Shana’s Neighborhood

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Today, while we were walking, I was thinking of a comment  Apolline had left on my Missing Strangers post about social movements and urbanization.  We turned a corner and here was exactly what I had been imagining loneliness all together to look like:

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Do you ever wonder what might have happened to people who are essentially strangers to us?   

Next door to my office building is a retirement & assisted living place -  it used to have the word "Alzheimer's"  in the name and we joked about just trading one place for the other as our minds went; usually with the assumption that too much work was going to cause such a decline.

Anyway - over the last couple of months every morning, as I've walked past, an elderly man has been outside hiding behind a pillar enjoying a cigarette.  Every morning I would say "good morning how are you?" and he'd respond with a loud and cheery: "Good morning to you and I'm great"   

The last few mornings he was not there and I wondered if he had died or been caught.  It crossed my mind that I might never know -  I don't think I would've gone inside to enquire about the health of a man having a forbidden cigarette.   

I was so relived to see him back this morning that I almost said "oh thank God you are ok"....    I really had been quite concerned about someone whose name I don't even know.

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The bike below used to appear near the office during the day and then be gone by evening.  Then it arrived and stayed.  And stayed and stayed.   If this had been anywhere near I live, it would've been stripped within a few hours.  After more than a month the rear tyre is flat but no-one has stolen the helmet or attempted to steal spare parts from the bike.  

So,  where is the owner?   Did they die at their desk?  Did they walk to the shops at lunch time and get run-over crossing the road?   Or perhaps they developed Alzheimer's and forgot they owned a bike.

I hate not knowing.....  and unlike the missing elderly man, where I could've enquired if I'd wanted to, there is no-one to ask about the bike's owner.  

October 16th -  I had walked past it for a week before I started wondering about its missing owner.

November 6th

Here are some weather pictures from the last few weeks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I am back to writing something once a week. Right now I am slapping myself and typing at the same time. My birthday went OK I guess. I had an exam on Friday so we all went out to dinner on Friday instead of the 5^th. We went to McGrath’s so I could get some oysters and a beer “like I said it’s down to the simple things”. Everything was going fine until my brother and his family showed up. He dropped everyone off and had to run in to work to restart a test and while he was gone both kids got real wound up and the rest of the evening was like having dinner with two bags full of cats. After sitting there for almost 2 hours I wanted to slam my head in a door a few times to make the pain go away. After dinner I told my mother that I will never be a parent. I couldn’t deal with the wiggly, complainy, screamy years and would probably sell my kids to the highest bidder. I have two major pet peeves when it comes to public places. One being people who talk or disrupt movies and the other people who are loud and disruptive in restaurants. Dinner Friday broke rule number two in to a thousand pieces. Afterward everything was fine; we had cake at home and the kids made me a birthday card which was covered in hand prints which was pretty cool and everyone else got me gift cards. Saturday I went out to lunch with my brother then we went to see Men Who Stare at Goats which was hi-sterical. The rest of the weekend I pretty much spent laying low and not doing to much. Monday I got my exam and the quiz pervious to it and I got an A on both tests. Yesterday, I had Veteran’s Day off so I decided to pool all of my gift cards and pick up a nicer coffee maker and some other stuff. The new coffee maker is pretty nice. I got to leave the house with my own coffee instead of buying some on the way to school.  

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With us all diligently slapping hand sanitizer on our hands to kill 99.99% of everything that might make us sick.....   where do all the killed germs  go?

These have nothing to do with dead things on hands - I just thought they were pretty.  Taken on walk around the neighbourhood next to ours on the weekend:  

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I am scared of squirrels.   Irrational I know and I'm annoyed at myself for being afraid of such a cute looking little thing. 
I'd never seen a "real" squirrel until my first day here and when I saw them I raved over their sweet little faces and bushy twitching tails. 

My second day here I met a kamikaze squirrel.  Instead of running away from me it ran straight at me and stamping feet and noise did not deter it.    It only stopped when I ran away and then, looking over my shoulder,  I swear I saw it smile. 

