Happy Update: I’ve been a bit busy

Posted on 11 July 2012 by Susan

Monday night, when I came home from work, Aine met me at the door to the garage, calling for me. It’s a usual occurrence that hadn’t happened for the last two weeks. I was ecstatically happy. More so when she immediately started eating her dinner. Still not eating much, but I didn’t have to persuade her.

Yesterday morning she went straight for the food, too. Yay!

My vet followed up on the lab report for Catriona. Her kidneys are indeed starting to show signs of deficiency, with the BUN and creatinine numbers being somewhat elevated. Her phosphorus levels are normal, though, which is a very good sign. And she’s sucking down the water, which is also good.

I wish Aine was drinking more. She’s still looking a little dehydrated. I might give her more sub-Q fluids tonight if the skin pinch test hasn’t improved since this morning. But she met me when I got home last night and ate, which made me happy. This morning, I had to fetch her to her breakfast, but when she was in front of it, she enjoyed it.

They told me the thyroid meds might take a couple of weeks to kick in, and they have. Unfortunately, I think she’s still shedding weight, and that’s not good. She’s eating, but she’s not eating enough.

Meanwhile, work is going well. I’m enjoying the month of no rehearsals which gives me more time at home. Aine and I spent a lot of snuggle time in front of the TV last night. She loves sitting in laps. Catriona likes snuggling in bed, so we get our time in then.

If you know my sister, her 29 to the Nth birthday is tomorrow. Drop her a line. She’s looking fabulous, as always!

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Blood donation

Posted on 7 July 2012 by Susan

I am a regular blood donor. So are many of my friends.

I was taken from the registry for several years in the 1990s because I developed Graves disease, an immune function disorder that affects the thyroid. No one knows the cause yet, but when both President and Mrs. Bush came down with it very close in time to one another, this previously barely understood condition suddenly got a lot of funding and research. My educational literature was a diagram sketched out on my exam room paper and a whole bunch of stuff was never explained to me. When others I know developed it a few years later, they were handed flyers and good information.

I kept checking back, however, and by 2002 the ban on those who’d been treated in the past for Graves disease was lifted. I started donating again.

Now they are considering lifting the ban for gay men . It has long been the policy that if a man had sex with another man, even once, he was banned from donating for life. That means every male child that Jerry Sandusky raped, every altar boy who was every the victim of a pedophile priest, and every bisexual or gay man who truly loved someone was banned from donating blood…assuming they answer the questions truthfully.

Female rape victims aren’t banned. Women who sleep around aren’t banned. Gay men in a long-term monogamous relationship, however, are not allowed to help others in this way, no matter how healthy they are.

The screening questions at my local Blood and Tissue Center must be more stringent than the Red Cross screening questions. I make this assumption from reading the article, because they talk about high risk behaviors in women not being screened. Mine asks about any unprotected sex in the last year, needle sticks, use of drugs not prescribed by a physician, and other health-related questions. But it also asks if I’ve had sex in the last year with a man who ever had sex with a man.

If I would be cleared to donate after a year, why isn’t a man? There are a lot of single gay men out there (just like there are straight ones). At the very least, why couldn’t these people donate until they start dating again? (Some European countries have started allowing donation for gay men after they’ve been single 6 months, according to the article.)

But I think even that is ridiculous. They should take out the gender-specific questions and just fall back on the sensible ones. Have you had unprotected sex in the last year? (It’s already defined in the literature of my center as any penetration, including oral.) Have you had sex in the last year with someone who had unprotected sex?

The original ban on gay donation was put in place before transport mechanisms for AIDS were known and before there were reliable tests for HIV. Both of these have been long established at this point. We’re screening thousands of healthy donors from a system that never has enough, especially of the rare blood types.

Run their blood through extra tests if you must, but let’s get these donors into the system. It would mean a minimum of tens of thousands of more units of blood available for those in need.

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I had a dream…

Posted on 6 July 2012 by Susan

…and I had put pencil and paper next to the bed so I got it recorded this time.  It was more coherent than some.

I was driving somewhere, changing lanes right (one lane at a time) to make a turn, when I noticed police cars. They were ahead of me, though I kept an eye out for more. Two were parked with lights on, the one ahead of me didn’t have the lights on. I pulled in behind him to make the turn.

