Vigil for Barry

Those who regularly post entries in their journals/blogs will appreciate this ... and when I say regularly, I mean daily, even weekly... monthly is stretching it a bit. But who am I to decide what defines 'regularly' regarding journaling? After all, I myself, once an avid daily journaler (in paper versions) have converted to what appears to be even less than once a week in this online format of journaling.

But if you journal daily or even several times a week, you know that eventually, you need a break. The computer has proven to be addictive to those of us who have learned to navigate in and create with one. I am guilty, so guilty. When I'm not writing my own entries, I am reading others' entries, and leaving comments. Either way, as entry writer or comment writer, much time is spent entering into these almost one-sided conversations. Not to mention the time downloading photos and making movies to post into my journal entries.

Some of the journals I visit daily because I have them on my alerts. Some I visit because I have them listed on my desktop as favorites, like a bookmark list. Still others I visit when they leave me a link in my comment section, especially if it is a link to their journal... it just makes my job easier, and takes less time than for me to have to try to hunt them down. I seldom hunt them down, though... time is a big factor. So leave your links to your journals, and I will come by to reciprocate.

Back to my original statement: those who write regularly know that when they have to be away from their habit of journaling, they must leave a message to their online friends out there. It doesn't matter what draws us away, but it's a form of etiquette to inform one's readers when one is going to be away for an extended period of time. Or even an email to one's readers if one doesn't want the general public to know. It's not a wise thing to announce, for example: I will be gone from my home beginning Friday morning through Tuesday, and no one will be home to guard my house. That's like opening the doors and windows of your house and inviting unknown stalkers into your home to plunder.

So when one of our online friends stops posting entries, we may wonder, and think he is on vacation. Or tied up with work, or has a full and active life. Perhaps he forgot to mention that he would be gone for a week or so. But we wait until he comes back to explain his absence.

After we don't hear from him for two months, we begin to imagine that he's sick or injured, in the hospital, unable to access the computer, or even unaware. We leave comments in his journal so that when he returns, he will see them, and know of our concern. We send him emails expressing our hope that he gets well and returns soon.

In the past, I've come across journal entries written by a family member of the journaler, telling us our friend is unable to write ... she's in the hospital... or that she is gone, has passed on. Or a friend will leave a comment in the journaler's last entry page telling us all that he or she has died. Knowing that our friend has passed on, we can have our own memorial, and lay them to rest.

We have a friend in J-land who hasn't posted since February 15 of this year. Comments from him have stopped. A few of you may recognize his name, may even have visited him from time to time. His name is Barry, aka BBartle3 (journal Vengeance) he was/is in his 80's, and has a very young family. I've mentioned him before, and until yesterday, I wondered if he had just quit cold turkey, and left.

But as a regular reader of his journal, I don't think he'd quit cold turkey. I do believe he would have at least emailed us (his regular readers) to let us know that he would be away, that he was quitting, or whatever. He was in touch with us at least that much. None of us have heard from him.

We (his friends) have begun to assume he had passed away. His wife nor his children may have access to his screenname, or don't know how to access his journal to leave us a message.

Often, I click into Barry's journal just to see if anyone has left a message of hope, even bad news, in the comment section. Yesterday, there was a message from someone I had never heard of before. Someone who left a hurtful, unkind, biting message in the comment section. If Barry were there, he'd delete the guy's screen name and the comment, I'm sure.

Reading those words was a jolt... but they do not confirm that Barry is dead. I don't know anything about the person who left that message, and judging by his choice of words, I can't even trust that the main point of it is true.

So, in the meantime, I'm going to say that those of us who know Barry (in the J-land community) are holding a vigil. We are watching, and waiting. We are praying that Barry's family is okay, that his wife and their four kids are okay. If he is in the hospital, we will pray for him. If he has just 'disappeared,' we will wait for him to return... with an appropriate explanation, of course!

Until I know more than that, until I can read a newspaper obituary, or hear from his family, I will pray for him, for them.

If you would like to be part of the vigil, just click on the link to his journal and leave a comment expressing your hope that he is well. As soon as I've heard any news, I will post it.

Tags: BBartle3, Vengeance, vigil for Barry

National Aquarium Highlights

Today I want to give you a special treat. You are going to see something you may not have seen before. I hope there is something original in the content for you. You won't find Nemo, so don't even look for him, but if you follow closely, toward the middle, you will see his forgetful friend, Dory. She's blue.

