Second Four

The second four have started out with a bang - just what I wasn’t hoping for.  First there was an alarm at one of our facilities, then a vehicle accident with injuries, and trying to scramble to get all the paperwork finished for the evening shift.

The night shift guys are much more patient and more laid back - most of them are veterans though whereas the evening shift has newer people.  We just hired three new officers so don’t know what shift they’ll get going on.  One of the new officer’s is one of our dispatchers so here we are short again.  That really is going to stink once students come back full time and football starts.

Hopefully the rain will keep it quieter then last night - the guards are pretty much finding buildings to wait out the rain so they shouldn’t be calling in every five minutes.

Now He’s Dead

Person was riding along on his motorcycle, probably thinking about beating the severe thunderstorms home so he wouldn’t get soaked when out of nowhere, KABLAM!

I don’t know yet whether the person was wearing a helmet or even whose fault the accident was. I sent my officer’s out to help with traffic control as the City works the crash at a popular intersection. The mc driver was DOA - probably, hopefully, died instantly so felt no pain.

What is so scary to me, and so much a reminder of how fragile life is, is that he had no idea even a split second before hitting that intersection, that he had just used up his last moment on Earth. The bell tolled for him, his account for life canceled, the owl called his name, and the Grim Reaper was there to collect him.  That quickly a life can be extinguished - a person who had hopes, dreams and concerns about his life suddenly has no ties to life here at all.

Granted, we can’t think constantly about how this could be our last moment here but maybe we should take time every day to realize a lot of people won’t be alive by midnight tonight and that we never know when we might be included in that group. Appreciate the day, always. Appreciate our blessings and even our trials because having problems is a sign that we are still alive.

Assisted Colonization

Well, we knew it would all come down to this eventually. Afterall, we humans are the smartest of all God’s creatures and thus, colonizing the animal world in our own way should be how it was meant to be right?

Not only should we colonize the creatures how we see fit, we should also decide in an animal kingdom triage sort of way, what species we should let become extinct in favor of keeping other species around in this world of shortening animal habitats. Doesn’t that seem normal to everyone?

Scientists have advised that the species of Sky Island in Arizona is basically “toast” because they don’t know where they would move them so might as well let them go extinct. Who needs them anyway?

“When deciding which species to save and which to watch die, Root said one key is uniqueness. That’s why she said she’d save the odd-looking Tuatara of New Zealand, a lizard-like creature with almost no living relatives, over the common sparrow.”

“The risk of extinction has to be balanced by the potential hazard to the community where a species is relocated as well as the time and cost of making the move, Parmesan says.”

“Ultimately, the decision about whether to actively assist the movement of a species into new territories will rest on ethical and aesthetic grounds as much as on hard science,” she said in a statement.

“Passively assisting coral reef migration may be acceptable, but transplanting polar bears to Antarctica, where they would likely drive native penguins to extinction, would not be acceptable,” she said.

“Conservation has never been an exact science, but preserving biodiversity in the face of climate change is likely to require a fundamental rethinking of what it means to preserve biodiversity,” Parmesan said.

Wow, doesn’t it just make you proud to be a human? And, by the way, whose to say penguins are more unique then the polar bears? I think that is subjective and totally unfair. Let’s relocate the penguins to Alaska or Canada - let the bears have the Antarctica.

Somewhere I’m sure someone has a nice little chart with nice little diagrams of how every thing would benefit if we took over nature. Let’s make the world one big zoo. Does it irk anyone else as much as it does me??

I understand that some species are endanger of becoming extinct but is moving species around a good idea? Shouldn’t we let Mother Nature handle, well, Mother Nature? Have we done much good when we have “accidentally” relocated things in the past? Fire ants spring to mind - they came over from Africa or some such place - now look at how they’ve become an epidemic in the south.

Pretty soon I won’t have to watch the Sci-Fi channel to get my “b” movie horror fix - the reality of what we’ve done to our world will far out due what they can come up with on TV.

Last Post for a Few Days

Just wanted to let you all know that I am at my new apartment now.  It is a lot smaller then what I remembered but oh well.  One disconcerting note when I got there was there is no refrigerator.  I left a message with the landlord so hopefully they will take care of it.  There is also no hardware for curtains or blinds so I will have to do something about that.  I don’t have the money to buy either right now so will probably buy some cheap white sheets and tack them up until I can get blinds and curtains.  Yes, this is a time when a charge card would come in handy, huh? 

