Simon Draws: Tabby Cats - AND MY OWN CATS

Here is my own mackerel - Chicken Bone

See his nice stripes and big ears?
"The better to eat [ anything I find lying around], my dear!"

I SEE SICK PEOPLE!

     Taka is sick. Cold, - I think, - and cough. We bought honey for him, but the only thing that a little Mexican shop near us had, was a tiny round bottle of honey with a piece of honeycomb inside. At first, Taka liked the idea of eating something so authentic. Then parts of the honeycomb began to fall off and get in his teeth. Now he is trying to empty the bottle into another container - without the offending wax in it!


     Roberta is also sick. It's her gall bladder. I offered her all kinds of healthy and nutritious foods, but she said that she was not hungry. Then - Park came back from helping at the food bank in a church nearby. Apparently, the church is Black, and they want to attract other people to their services. They offered Park to take home anything he wanted from the food bank. The troll took a ton of food! Ten tuna cans, ten peanut butter jars, many pounds of apples! He wants to bring some of it to a church where he is directing a choir. 
     He immediately began to stick stuff into Roberta's hands, that was guaranteed to give her indigestion: spicy almonds, vegetable chips (whatever that is), pop tarts even! He dismissed my protests by saying: "It's alright, she can eat this!"  
                                          

     Roberta responded by secretly shoving the spicy almonds into my hand! What a life she chooses for herself: always has to sneak behind Park's back instead of confronting him with truth!

I AM FEELING BLUE

    

 I don't know, why I'm still moody. It's been many hours since the situation was resolved. I had a good time at the Al Anon's open meeting. It means that, there were quite a few groups there, with potluck dinner and speakers. They (the speakers) told us about their roads to recovery, whatever it took. We ate, laughed, clapped. All the while, I felt the heaviness drain all happiness out of me. On the way home I thought about it all. I had good friends in Russia. They are one of my best memories in life! I spent hours and hours with them, sometimes, - whole nights: talking and feeling the warmth and closeness envelope us as the night outside the windows receded into day. I had good friends!
     Whatever people I met in the States (and they were from all over the world), they all, eventually, let me feel that I was not enough. Of course, that might mean that I am not enough. I changed for the better, I know that, yet now I keep anticipating every one of my good acquaintances to, gradually, stop calling or dealing with me. Most of them were also missionaries from the Unification Church, and we met and had our faith and mission in common. Nevertheless, there was a lot of amazing fun that we had roaming the roads,             
                   overcoming all kinds of trials, spiritual and physical. Most of them seemed like they were my friends for life. I hardly have any connection with any of them now. 
     Doris, the English lady with 6 children, and I have Russia in common. She and her husband spent 4 years on a mission in the Urals. She had two of her children born in a small country hospital in Ekaterenburg. That's not a small accomplishment! We also laugh a lot when we get together, and she talks non-stop on any topic that we start. Both of us see Mr. P., in fact, she was one of the people who introduced me to him, and we go to the same Al Anon group,. 
     Today Doris called to make sure that we'll go to the open meeting together. We made a plan that, I will pick her up at 5:20. I was on time, even though I had many obligations to fulfill before my departure.
     As I drove to a place designated for our meeting with Doris, I discovered that my phone didn't work. I thought for a few minutes how to let Doris know that I was waiting for her. I don't know her apartment number, so going to the lobby wouldn't have helped. I hoped that she would show up by herself, after all, it was already time to leave. In a few minutes I decided to take action. I spotted some teenagers getting in the car nearby, went and asked to use one of their phones. They were a nice bunch and offered me a huge Smart Phone to call. 
- "Hello, may I speak with Doris, please?" - I asked, when her son answered. 
- "She already left!"
- "She left?! What?! We were supposed to meet! When did she leave?!"
- "About ten minutes ago!"
     I was reeling. The kids who gave me their phone noticed it and felt sympathetic, but it didn't help. All sorts of thought raced through my mind. "She sold me out again! I won't forget this! How could she?!"
     Recently I had a dubious experience, when Doris also totally disregarded our plan and instead of me spent the whole evening with another person. I am not a jealous type, but I felt foolish in front of my family for being so callously put aside. And here she was doing it again!
     I decided to go to the meeting by myself. On the road I was entertaining some ideas of how I will freeze Doris out when I see her. What would I say? How could she treat me like that?!
     It was hard to find the place of the meeting. I could hardly see any street names in the dark. Finally, I made it to the church where the meeting was going to take place. I parked and came out of the car, carrying a bag with a cake (potluck, remember?). Somebody was shouting something to me from a vehicle on the street. Upon doing some squinting, I realized that, it was another woman from our group. Doris was sitting next to her! I knew that they would come together! I looked at them coldly; at least, I hope that that's what my face showed. 
- "She was taking a shower and told her children to ask you to wait, but they mixed it all up!" - the lady was explaining for Doris. Doris gazed at me with tortured look on her face. 
- "I did, I told them to ask you to wait! What did they say?" - she whined.
     There was no point to discuss it any further. She didn't ditch me on purpose, but she also didn't apologize for her mistake yet. 
     I just said: "Doris, I'd like to strangle you!" I hope, it sounded like a joke, because the other woman looked at me in alarm.
     Like I said in the beginning, the evening was fun and informative. Atmosphere between Doris and me was tense and strange, though! All my previous experiences with the supposed friends' betrayal crushed my spirit, released from my memory by Doris' mistake. I know, I should, but how do you forget something like that? I don't mean Doris. 
     How can I look for those "balcony people" that Mr. P. keeps talking about? It will just end the same way, like all those other times, when I gave my all to a relationship, and another person dropped me like a bag of garbage! Boy, I sound like a disgruntled lover! 
     Anyhow, the road to recovery seems to have taken a large loop around the swamp of resentful feelings. Well, how would you go about believing in yourself when such things keep interfering?


