…On a Sunday, working with a vet who thinks you’re incompetent because you can’t place a catheter into the deflated vein of a severely dehydrated dog scheduled for an euthanasia and witnessing the vet, not able to place the catheter as well but yet you’re the one feeling useless and incompetent
…Waking up on that Sunday and realizing you have 7-8 more hours of neurotic emergency-paced work in a general practice hospital and wishing you could just pull the covers over your head and block out the world
…Going to bed Saturday night stressed because you arrived home at 4:30pm from working at the clinic and the cable/modem decided to go out and did not return until 11pm and you spent two hours working on an online math test only to fail which makes it ‘failed test #2’
…Waking up on a Saturday, knowing it’s a Saturday and dragging your butt off to the clinic after working 12 hours on Friday at the other place which turned out to be a good day at the clinic but since this piece is about not all days being good, this sentence stops…here.
…Working on Friday stuck running patient rooms under the vet who runs at an emergency pace and the day is spent restraining and sticking your thermometer up animal butts because the vet is micromanagement and will not allow you to do anything but work the rooms and stick your thermometer up the animal butts and doing this for twelve hours
…Going to bed Thursday night realizing what the next day entails before it even begins
…Working with a favourite vet on Thursday for twelve hours who is relaxed and let’s me do the job I was hired to do
…Waking up on a Thursday, knowing it is my Monday while everyone I know is winding down looking forward to the weekend but I go into work optimistic because I am working with a favourite vet and the end of the twelve hour day will bring a sense of accomplishment
Not all days are good days
…When the sacrifices made to enter into a new field hits reality and you realize what was sacrificed has irreparable consequences
…Wishing you didn’t give up that $##,###.## a year salary with full medical and dental coverage but not wishing for the job that went along with it
…The clothes you have are from 1999 and 1/3 of them no longer fit, most especially when you need to show up at work sans the scrubs
…The last haircut was in 2012 and you paid ridiculous amounts of money for a trim and shape, which resembled the same style you concocted at home that same morning before going to the salon
…Seeing the dust bunnies in your room take shape and move on their own because you can’t reach them with a dust buster unless you move every bit of furniture, stacks of papers and exercise machines to get at them
Yesterday, I saved a dog on a Saturday morning in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
He was running across a busy street known as Prospect Park West, adjacent to Prospect Park in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
I was on my way to work at the clinic about to cross this street to walk on the side of the park when a dog ran into the middle of traffic.
Well…
I ran out into the middle of traffic to stop the cars from potentially running over the dog.
Well…
The dog and myself were lucky enough to not meet HIM, our maker that day. I was able to hold back traffic but not the dog, now running down a block. The Farmers Market was taking place at the time so lots of humans were roaming the area. I called out to a jogger, “Please grab the dog”. He did so, hesitantly.
I made my way towards the dog and slowed down my pace as I approached it with my hand extended. The dog sat down, tail wagging and the jogger released his hold on the harness.
I wrapped my fingers around the metal link and did not let go.
The dog had tags on the collar…!
This is not Gus but he looks like him.
I sat on the curb, with Gus leaning on me, as a small crowd of witnesses gathered. I called the owners, balancing the tag with the info and punching the numbers into my cell. Others from the crowd volunteered to hold Gus.
I declined.
I was not going to let this angel out of my fingers.
A voice responded to my call and the wife of the husband who was walking the dog in Prospect Park was hysterical. She was at work and had no idea this transpired. I told her our location and promised to wait until her husband arrived.
Meanwhile the crowd slowly dispersed as I relayed the information about the owner coming.
Boy…was I gonna be late for work.
I’ve worked at PPAC for over a year now and cannot recall a time I was late.
It was hard to move with him as he was too big for me to carry with my bags and I had no leash to guide him but we made our way over to a nearby bench.
I heard the husband-owner calling to Gus before seeing him as my back was turned to the side. He ran up to us and Gus was so excited to see his owner. He thanked me profusely, saying I saved his kids’ lives because if he returned home without Gus, they would be devastated. He apologized and admitted while in the park with Gus, he took his eyes off him for a moment, and he was gone. He wanted my address, to send flowers, to drop off a gift. I declined and I stretched out my hand. He grasped it firmly and we shook. He had tears in his eyes and I almost broke down crying.
