"The Freaks are here!"

Nine years ago, when Dr. Rodger was struggling to begin Fairbanks' first independent after hours emergency vet (instead of having each vet answer their own phone in the wee hours) she decided that "reverse trick-or-treating" during other vets' regular business hours would be a good way to network and find out how all those sick patients did after they left her care and went back to their regualr DVMs. The treats she brought were her now-famous Moravian spice cookies. Nine years later, she hasn't missed a year of this reverse-trick-or-treat. And she still bakes all the treats. Some clinics get a cake in addition to cookies, truffles, pumpkin creme brulee. There are at least 11 veterinary clinics to stop at.

This group photo was taken at Chena Ridge Clinic, where Dr. Battig was expecting us and had both the pets and staff already in costume. In our gang: The guy in the back holding up the metallic tubing claimed to be a "fecal loop"-- a collection 'wand' for . . . .yeah, you guessed it. Not only did he get to ride in the back of the SUV, but he lead us into every vet clinic through the exit door.
Dr. Love, front, kneeling, used two battery operated leg-humping dogs that someone purchased from Skinny Dick's Bar off the Parks Highway. I was the overly cerebral platelet. . . more on this soon.

Omega Paw Whirly Mouse Jr.

I has Issue MomCat is housesit for won hole month and me wil bee h0me alone. IM usual roll the covers, carpet, open trash empty tape dizpencr, eat bugz. I haz a wish on list on momCAts hed
up theyr

"The Whirly Mouse Jr. expands on the fun of the Mouse Pom Pom by adding a whirling track ball base. This mouse shaped toy is made of durable carpet and plastic, including a spring and jingle pom pom tail that moves at the slightest bat. The brightly colored track ball spins wildly with each whack, keeping cats entertained for hours on end. With it's many playing features, the Whirly Mouse Jr. is a "must have" toy for cats."

Righting write threw it

Have you ever had a book manuscript that feels like a physical disfigurement, something that you can NOT escape and that continues to bring both horribly painful and joyous attention to you in equal measure? In graduate school I "completed" (a generous term from my advisor) a 550 page novel that was relatively easy to walk away from. Oh well. It's just like practicing your trumpet in the basement: a good, loud, warm-up. And I've always written. By the eighth grade my projects would be 30 or 40 pages before their completion was interrupted by interest in something else. High school had me writing in my dorm room on Friday and Saturday nights instead of socializing.
But THIS ONE, she is THE one. . .and it's not even about the loss of the friendship that originally characterized this non-fiction project. It's about the gifts of dichotomy, the elasticity of the world. It's about starting awake in the middle of the night--even 2+ years later-- smelling the dusty linoleum of the Kategaya compound as it smelled precisely between the hours of 8 and 10 each morning (too hot by noon). But I continue to trouble with the actual SHAPE of this project. Any thread/image of several dozen could start the manuscript. I can't choose. And it's not linear (jeeezus, is ANYTHING of mine EVER?) The shape of this manuscript reminds me of a sea anemone . . .and there's a small, orange fish is snuggled at the heart of the animal beneath all the stingers.

It's only fair. And it's chocolate. And it's only asking for 5%.

and did you know that leopard slugs--despite being hermaphrodytic--spend about an hour 'chasing' each other up a tree by "nibbling" on each other's hind parts then twirling together until they make a mucous cord that dangles from a tree branch where they THEN extrude their really ugly male tubule-thingys from BEHIND THEIR EYES and twist this into some kind of parachute and exchange sperm to fertilizer each other's eggs?? Thank you David Attenborough and BBC for INSOMNIA!!!!!
If you'd like more (TRULY) breathtaking examples of what modern mini-cameras (and a good old guy with a chamomile voice;) can capture, look up "Life in the Undergrowth" on DVD at the Fbx library.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/gx/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6571&t=ActionCenter.dwt

Thank You

Thank you to the anonymous friend who took the time and effort to put an illustrated magnet on my metal door: "Artists and Writers alone in their chairs changing the world (one line at a time)"
You've inspired me to push farther, faster.

