Lockdown Day 13 : Panic is the Enemy.

I have been pretty much in quarantine for two weeks. Since then, we have hustled to get our kids home (thanks to extrordinary efforts on my kids and husband’s part). The minute the NBA cancelled I was running to lock all the doors and pull up the drawbridge. The next day with the closing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the shuttering of Broadway, I knew we needed to move fast to begin the hunkering. My son was on the bus the next day. So, now we are all here. Everyone is working remotely from me (as always) to my museum professional hubby, to my daughter studying theater design at Yale to my son, photographer…though his freelance work essentially dried up as did his time selling tickets on Broadway. We are all here…in the silence with our headsets on trying to stay quiet and thoughtful. The news and the world rage around us…but here we are with the cookpots filled with some bean thing and tubs of things for folks to grab and eat. However, I cannot quiet down.

Susan, my therapist (now teletherapist) cited the need to try to bring balance between the Rational minda and the emotional mind. Here is a bit on that:

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), presents three basic states of mind: reasonable mind, emotion mind, and wise mind.  When operating from reasonable mind, we view the world rationally and pay attention to observable facts and phenomenon.  You may notice that you are in reasonable mind if you feel somewhat detached from the situation and find yourself noticing the facts and planning future behavior based solely on observable knowledge.

When you are in emotion mind, you may experience an intense subjective state wherein logical thinking becomes difficult or cloudy.  You may notice the facts, but find yourself distorting them or amplifying them based on your current emotional state.  In emotion mind, it is difficult to remain objective and you may engage in behaviors that are solely driven by your subjective perceptions and internal emotional state.

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So to put that on a spectrum now, I am very much in the planning and reacting mode—ordering food at the store a week out. I am reaching out to my farmers and friends and offering to help. Cooking and advanced thinking for the home team. But, worrying about all that I cannot anticipate. Worrying about the world. Worrying about the families and people stuck in NYC. Worried about my son’s roommates. Worrying about the place we find ourselves when the Governor NYS cannot get help. Worried that we are on a breakaway horse with no idea where we will end up (if we do not end up dead) . Worried about the pain and suffering that every person will be subjected to because of tremendous greed, narcissism and fear has brought us to the brink with this administration. It is the end of dreams. How can we hope?

I wish I could get my head around this for a pretty picture or some tidbit to brighten my soul—but I am not in the least bit humored or lyrical. We will talk tomorrow.

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Welcome shy girl.

Lucy Littlestar

Lucy Littlestar

Slip, sliding on the ice today. Rumor has it that we are on track for getting 5-7 inches tonight. I have coffee and milk and enough kibble to not have to go anywhere. Oh, that’s right…you don’t know about Lucy.

Lucy (working middlename is Littlestar) is my new dog. You heard me grieve over my golden boy, Mitch, and how crushed I was to lose him just as we had all gotten comfortable with each other. I didn’t want time to drag between losing my heart and getting another dog to take the space. So, I was looking on Puppyfinder.com and searching for airdales in the area. I noticed that there was a way to dial in age in the search bar—and up popped Lucy. She was/is a 4 year old Airedale who was part of the family and they had to get rid of her as her “person” couldn’t be around her any more. Turns out, there is much more there to unpack. I started to text with the owner and after a bunch of back and forths, she agreed to let me “rehome” the dog. Getting her was another issue…as the owner lives in North Carolina. But with our going to a wedding in Maryland, we agreed to meet closer to her in Richmond, Virginia. This was at the end of October 2019.

The hand-off was bizarre and after relating details to my new doggie support team, they have reinforced how wrong it all was. We met in a dog park because Lucy is a bit “shy” around cars etc. Dog Parks, according to my vet, are designed to keep vets in business. One never knows what is going to go down between dogs, their owner, off leash—put that in tumble dry and see where it takes you. Sleepless—-this will keep the wheels spinning. Lucy was not the tiny thing we saw in the pictures, but 90 lbs of shaking fear. She was hoisted into our car, shaking and burrowing her head into the seat back until we stopped to spend the night. She was good on the leash and was solidly walking with me until we got to our room…when she got into the bathtub and did not budge whatsoever. Poor Lucy was an emotional mess. Rob wisely cited that “this was not a rehome, but a rescue”. I concur. I was really regretting my impulsivity and worrying about how this might not be a good thing. Seriously worrying.

