Of Codes,Corgettes, Rhutebaga, and Hodor: Safe Words

During seizures of either variety, the focal partial seizures in which, my goodness, communication might be possible, varying from "I'm thirsty" to "Get away from me!" and what appears to be a homage to the Exorcist... I can get really sweary and weird indeed!- but will be more unclear than usual and apologizing like the dickens...
and tonic- clonics, which I am thrilled to say I neither miss fondly or unfondly, but have been a stranger to for quite a while. Knock on wood!

I made a deal to wear a Medic-Alert bracelet and maintain updated information to maintain freedom. Especially important as I'd like New York to see the back of me very soon.

I also decided, after some time in which episodes had me trying to communicate, but unable to, that I needed safe words.
Not that kind of safe word. That's a mystery to all but I, the pertinent party, and maybe a coffee pot, which isn't talking.

Corgette: The British word, from the French, for the green vegetable known to us by the Italian, zucchini. The image in my head now, tired, a little weaker, and having to go slow- but communing, in Franciscan terms, with Brother Snowflake and Sister Slush, is of a gift to ones' prom date, a shiny, waxy green vegetable tied demurely to a wrist or pinned onto cleavage. Corgette as code, means:
"Help! Ambulance! No police."

Rhutebaga:
An intrinsically funny word to me, and one I wouldn't normally use outside of this context. "I am sick, but stable. I need help with food/ fill in need here." This one is difficult because pride tends to get in my way and I hope to change that. 

Hodor. Hodor, Hodor, Hodor. Hodor. Hodor!!! Ahem. From Game of Thrones, a large, mostly mute man who can utter only his own name to express a variety of emotions.
"Hodor" would be texted, if I am unable to speak and need help (meaning a phone call would be silly and I need someone to check me and perhaps talk to medical personnel when I cannot. Or reassure family.)
 The rest would be done in person; iPhones have an emergency button on the number pad for the lock code, and a medical ID app, which will be linked to if one presses "Emergency".
"I am unable to speak. I am sick and need help." 

*I might be over complicating, so I am considering running tests of the system. With disclaimer:
"This is a test of the Corgette, Rhutebaga and Hodor System. This is only a test. If this were an actual emergency..." With a link to that nice loud annoying noise people adore on a given Friday sitting around watching whatever they're watching.

Lovis Tacitus

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

New opportunities have arisen. Now adding to my teaching gig, I've added features writer, designer, and brand manager at Epiphanies Magazine to my bag. Because of a death in the family, and because I don't want to make myself sick and screw up four months without a tonic clonic seizure- or make my smaller staring spells, which I'm trying to correct, worse, I'm attempting to take it easy, ask for help when I need it. I've managed to learn HTML coding, studied up on RSS on the train to visit friends, (I'm thinking I'm meant to write a travalogue, but I'm still recouping... travel is never never a good time to learn about a death, sudden or not.) and did off-season Latin homework for my courses, in which I cannot converse vebally, unless I'm asking a question, accidentally slipping into it, doing a translation, or catching bits of Spanish or Italian (I did manage to translate a short conversation from a British show that sounded more like, "How long can we keep this up?" "Well, with my liberal arts degree...") but hold a solid 96% in class work. I'm ensuring that I celebrate the good, too. And look forward to more of it.

As brand manager, I know getting the design as simple and memorable as possible is the best way. I had one particular design I liked, but it ended up being too much blank space, so I took the basics and simplified, after asking select people to take a look for me.

I also tried my hand at an app for Epiphanies' social media presence, and learned how to build the basic template for those. Thankfully, Como did the QR code, although that should be a cinch to learn.
Below: A QR code for the Epiphanies app, a lazy 2 hours in the making. Compared with learning Wordpress, HTML, attempting RSS, and some odd dreams from this endeavor, this was a lazy chunk of time!
I will be looking around and improving as time goes on, and am grateful for the responsibility.

On Triggers, On Remedies, and All That Jazz

The first answer for many people when asked, "What are your triggers?"- when it comes to epilepsy, that is, is stress. While a full blown- episode might not develop, a tendency to do a blank-stared wander about (if I'm getting lost, I mean to do so purposely!)
-might develop. It's always funny- in fact, hilarious- later!
I guess I've learned this: my humor is odd and is very healthy!

Still going strong... No tonic-clonics for 12 weeks now. The minis can go... preferably somewhere in the deep south with a rather hot and arid climate!- and the "I can't brain" moments where every action is done like an automaton... I can look dear friends in the eye, have no freaking clue who they are, but do something like wave or smile because part of me says, "This is expected, act normal and no one will notice." It's a lie!


But I got myself together... and will pray for no repeats of that particular move... in the meantime, time for quiet, for comfort foods, for happy music.