I saw a plaque the other day in the "Signals" catalogue that said: "You are the friend everyone wishes they had".


Of bodily limitations: After a "sea change" of night sweats and sodden pillowcases I'm back down to 98.6 F! It no longer hurts to move my eyes!!! I think the flu may exist (in first-world countries, at least) to redeem our pleasure in the simplest things.

Alaskan playground games

Last week I was watching several elementary classes enjoy afternoon recess on a broad playground. While most children were on the play equipment, a set of six snowsuit-clad little people were on hands and knees, in three pairs of two, swish-swishing their knees over the cripsy snow while staying shoulder-to-shoulder with a partner. A little boy was standing and walking behind them. I wondered what they were doing and then the boy yelled "Gee!" (turn right) then a little later "Haw!" (turn left). He was mushing a dog team --of course!

At least I got a kernel of amusement out of last week's subbing because I also got the most horrific GI flu. Wish me luck with my first saltine today.

Two of Note

"My friends are my estate." --Emily Dickinson

"No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow." --Alice Walker

"Hopped up on goofballs"

Someone used the above phrase about me several years ago to describe what I was like after working a double veterinary shift and returning to an early am job the following day. The night before usualy involved massive quantities of refined sugar and caffeine. I am, apparently, extra funny when I free-associate with that level of fatique.

I wrote yesterday's post on my ten-minute lunch break in a sped ED classroom. I hit 'post' just as the bell rang. My lunch was shorter than usual because I had to sit with a little fellow while he stared at his half PB&J on white bread sandwich. He couldn't go out to recess until he took a bite. Other food offerings in the room included a ketchup sandwich, lunchables, m&ms, graham goldfish, pre-packaged jello (in those little plastic cups) and a baggy of those mint-pastel squares that the boy actually decided to spit out all over the room. There were lots of other things in colorful, crinkly wrappers, but suffice it to say none were fruit/veg or non-Wonder breaad. Hot lunch yesterday was chicken-fried steak, french fries, pizza. Salad was available. I did go to the school district's community "Wellness Forum" two weeks ago. They ARE trying. Food services was there, as was the new curricula for 'health education' and P.E.
Effie Kochran charter school does a summer gardening program and they do take some students on moose hunting expeditions (I subbed last week for a teacher who was leading one . . .getting ready for the AFN Potlach). But the reality of eating locally grown up here in Alaska, I think, is particularly difficult AND poignant-- when we think about natural resources used to get our Outside food supply up here. In the lower forty-eight, the average school lunch has travelled 1500 miles from where it was produced. How much oil does it take to send our food 2500+ miles? The products are, as most large scale food products are, from feedlots and monoculture farms. A wonderful friend with farming in his 1970's childhood reminded me that family farms DO exist!! They do! But . . .
I ran a google search "Where does your school lunch come from?" and mused over even setting up an adjunt blog to trace this kind of thing . . .with Fairbanks, Alaska at the center. I'd like to list the restaurants that buy local food products, etc.

I can not rant anymore until I have some suggestions besides farmers' markets, hunting, trapping, buying local (Delta, Mat-Su) for our personal use and trying to minimally take part in industrial agriculture. And yes, I am meeting a friend for lunch at Quizno's.

More soon.

"The Farm" as educational myth

So this post is not meant to be as depressing as the last! In the last several weeks I've been amazed to notice the ubiquity of "farm" in education -- toys of every variety, animals that make every sound, BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS about farm life and animals, electronic toys that quack and moo and bleat like sheep. Eyewitness (R) books make a whole series about farms. And what we are portraying and teaching NO LONGER EXISTS. We are portraying it as if this type of pre-1950s farm were as universal as the golden arches and KFC. If we are to ever talk seriously about our food supply here in the States, if we are ever to make changes to the welfare of farm animals and responsible agriculture . . .we need to stop lying to our children about where eggs and milk come from. From an Eyewitness book : "The cows come to the gate. It is milking time! The farmer milks the cows. He will sell the milk for people to drink. The cows go back to the field to munch grass"
Most dairy cows never see pasture. The don't come to the gate. The farmer doesn't sell the milk because he is an employee.
Think about it. Then do something about it (CAT).

