The father-daughter relationship is fraught with all the possibilities a therapist could wish for. Even in my family.
Well, except for my relationship with my father.
“You go ask Dad …” was one of the enduring sounds of my childhood.I only asked “why me” once:
It was a hot summer day when I was about four. I was happily cooling off in the puddles on the sidewalk. I didn’t even really want to go to the beach. My brothers and sister did, though.
“Go ask Dad if he’ll take us to the beach,” Judy commanded.
That summer, Dad, already working two jobs to support his wife and five kids was studying to take his insurance licensing test.
“Why me?” I whined. “I always have to ask Dad.”
“‘Cause when you ask him, he always says yes” Bob responded. Judy and Fred agreed.
So I went in and asked him.
Sure enough, he packed up his books, loaded the four of us up into the car, and headed off to Beardsley Park, where there was a delightful stream that formed the most wonderful pools of different depths, where we would each be happy and cool. I can still see Dad sitting on a rock ledge in the shade, his pants legs rolled up, his feet in the water and a large black binder on his lap.
I never again asked “Why me” when it came to getting Dad to do anything. Because I realized that my brothers and sisters were right. Dad always said yes to me.
Somehow, the fact that I was the clear favorite in Dad’s eyes was rarely held against me by my brothers and sisters who all had far more complicated relationships with Dad. It was pretty much accepted by everybody. That’s just how it was.
Dad and Me in Geneva, June 1998. You have to guess which is me.
I don’t have any recordings of his voice, which was deep and scary (to everybody but me) when we were kids, and became deep and comforting when we were grown. But this song, while he never heard it, always makes me feel close to Dad, who died in 2000. Today would have been his 98th birthday.
The history surrounding the history of Joseph McCarthy, the late Republican senator from Wisconsin, is enough to make a “freedom of speech” lovin’ woman like me shudder. I’m sure it is no coincidence that Senator McCarthy died right after I was born. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against me once I hit grade school.
Anyway, for my foreign readers, Senator McCarthy was a nasty, paranoid piece of work. Here’s Wikipedia’s take on him:
Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communistsubversion.[1] He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.
The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy’s practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.[2]
I also learned that McCarthy was equally ruthless at “outing” gays.
Separated at Birth? Google Image
When McCarthy claimed that someone was a communist, generally speaking, it ruined his/her life. There were many innocent victims of McCarthyism, whose professional and private lives changed. Folks were fired, not hired, scorned. It impacted people in government, industry and in the arts. Many of us have heard of the folks in show business in particular who were charged. And anybody who had had any dealings with the Soviets was fair game.
We all like to think that we would never cast spurious allegations against anyone or anything on our planet. We all like to think that we are good, kind souls, who would never malign anyone unjustly. That we would never spread rumors or false charges.
Friends, yesterday I learned that I had done just that. I “red-baited.” So while I can ‘splain, I must set the scene.
John’s sister sent us a link to a video:
Naturally I wrote back because I love animal videos, they make me smile.
It was only the next day, when deleting emails from my phone, that I learned of my crime. Because instead of typing “He’s So Cute!” as I had intended, instead I maligned that little guy. Accused him unjustly. Probably ruined his new life for ever:
“He’s a Soviet,” I, courtesy of spell check, responded.*
Fortunately, John’s sister does not succumb to hysterics. Or to the politics of fear. Or to spell check. In fact, she gave me the benefit of the doubt when I confessed my crime to her.
I was scratching my head. I thought, is this some old Russian film and Elyse recognized it?
For the record, please let me state that I have no inside knowledge of the political leanings of this moose, any members of the baby moose’s immediate family, or indeed, I have no information about moose politics in general. May I also state, unequivocally, that I have never actually seen a moose in the wild.
Lastly, let me state that as a reasonably well-informed individual, I also know that the Soviet Union is no longer a union, and even the folks in the former Soviet Union are not soviets.
*Clearly, there are communist infiltrators at work at spell check. We must seek them out and destroy their lives. Let’s get Ted Cruz on it.
