Methadone Clinics

There is a new pay Methadone clinic in town that I think should be shut down. They charge twelve dollars a day, and they don't drug test like the free clinic, but the biggest crime going on is the amount of Methadone they are putting these people on. I have heard of them going as high as 200 mg a day and that is outrageous. They are taking semi-functional heroin addicts and turning them into drooling, non-functional, Methadone addicts, and the withdrawals from Methadone are more painful and dangerous that heroin withdrawal. I have given my daughter and her boyfriend Methadone to help them get off of heroin and found that just ten mgs will stop their withdrawals from heroin, and then the withdrawal from there is still gruesome, Methadone withdrawal is one of the very worst, but 10 mg is at least doable. I can't fathom withdrawal from 200 mg. I feel sure that this "clinic" is an opportunistic money maker for someone although it makes no sense that they spend what they do to dose their patients so high. I have an appointment with one of the doctors in town rumored to be involved with the clinic and hope to get some answers from him or at least just make him nervous by asking my questions about it.
Truthfully, I suspect that a lot of things about the drug laws and rules in this country are designed to make money for the government. Even though we all know it is less destructive than alcohol, Marijuanna will never be legalized because "they" make too much money by it being illegal and would make very little if it were legal. Too many people would just grow their own.
Twelve dollars a day doesn't sound like too much until you know how many heroin addicts there are around here. And most of them were created by the now jailed Dr. Rosario, who was prescribing huge dose of Oxicontin to anyone who asked for years before he got caught and all of his patients turned to Heroin, which is in short supply and expensive in this part of the country. My daughter was a patient of Dr. Rosario for Fibromyalgia for three years so I have first hand knowledge of all of this.
So, we will see how much noise I can make about this and end or fix it. See ya.