Do they have ANY idea?

The upside to waiting and watching for this UAF vet tech job to coalesce is that I have gotten to take enough sub jobs with the school district to actually get a feel for individual school character and district procedure. Every discipline has its own in-speak and every workplace has its own abbreviations that make absolute sense to the initiated. Consider the abbreviated OCD. In the school district this is the student who's been placed in Sped-ED for obsessive compulsive disorder. In the veterinary world this is a dog that needs elbow surgery because he has osteochondritis dessicans. For the most part I've been taking the extremely hard to fill "special education AID" positions. There IS a classroom teacher with specialized training and years of experience. I am "merely" a facilitator, minion, pal, humorist, and quasi-nurse. There are usually two or three aids to each teacher in a single special ed classroom of anywhere from 5 to 12 students. Special ed breaks down into two sections (from what I can tell): Special ed, emotionally disturbed (ED), or special ed intensive resource. "Intensive resource" is the integration of individuals with such profound alterations to 'normal' that daily bodily functions and basic language is a challenge. Until today, I hadn't done it at the high school level. I do pretty well with almost anything you totally throw me into, but my actual spirit fell a little today. After lunch, when all the other 800 (a thousand?) teenagers went into their classrooms -- English and algebra and life sciences and U.S history -- we, the motley assortment of us, ambled, wheeled, drooled, sauntered through every hallway of the building picking up the trash left behind from lunch. Granola bars(whole) and french fries, wrapper after wrapper, bottle caps and "Wendy's" drink cups left, half-filled, under the water fountain. Most of the classroom doors were open. You could peer inside to a brightly lit hub of activity where 'normals' were working on higher level tasks that might take them to college . . . or anywhere but into the hallways with us. And, by the time the class bell rang, we were gone from the hallways, just as ALL the trash was, every absentminded bit of 'entitlement' left where it was for the invisible retards to pick up. And they don't even know it. Those kids in those rooms whining and complaining and waiting for the bell to ring don't even know that THIS is what we do for an entire eighty-minute class period. After that we went and learned to wash potatoes for baking.

Tomorrow I've accepted an elementary level special ed aid- ED job. I think I'll stay with the ED jobs for now on. The 'intensive resource' is, in-truth, just too much for me. There isn't enough of me to give to them.

Helen, Calvin, Hobbes

The snow is really here this time. If anyone has any pointers on Internet copywrite issues--as related to this blog-- please share. Otherwise, you should know that the Helen Reddy lyrics are included because my best friend just realized that her husband has them memorized! This is another reason I've spent so much time on their couch recently. You'll need to click on the cartoon to actually read it. Sorry



-Artist: Helen Reddy from "Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits": EMI ST 11467
-peak Billboard position # 1 for 1 week in 1972
-Words and Music by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again

CHORUS
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
'cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

CHORUS

I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong

FADE
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

Another thing to love about where I live

Where else could one of my doctor-friends come running into my house in her scrubs, right before her shift, "You still want a sewing machine? My husband says I have to get rid of it in this move and it's in the car."
I will unbox the machine today. I hope it's basic enough for this private-school-girl who never had home economics. My half-finished Halloween costume for our annual "veterinary trick-or-treat" is also begging to be finished.

It looks very much like my non-literary article "Volunteering for the Heifer Project: Farming for a better world" will go to print in Vet Tech magazine with some photo credits from Alexander (maybe he'll write a paragraph of two, but 9th grade is heating up for him;). That's a nice ego boost after a dry spell.