I also enjoyed a wonderful and glorious performance by Cecile McLorin Salvant at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and was delighted, stunned, and taken aback. And stress melted away. I can over- think another day! (Or, work on NOT doing so!)

With jazz, with scatting and a free, open, lyrics and flourishes, I can sit back and let myself get caught up... and no one worries if I'm enraptured, transfixed, or swaying. :-)

Note: at Saturday's concert, the ultimate line in "If This Isn't Love..." was, "if this isn't love... I'll kiss your ass!"

Thank you, to a dear friend for taking me, her children not liking jazz (You poor loves!) and 2 sets of people having to pass tickets on! I'll take it as a Godsend.

As for ass KICKING, it's my turn. I'm beating this, and sorting out! To... a state where I'm not worried about, "Oh, gosh, something's going wrong..."
Time for joy!
Cecile McLorin- Salvant: If This Isn't Love...

Lente, Lente

Lent has been upon us since March 5th. The idea is sacrifice.. as in, if you choose to not eat sugar, or fatty food, don't do it for those hot jeans.

I tried- am trying to give up anger, to be more patient. Anger has both just and unjust reasons: is someone being hurt? That's just. Are you being hurt? Then you MUST say something. I like to use the wholly unholy phrase, "Grow some big, hairy balls of steel." How to reconcile that... well. It's a headscratcher, and I'm afraid I don't have the answer.

This is no time for a perfectionist streak.

Put away needs for perfection, from yourself, from others. It's not happening. And human perfection is an illusion, normal is an insult.

How to reconcile lean diets when you have health conditions? Well, if, for example, you have an illness, are elderly, a child, you might not have carte blanche to either gobble down any glutton-y amount you might like, but fish and veggies aren't a sticking point. What can you have, besides meat? Tomato soup and grilled cheese (Dairy, broths- the taste of meat, without the substance- A-OK.)  Pizza. Pasta with almost any sauce.
But with health conditions, you may have chicken, meat, with no shame. What would I consider not limiting diets for? Children, the elderly, those who are ill- they need energy, not restriction, those with trouble maintaining calories, those recovering from eating disorders.

You are asked to put self behind you. You are not asked to make a martyr of yourself.

Remember that temptation is normal- indeed, we derive Lent (Funny how in Latin, you get the word, "lente" for "slowly"- but keep going!) From Jesus being tempted by Satan for 40 days.
There's a test, and oh, goodness, I'm feeling it! Above all, be careful what you pray for!

It's a Wonderful Life, Not-Quite-Autumn Edition

"Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing Embraceable You in spats."_Woody Allen

One of the lyrics of Embraceable You is:

Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you
Embrace me, you irreplaceable you

How about you embrace yourself, embraceable ones? I can't say this exercise is easy, scribbling out reasons your absence from the world would be horrible (Just call me "Clarence".), but it's well worth it. I kept coming up with 90 rather sarcastic versions. I have two now, and am posting the least flippant and off the wall. 

Click to read.

L'Esprit D'Boudoir

Sarcasm saves. Without it, I'd have been a worse mess a long time ago. But it's a double-edged sword, like anything else.

The French have a nickname for a prickly situation---when you pass someone on the stairs and you come up with a smartassed remark when it's far too late to do anything about it. They call it, Le esprit d' escalier - the spirit of the staircase.

I have a somewhat similar situation, and a new entry for the Bethglish to English Dictionary.

L'esprit d'boudoir
That moment where, when you are sleepy, warm, happy and safe, and dozing off, to be rudely snapped awake by any of, but not limited to, the following factors:

• Oh, my God, what did I say? Oh...God...
• They say at the Acropolis where the Parthenon iiiiiiiiiiis...
• Rabbits have two uterine horns, capable of giving birth to separate litters of kits days apart
• Boudoirs aren't bedrooms, actually, as any Downton Abbey watcher will tell you. It's a private sitting room before the master bedroom.(Yes, that has cropped up.)
• A sarcastic remark lost on a lot of people... (the Holy Wild Geese tale explains this)... after once again teaching someone to read a map... "So, have a goose, a goat and some ghostly knights shown up, yet?"
• Notes for doctors. All of which I take pains to edit after a bad night. ...and so much more. I'm working on teaching myself to relax and focus while the rest is in turmoil... I figure I'll handle that better if I can. 
  
   It's a busy mind, but I'm trying to work on that whole focusing thing. So far, still using fake stars and a rosary bracelet, and a free app called Insight Timer... I'm hoping I get  there. I focus, I do the decade on the beads. I know this---I'm sure as hell not giving up. I've rebuilt so many times, laying down and accepting is just not in me. And now... to settle. 

Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three

1) Accepting the things I cannot change
Off the bat, there's the past, whatever good or bad came from it, and whatever good came out of the bad. That is a miracle, and something I will always cherish.
But too often, we become bogged down: "I will always be dreaming of a better world"... OK... now, the "better world" need not be big or splashy... I need not build a monument to myself with feet of clay. Nor do I need to make money hand over fist, quite possibly forgetting exactly why I went into that business in the first place. Other people? Yes. They have needs, rights, responsibilities, etc. of their own. There sometimes needs to come a time when "I cannot be a part of your life, but I do hope it's blessed and fabulous"... needs to be bestowed in benediction, before old doors are finally shut.  There are things that seem impossible to change "I hurt. I behaved like a freaking idiot and feel guilty that I exposed someone else to that. That I let stupid things hide out in the recesses while attempting to think positive... I kept white washing rather than dealing and moving on. Now I can't do that anymore, and I'm terrified that all people will be able to remember is the negative". Here comes wisdom. I need to go through my handy little list of regrets, and poke holes in some of my theories. Yes, some things are impossible. While I will never be able to walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls while said rope is on fire, (although many social situations kind of feel like this, including the flutter in my stomach,) or run a perfect marathon, there's a lot of things, like simply enjoying a day out in the sunshine or wandering among old books, or curling up on the floor and enjoying a quiet moment... that I can do. As for health, I can ensure that I am tougher on doctors, and quietly, maturely let them know when they're hurting me by treating symptoms and running un-necessary tests. I can shrug off the stupid, nasty things people may say...we're all capable of it... including me. I can keep at my goal not to apologize for everything. I can learn how to deal with negative emotions before I let them build up and boil over. So these, once in a list of "Never can change"... are no longer water-tight.

2)Needing the courage to change the things I can
I can ask for forgiveness if I have scared someone during one of my "boil-overs". I can remember not to take things as nasty, or to shrug it off. I mean, does it matter if someone in West Bumfuk, Nebraska thinks I buy my friends and keep a string of human toys? No. What matters is: that I treat both myself and those I care for, and even those I don't like, with patience, forgiveness, and remembering not to keep a record of wrongs. What matters: is that I see people being joyful, happy, that they feel happy and at peace around me.  I can take time to pray to learn to forgive myself, and for more courage out in this cold world. Yes, it can be gray and gloomy. I don't have to be. I can learn all sorts of things, from how to fix a bathtub, or a drain, or how to replace an old pipe, and feel good. And I think I know that occasionally I can lean, and can be leaned on if needed. I can ask bluntly for what I want instead of being scared...and if scared, can say so right away: "Um, I'm the wrong person to ask that/ are you sure you meant <Insert problem here>?" until I learn to ignore the tiny, silly ones. I can focus on a goal and rejoice in seeing progress. I can keep going. I can learn to ignore the negative... at the moment, I'm taking time to take stock and get my health back... and avoiding negativity from a few different sources that unfortunately, ends up getting conflated into one gigantic hell beast. I can get past my triggers or find ways to avoid them. I can put the safety on.

3)May I have the wisdom to know the difference
Here is where these lists I make come in handy. I can go out more, and, with some blockades... what I can/can't eat or drink, what I'll do if I feel nervous... and I can learn to say no without shame. I can say "I like this, but like ice cream, I wouldn't want it all the time", or, "I don't like that...that's scary for me." I can make these lists and cross off the "But"s, the "ifs" and just live. I can poke holes and change the things that don't hold water. And... I can just live, smile, focus on the good, laugh at the bad, and give myself room, knowing that mistakes and bad days can, do, and will happen. I can quit analyzing everything. Or I can use that for good. I can, um... learn to tell the difference between "Doesn't need you over-thinking", and "This needs to be worked out." I can quit giving myself things to feel guilty for. I can let myself feel, without worrying about judgment. I don't have to live in fear constantly. I have survived, can, and will... I can live and breathe freely now.
I can love myself.

PS. No, I cannot say I live in the best of all possible worlds... mine is certainly not pink and peach and gauzy. But I can remember to love, to enjoy, to feel with my fingers and my bare feet, to enjoy, to smell, to taste... and I can "cultivate" my own garden (regardless of the fact that that consists of an orchid named Jack and an oxalis named Bobbsey sitting on my dresser in mismatched pots. And I can be happy. I am happy.

A Piece of Cake

Betty Crocker, of baking mix, cookbook and baking contest fame, started doing  the Gluten-Free thing about a year or so ago. Now, they're doing their first ever gluten-free baking contest, with entries due June 30th 2011.
So if you're interested in the GF baker's challenge, click here! Gluten Freely/ Betty Crocker GF Baker's Challenge

Maybe they'll come out with a GF Betty Crocker cookbook,designed like the classic my mother and many moms have used since at least the 50's. That would be awesome, and I'd add it to my growing collection of cook books.
And who knows, maybe Better Homes & Gardens will come out with one for the GF crowd, I grew up with the classic plaid in my kitchen, too!