I do not celebrate Halloween.

I love chocolate. Sometimes my craving for it is enough to make me willing to crawl on my knees up Mount Everest...without oxygen! Okay, perhaps that is an exaggeration, but it is enough for me to concentrate more on home many miniature candy bars I might be able to abscond with from the communal bowl sitting in the middle of the table during a work meeting that the information being shared at the same. For example, if I were to volunteer to help clean up, I could "help" myself to a few more pieces. However, evening knowing my failing with regard to sweets, I do not celebrate Halloween--a prime opportunity for collecting copious amounts of chocolate.

As a Christian, I find it strange to be so alone in the belief that Christians have should have no part in this day. What is good and right and true about a day that was devoted to spirits? What is godly about witches and goblins and vampires? How healthy is it to make light of evil, to minimize the impact of this arm of Satan?

All those cute costumes and adorable children...am I saying they are evil? Not at all. I am just saying that the holiday ought to be an anathema to Christians.

Easter, an arbitrary date, for Christians is a celebration of the most precious gift in this world: the willing self-sacrifice of Christ, His death bringing us eternal life. Christmas, essentially appropriated from the Roman holiday of Saturnalia and also an arbitrary time selected for less than godly reasons, is time when we celebrate the birth of Christ, the arrival of of that gift.

Yet both of these holidays have become so commercialized, achieving world-wide recognition for all the wrong reasons. The idea of presents at Christmas has become a bastardization of what the wise men did in laying down their gift. A time of reflection on Christ's sacrifice has become a time of bunnies and more chocolate.

This makes my heart weep.

Halloween is pranks and laughter and pretend. What is the harm in that? Halloween is also death and darkness and false gods. Why align yourself with that, despite all the pretty trappings around it?

Euphemisms are inherently dangerous in the distance they offer from reality. Over and over history has show man use them to accomplish terrible means. Slavery and the holocaust are but a small part of that.

Halloween is a euphemism Christians should flee.


The following history of this day is excerpted from The History Channel website:

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

We have had five people announce their resignation in the past few weeks. Three in my unit. Two of them management. That means that I have been to four farewells and have two to go (one person elected to just disappear, but two others had internal farewells and company-wide farewells).

Then I had a brown bag lunch with the CEO and a two-hour mandatory benefits orientation. The latter came after a four hour mandatory company orientation that included benefits a month ago and a two-hour mandatory benefits orientation that took place just three months ago. Do they not think that I can read a piece of paper explaining my benefits? I sure have been piled down with stacks and stacks of stuff to read.

Frankly, I am benefit-ed and farewell-ed out. I must say that it is very difficult to get my work done these days.

Of course, my current fatigue might be more from working until 3:30 in the morning to produce one stellar press release and some fine editing on a spreadsheet posing as a database rather than the mind-numbing two hour meeting I endured today...

The wicked part of me is reveling in the fact that the Patriots SLAUGHTERED the Redskins today. My old boss gave me such grief over the Cowboys loss to the Patriots a couple of weeks ago.

I had pointed out to her that the Cowboys had held the lead briefly in the fourth quarter and that this was their only loss. I considered it acceptable, since no team is going to be perfect and the whole experience was a good learning one for Tony Romo.

Well, personally a 48-27 loss is FAR more respectably than a 52-7 loss, especially when the Redskins only touchdown came just before the end of the game against the Patriots 3rd-string players.

Yep...I'm feeling pretty good right now! The Cowboys are still atop their division, although the real test comes in the next few weeks when they play division teams. We need to keep the Redskins and the Giants in their proper place: behind us!

Go 'Boys!

Three days of rain brought 2.5" of rain, a nice total against the 14" deficit brought about by the current drought.

However, three days of rain was too much for the ground near the front of the house. I awoke to a flooded basement again. By the time I finished sopping up all the water, I was trembling like an Aspen leaf in the blustery fall wind.

I had some work to do, but I was so discouraged by the mess in the basement I needed to organize a bit to restore my balance. My target was my bedroom closet. I now have ten Target shopping bags of clothing, shoes, and books for Goodwill. While just about anyone else might not see the difference in my tiny closet, I have one clear shelf and visible space elsewhere. I call that a victory.

Speaking of victories, B surprised me with a bit of evening Scrabble. A pure pleasure, eh?

Well, I lost the first two games and was quite grumpy since I have lost something like 8 of the last 10 games and saw my score plummet nearly 100 points. I HATE being in the 500's. The last loss brought my score lower than hers, so I dug deep within the resources of my dwindling brain cells and managed to clobber her in the last game we played.

