Author Archives: Murphy

_Child of my Heart _by Alice McDermott

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The narrator of this story is Theresa, a 15-year-old only child. The child of her heart is her cousin, eight-year-old Daisy. It’s a summer story, the time when school is on vacation and the long days belong to the children.

As simple as the surface level story is, there are so many complicated and beautiful currents running below the surface. Theresa’s love for her little cousin, and the realization that something is wrong puts a tension and sorrow through the story. Theresa is only 15, but in charge of so many young lives. She is a child, but taking on the responsibilities of an adult. The true adults around her have the freedom to abdicate their responsibilities, the care of their children, to this 15 year old. She is expected to do so much.

Her relationship with the aging artist, the father of her only paid babysitting ward, brings in tensions of art and even sexuality. Well, her own budding beauty and sexuality seems to turn any adult male into a drooling imbecile. She has to respond and deflect advances before she quite knows what they mean.

And then the neglected kids next door, so needy and unintentionally destructive, keep her realizing how lonely it is possible for people to be.

It’s a beautifully written story, a perfect slow bobbing rhythm, like an inner tube on the surface of the water.

I broke the Christmas tree

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I didn’t mean to.

Last weekend, we decorated it all pretty. We had lights from a previous year, Red and White like a peppermint.

Chris and I wrapped the lights around the tree, and then hung up decorations his Grandmother had given us. We put up red and green balls around it too.

On the top, I hung my traditional icon of Saint Nicholas. He looks very nice up there. THe tree was beautiful.

On Monday, Chris told me that he wanted to have his mother over for a special birthday dinner on friday. I thought that was a marvelous idea, and started to clean things up to be ready for the event.

I got out the vaccum, and I plugged it in to the outlet on the top of the string of lights. It was most convenient for my cord. I vaccuumed everywhere, and the floor looked nice.

But the lights stopped working. It turns out that the electricity drawn by the vaccuum fried the fragile christmas lights.

We had to buy more.

We looked everywhere, but the red and white christmas lights are not available. There are blue and white. There are green and red. But no red and white.

We went with green and red.

“Chris,” I said. “Most people only get to decorate their christmas tree once a year.”

“Are you saying we are getting to decorate it twice?” He smiled at me. “Sit down, I’ll hang the ornaments.”

I watched him put all the ornaments back on the tree. It looks nice, but I am sorry I broke the tree.

Love is….

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Love is setting the timer on the thermostat to turn on the heater before your sweetheart wakes up in the morning.

That’s the kind of love you can stick a fork in.

Happy December

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It is a new month.

this is the month of many things.

We have the solstice, on the 21st

We have christmas, and new year’s eve.

We have the birthday of Chris’s mother.

Many things, which require much preparation.

Plus, it’s pretty dark. And cold. Both of those being relative quantities.

I wish you all a marvelous December.

We must cultivate our garden

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My new home is having an effect on me. I love it. I like to preen over it, make it pretty.

The garden especially is satisfying. I think about it, and read about different sort of plants I could have. I trim the ones I have and water and have even fertilized them.

One friend was amazed, “This is a side of you I’ve never seen!” she said.

Hm. Good point. I’ve not been such a homebody. I’m usually reading or thinking or being away, looking at things.

But this home has been a big change. It makes me happy, and I am always full of projects I want to do. People tell me that happens when you become a homeowner. But the condo, my first owned home, did not have that effect on me.

Probably because it did not have a garden.

That rung a bell for me. I remember a book that talked about leaving adventures behind to take care of your garden.

Candide by Voltaire, it is. A short little story I’ve never forgotten, mostly because of the pope’s daughter who only had one bun because her set was divided by cannibals.

It was this book, meant to be a philosophical treatise, that talks about tending your garden. I read it again, because I am so into my garden right now.

It is more profound than I remembered, having read it the first time as an assigment for my very first college literature class. That was a great class!

But, now that I am a bit older, I can see his point.

Candide roamed the world in search of happiness, basically. And, I, for a long time, have been hitting the streets to check outwhat the world has to offer.

In the end, Candide realizes that you make your own happiness. That you cultivate it, you tend it, and it grows or dies based on what you do.

I guess I’ve come to some similar conclusions. I am happy to be in a place tha tis furthe away from the “streets”. My suburban town has lanes, rather than streets.

And, I am ready to take charge of my own happiness. I am fairly confident that I’ll be able to grow it myself. There will be troubles, but I will be ale to weather them and keep my happiness well-rooted.

