red and green artificial poinsettia flower napkin ring. I spent over $80 at Bed Bath and Beyond for the table linens and holiday napkin rings which I am certain, my husband has no clue how his hard earned money slipped through my fingers. I don't think he would be too mad though, he was as proud of how beautiful our table looked as I was.

I am an artist at heart, or at least I have an artistic temperament, and thus I love a highly decorated living space. Objects of art, colored glass, fine fabrics, lovely places to sit, blankets and handmade quilts. When we moved into this apartment I was still receiving a large amount of divorce alimony and the rugs and curtains and lighting fixtures are all the best and bought on that money, which is many years now long gone. We have many antiques, but alas, the animals or use have broken most of them. There is not perfection in my apartment. I remember as a teen visiting a relative of one of my father's girlfriends, and the girlfriend told me that her sister-in-law kept little cans of paint and stain to touch up scratches on furniture. That is a personality so opposed to my own. In my life the law of entropy seems strong, things break and get worn out, money gets spent, accidents happen, there are unforeseen bills, but we thankfully have everything we really need and while we morn the accidents and the losses, we let them go, we let glory recede and value diminish, as for instance, when the dog knocks over a table and the the glass on a stain glass lamp cracks. And we are not above buying used goods. Half my clothing is used, and more than half the furniture in the apartment is used. Our kitchen sofa we bought for a sweet $170 recently and it is in perfect condition and very comfortable. A nice new sofa would have cost about $1000. The antique store we got the sofa from does not deliver, so we tipped it upside-down on the roof of our car and secured it with a very long piece of bright orange electrical cable. We did not have enough seats for last Sunday's luncheon, so we went to three used furniture stores to find a chair. What fun, hunting for a funky chair. The extra chairs are stored in the barn. We have decided that all our chairs will be different, but all will have character. Saturday before we discovered that one of our antique chairs was broken, so my husband put between the split wood Gorilla Glue and clamped it tight together. Sunday morning he removed the clamp and the chair was good to go.

When our guests came the first thing we did was give them a tour of the apartment. In part, this is because there are many pieces of original art hung everywhere. There is not a single door to a room that doesn't have a painting or framed drawing or print hung on it. The door to the bathroom, the door to the pantry. By accident only one door is left free, a small door to a closet where we keep the cat and dog food. I discuss my art, what it means, how it was created. And some of the fun is that we can compare my art with my brother's and my father's art. My brother's art is very serene and he is self taught like me, while my father's art is the art of someone classically trained in school in the manner of an American Impressionist. We share genes, we share biology, but because we are each creative and have vision, our art has turned out so very different. And then there is the primitive art that I have bought of other artists. I like the style of a self trained artist. It feels like their means are limited, but their desire to express themselves is so great that mental hurdles are leaped over. The means to an end is more difficult because they lack training, but the effort and will compensates due to innate creativity. If you really want to do it, you will find a way. This is the spirit of the art that I have bought.

Once my sister visited a home with my former husband that I had decorated, and she said that everywhere she looked, there was eye candy.

There is something to be proud of in serving others a meal. It is not an easy experience for me to do, even with the help of my husband. And then the next day I was so very weak, that I could barely listen to my husband talk. I almost lacked the concentration to listen to his sentences. I even said to my husband, "I have to pee but I am too tired to get out of bed and go to the bathroom". To this problem my husband had no answer, it was so ridiculous a sentiment. But it was true. My weariness was bone deep. And today, two days later, I am not yet completely recovered. I am just really, really lucky that I don't have any obligations. I am really proud of myself that yesterday I did all the monthly bills, walked to bank to make certain there would be enough in our checking account to cover them (there wasn't by a large degree, the consequence of Christmas gift buying and purchases like the table linens and the extra chair), and then to the post office to mail the bills. And also yesterday I went to a knitting group at church to learn how to knit. My instructor kept forgetting about me and letting me screw myself up. I had the feeling, not remembering how my needles and fingers and yarn was supposed to go, that I wanted to cry, but that I was too grown up and too in control to actually burst into tears. The frustration made crying seem an option, but I am really too adult to do this. My plan is to Google "how to knit" and try to get some online instruction, and then return next Monday to knitting group for some more personal attention. I'm not going to give up. And maybe next Monday my mind will be a little more healed, with better attention and retention, so the teaching won't slip and disappear from my mind immediately after it is given, as it did yesterday.

