Traveling from Washington to Colorado, Elwha did not like the car and the unfamiliar places. I took the cat carrier apart in the hotel room and he decided that it was safer inside it than out, even if it was in pieces. Sol Duc did not enjoy the car but is less worried about it all.
And here is Sol Duc in a virtual cage, a shadow cage. She likes the back yard a lot. I have had the house closed up because of the smoke for the last two days, but there is less today.
Do you know the poem by Ogden Nash, The Tale of Custard the Dragon? The chorus is as follows:
Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears, And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs, Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage, But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.
I love that poem! And I love the lines:
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda, For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.
Ogden Nash was perfectly happy to bend words to fit the rhyming scheme and to heck with spelling!
I still have not heard about Elwha. I hope that he has moved in with an older couple and spends most of his time on their laps. I can see him crying for a nice safe cage.
I thought there must be a song of it, but so far I like this tenth grade rap version best!
It is difficult to screen for ACE scores for the same reason that it is difficult to screen for domestic violence and to talk about end of life plans. These are difficult topics and everyone may be uncomfortable. Besides, what can we DO about it? If growing up in trauma wires someone’s brain differently, what do we do?
I don’t frame it as the person being “damaged”. Instead, I bring up the ACE score study and say that first I congratulate people for surviving their childhood. Good job! Congratulations! You have reached adulthood! Now what?
With a high ACE score comes increased risk of addictions (all of them), mental health diagnoses (same) and chronic disease. Is this a death sentence? Should we give up? No, I think there is a lot we can do. I frame this as having “survival” brain wiring instead of “Leave it to Beaver” brain wiring. The need to survive difficulties and untrustworthy adults during childhood can set up behavior patterns that extend into adulthood. Are there patterns that we want to change and that are not serving us as adults?
This week a person said that they blow up too easily. Ah, that is one that I had to work on for years. Medical training helps but also learning that anger often covers other feelings: grief, fear, shame. I had to work to uncover those feelings and learn to feel them instead of anger. Anger can function as a boundary in childhood homes where there are not adult role models, or where the adults behave one way when sober and an entirely different way when impaired and under the influence. There may be lip service to behave a certain way but if the adult doesn’t behave, it is pretty confusing. And then the adult may not remember or be in denial or try to blame someone else, including the child, for “causing” them to be impaired.
What if someone had a “normal” childhood but the trauma all hit as a young adult? I think adults can have trauma that changes the brain too. PTSD in non-military is most often caused by motor vehicle accidents. At least, that is what I was told in the last PTSD talk I went to. Now that overdose deaths have overtaken motor vehicle accidents as the top death by accident yearly in the US, I wonder if having a fentenyl death in the family causes PTSD. Certainly it causes trauma and grief and anger and shame.
I agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics that we should screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences. We need training in how to talk about it and how to respond. I have had people tell me that their childhood was fine and then later tell me that one or both parents were alcoholics. The “fine” childhood might not have been quite as fine as reported initially. One of the hallmarks of addiction families is denial: not happening, we don’t talk about it, everything is fine. Maybe it is not fine after all. If we can learn to talk to adults about the effects on children and help people to change even in small ways, I have hope that we will help children. We can’t prevent all trauma to children, but we can mitigate it. All the ACE scores rose during the Covid pandemic and we are still working on how to help each other and ourselves.
The photograph is one of Elwha’s cat art installations. He would pile toys on his bowl. Two bowels because I need to keep out the little ants. Sol Duc would do it too but not as often. I fed them in separate rooms. They would pile things on the bowl whether there was food left or not.
Elwha is still missing, sigh. That is a wound. The photographs are from March 2023.
Many of the yards here have weed cloth and then rocks. Sometimes this surrounds a patch of grass and sometimes it doesn’t. There are lots of early morning automatic sprinklers.
This morning my cat Sol Duc encountered a toad in our yard. This is the first toad she has met. She was quite interested but was not sure what to do with it. It hopped when she sniffed it or when she poked it with a paw. I thought it was not going to turn out well for the toad but then the sprinklers came on. The toad had a reprieve.
The photograph is another yard. These people are creative with their rocks!