I've been tooling around on a dating site for the last few days, and I feel prompted to remark on how many portraits actually take the time to say "I like a woman who looks good." This sentiment is often encapsulated in things like "want someone who dresses nicely" "works on their body" "takes pride in their appearance". The other thing that is sooo common is the overly cliche "No Games" disclaimer. Not even Scrabble, gentlemen?? I know what they MEAN, of course. . . handle with care and wrap up your own issues first.
OK . . .to be totally crass, looking at these dating sites reminds me of looking at bovine sperm catalogs on the farm! You get this glossy 20 page brochure with glowing photos of muscled black Angus bulls standing square on lush pasture. You get their "stats" --how many daughters vs. sons they have "thrown", you get thee milk production stats on their daughters (including butterfat percentage), and the "carcass weight" of their sons, you get to see the MOTILITY coefficient of the sperm! In each catalogue there's usually a "featured bull" (like the 'match member of the month'). You can then order a tiny dry-iced straw of genetic material from New Zealand. . . or Australia . . .or Ireland . . .and pin lots of hopes on things that are too often beyond our own control.

I'm off to show preschoolers xrays of "doggies"!

Waiting for a "Little"!

I had an hour-and-a-half long interview with the "matchmaker" at Big Brothers/Big Sisters yesterday that went very, very well. It was wonderful, especially right now in my life, to hear how much I had to offer and how they felt --even with a "rocky" residential history on the app ("a lot of people in Fairbanks have this kind of 'address' page")--that I was a super-good candidate. The next step is for her to call all the refs, make sure I'm not a criminal on the run, and set up a meeting with a family and a future "little" ***note to everyone** Big Brothers/Big Sisters needs MEN!! If you've EVER considered trying this organization, go for it! I made it clear that I enjoy working with boys as well girls, but understand a boy wanting a male "big".

I'm really excited!! It may take a while for it all to happen, but hopefully not as long as it takes UAF's HR to get me hired to develope their vet tech program (haha. Wry, overdrawn$ laughter)

Sushi Interval

It feels funny to eat be eating sushi with friends on a snowy day in Fairbanks Alaska . . .but lucky, too. Like fondling pineapples in the store in January when it's -50.

Back to preschool tomorrow. They'll be something funny to report on, I'm sure.
namaste--

=^..^=

Untangled

Oh friends, these have been painful days. I'm sorry this blog has taken on such a "personal" quality--but good writing IS personal. And "mistakes" of the heart and voice could not be more universal. I deleted an earlier entry today, and realized that the harm I continue to do to myself IS IN RESCINDING MY VOICE, buckling to someone else's anger and denial. Letting myself be silenced because I'm afraid of how someone else will take it is the WORST form of editing. And I have been editing myself for far too long. I hurt myself most, and others second, when I am not totally honest. Grow [back] up, Cat. The others might follow. Or they might not. It's none of my business anymore. Speak the truth, because that is the love.

I got moved yesterday

Instead of the preschool class yesterday, they REALLY needed me down the hall in "Intensive Resource". Friends, the men and women that work with these kids EVERY DAY are iron-spirited faith-based saints! Diapers and tube feedings and braces and violent fits, each child so drastically different in their needs you wonder if you are doing anything but passing the time with them, covering your ears for the screaming and washing your hands of spittle . . .they EACH need one/one and you just can't provide it. I was asked back and told I did a good job, but I'm dissapointed to discover I can't give them even a fraction of the spirit-lead optimism that they deserve. *Sigh*

"This is your life" . . .but just for now

I'm going back to preschool at Ladd Elementary today, Friday and Monday. One of their three classroom teachers got called on a family crisis. Again, this qualifies as a "special ed" classroom, but it's hard for me to pick out the developmental delays in this group. I'm sooo cool with playing blocks, balloon toss and circle time. Because we have a minor dusting of snow this week, school policy mandates that--even though it's still +30 outside--everybody has to don their Dora Explorer/Hot Wheels snow suits for just "crossing the street" outside. With three and four-year-olds you can guess that THIS procedure of dress/undress actually IS almost the entire class. It is handy, however, that if a kid starts to slip on the ice you can just grab the crown of their hood and tote them along to safety.

