Living-Deliberately.com

But I’ve wanted to spend most of this week under the covers. I can’t beleive it’s only Wednesday.

We watched two movies this week. Side Effects, a not-very-well-made but well-meaning movie about the dangers of the spending and ethical practices of pharmaceutical drug reps and the effects they have on people’s lives and the medical field, and Mystic River, a very well written, made, and acted film, centering around tragedy and the long-lasting effects of unresolved pain.

We’ve got dog-on-the-brain around here. There are two strays we’re keeping an eye on. “Jenny” is a very old, nearly lame lab that wanders around, refusing to stay longer than it takes to eat, who looks like she might lie down and die any day now. She’s sweet and has grey hair all over her face. She also has a few lumps on her chest and I wonder if it isn’t cancer she’s dying from.  The other was dumped yesterday. We tried to lure him away from the road with food, tried to get him to come out of the single-digit cold, but so far, no good. Dogs that are dumped seem to grieve on the spot, waiting for owners to pick them up that never come. It is heart-wrenching to watch.

Probably, in a short while, there will be a persistent stray who will decide to make us her family.  The kids want to go adopt one from the pound; one destined for death, to save it. Dad would like to rescue a Bouvier but rescue agencies are notoriously picky in the families they choose and I doubt we’d be accepted.  I mostly just miss Red Fox. He was a good watch dog, sweet, and loving and obedient; it will be very hard to find a dog that even comes close.

It’s cold here, with talk of “ice storms” in the forecast, though today is the high blue sky that comes before. The snow from Sunday night is still on the big hill, though it’s just ice between blades of grass now. We have another “big” school day ahead and Mt. Laundry makes me cry. I find myself wanting a fairy godmother to show up; to work magic in the kitchen and laundry room while I catch up on zzzz’s under a pile of warm blankets. I know better than to wait around for her to fly in with a wand though….so ONWARD. “The only way out is through” LOL

• Rowan’s hearing test was perfect! As the doc said, “we know it’s all going in. Now go find out why it’s not coming out.”
• on the way home I passed a church sign that read, “Sin is a good way to approach people.” What does that mean?
• Two back to back snow/ice storms seem to be headed this way. If I’m not around, the power is out.
• Another dog was dumped on the corner today. The coloring of a beagle but with a boxier body. Looking forelornely at the road, poor animal.  I’m going to try to get him here for a meal before the storm comes at least.  People who dump animals are wretches.  There’s a whole group of people that are a struggle to love!
• My oldest is almost 11. How did that happen?!?! He sure makes a good pot of chili.

Living In The Moment means that even though it’s past bedtime, when the snow that’s been falling softly all day is finally sticking to the ground, the kids can get dressed in their gear and head outside to make snow angels, throw snow balls, and write messages out there in the dark night. It means that when they are done and quite rosy, there is a pot of from-scratch hot chocolate on the stove.

Reason 568 to homeschool: when  the county schools closed for two days last week from a nasty flu bug that made hundreds of kids sick, ours thankfully weren’t exposed.

Reason 569 to homeschool: no one has to get up early tomorrow. Play while the snow is here because it never lasts long!

Carpe Diem!

In the same week that my computer (a Dell; see category in the side bar for what I think about that) starts having the first really persisitent, unexplained problems like weirdo pop ups, getting stuck and frozen, and slowing down is THE SAME WEEK I get an email reminding me me warranty is about to expire……..

Two things:

• I smell a rat.
• I should’ve bought a Mac.

In our new church there are two children with autism. While one stands in the same general area throughout the service time, the other dances and moves around freely. I consider it a grace almost that Orthodox churches don’t have pews; they would restrict her. Maybe the conventional protestant format would even confine her away through the service time, keeping her from the environment entirely and us from experiencing the reminder of how unique and precious every soul is. It’s almost laughable at times, when I think of my previous encounters with the debate over “children in church”, knowing that there’s a good chunk of people out there who can not handle a toddler’s chatter let alone the unpredictable dance of autism.

Rather than distract me from the “point” of worship though, Kate is drawing me closer to Christ. I know very little about her but I that hasn’t stopped my wonder at her. Her rhythms, their patterns; what at first seemed random and almost spastic, can sometimes seem lyrical and quite intentional. She has a variety of sounds: “purring” noises deep in her thoat, little moans of various tones. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a song. She expands my vision of heaven.

