FUNNYACCENT

Three Baseballs

We were sitting back to back on the last bench at Massachusetts Avenue Orange Line subway platform. I was waiting for the train to downtown and they were waiting for the train to Forest Hill. Both of them didn't look older than 13 or 14.

Girl One: "Oh my gawdddd, I think I'm lesbian."

Girl Two: "What?"

Girl One: "I think I'm a lesbian."

Girl Two: "You are stupid. Why are you repeating yourself?"

Girl One: "What?"

Girl Two: "You are stupid, you are deaf and you are lesbian."

Girl One: "Are you hitting on me?"

Girl Two: "What? You are gross."

Girl One: "You know my cousin Liz? She works at lawyer's office in downtown. She's like has this big boobs like three baseballs put together."

Girl Two: "You sewn the baseballs together?"

Girl One: "You are stupid. Anyway I couldn't take my eyes off her boobs. I'm like staring at her boobs when she's changing her clothes in my room."

Girl Two: "She's hitting on you?"

Girl One: "What? You are stupid."

Run To Me

It seemed and felt muggy  when I looked outside my bedroom window.

5:47 am in summer should be brighter than this,

 but it is better than having tornadoes and flood in some parts of the country, I reminded myself.

After 15 minutes stretches and pressure points massage, I brew a cup of coffee and changed into running short and shirt. I watered the tomato plants on a kitchen window sill. I think they were stunted since I transferred them into a bigger pots last week. They didn't seem to eager to grow. Perhaps they hated being in a small space compared to spacey nursery where they came from. Perhaps they needed more attention from me. The morning was getting brighter, but the sun still didn't show up.

The beach was deserted and windy, but there was a woman and her two golden retrievers about 50 meters from me. As I ran passed them I noticed the woman's hair has the same shade as her dogs's fur.

I was hoping to run into horseshoe crabs again, dead or alive, but until I got to the L Street Bath House, I didn't see any interesting on the beach this morning except two regular treasure hunters with their metal detectors. I wonder what have they found so far?

I only ran once on a weekday since last weekend and I was a little annoyed when I couldn't run because of the matters that out of my control. The first 15 minutes I kept thinking about the a couple of work related issues that kept me longer than necessary at my office.

I only returned to the present when I failed to avoid a lazy ebb and I felt the salt water slapped my legs. I was horrified at myself for letting the negative thought to seep through my mind with its venom. I shook my head and said out loud, "Go away, go away." I knew as long as I live the negative thought will always try to get to me, try to distract me, try to weaken me, try rationalize me. The best I could do is to make an effort to stay here and now.

Into my third mile, I began to feel the warm, bubbly feeling I usually experienced when my steps got into sync with my breathing. I let my mind wondered a few times, and it returned to presence. An on going effort.

I completed the seven mile run and was back at my place by 8:50 am, with grateful and feeling wonderful.

Monyeting Around

The agency staff day is 20 days away from today but yesterday I was at The Staff Day for two men's inpatient treatment facilities. Each facility serves 25 clients and we share the same director. After twice cancelation due to mandatory workshops, finally we made it. And still three staffs couldn't make it, but we had a magnificent time.

Maryanne, a Senior Recovery Specialist was the host. Laura, a part time counselor gave me,Eddie and Melf a ride to Maryanne's house in Dedham. Everybody seemed to arrive at the same time. Just standing in front of the house we were, oohhhhhed and aahhhhed at the size of the house.

The back of the house where we had games, breakfast and lunch.

Maryanne is a nun and she lives in this eight bedrooms grand house with another 5 nuns. All of them are working at various non-profit agencies in the city. As we entered the front door, we were introduced to three nuns who were leaving for the day. They were in colorful bermuda shorts and hawaiian shirts. "I kick them out so we could have the house to ourselves," Maryanne said jokingly as we were introduced to these wondeful women.

As we trooped behind Maryanne from one room to another for a house tour, the ooohhhh.....and the aaaahhhhh and the sounds of gasp followed us. We marvelled at the house and its beauty,simplicity and the warmth of each corner and room that radiated. Well, that was how I felt.

Maryanne

    

The kitchen, one of my favorite part of the house .     

                                                                Laura

                                                  

                                                                 

After the breakfast and before the games, I hit the swing first.

And not long after that, the rest of the gang...............

CP, our director is on the top, and a few were still lingering at breakfast table.