About twice I have gone into the hospital around Christmas time. There is a little more stress for me because I like to celebrate the holiday season so much. Amidst exhaustion there is satisfaction though. And I think I am in a place in my life where there is no threat of going into the hospital. I take too much medication and my husband is such a nurturer, taking care of me when I am weak, sharing the burden of everything I try to accomplish. I'm grateful this season.

I may soon try to go back to my serious writing project. I look forward to having the strength and the free time.

Prayer

My mother and my grandparents used to take my sister, brother and I to visit Mr. Rouche. I don't know how to spell his last name because I have never seen it printed. I was so young when the family went to visit him. He was as close a thing to a saint as we ever knew. That is how my mother and my grandmother treated him - like a saint. Holy. Because what Mr. Rouche liked to talk about was God. And it seemed like it was God that was keeping Mr. Rouche alive. He was very old. And he was mostly blind. But he lived alone in a little house. It was a clean house, in perfect order. And there were no toys there to play with, this displeased me much as a child. We children were supposed to sit quietly and listen to the wisdom that came out of Mr. Rouche. He was hard to understand. He had a thick German accent and I think he would lapse into German occasionally, which was fine for my mother and my grandparents who understood German, but to us kids it was incomprehensible.

When Mr. Rouche prayed tears leaked out of his half blind eyes. Always it seemed his eyes were half closed. But when he moved into prayer he tilted his head back, closed those useless eyes completely shut, and tears would stream down his liver spotted cheeks. All I understood, from those tears was that Mr. Rouche prayed with all his heart. I do remember him blessing us children. But I don't know what else he prayed for. It was very difficult to visit Mr. Rouche because we kids were supposed to be quiet and listen, and since it wasn't like listening to a nice children's story, since the words were hard to understand (I think too Mr. Rouche's voice was going, he would more whisper than talk) and there were no toys to play with, it was just about the most boring time I ever had to endure. But it certainly has imprinted itself on my memory. I can see the museum perfection of his house, and him, crying and praying, clear as day.

In my church nobody cried when they prayed, at least not that I witnessed. The congregational form of Protestantism that I have always belonged to is very prim and proper. But my favorite time in the sermon was when the minister called for silent prayer. The church I went to did not have stain glass windows, the windows were large and clear and on both sides of the center isle. We usually sat in the balcony so I watched the sunbeams come through those large clear windows and I imagined that God was in the sunbeam and I imagined that invisible angels were in the sunbeam too. When it was time to silently pray I closed my eyes and easily had a chat with God. As far as I was concerned the silent prayer never lasted long enough during those services, I wanted more quiet time with God.

For the last four days I have devoted the best part of my day to praying to God. This is prime creative time. It is after I have shrugged off the night's sleep, drunk a cup of coffee, and read the news on the internet. Then I am ready to go to work. I only intended my prayer time to last for ten minutes, but it seems that every day the ten minutes stretch into longer time and I am loath to let go and stop. Indeed, when in prayer, it feels like I have captured an essence of something and am in communication with something. Like Mr. Rouch my eyes sometimes leak tears. They are not tears of sadness. They simply are heartfelt emotions overflowing. I am so sincere that my body gives an involuntary sign of its commitment to the totality of my emotions. I do not intend to pray with my whole body, but this seems to be the way it is. Just today I remembered Mr. Rouche and I realized that I pray like Mr. Rouch. But now I know, maybe, what Mr. Rouch felt like on the inside. That I never knew as a child.