To take this job at Ladd Elem. I had to reschedule a pro-bono "vet talk" I was going to do with an in-home daycare. Next week I'll do it with xrays of birds, snakes, puppies and some coloring books. Kids. kids, kids is the "theme" this week. I have A LOT more vet work on the horizon in the next few months, so I'm just trying to enjoy this.

I also have to return a call to Big-Brothers-Big-Sisters . . .a lengthy application process I'm both excited and nervous about, just because of the way my life is "cobbled together". 'Cause I'm in the schools already, though, that means I passed the borough's background check and they have my fingerprints on file and I don't have TB. Woohoo! There's at least one thing to be really grateful for this week! I don't have TB!
OK. TRULY. enough self-gratifying self pity, Cat. Put on your big girl panties and get on with it.
Writing. Book contracts. Still working on it, but not getting paid while working on it. . .

Where I'm subbing next week!

I will be the school secretary for a few days. STILL waiting on UAF. Have an article pending in Vet Tech Journal
http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/index.php?i_page=250

Preschool!

I am a preschool techer today! Today is YELLOW day! We made lemonade with real lemons! Sparky the fire dog came today and the fire-guys dressed up in their gear and told us not to be afraid of them when they come to rescue us! Boys are yucky, but sending angry e-mails is a bad choice! Make better choices!

"An Imaginative Supposal"

This entry's quoted title is C.S. Lewis' phrase from his introduction to "The Great Divorce" which -BTW- if you're going to listen to as a book-on-tape from the library you should NOT do while cleaning the house (why is my hairbrush in the freezer??).
The actual book "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" by ZZ Packer is a satisfying fiction read about human beings,racial identity, the state of the world and the intersection of the two. The movie I saw yesterday "310 to Yuma" was a cowboy western set in 1868 where one of the most memorable details (not it's BEST, however) was a man killing another around the campfire with the fork he used for his beans. After that matinee I tried "The Jane Austen Book Club" but walked out after the first fifteen minutes when it was clear that the movie was about seven down-on-their-romantic-luck women . . .and I've only read one Jane Austen book . . .I'm apparently missing the gene that makes them interesting.

**that's the end of weekend-eclectic-media-recap! Tune in next Monday!**

The coral of an ice cream cone

At a table of eight people last night I misheard "the curl of an ice cream cone" (soft serve) as "the coral of an ice cream cone"-- an image that immediately evoked the 'petticoat' that fluffles from under the scoop-shape of hard ice cream.

Well, that's not really as FUNNY as I promised . . .
You could tell by the muted-blue quality of the light this morning, even before looking outside, that the snow is here. Not much. We'll see if it stays. Still have the creepy feeling that I should've woken up somewhere else for this event.

Here's a funny photo from the farm archives I like to subtitle: How come I smell rotten eggs every time I hit the gas peddle??

Gray Day

It's the kind of day that requires aphorisms and faith to get through. Growth is painful, but it IS growth.
I was supposed to teach at Pearl Creek Elementary but the job was cancelled. Snow looks likely, judging from the tin-spoon color of the sky. There is some good news in my world, just not in this blog entry.

Anonymous lessons on change (I didn't write these). I am on chapter 2 in my particular growth curve. Thank you to D'NAH for these!!! The next blog entry will be FUNNY--promise!!

Chapter 1.
I walk down a street and there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. It takes forever to get out. It's my fault.

Chapter 2.
I walk down the same street. I fall in the hole again. It still takes a long time to get out. It's not my fault.

Chapter 3.
I walk down the same street. I fall in the hole again. It's becoming a habit. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter 4.
I walk down the same street and see the deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter 5.
I walk down a different street.

