Mind The Gap

"Another Brick in the Wall...?" as seen at The Lettuce

Now, apologies to the Almighty Pink Floyd...

Just a short observation I wanted to share since I ONCE AGAIN CAN'T SLEEP...I was interpreting in a group setting today and made an interesting discovery at the end of the session.  While I can tell you in minute detail who the the deaf clients were (well, I could, but I won't, confidentiality and ethics and all...), I have no real memory of any of the other faces in the room.  I have a sort of photographic memory, but when I call up my memory of that room I can't make out any of the faces.  I can tell you who was African American, who was male, who was female...but if I were to pass any of those people on the street I can guarantee that they would recognize me far before I recognized them.  And I suppose that's as it should be.  I just wonder why.  Their faces, in my memory, look like the melted/distorted faces of the school children in the "Another Brick in the Wall/We Don't Need No Education" part of Pink Floyd's "The Wall."  No definition, nothing, just blank.  For you Doctor Who fans, it was like the moment in the episode "The Idiot's Lantern" when the Doctor finds the caged up people with no faces...the room, in my memory, is filled with people with no faces.

On the one hand, that's good because it preserves confidentiality for the group members.  But in a way, it almost trivializes them, at least in my memory, because there is nothing individual about any of them.  But that's good as well, I suppose, because I'm remembering them as a group of people focused on a common healing goal rather than as this man or that young woman or the like.  I have to admit that even though I certainly do not wish to share the illness that brought those people to that group, I always leave those situations feeling a bit like an outsider. I know that's what I am, really, but when you've spent an hour being someone else, speaking their words, signing their thoughts...when it's over and everyone separates into groups and you're left standing there it's just an odd feeling, like breaking through the surface of the water to find that everyone has already headed for the beach.

Profundity.  A CLEAR sign that I need sleep.  Cross your fingers it comes soon...

Hot Dogs at the Ballpark...as seen on The Lettuce

Hot Dawg
Originally uploaded by Nancy Allen

So it sounded like a great idea at first...the Greenville Drive, our local minor league baseball team, partnered with the Greenville Humane Society to host "Bark in the Ballpark," a day where baseball lovers could come out to the park and bring their furry family members along as well. Our greyhound group discussed making an appearance and the local greyhound club took the reigns to organize something with the Drive/Fluor Stadium so that not only could we have a tent to sit under, but we could talk about greyhound adoption in between innings. The kids and I headed downtown, me with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" ringing in my head and them with "She's Taking Us Out of the House!!" written all over their smiling greyhound faces.

Those smiles faded quickly, though, when we arrived. I had budgeted for free parking (What was I thinking? Just because Greenville is littered with parking decks that there would magically be one at the stadium? Silly me...) and $5 general admission, leaving me a bit of cash for a drink and maybe some ice cream...it is June in the southern United States, after all.

No parking deck was to be found but there were lots of helpful people with orange flags ready to direct me into the surrounding parking lots and take $5 of the cash I'd brought so that I could park there and walk to the stadium. We did that, and started up the hill on the hot pavement toward Fluor Stadium. Got to the ticket window and there were all kinds of dogs there...on flexi-leads. I'll save that rant for another post.

Up to the window...1 for general admission, please? She asks if I have dogs. Yes. She asks how many. Three. She explains that all the dogs are in the reserved seating so that will be $6. Okay. My $5 plan has become $11 in a matter of minutes, but I'm still hanging in there. That's what man made debit and credit cards for, right?

I asked her about where the tent for the greyhounds would be, and if that was in the reserved seating. She didn't know what I was talking about. That should have been a sign for me to take the money and run (sorry...had the car radio on 70's rock all weekend) but I didn't. We headed into the stadium.

The Greenville Humane Society had a tent right at the entrance with water bowls...we skipped that because I was just positive that we'd have plenty of water at our tent.

Only there was no tent.

The organizer, the one that had called to set up the tent and the between-innings appearance wasn't there. In fact, I only found three other families from my adoption group still there by the time we got there. We, along with all the other dog people, were put out on the concrete just behind reserved seating (if you're looking at the baseball diamond we were just behind first base). Next to us was the concessions area with blessed shade, and before I'd even found my group I was headed there so the kids could cool off from the walk from the car/standing in line in the sun to get tickets.

A very apologetic young man in a Greenville Humane Society shirt stepped in front of me to tell me that dogs weren't allowed under the shade at the concession area, but that he would be glad to hold them for me while I went to get food.

Let me just process that a moment...I don't fault the Humane Society because they were just doing what they were told by the stadium...but you'd think, being the HUMANE SOCIETY they would see a flaw in not allowing dogs in the one place in the whole stadium that has shade...in June, in South Carolina, at 4pm in the afternoon when it is 80+ degrees Fahrenheit outside. But I digress.

I found the other members of my group and stayed about half an hour. We shared our car mat to at least give some barrier between the dogs and the concrete. They shared water and Miss Becky even got an ice cream for them to share with her boy Stormy. Finally I decided that I'd had enough and that the dogs had long since had enough, so we left to go home.

Perhaps this is why I prefer soccer?

More Proof...as seen over on The Lettuce

All you can do in this world, I think, is try to be a good person. Try to help your fellow man or woman or child. Try to give what you have that you don't need. Try to be a shoulder for someone else to cry on when they need it. Try to make right the wrongs that you can, and continue to fight for the ones you can't.

