Another Day

Two more exams down, two more to go! It's wonderful to have the two hardest ones behind me. It was funny and odd how this afternoon and early evening Marie and I actually felt more anxious sitting here watching TV simply because we had NOTHING to do. It felt like we should have something to do, and we were forgetting it. It makes me laugh. Later, Marie, Tara and I went to Mal's, a new burger joint in town in memory of a little boy, Malachi, who died of cancer in 2009. That was fun, it's an old drive in from the fifties, but it's not quite in tip top shape yet. Then we went to Frank'n'stein's for some beers at the bar. That was a hoot. We watched River Monsters on Animal Planet and listened to vinyl Simon and Garfunkel. Gotta love Amber Bock.

Earlier, after our exams, Marie and I went to the Western Store. They had a clearance table of jeans and buy one get one free boots! At first I wasn't going to get any, didn't even occur to me. However...they're really cool looking. I couldn't help but get myself a couple pair of cowgirl boots! They were buy one get one! And they're cute! And I can dress them up or wear them in the yard! I can wear them in the snow or the rain! It's awesome. I'm super excited. They're made in the USA, leather beauties. They were also expensive beauties, but they're very inexpensive compared to the five hundred dollar gorgeous ones I saw. Mine are pretty darn cute, the cutest ones for the price I got. And they were buy one get one! Marie said you can never get a deal like that. People were coming in and calling their friends to tell them to get there asap because it was such a good deal. I also got a couple pair of kick butt jeans. They're Cruel Girl's, I guess those are cowgirl name brand jeans...they're pretty darn good looking. After all, I couldn't say I lived for three years out in Western Oklahoma with a cowgirl and not come home with a pair (or two) of cowgirl boots! I did hold back on getting the eighty dollar hat though, that was just a bit much. There was a really cool one that looked like a really nice gardening hat though.

Anyway, that's my night! Tomorrow I'm going to meet Zach in the city for dinner, and on Sunday, Marie and I may go to the Battle of the Bands with Tara at Frank'n'stein's that afternoon. Of course, we have to study for Jurisprudence and Toxicology too...darn. Oh well. It's been quite fun. Boy, I need to exercise!

Winding up and winding down.

Almost there, almost there. I'm tired, tired of studying, just wanting to take the exams, but relieved I have a few more days to study. In five days, I'll look back and see just how fast this all went.

My childhood bed went away in the back of an old Chevy yesterday. I gave it away. The bed I spent many nights dreaming, crying, laughing, and mourning in since I was twelve. For half my life I've slept in that bed, from my yellow sheets on Willow, to my earthy ones on Freedom. I kept the bed linens of course, that would have just been too much. My Mama made them for me, there's no parting with that. I had that bed all the way back on Willow...that's some heart strings right there. Such soft and light memories there. Claw foot tubs full of steamy water, large paned windows with old brass knobs and thick layers of paint on the wood. Small window balconies, and a small reflecting pond full of orange goldfish. A rose garden, tall pines, and sweet summer afternoons in the grass, or on the hammock. I remember spending the night with Karrah on the hammock there too, watching the stars, and listening to the sleep ridden sounds of the night time animals. It was kind of thrilling, I think Karrah had to ask me to be quiet. The winding drive we could back down with the speed that would run anyone else into a tree...just ask my Grandpa. That was funny. Oh, and the porch swing, waiting for the bus with our back packs and just swinging as high as we could. Before that we were on Mt. View. Just a few memories...I should get to bed.

The Royal Wedding is tomorrow. I didn't know that Princess Royal was christened Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise. Also, her birthday is August 15th, same as my Mama's! They're just a few years apart too. She was the only daughter of the Queen and the Prince of Edinburgh.  Sidetracked!

How does one motivate oneself to go on when there is just two weeks remaining? At this point, I'm compelled to move forward, but the rewards just can't come soon enough. Just a few days, then an exam. Then the start of the end will really begin. My parents and sister are coming in Thursday, this Thursday...three days away. It will be a brief time of being free while they're here. Celebrating Easter, going to dinner, shopping...no school on my mind. The White Coat Ceremony will be Monday, one week from today, and that will signify my departure from here. Dead week, finals, and more finals, and on Monday, May 2nd, after my 2:30 exam, I will finally be done with the semester and with my 3 year exile for school. That's when the excitement begins! No more early morning drives out west, and life in residence with my husband. Anyone have advice for that? I've been tense these days, so its common that I'm on edge, I hope he understands.