She seems to like to look at me. Often she comes up and lightly touches the back of my hair, in the middle of my back, especially when it’s unbraided and hanging loose. She comes and takes me by both hands and seems to want to lead me, and then when I respond, she lets go and moves across the room again. She’ll try again and again for eye contact, not unlike a toddler playing “peek a boo”. Last week her dance included repeated walks up to the icon of St. Nina for a quick brush, fingertip to cheek, and I caught my breath every time she did it. She leads me to questions. Questions that may not have answers but questions that I can’t help but acknowledge the benefit of their asking.

I’ve been amazed at the sensory-ness of the few autistic people I’ve come into contact with or seen. If they seem in “another world”, it’s not that I see them as “less than”. Rather, watching them makes me want to crawl inside with them for a few moments and see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel. I feel a hunger to connect, maybe moreso when I hear someone dismiss that as a possiblity. Surely there has to be some way for a soul to know another soul.

I’ve had a hard time the last few weeks putting these feelings into words. Today while reading a new forum I’ve been visiting, I saw a link to this video. It is something I’ll be thinking of a lot in the days to come; it has a strong impact. Please watch it.

1. Google “Google reader” and get the web address

2. Watch the very good video of the guy at the desk explain it in layman’s terms.

3. Sign up

4. Go to your favorite “reads” and see if they have an RSS feed on their sidebar (some have it at the bottom and some don’t have it at all). Click on “subscribe”. Choose “google reader” as your service.

5. Bookmark your google reader page so you can just go right there, all at once each day. On the left of the page will be the list of your subscribed blogs and they will be in bold if there are new posts.

6. What you’ve eliminated: the time it takes to go one by one through sites that haven’t updated!

David looked for other things that happened on that day in history to help the kids remember Red Fox.

Winston Churchhill died that day and my sweet neice turned 1 month.

The kids were up with nightmares last night; I think seeing their dog get hit and tossed over a lane of traffic is going to be the hardest part.

This is not a very good picture of Red Fox, the ratty little dog that was here when we moved and who worked his way right into our hearts. We eventually learned he was the very best of dogs….knew to stick close to his Boy, loved to cuddle, kept a watchful eye on the family alerting us well anytime anything was amiss or if there were strangers about.

If this is reading like a doggie ulogy, it’s because it is one.

Tonight on our way to church, of our street and onto the highway, Red Fox was hit by a car. The kids saw it happen and they screamed for me to stop the van. I turned around, seeing the car that hit him speed away without stopping and ran to the dog’s side. He was in total shock but alive. I knew he had internal injuries because blood was dripping from his nose. Andrew, sobbing, got a blanket and we wrapped him up and headed to town, praying the vet would be open.

Halfway there he started aspirating on foamy blood. I told Andrew that Red Fox was likely going to die in a few minutes. The vet wasn’t there; just his nurse and she at first said there was nothing she could do. But maybe my tears moved her…she followed me back to the van. One look and she knew he wasn’t going to make it but she offered to bring him inside. I think she knew the kids needed to see someone try something, anything.

After a few minutes she asked me if I wanted her to give him a shot and I readily thanked her and told her yes. I didn’t want our sweet dog to be hurting and while he couldn’t move his body, I could tell by his eyes that he was still with us and very likely feeling something awful. Andrew asked her to please go ahead and do it so he wouldn’t hurt anymore. In a few minutes it was over.

We went and got Dad at work and brought everyone home. There have been many, many tears around here tonight. Andrew and Dad dug the grave and tomorrow we’ll get the things needed to make him a little stone. It might seem like a lot to go through for a little dog that we weren’t sure we wanted around a few months ago; funny how animals can make you love them so much. He died trying to run alongside us, like he always did, his favorite game albeit a very dangerous one. We’ll miss him very much.