Last day as probation-officer

Kids were starting to get to know me, ask me if I was staying . . .I'm a little sad it's over. I went into the daycare nursery, "health professions" class and anatomy and phys in the morning.

Full house for lunch detention. One stricken-looking ninth grader shakily signed in and sat down at an empty table before everyone else arrived.
"Did you get your lunch?" I asked.
"We're allowed to eat?" he asked in a near-whisper.

Now THAT would be cruel and unusual! To detain a 14-year-old boy without food

I had two student "clients" in the afternoon.

Well Connected

On my third day running "ISS" (in-school-suspension) at Hutchinson High School I had ZERO kids in suspension. What did I do all day (except for the 23 minutes of lunch detention I proctored for a 9th grader who called another student a 'jerk off')?? I got to know the ladies in the career counseling office, reorganized their files, talked to them and the principal about vet tech programs . . . seeing as they already have medical terminology classes and affiliation with UAF. "Hutch" HS is an incredible facility--the most well-equipped and interesting high school I've been in so fa--with day care, a beautiful parenting wing, a cafe for the culinary arts students to sell us braised pork-something-with-porcini-mushrooms, real trucks and airplanes for the engines learners, and on and on. While in the office I noticed a plaque on the edge of the check-in desk that said "Area Identifiers, 10% for Art Program, 2006 Stewart Allison." STEWART ALLISON? He's half of my favorite writer/artist pair in Anchorage that saved my life and employed me as a dog sitter! I asked why the plaque was on the check-in counter. The lady sheepishly replied that "it was dropped off and had a really sticky backing and no one was sure where it went." I wandered around the empty halls and--sure enough--the plaque belonged underneath the "area identifier"s for automotive, small engine, and welding. Stewart is dexterous in many, many mediums, but he makes these incredible "collages" of familiar elements, storied pairings of 3-D images with bright colors. Hope he doesn't mind I'm writing this here. I think I'll look up a link for him now . . .

A big bully of a reminder . . .

. . .from junior high school . . .

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT YOU IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS

*sigh* it's about THEM--this scramble and scuffle and plea-bargaining

Yes, I'm here again. Only stronger and smarter. It's time to get out of their way as they struggle with themselves and try to blame me.

My scattered life . . .redeemed!! (?)

"The Unsettling of America, Culture & Agriculture" by Wendell Berry is a long essay of incredible depth, drawing from so many sources . . .Shakespeare, the Bible, university presidents, heads of state and private conservation groups. It's like reading the doctoral/PhD thesis of Michael Pollan if he'd been to seminary. I am enjoying the heft of the argumentation, but was stunned to hear an idea that brought great comfort to me in the way I have so many interests, dual-careers, a farming mentality.

(excerpts)
"The disease of modern character is specialization. The aim of specialization may seem desirable enough. The aim is to see that the responsibilities of government, law, medicine, engineering, agriculture, education, etc., are given to the hands of the most skilled, best prepared people.
. . .The first, and best known, hazard of the specialist system is that it produces specialists--people who are elaborately and expensively trained to do ONE THING. A system of specialization requires the abdication to specialists of various competencies and responsibilities that were once personal and universal... This supposedly fortunate citizen is therefore left with only two concerns: making money and entertaining himself. Since he can do so little else for himself, there exists an enormous industry of exorbitantly expensive specialists whose purpose is to entertain him.
. . .He does not know what he would do if he lost his job, if the economy failed, if the utility companies failed, if the police went on strike, if he should be found incurably ill. And for these anxieties, of course, he consults certified experts. It is rarely considered that this average citizen is anxious because he OUGHT to be."

The Breakfast (and Lunch) Club

This week I am the ISS "teacher" at Hutchinson High School. I run the in-school-detention program. All week. I think the staff was a little put off at first when diminutive ol' me showed up . . .I just said as long as no one has diarrhea on the floor or needs CPR we'd all be fine. And I know how to use a muzzle.