I must cultivate my garden.

more to know

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My friend Janet had diabetes. I am thinking again and again about the time she showed me her test.

I am reading about how other cat owners have taken their cat’s glucose levels. This is altogether terrifying. I am pretty overwhelmed by what this disease means for me.

And I was feeling rather overwhelmed before. But, as Chris keeps reminding me, this has been a bad week.

I am recovering from Strep throat. The worst sort of stret throat I have ever had. It basically left me in so much joint-achy pain I couldn’t sleep, so throat swollen I couldn’t swallow, and so weak I couldn’t walk.

We postponed thanksgiving in honor of my illness.

And Skellig had to come up with a new creative health issue. I was in such a shape that I could not even sit steadily the first time I injeted him.

Oh yeah, then Chris had to catch something. Not quite as bad as my illness, but he was a bundle of ick last night. We are both on the road to recovery now.

Are you noticing my lack of thankfulness? Thanksgiving left me a little cld this year. I still haven’t had turkey or pie. Tomorrow, we think, we will try it.

And now I am trying to swallow a lot of information about treating my cat that I just couldn’t take before. It’s hard to concentrate when you are shivering beneath about a hundred blankets.

I’ve finally gotten around to reading the instructions from the vet. I did a few things wrong already.

“ROLL the bottle of insulin, don’t shake it!”
“No, the OTHER kind of expensive prescription cat food.”
“I was supposed to write down everything the cat ate, peed, and injected?”

Oh man.

Did I mention that this is overwhelming?

And to know that if I don’t do it right, the cat could die. And it would be entirely my fault.

Well. I have made some mistakes. I haven’t been journaling everything. But I think I will purchase a blood meter. That way I can keep better track of how my cat’s treatment is going.

There is a meter, there are special strips of special paper, there are extra lancets that draw the blood out of my cat–either from the ear or his paw.

But I think I should do it. I know I’ll need it.

I’ll keep you posted.

I love my cat…That’s what makes it so hard

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Skellig is 8 years old in about a month. He was born January 97. He’s been with me for a long time.

He is beautiful and very large. He’s gotten into a lot of different kinds of trouble over the years. But he still runs to the door when I get home from work.

Chris tells me that if I am particularly late, he will wait by the door and cry a little for me. What a cat! That’s friendship.

He is not a shy cat. If people come to the door, he sniffs them thoroughly to make sure they are acceptable. He’s not looking for pettings, he’s inspecting the new arrivals for problems.

Some people call their pets the “children” or “family”. Skellig is not that to me. He’s my friend, and when we are on the outs, he’s my annoying roommate.

But over the course of 8 years, wow…we know each other pretty well. If I am upset and crying, he gets agitated and checks on me to make sure I am okay. He usually manages to cheer me up with his kitty concern.

If I am sick, he will join me in the sickroom for communal napping. He’s an expert at napping.

I love him very much. I try not to go on about it, but pretty much everyone who has been to my home knows I’m crazy about my cat.

Here lately, the cat has been sick. He’s been sort of down. He had stopped trotting over when it was time for his food (his favorite time of day). He wasn’t interested in playing.

He had taken to doing this moaning thing. Sort of a throaty quiet meow. And worst of all, he was obsessed with water and peeing ALL THE TIME.

In inappropriate places. So we took him to the vet.

This week Tuesday, I learned that Skellig has developed Feline Diabetes.

This is a pretty high-maintenance disease. I have to inject him twice daily with a sharp needle. He is so brave, and he trusts me, which breaks my heart.

The good news is that it is not too expensive. The medicine seems to be about 40 bucks a month. And I haven’t done any bargain shopping yet.

He’s taking it okay. Since I give him treats before and after the injection, he even runs up when I am preparing the syringe. What a hero!

His fur is amazingly thick. It is impossible to see through it to the skin. I have to jab and push. I always worry that I haven’t quite got the needle in the skin. I mean, before Wednesday night I had never injected anything or anybody. Now, I’m expected to stab my cat every 12 hours.

Yesterday, I pushed it a little harder and he twitched. So this morning, he was more hesitant to accept the needle. He wanted to sniff it a little longer. So I was more gentle.

Then, I worried that I hadn’t punctured the skin. I suppose it’s obsessive of me, but this is an important thing! So I petted his neck for a while to see if there was a wet spot. It’s such a small amount of insulin, I wondered if it would even show?

So, I took the needle I had just used and took the same amount (2 units) of water and squirted it on a napkin. It made a decent sized puddle, so I felt reassured that I would notice if I had missed.