Because this world, beloveds, is horrible. It is full of people that do and say as they please with no regard for anyone else but themselves and theirs. It is overflowing with people who have so much that ignore those that have so little. This world rewards selfishness. It rewards greed and blind ambition. This world praises competition to the point of ruthlessness. This world stomps on the heads of those deemed lesser on it's way to becoming greater.

My friend Trish died today. Totally unexpectedly. Into the hospital overnight last night and by tonight she's gone. Trish, who took in animals that had been raised in mills and through love turned their tiny worlds around and gave them a home rather than just an existance. Trish, who listened to me cry and scream and rail against the world, God, and parts of my own family when my aunt died last August. Trish, who always seemed to know that right thing to say to make you smile, and who never let on that she was hurting or sick.

I never met Trish in person. I knew her via a message board called GreyTalk, and more intimately when she adopted her girl Flippy through Follow That Hound. She wept with me over Profile's loss, and cried happy tears that she would get to meet Hunk after he was found cancer free...she'd fallen in love with him through my books.

Trish was good and honest and loving...and she is gone, while others not so good nor honest nor loving still walk the world. The world that didn't deserve her. So be kind to each other, if you can...this is just more proof that all we can do in the world today is find ways to survive.

I would never ignore a word of anything you entrusted me with, Nan. Know that now and always. I'm here for you, any time. Don't be afraid to write. Don't be afraid to call, or txt. All my love, the pups, and the rest of the critter's but some of them aren't quite as cuddly and comforting as others. LOL! I'm so so sorry for this loss, and I will vow to you to do everything I can to be here for you. You also have a strong circle of friends, and you know that. They're all there for you too. Thank you for trusting me into that circle by sharing this letter with me. Everything you say to me, stays between us, unless you request otherwise.

Here's a Flippy kiss. I guarantee you can't get away from a Flippy kiss and a little of her talking, without a smile, even a tiny one.

Love ya, girlfriend,
Trish

Why you shouldn't trust a Yorkshireman with a Camera-Phone...

At the Copa...

Beware the screaming...and yes, I love Barry Manilow.  What of it??

Mills, Mon Aristochat (as seen over at the Lettuce...)

Everybody wants to be a cat,
Because a cat's the only cat
Who knows where it's at.
Everybody's pickin' up on that feline beat,
'Cause everything else is obsolete.
-"Everybody wants to be a cat," The Aristocats, Disney

That cat is my hero this morning. After an overnight interpreting assignment that has left me useless and out sick from work today, I was awakened to the familiar sound of Mills chasing thin air as he does every morning. Only this morning it wasn't thin air. It was a mouse.

Sadly I was on the phone to Simon when I discovered what Mills had and therefore caused him some permanent hearing damage when I split the sound barrier squealing.

My little mouser first cornered his prey in the closet in my office, then herded it out to the sitting room as I got something to scoop it up in so that I could usher it outside. Mills chased it out from under the chair, and then kept it under the table until I could get it into a tupperware container. I then took it outside and flung it into the yard and that little buggar ran STRAIGHT BACK FOR THE STAIRS to come back in the front door. Thankfully it saw me standing there and ducked around into the bushes on the front of the house, then into the house via a vent on the front in the foundation. Hooray.

I couldn't just sit and watch Mills kill it though...don't get me wrong, I don't want mice in my house but there is something so evil about how cats kill their prey. And it made eye contact with me...that was all she wrote. Simon had encouraged me on the phone to save it, chuck it out the door to freedom rather than let Mills kill it, so that's what I did. And the intelligence I saw in those eyes (coupled with terror, of course) lead that little critter right back into the crawl space under my house. Again I say Hoo-Ray.

His adventure this morning has bolstered the opinion in Mills's mind that he is the alpha in this pack. As I was making my tea, he stood up on his hind legs to look (he seems to think that this simple posture will magically make him tall enough to see over the top of the counter) and the dogs came over to see what he was watching. I don't know what exactly happened next but Mills moved his head at them like "You want some of this?" and all three dogs BACKED UP. Too funny.

I gave my little man a saucer with a little milk in the bottom and scratched his ears before he took off on patrol again. Je t'aime, mon Aristochat. Je t'aime très beaucoup.

Vox Hunt: Just Can't Get Enough

Share a song you recently realized you can't get enough of... no matter how many times you listen to it.

01 Love Song

QotD: The Best Scent

What is your favorite scent or smell and why? 
Submitted by Nebraska Plates.

Lavender

I don't know why, but it is.  I could spend all day with my head stuck in the lavender plants in my garden, all my candles and air fresheners are lavender-scented...even my soap is tea tree and lavender.  And I really don't like purple...interesting.

Vox Hunt: Self-Portrait Thursday

It's Self-Portrait Thursday.

Hello from the Brookdale Office!

Is it just me or do I look a bit cross eyed here?

QotD: Chinese New Year

2008 is the Year of the Rat.  Which animal year were you born in?

I was born in the year of the Boar.  That's BOAR not BORE.  Like PIG. 

Not sure that's any better...

Vox Hunt: The Gadgets I Carry

Show us the gadgets you carry with you.

Not my 8703e but close...

Get it? :)