Sunday, August 30, 2015

No Parent Left Behind






No Parent Left Behind

"I know you are appreciative that you don't teach at a west-side school where guardians, foster parents, grandparents, let alone an occasional parent seldom show up for Back-to-School night. 
This is a east-side school!  Here you are no longer teachers!!  You are clerks at Nordstrom.  When all those snobby parents show up tonight, kiss ass!"
                                                                  Ryan, PhD
                                                                  Principal

Dedicated to the Utah Legislature

Friday, August 28, 2015

Blue-Emu

When my sister caught a sick raccoon and she and my brother nursed him back to health, I steered clear.
Oh, once I took a little candy out to his cage and made sure he knew I sort of loved him.

Being offish about animals, I was not a suspect in his death. 
He died with traces of the candy bar still in his cage. 
“Who done it?” was never discerned.
See?  Traces of love often lurk beneath “offish”, but no busy person has room for that search.

I had no real interest in nursing animals. 
Or people, for that matter!
Yet I grew up and really did become an awesome nurse, even though I was “offish” about the whole nursing scenario.
How did that happen?
My mom with her romantic view of what it would be like to be a nurse shoved me into her dream.
But I want to be a school teacher!”
"Your scholarship is to nursing. Stop making a fuss."  Mom secured me the scholarship and you haven't lived until a parent secures a scholarship for you!

My awesomeness as a nurse was because of one thing: I prayed before entering any clinical arena and always prayed for every critically ill patient I took care of. I knew I wasn't really a nurse, but a school teacher masquerading as someone who wasn't “offish”.
I needed God desperately. And He worked miracles on behalf of my patients.

If you are good enough, nobody ever believes you do not love what you are doing!

Naturally because of my experience I see other people as actors and actresses and wonder what lies beneath! Even if you are excellent at what you do, I still wonder about you. Is that the real you?? Or are you living someone else's dream?

Being a school teacher at heart, and a nurse by profession, I am “into” passing on the word about meds.
Which brings me to Blue-Emu.

If you are old, I suspect you are hurting.
They now know it hurts when we are children, growing and stretching a body.
And it hurts when the body is withering and crumbling!

Which brings me to Blue-Emu.

I had heard Blue-Emu was a miracle topical ointment, but I don't believe in miracle cures from mankind. Heck, I am the skeptical nurse who barely believes in vaccinations!
Yet desperation made me do it.
I picked up the expensive jar of Blue-Emu and decided to try it. I do believe in topicals. My skin is absorbent and I bet yours is, too.

Blue-Emu. It is all it says it is. Yes. I put it on my hands and the pain and swelling are decreased.
No, I don't have to wash it off before handling food.
Yes, it softens my skin beautifully!
Yes, it decreases the pain in my feet!
Yes, it softens the skin on my feet. In fact, I am awed.

Blue-Emu is my new best friend.
It is worth every dime I have spent on it.

Thanks for listening,

Riverwatch, RN










Monday, August 24, 2015

Women's Rights




Being interested in women's rights, without being obsessed , I love to read about what life is like for polygamous women.

What are their thoughts and feelings as they live without freedom, love, even without sex if they are past child-bearing potential. Heck, my one polygamous friend is so in need of a hysterectomy she is anemic and "troubled" almost constantly, but giving up her uterus is unthinkable to her.
She is  a "first" wife, and she is hanging on as best she can.

After all, the scriptures say Sarah conceived at age 60.
Miracles are possible.

But not without your uterus!

"I demand my right to try to conceive!"

There are two groups of polygamous women who share some common background.
Religious background, of course.
Mormons and Muslims.

Mormons handle humor better than Muslims seem to,
 and so I don't ever want to try to be funny about Islam.

I feel comfortable being funny about the Mormons, some of whom I am related to.

Both religions started in a terrifying manisfestation to their male founders.  So many similarities.   Yet Muhammad, not having cut his teeth on personal rights. ran from his revelation,
  while Joseph Smith went "deeper" into the revelation, being an American with tons of rights and all.

So currently I am reading "Tell It All" , a Mormon polygamous expose' by Fanny Stenhouse published in the 1800's.

https://archive.org/stream/storyoftellitall00stenrich
I thought it would be all pathos and drear,  and it is pathos and drear, but not all.
It's quite sprinkled with the grassroots politics of the day.
And Fanny is a little bit funny.  