I did well with the tracking of my alcoholic beverage consumption last week:
Friday 4-8 3 glasses wine
Saturday 4-9 3 glasses wine
Sunday 4-10 3 glasses of wine (it'll get better now...)
Monday 4-11 2 Mich Ultras (MU)
Tuesday 4-12 1 MU
Wednesday 4-13 1 MU
Thursday 4-14 1 MU
Friday 4-15 2.5 beers +1 glass w-wine
Saturday 2 glasses w-wine
Sunday 1 glass w-wine
Nothing today yet, but we're going to go to Zeva's restaurant for dinner, so I'll probably have a drink there. Obviously, there is room for improvement, but I didn't want to hold back just because I was keeping track. I was trying not to be biased, so there might be some holding back and some overboard too. My goal last week was to keep track. This week it will be to do that as well as mindful moderation. Wish me luck!

Songs for Japan

                I'm listening to an album of 38 songs I just downloaded from iTunes called, "Songs for Japan." Songs are a trigger for me. I'm getting really sad. Megan left for the weekend, she's calving heifers this weekend. Now that I'm alone and all my stuff is gone from my room, just the imprints on the floors, I just want to cry. I can't decide if I should let myself cry or try to hold it in. I'm feeling desperate, like I want someone here. I've had dinner and I need to study for my toxicology exam that is tomorrow (one of two reasons I'm still here, reason number two, I need to save up my absences in pharmacy administration for next weekend when I'm going to miss twice--my parents and sister are coming in!). 

                I guess another trigger today was probably learning about major depressive disorder in principles of pharmacotherapy today. Then we covered a case in lab. With the added bonus of our teacher stressing the importance of being active politically in my profession because the nursing association has been pushing hard to have dispensing capabilities under physicians. 

                If you think this is not a bit deal, outside of completely eliminating the pharmacist's role, it is because there is no way a nurse can actually do the job we do. People would die a lot. They would have to know everything it's taken us four years beyond our preparatory work to learn. Not to be too harsh, but it takes a certain personality and intelligence to be a pharmacist. It's a completely different target audience so to speak. However, they don't know this, and neither do our politicians and legislators. That's the really scary thing. Makes me want to get out there and get the word out about pharmacists.

              Back to my prior discussion, about depression and sadness, did you know that some people get so depressed they begin to have psychoses? Made me rethink some things in my past. This is what happens when you learn about these things in school, its a psychological response of course, but I can't help but assess myself for all these signs and symptoms. 

             We got head shots today at school for the Apothecary magazine that will come out in the fall. I got a package to get some extra photos to share with my family. We got to see the picture on an iPad too and pick one out of two that we would prefer. I liked my picture. I wore the gray shirt KA, my younger sister, got me for Christmas with the silk bow sleeves and an burnt orange stone necklace. It felt good being dressed up today. I felt pretty, and this week has not been a feeling pretty week. 

            I've been worried about putting weight back on. Zach and I will start going to the gym this weekend though. That will be good. We'll also have to do some house and yard work...my family is coming in!!! I'm very excited about that. Anyway, I'm going to go procrastinate some more by folding clothes and starting more laundry. Then I guess I'll have to start studying some more.

Defense Mechanisms

                  So, last night Marie got a text from her sister. Last week at the rodeo, Marie pointed out one of the barrel racers and told me her family had A LOT of money, and her horse was very expensive. It was a pretty quick little horse I noted. 

                 Apparently, her mother's family has the money, they own a whole bunch of banks here in our state. Marie said their father had always given her the creeps and had come off to her as rather chauvinistic. Well, last night he tried to murder his wife. He took her out to a field to check on some livestock, horses/cattle/calves--I'm not sure. He told her to leave her phone in the pickup and they took off into the pasture on a four wheeler. 

                When they got out a ways, he stopped and turned around to her and tried to beat her to death. We're thinking he didn't have a weapon outside of himself, because thought he thought he killed her and left her for dead, he did not actually kill her. 

                After he left (I'd have played dead too if I were her), he went to their arena like nothing happened. She, not being dead, crawled her way back to the truck he left behind with her cell phone in it. She called her sister and the police subsequently arrested him. He said that he'd meant to kill her but just "couldn't do it." I'm thinking that's just a cop out. This was premeditated murder. She's in the hospital ICU recovering, and he's behind bars pending charges. 

               This whole thing really bothers me. It just makes me so sick. I've been heart heavy about it since last night. I cannot imagine. It's just so sick. So incredibly sick. I hope for public safety that he never gets out to see the light of day again, but knowing our justice system, that's not a guarantee. The wife may have some pull, at least in the ability to hire a really good lawyer for both these charges and a divorce so that he should hopefully have to see judgment for his crimes. 

