I love being a Birth Doula

I just had to get away from the recent negative and sad posts, and what better way than to talk about births! I really do love being a birth doula. It is honestly the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Not monetarily, that's not what I am talking about.

I can't even imagine doing anything that is more awe-inspiring than witnessing a woman go through the process of bring life into the world and creating a family. I really try to be of service and hope that my contribution makes that transition a bit easier.

One of my clients from last year and I had lunch with her most awesome and precious little boy today. And I have started the "busy season" with lots of pre-natals and impending births. Two July babies, 2 August and 2 Septembers coming right up. Woo Hoo!!

Off to go meet with a client right now as a matter of fact. ; )

Follow up

I didn't expect to hear from the vet till late this afternoon, but he called me at 9:30 this morning. My poor little Gato Pato does in fact have lymphosarcoma of the intestinal area. The only course of treatment recommended is chemotherapy and steroids. It either works really well and keeps them in remission for a good long time or it doesn't do much and it's all over fairly quickly.

We are starting all this on Wednesday morning. I am not happy with the options of 1. chemo and steroids or 2. nothing. Nothing is not an option I can live with. Nothing is not what my Gato deserves. I have always said that if faced with the options of having to take chemo I didn't think I would be able to do it. But that is for me. That's not for my cat who can't voice his opinion. I just can't imagine that he would choose "let's do nothing and watch me die".

My plan is to take it week by week and see how he is doing. If he is going to respond well to this it will be noticeable right away in the first few weeks. I am hoping and praying for the best.

If you are so inclined I would really appreciate any prayers, good wishes and positive vibes. And I promise to get back to other topics.

Really Sad

My oldest and best pet, Gato Pato, is sick. He has been sickly for a while now. I took all the cats in for their yearly checkups and shots and such and asked the vet to please do some extra tests on Gato to find out what is going on with him. He had been at 11 lbs. at last year's check up and was down to 8 lbs. and change this year. In addition to losing weight, he had a few bald patches showing up and he was puking more than usual.

After running all the usual blood work they did x-rays, and skin scrapings from the bald spots. Everything came back normal. But it wasn't normal. So I persisted and asked for more tests, possibly an endoscopy, something. Monday we took him back in to see what the vet thought, either more blood work or the endoscopy or an ultrasound. They ended up doing a needle biopsy of the lymph glands of his abdomen.

Friday I got the call that it is definitely a tumor. One of two possible types. Both are bad. Both require steroid and chemotherapy as treatment. There are more in depth tests being run on those biopsy samples over the weekend and the vet will call me Monday to let me know the results and the course of treatment recommended.

This is terrible news. I wish I could explain how special my little Gato Pato is. My kids found him when he was a tiny kitten in a ditch on the side of the road by our house in Argentina. As near as we could pinpoint a birthdate, he was born right around when my Dad died. And in a weird way I have always considered Gato a link to my Dad. Gato is also the only one of my pets who was around and lived with my old dog Sam (r.i.p.) and he is the last link to my Sammy. He is just a really special cat. He lived with us in Argentina, moved to Chile and lived there for 3 years, then moved to Mexico City, then up to Minnesota, and finally here to Texas. I would call him a "well-traveled" cat. He hardly ever makes a sound yet you always know what he wants. He keeps the younger cats in line with a stern look. That's all it takes.

I love my Gato Pato and will do everything possible to help him to live a long, full, happy and pain-free life. I will look for some good photos of him and post them. My wish would be that everyone have an animal live with them that is like Gato Pato. He really is the best.

Follow Up Photos

First photo is bamboo and part of T.C. & M.B.'s house. See the dead grass in front? This is taken from my patio looking over the area of my yard that nothing will grow in because of the Water Hogging Bamboo.

This is more straight on of the side of T.C. & M.B.'s house and the huge pile of the former fence. R.I.P.

Close up of the pile of former fence.

