Random thoughts, I have these every so often

Much like paddling, walking my dogs leads me down a contemplative path. I often ponder unanswerable questions when in the company of my dogs.

Such as:
-I recently saw a meme going around that said "Dog is Love." But I had also seen earlier a meme that said "God is Love." And also a bumper sticker "Love is God" So, let me see if I get this straight: if God equals Love and Love equals Dog, then Dog = Love which = God. Dog is God. No wonder they are have the same three letters arranged front to back, in reverse. And then I started thinking "ah, so if Dog is an embodiment of God then what is the Dog Star? An embodiment of God in a star? Or is it that all dogs are stars....?" "Oh, all dogs go to Heaven, of course!"

-The leash ties us together. It protects our dogs from injury and protects we humans' hearts from trauma too. All hail the leash!

-I know that dogs view their poop as much as we people view calling cards. I wonder what they think when I remove their "calling cards?" My female dog always looks away, as though she is embarrassed.

-While picking up poo this morning I discover my female dog still has soft stools. I am stumped. We have tried everything from home made food to voodoo, and nothing seems to help. I blame the chronic soft stools on the numerous antibiotics she received during the 18 months she struggled to recover from a brutal bone infection.

Following the last round of voodoo, actually homeopathic remedies, she finally overcame the infection. She walks without a limp and no longer has a swollen leg with a draining tract. A human would have sunk into such depression, having a swollen arm with pus draining from it for 18 months. So we forgave Kona her terrible attitude during those long months. She became our horrible baby, a snarling growling grumpuss, needing love and tender care.

-The local foxes and possibly coyotes poop at the end of driveways and sometimes on side walks. I know this is their way of marking territory. Leaving calling cards. But one must be awake to avoid stepping in their "calling cards" at dusk or dawn. And I sometimes shamble around the block like a zombie at dawn, propelled by my grip on the leash, the gentle tug of the dog at the other end. You can see where this is headed, right...?

-My dogs will never "dump" me, unlike my human friends. And so I ponder, having just had a friend leave my life with many unanswered questions, My husband says I attract flawed people. If so, then it is because I am tolerant of human defects, living in a glass house and all. I am so aware that I am no paragon of human perfection. "Flawed" is just another way to say "perfectly human."

husband covered in beasts

-It is almost fall again. Autumn used to be my favorite time of year. Now I dread its arrival, remembering past years. This fall I will not stop paddling, having graduated to the dry suit crowd. I am enrolled at a yoga studio to help me stay active and focused. I am also thinking of having a frank discussion with my gp, just to see if he has anything to suggest. That is, anything besides decamping to Florida for the main part of the dreary season.

Pete's surprise party on Sunday 2/23/14

Sunday I met my paddling friends at Beverly-Triton Beach to paddle out to the Thomas Point Light, which I had never gotten to do before.
I had a hard time getting my shit together. There were tears. It wasn't good.

But once I was there, the water and wind and sky came together. My friends all hugged me and it was good.

We celebrated Pete's 60th birthday. Everyone should have friends like these.

Awesome, Dennis, you out did yourself! credit Dennis Green 2014

credit Dennis Green 2014

more boats and me hopping to keep warm, credit Lisa 2014

Us, credit Dennis Green 2014

Myself and the Lorax  credit Lisa 2014

Dennis and I, not sure who shot this one, maybe Lisa?

Line of pretty boats, at second break area, credit Lisa 2014

Good one! credit Dennis Green 2014

My own photos didn't turn out so hot. I need a new camera. Period>

Brian, just as we set out

Darrick, who makes such fun videos!

These were pretty much the only good ones. I don't know how I am going to get a new camera but likely I'll weasel one out some time soon. But with so much training and classes to pay for a camera is low on my list of must-haves. Maybe I'll start using my phone like Lisa. Her shots are pretty clear.

It is as though someone declared "the wind has died"

 The very foundations of our world are shaken.

As you can see from my last entry on the 21st, I was fighting off the SAD (seasonal depression) pretty well. I had an uptick and was starting to feel a bit better. I was in a happier place, the weather was warmer and the sky bluer last week.

Mid-week I changed from Celebrex back to my old anti inflammatory Voltaren and my hands and shoulders felt so much better! This gave me a few better nights sleep. I started have some digestive issues on Friday and by Saturday had a full-blown "episode." (you don't want the details)  Hmm, thinking back, I hadn't had an "episode" since switching to the less-effective Celebrex. Needless to say I had to cancel on paddling with my friends that afternoon and barely made it to have dinner with my Ladies of Anglesey friends.

Dinner started with appetizers and drinks in the crowded bar at the DogsfishHead. All was well, and fun, until... Mikele got a call from her brother that our dear friend Shaitan (Greg) had been found not breathing right after he walked off the tourney field. This was a slow-moving disaster, each call, updating for the worse. He was declared dead at the hospital. We toasted his life and decided to skip dinner and walk home to Amy and Scot's house to talk.

That's Shaitan with red and black braids on his helm. credit bogpages.com

I met Shaitan when I was 16 and he was 19. He beat me up in Dagorhir (foam-fighting). He used to spy on me in camp and try to catch me naked. One time he flipped the shower tent door open on me, another time I caught him with his face pressed up against the mesh window of my tent, just as I took my clothes off. He teased me, and flirted with me, and hugged me. He was a force of nature, a satyr, a wood-land spirit, a Coyote.