I have loaded the boxes I sent to sister’s - I only have seven and I could swear I sent nine but I don’t know where else they’d be so assume I only sent seven.  I will have to check my ups slip when I find it.  That isn’t to say that I think they are at my sister’s but worry more that they got lost in shipping and I never checked them until now to make sure they were all there.  Stupid of me, I know.  All the boxes were pretty light but I thought for sure I had a couple of heavy ones too that cost me almost $30 to send - I hope they didn’t get sent back to the condo and then stolen.  Ugh.  Always something.

First thing I did when I got to the apartment was throw up - second thing I did was faint.  Don’t know what is wrong with me these days, I feel sick about as often as I feel well.  I took some Advil on an empty stomach so assume that was what caused it - that and getting overheated by carrying boxes inside and also not eating.  I grabbed a cheeseburger from MacDonald’s before coming back to load the shipped boxes and feel much better now.

As a reminder folks, I won’t have internet at all until early next month sometime.  I will do emails from work when I do work - which is Thursday-Tuesday of next week.  That means no more posts until then either but I will write some long hand so when I get to work on Thursday I can type several in.

I couldn’t sleep from 12:30 till after 4 am this morning because I was worried to death about my condo - really the first time I have done so since being up here.  I got to thinking about all the things that could go wrong with it and how I should have the air on in it, etc.  So hopefully in the next couple of months I can get down there to get it ready to be sold.  I really wish I knew someone down there who would take care of it for me but I don’t.  Oh well.

So this is my last post till Thursday night unless I get to the library to get on there, which I highly doubt.  I have unpacking and, as I said, laundry to do.  I know, you are thinking why don’t I just do it at my sister’s before I go? Because my neice is sleeping and I don’t want to disturb her because she has to work today.  The laundromat isn’t all that bad and with only one load should go fairly fast.

Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and kind thoughts during this whole moving delimma.  Hopefully I can move on mentally now to more positive things.  

 

As I was going to St Ives

Yeah, I really didn’t have a title for this blog so rather then keep struggling with it, this riddle popped in my head so I used it.  Strange, I agree.

Today is my last day “off” work for the next six days.  I actually work 3am-7am tomorrow morning - don’t ask me how that came about because I have no idea.  I will go to bed tonight but have to be up at 2 am to get to work on time.  Ugh.  Then I start working 11pm-7am Wednesday thru Friday, then 7pm to 7am on Saturday and Sunday.  My regular schedule that I hopefully will start on the end of July is 7pm-7am Sat & Sun and then 7pm-3am on Mondays and Tuesdays.  I suppose I should get on work’s email system to see if anything has changed in my absence.

Right now I’m getting ready to go into Iowa City to get a present for my nephew’s new baby girl.  I don’t really know what they need so will get them some cute stuff and hope they like it. 

I really wish I could get my life into more of a routine.  I know it won’t happen this month but hopefully next month - especially if work lets me stick to my schedule so I could plan out my month.  I’d like to get a second job for awhile - probably working mornings since I work for the University in the evenings.  I just have so many bills that I’m behind on - I hate it.  Before I moved I had every bill paid up on time but now it is more of a struggle.  There I could fill my gas tank up once every three or more weeks - here I’m filling it each week.  Even when I move to NL, I will still be spending a lot more in gas then I did.  Still, I’m not sorry I moved up here but I do miss some of my friends down South and I miss my condo.

According to the doctor’s scale, I’ve lost 18 lbs since moving up here.  I can tell my clothes are a bit baggier but think that 18 lbs is such a drop in the bucket to what I need to lose.  Of course, it is a start and I expect I’ll continue to lose as I go along.  I am not as down as I was in Florida so am not eating as much since a lot of my eating then was due to being down. 

So there you have it.  I guess I best get my butt in gear if I want to run to town quickly.  I don’t want to be gone long because I need to do laundry and want to hang the clothes out if I can find the clothes pins.  I love the smell of clothes that have been hung out versus the dryer. 

Kids

We raise our kids and think that they will go by the same ideals that we taught them their entire lives.  We hope that we have at least instilled in them a sense of what it means to be part of the human race and that they will go on from there. 

What we find hard, as parents, to do is to actually let go so that they can find their way beyond us.  I know that we all do let go and have to let go but it is still hard.  Today I went to see my son as he said we’d maybe do something before he had to go to work.  He didn’t expect his girlfriend, my future daughter-in-law, to be home soon so we figured we’d hang out. 

Well, she was home early so that put the kibosh on us doing anything together.  Not that I won’t do anything with the two of them, of course I would, but since they hadn’t seen each other since Wednesday they didn’t want to do anything with me.  Imagine that.