This is way up at the complete back end of the property where we have the 3 brand new shiny metal poles. What you should notice is that there is MORE bamboo perpendicular to the other. I have bamboo growing on 2 sides of my property. It does offer some shelter from wind and I am sure even more homes to all sorts of woodland creatures. This bamboo has been there for 35 years and is approx. 3 stories high.

This is an aerial view of the top of one section of the bamboo.

This is the bottom half of the bamboo above.

This is looking down from the top of the backyard property line towards the house. That's a lot of frigging bamboo, isn't it? You should see how deep into T.C. & M.B.'s property it goes.

This is me trying to look into the bamboo and see out the other side. Not possible. Are you with me when I say "Why the hell does The Colonel care what the fence looks like?" He can't see the fence except for the part closest towards his house.

Here is a sprout of bamboo growing in my yard next to a terraced retaining wall about 12 to 14 feet away from the source. This shoot was not there yesterday.

What have we here? OMG!!! It's a FENCE BUILDER GUY! Guess what? 3 of them showed up today and brought tons and tons of heavy, manly equipment. Some of the manly equipment has generators and augers and all sorts of testosterone-laded metal stuff. Guess what else? There doesn't seem to be any progress. All the manly men and manly equipment are standing around idle. I see no end in sight to the No Fence Debacle. My poor dogs are most unhappy with the current state of affairs.

Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do with my side of the cursed CHAIN LINK FENCE. The trouble is I don't know if I can get anything to grow there due to . . . . .

wait for it . . . . . . . .

THE DAMNED BAMBOO. That's what.

Guess what else? I promise this is the last thing you have to guess! Guess who doesn't really care for bamboo?

Another Rant

So sorry to throw another rant (and moaning and bitching and grumbling) in here, but it had to be done.

My next door neighbors are the nicest, sweetest couple in the world. They are older than dirt and have been married for like 67 years. We call them The Colonel and Miss Betty. They are transplanted from somewhere in the deep South and about as proper as people get. Anyhoo, the Colonel calls me way back the first part of May and tells me how he thinks he should tear down the perfectly good cedar fence between our properties and put up a brand new, shiny CHAIN LINK FENCE in it's place. He seemed to think that the old and yet still perfectly good cedar fence was de-valuing his property and he wanted the new CHAIN LINK FENCE.

I should say that it had been made known to us when we bought this house that the fence in question is his fence. His house was the first one built on this side of the street and he put the fence 6 inches inside his property line. So the fence is his to do with as he wishes. I told him that on a list of priorities that fence was way down at the bottom as far as I was concerned. It was a good, solid fence with no cracks, no leaning, no problems as far as I could see. He said fine, we'll leave the fence. He calls me back a week or two later telling me that Miss Betty told him that fence was an eye-sore and needed to go before the both of them dropped dead and it totally de-valued their property.

So the point to this is that in order to take down his fence the fence people will have to work from our backyard and he wanted our permission for this to happen. Ask me why they have to work from our yard. Go ahead ask. Ok, I will tell you. The reason they have to work from our side is because 35 years ago when The Colonel built his all Asian-inspired house he put in bamboo all around the perimeter of his yard. This bamboo is 35 years old and about 10 or 12 feet thick now and spreads like wildfire. You can't get to his fence from his side without a machete in each hand and a dozen panda bears chewing as fast as they can. Let me step aside from the topic at hand to mention that not only does the bamboo spread in his property; it shoots up in my yard about 30 feet away from the source. It comes up from the roots and is a major water-hog. That stuff sucks the water away from everything else. There is no competition for the water. When it rains (way back in the day when it DID rain) that bamboo will send up shoots all over my yard and they grow 18 INCHES A DAY! You can practically watch it grow. We fight the bamboo and try our damnedest to get grass, clover, anything to grow in those areas all the time. Can you tell that I hate the bamboo? We keep trying to teach the dogs to break off the bamboo shoots and eat them. They will chew on them if we whack them down for them, but they aren't as industrious as they could be.