Recently, a close friend/relative was diagnosed with a chronic disease. He’s pretty miserable.
It’s a hard thing to accept, that diagnosis. To find out that you have something nasty that you don’t want, and it’ll always be with you. Gee Willikers, who the hell do you thank for that?
Still, having had a chronic disease for forty years, I’ve learned a thing or two that I can pass along.
I’ve learned that basically, it’s a frog’s life. Yup. A while ago I figured out that living life with a chronic disease simply means you’re a frog.
You don’t look like a frog!
You see, most of the time, life is normal. You hang out in the pond with your family and friends. You eat bugs which is gross, of course. But still, life is good most of the time.
This pond has an all you can eat buffet!
But naturally, life isn’t quite that easy. It isn’t quite that easy if you don’t have health problems. But if you do, well, you have to pay attention to what happens to you. The Devil is in the details. Actually, the devil is in the damn symptoms you probably think aren’t worth bothering with.
You have to watch out for pot. Pots. You have to watch out for pots.
Huh?
Oh surely you’ve heard about frogs and pots!
No? Let me rekindle that image.
Rumor has it* that sometimes someone (an asshole no doubt) puts a poor, unsuspecting frog into a pot of boiling water. The frog (being smarter than the average bear) immediately jumps out. Of course s/he does! It’s painful! If s/he doesn’t, well, we won’t need to worry about that frog’s gender much longer.
Shit! THAT HURTS!
Sometimes with a chronic illness, you get really sick. It’s dramatic, debilitating. It sucks. And generally, the reaction is to JUMP!
Jump! To the phone to call the doctor. Jump! To call the nurse. Jump! To call my husband. Jump! To scream to heaven for my mother (because, in spite of the fact that she is in another realm, when something hurts, I want Mooooooooooooooom!). Jump! To call my sympathetic friends.
Hell, I’ll call whoever will come and help me. Because the water in that pot is too damn hot; I must react. Whatever it takes. I then follow the advice I’m given, and feel better. Much better.
Sadly, it’s not always easy being green. Or having a chronic disease.
You see, sometimes, the frog ends up in a pot of cool, refreshing water. And then, dammit, that same asshole turns on the heat. The results ain’t pretty.
Shit
Twice in the past few years, I’ve found myself hanging out in that stupid damn pot after someone turned on the gas (sometimes literally). In retrospect, it seems idiotic of me.. Me! The expert patient, with 40 years of practice! It seems so obvious. But day to day, really, it is not at all clear that the water I’m in has heated up so much that, well, getting out just doesn’t seem worth the effort.
Because, you see, when you have a chronic illness, there are little things that creep up, little pains that are really nothing. Nothing at all. Certainly nothing to complain about. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to mention to that person on the other side of the bed.
Just as surely, it’s nothing worth calling the doctor about. Nothing even worth remembering during those routine visits. Nope, it’s all good.
But then suddenly, unexpectedly, you realize that that little ache, that pain that started off so mild, that has stayed with you and built up. Day by day. Suddenly it becomes unbearable.
So, I thought of what advice I should give to my poor depressed friend.
Pay attention to your symptoms. If you have an acute problem, jump out of the pot. Call your doctor. Duh!
Pay attention to your symptoms. If something little seems hardly worth mentioning – JUMP ANYWAY!!! JUMP OUT OF THE DAMN POT!
More specifically, call your doctor. Let him or her know what is happening. SQUEAK! I know that’s what mice do, but I’m sure frogs squeak too,when they have to, too. It may be nothing, in fact, it probably is. But mention it anyway. And if it is something, there may be help closer to hand than you think.
The two times I stayed in the pot?
The first time I didn’t want to go on a medicine my doctor thought would help me; I read too much. The day after my first dose of that medication I was nearly pain free. Gradually, I had been barely able to walk, sit or stand. I have a good doctor but I didn’t want to follow her advice.
The second time, I was somewhat less stupid. I was away, and developed a painful skin condition, that started up slowly. It was no big deal. NBD at all. Until, after a couple of weeks, it was. When I talked to my doctor, she made a simple recommendation. I followed it and the pain went away.
