Conversations over Dinner

If you had been spying through the kitchen window as we ate dinner tonight, you wouldn’t have seen anything unusual. Just two people eating an ordinary meal. What you wouldn’t have seen is how content we are to be sitting at that ordinary table in our ordinary kitchen.

Multiple sclerosis, not a shy entity, has been plaguing us of late. The past week was a difficult one for both of us, and the appearance of new symptoms reminded me that we can take nothing for granted.

Lord knows, we’ve got our share of problems, but we have each other. We have our quiet life and our peaceful home. As long as we can sit together, sharing dinner at that kitchen table, we’ve got more than most.

It was a wonderful dinner.

I’m not a political blogger, nor do I want to be. I’m just not cut out for it. In fact, politics of late has left me feeling anxious and stressed.

There is something political that I feel passionately about — our right and our duty to cast a vote on election day. Certainly, no matter what your party affiliation, you have to admit that the Bush vs. Gore result was too close for comfort.

Voter apathy has no place in this election.

I’ve got voting age children who have very strong opinions on who should win this election. They also feel very confident that he will. My fear is that they, and many others of their generation, will make the same assumption. They believe their vote doesn’t matter because their candidate is obviously the man for the job.

I implore you to fight voter apathy. Each and every American must vote. No state is guaranteed for either candidate. No poll can accurately predict the outcome. In the end, what each voter does behind that closed curtain is what matters.

Q. What is it like to be married to someone with relapsing/remitting MS?

A. It requires a great deal of advance planning and a certain amount of anxiety.

Jake’s article for The Health Central Network allows just a small peek inside the mind of a spouse/caregiver.

Read: “Scaredy Scouts”

It really quite amusing. It’s like one long Saturday Night Live skit.

I’m talking, of course, about the way members of the media are falling all over themselves today, looking for the biggest story.

We’ve had the television news on all day because of hurricane Gustav. Jake’s daughter had to evacuate her New Orleans area home. We know she is safe, but we want to keep on top of the situation.

What a big day for news! Hurricane Gustav has the reporters performing their usual stand out in the rain and let the wind blow routine. Then it’s over the the republican convention to see if there is any breaking news there. This just in: Palin’s 17 year-old daughter is pregnant. Breaking news: the levee will let go at any moment. Hmmm… did Palin illegally fire her ex brother-in-law? Who is Palin again? Over to Obama, who says that we need to leave Palin’s family out of it. Back over to you… how’s that levee holding out? Over to the talking heads, debating the Palin issue(s) and how we really shouldn’t be talking about it. Let’s take a look back at Katrina…

Surely one of these stories will bust wide open any minute! We’ll have to turn off the news soon, or my head just might explode.

We’ve been used! Actually, we were held up as examples — in a very positive way.

My son is currently attending graduate school and is also working as a teaching assistant. I never would have imagined that we would become a topic of conversation in his class, but that’s exactly what happened.

His field of study is mass communications and media. His point was that our work — web design and blogging — are fields that did not exist just a short time ago, and we are among a large number of people managing to earn a living online.

The lesson he was trying to impart is that when new technology becomes available, you’ve got to jump on board and find a way to go with it. New jobs are waiting to be invented, new enterprises waiting to launch. We have to keep on top of new media and use it to our fullest advantage!

I’m so proud of my son and all he has accomplished these past several years and, yes, we’re very flattered!

I was reading a post on one of my favorite blogs, Sunshine and Moonlight, recently, which really got me to thinking. The post, by contributing writer Mark Waggener, is titled, “You Are What you Think.”

In a nutshell, positive thinking attracts positive thinkers which, in turn, attracts positive events.

I realized that Jake and I had been letting too much negativity into our lives of late. We spend a lot of time together and have a tendency to feed off each other’s moods. Negative thoughts have been swirling around and preventing us from moving forward.

We had a nice talk about it and agreed to stress the positive. No matter what thought pops into our heads, we will find the positive in it! We’ll smile even when we don’t feel like it!

The first day, we went around smiling inappropriately and looking slightly maniacal. The second night, we were to meet a couple of friends for wine and snacks at our local vineyard. We ended up seated opposite our friends and took up conversation with those around us.

Wouldn’t you know it? The man next to me started speaking of making a major life change, and the opposition which would surely follow. Positive thinking, he said, would get him through. Positive thinking, despite naysayers, would lead him to reach for his dreams. After discussing this positive thinking theory in depth, I mentioned the thought process that was going on in our own home.

Did we come together as a result of the energy we put out? Did positive thinking attract positive thinking?

All I know is that I came away feeling uplifted and… well… positive.

Five years ago, our home was pleasant enough, but entirely too neat and definitely too quiet.  In an effort to inject a little controlled chaos into our lives, we decided to adopt a kitten from our local animal shelter.

As soon as we saw him, we knew he was the one. He was a magnificent dark gray tabby with handsome green eyes. One of a litter of five, he was entangled in a sea of black fur, which turned out to be three of his siblings. We took turns holding him to make sure that we were a good fit. We both felt an immediate bond with our new friend.

Even though we had made our choice, we couldn’t help noticing that there was anther kitten from the same litter, nervously sitting by herself in a corner of the cage. We felt strangely attracted by her tentative demeanor, so we decided to get to know her as well. Now we were officially in love. Times two!

That’s how we ended up with a brother sister duo that we named Smokey and Bandit. They did everything together. Bandit quickly took the dominant position to Smokey’s submissive, yet very feisty, role.