By His Own Mother

He sat on the end of his mattress on the floor with his voice filled
head in his hands. Why was he here? The hated answer was always there. Always the same from all of the voices.
Because there was no where else for him.
Wait, his sister said. She would be back to get him. His love for her almost over ran the other disclaiming voices trying to remind him that all women were evil. Hadn't he known that even before when he was alone in his head? He wasn't sure any more. The voices had started speaking when he turned thirty and as he approached forty they were a part of him, only muted when he smoked marijuana, which he could no longer afford. Could no longer keep his life together to work to get. See! the voices exclaimed. Even our sweet sister betrays us there! He shook his head in disagreement and acceptance of the fact that her help was in fact a betrayal.
"It's just to help you," she said in that reasonable pleading voice. "We just have to claim you are insane to get disability payment for you from that evil government. You know I don't really think you're crazy."
Was she lying? Just trying to placate him pretending to know as he did that the government was an evil institution? Was it all a trick? Did she, too, really believe he was schizophrenic? Would she ever really come to rescue him from her?
Mom. Bad Mommy. All her money and she hated that she had to take care of her own son. He had heard Sis telling her it was her turn, her responsibility to help until the SSI started.
He looked around his room grudgingly given in Mom's house. A mattress on the floor. A garage sale radio.
Bitch. She had kept all the money their father had left for their care and shut them all out when Sis was ten and he just thirteen. The rest of the house was filled with her treasures from Japan and grace. Like a beautiful person lived there. The voices started screaming like jungle animals and he started rocking back and forth in pain. So much pain in this world and he was born without armor.
He still loved his mother but it was just pain.
Hunger overcame any shred of pride again and he slipped out of his room passing her locked door to go to the kitchen where he found a half loaf of stale bread. He skipped the first dry piece and took the next two and, after a deep breath, he approached the locked door and knocked. Here rough voice, reserved for the children her husband had forced on her and then deserted her with, growled through the door. "What! What do you want?"
"Please," he said, with the voices clamoring at his begging tone.
"Please can I have a little peanut butter for some bread, Mommy?"
She seethed on the other side of the door. She hated him calling
her Mommy. Knew he did it at his age just to try to make her feel he was her responsibility somehow. She knew he had complained to his sister about her neglect because her daughter had dared to call and ask if she were starving him just that morning. She got the peanut butter from the pile of foods in her room and opened her door just enough for him to scoop a little out for his bread.
"Thank you, thank you!" he said fervently so she would feel guilty. Ha! She owed these grown children nothing. But her daughter's love for her brother frightened her. She had no understanding of such passion and believed it could hurt her even from a thousand miles away if she didn't feed him a little.
Herbert took his thin sandwich to his bedroom eating it slowly and
carefully trying to get it to feed his gaunt six foot body. His stomach and the voices cried out for more but that was all there would be for now.
He rummaged under his mattress and found a pack of beans he had found on his walk yesterday hoping to grow some food. It was getting cooler out as the Texas sun was setting so they all agreed it was time to go plant them. Her door was still locked tight so he dared to use the restroom. Not that she denied him the restroom but he had to leave the door open to any room. Enclosed places terrified him. He couldn't breathe let alone pee with the door closed and she hated that.
He stopped in the kitchen to dig out a beer he had hidden in the
vegetable drawer in the fridge. Foul stuff but he had bummed it from a guy in the store parking lot for emergency use if he needed the voices quieter. Her garden tools were piled by the back door and he took a shovel and went out into the twilight with his spirits lifting immediately to be out of the house.
He started digging along the side of the detached garage out back
preparing the soil for a row of beans. After turning the soil he took a break sitting on a broken chair and carefully rolled a cigarette from the tobacco of other people's butts he gathered outside of the convenience store near by and he opened the cold beer. Maybe Mom would be happy to see the beans growing. Be happy with him for the moment.
She loved to see things bloom. Blooms always reminded her of her precious cherry blossoms left back in Japan. She might smile her big dimpled smile like his own and speak in that sweet voice reserved for phone conversations with her Japanese friends and even help him pick the beans. He would cook them for her with his special talent for seasoning and they would sit back satisfied that it came from their own yard.
Whistling softly now he went back to work planting each bean with care, the voices not still but drifting around on the slight breeze lifting the curls off his forehead.
He hated the thought of going back in just yet so he opened the garage where his little car Sis had given him was parked. It was old and rusted but it still started up and the radio worked. He loved music above all things and couldn't turn his tinny radio in the bedroom up above a whisper without upsetting Mom. He folded his large frame into the small front seat with it as far back as it would go and set his warm beer between his legs and searched for a radio station playing his kind of rock and roll and then leaned back listening, going back in time to teenage years when everything still seemed to make sense. When he could still grasp hope.
When it was getting close to midnight he started the car to recharge the battery for next time, always amazed that the little motor still purred. He'd kept forgetting to tell Sis that the little car was still running. He knew she'd be surprised. But she said two months. Two more months with Mom and his SSI would come in and he could go back to live by her in Nebraska. Only two more months. He fell asleep picturing the hilly farm where he had lived with Sis before and all the fun they had there.
His mother inside was curious at the silence in the house and came out of her room to find the house empty. She looked out back and was immediately filled with black rage. The yard light was on, costing her money. They always cost her money! She opened the back door and her ears were assaulted by the noise Herbert called music coming from the garage. She saw her good shovel propped against the garage and her rage was jet black with red sparks as she saw that he had dared to dig in her yard without permission.
She approached the car in the garage and saw him sitting head back in the driver's seat. She called his name and he didn't respond. Either he couldn't hear above his rock and roll and the engine running or he was ignoring her. That thought stuck and fueled her rage even further. This was it! She was done. Not even her frightening daughter could make her put up with this!
She had to strain to reach the garage door handle and then yanked hard letting it slam to the ground. Ha! That would get his attention.
She stomped back to the house going in and locking the door behind her. Let him sleep out there with his stupid music!
And he did.

