Liz

Haven't posted in a while, mainly because I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed with work, family, the house, etc. Since I last saw you guys, I have:

*Turned 41, (years, that is)
*Gotten a brand new Epson Perfection 3200 photo scanner (yea! Now, what do I do with it?)
*Painted kitchen + laundry-room cabinets, all 42 of them! Not an easy task, I might add.
*Planned a trip to Armaugh, Pennsylvania with my husband. Actually we're going for a car show but it should be a lovely drive through the mountains from Georgia.
*Rescued a puppy found in the middle of the road, just sitting there bloody and dazed. This is how she looked the day after we found her. She cleaned up real well: http://photos.yahoo.com/lizdavis344

*Dealt with a lot of family-dynamics. Mainly guilt-inducing aunts who call me with requests I'm either unwilling or unable to perform. I call them co-dependant and they call me mean.
*Taken on lots of extra responsibilities at work

I've missed seeing your lovely photographs and reading your heartfelt and/or clever comments. How in the heck did I survive without things like:

a corn update or
a weekly menu update

I dunno???

1. Never walk down the hall without a document in your hands. People with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they're heading for the cafeteria. People with a newspaper in their hand look like they're heading for the toilet. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.

2. Use computers to look busy. Any time you use a computer, it looks like "work" to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail, calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work. These aren't exactly the societal benefits that the proponents of the computer revolution would like to talk about but they're not bad either. When you get caught by your boss -and you *will* get caught - your best defence is to claim you're teaching yourself to use new software, thus saving valuable training dollars.

3. Messy desk. Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you're not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year's work looks the same as today's work; it's volume that counts. Pile them high and wide. If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you'll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when he/she arrives.

4. Voice Mail. Never answer your phone if you have voice mail. People don't call you just because they want to give you something for nothing - they call because they want YOU to do work for THEM. That's no way to live. Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour when you know they're not there - it looks like you're hardworking and conscientious even though you're being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ the method of screening incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is there, this will greatly increase the odds that the caller will give up or look for a solution that doesn't involve you. The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is: "Ignore my last message. I took care of it". If your voice mailbox has a limit on the number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach that limit frequently. One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages. If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages. Your callers will hear a recorded message that says, "Sorry, this mailbox is full" - a sure sign that you are a hardworking employee in high demand.

5. Looking Impatient and Annoyed. According to George Costanza, one should also always try to look impatient and annoyed to give your bosses the impression that you are always busy.

6. Appear to Work Late. Always leave the office late, especially when the boss is still around. You could read magazines and storybooks that you always wanted to read but have no time until late before leaving. Make sure you walk past the boss' room on your way out. Send important emails at unearthly hours (e.g. 9:35pm, 7:05am, etc...) and during public holidays.

7. Creative Sighing for Effect. Sigh loudly when there are many people around, giving the impression that you are very hard pressed.

8. Stacking Strategy. It is not enough to pile lots of documents on the table. Put lots of books on the floor etc. . Can always borrow from library. Thick computer manuals are the best.

9. Build Vocabulary. Read up on some computer magazines and pick out all the jargon and new products. Use it freely when in conversation with bosses. Remember: They don't have to understand what you say, but you sure sound impressive.

10. * MOST IMPORTANTLY: DON'T forward this to your boss by mistake!!!

Last week was a wee bit crazy for folks at the Davis household.

Especially for Bud who was shipped to Auburn University's Veterinary Hospital this week. He has a disorder, common in the breed, which causes his system to process purines differently than other dogs. When this happens, bladder stones occur and reoccur. He's had so many stones, more like sandy grit really, that the multiple catheterizations our vet used to relieve him has caused scarring in the urethra, which blocks the urine more and requires more catheterizations. Now there is talk that Bud will have to get a brand new pee-pee hole. One that bypasses the scar tissue.

Please pray for Bud. He's so much a part of me I believe teeny-tiny black dalmatian spots are imprinted, like fossils, on my heart.

Haven't posted in a while, as my brain hasn't been functioning properly. Too many thoughts moving at dangerously high speeds.

My sister, Candy, is going to Korea in 2 weeks. She's really excited about the trip. They will take day trips to Seoul to sight-see and shop. She says she can get leather goods at cheap prices there.

My mother just called me, in tears, to tell me that her brother, Bill, fell in the bathtub yesterday and died. She was quite upset, as he was the second sibling to die in the last month or so. Here are some of the family's reactions to news of his death:

Aunt Nell: "well, I hope his wife doesn't have the funeral in the middle of the day as my skin can't take bright sun."

Aunt Frances: "He sure did love my iced tea."

Aunt Frances: "I believe that wife of his, Louise, must have had something to do with his death, cause she sure didn't seem upset when she called".

Helen: "I'm not feeling so good myself. I believe my bathroom is dangerous too. If he had just taken the glucosomine I told him about, for his arthritis, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe I need glucosomine too. Will you bring me some glucosomine?"

Thank God I'm completely normal!

The baby bluebirds (from yesterday's post) are gone. They must have left this morning. I know this seems crazy, I don't care, because I feel so sad. They're gone and I didn't get to see them leave. I feel so hollow inside...hollow inside...hollow inside...

Did I tell you that I got to be a part of their wildness?

A couple of weeks ago, my husband noticed armies of ants crawled up the pole, making their way into the nestbox. There were hundreds of them, crawling about, starting to eat them, while they sat wide-eyed and helpless. I removed them from the box and swept out all the ants and replaced the nesting material with sawdust and pinestraw over a washcloth. I tried to swirl the pinestraw into a circle like their real mama had done. Afterwards, the mama and daddy came back to them and began feeding them again. They were ok.