I have spent this morning trying to read up on what there is to know. The vet wants to have the cat back for the day to do a glocose curve and see how he is responding to her guess-diagnosis of 2 units of insulin every 12 hours.

I’m looking into home tests. He truly hates the vet. This vet is nicer than most I’ve taken him to, but…I’d rather see what we can do at home.

There is a lot of information about this on the web. But then again, medicine is moving fast these days. Sites that are 5 years old may not have information about new technology.

I am really grateful for the data I’m finding. That’s why I am going to share my own experiences. I know that some of my readers are not so enthralled with the ins and outs of cat stabbing, but there may be some new readers out there who are grateful to hear someone else’s experiences. Hence my new category:

Feline Diabetes

Any comments from people who have experience or knowledge about this subject or any related topics is much appreciated.

My big worries are when I have to leave the cat. What pet sitter would be able to do this care? I would like to find maybe a once a day treatment. If it could be oral instead of injected, too, I think that would be nicer.

I know there is a lot of information out there. It will take a while to sort it out.

The other good news is, they say that cats with diabetes will still live long lives if they get good treatment. I want Skellig to live for another…Oh..ten years. I would miss him too much.

and they all rolled over and one fell out

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Good things have been happening. I mean, really!

How fabulous that I have a great new job with nice people and even more fabulous that I have purchased a home with the man of my dreams.

okay.

Well.

I just kind of wish that it hadn’t happened all at once. I am in the position of not having anything quite where I need it or want it.

My rhythm is off. There are things I need to do everywhere I look.

It makes me tired.

My Brother!

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I was listening to this history lesson in my car, and the professor was talking about Socrates.

He was going on and on, relating how Socrates would ask people questions, and lead them on with more questions.

I recognized this.

I have found a SOULmate, a brother, in Socrates. It is so clear to me! I do exactly the same thing. And I also piss people off with my incessant questions.

I have gotten in big trouble for asking questions. I have what appears to be a very unusual outlook on life.

Socrates got in trouble for his questions. But, as I have recently come to conclude, over that last few years, he and I agree that it is dangerous and foolish to consider yourself wise…Meaning, don’t think you know all the answers. There are always more ways to look at a thing, another question to ask. So, no, you don’t know the answers.

I feel so great to realize that Socrates had the same question disease–condition–that I have.

I may have to spend a little time getting to know this guy.

One sad thing, he ended up being sacrificed, being sentenced to death because of his questions.

hopefully I’ll avoid that fate.

Deja Vu

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I sleep hard, but sometimes I dream things. Things that haven’t happened yet. Sometimes I remember them, wonder about the dream. Then I go on my way and forget them.

Until they come true. They call it déjà vu. But I know I dreamed it. Stupid, everyday, unimportant things. Like looking for a notebook when someone is walking down a hall towards me. Or holding a conversation, when in the middle I realize I know exactly the next thing I am going to say. I would step into the now that had already happened months ago, years ago, in my dream.

It feels like a spell; I am split in two. The me who dreamed the conversation, or should I say, the me in the dream from the past, was fully engaged in what she was saying.

But the present me, the one living in the event which had already taken place, became distracted by the memory of the present.

How do I dream these future scenes?

How could I possibly see what hadn’t happened yet? What let me see the future? And why such irrelevant ordinary scenes from the future?

This makes me wonder how time works. Am I in time? Like I am in the universe? Or am in time like a fish in water?

A fish can jump out of water. Leap up high and dive back in.

For that matter, am I traveling through my life like a fish through a stream? Where the direction is laid out, only I can’t see far enough ahead to know that the biggest choices I have is whether to swim on the left side or the right.

Or maybe I am the stream. Maybe I am flowing for the first time. Perhaps my journey from the heights to the sea is unmarked. I, the water, flow because I must, but minute by second by future moment the way is chosen. Each obstacle changes the whole course. Over that pebble, pool below that hill, rapids here, waterfall there. Something new under the sun.

My dream moments might be telling me something. Who knows which moment is the decisive one? What choice is the fulcrum for an irreversible direction? Is some extra-temporal being trying to draw attention to the unnoticed as the start of some fork in the road?

But if that’s so, what am I supposed to do with this?

When the spell of a dreamed scene comes over me, and I am split between the layers of the dream memory and the identical present, I shift.

If the dream turned right, I go straight.

Who knows what’s at stake? Nothing? Everything?

But illusion, delusion or otherwise, I chose where to plant my feet.