Back to the rant at hand: We tried to politely discourage The Colonel from chainlink and we offered to split the cost of a new wood privacy fence, but he flat out said no, it was his fence and he would pay for it his own self. Fine. We will make peace with the fact that we will have a chain link fence on that side. So, after many calls to tell us that the fence guys were coming the next morning and we need to take our dogs out to pee and poo and run around and then get them put inside for the day, and then the fence guys being no-shows (this happened 4 times at least. nice reputable company, wouldn't you say?) they finally showed up Friday. Turns out it is just one guy and his wife. They were supposed to remove the current fence and put in the new metal posts so that the next day the other crew could show up and put up the chain link stuff. They worked their asses off taking off the fencing and then using a jackhammer breaking up the concrete holding the fence posts to get the fence posts out. They worked till dark-thirty and only had 3 posts installed. This is a LONG expanse of fence and with a post at 8 foot intervals, it was going to take a lot of posts.

It is my understanding that the newly-cemented in posts need to cure before the other stuff is stretched and attached. Saturday came and no one showed up to continue putting in the posts. The Colonel calls and tells us that they are coming on Sunday. Mr. Big Ed and I look at each other and had the same thought "Yeah right. No one is coming to work on a Sunday. Especially not on Father's Day." But we didn't say that out loud and be all negative to The Colonel.

Guess what? Guess who didn't show up on Sunday? The fence guys, that's who! And here it is Monday at 1 p.m. And guess who didn't show up for work again today? The fence guys, that's who!!

And guess who has to take her 3 dogs out on leashes to pee and poo and exercise and then keep in the house all day? Me, that's who. Who is being most inconvenienced by this whole debacle? Me, that's who. I am none too happy with this situation. We are all trying to be nice. We are all trying to be patient. But seriously, who does this? What kind of professional fence company acts so unprofessionally?

I have been worried that The Colonel and Miss Betty may have paid these idiots up front and now we are all hosed. It is a fucking mess out there with all the downed fence laying there, the 3 new shiny posts sticking up out of really messy concrete and NO FENCE! My poor dogs are most unhappy with this situation and can't understand what the hell has happened to their routine.

The old adage "Good fences make good neighbors" is so true. I am trying my best to keep a good attitude and not just scream, but it is getting harder day by day. So, that's it. That's my rant for the day. Just had to get it off my chest and let it go. If you stayed with me till the end, thanks.

And now I am off to go walk each dog separately in the hot sun. That way I can be out there 3 times, not just once. Insert large doses of sarcasm here. I need to work on that "good" attitude I mentioned, don't I?

Big Brother 11 Coming Soon!

It is official, Big Brother starts up the summer excitement on July 9th. Woo Hoo!!!
This means they are back to Thursday nights this year. I will have to re-sign up on the 24 hour live feeds, get my DVR ready to record the after dark segments and start saving up my sleep credits since BB time is also No Sleep Time!!

Back to your regularly scheduled programming . . . . . . . . .

Actual Tea Shelves Photos!!!

Can you believe it? I finally got me and my camera together in the pantry to show you the tea stash. The first photo is the left half of the bottom shelf. It contains all the herbal and medicinal type teas and has the boxes of non-sugar sweeteners. We have stevia, Splenda, and some other stuff. I don't use any of them. They are there for others who do.

The middle photo is the right half of the bottom shelf. It has a big basket with all sorts of loose teas and in the front is a bag of the beautiful blooming teas. The space-age hermetically sealed teas that I haven't opened yet are all in there. The plastic tub is some bee pollen of Rachel Pie's.

Then we have the top shelf. These are mostly all black, green, white and red teas. Some of these things like the Constant Comment box contain a mix match of random singles rather than what they say. See the black box that has a blue section on the front that says Scottish Breakfast? Well, that is the favorite morning tea. I just love that tea. And that box has 50 tea bags, one for each Sunday of the year.

Oh, and behind the bee pollen is a tin that contains a bunch of teas. Underneath it is a wooden box with all ginseng teas from Korea that was a gift. And underneath that is a blue gift box that contains a bunch of Bigelow teas.