In the triangle between the street/highway and the right-hand turn was a mighty oak tree, probably just too old for me to get my arms around. It threw a lot of nice shade. Its branches hung low around it and the brush under it had grown up a bit. Coming from the brush was a tiny stream of fireworks. “Ah,” I thought, “that’s why the police are here.”

As I drove past, I noticed there were two large (say a three-foot cube each) racks/shelves of stuff that I took to be more fireworks. The some shelves were narrow top to bottom and supported flesh-colored bladders of clear, colorless liquid (shaped somewhere between a water balloon and an IV bag). Others were larger and held what looked like more conventional fireworks.

I parked my car a bit further and went for my planned walk. During my walk, I passed the front of a Chase Bank building whose front, in places, reminded me of the design of the World Trade Center, with the long vertical metal pieces (though these were much smaller and decorative, not structural). Inside the windows I could see a wooden lattice that reminded me very much of the lattice I’d seen supporting some of the shelves. It was made of 2×4 with the narrow end forward and the “boxes” were about 6 inches across.

I started hearing news reports from major news agencies concerning what I’d just passed. Each report was more alarming than the last. By the end, they were comparing the potential to the Oklahoma City and Beirut embassy bombings and the World Trade Center.

As I returned to my starting point, I saw a guy in jeans and a sport shirt (buttons, not T, colored checks) talking into a bluetooth headset and pacing a bit as he spoke. He was pretty much the only activity near the site. As I got nearer, I realized he was from CNN and turning in a report. He signed off and sat on the curb and I sat next to him.

I pointed out the lattice similarity to him. The bank could be seen from where we were sitting. He didn’t seem that interested. As we were talking, the police put a plywood wall around the triangle where the racks of stuff were, shielding our view.

A baby walked up, as it strolled between us, I stopped it, holding its hands over its head and laughing at it. It was wearing nothing but a diaper and sticky stuff on its face (so of course it kept trying to kiss me). As I was asking it “Where is your mother?” a lady came out of the nearby park to claim the child. She knew the reporter. They talked for a minute, then she and the baby returned to the park.

I turned to the reporter and said, “May I ask you a question? If this story is so big, if there is so much potential for damage, why hasn’t the park been evacuated? Is it just a slow news day and this story is being blown up before it has been truly investigated?”

And I woke up before he answered me. But you and I know the answer, don’t we? Only the bad, scary, ugly stuff gets the big headlines. They’ll make stuff up, if they have to. The good stuff gets a slot when there’s no other news. (Oh, sweet Lord, I miss the like of Walter Cronkite and Jim McKay.)

That reminds me of one of my favorite Bloom County cartoons. Opus is watching TV. The national news comes on and the anchor says, “We’ve got nothing new to report tonight, let’s go to the field.” As they poll each reporter, at each foreign location, each says the same thing. Opus turns to us and says, “When you think about it, this is actually pretty exciting.”

I wish more of us thought that way.

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Frivolous lawsuits cost us all

Posted on 5 July 2012 by Susan

“In 1992, a seventy-nine year old Albuquerque woman (Stella Liebeck) bought a coffee from a McDonald’s drive through. Her grandson was driving and he parked the car so she could add cream and sugar to the drink. She put the cup between her knees and pulled the lid toward her – inevitably the coffee spilt in her lap. She sued McDonald’s for negligence because she claimed the coffee was too hot to be safe. Unbelievably the jury found that McDonald’s was eighty percent responsible for the incident and they awarded Liebeck $160,000 in compensatory damages. But it gets worse: they awarded her $2.7 million punitive damages! The decision was appealed and the two parties ultimately ended up settling out of court for a sum less than $600,000.” Source

This didn’t start the run of frivolous law suits, but it is surely one of the more ridiculous to have succeeded. And it annoys the fire out of me that my milkshakes now have warnings, “Caution: Contents May Be Hot” on them because of it.

“Here’s an interesting scenario: A bar patron purchases and consumes multiple alcoholic beverages at one establishment before being refused service at another because he is intoxicated. He then makes the decision to drive, loses control of his vehicle, and kills a pedestrian. Afterward, the father of the individual killed sues the first establishment for negligence, and wins.