I am having a really hard time. I am looking at photos of Shaitan and will post some but besides that, I don't know that I can say anymore. I am struggling not to just cry and cry.

Young Shaitan in the middle

Shaitan and Maegor, two of my favorite Tarns. We were young and invincible then.

This is the Greg I didn't know. The community activist, organizer, and all-around-good neighbor. But I'm not surprised at all. He was that kind of guy. Credit Julia 

I don't know who shot this but this was taken earlier in the day, on the day he died

Let Dennis Powers speak for me:

"All battle long I was killing a lot of people on his side and Shaitan was killing a lot of people on my side, but we had not yet (as far as I can remember) faced off against each other, after the last field battle he looks at me and said " you and I are gonna have to go" . Big shield charge into each other, threw a bunch of shots, before long neither of us had weapons or shields, whether we stripped them from each other or discarded them because it got too tight and they weren't doing enough damage, I don't recall . It ended with me having him in a choke hold and him elbowing me in the ribs trying to get loose. The elbows hurt so I dug the choke in a little tighter each time he hit me with one. I wasn't going to let go of the choke and he wasn't gonna stop throwing elbows. Then I foot sweep him and took him to the ground and we grappled around in the dirt a little while. When we heard the woods battle start we disengaged, picked up our weapons and shields and headed off into the woods looking for our respective teams with out a word being said. That was how I met Shaitan. That battle was almost 30 years ago now. We've fought with and against each other many, many, times in the decades since that battle when we were both oh so young. Had a lot of drinks and a lot of gambling , and various other shenanigans. He was my friend and a man I truly respected. That I wont see him again until I cross over that bridge is something I'm trying to wrap my brain around.-------Handrik of Anglesey."



I remember:

bogpages.com Thank you Tim, for providing photos of my memories

We 11 Concusare, Anglesey and Head Clan variously drove and flew to Gulf Wars in 2000. We didn't really coordinate with any other clans, we just wanted to spend time with Crinan, who was coming from Arizona. Llyr and I arrived first, staked camp, and went for a stroll. Lo-and-behold what do we spy but clearly a Tuchux Lodge in a small clearing all by itself?! No, shit, there we were!
We walked up and Llyr shouted "Hail to the lodge" and a voice answered "Enter!"
And there was Shaitan, sitting in a chair at the back of the lodge, looking for all the world like a king of old.
I said "I didn't know you were coming!"
and he said "I didn't know you were coming. We thought we'd be here alone!"
Then I said "but you looked like you were waiting for someone?"
and he said "Well, you know, if I build it, they will come."

In one of the field battles that week we 13, including Shaitan and Kai, ranged far to the left flank of the army and we saw a force of about 250 heading down the field to the far left for a break in the brush and trees at the very lowest corner of the field. It was just wide enough for about 6 or 8 fighters abreast. Shaitan pointed it out and lead us straight down at a full run and into the hole. We held that fucking breach, just 13 of us, and this one lone wolf we'd picked up. We broke that army on the Dog Pound. I remember when the flood of fighters slowed to a trickle and then there were just a handful, and then there was no one facing us. The horn blew and all these dudes came back and shook our hands. We were the Gods of War and Shaitan lead us there.

Us gathering on the field, Shaitan and Kai with us.
 bogpages.com

And I'm going to cry some more.

I learned after 9/11 not to look at stuff about the disaster on the tv too much, added to the whole PTSD experience. So I think I will be taking a break from facebook for the same reason. I will miss the updates and notices and the two or three friends who joined facebook simply because Shaitan's death shook them to the core as well.

But I have to step away to protect my self. I have work to do, a pile of files to audit. I have photos to edit, dogs to walk, a dirty house to clean, and blogs to read and write.

But all I can do is stare into the distance. Or cry, or lay in my bed and snuggle my cat.

This really sucks.

thoughts on a lost friend

I am working on the trip pics, never fear, installment number two will likely post during our incoming "blizzard."

I have had a lot of time to think. Water time elicits deep thinking.

I had once had a best friend; many-years best friend. I put up with her bad side as I truly enjoyed her good side. I imagined she felt the same way about me. But actually, it turned out that I was wrong. When she dumped me with no warning nor explanation I was shocked. Really truly deeply shocked and heart broken. I have never felt such grief. It is a grief made real to me on a work-a-day basis.

Never make friends in the work place is a take-away from this episode.

Another take-away is that I have begun to make better personal relationship choices. I think I was very accepting, far too much so, of my friends' and their personality defects. I can think of 5, 10, people with whom I would not now chose to be around. In fact, most of those people I do in fact now avoid. They are part and parcel of why I dislike being around my old reenactment group. Don't get me wrong, there are many good and fine people in that crowd, and some I really really like. However, I chose not to expose myself to the toxic amongst them, and this means I see the whole crowd less. But so it must be.

I feel like I have some real genuine quality friends now. When one of them hurts my feelings or does something I think is not quite right, I am comfortable discussing it with them. And they feel the same about me. It is a comfort to know that if I ruffle feathers or hurt feelings then that person will feel secure enough to discuss it and work it out.

Grown up, grown old? Or grown wise? I chose to be young, and wise. It's a good place.