              I can't reconcile this though. It's so scary. This world has such a dark side, I sometimes like to turn a blind eye. It's that the epitome of human nature? We like to survive, and so we try to block out those things as defense mechanisms.

                  Talking about defense mechanisms, I packed up a lot of my furniture and things yesterday into my car to take home this weekend. Marie said I was making her sad, but that she knew I had to anyway. For me, I can't feel anything right now. This, however, is very typical of me. I struggled at the beginning and middle of the semester accepting this inevitability, and managed to make the best of it while shutting out the pain after I'd dealt with it. 

                Now, I know the pain is there, but I can't feel it. I know I'll have to deal with it in time, but my mind won't let me feel the pain just yet. I know this because I don't feel anything, at all, no matter how much I think about it right now. I suppose if I drank enough I could lower my inhibitions enough to feel it, but that would probably not be wise, and I'm not one to do that on a conscious level. It'll probably pop up sometime in the next couple weeks, I'm guessing when I start to have my period again. Things seem to emerge from the depths during that time of the month. 

              The saddest part is that I know that there is a good chance I may never see Marie again, outside of a few times next year for a few meetings and commencement. She's not one to talk on the phone, and though she'd love to visit or have us visit them, they're so busy with their ranch, we've gone two summers already talking about visiting and never making it happen. I've had enough change in my life to know that I can't disillusion myself into believing this will not change our relationship, and that we'll remain close. Life brings us gifts we can't always keep. 

             Things age and change with time, and just as time and memories pass, so do the friends and situations we find ourselves in pass into that dark and fond abyss behind us in our minds. I learned that it's possible to stay in connection with people, but that it doesn't always work out. You always need to keep trying, no matter whether they ever make the effort. You need to keep calling and writing them if you want to stay connected and not to fret with feelings of hurt when they don't always pick up, call back, or respond. In time they will, and if they don't, then in time you'll be able to let it go and move on. 

            These are the things I've thought of and pondered this semester and in relation to my life as I've lived it thus far. To living in the moment, cherishing every sunrise, celebrating each sunset, and to new beginnings; may we live and ponder another day.

Some Writing

This is some writing I've been working on. Let me know what you think, ie boring, interesting, what you think will happen next etc. This is a remake of a remake of a remake of something I began in high school. I wanted to post something, but spontaneity wasn't happening tonight. I reworked this section last night; check it out:

         

         The damp morning air made me want to return to my down comforter in bed, but I continued to lace up my running shoes. I pulled my blonde hair back behind my neck in a knotted mess, and began stretching out my calves on the brick edges of the porch. A small ant scurried past and into some leaves behind a potted mum. The sharp air had already started turning the leaves their bright palates of color; winter seemed to be waiting in angst, blowing its arctic winds across the exposed bumpy flesh on my arms and legs.

My empty stomach rumbled as I finished stretching out my hamstrings. I got up and ran out of the cul-de-sac, starting my routine route around the neighborhood; I was going to add a small mile and a half section through the community park today. I felt groggy, the pincushion bags under my eyes lingering as I began to jog and took off down my street. I turned right around the next corner onto Elm Lane and sped up to go down the straightaway it provided.
A small dog began barking loudly, but the sound soon faded as I put more distance between myself and the dog. After fifteen minutes or so I saw the park up ahead, and began to get excited about the new part of my route through the woods. Light was just beginning to hit the tops of the trees. It was six fifteen on my pink and gray Timex sports watch.

         The park consisted of a small jungle gym and a bench next the wooded trail. The path was well worn and led a rather narrow rutted path through the forest. There were some rusted iron benches every once in a while along the path, and round wooden logs dug into the trail for support.

         After only a few minutes into the forest, I twisted my injury prone left ankle. With a gasp, I tried to run through the pain, and did a limp-run for about twenty paces before I had to sit and take a look at it. I rotated it around a few times with painful popping until the pain began to subside. I got up and walked a ways before I started into my running stride again.

I approached the dense part of the woods and noticed a rotting wooden bench on the side of the trail covered in a pile of leaves and brown pine needles. I got closer and was surprised to see someone sleeping under the debris. It was a small man with a long thin gray beard and matted hair pulled back to the nape of his neck. He had a rugged cowboy hat over his eyes, and oil and dirt stained boots. The soles were worn thin on the outsides, and the toes of the once smooth leather was scratched and torn up into a teased scuff. With closer inspection I thought he looked quite dead. His skin was as white as a sheet and he was as still as a rock. Concerned, I stopped running and went over to rouse him.