It took me a few hours to finish this project because I actually made three versions to find out which one I liked best. This one made the cut.

I decided against filling the video with profound quotes, as was my original intent. I wanted to bring attention to the fact that life on this planet is a gift, and that if we don't heed the warnings from conservationists and ecologists regarding the disappearing Rain Forest, and the pollution of our rivers and seas, we will lose that gift. Gradually, animal and plant species will leave us forever, and possibly the only place you will see such abundance of color and life will be in man-made reserves, zoos, and aquariums. Not the ideal living environment.

I imagine it would be like you and I having to live out our days in a glass-walled condo, with the doors locked so we could never go outside into the real world. Or possibly to live in a man-made biosphere that confined us to our immediate neighborhood. We'd look like we were living a normal life, but we would lose our connections with the greater environment, and we'd lose our relationship with the world.

The music I chose for this video has a haunting, dramatic sound to it... I like the sense of expectancy the music lends to the video.

So, without spoiling it for you, I think you will like the last few seconds... it's about the Green Sea Turtle that lives permanently in the aquarium. It was a popular exhibit... <smile>

I hope you feel a sense of hope than of dread as you watch and listen. The hope is in you. The hope is that you will become aware of environmental concerns in your area, and find out how you can help. Be part of a group that cleans the river, that picks up the litter on the street. Talk about recycling, get involved in community recycling projects. Contribute to a group that takes care of animals until they are well enough to return to their habitats, or to a group that is fighting to protect a habitat or environment. Don't think someone else is going to do it. Usually a handful of people will step up to do the footwork, but they need the support (financial and labor) of other caring citizens like you.

That's what I was thinking while I admired man's effort to help preserve God's creation, and to help educate the public on the value of life beneath the sea.

I really enjoyed the stroll through the National Aquarium with my son and husband... it was very calming despite the number of families there for a day with their dads. There was a show in the Immersion Theater, a 4-D experience ... quite startling, but lots of fun.  We had to wear those 3-D glasses, but rather than spoil the surprises of a 4-D experience, I will just say, you get wet, bubbles float down from the ceiling, and you feel like you are underwater with the sea critters. Also, the dolphin show was entertaining and educational as well. You just gotta love those dolphins leaping high into the air... they love to play!

I quickly filled my 2Gb digital camera memory chip, and wished I'd had another. Next time I'll take two memory cards with me. I like to take pictures when we're on vacation, but even more, I love to take the video clips so I can make a movie with them later on.

I hope you enjoy this five minute peek into the National Aquarium, located at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland. And finally, thank you to our son who bought our tickets as a Mother's/Father's Day treat... we enjoyed every minute of it! And I plan on coming back, Steven, before school begins in August.

Next time, I want to check out that Body Worlds show at the Maryland Science Museum. Oh, and the American Visionary Art Museum... I really want to check that out next time!

 

Tags: National Aquarium, Baltimore, Green Sea Turtle,

Perspective on Father's Day

This morning I enjoyed getting up at 7:00 a.m. versus my usual early morning routine. Until Monday, I'm still on vacation. I am 'off' for the summer only in that I am not getting paid, and I am not in the classroom. In every other way, I am on. 

                                

Yesterday I wrote about what I like to drink. Iced tea was mentioned. However, long before I ever tasted my first glass of southern style sweetened iced tea, I was a hot tea drinker. I'm saying a long time... I was about five years old, as I recall, when drinking hot tea became a routine for me. We were living in England at the time, and we drank hot tea every morning for breakfast. At that age, there was more milk than tea in the cup, and it was sweetened, which probably accounts for my acquiring a taste for sweet tea.

I'm sure it was my mother who introduced my siblings and I to this smooth morning concoction... and we may have been drinking it even before we left for England (dad was Air Force). Maybe drinking hot tea started when I was living in Connecticut. I don't remember... my memories of drinking hot tea begin in England. I also remember that in the afternoons, our British neighbors had their cup of tea, and I was invited by one of them to sit at the table for a cup of tea. A morning cup of hot tea, with milk and sugar is probably my favorite of hot drinks.