I’ve lived with Crohn’s for 40+ years. And you know what I’ve learned? Find a good doctor, and listen to him or her. Then just float along as best you can.
Because except for eating bugs, a frog’s life is pretty damn good.
* When I was looking this up on my bible, Wikipedia, I learned that this whole “frog in the pot” thing may not be precisely true. It may not be that a frog will just hang out until it dies while the water heats up. Fuck you Wikipedia. Way to ruin a good metaphor. Go eat bugs, Wikipedia.
All images are from Google. I leap in your general direction, Google images!
Periodically, I take some heat here at FiftyFourAndAHalf for being one sided in my political commentary. For not saying nice things about the GOP. There is some validity to those charges. My bad.
But, frankly, there are loads of folks who write up the other side. I have said that if the Republican Party hadn’t taken Ronald Reagan’s “The Government IS the Problem” quite so much to heart, well, things might be different. I might be different.
But as things turned out, you see, well, I’m a liberal. An unapologetic liberal.
When I look at today’s GOP (which is very different from the pre-Reagan GOP) I am astonished that there are folks who go along with the things these folks are advocating. They’re cra-cray!
Only today, Governor and GOP Presidential hopeful Scott Walker announced that he might just have to bomb Iran his first day in office. You know, before he knows were the bathrooms are in the White House. The minute he gets near the button, well, he might just push it.
Some newly elected prezes watch a parade and dance at the Inaugural balls. But not Scott! Nope! Nope, he will inaugurate his own balls by starting a fucking war.
Where the hell do you think I got this one?
Even ¿Jeb!, the brother of the last GOP guy to bring us a stupid war, thought that Scotty was going a wee bit too far:
One thing that I won’t do is just say, as a candidate, ‘I’m going to tear up the agreement on the first day.’ That’s great, that sounds great but maybe you ought to check in with your allies first, maybe you ought to appoint a secretary of state, maybe secretary of defense, you might want to have your team in place, before you take an act like that.
Scotty, however, disagreed:
At a press conference after his appearance at the Family Leader Summit here Saturday, Walker was asked if he thinks Bush is wrong. “He may have his opinion. I believe that a president shouldn’t wait to act until they put a cabinet together or an extended period of time,” Walker said.
“I believe they should be prepared to act on the very first day they take office. It’s very possible – God forbid, but it’s very possible – that the next president could be called to take aggressive actions, including military action, on the first day in office. And I don’t want a president who is not prepared to act on day one.
This is not a man who thinks he might have to react to a 9/11-like attack. This is a man with no military experience except the fucking Boy Scouts, And he is planning to go to war on January 20, 2017.
Does this make you feel safe? Secure? Like your children and your children’s children will be hunky dory?
Personally, it gives me a feeling of déjà vu:
Photo Credit; My memory and Google Image’s
Contrast that with the Democrats. They just negotiated an historic agreement to avoid war. To see what we can do to not destroy the planet. Well done, Blue Team!
Wendy Sherman, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs who was involved in the negotiations, described what happened after the deal was concluded. After the cameras and the reporters were gone.
[E]ach of the foreign ministers of the P5+1 group – the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – and Iran “made a statement about what this meant to them.”
“All of the remarks, by all of the ministers, including [Iranian Foreign] Minister [Javad] Zarif, were very moving, because it was private, and it was about what this deal meant to them.”
But the last spot was reserved for John Kerry.*
“When I was 22, I went to war” – [Kerry said] before choking up.
“He couldn’t get the words out,” [Sherman] recalled. “And everybody was completely spellbound.”
Kerry composed himself and continued, “I went to war and it became clear to me that I never wanted to go to war again.”
Do you have kids? Grand kids? Siblings who might be called upon to fight? Which side should you be supporting?
So I am unapologetic about supporting the folks who believe that before going to war, they should work for peace.
I had the poster. I had the necklace. Google has the image.
FiftyFourandAHalf 