     

MAD PARK, SICK TAKA AND THROWING UP ROBERTA

     For a few days - nothing to tell you. I've been just mired in the routine of my days. I don't like routine. Get depressed, when there is nothing interesting knocking on my door and gets my blood flowing faster.
   One thing that gets my blood flowing faster is a good fight with Park. We had one of those yesterday. I'm not entirely sure, if he is alone to blame for it. A minute after our spat, I saw this thing on Facebook. It said: Before you speak, think: Do I need to say this? Do I want to say this? What effect will it have on my environment? Something like that. I wish, I saw it before picking a fight with Park!

This is what it, actually, said.

                                                     
     Roberta, Park's common law wife, of whom I take care (he came later, laying his claim on her, as if she is a property), is not feeling well. She and I had to go somewhere two days ago. We got in the car, I pulled out of the parking. She, in a conversational tone of voice, said to me: "Could you pull in here?" It was the next door neighbor's curb. I did. Roberta opened her door. I asked: "What do you need, Roberta?" See, I thought that her seat 
belt got stuck in the car's door. She, very calmly, answered: "To throw up." And she did! This still continues: she throws up every day. She has a gall bladder problem, and doctor told her a year ago that, she needs an operation to remove it. She, totally, blocks it from her memory. Even though, time to time,I reminded her about it, she again didn't realize, why she could have this problem with her stomach! 
     So, she stays home. I feel bad about leaving her when I have an appointment or want to see a friend, but, fortunately, Park is always there to make me feel like running away from my own home!
     Today is Saturday. Taka came home early yesterday: he got a cold. I went into my 'Jewish wife' mode: drove to the store and bought ginger, lemons and honey, made him a potion to drink for his cough. Cooked chicken broth with noodles, as my mom taught me; made stew with meatballs (that - for Sonny, who amid all that activity was left hungry). Taka came out of the bedroom, got on my nerves almost immediately, ate everything in sight, all the while claiming that he didn't have any appetite. It's a-a-m-a-zing, how much he can eat and not gain an ounce! I don't know why I am amazed: it's obvious that there is no justice in the world! 
                                
     

LIFE 'ND STUFF 8 - repost

A few years later we bought a house. It seemed small at first, what with the children and my Dad all needing a room of their own. Dad moved in with us and, again, the dynamics of our family changed. It was a mad dash for me to get everyone fed in the mornings and brought to their separate High Schools on time. I spent at least an hour and a half twice a day, or more, just driving kids back and forth. Now both of them are in college, and my Dad is gone, so the house and my spare time suddenly stretched out around me. What is that universal law? I think, it says that every emptiness must be filled. At first, the sadness rushed in and threatened to up-end my precarious emotional balance. Then the people that I know became the mouthpiece of reason. They spoke what I already knew to be right: "Get yourself in order, Dina, find what to do with your life!" So, at 55 I'm learning to live again, and live well. It seems, that the emptiness also attracted a few new friends, who fill the void in my heart.   

The flowers are blooming in the garden now. Taka turned out to be a mad planter: he filled our backyard with dozens of plants. Unfortunately, the previous occupants of our little green lot, namely, the moles, think that he does it in order to provide sustenance for the generations of a mole population. Taka and they are in a war of wits. Who will win, nobody knows. The deer, the marauding cats and raccoons are also visiting us regularly. The deer walk in straight lines as they graze, and drop the seeds of the plants they have eaten someplace else from the other end. As the result, there are quite a few little trees and bushes  growing in orderly rows in the garden. 

  These last twenty years contain a whole era of our, my family's, life. Human, animal, vegetable or mineral, we all have a go at our lot in life and make each other's lives richer and worth living. Would I do some things differently, if I could? WILL I do them differently? The next twenty years will provide an answer to that. I just hope that we'll always remember to  laugh along the way! 

AIN'T I A WOMAN?! - Alfre Woodard reads Sojourner Truth

LIFE 'ND STUFF 7 - repost

From left to right: dad, Grisha, mom, Taka

We had to move Lera back to Mom and Dad's. By we, I mean her, me and the kids. I think, I lost 15 pounds in that one day. She stayed there for a little while and then joined Grisha in Denmark, only to have to come back for Mom's funeral a few months later. 

Before she died, I found my Mom to be very difficult. I desperately wanted to believe that she could still recover, but it didn't happen. She became more and more isolated and belligerent. A social worker in the hospital suggested that I needed to resolve the issues between us, or I'll be  "left with the grizhas in the kishkas" - a Yiddish saying that literally means, to be left with the intestinal ulcers.  Like so many times in my life, when I started praying, the help was there. The burden of resentment toward my Mom lifted from my shoulders. I don't mean to sound pious or smug. The fact is that now I can think about my mother with sadness and smiles, but without hostility. God is that close to us; He surrounds us with His Mercy even when we don't expect or deserve it. 

It seemed like just yesterday we had a big family at our table. Now it was just the five of us: Takahumi, I, the kids and my Dad. To better keep an eye on Dad, we moved him to live a few doors away from us. Later on, he invited a lady from our church with a teenage son to stay with him. She was God-sent - she looked after him in the evenings and at night and my father didn't charge her any rent. For a few years my life became smaller, it gelled around the immediate needs of my family. I didn't work at school anymore. I took care of my father, got paid to do so, chauffeured and did homework with the kids, cooked and watched TV. In a couple of years, one of my acquaintances asked me if I read any good books lately. I was at a loss for an answer. Ever since I was a kid, I always had my nose in the book. Now, except for "Harry Potter", nothing came to mind.