Mental

Just when I thought it was time to stop taking the antidepressant meds (after all, what do I have to be depressed about) and forgot to pick up my new prescription, leaving me for three days without a dose, this morning was about the most hideous I remember.  I did not want to get up, felt alternately angry and sorry for myself,  and just bleak house and realized that it was time to drive toot-sweet to Rite Aid on Sunset.  There was a great piece in, I think, the Times magazine about a guy who weaned himself off his meds because his situation changed, and how cathartic it was for him, how he cried at a film for the first time and so on.  Of course I become completely charged up and gungho.  Yes! I can do that.  No, I can't.  That's the sweet thing about anti-depressants -- you really don't notice them at all until they're gone.  It's a bit sad, depending on anything like that.  I'm better now. Thank God.  I can't remember the last time I was utterly useless for a few hours.

Jerry Fallwell died yesterday and today Terry Gross replayed an interview she'd done with him a few years ago.  He seemed pretty reasonable, despite his anti-everything that ain't fundamentalist Christian position.  He grew up with an agnostic father who in turn had grown up with an atheist father and he spoke of the rich spiritual element that was missing in his life.  Isn't it funny how children rebel?  And thus was born the Moral Majority a movement which got Reagan into power and has helped both Bushes since.  A movement, I believe that has done more to harm Christianity than anything else.  A movement, I fear, that has actually made people ashamed of their faith.  But you can't call him evil.  Just a poor, misguided sod.  He took it one step too far.  Maybe three.

I've spent too much of every day out with Coaster, the horse that J wants to rename Timmy or Caspar or something.  I love the name Coaster; it's dorky as hell but it suits him.  He always seems very happy to see me and loves all the attention and the grooming and the baths.  It's very peaceful at Lisa's house. Just me, the dogs and all of her horses standing in their little pipe corrals in the sun and the occasional crow or hawk overhead.  And the peacock next door. He's quite gorgeous and roosts in the big pine tree at night, his enormous tail cascading down.

N is working very hard and getting incredible results at school.  Something happened, an electrical sizzle in his head, something.  But he's firing on all cylinders AND thrilled about it.  I stand back and watch him, trying hard to tamp down my overblown, motherly pride.  Oy. 

 

Country Walks Can Reduce Depression

So my mother was right afterall when she said, "Just go for a long walk on the common."  This is from today's Independent:

Country walks can help reduce depression and raise self-esteem according to research published today, leading to calls for "ecotherapy" to become a recognised treatment for people with mental health problems.

Ecotherapy: the green agenda for mental health is the first study looking at how "green" exercise specifically affects those suffering from depression.

According to Mind, England and Wales's leading mental health charity, it produced "startling" results proving the need for ecotherapy to be considered a proper treatment option.

 

Brandon Adam

This is Mary's grandson, Brandon.  He is the kid on the right.  Mary owns Foothill Saddlery and once took in Briar at the Hansen Dam horse show because the steward forbade me from having her there.  Since then, we've been fast friends.  Her grandson is 21 and in Iraq.

 

And here is yesterday's Mother's Day editorial from the Bonner County Daily Bee:

 

This war keeps getting closer to home front
Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2007 - 01:42:03 pm PDT

The Iraqi war came home to Sandpoint this week.

Sgt. Brandon Adam, a 2003 Sandpoint High School, lost both legs in a roadside bombing last Saturday.

The 21-year-old had no pulse and had lost half of his supply of blood when help arrived.

He is now at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. He underwent surgery last Tuesday and has started 12 to 18 months of therapy as well as bring fitted for prosthesis.

Adam isn't the first local soldier to get hurt or die in this conflict. He definitely isn't the only native injured or killed in the many wars this country has seen.

His injury struck a chord with Bee readers.

Predictably "Bush bashing" was mentioned often around local coffee shops. Reminders of why the United States was pulled into this war also came up on the Bee Webblog.

It's vitally important to remember this country was founded and continues to be the envy of the world because of the call to duty of many soldiers like Sgt. Adam.

This is not his war, this is the country's war as mandated by the Commander in Chief.

A person is entitled to hate this war all he or she wants but it is high time for us all to remember the growing number of fatalities and injuries coming from Iraq impact someone.

Let history write the war as only history can do. For the time being, let's pause and thank God Brandon Adam is alive and that this country continues to be defended by people like him.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Doug and Karen Adam on this Mother's Day. I have to believe, Karen has her best Mother's Day present ever -- her soldier son is alive.

--David Keyes is the publisher of the Daily Bee.

 

 

Uncharacteristically, there are strains of peppy beat jazz coming from the bathroom, along with the sounds of fast running water and J clearing his throat. I wonder if this is aging?  Suddenly, and without warning changing your radio station.  He made me a bacon and marmalade sandwich this morning for breakfast, certainly not on my diet, but certainly finding a very happy place in my stomach.  Yes, optimism abounds.  Unfounded optimism, no doubt.  Stomach-related optimism? I think about Seligman and learned happiness and how it's all about waking up and thinking about the things for which one is grateful.   Well, I'm grateful for that bacon sandwich, and my mother's day celebration - we had Turkish food, yummy lamb and zucchini fritters with feta and mint, lebanese rice, tzatziki and roasted tomatoes, and lemon cake with strawberries and peaches made by Minks. Pretty sweet, I think you would agree.  I chose to ignore the fact that one of the dogs had explosive di-0-ree-ah in the hall way instead noting at the thoughtfullness of the dog to choose the slate tile rather than the carpet or the wood floors, or god forbid, the bed.  Joy.

