I woke up because I heard a strange sound. It wasn’t coming from Elsa. I finally figured out that Yvette was sweeping the driveway for a yoga class. They were well into the class when Elsa and I left for our morning walk. She didn’t bark once this morning. She has become used to the presence of the students and the three dogs from downstairs running around in the driveway.
As I exited the house, I announced that it was time for a petting break. Elsa moved from student to student, getting her petting time in. Yvette moved her three dogs into a more restricted area while Scott went to roll back the driveway gate for Elsa and me.
I called Jean M. in Arizona to check on how she was. Yesterday was her first day of chemotherapy. She had a port installed the day before. While she was bruised from the installation procedure, she felt fine. Her husband, Randy, is doing a great job taking care of her. This is such a relief. It is good to know she has a champion by her side.
During my morning walk, I focused on making ground contact with the outside edge of my left foot, from the heel to the metatarsal of the little toe. Hitting that metatarsal is the game-changer.
A while ago, Jean told me that her oncologist would call the GYN that had operated on her, ignoring professional protocol, which requires that she refer a cancer case to someone with specific expertise in the field. Not only had she not done that, but there is quite a list of things that she did that put Jean in greater jeopardy. Jean said she wanted to call a lawyer. Judy’s husband is a retired personal injury lawyer. I asked jean if she would be interested in speaking to him. I texted Judy to ask if he would be interested in talking to Jean. When Judy got back to me, I forward her husband’s number to Jean. We’ll see what happens. If nothing else, this GYN should be reported to her local AMA.
Jean is on my original update list. Those are the people who have been following me since Mike was in the hospital. I have continued sending updates to all on that list. Jean M. is my most enthusiastic reader. She says she reads each one as it comes out. Besides her, I have no idea how many people on that list are still reading it. While I don’t think about the numbers, I can imagine that no one reads it, I write it assuming that someone is, but I write it for my own sake. It helps me observe my day and see it as full.
The blog, which is posted on a blog site, is exactly one year behind. Today I posted May 16, 2019. I reread it, changed passages that seemed unclear to me, ran it through Grammarly, and then Microsoft’s spelling and grammar check before posting it.
Today was the day that Yvette and I were going to start vacuuming her floor with the Hoover. She had cleared all the furniture from the room and vacuuming. When I saw the floor, it didn’t look that dirty. It wasn’t going to be a dramatic difference. I was so disappointed and expressed that to Yvette. She had a good laugh about that.
I spent the day between listening to my Saturday shows on NPR, doing some cleaning or straightening, and working on the updates or the blog and playing FreeCell.
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Musings:
I heard the NPR Pulitzer Prize-winning This American Life show on the US immigrant policy on the Mexican border, the ‘remain in Mexico policy.’ As I listened to the show, I understood how absolutely ordinary people can become monsters.
The original refugee entry policy involved an interview in which the asylum officers knew the circumstances in the asylum seeker’s country and good lie detectors. The policy change meant that asylum seekers had to prove that their lives were in danger by providing concrete proof of that danger. Many of these asylum seekers had been attacked by gangs and robbed of all their possessions. They had no evidence other than their trauma.
All the asylum officers acknowledged that the change was unfortunate if not downright illegal according to the existing laws. Many of them quit. What happens to those who don’t quit?
When they are required by their jobs to treat people without compassion, creating impossible hoops for them to jump through to provide a facade that they are conducting a credible interview. What happens to them? That question gave me insight. I would imagine that when we are required to treat people brutally, we start to hate ourselves. To relieve that hatred, we attack the people who make us feel bad, the ones we are abusing. After all, it is their choice to stay in a job that requires this behavior. Yes, they needed this job, or their families would go hungry, but it was still their choice. They can’t blame their bosses for their choice. Besides their bosses representing power and their victims being easy targets, abusing the victims, each act of abuse deepens their own self-hatred. It is ‘obviously’ the fault of the victim that we feel this way.
I had a Guatemalan man as a healing client. He was tortured for a month and then thrown out in the street when he was close to death. He survived. He said he felt sorry for his torturers. He could ‘see’ their souls darken with each act of cruelty against him.
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