A few of us were a little shy, they preferred to stay on the background or still at the lunch spread :))

We all agreed that we should get together more often. I've noticed the comfort level and the warm we radiated from each other was incredible. The trouble is trying to get one day for all of us to be together on any working days is not that simple. But this was the positive beginning.

Thursday Challenge: Rock

http://www.spunwithtears.com/thursday.html
 

Bankcroft Tower in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Candy Dizzy Necklace

A snippet this afternoon during a weekly session with one of my new clients.

"Have you noticed any positive changes in you since you came here two weeks ago?"

"Ohh....yessss," He had  a candy necklace around his neck when he came into my office. He gently pulled the candy from the string and ate them one after another while we talked. He said it helped him to slow down his racing thought. 

"Lovely, would you like to share it with me?"

"The candy? You must be thinking I'm like so rude but I'm not you know I like sharing things with nice people you know what I mean?" The string broke and before he could grab it, a few of pastel color candies escaped from his big hand and fell on the rug.

"Oh not the candy. The positive changes. But thank you for your offer."

From his seat, he bent down from the waist and picked up the candies off the floor. He held the candy between his forefinger and his thumb he blew the candy and threw it into his mouth.

"I take a shower everyday now it is a positive change, right? Why do I feel dizzy?"

"Because your head is almost touching the floor."

Woodboring Beetle

Since I've been going to acupuncture session for the past six weeks, I could tell the changes I gradually experience mentally and physically. When I return to my office after an hour session, I am more relaxed and calm. Even sitting in one hour session with a severely manic depression client or with difficult ones(or challenging as to put it in a positive light) feels like a breeze.

I must admit from time to time I'm annoyed, like a larva of wood-boring beetle, gouge out through furniture and eats the starchy part of wood grain. You don't eat hear the sound of those lavas until you put your ear closely to the beetle infested wood and close your eyes. The sound of thousands of them gnawing at the wood could make the hair on the back of your neck stand.

I'm not annoyed at them actually , but at their resistance to switch even a little bit the way they see themselves, continuously to see themselves as a victim. Sometimes I feel like telling them: Listen, this is what you should do.................But I know it is not my job to tell them how to run their lives. All I could do is to plant the seeds in their heads. Hopefully one day one of those seeds will make its way to see the sunlight.

It is amazing how the 30 minutes deep relaxation at the middle of the day on a working day could make a whole world different.

Meeting New Friends

After visiting each other's blog for more than a year I finally met Pak Idrus of In Passing Malaysia, a well known Malaysian blogger at Mama Z and Papa Z's cookout this afternoon. Pak Idrus and his wife Puan Asmah and their lovely daughter, Lin who was recently received her PhD from Harvard University arrived at Quincy Adams train station around noon. Papa Z went to pick them up while Mama Z and I bringing out the food to the table in their beautiful backyard.

If it is not for blogging world, I wouldn't have met this wonderful man, a graceful Puan Asmah and Lin. After introduction and greeting, Puan Asmah and I agreed that I would address her as Kak Asmah.

Mama Z and Papa Z were gracious and kind to host another cookout for us to meet. About an hour later Saerah , her friend Khatijah and her husband joined us.

  

The orange sticky stuff in a bowl on the right is mango and kumquat chutney I made on Friday.

The sun was in and out and at one point we had a short drizzles but nobody moved except to get up to get more food.

From Mama Z's garden.

What Key?

Perhaps I'm being over-dramatized here, but this morning in my office as I was humming Warwick Avenue while ready to log on my computer, my ten fingers froze in the air a hair line away from the keyboard. Damn it, the aliens are coming. Well, the aliens are actually here and I forgot my password. Looking back and forth between my fingers now lightly rested on the keyboard and the monitor, I tried all the combination I could think of, nothing worked.

"Is this really happening?" I wondered out loud. I stopped and got off at Warwick Avenue. Another three minutes passed and I knew then there was no point of trying to force my brain to open the door when it was trying to locate the key. Perhaps a hippocampus part of my brain was losing more weight. Well, hello dear brain!!!! I've been trying to get rid some extra pounds on my hips and my abs not on you, silly!!!

I listened to a half dozen messages left on voice mail and scrawled the phone numbers on the sticky notes. 40 minutes went by after I returned all the calls and made three new calls. I picked up my coffee mug and went into the kitchen downstairs to heat up the coffee. I took the coffee back to upper level, opened two doors and stepped outside. I stood on the top the stairs and watched the traffic on Massachusetts Avenue.