• the fried chicken was tough, even after a full day soaking in buttermilk. I wondered if it seemed tough(er) than store bought chicken because we are used to meat that has been manipulated chemically and otherwise to be more tender. But it also was just  plain tough. Maybe it was the breed. Maybe it was the butchering. The white meat tasted great and the dark was really dark. But the dinner was still a feast: chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and a big bowl of banana pudding.
• I am happy to report a new way to “do more” in a streamlined way. It’s old news to a lot of people but I had a little mind-block up about it last year and finally took the time to get my head around it this month. What is it? RSS feed! I use Google reader, subscribe to most of my “daily reads” (not everyone has an RSS feed on their blog) and I can check new posts all at once every day. It’s like an inbox for blogs! Fantastic! So those of you who don’t think you have the time to keep up with your favorites, give this a shot. It’s saved me quite a bit of time in the mornings. Goody, goody. It means I have another moment to go reboot my laundry!

Well now. There is just no part of that process that isn’t nasty. Last month I interviewed Richard Morris, who said, “One thing I definitely want to do next year is to buy a live chicken and go through the whole process from the back yard to the kitchen table. I think it would be very educational for all of us.” . Let me say, Richard my friend? There is no more effective way to communicate the high cost of food than a project like this. To call it “educational” would be a huge understatement.

Hercules was a mighty rooster. A big bird who felt his freedom to his bones, who loves to shake out his long, blond mane and crow for all he was worth, one leg in the air and beak turned towards heaven. If I’d let him, he would have loved to “be the boss” around here. He had the dog spurred into submission, the kids knew to keep their distance, and my poor three red hens were constantly worked over. In his pen it was easier to turn a blind eye to the aggression, feed him, enjoy his wake up call, and go on with things.

That is, at least, until it got personal. Pick on momma? Bite the hand that feeds you? You’re outta here Mister.

Yes well. Easier said than done.

Hercules doesn’t like to be caught. When he free roamed he often would not head back to the coop until dusk, right on the edge of dark, and only when it was pitch black would he let anyone handle him enough to lock him back in. So we knew the “deed” needed to be done at night. We were justifiably nervous at the thought of trying to butcher a chicken under the stars; it’s hard to see what one is doing!

So we began at dusk, hoping he’d be in a compliant mood. Have you seen the scene in Shrek when the villagers head to the ogre’s swamp with rakes and torches and the like, ready to cast him out? That’s kind of what this group looked like, each of us holding a rake or flashlight, headed up the hill in mud boots, ready to round him up. The drama around catching one lone rooster was astounding! One of us would try to edge him near the others while they blocked him. At one point David tried to lasso him. As the cold wind blew in and the temperature dropped, a few expletives were uttered at the frustrations of this stubborn boy who knew he had the advantage.

We went in for dinner. It was over plates of steaming chuck steak, rice and veggies that Andrew came up with his idea to use a towel. It went like this: I’d block him, David would corner him, and Andrew would sneak up behind him and throw the towel over his head. Three tries and it worked. They were able to slow him down enough to get a rope around his neck and another around his feet.

Hindsight: at this point, one should just break the chicken’s neck. But, having read many, many pages of instructions yesterday in preparation, we thought we ought to stick with our plan of a head-chop slaughter. So off to the chopping block we went.

Andrew has the feet/body job. He’d been warned not to let go after the cut because the body would still flail around. David had the head end and they pulled the now-quite-compliant bird and laid him down on the block. Immediately we noticed a problem: Hercules’s “mane”, those long, blond feathers, were in the way of the chop. They could be lifted but the bottom side provided a cushion that made a clean cut very difficult. Andrew was saying, “okay, okay,…..I’m ready Dad. Oh! (he was cringing) Just do it. Thank you Hercules for being a good chicken.” David was hesitating, knowing (and having had read it at the Urban Agrarian) that he did not want to have to chop twice.

Trying not to be as gruesome in words as the sight was, the first chop only got half. The bird flopped around. Andrew screamed, though faithfully not taking his hands off the bird. David chopped again and it was done.

We had a bucket near the chopping block to let him “bleed out”. I couldn’t remember how long this was supposed to take. There was already a good amount of blood on the block, the ground, the men’s pants. We hung the bird from his feet on the clothesline over the bucket and waited for the water to boil on the stove. I had my big water bath canner filled and nearly there at the time of the chopping.

There wasn’t much blood in the bucket. After a few minutes with no drips I went and brought out the pot of boiling water.

Hindsight: get an outdoor propane burner. Do as much as possible in one place.