Well…
Prior to this happening I was making my way to work was feeling discouraged and experiencing serious second doubts about my career choice. It can be frustrating and confusing at times when doubt seeps in the alma.
I love climbing mountains, and I love challenges and I feel stuck in a rut right now-a rut caused by my own psyche and wanting to know everything all at once.
Gus was a sign, in a strange way. Meeting him on that Saturday morning was a wake-up call.
I am, where I am supposed to be right here and now.
When I made it to work, I was deemed a hero. I saved Gus’ life. The owner (wife) phoned and asked for my info to send a gift.
I declined…again.
I told her I was a vet tech and she laughed and said Gus was lucky to have run into me. She asked where I worked and I told her. Hopefully, we’ll get another client.
In the meantime, thank you Gus.
Yesterday, a dog named Gus saved me on a Saturday morning in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
We met at a State University located in Fredonia, NY in the eighties when things were cool and black was the colour in NYC.
We met at separate times.
Two of the three, I went on interesting dates with.
With one…
I was picked up in a station wagon straight out of the Brady Brunch set and whisked off to a dance club. It was a fun date and no, we did not kiss, hold hands, or get crazy in the backseat. He later came out. He was always out but proceeded cautiously, for the world back then was not accepting as it is somewhat now.
The other…
sent secret notes with a flower to my dorm room. We eventually connected, where upon he visited me and ate a bowl of cereal while we conversed. I thought he was strange…but so was I. We were together as couples were, back then when knowing a person mattered.
I met the friend of the other for she was extremely close to him. She carried within her soul a sacred light filled with calm and joy, but back then, she didn’t know it and neither did we, for the light was an ember that had yet to ignite.
I know not what else to say except ..
We are still connected.
What connects is always questionable and at times suspicious but in this scenario the connection is valid for it has endured time and space.
Not sure why…
for we have gone our separate ways, down paths some winding more than others. We all have starved, or better yet lived the life of a “starving artist” in different cities at various times. Eventually we were able to eat, which led us to where we are now, with different careers and lives in different cities and…
My cousin Zarak Mohandas Delattibodier has kidney disease and received dialysis two to three times a week.
He needs a kidney.
A donor was identified and during the beginning stages of gathering donor information, he developed an infection in the mitral valve of his heart.
The infection was resistant to antibiotics.
Zarak also had severe periodontal disease.
The hospital released my cousin after a four-day stay and sent him home with antibiotics for the heart and dental appointments to begin work on the perio. One week later, Zarak had difficulty breathing and went back to the hospital where he lost consciousness and was placed on a ventilator and an iv catheter with major antibiotics.
The infection of the heart was fungal.
Mi pimo’s body was too weak to fight. He coded numerous times and stabilized with resuscitation but brain damage may have occurred and he could not breathe on his own.
The ‘No Resuscitation’ directive was put in place. Then rescinded by his wife who is separated from him.
Mi primo is no longer hurting…
No anxiety about the kidney donor’s health condition or going through dialysis
Mi primo is no longer hurting…
He may pass on in California, where he wanted to live and will receive a military burial
Mi primo is no longer hurting…
He’ll join his mom, mi Tía, whom he loved and whose hand he held as she drew her last breath
Mi primo is no longer hurting…
He can play his sax and jam with the angels
Mi primo is no longer hurting…
He can eat all the beef jerky, fried chicken and fries he desires with Excelsior Cabernet
Mi primo is no longer hurting…
He doesn’t have to carry the weight of his family’s dysfunction on his back anymore
I wish the decision could be made to turn off the switch that would enable his alma to be free…
Como Aqua Para Chocolate was on cable recently and I watched the entire movie for like the 50th time.
This movie is rich with symbolisms that extend beyond Mexican history but its central focus lies with the preparation of food and most importantly how emotions can influence cooking. Mom, my mom’s, cooking is a testament to this influence and although I never had a dish that sent me into sexual arousal (see the movie to know what I referred to) of the most high kind, her food, yes her food, is the comfort of what comfort food is suppose to be about.
Margarita, who is my mom, does not use measuring cups or follows a rigid routine when it comes to preparing her foods. She does not possess the latest food processor or the expensive knives that fit neatly in a wooden block cured with olive oil. No bread maker or Keurig decorates her counter tops. Forget Starbuck’s, Bustelo with cinnamon brewed in a sack is her preferred method of brewing coffee which is done the old way, traced back to her homeland of Honduras where purchasing and brewing coffee in a sack is as common as ordering a Grande latte thingy ma Jing at Starbuck’s.