I'm indulging this morning. All that talk about tea yesterday gave me a strong desire to brew a cup when I woke up this morning. I prefer Oolong, Orange Pekoe, or black teas for my morning cup... the caffeine is always a welcomed benefit. Only in recent years did I discover that tea has other health benefits, like anti-oxidants, "which rid the body of free radicals... which are side products of damage done to the body by pollution and the natural aging process. Free radicals in the body's cells are very unstable and tend to react negatively with other important molecules like DNA, causing malfunctions and injury on the cellular level. The destruction these free radicals produce may therefore pave the way for diseases like heart disease and cancer. "  http://www.farsinet.com/hottea/medicalbenefits.html

Drinking tea counteracts these damages! Tea can help keep one healthy. Sweet or unsweetened. Sweetness in moderation, of course, is the key.

Here are some aol tips on how to make iced tea.

The past weekend was filled with specialness. Our anniversary was on the 14th (33 good years, thank you!), Father's Day the 15th, and recognizing our son's step into professional practice in Baltimore.

As we walked along the city streets Sunday morning on our way to the Inner Harbor, I noticed a diverse population, as you would expect in a large city. Knowing that he was not accustomed to living in a bustling city like Baltimore, which resembled a mini-New York City to me, I was worried, only as a mother would worry. Every time I saw a homeless street person, I thought of River. I held my concerns to myself but then I let it slip out. The kind of comment you wish you could take back, that you wish no one had heard.

I told him I was worried that he might not be safe walking down the city streets alone. I was thinking about his morning ride on the subway to the hospital each day, or his having to ride it home again in the afternoons, especially in the winter when it would be dark earlier in the day. I was worried he'd get mugged on the street.

Discussion ensued. He told me, kindly, that I worried too much. Even in Chapel Hill, he pointed out, people were assaulted, kidnapped, and robbed. He wasn't worried about living in the city... he was pleased to be where he was. This is what he wanted... it was a grand opportunity to work at Johns Hopkins and to live in downtown Baltimore.

We walked silently on to the Inner Harbor, my eyes and ears open, trying to see the city from his point of view. This would be his new home for the next two years. He would make new friends, he already knew at least one couple in Baltimore, and he lived within walking distance of anything he could ever need (except a Wal-Mart or Target... I never did see one of those. These he would have to drive to.) Churches, restaurants, entertainment, bookstores, art museums, a science museum, a football stadium, a baseball stadium, Little Italy, a 27-story World Trade Center, the National Aquarium, and the historic district... all within walking distance.

As we walked along the street, the Inner Harbor in our sights, a young father pushing his toddler in a stroller walked toward us, going the opposite way. As we stepped aside to give him room to pass, he looked at my husband and said "Happy Father's Day!"

I was surprised, my husband too. My son drove it home. "And you were worried about the people here in Baltimore, mom."

One needs a little perspective now and then.

Tags: Hot tea, living in Baltimore

Weekend Assignment #221

                           

I've been away for the past week... it was a trip to Baltimore to visit our son who has moved from his home state of twenty-nine years... moved to practice as a full-time pharmacist at one of our country's finest hospitals, Johns Hopkins.

I plan to write an entry about Baltimore, but there will be lots of photos and even a movie or two, which I haven't even made for aoluncut videos yet. So, I won't go into any details about the visit with our son in the lively city of Baltimore in this entry. That will come in the next few days.

I knew, even before we hit the road, that one of the things I would miss when we went out to eat in the fair state of Maryland, or in any of the northern states, was my favorite beverage, iced tea. Sweet iced tea. No lemon. Home brewed. I don't even care if it's Lipton or Tetley or a local housebrand. It just has to be sparkling clear, home-brewed. ice-cold, and fresh made.

Which reminds me, Karen has posted her Weekend Assignment, and it has to do with my favorite beverage. Here it is, if you would like to participate:

Weekend Assignment #221: What do you like to drink? Do you prefer Coke, or Pepsi, or neither? Do you start your days at Starbucks, or end your days with a nice cup of herbal tea? Are you a connoisseur of beer, or do you like to keep a pitcher of lemonade on hand? Do you carry a bottle of water around, and refill it as you go? Tell us about your favorites!

Extra Credit: Have you ever invented your own drink sensation?

I prefer making my own iced tea. I control the sweetness of it, the freshness, and quality of it. But I don't often make iced tea at home because if I did, I'd be drinking it all the time. I've learned that caffeine is not good for me in higher quantities. And I don't care to drink decaf iced tea all the time.

