IHOP Girl: Fun in an Igloo

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Fun in an Igloo

It has been unseasonably cold here this week! I wish that we had some snow to go along with the temperatures in the 20s, but oh well. I'm back on night shift hopefully for the last rotation, and will be starting my straight weekend shifts in January! I am really looking forward to having some stable day shift, and so is my body!!

I'm still waiting for future puppy's momma to go into heat, and I feel bad that the breeder Molly is so aware of my wait. Poor thing, you can't make it happen! I mean I like the fact that she isn't just breeding to breed, but it does mean that I just have to wait. God knows the perfect time, but I do occasionally ask him to hurry those things along ;-).

I just got some oil paints today!! I'm excited to try them out!!! I will let you know how it works. I like having a little bit of everything around, so I can just do whatever I'm in the mood for. I need to look up some of the Joy of Painting videos online, and follow along with the 70s hair, hehe.

Also, WOT wants to get into the radio business Ham style. Haha, poor SFL underestimated his children by thinking we would not be interested. I mean come on! Who doesn't want to learn Morris Code! I think that it would be fun, and different, and to get your basic licence doesn't take that much. It's not like you have to spend thousands of dollars, technically you can get your licence and not even have a radio, although that would be a little stupid. Haha, hello? Come in? Calling SFL!

2 comments:

shrunken_frontal_lobe said...: too bad about the cold there Clair. just gonna have to suffer in silence, just like WOT always does. she's been a good caretaker for you, taught you everything she knows, dear woman.

i really think you should not be discussing such things as animals menstrual cycles on the ethersphere. i'm not sure what God has to do with regulating the reproductive cycles of every animal, but if you want to tell him your thoughts on the issue, who am i to dissuade you.

better not let paulie drink the oil paints like you do with the watercolors, could make for some interesting decorations in the litter box! he!he!

alas my child, before you can get any radio licenses, you will need to learn that no one will be able to respond should you attempt to communicate in morris code, but morse code...now that might get you somewhere.

hew!; 6:56 PM
Clair Bannerman (alias) said...: Hahaha, I had to explain your subtle sarcasm to poor B here...

Would you rather talk about human reproduction? As we speak my poor little ovaries are killing me - where is my heating pad?

Also, I don't think even a little oil paint could damage Polly's already disfuctional brain...poor Polly!

Lastly, I would greatly appreciate lessons in morse code - us here in the south have issues with spelling you know ;-).; 12:37 PM

Movie Night In...I love a good movie!

Mega Mind
Taking Chance (Will make you cry like a baby)
Charlotte Grey (A bit of a different take on Nazi Germany)
Series - Merlin (I LOVE BBC)
Robin Hood (Okay, a love Russell Crowe, you'll have to understand that about me...)
Kingdom of Heaven (Chuck full of acting power with an epic tale)
Miss Potter (Such a great film! Story of the creator of Peter Rabbit)
How to Train your Dragon (Possibly my favorite animated movie ever...I'm like a little kid, I watch it over and over)
Buck (Sundance winner, Biography of Horse Trainer, heart touching)
Lost in Austin (Modern day spin on Pride and Prej.)

Life as a nurse...

Great words by Reb Jeff: Vayishlach: Facing Death

"Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrat — now called Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar above her grave. It is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day."–Genesis 35:19-20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidui http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism), and preparing the notifications to the community, feel like little fragments of the sacred. I have been entrusted with the care and tending of the most powerful, complex and difficult emotions that a person can experience in life. I have been made, in some small part, a guardian of the memory of a departed soul — a life that touches upon many other lives.After dropping off my older daughter at her high school this morning, I made a stop at Treasure Coast Hospice http://www.tchospice.org/, a remarkable organization that sets a very high standard for the loving and respectful care of the dying. There, I visited a lovely man whom I have seen a few times in his hospice room. I sat by his bedside and listened to him (in full possession of his faculties) as he told me about his worries about his family, the support of his wife after he is gone, and the future of his children and grandchildren. I was deeply moved by the way he put any concern for himself — even while facing death — in a distant backseat to his concerns for his family. When my own time comes, I can only hope to have his awareness of the way that one life can touch so many others.Also at hospice, I visited a woman I have known for the past two years — a dear soul who is a former Jewish religious school director. I sat with her, too, singing psalms to her as I listened to her heavy and labored breathing. I have no medical training, but I have come to know the sound of a person who is close to death. The body begins to fight for each breath as it slowly looses it grasp on life. As I held her hand and sang, I realized that being a rabbi is no protection against becoming one of the people caught in the web of connection. I, too, am changed by the loss of a life that has touched mine.Later in the day, I met with a couple from our congregation. She had just learned that her brother died yesterday in a car crash. Coming to terms with the loss is made more difficult for her by the fact that she and her brother had not seen each other or spoken in five years. Sometimes, people think it is easier to mourn the death of someone who has moved out of your life. In my experience, though, it's harder. Grief is magnified by wounded love and regret. I have no magic words to say to ease the pain of mourning. All I can do is listen, become a vessel in which people place their stories, and offer compassion.Actually, there is one more thing I can do. I can have faith that "all I can do" is all that I need to do. It is enough.In this week's Torah portion (Vayishlach) Jacob watched Rachel, the love of his life, die in childbirth. He was overcome by grief. Jacob had worked for his cruel uncle Laban for fourteen years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Now she was gone. Because she died while they were traveling, Jacob had to bury her by the side of the road. He built a pillar of stones on the spot to mark the place as sacred.This is what we all do, in one way or another, when death enters our lives. We grieve and our hearts break. We wish that we could continue to walk along the path of life with our loved ones forever, but the dead cannot fully join us. We have to leave something behind in order to resume our own journey. So, what do we do? We mark the moment as sacred. We erect monuments — both in cemeteries and in our hearts. The stones we place on top of stones remind us that a life may end, but its sanctity is forever.The Torah says that the monument Jacob built for his beloved continues to stand until this day. A life that touches the lives of others never ceases to send living reverberations throughout the web that binds us all.