“It may sound like a movie plot, but that’s exactly what happened in Cimino v. The Milford Keg, Inc., 385 Mass. 323 (1981). In that case, a jury found that the bartender was negligent in serving a patron who was exhibiting “drunk, loud and vulgar” behavior and was “visibly intoxicated,” and therefore the death of the pedestrian was proximately caused by the bartender’s negligent act under the state’s Dram Shop Laws.” Source

This one was caused by the grief of a parent looking for someone with deep pockets to blame. When I was in college, two-for-one drink specials were not unusual. A group would go to our favorite pub/restaurant. We’d each order a different drink with dinner, keep one and put the other in the middle of the table for someone else to try. If it was really interesting, we’d pass it around the table. It was fun, it was harmless, and we always stayed long enough to be sober before we left, and usually had one or more designated drivers besides.

After this lawsuit, two-for-one drink specials were a thing of the past. You could get half-price drinks, but not two-for-one drinks. Also, the bars were not allowed to serve you more than one drink at a time. (MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) was also responsible for the changes in some of these laws. I am not saying they are bad changes. They’ve saved the lives of a lot of idiots who don’t take responsibility for themselves and the people who were in their way.)

Let me be clear on one thing. Businesses never pay for these lawsuits. They always pass the costs on to their consumers. Prices go up, insurance companies jack up their rates, and we just end up with less spending power because people either don’t take responsibility for their actions, or they think they are entitled to a lot of money for a tiny grievance.

And don’t think these things just happened in the past. Business News Daily printed their list for the top 10 ridiculous lawsuits of last year:

The top ten Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011 are:

  • Convict sues couple he kidnapped for not helping him evade police
  • Man illegally brings gun into bar, gets injured in a fight, then sues bar for not searching him for a weapon
  • Young adults sue mother for sending cards without gifts and playing favorites
  • Woman disagrees with store over 80-cent refund, sues for $5 million
  • Mom files suit against exclusive preschool over child’s college prospects
  • Man suing for age discrimination says judge in his case is too old
  • Obese man sues burger joint over tight squeeze in booths
  • Woman sues over movie trailer; says not enough driving in “Drive”
  • Passenger’s lawsuit says cruise ship went too fast and swayed from side to side
  • Mother sues Chuck E. Cheese – says games encourage gambling in children

These things will not end until society, as a whole (that means US), makes it stop.  That means everyone taking responsibility for their actions.  That means using the courts to redress true wrongs, not to line one’s pockets over an $0.80 refund.  If you don’t like Chuck E. Cheese, DON’T TAKE YOUR KIDS THERE.  If you are committing a crime, you do NOT get to sue those against whom you are committing the crime (there’s one from a few years back where the burglar came in through a skylight, broke his leg falling, and sued the homeowner–don’t think he won, though).  If you had a bad parent, get counseling, divorce your family, move out, and move on.

In other words, it’s your life.  Live it, own it, take responsibility for it.  If you don’t like it, change it.  Don’t tell me you can’t.  There’s always a choice, a way to make a change, even if it is a choice you don’t like.

I have a friend who had polio at the age of 6 months.  It left her a quadriplegic, with limited use of her arms, no use of her legs, and lifelong problems with asthma.  Did not stop her from earning a living because she could type.  Yes, she needed modifications: electric wheelchair, ramps, assistance with dressing, bathing, getting in and out of the chair each day, etc.  But she worked, did embroidery, sang in the church choir (like an angel), and is one of the sweetest women I know.  Until post-polio syndrome kicked in and made breathing difficult (she’s been on a ventilator 24/7 at a nursing home for the last few years), she was taking the world by storm.  She’s a truly nice person to this day.  I’ve never heard her say that anyone owes her anything, other than the paycheck for work done well.

She’s the reason I don’t give street-corner beggars money, unless they are obviously one of the unfortunates with mental illness (most of whom I’ve seen for years).  She’s the reason I don’t give in to “pity parties” often when my back is misbehaving.  Yeah, it hurts to stand, but it’s always hurt to stand and I can stand.  There are things I can’t do any more, but there is so much I can and there are so many who can’t do what I can.

You can, too.  Find what it is and do it.

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The consequences of your actions

Posted on 5 July 2012 by Susan

A Florida lifeguard was fired from his job for saving a drowning man .

Sounds like a joke or a mistake or a corporate horribleness.

The truth is that it was the consequence of his action.

His job was to patrol a certain area of protected swim area. He was not allowed, by company policy, to work outside of that area. There were liability issues. That area was designated “swim at your own risk.”