Black Jack

I went to a casino and played at a black Jack table for the first time on my birthday. I have played Black Jack among friends before but never professional like this. I really enjoyed it because of the interaction between the players at the table. I suppose it is different from any other poker game in that the players are usually playing against each other as well as the dealer. In Black Jack everyone is rooting for everyone else, and if you have a nice dealer even he is rooting for the players. Players advise each other on every play and offer a quick Good Luck when an ace is dealt and then cheer for the Black Jack. I won four hundred dollars the first night and didn't even notice because I was having so much fun just enjoying being with a group of friendly strangers. I don't think I could be one to get addicted to winning the money but I sure could get addicted to the fellowship! I will definitely play again although I won't have the amount of money I was playing with again any time soon, but I saw people who would just come with twenty dollars and sit down for a bit and try their luck. I recommend Black Jack to anyone who enjoys pleasant interaction with strangers. :-)

Waiting

I hate waiting for people to show up. I hate waiting for anything. but I especially hate waiting on people who are late and don't call or anything. It drives me nuts because you always have to deal with that touch of guilt for getting pissed as you think Oh my! Something might have happened to them! And then my own reaction when they finally do show up infuriates me. I say something stupid and dismissive like, Oh, that's OK., I knew you would show up eventually! Just once I'd like to feel right to greet them with a shotgun, not be here, or at least tell them what a pain in the ass it was waiting for them. Yea... I'm waiting on someone right now with an impatient five year old who has been waiting all day for Daddy to pick her up and he is two and a half hours late. Not only am I answering When will Daddy get here? every two minutes, again just now!, but I had a big shopping trip planned as well a a visit to one of my daughters after shopping which I will be late for but I have already called her and warned her. His cell phone rings four times and goes to voice mail or rings twice and goes to voice mail. No other choice and I'm too polite to leave more than one message. What if something horrific has happened to him? There he will be in the hospital getting both legs amputated and my rude, impatient, fed up, messages will be floating out here for him to get when he is well enough. Or will I just leave and take little Jessalynn with me shopping in about five more minutes???
I'm getting my shoes on.

Move to Magnolia

In 1985 we decided to move from Houston, Texas to a little bitty town called Magnolia, Iowa. I was still married to Clown Shoes and my girls were only 2,3, and 8. We never had really gotten on our feet in Texas and by this time we were out of options there but we knew some people in Pisgah, Iowa who had been inviting us to come stay a while so we headed that way.
It wasn't winter so we fell in love with the countryside in Iowa and the simplicity of the people around Pisgah. Our friends lived on a 160 acre farm outside of Pisgah on the border of Magnolia. We found a house two miles from theirs in Magnolia that needed tons of work done but the landlord was offering three months free and then only $75. a month for rent so we jumped on it. It took most of the three months to fix up the house but we lived there while fixing it.
It was a big old farmhouse built in the ere when houses were built without closets because they were taxed by the room and a closet was considered a room. The farm it sat on was about 100 acres and rented out for grazing or farming. Besides the house there was a huge three sided garage for tractors and such and two large barns and two sheds. The barn closest to the house was use for the cattle on the land but the other buildings were unused providing a lot of exploring and play space for the girls and us.
The first thing I wanted was chickens so we set about the business of getting some. We started by buying three big white Leghorn hens from a farmer near Logan and put them up in one of the little sheds that appeared to be designed for chickens with a door to a little fenced yard. Clown Shoes made them each a nice soft nest and that night he went to check on them and found them sitting up on the rafters instead of in their nests. He shooed them off of the rafters and put them each in a nest and left them only to return and find them again sleeping on the rafters. Finally I looked chickens up in the encyclopedia and read that they sleep perched up high to avoid weasels and such. It was one a.m. already so I called Clown Shoes in from the shed and told him to leave the chickens alone.
Eventually we got more Leghorn chickens and then a rooster for them. We also got a flock of guineas and a couple of lambs, two ducks, a goat and a pig plus we had three dogs and a few cats that turned into a barn full of cats. Someone gave us a little colorful rooster that we decided to let run free away from our Leghorns and that was the first note of discontent on the farm. That rooster was mean. Maybe because he was kept without any hens to be with but he was meaner than all get out and particularly hated me. Maybe he knew I was the one who decided not to cross him with our precious double yolk Leghorns but he really hated me. He attacked me one day spurring me badly and knocking me in the cess pool and I got so mad I shot him. Not only did I shoot him, but I waited for him to look at me, not pulling the trigger until we locked eyes so he would know I was the one who shot him. Then I threw him in the burning barrel not even wanting to give him the honor of gracing my dinner table.
The pig fared a little better. He was a runt a neighbor gave us because my brother spotted one of his sheds on fire and alerted him, saving the farm. I named him Stewart and played the guitar and sang to him his first few nights in his shed to calm him. He got so big he would lay in front of the door and trap us in the house. We finally decided he had to go when he got to be 400lbs and still wanted to play tag like when he was a baby. We sadly took him to the butcher (he filled a 4 by 6 trailer) and left him but on the way home I had second thoughts and rushed back to save him but it was too late. That meat sat in a meat locker for three years before I finally asked them to throw it out. Never name your food.
We lived on that farm for eight years before moving back to city life. We went through some hard times and tragedies but mostly I remember the wonder of the animal and plant life around us. My children didn't even have or miss having a TV growing up because they had nature to watch. I regret many things in my life but the years on that farm will always be a wonderful memory of my little family.