But that gets away from my point a bit doesn’t it? My son has grown into his own person with his own plans and ideals.  I am proud of the man he has become though I’m not sure being so matters to him one way or the other.  I suppose he thinks I’d be proud of him no matter what unless he did something horrendous like killing someone for fun…

I think it is hard to have your children grow up because you are left with this notion that who are you if not their mom? Yes, you are always their mom but once they are grown, that part of your life is called on less and less so you have to find your identity in something else.  The name of it is “Empty Nest Syndrome” which makes me laugh that there is a name for it but I guess it is becoming an increasing reason for depression and people feeling so worthless.

How do you re-devote your life to something else once the kids are raised and out of the house? What else is there when you’ve spent the last 20 years solely on this one purpose? It is a struggle sometimes to find things that are as meaningful as raising children - even half as meaningful.  I know it is something I still work with all the time.  {sigh}

Internet’s Back

Both Internet and cable were down for a couple hours today making it impossible to be passively entertained.  I wrote in my journal and put a movie in called “Shattered” which I had seen before but not for many years - it was alright.

Right now I have “Jurassic Park” in and it is at the scene where the T-Rex is attacking the kid’s car.  At 7pm I will turn it back to cable as the movie “Supergator” is suppose to be on Sci-Fi then.  You know how I love those corny “B” movies.  I think the actors work harder in the B movies because they aren’t famous - each movie they do they are hoping someone will recognize them and they’ll make it to the big time.  Once actors are stars, a lot start thinking their shit doesn’t stink and their fans will put up with anything.  Usually the B movies have one star that was an extra in a few big name movies so as to lend some sort of authenticity to the show.

Rick, my brother-in-law, decided to go to the races tonight instead of watching his granddaughter here.  I don’t know if the child is going along or if they found someone else to watch her.  I would have watched her had they wanted me to but no one asked.  It is good he is spending bonding time with his oldest son but it makes me feel like I’m a fifth wheel in that he probably would have stayed home to enjoy a night on his own if I hadn’t been here.  I hate feeling like I’m in the way.

However, hopefully, that will change this next week and I can get moved into my own place.  I won’t have much of anything to start with but I guess that is alright.  I can buy cheap plastic plates and what not at the Dollar Store.  I have my pots and pans so at least that is something.  My younger sister gave me a glider that use to be our Mom’s so I will have something to sit in to watch TV if I can still borrow a TV from someone.  I will have to buy a DVD player because I can’t go without TV and I won’t be able to afford cable for awhile.  Don’t know what I will do about the Internet - guess I’ll have it at work or have to go to the library.

I hope I get a two bedroom apartment so I can make the second one a den.  Course, I don’t have many books anymore…it makes me very sad.  I left some books in the condo that I definitely want so hope I can get back there to get them.  My sister said she’d go down with me when I’m ready if I wanted.  I’m thinking between her, Wayne and myself, we could get a lot done.  I’m not so sure I want to sell it now and have been trying to dream up ways that I can keep it awhile longer - short of winning the lottery or getting a big raise, I’m not sure it will be possible.  Man I miss my condo.  I don’t miss Florida but I do wish I could transport my condo up here.

Oh well, such is life.  I’ve been working, as I said I would in a previous post, on how I’m going to change my life.  So far I haven’t come up with much but I do think I’m on the right track.  I promised myself when I was in Florida that living back in Iowa would be different this time.  I would explore my home state and do more fun things in it and the surrounding states.  That is still one of my goals.  I wish I had all the answers but I don’t. 

 

More Bee’s Please

I’ve been reading about this phenomenon about the honey bees disappearing. It sounds like a little thing, why bees are pests and who cares if they are declining in extremely large numbers? It was even brought up in the movie “The Happening” as something that scientists can’t explain…and they can’t.  In the past few years, 36% of the honey bee population has died.

Who knows why the bees are dying in record numbers? No one does - “possible explanations include pesticides; a new parasite or pathogen; and the combination of immune-suppressing stresses such as poor nutrition, limited or contaminated water supplies and the need to move bees long distances for pollination” says the article I read. The loss of bees is becoming a major crisis for the United States.

How does that effect your life, you may ask. You might not know that bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion in crop revenue annually. That means food prices will begin to soar because there aren’t enough bees to pollinate entire crops of things such as almonds, berries of most every kind, cucumbers, pears, etc. One out of every three bites of food a person puts in their mouth can be traced back to honey bee pollination of crops. Think about bread, ice cream, salads, cereal, fruit juices, just to name a few items off the top of my head.