But a man was drowning 300 yards outside the protected area, a frightened woman had notified him, and he could not follow the company policy of dialing 911 and hoping the emergency responders got there in time. He did what he was trained to do and saved the man, who was turning blue by the time he got to him (he’s still in intensive care).

He broke company policy and the company chose to let him go. He went with his conscience and the $8.25/hour job he’d hoped to continue after he starts college in the fall is gone.

That’s the consequence.

But I bet he’s much better able to sleep at night than if he’d followed company policy.

But I can see the company’s point, too. They are in danger of losing their liability insurance if such things were to happen and the company didn’t act. That consequence would put the company out of business and perhaps there’d be no lifeguard at all on that stretch of beach.

There is no perfect.

One of the commenters on the story pointed out that the lifeguard most likely had a Red Cross certification or equivalent. In many places, having such certification and ignoring an emergency situation where your certification can be of use can get you jail time or a fine. Would the lifeguard have been arrested if he’d followed the company policy after being notified of a drowning man? Somehow I don’t think the company would provide a lawyer in such a case, but perhaps that’s what their liability policy is for?

I think the lifeguard made the only choice he could. I understand why the company made the choice they did, even if I don’t like it. I sure hope someone come through with a job for this young man for the rest of the summer and perhaps through the school year.

There are consequences for all we do, even the good deeds. Dick Frances, in one of his books, points out, “You can get a ticket for speeding, even if you are rushing a heart attack victim to hospital.”

If we choose to disregard the laws or rules for the common good, sometimes the deed is punished. But friends, those who do usually sleep much better at night, don’t you think?

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Ruminations on the voting franchise

Posted on 5 July 2012 by Susan

I was watching 1776 yesterday with friends, a fun thing to do on the 4th of July. I was reminded that some of our founding fathers had wanted to right to vote to belong only to those who owned land. This led to some ruminations on consequences of this had it been put in place.

First, I wondered if the children of landowners had the right to vote before the landowner died. Or did the father (considering the time, paternal assumptions are in place, though women could hold land in their own name in most, if not all, of our states) have to bequeath a parcel of land to the children before they could vote.

Second, I wondered how large a piece of land was needed for the right to vote. Due to a money-making scheme by a former employer, I was gifted “a square foot of Texas” as a Christmas present one year (I was not impressed). I still have the deed around here somewhere (ownership reverts to the original on my death; it cannot be reassigned). But would it be enough to give me the franchise? What about people who didn’t live in a state but were landowners there? Could they vote if they weren’t resident? How is that handled now? I know you pay property taxes both places, but I don’t think those existed in the days of our founding fathers.

If being the daughter of a landowner didn’t give me the right to vote, I wouldn’t have been allowed to vote until age 29, when my husband and I bought our house. I would have lost it 10 years later when I lost the house in the divorce, yes? And gained it again a year after Ed died when I bought the place in which I now live.

Of course, if the right to vote was tied to land ownership, I would have been much more inclined to buy than rent when I was in my 20s, before my marriage. My sister did and she would have had the franchise at a younger age than I did.

Then there are the other implications of landownership franchise. There would be no checks on that class voting more benefits for themselves and against the “have nots.” The sweet Lord knows we have enough trouble with that now. I expect the days of unions would have died almost immediately as it would not be in the financial interest of big business to pass fair or safe working standards. No paid vacations. No paid health benefits. No OSHA working standards. EPA would likely not exist. Our old growth forests, already seriously depleted, would just be gone. Bald eagles and California condors would have gone the way of the dodo.

Our system has flaws, but it could have gone down a different road. I think that road would be much more flawed and would have caused another, internal, revolution before today. I also don’t think we would have reaches some of the heights of greatness, as well as some of the idiot lows, without it.

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Destroying another religion’s sacred relics

Posted on 4 July 2012 by Susan

Every religion has done it.

Except maybe the Romans who just incorporated every god they came across into their own pantheon. They even had a shrine to the “unknown god” which was an empty niche. The Christians were not originally persecuted specifically because they were Christians, but rather because they refused to bow to any of the Roman deities. I imagine an ardent enough atheist would have gotten the same treatment.