We put the body into the pot and brought it back inside to boil for a few minutes. At this point I wanted the book back out again. I was completely blank on how long to scald him.

The boys were flustered and it took several minutes to find this out. And, when we finally read, “30 seconds ought to do it”, we knew we’d likely begun to cook the bird……

Hindsight: there is no way to read and butcher at the same time. There is a great chance that all the reading one does prior will vanish from memory at the critical time. To all those wanting to give this a try: have someone there who KNOWS what they are doing and has done this before.

Andrew and I took him back outside to pluck the feathers. One has to kind of “rip” them out in the direction they grew. It’s not hard and they came out surprisingly easy. Andrew said, “he feels like a rubber chicken from the store mom!” And, to our comfort, at this point he starts to look more like a regular roaster from the store. Then I chopped off his feet.

As soon as he was cleaned off we brought him inside to run under cold water.

Hindsight: when one has a small kitchen like mine, do not have any of the dinner dishes around, waiting to be washed. You will need SPACE.

Okay, so this is the part where the innards have to be removed. I’d read and read and somehow imagined that it would be similar to those roasters from the store. You know the kind with the little paper pouches of organs inside? Mine are always still a bit frozen in the middle and I have to put my hand in and give a good tug but then “whoosh” and their out. I figured it would be warmer inside (from life and the scalding) but that the tug and removal would be similar.

Um. No. Not even close.

My rooster was not a hormone-hyped store bird with a big breast. He was long, with long legs, and in a slipper wet sink. I had a hard time keeping the back/breast straight. Some of our books said to cut the neck away but they didn’t say how far down. It seemed I couldn’t get it far enough to get a really good hole for the neck “cavity” to allow for organ removal. And then there were these two gross tube sticking out too: the esophagus and the trachea. Some books said to remove the “oil gland” above the tail and some did not. All said to not cut through the rectum.

Hindsight: yes, real chickens have a rectum and if they haven’t gone to the bathroom, there will be something “else” nearby. It won’t take reading many warnings to make you really nervous about cutting anything down there for fear the wrong thing will be cut. And, my knives were not as sharp as needed.

So I managed to wrangle enough neck out, by now realizing that none of my cuts were going to be as quick as “ cut and remove”. I was wrestling this wet bird and getting more and more apprehensive about sticking my hands inside!

But NOBODY said ANYTHING about a full stomach. My Hercules had free roamed all day having a feast in my yard. The stomach was bulging and full and the most obvious organ to remove first. I’d cut into it by mistake, which meant, I had to remove the contents of the stomach before actually getting the whole organ out.

Hindsight: can latex gloves be used next time and still have any kind of grip?

Stomach gone, chest cut made, time to stick my index and middle fingers in down through the neck to loosen the organs. Here where my idea of “tug and remove” was shattered. Everything was attached. It was sloshy. Think chest cavity scene on ER. Fingers go in, probe around, seeing mentally rather than with eyes. The body is long and goes less than half way down. And this is all supposed to be pulled out the tail end. Our tail hole didn’t seem quite large enough…..

I grabbed an intestine. Pull, pull, pull. It kept coming. Celia thought I was pulling a snake. It makes little “popping”, puckering noises as it comes out. It’s warm.

At this point, MIND OVER MATTER is a means of survival. You are completely and utterly committed to just getting through this project. All romantic ideas of “growing your own” have flown out the window dahling. You are pulling a chicken’s intestines out in your sink and it is nothing but nasty.

And once you get them out, the words in the book say, “and the organs will follow the crop.”

“What the hell is the crop??!?” I yelled. I had slimy intestines, a few bright red clumps of something else and the organs weren’t budging. Andrew was taking pictures (most of which didn’t turn out), David was frantically looking for better info (he had much pity for me by now, being organ-squeamish himself), and Rowan was going around crowing, “rooo rooo roooooooo” .

Any real farmer would laugh at the utter pathos. City people are thinking, “I’ll get mine from the store thanks”. And I desperately wanted to talk to one of my friends who’d done this before. But there is no where to go but onward.

