Weird and stressful, but also fortunate...

Twisted Urban Life by Jen Thario

VERY weird, stressful week! It really tired me out. I spent the week trying to catch up after being in Austin last week. I also have a client who is brain injured and in a wheelchair who left a facility where I sent him for testing and he just disappeared. I never had a client who was so severely disabled disappear for several days before. I will check on Monday to see if he has shown up at his mother's, or not. She was supposed to file a missing person's report Thursday, but by Friday afternoon, there was no word on whether she actually did it or if he had been found. The client's mother seems odd, so there is no telling...
My friend who is losing her mind called me at work mid-week and actually sounded better. She is still lying to me about some things, but she sounds better than she did at Christmas, so the meds must be helping some. She thought I wasn't calling her because she was stalking a mutual friend. I had to be honest with her and tell her that I wasn't calling because I couldn't take the stress of her unmedicated. I have no idea if being that frank was good or bad, but that's what I did, so now we just have to live with it.

Steve is in Dallas for 42 days, so I am sure we will make a trip up to see him in the next couple of weeks. It's nice just to think he is in the state, even if he's in Dallas. Looks like he will be promoted very soon and his current project is on target, too. Very good week for him, but Gina has ulcers from her RA meds - that sucks. Now she's off meds and in pain. Not a good week for her, especially with Steve traveling. Hopefully, we can find some weird little town between Dallas and Houston that has some interesting photo ops, and meet up there.

Karim called and he got out of a bad relationship and got promoted to GM of The Standard in Downtown L.A. - very cool hotel. Congrats to him! Stressful week, but ultimately a very beneficial week.

The job opportunity I have been coveting for the last two years opened up again (a year after it froze). It isn't exactly the opportunity I wanted, it is a step down from the exact job I wanted, but still pays better than what I currently have, and would be a good way to get a foot in the door. I also was given the liaison position in my office for the employer I want to work for, so that is a good thing. I have my resume ready to send in on Monday. I am hoping this is one of those "good things come in threes" employment things. Steve, Karim, then me (cross fingers).

El Problema Estupido

¿Cuál es el problema con este cuadro? Es racist, eso es lo que.

TAD 2005 Conference in Austin, TX

Connor went to Austin with me for the Texas Association for the Deaf Conference.


Jambalaya's in Giddings, Texas by Finijo

On the way to Austin, we stopped and ate at Jambalaya's in Giddings, Texas. We enjoyed the catfish, but the seafood gumbo was unique in that its two most prominent flavors were chili and sweet. It was an odd culinary experience, but the hostess swears they "sell gallons of it."


Red Barn 290 West by Finijo

As usual, the drive was gorgeous. I typically see things along the way that I want to get a picture of. This is a barn I always notice on the way to Austin.


Family Tree by Finijo

This shot is of a tree that died some time ago. There are other dead trees along the way that catch my eye, but this is the only one I stopped to shoot.


Intercontinental Exterior (from SFAI website)

We stayed where the conference was being held, the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental Hotel. It's a smaller hotel, but the room was lovely and the staff were great. They have a nice breakfast buffet, and for once the banquet dinner was truly delicious. Usually hotel food is pretty bad, but they really put some effort into it and we had a lovely dinner. Connor was particularly thrilled with the chocolate chip cheescake.


Intercontinental View by Finijo

I have had terrible luck with hotel views this year. We had a corner room, so I thought we'd have better odds than usual, but this picture shows the better of the two views we had. The other view was of the hotel parking garage (I didn't bother to take a picture of it). Connor was a little irritated by the sound of the trash men emptying the dumpsters at night.


Connor's Flippers by Finijo

One of his favorite parts of our trip was getting to swim laps in the lap pool. There was only one other person in the work out and pool areas while we were there, and he got to use the pool, whirlpool and sauna without interference before we made our way to the banquet.


Celebrando 2005 by Finijo

We passed this theater on the way to lunch on Friday, and I guess we should have gone to see a film, but neither of us thought about it at the time. While I was in my conference, Connor sat in the room and looked after my friend Karen's daughter, Johanna.


Johanna and Connor by Finijo

Johanna and Connor sitting on the edge of the Hickory Street Bar and Grille fountain.


Hickory Street Bar and Grille (postcard)

I was just too tired to go sight seeing, so we only left the hotel once, to have lunch at the Hickory Street Bar and Grille for lunch on Friday. We drove home without stopping - Connor said he missed the cats and he was homesick.

Kate McPeak

Kate on Lilac Circle

I heard this poem on The Writer's Almanac® on Monday, June 20, 2005 and it reminded me of Grandma's last year in the nursing home. She would have been 94 today. The picture is one taken of her in her own back yard on Lilac Circle in Little Rock, Arkansas in August 1961.

Poems: "Chocolate" by Sandra M. Gilbert from Belongings. © W.W. Norton & Co.