This discussion comes about because of a conversation I had with Star last night. She’d been to a vigil held for “Lightning Medicine Cloud,” the white buffalo calf born on the Lakota Ranch of Sitting Bull’s great-great-great grandson Arby Little Soldier. A non-albino white calf is a rare occurrence, happening only about one in ten million births, and the Sioux hold them as a sacred sign of peace. A celebration in honor of his first birthday was scheduled for next week. Instead it will be a memorial service.

Arby Little Soldier and his family left the ranch in Greenville, Texas for a brief trip to Oklahoma. When they returned, they found the carcass of a skinned calf. It was determined to be that of Lightning Medicine Cloud. There’s no law in Texas against killing a buffalo. Horses are still a hanging offense, but not buffalo. But the people in Greenville have been writing people in authority, Senators, Congressmen, trying to get this classified as a hate crime. Personally, I’m not sure they are wrong. According to articles I’ve read, the details of the slaughter make it clear this was not a random, spur of the moment event.

But, as I said, every religion has been persecuted in this way. It is usually a case of a newcomer (whether by time or conquest) supplanting an established religion.

An early recorded example is in the Bible when the Hebrews were to enter Canaan and other lands. The Canaanites worshiped the fertility Goddess Asherah. They used an object known as an Asherah (sometimes “Asherah pole,” plural asherim) as an idol for their worship. Part of God’s renewed covenant as spoken to Moses in Exodus 34:13-14:

“But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim — for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God –” [New American Standard Bible]

The Christians (specifically the Catholic church, though they are not alone) throughout history have denigrated or destroyed the religion of others in the hopes of saving souls by converting others to the one true living God. In the name of God the Druids had their sacred groves cut down and burnt, the Mayans had their libraries burned (try learning about our culture by reading just what is left written on stone!), the Australian Aborigines had their children stolen and raised in orphanages to change their faith and “civilize” them (this is a Wikipedia link, but it has links to many good sources), the Greeks, the Romans, the Norse, the Celts, and so many others were told there was only one way and their way was not it. The internal fights even within the church over tiny matters of doctrine, pointing fingers at others and crying “heresy,” calling for inquisition? I’m a Christian, and I believe, but the history of my church is bloody.

In 1997, a Taliban (radical Islamic sect, not indicative of all Islam) commander declared he was going to blow up the Buddhas in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan “because they are idols.” “In July 1999, Mullah Mohammed Omar issued a decree in favor of the preservation of the Bamiyan Buddha’s statue. Because Afghanistan’s Buddhist population no longer exists, which removed the possibility of the statues being worshiped, he added: ‘The government considers the Bamiyan statues as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors. The Taliban states that Bamiyan shall not be destroyed but protected.'” However, over the next months, the Taliban became more restrictive, issued an edict against all “idols” or images of the human form, and began destroying all works of art depicting it. In March 2001, while the Afghanistan foreign minister assured the public that the Taliban had no intention of destroying them, they turned their attention to the two Buddhas in the Bamiyan valley and systematically dynamited the 180- and 121-foot-high statues to oblivion. Source

J Michael Straczynski was writer of Babylon 5, a show I loved watching. In one episode, one of the non-humans had sent out a message after his ship had been hit and was about to explode, “The humans kill that which they do not understand.” Unfortunately, that is all too often true.

We need to learn to do better.

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Our finest are out on the highways

Posted on 3 July 2012 by Susan

Because of everything happening last week, this got buried in my inbox.   Be safe for the holiday, everyone!  I have seen the local and state police with increased presence, especially under overpasses where they can wait in the shade.

Here’s a press release from work:

June 28, 2012                                                                                               NEWS RELEASE

DPS Increasing DWI Patrols for July 4th Holiday

AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) will increase DWI patrols for a nine-day period that includes July 4th. From June 30 – July 8, DPS troopers will focus DWI patrols in high-risk locations at times when alcohol-related crashes are most frequent.

“Plan ahead. If you are drinking, make sure you have a designated driver or some other form of transportation,” said DPS Director Steven McCraw. “Otherwise, you could be making a very expensive or even fatal mistake.”

The enhanced patrols that target impaired driving are funded through a grant from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). DPS troopers made 1,406 DWI arrests during the July 4th enforcement effort last year, and 575 of those arrests were a direct result of the increased patrols. Last year, during this time period, DPS enforcement also resulted in nearly 18,000 speeding citations, 3,390 seat belt/child safety seat citations, 920 fugitive arrests, and 656 felony arrests.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the July 4th holiday ranks No. 1 nationally for alcohol-related fatal crashes. According to TxDOT, more than 1,000 Texans are killed each year as a result of impaired drivers, and Texas is frequently ranked as the nation’s deadliest for impaired driving deaths.