           At first touch, he was cold, but I noticed his chest rolling in even waves of respiration. The pulse in his wrist was weak, but steady, and I felt him begin to come to. I stepped back, and made to continue my run. I was gone before I thought he’d noticed my presence; I was already fifty strides farther down the trail, which happened to have taken me out of his view beyond a stand of trees. I watched him a moment or two before I thought he was okay and went on my way. I felt my fear and curiosity pulsing through my arms, and my feet sped up to take me out of the woods and back into suburbia.

Scenes of the Fire

So, fires are scary...

Well, today is a Monday like any other Monday, we finished classes came back here had lunch. However, by chance, or as luck may have it, the College of Pharmacy was having a "carnival" in the courtyard at the school from 11-3, so at 1 we took off on foot with the dogs to walk to school which is out of character, we usually drive. I'd brought my cash, ID and a bank card, I'm not sure why except I always seem to need them if I don't have them. The carnival had shut down early, so after talking for about half an hour with some classmates, we headed back a different way, through the school campus instead of around it. Coming around the circular drive I saw a girl taking a picture of something in the distance, which I wondered until I looked at the sky and saw the billowing black, white, gray, brown and blue smoke cloud. I pointed it out to Marie and she immediately (having more of a sense of direction than I) had an idea that it might very well be our trailer park. We walked up the hill and police cars were blocking the entrance to our trailer park and there were three or four fire trucks, two large ones parked right beside our trailer, blocking our trailer from the two that were on fire. We walked around and saw that it had completely consumed the fallow field next to the trailer park and to the elementary school and apartment building a quarter mile away. There were fire trucks speeding around the flames with high arches of water whipping around trying to keep the flames from spreading any farther. The fence that burned on the edge of the field caught some cars in the apartment building's parking lot on fire. Firemen with gas masks, heavy lime yellow green jackets, and helmets milled in and around the two trailers on fire. It just happened that the wind had been strong and out of the north, hence blowing the flames away from our trailer and cars less than 30 yards from the one that started it all. There was a woman, barefoot with her daughter, also barefoot, sobbing into a neighbor's shoulder. She knew it was her cigarette she threw under her porch that started it. She was lucky our other neighbor had been leaving just when he had, he saw the flames on the porch, thinking it was a bit unusual for a grill, and realized the trailer was on fire. He called the fire department and then climbed the porch and banged on their door. They were unaware the fire had started, and she grabbed her baby and got her other daughter (why she wasn't in school, I don't know). At that time, the trailer next door caught on fire. Not knowing if anyone was home, he went to the door and banged on it. The man inside had been sleeping. It was serendipitous how it all happened, that no one got hurt. It was really crazy scary.

Cowboys and a Rodeo

I went home last night! It was a great wrap-up to a Wednesday. I got home and made these awesome (and heavy) grilled Swiss Gruyere and sharp cheddar cheese sandwiches with bacon, mustard and Parmesan to boot! I also made roasted potatoes and onions in a mustard dressing that was also delectable. We drank glasses of white wine in our wrought iron chairs on the brick patio watching the water fall from our sprinklers into the grass.

Today was a long day. I drove back to Weatherberry, in good humor, and had to be in class for 4 hours followed by taking a two part online exam that kicked me in the derriere. After feeling frustrated and next to tearful from it, Marie and I got ready to go to a rodeo! I wore my new sandals my sister, KB, got me from Uganda for my birthday, and felt like Jesus of Nazareth upon getting out of her SUV in the grass field parking lot. The ground is rather sandy, and much more so when at a rodeo. I think it just comes with, it must, because my feet sunk into the sandy dust at my feet with every step I took. With a nice soft and gritty feeling between my toes, we walked around the dozens of horses with their cow people on them (both girls and boys), and found a place to stand near the "heelin' box." We saw the cowboy's calf ropin', then the cowgirl's breakaway ropin', the team ropin', and finally the barrel racin'. I was informed the calves were uneven, which means some were coming out running and others weren't moving at all, so it was hard to know how to ride out.

It's always so interesting to go. I just eat up all the cowboy hats, vests, saddles, leather fringe, cowboy boots, spurs, blue jeans, and plaid shirts. I try not to stare. All the girls have long hair down their backs either very straight or worn wind torn in flat brassy waves. I stuck out like a sore thumb with my short hair, cargo jacket and Nazarene ballet sandals. I was missing some key elements, but I was prepared to stick out, I knew it was inevitable. All I could do is look cute, so that's what I did.

