Miscellaneous Update and Other Things

So often I feel like I post about a topic and then completely forget to follow up with what happened next.

So, a few updates on recent posts:

- The Samoyed husky I was worried about disappeared from the front yard of its house two days after I made the complaint to the SPCA. It reappeared a day later, for one day only. Then not only did it disappear again, its leash and bowl that were always by the front door were gone as well. At the same time, I started seeing a Samoyed being walked in the nearby neighbourhood. I have never seen another dog of this breed in this area before. This new Samoyed has a haircut but looks about the same age. Is it the same dog? It's possible. Or the original might have been simply relegated to the back yard instead of the front yard. The back yard is completely enclosed with a high wooden fence, so I have no way of knowing by simply looking. I would need to follow up on my complaint to the SPCA, or stop my car and ask the dog walking people about the dog's history, neither of which I am keen to do because I am a spineless excuse for a person. And I can't take any more stress right now. If the dog is still with the original family  and has been in the breeze-less back yard during our several severe heat waves, I don't think I can handle knowing that. I prefer to cover my eyes and ears and hope he is living his best life with a different family now. Maybe some day soon I will gather up my courage and try to find out. Not today. Not yet.

- As I just said, we have had a couple more heat waves. Man, I detest looking up the weather forecast and seeing that blazing red banner across the screen that warns us of impending hot and humid weather! I can't function in the heat/humidity, so the gardening goes undone, even household chores go undone, while I huddle in my house or scurry to the air-conditioned grocery store and back for necessities. The nights are starting to feel fall-ish now and it feels like I have wasted summer.

- My mother is still unhappy at the nursing home. Every second sentence in her conversation is a variation on the theme of "going home". However, I have a new perspective on that which is helping me cope with my guilt that I placed her there. At an Alzheimers support group meeting, the facilitator mused that from everything I'd told them it seemed like my mother wasn't a very happy person. It took me by surprise, because (1) I'd never thought about it that way before, and (2) if I had been asked, I'd have said she seemed like . . . well, not a happy person, but a contented person . . . and I realize now that she was only contented as long as she was doing what she wanted, when she wanted, with the people she wanted . . . and that is not the same as being a happy person, is it? It blew my mind a little. At heart, my mom is not a happy or cheerful person. She would not be happy if the nursing home accommodations were absolutely opulent. She would not be happy if she was living with me, either. When she had to stay with me during storms or power outages, she became restless and wanted to go home after a few hours. What she does want is to be at her own home, doing what she wants, when she wants, etc., but because of the dementia she can't understand how she was only able to do that due to the scaffolding of assistance being provided to her (by me). So, there is not the happy ending I hoped for (including her enjoying opportunities to socialize). But the guilt I feel is getting lighter.

- More shooting stars!! The Perseid Showers just took place last week, and I went out a couple of nights to watch. I didn't lie  down, so it was hard on the neck, but in the brief time I watched, I got to see three more meteors blaze out - nice bright ones. I enjoyed those moments, but I equally enjoyed just looking at the stars in the night sky and thinking about our miraculous orb in the vast universe. It gives me such a sense of wonder and awe and peace.

*****

In the "Other Things" category, I seem to be coming across weird things in the news lately. Like this piece about sharks testing positive for cocaine in Brazil. Aren't sharks highstrung enough without drugs in their systems??

And I stumbled across this poem by Sara Teasdale recently. She wrote it during WWI, but it feels as timely today as it must have done then. I've had the tab open in my browser for over a week, waiting to post about it, and even seeing the tab showing the first line of the poem brings me a sense of calm and hope, despite the state of the world. I wish I had written anything so beautiful in my own life, and will continue to try. Here is the original version referred to in the Wikipedia article at the link:

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

     - Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

*****

I wish you soft rains, and the smell of the ground, and all comforting things this week, especially if you are having a difficult time, whether it's from anxiety, or stress, or ill health, or loss.