Confession Tuesday & Gratitude Thursday

Dear Reader:

I hope you will pardon me if I attempt to kill two days with one stone.

Yes, I confess that I missed Tuesday's Confession because of the 2014 MLB All-Star Classic. Since baseball is simply poetry in motion, and poetry is so close to Godliness, I am relatively certain that there  exists a special disposition for significant games, those being any game that occurs between opening day and the end of the World Series. 

So much has happened since my last confession. One being a very traumatic start to the weekend when we were arriving at puppy class Saturday morning and newly adopted rescue dog named Silas got free from my wife and leash trailing behind him dissipated into a large wooded area behind our destination. We were in Gladstone, another community miles and miles away from home.  I confess that throughout the some 12 hours that Silas was missing  I vacillated between optimistic and pessimistic.  Actually I was optimistic he would surface, but not so much that he would be back home that night. 

I have to say we were really blessed by a large number of persons most of whom we do not even know that answered a call put out  by my daughters for help in searching. So many people, some we kind of know by name but not well and others who are totally  strangers to us. As I searched the perimeter streets I cam upon car after car with  stickers in the back window that Identified them with KC PET PROJECT. These people turned out in droves to help with the search.  Late afternoon we disbanded and leafleted and headed home. a few hours later  we were called back o the area because Silas had been spotted.   A couple more hours of search, all of us tired and hot, including Silas, we were reunited and went home.

I confess the number of  KC Pet Project people who came to assist  gave me more hope.  Silas is a rescue dog and he still has some anxiety issues. He is not  likely to approach someone he has no knowledge of. But he is dog friendly so many brought their own dogs on leashes.  In the end, it was my son-in-law Brandon who first  spotted him and my  youngest daughter (great with child) who carried him out of the woods. 

On another note, I am counting my blessings that a trip to my physician seems to have largely, for the time being ended what has been a two month period of ongoing and severe headaches. I confess that these headaches were taking a heavy toll on me. 

On the writing side of life, I confess to receiving one rejection letter this past week, but I now figure I'm due for an acceptance any day now. 

I've been able to take a few hours of vacation time. I'm often so close to my maximum that I'm having to take a few hours every week just to keep from being truncated (losing time)... In fact I got off at 3PM today! Yeah!

So this past week has really been a very good week it turns out. Not without stressors, but in the final analysis it has been one to be very thankful form.

Confession Tuesday on Wednesday - Karma Edition

When I get a headache I take two aspirin and keep away from children, just like the bottle says.

Dear Reader:

Had I not had a splitting headache yesterday (just one of many days lately) I might have made Confession Tuesday on time, But I didn't get it done yesterday and that's my story and I'm sticking by it.

It's no lie that I had a headache. I confess there have been many - almost daily and sometimes for much of the day. I went to the doctor this morning about the headaches as well as other things. When the assistant that comes in before the doctor asked what brought me in this morning as asked it she wanted the short answer, she said that would be fine. I said I was dying. There was dead silence.

I confess that  my assessment  was made not on the basis of any professional experience, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Anyway, I may have been a bit premature in my demise as they patched me up and asked me to come back in 3 to 4 weeks; which says to be they think I've got at least that much time.

I reported to work following my appointment. A short while after arriving things there went south. I had an afternoon appointment that was rendered hopelessly impossible by virtue of the fact that out computer went down and out IT department was lost at what to do. I could not access our office e-mail, our case-management system, our Internet. We lost  outside phone connectivity and internal phone contact was erratic at best. The final straw came when I went to use the copier which requires us to log in by scanning  our ID card. The scan of course was tied into the computer system and that didn't work. At 3:30 we were told we could leave early. I might have felt this was a gift from heaven, but I confess that the whole situation was embarrassing  as I had an afternoon appointment  and could not even make a photocopy for the gentleman.

I confess that  I do sometimes think that  we have periods where we are blessed by good karma. I also think that  there are days when there is either bad karma or simply the absence of any nearby good karma creates chaos where order is called for.