As soon as I opened my mouth there to ask Marie a question everyone in a three foot radius glanced back at me to look at who just asked, "So, why do her legs fly out like that, does it just happen..." Marie grinned, "No, they're kickin' the horse, it's the gas pedal." Oh, so they mean to flap their legs like that. I'd have known that if I'd ever ridden a horse faster than a trot. A lot of sideways glances came my way for that one.

I'm going home again tomorrow. The house needs cleaned, and I'm always excited about that. I'm love to make things clean again! It satisfies something within me, haha! Now, if only I could get Zach to discover that phenomenon.

Oh, happy day...

This new picture is one of the oldest spots colonized in Ireland, I believe it was called Loch Modan. It was one of the simplest and yet one of my favorite places we went in Ireland.

Today was a long day! I did take a nice but windy walk from school to the post office that I would say was rather refreshing. I woke up rather grouchy this morning, and it helped to let the wind beat on me a little bit. I'm at home now, completely exhausted, but still having a list of things to do.

I've been rather down today, which is probably why I'm grouchy, but I'll attribute it to the new moon. If I'm not making excuses, then I might consider it has to do with undue stress from school. I guess that might still be an excuse. Let's see...I had weird dreams last night...I miss Zach...I'm sick of school and tired of being here....my heart aches for no apparent reason...I'm having bouts of a moment or two of anxiety because I'm lacking things to do relative to a week ago and it just doesn't seem right...what else? I guess I could go on, but there's no tacking anything in particular down. Just minor contrivances is what I see here. Enough of this, I'm going to go get ready to go walk in the wind for some more wind whippings to get my act together! Oh, happy day...

April Medley

Another Monday! Only 4 weeks now. I'm exhausted, again, but I feel happy about the weekend, and refreshed. I got to spend a good deal of time outside in my yard becoming a mud baby. It both wore me out and reconnected me to Earth.Time got away from me, and on Sunday I ended up spending all after noon outside. I had gardened 6 hours before I was finished installing all the plants and bulbs I'd purchased Saturday and called it quits.  

Zach had left on a plane before noon on Sunday, and I'd had to take the dogs to their daycare, so when I got home I was all alone all afternoon. It was kind of surreal, we'd switched positions in a way, and now I was home in our house alone to fend off my demons myself. It bordered on getting the best of me a few times, and there were a few gasping moments when I saw something out of the corner of my eye only to see nothing was there, or heard something strange, and realizing it was only the gusting wind. My sleep was moderate at best, and after such a long day tilling through the clay and dirt, I really needed better sleep  than the sporadic jumpy type I got. It was better being there though than being here alone. It was peaceful and full of the smells and feelings of home. I love our house and home. I look forward to going to and dread leaving it every week and weekend. This learning experience and challenge is almost at an end, and we've already sworn we'll never do something like this again, never live in separate places. The poem following is something I remembered reading in high school and managed to find upon a brief Google search. I remember learning about it's meaning and realizing it was about the strength and deepness of a love between two people. What I remember most about this poem is the metaphor about the compass. It's about the metal mathematical compass to draw circles, not the magnetic N/S/E/W type of compass be the way. I didn't realize that at my naive age of 17 when I first read this, and it didn't make much sense until I put that together.

 A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away, 
    And whisper to their souls to go, 
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
    "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."                     

So let us melt, and make no noise,                                       5
    No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys 
    To tell the laity our love. 

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
    Men reckon what it did, and meant ;                              10
But trepidation of the spheres, 
    Though greater far, is innocent. 

Dull sublunary lovers' love 
    —Whose soul is sense—cannot admit 
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove                                     15
    The thing which elemented it. 

But we by a love so much refined,
    That ourselves know not what it is, 
Inter-assurèd of the mind, 
    Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.                           20

Our two souls therefore, which are one, 
    Though I must go, endure not yet 
A breach, but an expansion, 
    Like gold to aery thinness beat. 

If they be two, they are two so                                          25
    As stiff twin compasses are two ; 
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show 
    To move, but doth, if th' other do. 

And though it in the centre sit, 
    Yet, when the other far doth roam,                                30
It leans, and hearkens after it, 
    And grows erect, as that comes home. 

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
    Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,                                    35
    And makes me end where I begun.  

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning. Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature. Web site:  http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/mourning.php. Accessed April 4, 2011.

March showers bring April flowers...

My winter survivors.

Fresh greens.

Oklahoma Redbud.

My flowers and weeds.

Another winter survivor.

It decided it could bloom this year... 

A rainbow!

The Dogwood.

Oak buds.

These are all the many things I've been talking about. I'm glad I finally got out to take the pictures. I hope everyone enjoys! We're cooking filet mignon out on our grill tonight, and we're having it with basmati rice and roasted onions. Can't wait!