Chocolate

In the end, in the long-term
wing of the assisted living home,
in the small white chamber

looking out on the patio's locked-in
blooms or in the big plain"day room"
with its blaring

TV and hopeful posters,
they fed my mother
ground-up piles of pallid

stuff in bowls clamped onto
a plastic tray and at first
she smiled, delicious, delicious,

as she sucked the oozing
juices, the last pap,
smiling surrounded by fellow

diners drooping and mumbling
in their places until
after a while she tightened

her lips against the food and
instead began unknotting,
unknotting the flowered

gown, unclothing her wasting
nakedness still white and smooth
and then at the very end,

when dreamy and slim
as a teen she welcomed
old friends and relatives who flickered

on the walls, the curtains
of the tiny room, nodding,
hello, sit down, to the shiny

nothing, she'd eat nothing
but chocolate, only chocolate,
so every day I brought an oblong

Lindt or Hershey
and square by square
she took in mouthfuls,

smiling and nodding, square
by square, delicious, dear,
until she finally

swallowed the whole dense bar.

She's got high hopes...

Hope by Finijo

The interview went well today. They say nothing worth having comes easy and I think that would apply to my interview experience. I couldn't find parking, and the woman who was supposed to escort me to the interview ended up hopping in my car to help me find parking. We circled thelot for about 20 minutes and I finally parked illegally in a yellow, no parking zone. We hiked back through the parking lot and through the building and then I sat and waited because the first applicant this morning made them late, so the whole schedule was off by about an hour. It is unbelievably hot today and I think I stopped sweating about halfway through the interview. I liked the building, the people I interviewed with, the program - everything except the crappy parking situation. I really want the job. I would feel better about my job than I have felt in a long time, and the pay is higher than my current salary, so you can't beat that.

After I finished the interview I got to have a nice lunch with Matt and Caryn and on the way home my "check engine" light lit up, so now the car is in the shop having the fuel injectors flushed. It should be ready by 6:00 PM. Connor will have tutoring and I will pack and get us ready for our trip to Austin tomorrow. Busy, busy week.

Happy Father's Day

Garden Angel by MEG

Dad is home sick with bronchitis and Connor is having intestinal issues today. Not the best way to spend Father's Day. I'm feeling fine and on the computer and Marilyn is in the pool taking advantage of another sweltering day in Houston. Sorry you're not feeling well, Dad. Happy Father's Day.

Love,

K.

Mrs. Potato Head

Shawinka by Finijo

My co-worker, Becky, brought a HUGE potato for lunch about a month ago. The potato has been sitting on her desk since the day she brought it because she says, "it will take too long to cook." I cannot stress how big this spud is. I can only say it is one magnificent tuber, and seeing it sit on her desk day after day has been killing me. This is not a potato that was meant for eating - it clearly had a higher purpose.

So, when she was out of the office on Monday, I walked over to her desk and gave it a little squeeze. As I suspected, it was spongy to the touch - clearly it was past the point of being food and was moving into its next phase of life. I gave the potato a makeover, now the world can see it they way I knew it should be seen. Behold...Shawinka, the Glamour Spud. Becky came up with her name, but I supplied her title.

Vaya con Dios

Vaya con Dios by Finijo

We recently got a new neighbor, a white haired old man with a old white pick-up truck. I saw something hanging from his truck's visor, and when I looked closer I saw saintly visages. My friend Ang used to hang a St. Christopher medal on her rearview mirror, and Dad used to keep a Star of David on his steering column, but I never saw a visor-shrine before. I think his shrine has a hopeful, kitschy kind of beauty, so I snapped this shot of it today when I went home for lunch. That's also when I ran into Sister Mark Edward and got the chance to chat with her for the first time in weeks. She came to clean out Miss Eleanor's apartment. Miss Eleanor is her mother and our next door neighbor and Sister Mark Edward lives in the convent behind our place. About a year and a half ago, Miss Eleanor fell and couldn't get up. She's stubbornly refused to give up her apartment, even though she's been recovering in a convalescent center since her fall. Oddly enough, she also refused to give up her home in Beaumont five years ago because Sister Mark Edward felt she was not able to take care of herself well enough to live that far away. So this 90-something year old woman resides in a nursing home, while paying rent on an apartment and paying taxes on her house. She's a tad stubborn, as I mentioned before.

When Sister Mark Edward asked me what has been happening since we last spoke, I told her about recent my trips out of town and the interview scheduled for next week. She asked if the job was something that I really wanted, and I told her how I have been trying to get the job I am interviewing for since 2002. I told her how the job has become available once a year for the last three years, and how the first year there was a hiring freeze right after I sent in my application. I explained that I applied again in 2004 and how they hired through an internal transfer that year, so nobody was given an interview. This time around, 4 positions were posted, increasing my odds and allowing me the opportunity to at last, interview for the position. She told me she'd put my interview down in the prayer book at the church and that all the nuns at the convent would pray for me to get the job. I'm not Catholic, but I will take any good intention I can get, from anyone willing to send happy thoughts my way, and be glad for it - especially after three years of getting nowhere on my own.

