Strange stuff

This morning, I was feeling okay and thought that would be a simple post. Maybe about the party on Sunday, maybe about the cold weather we are having and the beginning of the end of this beautiful season we call fall.
But no, having given a month and a half request that samples be brought in on Saturday and not Sunday, I am dismayed to be told they were coming in on Sunday.
I fought back and no one could say much about it. Either they would be rescheduled for Saturday or they would not be done at all.
Will it work, tomorrow may tell, but I am unsure.
If the samples are collected on Sunday, I will go in late, ti invalidate them and dump them and that was my threat and promise.
It is something I can do because each time I go in, I do a variety of tests that validates, temperature, possible treatment, time and storage. they are invalid without that.
I left at 1:15 PM with no assurance about anything, but it really did not mater to me.
Some where, some time, some way they are going to learn.

Hell hath no fury like a chemist scorned?

The day started rough.
It was the eyes, of course, not focusing well through the glasses.
This has been occurring off and on for a week and then came today.
A lot of early interruptions made the little bit of work to finish difficult.
Then came the interesting part.
One of the people in another Department comes rushing in saying that they need to change a message on the machine and can not figure out how to do it from their phone.
No biggy, but I am with someone, they still can not figure it out and say they will come back.
Okay, this person gets paid more than me, is not dealing with eye problems, but I am just kind of perplexed.
They come back, I am in the middle of an analysis, they try again and I am telling them the instructions. They can not get it right, they blow up and say something to the effect of , "Why can't some one help me!" They storm out.
At this point, I am bemused.
My boss steps in, defending this person. i do not like that, he doesn't defend me.
He comes back a few minutes latter and asks if I will change the message. It is a simple thing, so just give me the message to put on the hotline.
More time passes and it finally comes, it takes me 2 seconds and it is done.
The person comes in a bit later and apologizes. I tell them to just ask.
1:30 PM, my eyes have had enough, I tell my boss I am going home. A person appears with a sample.
My boss calls me to help the person and then disappears.
I have to set up several tests and run them before I can leave. I am literally feeling my way through the tests, I have done these tests a million times and so it is second nature. I finish and am leaving and my boss reappears. I do not say anything. I am furious. I will be off tomorrow and that is a good thing.
I can guarantee, they have no clue....

Halloween is over, all Saints day is here

We had a good turn out last night, close to forty, which is good for our neighborhood.
All the children I know plus a few I did not.
I have almost no candy left over and that is also good.
Of course, I worked yesterday and do not today. That makes it a true holiday.
I get to rest and review the letter I just received from my doctor outlining the issues I am dealing with.
It is long, technical and pulls no punches.
Last night I had 2 monsters stay over, well not really monsters till this morning, before that they were my girlfriends.
They left me alone till this morning, when they decided it was time to play!
So much for sleeping in.
I am calmer than I have been, the wind has died down and so has my spirit.
I am acutely aware of how much emotion exists in my life now. It does not rule, but it is in every movement and thought.
See what removing a tumor can do?
I am going to sit out on the porch and enjoy quietness while i can.

Autumn Wind

The winds blows frightfully,
It swirls in confusion.
I am lost,
Some where between despair and ecstasy,
I am in both places at once and
I am confused.
Can I?
Will I?
Should I?
Strange questions to ask,
But the answers swirl around in the wind,
Lost for a time.
To be found again,
Someday.

The Reset Button

In my sub conscious, I knew yesterday was important.
I did not know why.
That is because that is the day they a year before, they put the shunt to remove the excess cerebral spinal fluid that had accumulated in the back of my head at the site of the operation.
That day was the beginning when the reset button was hit and for November of 2008, I have no memory, only snippets of still pictures.
The Shunt was only suppose to remove the excess, but it did far more than that and for a month I was operating my thinking engine one quart low.
The close people around me were alarmed, but did not know what to say or do.
My speech was slurred and slow and all my movements were deliberate.
In one sense, I was operating at a "retarded" level of cognition and that is not to put anyone down who is slow, my brain simply was not there.
I could not cook.
i could not put the sheets back on my bed after I had washed them.
Lots of things just did not matter anymore.
It put me a path that put me back in the hospital in the beginning of December, where they figured out what was wrong and shut off the shunt.
I woke up from that operation with my brain operational again, immediately.
It forced my "heart" and feeling to operate my life and that was not all bad.
I think that is what activated my muse.
What put me back in the hospital was a walk, about a mile down the road. alone, to buy a gift card for someone special's birthday. The action was all heart, my mind was not involved.
There was no mind to be involved.
On the way back, I passed out on the sidewalk in front of a gas station.
There are strange stills of memory in that, a woman screaming, the Fire truck with flashing lights, a kind and gentle EMS man lifting me onto a stretcher.
The hospital stay was cloudy and dark People visiting me, someone running out of the room crying, a gentle nurse helping me, signing a paper for an operation and then waking up with everything clear.
I did not say, but they checked my cognition, gave me an IQ test and decided if I had lost anything, it really did not matter, the IQ score was 160, for whatever that matters.

Today was a good day of remembering that "reset" and while my camera skills are poor at best. I give you a snap shot of my latest creation.


CT covered bridge.

It ALWAYS passes

Today was a strange day, I was down a bit, but there was a reallity, my muse was struggling to get out again and paint.
That will be shown when I get the picture out of the camera.
It was also a day of reflection because I and not thought much of the struggles I was gone through this past year and there are many of them and I am still dealing with some of them.
I remember the first night in the CCU of the hospital not really understanding all the swimming and confusion, the blackness and the noises.
Then trying to learn to walk again and to swallow, such difficulty, not even water would go down right.
I still will choke on water, but the improvement is so different.
I was sitting on the porch yesterday and doing something that coems naturally to me, but I think no one else. I was balancing chemical equations for impurities that use oxygen in the Long Island Sound. I am crazy, I thought to my self and then today I painted. It is different than I used to do, but there is a different kind of complexity to the work and I know it is me also.
I started the chicken for the enchiladas I will serve in a couple of weeks, they went into the freezer and that is part of me also.
Such a complex creature and yet last year...
I have come a long way.

Then there are days like this...

Neither fish nor fowl,
not animal or mineral or vegetable.
Hang over an Abyss of limbo,
Darkness crowds my mind.
The mouth tries to speak,
but the mid gives it no words.
There is silence.
Chaos and confusion reign.
The struggles, they are not over,
the dreams of sweet peace are still fleeting.
There are days like this.
Then they pass.