Happy Birthday Knokout (sic.)
Happy Birthday to my lovely big seventeen year old boy, who blares Cat Stevens through the house every morning at 5:45am and is rolled up like a crysallis in his blue and white duvet.  I would cuddle him all morning if he would allow me more than about 3.2 seconds.

Unknown Age

Mother's Day

Minky is in the kitchen saying "no, no, no, no" when she hears me approaching with my empty tea cup.  She rushes out beaming, "I'll do that, go back to bed, happy mother's day!" And the dogs and I beat our retreat.  I've opened up all the windows in the bedroom to let in the birdsong and the summer.

Today J & I will trail ride.  His new horse, Coaster, whom I found in Temecula where he had belonged to a little girl in his younger days, is a great success.  He's sturdy like a bull-dog, handsome, and not too big.  He lollops along with pricked ears and a happy expression on his face.  Very sweet.  Jumby hates the name Coaster and fails to see the humor in it.  He wants to call him Caspar.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mammas.

I made a version of Bell Inn Smokies last night, with boil-in-a-bag smoked haddock from the English Shop, some peeled tomatoes, mushrooms and cream.  Yum.  It's that time of year when you start dreaming of the smell of freshly cut lawns, new jersey potatoes with mint, runner beans (the kind with the orange/red flowers) and the lazy buzz of insects.  Oh, and fresh dover sole.  I didn't use to care.  But now, just thinking about English summer makes me comically melancholy.  The lady who washes the horse blankets, I think her name is Gloria, made me homesick this week.  She's lovely, about 75 or 80, blonde in a Diana Dors way, was married to a big American football player, and now runs a horse laundry and bespoke horse clothing shop, grew up near Welwyn Garden City.  She'd been following the Queen's visit and particularly the food she was served -- the cold vichysoisse topped with lavendar, the dover sole ; "lovely grub."  But the best tip ever was her secret for egg salad (egg mayonnaise) -- use salad cream!

Minky has brought me a happy mother's day plate of strawberries and banana:

Isabella Blow

And so it transpires that although Isabella Blow had ovarian cancer, it wasn't the cancer that killed her, but drinking weed killer - Paraquat.

The following excerpts from her obituary in the New York Times: 

Her hats were the big-game kind, trophies of her wit and imagination: a veiled set of antlers, a jewel-encrusted lobster, a sailing ship, a pheasant. Her more exotic choices of headgear could be attributed to an aesthetic link with her paternal grandmother, Lady Vera Delves Broughton, an explorer and hunter, who claimed to have supped on a tribesman in Papua New Guinea. “She wasn’t strictly a cannibal,” her granddaughter pointed out.

and

For a cameo appearance in Wes Anderson’s “Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” she fretted, according to her friend Ronnie Newhouse, that she would be nervous and asked one of the actors if he had ever “done this kind of thing before.” It was Bill Murray.

 There is a most wonderful interview with her husband Detmar Blow in the Guardian, which can be found here http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2078261,00.html

The New Forest

Wasted

'Do you really want to stop?' Sean fixes me with his big, brown eyes. 'Some people need to reach rock bottom before they're ready.' I'm sleeping on the streets every night and living by dealing and stealing, how much lower can you go?

Then I remember all the other rock bottoms. The rock bottom of being in jail without having a clear memory of my crime. The rock bottom of sending my prostitute girlfriend out to find men so I could get more crack. The rock bottom of blowing my mind with drugs and breaking down. The rock bottom of having a son and not being able to look after him, of banging up in the back seat of the car and throwing sweets to the front seat to keep him quiet.

The rock bottom of hanging around some of the worst housing estates to score. But none of those was really rock bottom. They were just ledges in the ocean as I sank lower and lower. Now I've reached the bottom. I'm on the streets and I'm thin and lonely and the drugs have stopped working. Yes please, Sean, I'd like to change now.

Excerpted from WASTED by Mark Johnson (former junkie and Prince's Trust award-winner who helps young criminals start afresh. 

Spencer Tunick does Mexico City

Hilton Fires Publicist
Paris Hilton, who has been sentenced to 45 days in jail for driving with a suspended license, has done the thing that all sensible people do in such dire circumstances -- she's fired her publicist.  Yeah, that will really help.  Please.  I'm speechless.

A song on the end of the world

On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be. On the day the world ends Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas, A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn, Vegetable peddlers shout in the street And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island, The voice of a violin lasts in the air And leads into a starry night. And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps Do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, As long as the bumblebee visits a rose, As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening now. Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be. -- Milosz

CUT

I can never really say this with a straight face so I shall say it anyway. Yesterday, sitting in the chair at the hair place, looking entirely hideous with all the base color goop on my head, I spied a picture of Natalie Mains with a short, cute haircut.  Never again will I be able to say that I was inspired by the Dixie Chicks, but this time...I cut off all my hair into a short bob.  It feels great, all the dry, overly blonde stuff is gone and now I just want to shut up and sing.