I decided to cut the rectum out and anything attached to it, hang what the books say. That gone, I felt a little freer about digging around in there. Eventually it all came out: heart, gizzards, liver, kidneys. Into the bloody feather pot it all went. I was past romantic ideas of parts for luscious stocks. Eventually the cats got the organs and the dog got the neck. The rest went in the trash.

Hindsight: lots of running water is your friend. Once gutted, the bird from here looks like any ordinary stuffing bird. I should have just trussed him at this point for roast chicken today. But I was out of onions and I always use thick wedges of onion for a roasting bed. So I stuck to my original plan.

Ha. I’m no butcher. And remember, my knives were not as sharp as they should have been. I got the legs off and the thighs pretty easily. But that breast/back problem persisted. The breast meat was detaching from the bone and I couldn’t find where to cut the two breast halves apart. No pretty little pieces like the cellophane packages at the store were going to be a part of this project!!! Eventually I got legs, thighs, and two breasts (one with a bone, one without) into the baking dish to coat with buttermilk. The wings and remnants of the breast bone and back all went into a stock pot with carrots and celery.

By the time we bleached and cleaned the kitchen it was late. We were more exhausted than we’ve been in a long time, similar only to the full-spectrum drain we’ve felt after a major fight of some kind. I was humbled at the thought of my friend Anna who did her first while she had infant twins and all kind of other stuff going on. And my friend Cheryl who did over 20 her first time, all meat birds. I’m not in any hurry to do this again, yet when I take on more birds, it will be with full knowledge of what I’m committing to. There was no real way to learn that but by the doing.

Food is indeed expensive. To Hercules, who is now soaking in milk to be fried tomorrow. To our children, who learned that grocery store offerings are deceptively easy. To us, who learned that books romanticize to inspire and reality is harsh. Doable but harsh.

We’ve been reading Crunchy Cons in bed at night, an inspirational manifesto that has helped us realize that we aren’t so odd after all, and that there is kind of honest conservatism out there we can openly support (because the visible mainstream ain’t it honey). If there was a “crunchy con” badge out there, I feel like I earned it last night. It was some kind of trial by fire (or guts as it were) to see if we really believed what we say we do, and I feel like I passed.

This morning there is a wonderfully aromatic pot of stock simmering on the stove. I’ll season the pieces in the fridge and see how tough or tender a free-roaming 7 month old chicken will be. There will be a big bowl of mashed potatoes alongside for my boy who bravely helped and gravy for his daddy who did the part I never could.

“No more complaining about the cost of food from me,” said The Little Red Hen.

How to Count It All Joy when a rooster chases you down a slippery, steep hill while spurring you as you slide on wet leaves and Tennessee clay early in the morning just because you came out to FEED HIM????

Fried Chicken my friends. Fried Chicken. Tomorrow’s dinner will be fresh, home-grown, fried chicken.

Around here we go through quite a lot of little Dove chocolates. Annoyingly though, these little medications enjoyments are named “Dove Promises”. I think they should be renamed to “Dove Commandments” or “Dove Admonishments” because that’s what they actually do. Unlike a fortune cookie, that would say something like, “this year you’ll be blessed with friends”, Dove’s offer little scoldings and orders like, “Believe in those you love”, “Celebrate with your friends”, and “take time by a lake”. Yeah, okay, nothing bad but not “promises” either.

People often sit down to a bag of chocolate (in my dh’s case) or squirrel them away to ration over a week’s time (in my case) because they a: taste good and b: offer a tiny respite, a treat, from an otherwise hectic day. No one wants a little guilt with their candy. When I’m hiding in the closet from the kids taking a moment to enjoy a piece of chocolate, I don’t want some little wrapper telling me I ought to instead, “pamper yourself with a long bath”, rubbing it in that I have no such time and my hot water tank would probably only fill the tub halfway.

Yes, this really has bugged me for a couple of years. I feel so  much better now that I’v said it!

Wheaton: “Dad, what is your favorite color?”

Dad: “Um….blue.”

Wheaton: “Do you know what my favorite color is?”

Dad: “What’s that?”

Wheaton: “You.”

It’s called Hope Cherishing Love by Harry Mileham, painted in 1904. The image is from the Bridgeman Art Library and I think that funky bumblebee is a protector thingie. I saw this yesterday on the wall of my friend who had her house blessed yesterday, in memoriam of their little baby boy who died in infancy. I saw it and thought of Clara. I thought of all those dark moments at night mothers have anytime they are worried about their children.  My friend graciously surprised me with a link in my inbox when I got home last night. Thanks Kyra!