This fear is especially pathetic as I come from the land of more than a few of the world's top 10 deadliest snakes, the small Funnel Web Spider and the Blue Ringed Octopus. I have a healthy respect for these but am not particularly terrified of them.

But squirrels...  I give way to even if it means walking onto the roadway; I give wide berth to trees where I spot a squirrel and I never stand still in a park!

We don't have any squirrels in our little yard;  I suspect because of all the pepper (chili) plants we have around but yesterday I noticed a neighbour is actively encouraging them ....   I would never be able to leave the house if this was at my front door!

This little girl was having a feast.  Of course this was taken from well back on the sidewalk! 

If you could only drink one beverage for the rest of your life (not including water), which one would you choose?

Is it me or have all of the “questions of the day” started sounding more like market research questions from some mega tween advertising agency and not from actual VOX users? Did VOX make a deal with the devil in order to pay the bills? HMMmmmm.

OK, here goes another liberry rant.

There are signs ALL over the library stating no food or drinks allowed yet every day I see stupid people with drinks and snacks chomping away right next to one of these 50 or so signs. I guess they are all in the library to brush up on their “how to read a sign and follow directions” skills. Anyway, none of them are as bad as the girl that either sits at the table across the isle from me or behind me every day. She eats SO much food while she’s doing her home work that I’ll call her “Chester the Horse” because she sounds like a horse chewing grass behind me; a horse that is eating grass that is wrapped in cellophane packages. I swear it looks like she has a whole friggin 7-Eleven crammed in her bag. I am surprised she isn’t carrying one of those slushy machines on her back so she can get a frosty beverage when the need arises. Every day she eats the same thing too. The list is as follows:

 

1- Apple

1 – Package of cheese crackers

1 – Cookie

1 – Small bag of carrots

1 – Bottle of water - which you would think had a nipple on the end of it because she doesn’t just drink from her bottle, she sucks the water out and makes loud slurping noises while she does it. Every time I get distracted by the slurping and look, I get a dirty look in return like “what I’m just trying to make a vacuum, what’s the problem”.

 

I know it looks like I pay way too much attention to this breaker of the rules but how can I not? She makes so many chomping, crackling, slurping, gurgling, smacking, burping, dripping and sucking noises I can’t believe the rest of the people around me aren’t watching the spectacle as well. She reminds me of a granola version of the orange chicken massacre I saw back at De Anza. They both had the same eating habits accept this one makes a lot more noise and is currently chewing her cud right under a no food or drink sign. Am I the only one who makes these observations? Why am I so fascinated with the quirks of others? Yes, some people irritate me right off the bat but the rest I have to just stop and watch for a bit. Some times I feel like the world is just a big aquarium and I am following the big school of fish in the middle called the general public…..and occasionally tapping on the glass.  

OK, here goes another liberry rant.

There are signs ALL over the library stating no food or drinks allowed yet every day I see stupid people with drinks and snacks chomping away right next to one of these 50 or so signs. I guess they are all in the library to brush up on their “how to read a sign and follow directions” skills. Anyway, none of them are as bad as the girl that sits either sits at the table across the isle from me or behind me every day. She eats SO much food while she’s doing her home work that I’ll call her “Chester the Horse” because she sounds like a horse chewing grass behind me; a horse that is eating grass that is wrapped in cellophane packages. I swear it looks like she has a whole friggin 7-Eleven crammed in her bag. I am surprised she isn’t carrying one of those slushy machines on her back so she can get a frosty beverage when the need arises. Every day she eats the same thing too. The list is as follows:

 

1- Apple

1 – Package of cheese crackers

1 – Cookie

1 – Small bag of carrots

1 – Bottle of water - which you would think had a nipple on the end of it because she doesn’t just drink from her bottle, she sucks the water out and makes loud slurping noises while she does it. Every time I get distracted by the slurping and look, I get a dirty look in return like “what I’m just trying to make a vacuum, what’s the problem”.