It is amazes me how one little upset in nature can have such a wide ripple effect. It doesn’t surprise me - I know nature is delicately balanced and that human interference has always done more harm then good - but it always amazes me. When are we humans going to wake up and see how much we impact our planet?

So what things can you do to help the bees? You can plant bee friendly plants in your yard such as: lavender, glory bushes, jasmine, rosemary, thyme, blue bells and sunflowers to name a few. You can also use more honey which helps support bee keepers and honey bee research.

Let’s work together on saving our planet because, ultimately, we are saving ourselves as well.

Almost FRIDAY!

It is almost Friday, I have to tell you…I didn’t think I’d make it through this week but here I am.  It actually wasn’t that bad and I have to take back a lot of the complaints I had about the trainer I didn’t want to work with.  I can appreciate, after watching her the past two weeks, just how difficult her job is and how well she does it.  She took me out for a margarita tonight after work which was nice.  She wanted to say “thanks” for all my help this week.

My vacation starts Saturday and I grieve not being able to go to Wyoming.  I was so looking forward to it but when it was decided not to go, I figured it was for the best.  Now that the time is here, I so wish we were going.  It would have fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine to stay out in the wilderness with minimal amenities of the civilized world.  It was to be a test of my character and endurance.  {Sigh}.  Granted, I can’t afford to go so it is good that we aren’t but it just seems like one more failed dream, you know?

We seem to make plans a lot but little grows to fruition.  It gets a bit sad that we can’t pull it together enough to make some of our dreams come true.  But, of course, when times get tough then vacations are the first thing to be sacrificed on the alter of financial wellness.  Now I have no plans for a vacation in the coming months or years.  Sure we said we’d go next year but why should I believe we can get it together enough to do so when we couldn’t this year? It is disheartening.

Tonight we watched the last hour of “Legends of the Fall”.  Yes, most of you automatically think of the hunky Brad Pitt but I actually saw the movie for Aidan Quinn whom I think is quite good looking.  I like the characters he plays - usually men of dignified repose.  Brad was a sight for sore eyes but really, the story is so tragic.  I do like the ending when the old indian says that Tristan was the rock everyone else broke themselves upon.  It had little to do with his life but more with what people expected or wanted from him.  However, I liked Aidan Quinn’s line about how he did everything right - followed the laws of man and God - yet everyone loved Tristan more.  It shows, of course, how people always go for the rebel.  Don’t know if women think they can tame him or if others just find a rebel more daring then they have the courage to be, but it still seems true today - everyone loves the bad boy more.

Another Place

Expectations.  We all have them - for our own lives and those around us.  We look out of our surroundings and decide, subconsciously, how we will react to them.  It isn’t just our surroundings but the things we must participate in such as work, family, alone time, etc.

All week I was looking forward to today…a day off.  I hate working days and it irritates me to no end that I have another week of them.  I view it, whether I’m right or wrong for doing so, as a punishment for requesting to be off training early.  The person who does scheduling could have left me on the night shift this past week but she chose to do this to me instead.  I knew she would.  I also knew it would reinforce my dislike for the job.  I have decided next time a city job is open, part-time or full time, I will put in an application.  I am not happy at the University thus far.

But what were my expectations when I moved to Iowa? I’ve already described my expectation that things would be harder then staying in Florida both financially and living quarters.  I knew it would be and I would like to say that knowing so has helped me keep a positive attitude…but I’d be lying.  How many times have I asked God to test me, to test my strength and wisdom, only to whine about it when he does?

At the end of the movie “The Edge”, Anthony Hopkins says something poetic about the tests of life never come when you think they should, but rather hit you up along side the head when you aren’t prepared.  I knew what was coming but I failed to really examine how the circumstances would effect me mentally, spiritually and emotionally.  I considered the financial aspects of it figuring the rest would just fall in line with my expectations.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not depressed.  I’m just simply stating the fact that we have expectations but rarely do we see the full scope of what is ahead.  I’m very thankful to my son and my sister for letting me stay with them.  I just wish that I had been able to get my own apartment by now.  I wish I had planned a little better.  I am not sorry I moved.  The only thing in Florida I miss thus far is the beach.  I miss going out to sit and watch the waves come in when I’m feeling down.

But anyhoo.  Life marches on and in a few months, it will be more settled into a routine that I will probably be complaining about then as well.  I do know that I want a different job but don’t feel like I can go for that until the condo is sold.  That way I can take a pay cut if necessary…right now there is no way that I can do so unless I got a second job to make up the difference.