Tea is nearly 100% water. I decided to drink water rather than satisfy myself with all the calories that the iced tea provides. I've tried sugarless tea... what's the point? I've tried using sugar substitutes... I can't stand the taste of them, so water seemed to be my only alternative. I've gotten accustomed to drinking water... so I would have to say that water is my favorite beverage.

However, whenever we go out to eat, I will get an iced tea, sweet, no lemon. While I was out today, I did stop at a favorite fast-food place to get their dollar menu iced tea, which is akin to an extra large. On a sweetness scale, this particular tea is probably too sweet for me to drink regularly, but I do indulge in it once or twice a week (as a special treat). It's very close to what my mother-in-law makes (she is North Carolina homegrown all the way), and I have always loved her iced tea... which I drink only a few times a year ... when we visit her. Her homemade biscuits are great, too! I sure miss those (she doesn't make them anymore).

Ahem ... back to the tea.

                                                         

Another reason for showing the above photo of what I drink is so you'd notice a notebook behind it, the one with an orange label on the spine that reads: Duke Summer East Asia Institute, June 19, 2008. That's where I was yesterday. Even they didn't provide me with my second favorite drink, iced tea. They served coffee, cold water, bottles of it. If we wanted anything else, we could go to a nearby Starbuck's vendor in the building. I had no problems with that. Hot coffee is one of those lovely morning beverages that sets off a hot-flash in me. So water was my choice for the day. Cold water.

I'm going to post more about the East Asia Institute workshop, as well, but not in this entry. I learned a lot about Asian cuisine, and there is much to be said for the healthiness of the food and the attitudes toward food of the people who live in those far eastern countries. More about that later. (I hope you'll come back and read about it.)

                                     

Back to Karen's assignment. While we were in Baltimore, I carried a bottle of water around with me, and refilled it at various water fountains, or from my son's water supply. He prefers the Britta water purifier system, and likes his water pure, with no chemicals. It's a good thing we brought our own water bottles, though. Street vendors sold water at $2.75 for a twelve ounce bottle.

When I'm at school, I keep several bottles of water in the teachers' refrigerator. When I need refreshment, I get a cold one. At lunch, I buy the school's iced tea (.50 a styrofoam cup, refillable). It's not the best iced tea (by which I mean it's not as sweet as I'd like), but by lunch time, I need the sugar and the caffeine it affords me.

At home, I drink juices and water. Mostly water. Yep, that's the inside of my home refrigerator. The top shelf is filled with drinks. My DH drinks diet cokes and water, but they hang in a can organizer from the shelf, and are not part of this photo.

Lemonade. Iced cold, with lemons, is also a summer favorite drink. You can see a pitcher of the lemonade I made a couple of days ago ... without the lemons. They are expensive this summer. I made this pitcher from CountryTime lemonade mix, and added some Real Lemon juice to it. So good when it's hot like it has been these past few weeks.

BTW, it's always a good idea to keep a yellow plastic 'lemon' (or I guess the glass bottle variety would do) of Real Lemon Juice in your fridge... it's concentrated lemon juice, and has many other uses besides making lemonade. Check this link to find out more.

Concoctions of my own? Hmmm, I do like to mix Rootbeer and Pepsi. The Pepsi helps to reduce the strong rootbeer taste... I love the taste of rootbeer, but find the taste in straight up rootbeer overpowering. I dilute the flavor just a bit with Pepsi. To me it's more palatable that way. With lots of ice.

If you like pepsi floats, but don't have any vanilla ice cream, try dipping a creamsicle into the pepsi. It'll do in a pinch when you need a sweet, creamy drink. You can either lick the pepsi off the creamsicle, or drink the pepsi after you've dipped the creamsicle into the soda. It satisfies the sweet tooth on a hot summer's day.

I'm going to end this post with a picture I find endearing, in light of our recent losses. Max and Misty are dearly missed.

Driving to Baltimore was our first trip away from home that we did not have to make arrangements for the care of our dogs. That was a strange feeling. Sad, but also a relief. I had always worried about them when we left them behind, even when we left them with our son. He took good care of them whenever he dogsat for us, but they'd never eat much while we were away. I know they didn't like to be left behind.

                              

Steven is cooking dinner for us in his new apartment (a seventh floor city apartment!). His dog, Daisy is waiting for him to come out of the kitchen...or at least, to turn around and look at her. She is not really waiting for any food scraps because he does not feed her food scraps. He and Vi have been loving and responsible 'parents' to Daisy. She is a great apartment dog, an obedient pet, very smart, and good company. No doubt, this dog is well loved.