Right now, I am harnessing the flush of victory over closet and game board into the contract work I have left this weekend. There is this press release I have to write, and I am so far a part from the project that I am hard pressed to deliver and polished product.

Sometimes it is difficult to paint a picture in words for that which you have not seen...

I would like to be writing more than I have been. I know I have made it patently clear that I am pretty much working all the time. I am doing this because I am fairly sure the opportunities will not last long. Strike while the iron is hot, right?

I did take a few precious moments to be slaughtered by B in Scrabble this evening. She has had conquered the wireless quagmire that was weighing her down and is enjoying her laptop, knowing that she could now humiliate me while snuggled comfortably beneath the covers should she so desire.

I think it was the first time she played as I do sometimes. What I mean is that she had a wretched day. It was made all the more so because is managing some Christian women in babysitting services while the moms are in a bible study, women who cannot seem to find it within themselves to keep from complaining. [Seriously, don't you think a 3:1 ratio of child to worker is PLENTY?????]

B had a wretched day and flung herself in to annihilating me via one great word after another, including a humongous point bingo on a triple word score slot. I really had no chance of winning either game since she was in the throes of Scrabble Therapy.

I have called her many a times and begged for a game because of some wretched day of my own. While I did not much like being wiped all over the board, I did enjoy helping her find some peace through victory in one area when she was burdened in another.

Tomorrow, she will awake to find the same difficulty and will seek once more a way to solve her dilemma. But she will be able to do so having had a measure of success beneath her belt.

Rather glad I could oblige!

My very dear B is in the throws of computer hades. She got access to a free laptop, discovered her Verizon-supplied modem was actually wireless, and set out to create a wireless network in her home. [I am not going to go on and on about how much I would have LOVED using a wireless network while I was there since the corded version means being crawling under tight dark spaces to plug in and then being tied down in a rather warm kitchen. Nope. I am not going to say a word about that.]

The wee obstacle she had was that the laptop did not have a power cord. This problem was easily solved via www.Amazon.com. Off to surfing in bed, right?

Wrong. My poor B has been wallowing in the muck, mired down by circular problems connecting the wireless card (external and Linksys) to the modem router (D-Link). She can get all the way to the point of entering the access key (boy, does she have that 10-digit number memorized already!) before the dreaded, and rather egregious, message pops up to say that the card cannot connect to the access point (modem router). Is it a problem with the operating system (unfortunately, she is running Windows ME)? Is it a problem with the wireless card driver (she has downloaded and then transferred the latest driver to the laptop, being fairly sure it was installed)? Could it be that Linksys (wireless card) and D-Link (modem router) simply not work together? Could it be that she (and I via long distance) is simply missing something? Could it be that the stars are not aligned?

Oh, how I wish I were there trouble-shooting for her. It is rather difficult to spend hours on the phone with tech support in India (major language barriers) with two small children. And oh, how I would like for her to be connected because it would be way, way cool for us both to be snuggled under the covers in our pajamas duking it out in on-line Scrabble!

I did gird her as best I can by bugging her to crawl back in those dark spaces to get the model number of the modem router (the model maker took a second trip). She is armed now with all her models and numbers and versions and just about anything else that she might need to brave technical support guys from both Linksys and Verizon to finally make that connection. At least my fingers are crossed that the next call or two or three will solve the problem!

Computing can be great, but the technical stuff rather stinks!

I did not work this weekend. Well, I did five loads of laundry (although I have only folded four of them) and ran the dishwasher (I'm saving the unloading for tomorrow). However, I did not do but the merest amount of contract work this weekend. Instead, I slept half the day on Saturday and watched football all of Sunday. I have been so very tired that I could barely function. I think I needed the break...

I am taking wedding photos tomorrow. Oh, how I wish I were not. They need more than I. They need experience. They need expertise. But sometimes what we need and what we have to work with are not always the same. I am serving because I was asked and because I can. I only hope for more good shots than missed ones...especially on such a happy day. Tomorrow, for just a few hours, I would like to be more than who I am. Not for me, but for another.

Is that possible?

Well, gee...I had to go to a meeting today at one of our staff's home. She did not turn on the A/C. I sat there sweltering, trembling and growing disoriented. And, yes, quite grumpy.

I stuck it out (so as not to appear unsociable) and gratefully walked outside three and a half hours later.

Only, when I got to my car, to the safest spot I could pick on the street, I found the driver side of my car smashed.

Oh, how my life is complicated.

Today, was not, absolutely not my day.

How did B help me through the stress and strain? She beat me at Scrabble. Then I beat her. Such love she shows me!

My web designer friend told me that what I am doing recovering files from my ancient laptop is called a "Sneaker Network"!