Memorial Day

A very good friend of mine wrote this and I found it better than anything I could write for this day.

Memorial Day

We march down the long sloping street, lined with people, all rising in honor of the American flags our Legion Color Guard carries. The flags catch the wind as we come out from the tree-lined street, and the flag carriers struggle to control the whipping cloth. We are growing older now, and the flags and rifles are heavy, but we march proudly, shoulders back, striding in step to the "Hup, twoup, threeup, fooe", of the caller's cadence. Ahead of us, across the highway, between the Veterans' Memorial and the gray gravestones of the cemetery, we see the crowd, waiting. Latecomers stream from cars lining the roadsides, joining the crowd, filling the small parking lot and spilling out onto the green lawn.

We make the turn into the cemetery drive, pressed close by the crowd, as they part to give us room to march through. We turn again and halt, facing the five polished, black stones of the Veterans' Memorial, surrounding the flagpole, guarding the big American flag rippling in the breeze. Small flowers bloom in carefully tended beds near the black stones. Service flags ripple near the podium, where the Legion Commander sits ramrod straight, wearing his best suit and his Legion cap. With him are the minister, the speaker, and the Post Adjutant.

The crowd gathers, visiting, waiting, but staying at a distance. It grows quiet as the Legion Commander steps up to the microphone. The program is brief. A few words from the Commander, a short speech, the minister offers a prayer. Sometimes there is a solo. The band plays. I hear little of it. I see the kids in the crowd, moving about, not paying attention. I think of the soldiers only a few years older than the kids, who fought and died, barely yet men, with a whole lifetime of living and loving ahead of them. I look away from the kids, look again at the flowers.

The speeches are over soon, and the Commander leads the way from the podium to the American flags spaced across the front of the memorial. Each year, I have the same thought. There are too many. Each flag represents a member of our Legion Post who has died during the past year. As the Adjutant reads the final roll call, the Commander and his entourage salute each flag in turn. I remember each man, and how he was. Most of them, I knew well. It will not be the same without them. They ate with us, drank with us, marched with us. We disagreed, sometimes argued, but we were comrades, veterans, Legionnaires.

Solemnly, the group returns to the speakers' stand. The minister prays. The first grade class places wreathes on the graves. The band plays. After so many years of participating in this ceremony, I cannot tell you the order of the program. For me, the people evoke such emotion that the structure is lost.

"Ten - hut!" The color guard snaps to attention. I wonder if the crowd sees us as a group of middle aged, graying farmers and carpenters and retired businessmen, or do they see us as we feel, soldiers again, standing straight, ready to do our duty. "Firing squad, fall out!" Those of us who carry rifles leave the formation. We line up, away from the crowd, facing west. "Firing squad, ten - hut! Prepare to fire!" We step back, raise our rifles. "Aim! Fire!" Three times, the seven of us fire. The first volley is ragged, the second better. The last volley is crisp, perfect. "Present arms!" Once again, we snap to attention, holding rifles vertically in front of us. After the crashing reports of the rifles, the silence is deafening. The crowd is silent; the kids are still, waiting, frozen in place.

From the cemetery, out of our sight, the first notes of Taps ripple across the grass. Little shivers run up and down my spine. I blink back tears, not looking to see if anyone else does the same. How many times have we heard these melancholy notes as one of our comrades was laid to rest?