Just a note to self: This is almost 6 months in to this challenge. And I still have lots of teas. I will use up a lot of them starting next week when I get my kombucha out of hibernation in the fridge. This will use up 5 bags each week. Sometimes I run two kombuchas at a time. One batch from black tea and one of green tea. So that would seriously deplete the tea stock in just a few months. This is what I intended a lot of the unopened tea for, but I put the kombucha away and started the Amish Fiendish bread. I didn't want to have competing yeasty, moldy, bacteria things going in the kitchen and end up screwing them both up. I decided Thursday that it will be my last Fiendish bread for a while. It is just too damn much baking for the summer. If I had finished my solar oven, well maybe. But now is the time for peaches and watermelon not baked goods. Now is also a really good time for the refreshing kombucha in the fridge.

So now you can see what I have been going on about with the teas. I have decided to stick with the challenge and see how I do. It has been a real learning experience for me to see what I had and to realize how mindlessly I was picking up things at the store. As the tea situation changes I will post some updated photos. Maybe do a before and after?

Back to the weekend!! Enjoy yourselves whatever you are doing.

Bette Davis was right!!!

That Bette Davis, now she was a woman you didn't mess with! Talk about feisty and gutsy. I bet her middle name was Feisty. Bette Feiste Davis. That looks about right.

Anyhoo, so Bette Davis is famously quoted as saying "Getting old is not for the faint of heart, or wimps, or wussies, or something". It has become crystal clear to me what she meant by this. I turned the big 5 - 0 in December, so that makes me 50 years and 5 months give or take a day or two. And since that time menopause has kicked my memory's ass. Kicked it down the street, around the block, up in the air and slam-dunked it into the trash. That is how bad things are getting. If I was faint of heart, or a wimp, or a big fat wussie I might be considering getting in bed, pulling the covers up over my wimpy head and staying there.

You might be asking yourself, "Self, what the hell is Lisa Pie going on about". The answer to that is this: Wednesday I loaded all sorts of crap in my car to take to Goodwill. I got in the car and drove off realizing I had my cel phone in my pocket and reached in to put it in the cup holder that doubles as my cel phone holder. This is when I found NOT my cel phone, but my house phone! Which was by the by, searching desperately for the base. I did say to myself at that time, Lisa Pie you Gomer, what the hell are you doing? After successfully giving the items to the Goodwill guy and not giving him all the rest of the stuff in my car, I went around front of the store and thought I might just go in and see if they have anything that is on my "wish list". I reached for my purse and it dawned on me that I had grabbed the wrong purse. This purse was a cute, small purse that I had used on my last roadtrip but had nothing in it but some change. No license. No credit cards. No $$$$$. Nothing. Zip.

I was driving around without a license! I have not done that before. Ever. So I very, very carefully went back home to leave the house phone and pick up the right purse before I headed over to Super Target to do my regular shopping and not bothering with Goodwill Wish List shopping.

Yesterday, I kept running around like a hummingbird flitting from one thing to another, never staying on task or finishing a damn thing. At some point I got something on my pants and decided to just take them off and find a few like-colored things and wash them. So I dropped my pants and tossed them in the sink and then hit them with the Stain Stick and ran a load of light colors. Later on I was at the computer, like I am now while typing this, and looked down to my right where I always have my cel phone, house phone and a cup of tea and there was the tea and the house phone. No cel phone. Where the hell did I leave my cel phone? Immediately I remembered going to my closet to change and thought "Oh, I bet I left in the closet for the 1,423,456th time". It wasn't there! So I got the house phone and started calling it so I could hear it ring. Straight to voice mail, but the caller tune wasn't playing. That's very odd. Why would that not be working? Shit, on top of everything else I am going to have to call T-mobile and ask what is up with the damn caller tunes. Then a horrible thought occurred to me, and it wasn't a bolt of lightening thought, it was more like a slow oozing molasses in winter thought that washed down from the top recesses of my brain. Holy Moley, I bet the cel phone was in my pants pocket when I doused it in the sink and threw it in the washer!! O. M. G.