Below is one of the poems I recovered. It is one of my favorites from a collection I sold to a youth health publisher:

When I Was Mad
"When I was mad," my dad would say,
"I'd meet the kid outside to settle it. On
the playground, at the park,
or anywhere was fine. Our friends
would form the ring. Our hands
would raise. Our feet would dance.
And between the blows,
it would all be worked out.
What's a few bruises?" he would ask.

"Now," I say, "We still have playgrounds,
parks, and other places
We even have friends.
But we don't raise our fists or
make our feet dance. We raise our guns and
knives and make our feet run.
We work it all out."

He is silent. Life has changed.
But still, I think I'd trade a gun
for a fist, a knife for an insult.
Yet even then, I wonder if both dad's way and
my way is not right for now.
I wonder if there's a new way for now. I
wonder, because I wonder
if I'll be a dad to say,
"When I was mad..."

Both Friday night and last night, I slept fifteen hours. I would venture that working through the weekend last weekend was a bit too much.

Or perhaps my fatigue is because it is still so STINKING HOT outside even though it is now October.

On Wednesday, I walked over to the post office next to my work and barely made it back to my desk. I was trembling and weak from the heat.

We have water restrictions in place around here now because of the drought. I suppose it is good I gave up trying to save my lawn all the way back in June.

SIGH.

I am not sure where I stand on global warming, but I do know that I should be enjoying cool, crisp weather...

I do believe that I should get some sort of award for procrastination.

Because I had some time between my four jobs, I actually got around to start migrating files from my fourteen-year-old laptop. I never got all my stuff off of it, and it has been collecting dust in the basement for the past five years since I had placed it on top of the filing cabinet as a reminder to get the files off of it. I was putting some things away in the filing cabinet when I was smote by the dirt, bugs, and unknown stains covering the top of the PowerBook 520C (ah, it was so top-of-the-line back then, but is such a relic now).

The process is QUITE tedious. I have to open the file on the Mac, save it to a text only file, copy it to a disc, put the disc in my laptop, open the file in notepad, copy the text to Word, and then save the new document. [Reformatting all those files can wait until later...much later.] Now can you see why I have put this off for over a decade?

Today, I managed to migrate 96 of the poems, short stories, and scripts that I sold back then. I had wanted to have a copy of them and now I do. The disheartening part is that all my teaching stuff (when I was a professor) is still on the old Mac laptop, and I am genuinely interested in keeping it.

The miracle: that the PowerBook even turns on!

You know you are loved when your best friend...

1. Googles information on dog ear infections when you are fretting on the phone with her while you are driving to an emergency vet visit. Then, she emails you the one line you found funny during the scary situation: A perfect breeding ground for bacteria is a dark and damp, poorly ventilated dog's ear.
2. Sends you a link on your favorite golfer when she cares not a hoot for the sport: an article on Tiger Woods!
3. Reads your blog about keeling over in the yard while mowing for the 1,000th time and sends you food for thought: When you pass out don't think of it as passing out; think of it as "stray(ing) out of thought and time." It is a line in "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers."

The Lord blesses me greatly through B!

I have worked 10 days in a row. I have two more to go before I can crash on the weekend. Argh!

I have started a third job and am negotiating a fourth. However, I do believe I will stop there.

The way this has been working best is if I take a short nap when I get home from work. Really, I cannot avoid doing so, because I keep falling asleep. Once I awake, I have dinner and plunge into my other jobs. Typically, I finish around 1:00 AM, read for a half-hour, and fall to sleep.

If my fourth contract comes through, I will be in a position to have my debt cut in half by its completion. That would be amazing and quite worth the sacrifice now. Given that I don't have much of a social life as it is and that I am able to do the work on the couch in my pajamas, I believe that it is doable for the short term at least.

However...boy....am I tired! Working all weekend outside the house was a mistake. I need to be able to sleep in and rest throughout the day on the weekends to handle the work week. Mostly, I agreed because the woman I am working with has a rather large burden on her plate. How could I turn my back to her now. She needs help and I have the skills to support her.