The first few days I prayed I felt like there was energy streaming off of my body. Instead of pulling God near, as I thought you were supposed to do, I simply overflowed with energy and pushed something out. I don't know if the energy could be measured by science, but my body certainly felt different during prayer. Energy feels prickly and warm and comforting. I feel full and then I overflow. It is mildly ecstatic. At first the prayer starts with me talking, and then I talk in silence, and then there is just me listening to God and God listening to me. It is just the two of us and all this energy making my body feel really, really good.

I'm afraid that my new commitment to prayer has taught me little about the nature of God, except that he is for me a presence full of energy and comfort. And oh yes, he is much bigger than me. I am in the presence of the infinite. And yet, for my sake, when I pray he comes down to my size, to fit in me perfectly. Well, not perfectly because there is that feeling of overflow. Today I felt it the most in my hands. In fact, as I write this my hands have not stopped yet their overflow of energy, something still feels as if it is moving through them and out of them. My hands tingle with energy the same as when I prayed, except now I am not praying, I am typing on a computer.

Last night I discussed how altered I feel physically when I pray. And my husband said that in his experience, ecstasy is a phenomena that diminishes in time. He said that he prays rarely because he prizes the ecstasy and when he puts distance in-between prayer the ecstasy remains. He essentially said, dip too much into the well and it will run dry. Then I told my husband that my commitment to pray is now everyday come what may. My husband said that right there and then he was praying that I not loose my ecstasy, that I not be formed like him.

Today the fear of losing the feeling of God in an ecstatic form made me pray "Don't go away from me. Never leave me." which of course has an answer in the public domain of religion. People who talk about God, usually promise that he never goes away, that he is right by your side all the time. I am reminded of Jesus's words on the cross, "My father, why have you forsaken me?" which makes me think that ecstasy in prayer can be overcome with some nails nailed through your body. Physical pain can interfere with the connection of prayer? I don't know, I've never been tested. And because I've only prayed for four days, days which were simple, uncluttered, and crisis free, I've only prayed during the good times, I do not know what it is like to pray during the bad times.

My husband told me that he was slightly annoyed with the Catholic Church and its tradition of celibate monks and nuns and priests. He said, "Here you have this gene pool of people who can connect with God, and their gift is not passed on to the rest of humanity." It makes me smile, my husband's wish of having the largest possible number of people on earth who like to pray.

Because it feels so good to pray, I'm addicted. I look forward to my prayer time every day. So far, the apartment has been empty when I pray. I do not know how it will be when the man upstairs is playing his music while I pray, or if my husband being home from work on the weekend will interfere with blissful solitude. Will I not cry if my husband is in the other room? And I do not know what prayer will feel like if I am tired or injured or experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia. But I think I've found a state of being, and if I can return to it day after day it will become easier and easier to slip into. I'm a big believer in practice.

And yet, after all I've confessed, after the energy I've described invading my body (which I have never encountered before except perhaps when I was manic during my first breakdown when I was eighteen, 24 years ago, and when, I do seem to remember, I was obsessed with God) I still don't know if God exists. I told my husband this last night too, and he was astonished at my foolishness. He warned me that I will never get scientific evidence. And that if what is happening to me doesn't convince me, it is beyond his imagination what it would take to convince me. He warned me that there are plenty atheists and agnostics who reach out and receive nothing in return, this strengthens their position against God. He said that what I have is a gift, not in me, but bestowed upon me.

I reached out and immediately was contacted. So it seems. To have the experience of prayer, as I feel it, is a total balance to having a mental illness. It makes having a mental illness feel richly compensated for. All these negative mental states I go through during the day because of my mental illness, and I say, it is worth it for fifteen minutes of being in the presence of the divine. Always I thought that my illness made me horribly flawed, but now, I feel tremendously gifted. Broken brain or beautiful brain. If I can continue to pray as I have been praying, I believe to the tips of my toes in having a beautiful brain.

I repeat what I said today to God in prayer, "Never go away. Never leave me." It feels like being terribly selfish, like a little girl asking for a Pony to brush and ride, but there it is. Prayer makes me feel richer than the Queen of England.