This was not a happy thought for me. This is something I would make fun of other (cough, Rachel Pie, cough) people for doing. I opened the washer and there it was on the bottom underneath all the damp clothes. Washed, rinsed and spun-dried. Can you believe that? I couldn't.

I do know that I have read that if your phone ever gets wet, damp, excess moisture you are supposed to take the back off, remove SIM card, battery and let everything dry out really well. So that is what I did. Except every hour or 2 I would put it all back together to check it and see if it was working. It wasn't. Are you surprised? I wasn't.

Today, I put it back together and guess what? It is working again! The screen is not as clear as it was, but if you didn't know this story and looked at it I am willing to wager you might not know the difference either. This phone is 4 years old and I have been thinking seriously about upgrading for a long time now. But now, I am not so sure. If a phone can go through what this one did, and still have the ummpphh to keep working, this might be a phone to stick with!

So, I am thinking I may have to go see some sort of doctor, accupuncturist, herbalist, something to help manage my hormones so I don't keep losing my marbles. Or purse. Or house phone. Or cel phone. Or whatever else I have misplaced and just can't remember yet!!

I think this is why older women act like they don't give a shit about what other people think. They have already got too much on their minds as it is without having to be concerned with whether their shoes match, or the young cute girls in the store think they are laughable, or whether they picked up the right purse.

Raise a glass and toast Bette Davis. Now, she is a woman worth emulating!

New t.v. shows, series, cancellations, etc.

Ok, what gives? Every time I turn around there are fabulous shows that are smart, witty, well-written and just plain good being cancelled and yet ANOTHER Real Housewives of (fill in the blank). Does anyone actually give a big hairy rat's ass about these clueless rich idiots? Why are they cancelling My Name is Earl? And Pushing Daisies? Is it not the most clever show that has ever been put on the air? It's a sad day in t.v. land that is for sure.

New stuff I have found and am making it a point to watch this summer:

Weeds - technically I have watched every episode, but it's the new season that just started up. I give this series **** (that's 4 stars)
Nurse Jackie - brand new series starring Carmela Soprano as an oxy-snorting nurse with questionable morals. Could be a good one, hard to tell just from one episode. ***
True Blood - I just started this one. I am late, I know. But I wasn't sure I wanted to see a vampire series. I have seen several episodes and I am still on the fence. Any thoughts?
In Treatment - ***** 5 stars right off the bat. How freaking awesome is this show? Someone needs to be commended for this.

Other summer stuff that has started back up again:

The Closer - I love this show. I love Kyra Sedgwick. I love Brenda Lee! I love all the characters, especially her parents. Now, those 2 are a hoot!
Raising the Bar - not sure I love this show, but I am watching it to give it a chance and see what happens. It's hard to watch Malcolm's mom being the bad ass judge and yelling at Zack from Saved by the Bell! :)

More summer stuff that hasn't started yet that I am looking forward to:

Saving Grace - this is some fine television. And who doesn't love some Holly Hunter? ****
BIG BROTHER - I haven't heard a word anywhere about when, who, new twists and turns, nothing. This is the grand daddy of all the summer trash shows and I stay glued to the prime time shows, the Showtime after dark shows and the online feeds. Big Brother is a time in my life when I get very little sleep. : )

I also have a guilty pleasure of watching the Real World and the Real World-Road Rules Challenge shows and Sex with Mom and Dad, Parental Control, True Life, some of those shows on MTV. Remember when MTV showed what they are named for, Music Videos? Kinda like when TLC was The Learning Channel, not the Let's Exploite Weird Families Channel.

You have to have a little mindless rubbish to mix in with all the good stuff, right? The problem is they keep cancelling all the good stuff and adding more rubbish to the mix. Any shows you love being cancelled? Any new stuff coming on that is worth the watch? Can you imagine how much stuff I would get done around my house if I didn't have cable?

Me, neither!