God bless.

She wants to be buried in pink. Nothing flashy, like fuchsia or hot pink, just a very simple, light-pink dress. "Don't send me off to meet my maker looking like one of them prostitutes," she said.

She knows it'll be any day now.

Last Tuesday we gathered around the hospital bed talking about her past, what it was like growing up dirt-poor during the depression, and how she felt when she and Curtis got married and moved deep into rural Georgia where it must have seemed lonely without her eight younger siblings.

They met when she was just 16 years old. She had signed up for an after-school work program and took a job at a men's clothing factory, downtown. It was a good job, filing papers in the office, and she knew the income would help buy groceries.

Curtis was the supervisor in the cutting room. She learned of his crush on her when she found an apple at her workspace with a polyester fabric bow tied ever so thoughtfully around the stem. There was a note too, but that was none of our business.

After getting married they farmed their property growing corn, peanuts, tobacco, tomatoes, collards, peas, squash, etc.. They raised cows, chickens and pigs and lived off the land.

When the old well dried up, she and Curtis dug a hole for the new one using a post hole digger. The red Georgia clay was hard and they fought it for weeks. We commented that life must have been difficult back then and she said, "it was real fun." She and Curtis loved each-other deeply. They were married 59 years before his death, 2 years ago.

She stared at a space of air, while Cindy sat on one side of the bed gently patting the paper-thin skin above her badly bruised hands. I sat on across from her and watched the flashing numbers on the machine. Urging the thoughts from her mind, she says, "everybody's gonna be up there, you know....Curtis, Mama, Daddy, Donny, Rudy," and some other names I didn't recognize. She told us it was gonna be real crowded.

"I sure do hope I can find Curtis, she said."

We told her not to worry, he'd probably be waiting right up front at the gate. He may even come down here to meet her. She said, "oh, do you think he will?" And she smiled so sweetly, so happily, we all three wept.

Cool artwork, I think.

http://www.rassouli.com/

then browse the galleries.

Anyone out there have ideas about describing a color to someone?

I need to explain, to a blind woman, the color fushia. The person will not understand fashionable, retro-type words, as she is very rural.

How would you do it?

Well, maybe I do sometimes substitute animals for people. Is that so wrong?

Lots of folks live vicariously through other things.

Don't they?

I often refer to “my birds” in conversation with friends, family, co-workers and neighbors, telling them individual bird stories or my most recent lesson from the wild.

Of course, not everybody gets this.

Fall in love with an animal and among non-animal people you will see eyebrows raised and expressions weary. More commonly, you’ll get vacant looks. If I say something with profound affection or commitment, I might be hit with the phrase “they're just birds, for God’s sake”.

A lot of people think intense attachments to animals are weird and suspect; the domain of people who can’t handle attachments to humans.

In fact, people have very powerful relationships with their animals and that doesn’t necessarily mean they're crazy or they're substituting animals for people, or they're somehow incapable of forming intimate attachments to people. It's a different kind of relationship, but no less authentic.

Anne Dillard wrote this about animals: I might learn something of mindlessness, something of purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive.

Watching animals is meditative and educational.

I so wanted to lift up each bird, one by one, and hold them against my cheek where I could breathe in their incredible baby sweetness. They were...just beautiful.

On 4/15/03 Verianscamera posted a picture of a homeless man, who was sleeping on the street. A reply was: I just can't point the camera at these people. I'd like to, but my stomach churns while I'm working myself up to it.

verianscamera replied: I understand that and find it difficult myself. I was going to mention that I gave this guy some money earlier in the week but somehow that just makes things worse.

I'd like to discuss this, because I find it interesting.

If the homeless person doesn't see you taking his picture, or if the homeless person is not harmed, shamed, or used for bad reasons, then why do we feel guilty?

Imaflower wrote: I've pondered this same issue, as I often feel pulled to take pictures of unfortunates. What motivates this feeling? Is it wrong to act on the impulse? Here's a thought.

Did you see American Beauty? Ricky, the troubled teenage neighbor of Kevin Spacey's character, constantly filmed and documented, even the smallest of things with his camera. Ricky escaped his unhappy home life by finding simple beauty within the world. By looking closer at people, objects, and nature around him, he discovered a truth within the world that not many people have the privilege of ever seeing. I have never - ever related more to a movie character than I did with Ricky.

Society has given us images of what we should find to be "beautiful". Who's to say that beauty isn't a lost plastic bag blowing in the wind or even in an unfortunate man sleeping in the street?

I have taken pictures of homeless people. I've photographed dead animals. (Part of me is tapping me on the shoulder right now saying, "I'm not sure I’d a told that". Shut up, me!)

There are times when the shell of a June bug, a feather, or the bone of a small animal can evoke terrific emotion for me. If I discover one of these treasures in the woods, or the yard, I sometimes bring them home to be placed in "the box" along with the Indian arrowheads, sharks teeth, etc.. The box represents all the creatures who have passed through me. It allows me to feel close to wildness or to God. I carry their memory with me, perhaps to share or divide their sadness by two. They are beautiful, in a weird way that I cannot understand.

My older brother is homeless. He lives under the city parking garage, in a small town in Maine. He is mentally ill and refuses medication.

I hope this e-mail makes sense and doesn't seem too weird. It's all over the place, which for me, usually means it's straight from the heart.

Thoughts anyone?