When I did I first suspect Rowan had Down’s Syndrome? He was three days old and I was shooting his photo for his birth announcement. Some of you got the black and white picture of him lying on a white fleece. There was this moment in the sun….I wondered if it was shadow. Many times over the past two years I’ve had this secret wondering. Sometimes it’s in the middle of the night as he nurses. Sometimes it’s when my camera catches a look we miss in full action.

He’s different than my other kids in every way, in more ways than children are simply individuals. From his pregnancy, delivery, the feel of him in my arms. His intensity. The way he spins in circles over and over, not like “gee mom this is fun!” but just different somehow. The way he’s never once slept longer than 4 hours at a time. His late crawling, standing, walking, and now talking. His early wellbaby checks didn’t go over anything unusual and then we moved. He’s been healthy and I was behind in check ups and then I started procrastinating, knowing he was delayed but not wanting to “go there”.
Last year I didn’t develop any film, though I took many pictures. At the end of the year I got a little digital cam that I used. It’s easy to shrug off an “odd look” on a cheap camera that can’t take a good action shot. I did it a few times. Last week I brought in a bunch of rolls to Walmart to get them developed and then the day came this week when I was on the phone with my sister, casually going over photos from last fall.

Rowan’s hair was still long, with bangs cut straight across. One reason that I cut it as short as I did soon after this photo was taken was to lessen the look I was getting that was making me a bit more and more uneasy. But I nearly dropped the stack of photos when I came to this.

It was the day I had to stop pretending. I had to vocalize for the first time what I’d wondered for so long. Even David didn’t know I thought this. When someone suggested to him last summer that something might be “wrong” with Rowan because he didn’t act like the other babies in church, we responded with laughter and quiet resentment. I wanted to stay in the land where we just relax and wait for him to catch up, like so many well-meaning mothers say. “Our boy didn’t talk for a long time either. It’s just boys. Don’t worry.”

But at the same age, when I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to find out why Wheaton wasn’t talking, the pediatrician scolded me and the speech therapist told me he was deaf. My mother-gut was screaming at me by now. Time to listen. Time to act.

Rather than head off to an Early Intervention appointment for a speech eval I decided to go to the doctor first to make sure it wasn’t physiological. We drove an hour and a half away to doctors I trust in our old town, hoping they’d just be kind of dismissive and tell me not to worry, that kids all progress at different rates. Instead, within minutes, they had a plan of action.

Next week we’ll go to the geneticists at UT for chromosome testing. They’ll direct most of the action from there. But also we’ll have extensive hearing testing (with Wheaton’s doc), possibly eyes, and they’ll line up the stuff for the EIP speech stuff. The suspicion is Mosaic Down’s, something I don’t know that much about but it’s different than typical Trisomy 21. Google it for more info. All I can manage right now is to spit out what I’ve said a few other times in the last 24 hours.

I don’t think I’m spinning as much from the potential of what this means from a medical standpoint. That much seems kind of easy in the face of what other stuff we’ve been through. But it’s the mechanics of it that have me wigged out today. The appointments, the driving, the waiting for results while huge questions hang in the distance between. The way so much of life gets pushed aside. The siblings who have be more flexible than I’d wish for childhoods that I pray could be just a little more innocent. Yes, the expense. The repetition of explanations.

Better this stuff happens on a Monday you know? Lots of stuff to be done in a week, lots that can be done. Hearing it on a Friday means the world goes on while we sit sort of shell-shocked and with not enough structure and urgency to throw ourselves into work to get through it. Tempers flare, reflexes are jumpy, denial tempts.

Which is where I am now. I’ve got work to be done but just a little. The kids are loud and we feel like we are anxiously racing but with no destination in sight. Maybe he’s just a little slow. Maybe it’s like cat scratch disease when someone else suggested cancer. Maybe it’s extra amniotic fluid instead of only 2 heart chambers. Maybe he’s just built small instead of slowly starving to death.

I’ve been here before, waiting in between two very large realities. It will be awhile before we know where we’ll end up.