Leaving early allowed me to get home at almost the normal hour by the time you factor in my stop for new prescriptions.  So  next, I decided to catch-up on the world around me. I confess that  it was reassuring  to find that order still existed in other places and for other people today.

I confess I read a poem after arriving home that touched something of a spirit within. Some people say that rhyme sometimes helps people recall poems. I suppose that is true, but I think people remember poems that touch something inside of them. Those are the ones that  three, ten, fifteen years down the road they recall. So this week has been one in which may days it was difficult to think much beyond the moment I was in. Reading this poem brought me beyond the place I'm at, away from the stress of the moment and transported me to another place and time altogether. Love Waltz with Fireworks is the kind of poem a poet wants to write and a reader wants to read. I confess that  this is a poem that my skin can feel.

The Stories We Carry

“Their story, yours, mine - it's what we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our stories and learn from them.” - William Carlos Williams

Silas Joins the Family

This is Silas' Forever Home Photo. He has now been adopted and is no longer a foster dog. He is a sweetie.
He joins Barry and Klaus in our household.

We think he is perhaps 6 months old. He like to play. Likes to go for walks. Is still working through some anxieties. He's adorable when he rubs his paws over his nose.

My daughter Meghan initially took him in - you would not recognize him today from how he looked then. Meghan worked wonders with him. I may dig up an earlier photo she took of him  to show the contest.

A Morning Thought...

Even the old lame dog wags his tail.

Confession Tuesday - Full Disclosure Edition

Dear Reader:

Tuesday again...  Here I am ready to enter the confessional for what will be a spontaneous confession as I have not given this much advance thought today. And Maybe that is where I should start. I confess that probably less then half the time I spend much thinking about the confession more then an hour or so in advance of actually showing up here to do it.  So like tonight, I'll take a deep breath and see what I can get off my chest.

Before arriving here I received an email rejection from an editor.  I mention it just for the sake of acknowledging the humbling experience that it is. That and the fact that several others I know mentioned on Facebook today the received rejection in the last couple of days. Perhaps it's the alignment of the stars. But maybe the poems really just were not a good fit. Some days when I am feel especially ridiculous I conjure up the image of the editors standing in front of a mirror trying poem after poem and casting most into one pile for the ones that don't quite fit. Anyway getting today's rejection only make me that much closer to getting one that an editor feels is a stunning fit. I confess to optimism.

Father's Day was Sunday - this is a day that I always have conflicted feelings about.  On one hand, I really have no connecting Father's Day experience as a son. I only know it as a father. In some respects it becomes a day in which I perhaps think of the lack of a father in my life maybe more then other days, though it would be fair to say that much of my life I have been troubled by this fact. My father and I had only minimal contact and that didn't occur until I was of adult age. That I can recall, I never saw him until I was out of high school.

My family has always been very generous with me on Father's day. I often feel that the attention is more then I deserve. None the less, I certainly appreciate it. This year my son gave me two new San Francisco Giants baseball caps. The girls, they went in together and gave me a subscription to Ancestry.com. I've done a little genealogy research in the past, but this will make it easier. I confess that part of my  interest in our family history relates to the minimal contact with my father's side of the family. I confess there is a bit of irony in the gift from my daughters on father's day. And as for my son, he knows he can never go wrong with anything related to S.F. Giants.

My right eye has felt like it has had something on it all day. I confess that efforts to flush it or deal with it in any fashion through the day had me in a cranky mood. I hope it was not apparent to the rest of the office. We didn't have a court docket today and I was in my office for the most part and as is sometimes the case, I had the door closed most of the time. I've put something in it since I've been home and it was a little better but it seems to be wearing  off. If this remains like this tomorrow I think grouchy would my baseline and I'd only  get worse from there. [This post constitutes my full disclosure and warning]

Amen!

Confession Tuesday - on Wednesday Morning

Dear Reader- 

Forgive me for not blogging my Confession Tuesday post last night. You see, I met with other poets last night and it was good.