At times, the cooking is prepared while laughing on the phone in deep conversation or humming a favourite outdated tune from the 50’s.
In earlier years, she sang.
In earlier years, when she sang, her food would leave you speechless.
Nowadays, the food with the humming or the endless talking on the phone leaves you satisfied and questioning if what you ate wasn’t the best ever version of what you dreamt it to be, along with the angels whom blowed their trumpets to announce how good the food made you felt as it made its way to your stomach via tu Corazon.
I refuse to patronize Spanish and Jamaican restaurants.
No food prepared in these restaurants can compare to my mom’s arroz con pollo, cerviche fish, dumplings, coconut beans and rice, pigeon peas, tostones, oxtails…okay…I stop here.
Margarita is a cook from whose heart the cooking stems.
A five- star restaurant cannot compete with that kind of cooking, because home is where the heart is and when the heart involves itself with food the competition to satisfy the stomach is intense. In the home of Margarita, in the kitchen where the food is prepared, there are no underpaid cooks for hire, where the cheapness of the salary is transferred to the animosity felt when preparing the food for the public.
The heart rules and lavishes love freely.
So in honour of my mi madre, Margarita, whom I’ve often taken for granted, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being who you are and keeping your youngest well fed with food prepared that will forever linger en mi alma. Margarita’s pot rack Coffee Knives
He needs a kidney because the two he has are bad, bad and bad
There are no kidneys available for him
He is on dialysis 4-6 hours twice a week
My cousin is hurting and I feel so helpless
He flew to California to drive back to NYC with me, car and a rabbit in tow
He moved to California a few years later while I, still, am, here
He has six dogs and I have two
My cousin is hurting and I feel so helpless
Mi primo aka GI Joe
He inspired me to write “GI Joe and the Betty Crockers” (short story)
He is my childhood friend and former nemesis
He is mi primo, who brought home cabernet and chicken wings on Friday evenings after work
He is mi primo who’d go out to get a second bottle after we drank the first while reminiscing about the elders-the McCallas-who have a way of attracting so much trouble and producing so much emotional drama
My cousin is hurting and I feel so helpless
I am afraid of his illness, of confronting it, dealing with it, flying out there to take over, to take care of him-mama’s illness took a huge chunk of me out of me and the scar tissue that covers what was once the me is thick and crusty
Celebrating a b-day with mom, my mom and his Tia, his aunt
Mi primo está sufriendo y yo estaré allí para él.
(My cousin is hurting and I will be there for him)
The church I attend is going through a transition of the most unnerving kind.
Transition= looking for a new priest to take over the helm.
Our Rector of 25+ years retired.
The process involves the Vestry, the interim priest, the Finance Committee ,the Search Committee, Park Slope, Brooklyn USA and a dilapidated rectory in need of major remodeling. It also involves, the Bishop of the Diocese and his Canon-all must work together in the interest of the church and its ministries.
Okay.
I am a member of this church, on the Altar Guild and once served as an LEM (Licensed Eucharistic Minister). I am also on the Vestry. The same Vestry that will soon receive my resignation letter. Hopefully someone who has more experience ‘playing in the sandbox’ with others (team player and head nodder) will sit in the empty chair.
This person will be:
-Someone who can weave in and out of the verbal obstacles, disagreements, rudeness, and get the job done.
-Someone who has patience to listen to rhetoric without seeing double after two minutes.
-Someone who tithes and sacrifices for the church-basically having a vocabulary where “no” is blasphemy.
-Someone who thinks as a whole for the greater good instead of the one.
-Someone who loves and cares about the future of this church more than how good we look on financial fiscal reports.
I am not a team player.
I prefer my own sandbox, with my organized grains of sand and my shovels, coordinated by size. I don’t like to clean up big piles of mess I didn’t make and usually don’t make my own big piles of mess to have to clean up to begin with.
Church politics and spirituality does not mix well for me.
It’s hard to play the game, be fake and smile while I would rather stare at you and throw imaginary lethal eye darts that turn to green ooze upon contact. Yes, it’s not the Christian thing to do. But, Christians do. We are not perfect no matter how hard we project to be.