I like to think about various men
My mind wanders engaging in theory
I have no urge to date again
Getting to know you makes me weary
My husbands welcome seemed less than more
Coming home I felt alone
Now I’m welcomed at the door
I am happy: my cat is home
I like men best now in the abstract
My imagination is a happy place
Real life ones really don’t attract
I am au courant with “leave no trace”
My daughter dismisses the men near my age
Misogynist fossils is how they are gauged
Sol Duc and I moved yesterday. The place we were in was billed as having a kitchen. It has a refrigerator, dishwasher, sink and microwave. NO STOVE! AUGH! I could check out a hot plate with one frying pan. I would describe this as a fast food kitchen. Ugh. I like to COOK. I also found a nice farm stand and bought a bunch of vegetables. The farmer said, “Thank your parents for raising you right with vegetables.” Heh. I will go back.
We are now in a small house, at the western edge of Grand Junction, with two bedrooms! Now my daughter can visit again. Sol Duc worried about the ceiling fans and hid under the bed for most of the day. This morning the fans are off and she is exploring. We have a fenced yard, though she won’t go out without harness, leash and me. We are in the southwestern corner of the development and there is another development across the street. It only has three houses, so we have lots of area to wander around. This am we are out at 5 am and can hear roosters from the farm kitty corner to us. And cows. We have a fabulous view of the mesas to the south and west and we are no longer surrounded by parking lot and highways. The local Coloradans seem to really love their pickups and especially loud ones. The valley acts like a bowl and highway sound travels a long way.
We both miss Elwha. Sol Duc was fairly panicked when I loaded the car and put her in the crate. I think she was afraid we were going to drive for three days again. She likes the house though and came out to purr last night. This morning she is exploring. I am keeping the second bedroom closed since my daughter doesn’t do very well with fur.
We still hope that Elwha turns up. Come back, Elwha!
I will go finish checking out today. I had to have Sol Duc out of the room we were in twice a week for an hour, so that they could come in to clean. That was fairly stressful for both of us. The instructions they gave us were confusing and it was eight days before they explained the rules. Which did not match the written rules. Anyhow, I am OUT OF THERE. Some of the staff were really nice. Others, well.
I had more stuff to move than when I arrived, all food. The new place is great though built for tall people. I am not tall. I am now on the lookout for a desk, because all the chair/table heights are wrong for me. I will ask the rental folks first.
My Ex and I used to dance to Saffire, way back in Richmond when I was in medical school. Fabulous and here is a song about rising.
I did not bring a quilt on this trip. I brought two favorite blankets instead. This is the Pendleton wool throw. At home I use it for couch naps. Elwha loved to snuggle under it with me.
The second is a fleece blanket that the cats like to snuggle up to at night.
Elwha has been spotted, I am pretty sure, three times out back in the bushes where he disappeared. Now, if I can get him to come out. A very nice person sent photos. It looks like he’s dropped serious weight since he ran off. I am going to sit out there this evening and see if he will come to me.
Oh, roar a roar for Nora, Nora Alice in the night, For she has seen Aurora Borealis burning bright.
A furore for our Nora! And applaud Aurora seen! Where, throughout the Summer, has Our Borealis been?
________________________
A friend named her daughter Nora and I sent her a copy. I especially love the word furore, because it doesn’t rhyme , even though it seems like it should.
Elwha is still missing and I did not see the aurora, though tons of friends have posted pictures. This shot of Elwha is from January. I wonder if he saw the lights in the sky?
I am working in Grand Junction, Colorado. There are not as many leaves here as at home, but the leaves are still hiding my cat! I am mad at the leaves and sad. Elwha is still missing and it’s been a week. I have had food and the carrier out for him, put up posters on Facebook, contacted the shelters and vets, and searched and searched.
The carrier failed and the door popped off when I put it down. Elwha ran. Sol Duc was still in it, so I put the door back on as fast as I could! Then I left the carrier and went after Elwha, but could not find him. I kept going out and searching, including at 2 am.
Maybe he will show up at home. It’s only 1215 miles by car.
We had another cat who disappeared and we thought was gone. The hardware store called us a month later and said, “We have your cat.” She was thinner and scared to go outside. Elwha only goes out in carrier or with leash and harness. There are prairie dogs and a canal with low trees and bushes behind the building here. I don’t think he’s there, but I am still putting food out. There is another stray tiger who now comes out to study me from a distance.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
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