 

I know it looks like I pay way too much attention to this breaker of the rules but how can I not? She makes so many chomping, crackling, slurping, gurgling, smacking, burping, dripping and sucking noises I can’t believe the rest of the people around me aren’t watching the spectacle as well. She reminds me of a granola version of the orange chicken massacre I saw back at De Anza. They both had the same eating habits accept this one makes a lot more noise and is currently chewing her cud right under a no food or drink sign. Am I the only one who makes these observations? Why am I so fascinated with the quirks of others? Yes, some people irritate me right off the bat but the rest I have to just stop and watch for a bit. Some times I feel like the world is just a big aquarium and I am following the big school of fish in the middle called the general public…..and occasionally tapping on the glass.  

Once upon a time, after finishing up my B.A. in English and filled with bright visions of writing and creating for a living, I stumbled unaware into a career in the health industry. This twisting, brambled path led me into darkness. Amidst the darkest days of despair and anguish, lost in a forest of regret and self-loathing, I saw a glimmer of light between the trees.

 

Despite finding myself in an industry that I had no desire nor preparation to be a part of, I found a small interest in the raw mechanics of the human body.

 

The blood lab at the hospital would come every morning towards the end of my over-night shifts and draw their labs from patients. I came to know through the process of inputting every medical order what each lab measured and why. Surgeries were prepped for and tests performed, and I became familiar with the GI tract and respiratory system and the endocrine system and their many complications and solutions.

 

Later, at the SNF, I witnessed the devastation of dementia and was intrigued by stage IV wound care and how to teach someone who'd broken a hip or suffered a stroke to walk and eat again. As in the hospital, the corporate part and the AMA and the needless drugs and procedures and medications infuriated and outraged me, but the rest was like taking a great live-action health class.

 

You see, I hated the medical industry for the most part, but by God, I loved the marvels of the human body.

 

After leaving the SNF I started my CMT journey. Since becoming a massage therapist, I've taken additional classes to become certified in more specific areas like Reiki and Pre- and Post- Natal bodywork. The learning never has to end, and I love it.

 

I remember one time talking to my husband about things that interest me for my future career, and how much I've become an enthusiast about childbirth, particularly natural methods. I've read some amazing literature on childbirth in various world cultures and have always loved it. The conversation came and went.

 

This last May, we were on a trip to the coast for the weekend and I again brought up how I think I'd like to think about becoming a childbirth doula. Being a massage therapist is a great foundation. As we talked about it, a little green car changed lanes right in front of us. Across the back windshield was a giant sticker: www.my3doulas.com. Strange, to say the least. 

 

In class that same month, someone found an ad for the Kate Jordan Bodywork for the Childbearing Year Seminars in a massage magazine. This intense workshop would certify you in bodywork techniques for pre-natal, post-partum, and labor support. I signed up right away, and my passion was further ignited.

 

Now my sister is pregnant. Although I haven't worked with her as much lately as I'd have liked to, we talk about her pregnancy frequently. She surprised me by saying that she was seeking out the Bradley Birthing Method classes in our area, (I'm so proud,) and she'd like to have a doula or a labor support present, and that if I feel that by that time I would be confident enough she thinks I'd be the best person. I am overjoyed. She contacted the most well-known doula in the area (there are not many here) and though she was unable to meeting with my sister for classes, they got to talking about me. Doula says that my certification is wonderful and the greatest thing have as a doula, and that I should give her a call. She's had a few other ladies contact her about mentorship, so if she gets enough of us, she can bring the doula training right here to Fresno.

 

I have her number in my planner. I keep staring at it. 

 

What if everything- from my English degree and interst in anthropology, to my "accidental" step into healthcare, to massage therapy, to my additional certification, has been leading me to this? What if all along these heartbreaks and triumphs have been setting a foundation to do something that I am sincerely interested in? And with a pregnant sister who needs me, I have more reason than ever to persue it now.

 

Standing on the cusp of something unexpected, I am almost frightened. This may mean leaving a job that has treated me well for a year (though isn't at all what I want for a career.) It may mean another financial sacrifice. It may mean changing everything.

 

I haven't called her. I'm mustering something up inside that I cannot describe.