Chinese acrobats aren't just for kids

My new-found photographer friend, who works for a local newspaper, invited me to tag along on one of his assignments. I was thrilled to find out it was a performance by a group of Chinese acrobats. Not since I traveled to China have I watched a performance so thrilling and downright fun. A pleasure for adults and children alike.

Oh! Possum!

I came home the other night and these guys were sitting on my fence. I love animals (especially Opossums), and grabbed my camera from the backseat. I slowly opened the door and began creeping towards them.



Then I noticed something weird. They weren't running away, but just staring at me forlornly. I started talking to them and they perked up and tried to move towards me, but only fell off the fence instead.

I wanted to put them in a big warm box and care for them overnight, but my husband wasn't about to let two opossums in the house, the insensitive jerk. These little guys had lived underneath our house for years and now they needed us, or at least that was how I saw it.

I called the local veterinarians, and despite the fact that every website said they cared for wild animals, each doctor told me to call animal control.
Well, I hate the police. A lot. And anyone associated with the police.
And I wasn't about to let animal control come to my house, take my (yes, my) opossums and potentially euthanize them. All on the American tax-payer's dollar. They were in my hands only, it seemed.

So I spent the next few hours with two sick opossums, trying to make them feel a little better and giving them food and water. After a while they crawled off on their own.

Two days later, no noxious smells are coming from anywhere near my house, so I assume they made it home and are recovering. Hopefully in a few days they will be lounging on my back porch with my cats, like usual.

Oh, and for anyone who is afraid of opossums, check out the website of the National Opossum Society, which states they are relatively harmless and friendly animals. And they are also America's only marsupial.

Life brings challenges and lessons in equal measure

Recently my husband became very ill with pneumonia and bronchitis. On our second trip to the doctor, blood samples were taken to see if any unknown condition was causing him to have a prolonged recovery. He recently lost a considerable amount of weight and is currently, according to the doctor, "severely underweight."

Shocked, and knowing how much my husband eats, I knew something was wrong. We discussed two previous events my husband had endured where he experienced full body paralysis, numbness, heart palpitations, and breathing problems.

The last event, one week ago at work, resulted in him leaving work in a wheelchair, and being lifted by his boss and placed in the back of my car. For the rest of the night he was unable to move well, in extreme pain, and unable to even put a spoon to his mouth.

We were told we would get the test results the next day.

Two days later I received the call.
"The results show the symptoms of Grave's disease, or hyperthyroidism. We've made him an appointment for Tuesday morning, and we will need him all day for testing."

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"Malignant nodules." The doctor answered.

I didn't like the word malignant, and it was ringing in my ears.

Panic was pounding the inside of my skull. I didn't know what I would tell my husband, I didn't want him to worry too much. I thought about the tests needed and dreaded knowing what they would cost us. I worried about missing school and work, and wondered if my husband would even be well enough to attend school this term.

Luckily I had some wonderful people give me some great advice. One of them was my music instructor, James Reddan.

"Be with your husband now. What's more important Rock N' Roll or your husband?"

"Duh!" I thought. "It's time to stop worrying about the little stuff and take care of what's, or in this case who's, important."

After a little more encouragement from Mr. Reddan, I was feeling a lot better.

I took my husband to his favorite restaurant, and I didn't worry about the $20.

I didn't worry about the slow traffic, and I didn't worry about how much gas was in the tank.

I realized I can't worry about what the doctors will say next week, or what the test results will determine.

What I can do is have a positive mind-set and be there 100 percent for him.

Because he is what is most important to me.

Home Depot has no humanity

I have never had a job that expected me to come into work when sick. Any boss with sense knows that a person who stays home gets well faster and doesn't infect other employees. But not Home Depot.
The local Home Depot, where my husband unfortunately works, allowed an employee to return to work despite the fact she had bronchial pneumonia, and was told by her doctor to stay home for two weeks. She was not asked by management to inform others of her condition, or to wear a mask. Instead, she used my husband's desk phone, worked closely with customers, and handled computer equipment available to all employees.
Two days later my husband was sick, and shortly after that he was diagnosed with pneumonia and bronchitis. He was so sick he cried in his sleep, and couldn't get out of bed for almost a week. He ended up going to the hospital, and because we have no health care (HD's is a joke), we will be paying for it for a long time.
Finally, because he had no sick time and we were hemorrhaging our remaining funds, my husband returned to work. Soon after his arrival he was brought to the office and told management was revoking his holiday pay (from New Year's) because he was sick, even though he was not sick on New Year's.