So although our dogs are gone, Steven has Daisy now, and she keeps him and Vi company.They will have to share her companionship, though, because while he lives in Baltimore, Vi is living in Richmond. Daisy is going to live like a child of separated parents for the next two years. Part of the year with him, part of the year with her.

And maybe.... once in awhile.... they'll bring her home to visit .... the 'grandparents!'  <sigh>

Tags: Favorite drinks, Weekend Assignment #221, Duke Summer East Asia Institute workshop, Baltimore trip intro

A few more art projects

                             

School is out as of today! I couldn't tell which were happier, the students or the teachers. This I know: in one week, the kids will be bored and ready to go back to school. The teachers won't get bored, but by August, we will all be ready to go back to school.

After today, I don't plan on showing any more student art work until I return to my classroom at the end of summer break. So, to carry you over, here are a few more projects we worked on this year.

First graders painted a beach ball scene over four 30 minute sessions: first, they colored the beach ball, blanket, and umbrella with crayons, learning about the color spectrum. Then they cut them out. Next, they painted the sky and the ocean with blue watercolor on tag paper (12"X18"). That had to dry before they could glue on the ball, blanket, and umbrella. Third session, glued those parts on, and a popsicle stick for the umbrella handle, and drew/colored in a bucket freehand. Finally, they added glue and sand.

Clean, store bought sand, not the kind you find in a kid's sand box that the cat has been digging around in!

                                   

The modeling clay objects were done last week when one group of second graders came to me for their last class. I gave them a choice: modeling clay or free draw.

The one above is a snail, the one below is a boy listening to the music on his headphones. One girl made a series of happy faces, one of which I placed at the opening of this entry.

                                                          

Fourth graders have been working for a couple of months on their Cherokee clan masks, which aren't really functioning masks, but represent the seven clans of the Cherokee Nation.    

Here you can see Wolf, Deer, and Bird clans being made. The students really enjoyed this project, but I think the part they found to be most tedious was the covering their foil sculpture with tape. They couldn't wait to get to the painting part, though.

                                                                    

 Kindergarteners continued to surprise me with their newly acquired skills this year. These babies have not been students in the classroom for very long, but how quickly they have picked up everything we have taught them.

Here they are painting an undersea scene. A few weeks ago, their classroom teachers read them stories about life under the sea, so I found a lesson plan (yeah, I don't write all my own lessons,... I do borrow ideas from others all the time) for this terrific underwater painting. I wanted them to learn how to make darker and lighter colors.

In their first session, they learned how to make dark blue by adding black to blue, then they made light blue by adding white to blue. So fascinating for them. So we made the sea, with the dark blues on the bottom of their ocean, and the lighter blues at the top. They used a sponge to apply the tempera paints. Then we put them on the air-dry rack.

                                                

 In the second session, they drew the fish and plants with oil pastels, following my demonstrations of jellyfish, starfish, sea horses, sea turtle, fish, etc... Then, I told them to draw whatever kind of sea life they wanted. Since they'd recently heard stories about sea life in their classrooms, and seen lots of pictures of animals and plants in the sea, they had no trouble thinking of what to draw.

I gave the instruction to have the paper laying on their table so the long end went up and down, and most followed this, but little girl took off on her own and made a horizontal painting. It looked so good, I forgave her!

                                     

Third graders who had studied about Australia made boomerangs earlier in the year, but I don't remember if I posted anything about them. I hung them on the wall outside of the 3rd grade classroom, and two students had their bodies traced on black paper for the silhouette of a girl and a boy tossing the boomerangs.

                                                        

Although, these did not fly, we did make boomerangs a couple of weeks ago that could fly. We had to wait through three weeks of windy and wet weather before the kids could go out and practice throwing their little boomerangs. That was yesterday! It was 95 degrees outside, but we were out there throwing and catching the boomerangs.

Those other pictures you see in and around the boomerangs on the wall are the Dreamtime paintings they had done in oil pastel and watercolor on brown paper.

 

While the one class studied about Australia, another 3rd grade class studied about Africa. Specifically, Kenya. Here are some of the Facial Mystique 'masks' they made. Again, not really functional masks, but they were trying to create a face from their photograph that would represent their personality, or say something about themselves.

These I refer to as the Three Warriors.