“The goal of our enforcement effort is to save lives and make travelling in Texas safer for residents and visitors during the July 4th holiday,” said McCraw.

### (HQ 2012-076)

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I’ve been a bit busy

Posted on 2 July 2012 by Susan

Between overtime at work and dealing with a sick kitty, I haven’t had much time to let the creative juices flow.

Aine was ill enough late Thursday that it became apparent that she wouldn’t live until her appointment this Thursday for her annual exam. She’d not eaten all her food Tuesday, less on Wednesday, and hadn’t touched it on Thursday, and I was so certain our vet appointment on Friday was the “goodbye” appointment.

It was a stand-in vet we saw, Nicholas Vaughn (last name spelling guessed). He was totally awesome. He said he couldn’t see anything wrong with my “kitty” except dehydration, they would take full labs to be sure (with my approval), give her fluids, and send her home. I was surprised and relieved. They gave her half a pill to stimulate her appetite and sent me home with the other half to give her Sunday night.

Unfortunately, my stubborn little girl had spit up the pill before we got home. After calling, I put the remaining one in a gelatin capsule (how I give those tiny meds to all my cats), and popped it down “with a water chaser.” Stayed down. Yay!

At that point, I settled down on my home computer for 8 hours of work. Since I was starting at noon, I was at it until late in the evening. I got a short break mid-afternoon when Star dropped by with our favorite game because I’d missed gaming the night before, wanting to stay home with my girl. We played for about half an hour and then we both went back to work.

When I’m not distracted, time flies, so I was startled when Wanda called after 6:00 to see if I’d eaten. When it was pointed out, I realized I hadn’t had anything but some rice and veggies before I started work and I was ravenous. She picked food up for me on her way home from work.

I have such wonderful friends. That includes Kelly who let me call her at 5:00 a.m. her time and cry on her shoulder before I went to the vet. The three of them were such great support all weekend, and especially on Friday.

So Friday, Aine pretty much stayed glued to me, following me from room to room. Wanting a lot of lap time. Sleeping near me that night.

Saturday we got the lab results that it was hyperthyroidism and the rest of the labs looked good. She and I are both on tiny pills now. Fortunately she is easy to pill. But by Saturday evening, she was failing again, spitting up a lot, not drinking, looking unhappy. I tried giving her sub-Q fluids (they’d sent the rig home with me), but I think as much ended up on me as in her. I was working a full day and trying not to be distracted by her, but trying also to give her attention as needed.

Then she didn’t sleep with me that night. I finally got up during the night to check on her. It was apparent she’d spit up several times during the night. When she saw me she stepped over to the water bowl and just stood there. She’d investigate it every now and then, but wouldn’t drink. It made me crazy. I finally put water on my finger and started wetting her mouth and muzzle and got her to drink a few drops, but she didn’t drink more. More fluids were in her future.

Sunday, she got more sub-Q fluids. Again, a lot ended up on me and the chair. I think her old-lady skin just isn’t elastic enough to form a seal around the needle. But she was stronger the rest of the day. I think she ate something. She was again following me from room to room. We had a lot of lap time.

This morning, she was staring at the water bowl again. AAAAGGHH! But she was still strong, so I was patient. I finally pointed out, “That’s the only flavor of water we have,” then realized I was wrong. I put down a little distilled water next to her bowl of tap water. IT WORKED! She started with the distilled, went back to the tap and drank deeply. YAY! I told her, “No sub-Q fluids for you today!” and popped her daily pill. She’s in the other room right now calling for me. It’s definitely the “where are you?” call and not the “something is wrong!” call. I can breathe easier today.

[And before I could finish proofing this, she was sitting under my office chair to get petted. A very normal thing for her to do. Yay!]

Internal jukebox: There’s Within My Heart a Melody

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Atheist converts to Catholicism

Posted on 28 June 2012 by Susan

I leave you this article about an atheist converting to Catholicism with no comment.  You are free to make up your own mind about its meaning.

Internal jukebox: soundtrack music from The Glades, which I was just watching.

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