Rationally, my husband explained that he got sick from BEING at work. You don't contract pneumonia out of thin air, but Home Depot thinks that you do. He was forced to apologize to the woman who had pneumonia first, because she felt the way he looked at her was accusatory. But wait, there's more.

Our local Home Depot HAS NO HEATERS. That's right, a few weeks ago our high temperature was 12 degrees, and it was hardly any warmer inside the store. Each day I watched my husband leave for work wearing layers of sweaters, jackets, scarves, socks, and hats. Employees were not even allowed to mark down heaters off the shelves to keep warm.

And so, my husband sat for weeks shivering in the cold, exposed to a highly infectious illness, and...lo and behold...he came down with it. But Home Depot punished him for it. They punished him by revoking his holiday pay, the punished him by forcing him to apologize for looking angry (he just looks sick to me...), and they punish all employees by offering little or no sick time.

My husband receives four hours of sick pay a month, in exchange for working full-time. What a pathetic "benefit." Sure, those 4 hours he had will help on his measly paycheck, but it would take ten months of saving sick hours to make up for this sudden, Home Depot induced illness and the week of work it caused him to lose. And it isn't like they are going to help with the medical bills.

The heart of this problem is employee benefits. My previous job gave me two days a month, and more if I had a doctor's note. Whatever I needed to be healthy and happy. My husband's co-worker would not have come to work with pneumonia had she any sick time available to her, then no one else would have become ill.

Bob Nardelli, former CEO of Home Depot, resigned in 2007 with a $210 million severence package after he tanked the company's stock. Despite this, the company can't reach in it's deep pockets to help out it's real employees. Home Depot is worse than Wal-Mart, and the managers, executives, and CEO's should be ashamed, but that would take humanity.

Snow, snow go away...

As close as I wanted to get...






I don't think I'll be using this pumpkin for pie...

Who said it's been five weeks?

Mean blogger.com...showing me I haven't posted in five weeks. I remember writing my last post like it was yesterday, or the last sane day I had before finals.
Then the cold came. It was so cold my cats were shivering in the house, my turtle went into hibernation...and so did I. I didn't move for at least two weeks except for from my bed to my computer, which is only five steps. Walking anywhere else in my house would have exposed my feet to the icy conditions of my hard-wood floors.
One day I was fortunate enough to be invited over to my friend's house for a LAN party (for those of you not an uber-dork, a LAN (Local Area Network) party is a bunch of dorks who unplug their huge desktop computers, haul it to their friends, plug them back in, and then begin to annihilate each other in a mass free-for-all of one game or another.)
Not only was my friend's house a comfortable 70 degrees, but he loaned me the game of the evening, Warhammer: Soulstorm.

This game would go on to steal my soul, consume my winter break, and save me from the cold.
So what else have I been up to, you ask? I had a lovely Christmas with my little sister, played in the snow (for 10 minutes, I hate the cold!), and then finished my break caring for my ill husband, who is suffering from a bad case of Pnuemonia and Bronchitis.
And now, my readers, I too, have this same illness. Lucky, lucky me. On the upside, laying around at home, too sick to even play games, I think I'll have some time to write.
Blessing sometimes come in small, germ-covered packages.

"It's just so....sad"

I think I may have managed to get my extra GPA point in photography this term. My metaphorical self-portrait managed to get quite a response from my instructor and classmates. Some said it was a broken childhood, others said it was merely a favorite worn object from the past, nothing more. What do you think?

I'm not sure, either. I threw it together in 30 seconds on my way out the door the morning the project was due. On a whim I decided I wasn't comfortable with the 200 other photos I had shot, and just had to try one more thing. Maybe that is what makes art an expression, seperate from logic and thoughts.