                                     

After they completed their masks, they had to write a paragraph about why they chose some of the elements, and what they were trying to achieve in the design. I couldn't include that part in the photos because it included their names. The set below I call the Three Princesses.

                         

One of the fifth grade teachers called me to her classroom on Friday last week. As soon as I had a minute, I ran over to see what she wanted. In front of all her students, she gave me this award.

                                    

Now I'm not making a fuss over this, because we're all of us doing the work we want to do, that we're trained to do, even love to do ... but that she made such a fuss is typical of this teacher. She is role modeling for her students every day that we should recognize the good in others, and that kind words should be shared every day. Encouragement and support is a given in her classroom. Students have each other's back. They are a team. "One Team One Heart" is the slogan for the entire fifth grade at this school.

I've truly enjoyed teaching all of them this year... all the fifth graders... all the grade levels, actually. It's been a good year. Thank you for coming along with me and sharing this fantastic journey in my classroom.

Tags: art projects, School is out, art class

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_15

Problem solving

We are a work in progress it seems. A work that will never be complete until we leave this earth.

Sometimes we start out with an idea of what we want out of life. What we think we want. As we go through the living out of this life, relationships are built, crushed, ignored, restored. Events take place that change the direction of our lives, some resulting from the choices we made while others happen because of the choices others make for us, despite us, or because of us.

Like this journal entry that I don't really know where it's going, but I have an idea: I want to share yet another art project my fifth graders have been working on for a very long time it seems. For those who stayed with it, for those who had even an inkling of an idea of what they hoped their final product would look like, completion is at hand. Satisfaction is their reward for staying the course, for coming in early before school started, to finish painting their totem animal before the school year ends (on the tenth).

I wish I could have showed you the face of the boy who finished this sculpture. You'll have to settle for looking at his hands on his work. The one in the back right, not the one in the foreground. 

                                   

Here, you see two animal Totems being constructed from tape and foil. The materials were applied to a gallon milk jug. The young man I want you to follow is the one in the background, the one with the box of foil inside the milk jug.

I told them from their first day in my class that I wanted them to see the class time as a problem solving class more than an art class. Yes, we'd be making things that belonged in the category of visual arts... but as any artist or craftsman (or any field that takes specific skills and training to master) knows, along with the talent they are blessed with is a greater skill: creative thinking is not as much about making art as itis recognizing a problem, naming it, then finding a way to solve it. Or many ways.

The boy's problem at first is how to make a snake totem. He wants to represent a snake, and his first inclination is to ask me to show him how. Faced with showing each of 25 students how to make the animal they had chosen, I decide to avoid my problem (one of me, 25 of them, about 25 minutes to work) right away.

After demonstrating some technical tips about using tape and how to shape foil, I tell them they are on their own. I want them to answer their own question..."How do I do this?" which usually comes out sounding like "I don't know how to do this." or "I don't get it."

As you can see, he eventually solves his problem of making the snake.

His next problem is "My milk jug keeps falling over. It's hard to work with like that. How can I keep it from falling over?"

"Why does it keep falling over?" I ask him.

"Umm... because the snake head is heavy. It makes the jug lopsided. But I can't help that," he adds.

"So if it's heavy on one side, what can you do to keep it from falling over on that side?"

His eyebrows wrinkle. "Huh?"

I demonstrate how it falls over. His hand shoots out to right it.

"Why did you put your hand there?" I ask him.

"To keep it from falling over, but I can't work with it if I have to keep holding it with one hand like that."

"That's right, so what can you do to keep it from falling over?"

The light comes on in his head... he picks up his box of foil and drops it inside the jug. The jug remains upright. If you'll look in that first picture, you'll see the foil box inside the milk jug. A little problem solved all by his own thinking.

Afterhe paints the snake totem (a process that took about two sessions), I suggest that we spray the thing with fixative to protect the tempera paint exterior. He follows me outside, and I explain the dangers of using spray fixative. He stands some distance away while I spray. Then we walk back inside. As we pass some kindergarteners in the hall, one of them asks, "What is that?"

"What does it look like to you?" I ask him.

He smiles. Two other kinders join in, curious and impressed by this purple and green creature with the scary fangs.

                           

"I think it's a dragon," the one child says.

"I think it's  snake," another chimes in.

"That's cool!" says another.

The fifth grader is pleased with their remarks, but it is time for him to get back to class. He leaves his snake/dragon behind and returns to his homeroom.