I do enjoy the progress I can see with the contract work. Accomplishments can bring a certain amount of energy to keep going, knowing that the product you are offering is one done heartily as if for the Lord.

~~~~
Kashi update: The third round of fluids did the trick. His appetite picked up, and he has perked up quite a bit. He is more interested in playing and had returned to barking at the birds in the evening when he decides they are taking too much of my attention. He has two more days of anti-biotics and nine more days of washing out his ear and applying topical anti-biotics twice daily.

I very much dislike putting the muzzle on him, but if I attempt to clean his ear without it, I would be the one needed an emergency trip to the doctor. However, when I hold out the muzzle to put it on, he does not run away at all. Instead, he takes the passive aggressive route. As soon as I click the muzzle shut, he collapses against me, feigning weakness and helplessness. I have to hold him up with one arm and minister to his ear with the other. Doing so is rather difficult. From time to time, he gives me a kiss or two through the muzzle and leans into me further, nuzzling his head into my chest. He is pitiful enough that it gives me pause, wondering if I should skip the cleaning. However, once I am done and he is free from the muzzle, all his energy returns, and he bounds away from me.

He is such a smart little fellow!

My second-job work has been a bit light lately, so at night I have been working and napping and working some more.

Now, usually I don't nap. I don't nap because I get the worst nap hangovers. I awake feeling drugged and dizzy and worse than before I slept.

However, for the past two weeks, it is as if all the things in my life...work...Kashi...constant dizziness...debt...have piled upon my body and brought on a fatigue I just cannot fight.

So, sometimes without realizing it, I drop off to sleep for an hour or so. I awake with my head on the keyboard or the arm of the couch or at the table. I awake feeling just a bit better and get on with my evening.

Today, I won Scrabble. Slept. Worked on contracts. Slept. Worked on a communications plan. And I have a few more tasks to go before I sleep again.

The contract for the third job is taking a long time to materialize. I did get a line on a fourth, though...

A while ago, my friend J commented on something I wrote here, saying that I shouldn't feel bad about writing about how I feel since this is my outlet for doing so. Taking her words to heart, I am doing so again.

Yesterday, I had to sit in a chair for an eight-hour training session. We had a half hour for lunch and two ten-minute breaks. For eight hours, I was sitting in a hard conference chair. Each time I got up, the pain in my hips and back was worse. By the end of the day, I was not even sure if I could bear walking to my car even though it would mean eventually getting home to the green chair.

The room was so small that I couldn't really stand up or walk around in the back. After all, I was in the back row and my head and upper body were resting against the wall.

By about hour three, I knew I was in trouble. The last three hours, I paid very little attention to what was said because of the overwhelming pain in my body.

I did get up three different times, ostensibly to go to the bathroom as a means of stretching and trying to ease the pain, but the other group members watched me hobble out of the room, so my attempts at surreptitious departures were actually quite a distraction to the training at hand.

I left before the training session was over because about thirty minutes prior to my departure, the air conditioner shut off. I sat there, writhing in pain, and growing warmer by the minute. When I started to grow disorientated and tremble from the heat, I forced myself to stand and to leave, even though the trainer was still speaking. I knew that if I did not leave, I would very shortly find myself slumped on the floor and did not want to faint around my colleagues.

In short, I was rather miserable yesterday and quite stiff and sore today.

On the way home, I had to pick up some Pepcid for Kashi because the vet wanted me to add it to his medicine regimen. For the first time, I was immensely grateful that my doctor had basically insisted that I get a handicapped placard.

The worst part about yesterday? I have to repeat the training next Saturday. I am not sure that I will be able to willingly drive myself to that location, knowing what is in store for me. I keep racking my brains trying to think of a way that might make the day easier for me, but, thus far, nothing has come to mind.

I will also add that my chest has been tight for a couple of weeks (I am waking up in the middle of the night with asthma attacks).

MS stinks.
Asthma stinks.
Arthritis stinks.

Having all three REALLY stinks...

I have only had a few hours of second-job work this week, but that is okay because I have been tinkering with my computing environment.

One of the most maddening things in life is to make a change to a stable computing environment. Generally, doing so means hours of frustration and ranting and raving at an inanimate, unresponsive machine. Once you get back to a stable environment, you kiss terra firma and vow never to make a change again...until the next upgrade or new toy or key bit of software.

My brother got a new Treo. He has been extolling the praise of Treo for years, but getting one has been out of my reach for years. First I was saving for Italy. Then, I was recovering from over spending in Italy. Finally, I have been trapped in unemployment-sourced mountain-high debt. So, he gets a new Treo and casting about for someone to pass his old 650 onto came up with me.

He sent me a box with EVERYTHING I needed, including plugs that would work in Europe! I have extra stylus-es (which is great because the one that was in the Treo is already broken). I have these complicated plastic covers to protect the screen. I have software and cords and even a charger for the car (yeah...I will still be able to commute with company).