They grew… and grew. Big, by cat standards, Bandit weighed in at 18 pounds, and Smokey at 12 pounds, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on either one of them. If you happened to catch Bandit out of the corner of your eye, you might mistake him for a small dog. We received many compliments about his amazing natural beauty. Gorgeous he was, but one would never accuse him of being graceful. All the more reason to love the cat we affectionately called our big “galumph.”

As the years passed, they more than fulfilled their duties as keepers of chaos.
Cat hair, spilled food, and scratched furniture replaced the neat and tidy interior of our home.

Bandit was the town crier, always making noise of some kind or another. An unusual cat, he would spend hours nestled in Jake’s arm, positioned like an infant, while we watched television at night. We never regretted our decision to bring home these two lovable pals.

Exactly five years later, quite unexpectedly, we lost our beloved Bandit. Our still young, strong cat succumbed to a bladder infection, just 48 hours after his first symptom. We were stunned and grief-stricken.

Smokey immediately displayed signs of depression. She sat without moving most of the day, and ate little. The rest of the time she spent vainly searching for her lifelong companion. We worried about her well being and considered bringing home a new kitten, to take her mind off her troubles, but our hearts were not yet ready.

When Bandit left, the chaos went with him. Once again, our home was lacking that extra lifeblood we needed.

Several weeks passed, and Smokey began to adjust to her new life in a single-cat home. She became increasingly vocal and adventurous. We began to realize just how dominant Bandit was, and that her less than sociable behavior was a result of her place in the hierarchy.

With new found confidence, Smokey has become a very active member of our household. Her vocalizations fill the air and she has blossomed into quite a handful! Chaos has returned, thanks to the newly crowned queen of the manor.

Bandit will always be with us in spirit. I still picture our big galumph, patrolling the house and checking in on his sister. Meanwhile, Smokey carries on, doing double duty as the keeper of chaos.

I miss him already. My son, Teddy, is on a plane at the  moment, winging his way back to his home turf. For the last twelve days or so, he has injected a large dose of youthful energy into our usually quiet home.

I’ve been able to put some of my work aside, as well as some household chores, in order to be with him. We fell so easily into our roles, and I experienced a bit of an adrenaline rush just having him around.

My MS started acting up just days before his visit, but that adrenaline gave me strength. I’d like to bottle and sell that rush to other MS patients but, alas, it has a very limited shelf life. I was unable to fight the forces of fatigue and walking difficulty for the last two days of Ted’s visit. In fact, the cane made its reappearance today. But that’s okay — the visit was wonderful!

Now it’s back to reality… work and chores and such.

Teddy, you are a wonderful young man, and we miss you.

All aboard the self-esteem express! Carson Kressley is at it again.

Back for a second season of Lifetime Television’s How to Look Good Naked, Mr. Kressley works overtime trying to convince us that “how you carry yourself means more than having a perfect body.”

This is no ordinary makeover show. Here we are more concerned with fixing our perspective than fixing our bodies. It is about bridging the gap between what we think we see when we look in the mirror, and the reality before us.

Continue…

This weekend Mandy and I traveled some hours to visit the home of my mother who is going to celebrate her 80th birthday this week. There was a big family party planned and everyone was looking forward to seeing each other. We were just ready to leave the house when the phone rang. It was my brother. “So, you’ve heard about Mom, right?,” he half-said…

Read Happy Birthday, Mom by Jake

I’m thinking about a friend tonight. Well, not a friend exactly. More of an acquaintance. Well, not an acquaintance exactly. You see, we’ve never met.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be sitting here, thinking about someone I’ve only known online, I would have told you that you had me pegged wrong. I’m more practical than that. More careful, more tentative. It’s just not my nature. A year ago, I hadn’t yet made my entrance into the blogosphere.

It was last August when Jake and I started Conversations Over Dinner, as a fun way to pass the time. Then on to MS Maze, The Health Central Network and In The Trenches Productions in a matter of months. Before I knew what hit me I was forging “friendships” with people online, people I would never meet.

Multiple sclerosis is one reason. Reading other MS related blogs helped me to deal with the things I thought were unique to me. I started to leave comments on other blogs and people began leaving comments on mine. By reading about their experiences, my own life was enriched.

I have a fantastic working relationship with the good folks over at The Health Central Network, but we will, in all likelihood, never meet. It all comes down to emails and phone calls.

Over at In The Trenches Productions, a group of women is working hard to reach out to women over the age of 40, and to keep them present and accounted for in the media. I admire what they do. My contact there is Debbie Zipp. I’ve never met her, never spoken to her on the phone. We’ve exchanged some wonderful emails, divulging a few tidbits of ourselves here and there, and I can only say that I genuinely like her.

I have a handful of online buddies out there that I’ve come to care about. I read about their struggles and their triumphs, and I wish them well. They do the same for me. It’s a strange new world, indeed.

So back to that “friend” I was thinking about. She’s had a harrowing couple of days, lost in airline hell. She has MS and I know, all too well, that she is very, very uncomfortable and longing for home. Hang in there, Sunshine!

Jake watches me struggle and fall. He stands by my side through doctor visits and medical testing. Every morning, before he wakes me, he opens the refrigerator door and pulls out a syringe. It’s a matter of routine, but its significance doesn’t escape him.

How many changes has he made to accommodate my need for assistance? Do I know even a small fraction of the silent sacrifices he has made on my behalf?

Read “Caring for the Caregiver”

Movies. Some are worth seeing twice. Some might even be worth seeing three times. Too many aren’t worth seeing at all. Now me — I like movies that tell a story I can believe. A story that says to me, “This is real,” even when I know it isn’t. A story so well told — with characters so utterly believable — that no matter how big the lie, I believe –  because I want to believe. After all, isn’t that why we go to movies in the first place? To find truth — in what are essentially lies.

Continue…