I slide his snake on top of the other totem animals for the final picture below. He hasn't seen it this way yet... when he comes back Monday he'll see it for the first time.

                                                                                 

The purpose of the project was to learn to use the materials to make a sculpture while learning about Native American Indians. They learned the purpose of the totems, where they were found, and learned what the different animals symbolized. I'd found a list of animal symbols on the internet, made copies of a  modified list, and let them pick the animal which had qualities or characteristics they wanted for themselves, or saw in themselves.

The snake represents "impulsive, shrewdness, rebirth, transformation, initiation, and wisdom".

Yeah, I agree with that kindergartener... that's pretty cool!

 

Thanks, Marie, for the idea! The kids loved it. It just took a little longer than I'd thought it would. Next year, we'll start earlier, and I'll make sure they bring in only 3M or Scotch Brand masking tape. The lower priced brands did not stick well at all.

 

 

Tags: tape and foil sculpture, Native American totems, animal totems, fifth grade art project

What happened to Misty

Thank you all for your comments. I appreciate your support at this time. I know so many of you have lost pets recently, so I apologize for going into it again today. I felt I needed to pass on some information as a result of what has happened.

What I have learned this week since Misty passed is about a seizure the veterinarian casually called ‘the chewing gum seizure.’

I wish I had heard of it before, even years before. I didn’t realize my dogs had been having them. It doesn’t look like a seizure in its earlier, less violent stages. Now that I know about it, I want to pass it on to other pet owners. If you see your dog having one, you’ll know to call the vet, discuss what to do about it, and find out what’s causing it.

It’s very benign and innocent looking in the beginning. Amusing, curious, odd… not words that would alarm you like disturbing, frightening, and a medical emergency. Yet all those encompass the range of adjectives which I would label these seizures with the harmless sounding name.

‘Chewing gum’ doesn’t sound threatening, but that’s what it looks like your pet is doing when it first begins. The dog looks like she is biting at the air, as if she were trying to catch a fly near her nose, or trying to dislodge a stray hair stuck in her mouth… Misty had lots of moustache/beard hair around her mouth… we’d thought she was trying to get the hair out of her mouth.

It lasts a mere second or two when it happens gently… so quick you could almost miss it if you didn’t know about this sneaky little seizure. I don't think it leaves their mouth area wet and slobbery at this stage, but the longer it lasts, the wetter the mouth area becomes. I didn’t know any of this when I came home Monday night. I learned about it the next day, when I was able to get online and search the disorder known as “chewing gum seizure.”

I had come home from school Monday afternoon, rushing straight home as I usually do to let her out. She is my primary concern at the end of the school day. I neither like thinking about her waiting for us to come home when she has to go to the bathroom, nor waiting in a state of aloneness for the duration of a workday.

By the time I get home, she’s been in the house, or in the dog pen, for 10-12 hours.I know she will do her best not to leave a puddle or a pile in the house. She’s had a few accidents over the years, all forgiven, no consequences. It usually means she couldn’t wait any longer when they happened. We were never mad at her when it happened… I always felt guilty when it happened because it was our negligence, in a way, that created the situation in which she had to wait all day, holding, holding, until she could hold no longer. I could tell she felt shame when it happened. Dogs don’t like to soil their den, and our home is their den.

When I got home Monday, it was about 5:00 pm. She was not in her usual position standing in the middle of the living room floor, tail wagging furiously when I walked through the door. I had already gotten used to her quiet greeting without Max. He was the barker, and she’d joined in. While he was with us, their barking (in miniature schnauzer fashion) was alertingly loud, but I loved to hear it. We never silenced their greetings unless we had company, thinking it offended others. Sometimes I wondered how Cesar Millan would respond to their happy barking, but since it was not an annoyance to us, we allowed it. For thirteen years we allowed it.

She wasn’t in my computer room, nor the kitchen, dining room, or spare bedroom. I checked the front deck and the basement. Finally, I looked into our bedroom, and there she was, standing quietly, her tail just barely wagging. Her ears drooping, her head not too high.

I spoke to her, “Misty! What are you doing in here? Are you okay? Let’s go outside…” and I apologized for being gone so long… But she wouldn’t follow me down the hall, so I picked her up. That’s when I noticed the slobbery wet beard and mustache… I had no idea then what had caused it.