I still hate Bukowski.  Thanks to all the well-wishers who sent me examples of his work that "changed their lives". It didn't work.  Mine's not changed.  I hate him playfully though.  That worries me.  I can that I hate him with a smile, like a weak woman in a fifties romantic comedy.  It bothers me that I can't hate him vehemently, like a feminist, like Germaine Greer would.  What would Germaine do? I ask myself.  Hell, what would Natalie do?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUMBY even though you're far away in Chicago.  We miss you (a lot).

Three new girlfriends
I feel like Mr Ben.  As if by magic I've discovered Alice Oswald, Carol Ann Duffy and Lavinia Greenlaw all at once in a book called New British Poetry.  After reading Bukowski for two hours (for class) and hating him, I feel as if I've found my long lost sisters, ridiculous as that may sound.  When I say I hate Bukowski, I mean, I don't find him very clever.  He drinks beer, sleeps, goes to the race track & pursues women.   "Oh Bukowski, Bukowski" you can hear all the old-time actor drunks in LA singing his name in that reverential way. "Oh Bukowski, he's so raw, he's such a genius."  Yada yada yada.   It's shit.

Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre

-- Carol Ann Duffy b. 1955

WOO-WOO LUCY LOO!! (from Variety)

Roberts to star in 'Child'

Universal, Working Title get 'Wild'

Universal Pictures and Working Title have set Emma Roberts to star in "Wild Child," a Nick Moore-directed comedy that will begin production this summer.

Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner will produce with Diana Phillips.

Scripted by Lucy Dahl, the comedy casts Roberts as a spoiled Malibu princess whose penchant for wildness drives her father to send her to a strict, all-girls English boarding school.

The story was informed by the experiences of the screenwriter, who's the daughter of author Roald Dahl and a boarding school alumna.

The film provides an opportunity for the 16-year old Roberts to show some edge. The niece of actress Julia Roberts, she toplines the Nickelodeon series "Unfabulous" and this summer plays the title role in the Warner Bros. film "Nancy Drew."

Pic becomes the third that Working Title will put into production this summer. Bevan and Fellner team with Brian Grazer on the Ron Howard-directed "Frost/Nixon," which shoots in L.A. with stage leads Frank Langella and Michael Sheen starring. Joel and Ethan Coen team with George Clooney and Brad Pitt on "Burn After Reading," which will shoot in New York. Working Title has a November start on "State of Play," the Americanized version of the British miniseries that Kevin Macdonald will direct with Pitt starring.

prayer of st francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

blue cardigan

Ah, May Day, the first day of summer.  The birds are already celebrating.  The bees, I'm not so sure about.  Finally, last week, the NY Times ran the story about the disappearing bees, about two months behind everyone else.  No-one is panicking as they're more interested in Obama/Clinton, the Tenet tell-all and the mishandling of the "war" in Iraq.  I'm thinking of hawthorn blossom and maypole dancers and wondering whether I should make Minks pasta salad for school lunch.  It is the week of the school play, the week of mean photographers, the week of J's birthday.  Yesterday I felt like Julianne Moore in Magnolia, but without the pills.  I'm reading Bennett Cerf's biography and he certainly perks you up - he has a marvellously upbeat and lilting way of writing about his life, one that makes you rather shameful of your own self-indulgent wining.  I missed my father so much last night that I had to drive up to Mullholland and talk to him.  I'm sure it made no sense, even if he was listening, as I was a little what I like to call hysterical.  I imagined myself in his big warm sky blue cashmere cardigan and it all got a bit better.  

Neil Drysdale gave me a horse for a dollar -- Silver Royal, a four year old Northern Dancer colt, off the track, never been raced.  Sweet, sweet boy, bay, like a dog, danced his way to Middleranch and has subsequently calmed down.  Being the great business man I am, I doubled my money, sold him to Audrey for two bucks.  Only a week earlier she sat at my dining room table and wished for a horse.  She's never had one.  Only ever ridden other people's.  One of the best riders I know though.  It made me realize that what you put out there in the universe can in fact be yours.  She loves him completely.  Has renamed him Optimistic, Opie for short.  Spends mornings and afternoons in his pipe corral, talking to him.  He hasn't even had a saddle on him yet.

Try it, asking for something that you want.  Not just inside your head but out loud, preferably with witnesses.  Not that I think that my father is going to miraculously materialize... but the cardigan is here.

 

 

"ever so comical..."
A cockatoo at a wildlife sanctuary has spent a fortnight trying to hatch a bowl of chocolate eggs.

Pippa has been protecting the chocolates at Nuneaton and Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary since she was taken outside, put on a table and saw them.

Her owner, Geoff Grewcock, said: "She went straight over, climbed on the creme eggs and that was it. She thinks they're her eggs.

"Until she clicks they're not real eggs, we'll just leave her there."