As I sipped the coffee, I thought I saw the passwords slowly formed in the air in front of me, or perhaps I was imagining, I turned around and walked back to my office and pressed the password on the keyboard. Boy, it took 45 minutes for my brain to find its key.

When Multitasking Was a Hip

When the first time I heard the word multitasking many years ago, I thought it was so cool, so sophisticated, so me. I immediately identified myself with it. I thought it was my middle name. I sprinkled my conversation with the word.

When I turned 45 and my journey turned into more self awareness, I began to notice how inconvenience and difficult for me to be in awareness if I continued to practice multitasking. I gradually detached myself from it. It wasn't that easy. Many times a tug of war exploded within me when I was ready to have my meal and a program ( a rerun series of Star Trek Voyager, yes.....!!! I am a Trekker), As Time Goes By, The Simpson or Globe Trekker was on.

I was glad when my tv set broke more than a year ago. It solved my dilemma if it could be considered as dilemma, but I was glad nevertheless.

Now, when I look back those years when I ran around multitasking things in my daily life I am not surprised why I missed many little things that seemed unimportant then but they were. But, when I hold a magnifying glass in my hand, I understand why I did what I did.

And the truth is multitasking  best practiced in certain parts of our lives. How else my mother could get the rice cooked, a fresh curry fish with okra, mixed veggies and fried mackerels on the dining table ready by one o'clock when she had a load or two of dirty laundry in a bathroom waiting be hand washed and my little brother cried in a crib because his cloth diaper was wet and I got one of my chubby legs stuck between the chairs under the dining table?

During seven years of my waitressing job, I grabbed multitasking by its horn and steered my way effortlessly. And that was a wonderful feeling.

Perhaps if somebody told me before that multitasking split my awareness I wouldn't have taken their words for it. And we all know life experience is the best teacher, don't we?

                                                                            

Don't Make Me Cry, Horseshoe Crabs

Seven days without an Internet access at home seemed ridiculous in this time and age, but it is not when the individuals who get paid to the job are incompetent. The first two days I almost worked myself into a ball of fury after hours of talking from one person and transferred to the next and they still couldn't solve the issue. It boil down to one thing, they are not on the same page. Everybody has different understanding (definitely not overstanding) on the same issue.

My biggest mistake was to assume that they knew what they were doing.

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I missed updating my blog, I missed reading my favorite bloggers entries but at home during those seven days/nights I did a lot reading to refresh my memory of work related boring materials about Motivational Interview, Working with Dual Diagnosis Chronic Homeless and a couple of similar subjects. This time I agree to a statement some people like to make: Things happen for reasons. As for me, those materials I read last week were like an afternoon shower in 85 degree early summer. It energized, centered and grounded me.

We've been getting many severe undiagnosed mental health issues client for the past a couple of months. And the last thing I want to experience while I am working is losing the enthusiasm and interest in what I am doing. Those materials, regular running and excercises, Sunday walk with Mama Z, accupuncture, plenty of time of quiet time have moved me forward in more ways that I could ever imagined.

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The last time I saw horseshoe crabs in close range was 45 years ago. I was six years old then. We were at grandmother's house in Penang and one day *Uncle Din Congo brought us a basketful of lives belangkas (horseshoe crabs.

Uncle Din Congo took them out of the rattan baskets and placed them on grandmother's red cement kitchen floor. While we the kids, shriek in fear, wondered and joy rolled into one to see the weirdest creature we never knew ever existed, Tok Uda (grandmother's madu) prepared to start the fire on wood burning stove in an extended kitchen.

And last Saturday, walking on Carson Beach on my way back after my morning run, about 20 meters ahead of me I saw something I already knew what it was. Clutching the camera in my hand I doubled my steps. My heart pounding in excitement, like a little girl I was 45 years ago when the first time I laid my eyes on belangkas. It was only the shell, but I was in heaven.

I turned it over and it was an empty shell. Then I noticed the body and the broken claws at the edge of water. a few meters away from the shell. I picked it up and put it back in the shell.

The sun was high, my damp shirt that clung to my back started to dry. The sea breeze swept my face and I sat on the beach staring at the dead belangkas for a long time.

I thought I had sands in my eyes, I removed my glasses and realised I cried. It wasn't a sad cry but more like longing to experience again the wonderful moments I felt 45 years ago, jumping and clappping my hands when the frist time I saw belangkas.

* I wrote an entry about Uncle Din Congo on September 27, 2007.