I set her down on the grass outside, but she was wobbly on her feet. She didn’t act like she wanted to go to the bathroom, her breathing looked labored, and there was a cough. All bad signs. I took her to the vet immediately.

I had no idea that within four hours we would be talking about life and death options, nor that in five hours, we’d be carrying her lifeless body home for yet another burial.

The x-rays showed fluid building up in her lungs, and an enlarged heart. It looked like congestive heart, or cardiomyopathy, the vet said. She had suggested I take Misty to the Emergency Animal Hospital (which left me with no fond memories, as you know) for the night. I expressed my anxiety and concerns for taking her there, and asked if there was something we could do for Misty to help her through the night, yet keep her at home with us. Then we’d bring her back to the vet first thing in the morning. The doctor gave her a medication to help ease her breathing, and a diuretic to remove the fluids.

Then she described a few symptoms to watch out for, including coughing, labored breathing, a pinkish discharge, and seizures. When she described the physical appearance of the seizure, and gave it the name… ‘chewing gum seizure,’ I recognized it instantly. She even described the slobbery discharge from the mouth. “I’ve seen her do that before,” I said. That would explain the wet beard I saw when I came home. She said it’s very possibly that Misty would get worse during the night, and we will want to take her to the vet. If she was dying, she assured us, it wasn’t going to be pretty. She gave me some pills to give her every eight hours, and some for every twelve hours.

We took her home. She seemed okay, breathing had eased. She laid on the floor, and we sat beside her. We talked to her soothingly, petting her, making her feel comfortable and safe, we hoped.

Both of us were so worried. All the thoughts we’d had were about what we should do. Should we let her continue like this while they tried to find the cause of her condition? Her heart was giving out. She was thirteen years old. Could we expect her to have a more, or less, comfortable and happy life now?

Then the first big seizure hit her. It began as the ‘chewing gum’ seizure… and quickly escalated into the more violent form. Steve held her close to him the entire time, telling her it was okay, telling her he had her, like she was a baby.

The seizure lasted about 3 minutes from beginning to end, whenshe was quiet and calm again. She looked afraid. That was all I could handle … I couldn’t watch this. It could continue all night until she died. I told my husband if this is what her (and our) night was going to be like, forget it. I wanted to take her to the hospital right now and let them medicate her to ease the seizures, in case she were to have another one.

We drove her to the Emergency Animal Hospital. I couldn’t hold her. I was afraid it would happen in the car, and I don’t think I could have held her as well as Steve had. So I drove. She had another seizure while we were waiting to see the doctor. She was whisked away into another room where they treated her. They gave her valium. It calmed her down, but she was unaware that we were there.

Meanwhile, the doctor had come to talk with us. There were expensive tests they wanted to do to find the cause of the seizures. It could be a brain tumor, it could be epilepsy. Then there was the condition of her heart, the fluid in her lungs.

Finally, the doctor told us that during the last seizure, there was a pink discharge coming from her nose… which pointed to blood in her lungs.

I asked the question I had wanted to ask the vet who treated Max two months ago: “If this was your pet, what would you do?” I never voiced the question two months ago because I didn’t realize he was dying.

But I knew this time, and I asked it of her. “What would you do if she were your pet?”

Quietly she said the words, “I’d put her to sleep.”

Steve and I looked at each other. It had been on our minds all that evening. Guilt followed… that we had already considered it. I said the words next. "We want to put her to sleep, then." The doctor nodded, then left the examining room so we could have some privacy.

The vet assistant carried her back to us laying on a beautiful, cream-colored, blanket… embroidered with a silky, shiny flower pattern. She was sleeping from the valium. She didn’t even know we were thinking what we were thinking. I’m glad she didn’t know. I don’t know if I could have looked her in the eyes if she had been alert. But if she were alert, I’m sure we wouldn’t have been thinking about putting her down.

We were with her until the end, petting her, whispering encouraging words into her ear, that we loved her, that we'd miss her so much, and promising her that Max was waiting for her.

She probably didn't hear us. We knew that. The words were for us, for our own ears.

It was fast. Surprisingly fast. Shestopped breathing. She was gone. It was far more peaceful than what we had witnessed earlier in the safety and comfort of our own home.

There was relief knowing that she wasn’t in pain.

There was pain knowing that our home would be so quiet without her. Without either of them.

                             

 

 

 

Tags: Chewing gum seizure, cardiomyopathy, losing a pet, euthanization