"Fall out!" The Memorial Day program is over for another year. Little boys swarm around us, looking for empty shell casings. I watch them, and hope they never have to fight as did those we honor today.

We mingle with the crowd, visiting, greeting friends. Buses are waiting to take us back uptown. Slowly, we filter through the crowd and climb aboard. Every year, someone says, "Can you believe all the people that were here today? It seems like there are more every year. All the things they could be doing on this nice Memorial Day, and they chose to come here this morning. We can be mighty proud of the people in our community."

We talk, and sometimes laugh, on the trip uptown. But sometimes an old soldier stares off into the distance, thinking, remembering.

Thrown up Family

For over a month now I have been having nightmares in which I am vomiting through the whole thing no matter what is going on. I never get my mouth clear of the foul things I am vomiting and have to carry one conversations in bits and pieces to pause to vomit. These are long, complex, dreams and almost always include family and friends who I no longer associate with. Tonight I got out of bed and entered "dreams, vomit, analysis" in my browser and was amazed to actually have a few answers pop up. The Internet is truly an incredible thing!!
The first interpretation said, "To dream that you are vomiting, indicates that you need to reject or discard an aspect of your life that is revolting. There are some emotions or concepts that you need to confront and then let go."
I can't think of anything in my life that is revolting but maybe there are things I need to reject or let go of. If I go about this like the references I found suggest, then I would look at the other things and people in the dream for a clue and, as I said, the people gone from my life are always in these dreams.
These people in my dreams are all of the family I have besides my own children and grandchildren and any friends I had growing up in Texas. Four years ago my brother and I had a disagreement while I was trying to recover from a terrible divorce and my brother, Mike, decided I was dangerously insane if not an evil Witch. He is an extremely paranoid person; one of those who go and recheck the locks on their doors ten times a night redoing the locks who whispers stories to you about hit men who have sought him and the likes. He is the owner of a small fireproofing company and I guess people want his formula so badly they will kill him yet he can't figure out a way to market it to make any kind of money. His stocks were at thirty cents a share last I looked.
Well, Mike told everyone in my wacky family about me being insane and dangerous and the next thing I knew no one would take any of my calls and I haven't spoken to a soul in our extended family since after being very close to them all all of my life. Closer than Mike in most cases but you've got to know Mike to understand how this could happen. He has a way of creating what I call Mikelites, followers, who are as sure as he is of his greatness in all aspects. I have found that people either become a Mikelite or just can't stand him and believe him to be false and delusional. I went from being a Mikelite to knowing he is extremely delusional the night we argued. It was truly an experience of the scales falling from my eyes and seeing for the first time that he was really nobody special in any way. He has a very high IQ but it is sadly offset by the outrageous things he believes and stories he tells.
I have gone through great grief over losing my family and then anger that they would turn from me without even speaking to me or asking about the things Mike was saying and I like to think I have simply washed my hands of them all but then there they are in these nightmares indicating they are all still here. In the dreams they always still love me and I can feel it so strongly I don't want to wake up even though I am vomiting and likely being shot at or attacked by monsters in the dream, too.
Another reference on vomiting in dreams says, "This dream may be an expression of your desire to be rid of feelings that cause you upset."
So how do I purge myself of the feeling of wishing these people still loved me? I love them in return in these dreams and in the deep recesses of my heart where I have been trying to kill them as effectively as they have all killed me off. How do I do this? I'd like to think that I am doing it right now in some part by getting up and writing this down at two in the morning. I don't know how much I believe in this dream analysis stuff but I do know I am getting tired of dreaming I am vomiting all night and I'm tired of spending this much time with people who never want to see me again.
I am happy with the family life that I do have left to me. My children are very loving and supportive and I have a wonderful relationship with my grandchildren. My oldest granddaughter and I have a bond that takes my breath away sometimes it is that close. I have no clue why I would seek any more in my dreams. I truly believe that my family have cheated themselves out of knowing some very wonderful people as they have had to cut out my children and grandchildren with me. It is truly their loss more than mine!

So, here's to being done vomiting them up every night and I pray I can bury them with the past they belong to. I'm ready to get some real sleep and tired of seeing their faces every night!