Fingers Crossed

Hidden by Finijo

The first good job search news in ages has arrived on my doorstep. I have been called for an interview next Wednesday. Fingers crossed (and toes) that this pays off. I've been after this job for the last two years and this is the furthest I've gotten in the process until now.

Crazy is Catching

Perspective by Finijo

I spent an hour and a half on the phone today with my friend who is losing her mind. She is on heavy antipsychotic meds now and even though she is coherent, she is still off. The phone call shouldn't have taken more than 30 minutes, but she rambles and she is repetitive. She wants me to come for a visit and to bring Con, but I am hesitant to commit to a time. She is so different from who she used to be. Everything is negative and she emotionally draining to deal with. She seems more and more like a mental patient and and less like the friend I knew and loved. I know she's feeling lonely and sad, but I feel like anything I do to help will lead to her draining me of my emotional and physical strength.

Once she told me "crazy is catching." I didn't understand what she meant by that, and she explained that being around people who are mentally ill could cause you to pick up on the behaviors and get caught up in the drama. She said it happened to her when she dealt with people with mental illness. I know she said it as a warning, but what didn't occur to me at the time was that it would apply to my relationship with her.

In addition to all my reservations about seeing her, I really HATE smoking. She has always smoked heavily, but now and she chain smokes in that way mentally ill people do. My lungs can't take it at all. I ended up with an upper respiratory infection last summer after going to a get together at her home, then I stayed on antibiotics for one thing or another all the way through Christmas after that. The longer our phone call went on, the more I realized that I don't want to see her or talk to her, and I am being driven by guilt, which is an emotion that I am not accustomed to. I work hard at not doing things that would make me feel guilty and not falling into the guilt trap that can be laid by some of the consumers I work with. I know I'm going to have to process this some more before I can deal with her again.

Bodhi's Assimilation

Lena and Bodhi

They're still not happy that Bodhi has come to stay, but Lena and Saffie are starting to tolerate him and will now sit in the same room with him (which they have not done for the last week). Before I took this picture, Lena jumped up on the couch, hissed twice at Bodhi (who is barely visble on the purple pillow behind Lena), then turned around and laid down right in front of him. For his part, Bodhi is not afraid of either Lena or Saffie. They hiss, he arches his back and hisses back, then they run. I don't understand why it works like that when they are both literally ten times bigger than him (he weighs 1 lb, 7 oz.), but it is hilarious to see.


Patches by Finijo

I noticed when I arrived home that there were several places on Lena's fur that looked odd, and when I checked closer, I noticed that there was a huge bald spot on her shoulder blade and several smaller spots that were losing fur. When I took Bodhi to the vet today, Lena got a surprise trip to the vet, too. The vet thinks it's some kind of allergy, so Lena got a steroid shot today. We're hoping this clears up soon because she is miserable and cranky and she's leaving little piles of fur when she scratches.

Back from San Antonio

Connor went with me to San Antonio for the DARS/DDHHS 4 day conference. He and I had breakfast downstairs every morning, which was fun for him because he got to make his own Belgian waffles.


Connor in Luxurious Room by Finijo

After breakfast, I went to my conference and he stayed in the hotel doing his homework (yup, I made him do homework) and mainlining TV and Gameboy. I brought back lunch each day and in the evening, we went sight seeing. Connor and I got some great shots of San Antonio.


Riverwalk from Bridge by Connor

The first night went to La Margaritas and El Mercado in Market Square and then on to the Paseo del Rio (the Riverwalk) and took a boat tour.


Alamo Memorial and Hotel by Finijo

Our next night out we parked near the Alamo (it was closed, so we did not go in), and went to the Ripley's Believe It, Or Not Museum and Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum. It was all incredibly tacky, but we had a lot of fun.


Selena by Finijo

San Antonio's most famous daughter, Selena, is prominently displayed. Her exhibit was the only one that had the velvet rope and a special sign asking that she not be touched.


Laurel and Hardy by Finijo

Some of the exhibits were very well done, like Laurel and Hardy. We noticed that many of the exhibits were only marginal, though. It seemed like the older exhibits (I saw the exhibit before in 1989) were better than the more recent additions. The hair seemed to be the weakest part of the presentation. I've seen better hair on Barbie and Ken dolls.


Phantom of the Opera by Finijo

Connor got the Bejeezus scared out of him in the wax museum's, Hollywood Horror section. This was probably the coolest part of the exhibit, because it was set up like a haunted house. There were a couple of places along the tour that took you into a black room that had several red doors. You had to open the doors, and behold the hidden horrors until you found the door leading out of the room.


Chupacabra by Finijo

Connor especially liked the Chupacabra - I guess six years of bilingual study weren't for nothin'.


Jesus and Mary by Finijo

Scarier still was the Passion of the Christ installment - gruesome. There were other scary exhibits at Tussaud's including Military/War, and truly frightening George W. Bush display. In spite of the conference being dull and repetitive, Connor and I had a terrific time in San Antonio. You can check out the rest of the pictures at Photobucket.