Rambling on the last week and such

I have *got* to get in the habit of carrying my camera around on my person so that I can post pictures here! I love blog photos, so what is wrong with me not doing it? If I had been photo journaling my tea stash each month end it would be a much better thing to follow. Plus anyone who looks at it will immediately notice what changes have been made from the previous photos. Yep, I need to be photographing what my posts are about. I am a HUGE visual learner anyway, it would probably make a bigger impact on my results if I had the photographic inducement (if that is even a word).

I do appreciate all the suggestions on how I could be handling this tea hoarding better. And I am almost thinking I should do Kristin's suggestion of donating tea and starting over fresh. But on the other hand it seems like I am learning something about myself by seeing the tea stash going down and even more, learning to resist the temptation of the Siren's Call of the Tea Aisle! And in case you are worried that I am drinking old, crappy tea that has lost it's flavor; fear not! I am still drinking tea that is in tins and not too old yet. The much newer tea is from a now-defunct teapot and tea store that is sealed in those heavy pouches like coffee beans come in. As soon as I get done with all the other tea I will open one pouch of this tea at a time and put it into the tins I am saving on the top shelf of my pantry. I think as long as those bags are still hermetically sealed that tea should last forever. The bags look like something that goes into the Space Station. I will do my best to get in there and photograph each shelf of the tea space in the pantry and I will also try to finish off one tin before moving on to the next rather than skipping around and never using the last bit of tea in any of them!

Last weekend Rachel Pie and I went on a retreat with lots of doulas and just spent the weekend either in swimsuits or in pajamas. It was so relaxing and exactly what I needed. Even if I couldn't get any of them to put their brains back in and play Mah Jongg with me! : ) Maybe another time . . . . . . Then we got back home and Rachel Pie started cleaning out her room and we have a huge donation stack for Goodwill. Two big thumbs up for that! Tuesday she left me and went back to school for a job interview. Summer jobs trump staying at home with Mom and playing cards all night for some reason. Sad, sad, sad has been my mood. Even if the small Rachel Pie girl wasn't my own daughter, my very own flesh and blood I would still want to know her and hang out with her all the time. She is just flat out one of the most awesome people on the planet. Yea Rachel!!! I say Hooray for Rachel Pie all the time and I have all her life. She really is the best.

Then I went to see my sister to help her prepare for her daughter (my niece Katie Pie) to graduate high school and all the festivities with family. The weather was beautiful, the company was the best, and the food turned out really good. I see great things ahead in little Katie Pie's future. She has a great head on her perfect shoulders! My sister has done an awesome job raising her kids.

And as much fun as it has been making all these little jaunts around the state to see people graduate and celebrate them and their accomplishments, it is so nice to come home and get back to a routine. Plus when I am gone I don't get to sleep with 15 cats and one fat dog! Don't get me wrong, I missed Mr. Big Ed too. But I missed my furry creatures! Niece and nephew dogs and cats are fun, but you don't have the intimate knowledge of which one likes scratching behind the ears vs. the one that wants it under the chin. You know what I mean.

Now I am back to my glamourous life of doing laundry and cleaning up furr balls. Oh. the. joy.

End of May Tea Hoarding Report

Doesn't that tea shelf unit thing look nice and organized? Mine is similar, but I have those stairstep things that sit on your shelves so that the back stuff is higher than the front stuff and you can actually see what is back there and use it! Can you tell that that is leading in to say that there is still oodles, gobs, pletheras and hosts of teas in my pantry? (By the by, those are all words used in the obits about how many friends and relatives the deceased has) You gotta love an obit that uses the word "oodles", don't you? :)

Back to the tea - yep, here we are at the end of month 5 and I STILL have not run low, run out or bought more tea. I have bought tea, just not for me. I bought tea for my husband to drink and I bought some to take to my sister's house. That's just something we do when we visit each other. As far as tea for me and my very own consumption, nope I am still using up the old stuff.

Not really much to report. I could just cut and paste the last couple of month's reports and used them. Maybe I won't bother doing this again until there is something to talk about?

Back to your regularly scheduled programming . . . .