The cool thing about the Treo is that it is a tool that could be very, very beneficial to me. Being able to get email anywhere I am (that I have a signal) and send them too is cool. Having addresses and calendar items always with me is great. Having puzzle games to help keep my atrophying brain cells active is super. Having a utility for shopping lists is most wonderful. Having Sugarland music on my phone is stellar. Having the bible with me always is a blessing. And, I confess, purchasing a golf game (most economical I might add) is icing on the cake (except for the fact that even in virtual golf, I stink).

HOWEVER, I had to install software to my system. I had to set up a new email account (Hotmail is not compatible, but Yahoo is). I had to get the computer to talk to the phone. I had to get the phone to talk to the computer. I had to download more software. I had to install software to the phone. I had to pair my headset with the new phone. I had to figure out a MOST complicated phone. I had to enter in all my contacts so that I could use them. I had to...

Pretty much each evening this week, I have tinkered and shouted and threatened either the Treo or my computer or both.

Well, as of about 10 minutes ago, I have returned to a stable computing environment that includes a rather versatile phone tool.

SIGH

Kashi was at the vet today for more fluids. He has lost another half pound, for a total of 3.5 lbs. I am most worried. Most worried.

The vet is quite fearless in pouring the saline solution down his ear. She also had no qualms about picking out the crusty stuff. I was most nauseous as well.

Since he is not eating, we are switching his pain medicine and putting him on Pepcid to see if the antibiotic is bother his stomach. He had to go three days without the old pain medicine, before starting the new one. So...he is not happy.

He is not eating much. He is not drinking much. He is not doing his business much. He is not interested in playing. He mostly lies around looking pitiful.

I am worried.

Kashi's eardrum burst Thursday afternoon, due to a massive bacterial infection deep within his ear. He is a very sick puppydog; and I am a very worried puppydog mom. He has lost more than two pounds, when he was just 18 pounds to begin. He has eaten rather little since Thursday, a departure from the dog who will consume just about everything.

His left ear is a swollen, bleeding, puss-filled mess. Pieces of this junk have hardened deep within his hear, bothering him. So, Kashi will shake his head back and forth, trying to rattle them out. He is compounding the problem by continually rubbing at his ear by licking the inside of his paw and then swiping the damp appendage across the swollen flesh, irritating it further.

Today, he was a bit perkier than he has been since Thursday, but he is still not interested much in either food or play. Of course, part of this may be based on the fact that I had to purchase a muzzle so that I could pour saline solution and then additional medicine down his ear twice a day. He does not much care for that particular process.

The only positive factor is that the foul smell stemming from the infection has ceased, a sign that the rather powerful antibiotics he is on are working.

This afternoon, we had a follow-up check up at his vet. I had not thought that he would have remembered much from Thursday evening when he was sedated so that he could be examined, x-rayed, and treated. However, it was clear the memory remained vivid because I had to give up trying to drag him inside and pick him up to enter the building. Once inside, he made a beeline to a spot in the corner furthest from the exam room beneath a row of chairs. Again, I had to haul him out from his hiding place and hold my trembling dog on the table while his ear was examined and cleaned. Because of his alarming weight loss, the vet gave him fluids by inserting a needle beneath the skin on his back. He looked like a rather cowed camel by the time we left. She also doubled his pain medicine.

I got a B- on my own ear treatment procedure. Apparently, I am not using enough saline. Kashi was NOT happy with the copious amounts of liquid she poured down his ear. However, given that his ear drum is ruptured and the infection dangerously close to his brain, getting all that gunk out is important.

Tomorrow is Day 6 of 21 of antibiotics. She is hoping that since there seems to be evidence that they are attacking the infection, his appetite should return shortly. I sure would like to see him eat more...and frolic more...and whimper less...

One of the things I love best about B is how much she helps me without making me feel stupid.

She knows the cognitive struggle I have due to the MS. Those three sets of degrees after my name do not amount to much these days. Yet, she helps me in such small and loving ways that I never feel as if I am a burden or...well, as I said...stupid.

For example, I started struggling with putting in my contacts in the mornings. I couldn't remember which way was right and which way was inside out. I mean, Acuvue lens have an AV marking on them, but I couldn't remember if I should see the mark looking from above or from the side.

B told me to remember where I live when I look at the lens. The mark should be VA as I look from the side. Her memory key has stuck, resulting in MUCH, MUCH less stressful mornings for me.

Another example is the light in her daughter's room (where I sleep when I visit). It is a fan with two pull chains. To help me remember which one is for the light, B gently coached me: the long one is for the light; remember long-light.

I think it is because of this kindness she shows me that I feel most relaxed around her. I do not have to pretend to have my brain in working order all the time around her. I can relax and let my cognitive foibles fall by the wayside, knowing that should she notice, it would only be to figure out a way to help me cope.