Basically, Lucy did not eat, drink or communicate for the better part of month. The first few days she spent in the tub here at 2 Camp. She kept her tail tucked tightly between her legs such that I had to ask the vet if it was broken.. She saw the vet—with the vet encouraging me not to worry as they have seen dogs like her, and it takes time and they saw a loving animal. And so it began. She had never been on stairs…and now she adores them and for fun climbs them up and down as part of her daily routine. She now is my dog. Lucy is on better dog food and has lost (less volume) 20 lbs and counting. She now has a shape. She has been spayed, microchipped, clipped and cleaned. She has had a haircut and her coat is improving. She wags her tail for me…and her place of sanctuary is my office whether I am there or not. She is beginning to unfurl and show me her humor, her spunk and her smarts. I am optimistic.

And she loves popcorn. Caught a piece this morning as i tossed it to her.

We also have appointments with Russ. Russ Hollier is a dog whisperer from Cortland. I figured Russ could help Lucy become more of the dog she is…and once we are there, to work on basic training to improve our relationship. While Lucy gets a little closer, or lets Russ pat her (big deal, Lucy had some bad, traumatic men in her life) or reward her with a squeeze of cheese from a can— Russ tells me about his other dog customers and the things they are doing from work helping super anxious people to a person with disabilities whose dog is part of their support team. it is all very heartening and lightens my mind to know that Russ is changing lives both canine and human through his interaction and training.

We all need dogs during the age of Trump. They keep things real—and she pushes me to pay attention and support them. Lucy and I have a way to go…but she isn’t going anywhere and hopefully, the only place she will be going is vertical.

Fingers crossed.

02.05.2020

It’s the beginning of the year (alright, its a month in) and the beginning of another decade. Another decade!! What happened? I am so worn down from the “drinking from the firehose” that I have been doing since this heinous man was elected that I really have lost touch of much else It’s been a rollercoaster ride of hope and agony, of assumed beliefs and the true seediness, greed and grift that so many politicians, lobbyists, and oligarchs engage in— to keep most of us in line, eating the scripted pablum and moving forward to keep them rich, in power and in control. It has been a horror to discover that the bottom always has a bottom, and in this world— there is no bottom, just freeflight which seems to be getting faster and faster to what end? To our end? to the end of an idea, an idea called “America”?

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I used to do a picture a week to focus on resistance around this administration and their sycophants and that was well and good until I could not decide which horror was the worst—as the words, the chaos, the horrors, the mis-steps, the sniping and backbiting, the 7/24 need to tend to the news just to make sure no one was dead, or we were on the brink of war. At that point, art seemed irrelevant. It wasnt speaking to me, but became, to some degree, a talking point with my friends—but something that really did not drive change in the lovely liberal bubble I float in.

I have to get my images back. I have to get back to making things. I have to gather myself back up and have a voice. It used to give me strength even in the frivolity that I could chat with you.

So, to that, I am going to start to write— the tip of the brain to the tip of the cyber pen, just to begin to exercise the old brain—and as a small diversion from the tragedy that has befallen and continues to strike our America. I may start ranting. I may give you my book list. I may tell you some tales. Or we might crack open the jolly book of ideas and pictures and have a few laughs together. That might be nice?

Talk to you tomorrow.

Advent 2015: Day One

Preface: Advent 2015 Starts Today!
I try to pick a theme that I stick to, or choose to derivate from and this year's theme is Birds, Bees and Big Green Trees. Some of them are Christmassy (sing the carols please) and others are just birds that I admire or think are funny. You can be the judge. Here we go!

Advent 2015: Day One:Christmas GooseQ. Cassetti 2015

Advent 2015: Day One:
Christmas Goose
Q. Cassetti 2015