Thieving assholes

My mother told this story of my father, before they were married. She'd made candies, wintergreen flavored, a lot of work involved. They'd gone for a walk, and he was, as she described it, gobbling them up. Until they came to a bridge, and he found out they were wintergreen.

"Are you trying to poison me?" And he threw the rest of them in the stream.

She was as much shocked at his not just handing them back to her as at his peculiar accusation.

She never said explicitly, but this was obviously the point at which she knew what she was getting into, and should have run away screaming. And didn't.

The ex used to eat my chocolate, asserting "well, you left them." Yes, I left them because I was saving them for later, as I'd always done with any treat, savor it, stretch it out, make it last. Halloween candy could well last until my birthday, or longer. He never would allow me this, my little treats were his. I learned to gobble up anything I had, never to count on it being there.

I can't imagine D doing this. He always asks, even when it's clear that the treat is for both of us, just to make sure. We delight in treating each other. We share, and honor each other's 'saved.' We are generous with each other. Seems a much better way to live.

He is welcome to any chocolate I have, but never takes it without asking, and receiving permission first.

Triage should be taught early.

Maybe it's because I was taught triage. There is a core assumption that some will die, some might die, and save the more likely to live. It's a dire philosophy, but it keeps me from agonizing over dead children or when a frail elderly dies. Human, animal, languages, everything dies.

Death is one of those essential concepts that every child should get accustomed to. There will always be wastage, in any system. It may well include me.

Or you.

And we both need to be ok with this.

Cats just go where they are comfortable

Last night as I lay on my back, legs stretched out, close together, I feel the cat probing the lumpiness. He sat down just below where my knees were, reached out with both paws, pads up to my crotch, warm body sliding my calves apart, tail brushing my feet. Figured, I'm not moving for a while, and fell asleep.

Cat likes lumpy.

Why I need to stay away from Gypsies and OCD patients

I read Bury Me Standing many years ago, and it haunted me. Because this is a culture that is alien to everything I believe and value. I have compassion for them as human beings, but I feel deep dislike, discomfort, with that society. I knew, therefore, that I should not watch any of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. And of course, I did, and turned it off, unsettled and irritated. In part at myself, for being repulsed at any group. Hating my own prejudice. Although, having never met any Rom myself, and only disliking them based on what I learned about them, that is not probably the correct term.

This is a people who starts out with a whole different set of assumptions about how the world works. And I love reading, knowledge, restraint, stability, equality. I struggle not to label them as being willfully ignorant, superstitious, and treating women badly. Instead, they value their oral traditions, their beliefs are more situational, and divide their labor differently - which works in their world.

But if I had to deal with them often, I think it would grow into bigotry. This is a shameful admission.

I also know I should never work with people with OCD. I nearly hit a patient once, who was perseverating on a ritual, and managed to walk away. I never let myself be alone with patients with that disease again. It was as if they could hit a switch in my brain that disinhibited my self control and decency. I cannot trust myself there, and I will not.

Ugly truth.

shoulder joint

Thanks to a sports surgeon, my shoulder is now on the mend, and I'm sleeping at night. Apparently I have something weird in the anatomy. Sure, what the hell.

yup

My right arm needs to work, dammit

My arm/shoulder hurts. Has been for the last week. Like I need something else giving me shit.

Bugger.

Yeah, well, prove it.

Young woman at work, keeps saying what a good scrub she is. Which proves she isn't. People who are good at their work never need to brag.

Boasters are always wrong.