In order to navigate through church politics while keeping spirituality in place one has to be malleable with a soft heart. Know when not to say hurtful things or at least think before saying the hurtful things (Oh yeah, the Four Agreements). Listen with reason, argue with love and never roll your eyes at someone as they look the other way.
What is difficult to be is why my resignation takes place.
I am not a team player.
But, with time and space, I may learn to play with one or two, definitely not three…maybe.
Another part of my LENTEN observance involves drinking. Forty days and forty nights of alcohol abstinence.
Do I have a drinking problem? I don’t think so.
But…
Denial is difficult to overcome when nowadays the definition of alcoholism is so varied.
I have not had a glass of red/white wine, a vodka martini with three olives, double bourbon on the rocks in twenty-six days. Having two glasses of wine a night was a norm with the occasional martini/bourbon drink on the weekend. With the drinking, came the munching of cheese, salt, chocolate or whatever food complemented the drink at hand.
It has not been easy to not drink alcohol.
Social outings have diminished as most of the people I surround myself with drink. Then again, most of the people I surround myself with drink alcohol at bars. Social drinking is social drinking. We drink and socialize. Could we socialize without the drinking? Probably.
It has not been easy to not drink alcohol.
The glasses of wine I looked forward to after working an emotionally and physical shift are gone. Now I drink hot chocolate or chamomile or ginger tea. I no longer sit in front of the TV watching SVU re-runs, munching on bags of chips as Stabler and Benson solve a case. My class work is done on time and I actually retain the reading assignments.
Since I stopped drinking:
I have lost five pounds
Blood pressure reduced
Pulse is lower
Morning fog brain is gone
Active instead of sedentary-back to penguin running and registered to run a 5k in July
Junk food drastically cut down
Eating home food instead of ordering in
One restaurant outting-dinner with a diet coke
My glass is neither half-empty or half full-it is completely empty
What happens after forty days and nights of abstinence from alcohol? Will I return to old habits or is this experience a wake-up call towards better health.
The Four Agreements are four sentences, written in simple words, but simple does not describe the act of putting into practice on a daily basis, what those sentences contain.
1. Be Impeccable With Your Word.
Easily done on my end as I can consciously think before speaking or better yet stop the flow of nonsense words from leaving my jabbering lips before my brain has a chance to edit, omit, rephrase…
What of gossip?
Gossip seems to be a cultural norm and almost impossible to avoid. There is gossip at my church, gossip at work, gossip at home, gossip running into neighbours. Some gossip is good and positive while most is downright ugly. I feel guilty when I indulge in the ugly gossip, miserable after I participate in it and ready for confession to purge my guilt after listening to it.
Speaking against myself?
I speak against myself all the time. It is an everyday occurrence between me, myself and I. Rarely do all three agree except when doubt, self-esteem, finances and negativity issues come to the surface. Then it’s a fiesta!
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Truly a hard one as I take everything personally! I try to please, all the time, with people and especially animals. If someone is negative towards me, I chastise myself. That someone of negativity is not blamed for something I probably did to warrant that kind of treatment.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions.
Are you kidding me?
We are a country of assumers and you know the saying, “When you assume you make an a** out of you and me…”. ‘Nuff said.
Assumptions lack clarity. It is easier to assume than to strive for clarification because one avoids confrontation and there are those who would rather face plague than confrontation.
4. Always Do Your Best.
This, I must pay attention to, as doing, my best is always 150% and I am treated often as if it were only 10%. (That’s another topic to cover in the future dealing with race-Your 100% = My 150%) Always doing my best is just that-doing my best, not more, not less, just what is needed to the best of my ability. A hard agreement to put into practice but worth it when done.
Part of my Lenten observance is adherence to three themes and the Four Agreements offer an opportunity to combine the themes with a practice.
Contemplation, Action and Resolve are in relationship with the Four Agreements. Examination of one’s’ past in order to move forward with understanding is a requirement. Action is placed in motion through understanding how past actions affects our present thoughts. Resolve is reckoning and moving forward with a new perspective.
There is a much deeper level towards interpreting and understanding the four agreements and the effects on ones’ life. This entry was my interpretation.
![Four_Agreements[1]](https://anelemc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/four_agreements1.png)
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