Here's one of Fanny's observations from polygamous life in the 1800's :

Many a wife would be happier were she a widow.  In fact, widows are the happiest class of women in Utah, for they realize it is better to have a dead sorrow than a living one.”


So much for women's rights!

Let's keep focused.

I appreciate you.
Riverwatch the Rebel

PS   I am the mother of 3 sons and the sister of 6 brothers, so I always think of the guys' viewpoint  also!  Men have very different viewpoints from women, I have learned.
I heard that many a man would rather be dead than put up with a flock of women clucking behind him,
but that is only a rumor.  
I cannot validate it.  

However, there are men with humor in their bones 
                                                                             who enjoy a good spectacle.

Me? I am a woman who is horrified yet mesmerized by the spectacle.  

I do think it is worth watching.  

Wait and see.

One of the good things about aging is you sometimes live long enough  to see how it all turns out. 





Thursday, August 20, 2015

Moon River






"Wherever you're going, I'm going your way."

Don't know about you, but I have never been afflicted with the Herd Mentality.  Never.

I've always been proud of that, but now on the Twilight Zone Landscape where I have landed instead of dying young, I'm sort of weakly becoming a little ashamed of what once made me proud.

I blame my non-herd-mentality on my ancestors.
You probably came from a lovely placid get-along-with-everybody-be-the-social-star kind of family of antiquity.......and it shows.

Forgive me, but I came from Hardy Stock!!
 Hardy Stock:  definitely not weeds (so you cannot weed us out no matter what kind of a social net you put into play).
Hardy.  Illusive.  "Dormant" only to spring back vigorously.

My ancestors came from Scotland, Ireland and England.  We were the Border Runners!  Refusing to assimilate or support, my ancestors bobbed and weaved, re-crossing borders, finding new hide-outs and staying out of the fray.
"By god, don't tell me what to do!" is a rebellious stand, but it is never about taking up arms (unless cornered) and never about controlling other people.
The only agenda is personal, not social: LEAVE ME ALONE!  By god, don't tell me what to do!
That agenda is never peddled to the rest of society, let along fitted into a revolution.

It is only passed on genetically.

When my ancestors got totally sick of the whole British Isles, they came to America.
Guess who they were attracted to?  Guess who they had something in common with?

   Not the Puritans.

Did you know there were over 500 languages spoken in North America before the Puritans arrived?  That isn't counting the dialects!  Those native people couldn't have mounted a federal defense if they had wanted!  Refusing to assimilate, they moved over...fought back or were annihilated.

Talk about Border Runners!

No, my family ancestors didn't drag the Native Americans they married upward to the Herd Mentality.
That wasn't in our genes.
But my blended English-Irish-Scottish ancestors did appreciate the Native Americans.
And I applaud them today.  One of the best books I ever did read is "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee".  This book by Dee Brown is a history of the USA looking eastward........instead of looking westward.
It captured me and I have never looked "westward ho the wagons" since.

So, I got a double whammy of non-herd-mentality genes and I have lots of stamina when it comes to resisting the weak impulse to play ball with you.

But I've decided to come out of my little world and make an exception about the 'cliff activity', the cliff with the waterfall.
Since you all....100% of you....are going over the end-of-mortality cliff, I'm going, too!!  You are NOT going to leave me behind!  I may not have played ball with you..... nor even watched you and your games, but.....................................
wherever you're going, I'm going your way.



Now that makes it sound like I have a choice, doesn't it?  You and I both know I really have no choice.  The cliff is there downstream.  and I'm not talking Financial Cliff!

My choice is whether I flow over it with dignity like my Native American ancestors, or screaming and kicking like my British ancestors.  (just kiddin', sort of just kiddin')

I hope I have some dignity when it is my turn.  Or if that "dignity part" of my brain has turned to dry rot before my legs give out and I go kicking, I hope you all who are still waiting your turn will judge me by my heart, not by my kicking legs.

     As Pastor Ralph said, "If my brain forgets, I hope my heart remembers."
He was talking about something else, but a great principle remains great wherever it is applied.
It is all about the heart.


Sitting on the river bank under the full moon,
8tracks.com

Riverwatch       

 


PS  The river seems to be picking up speed with each passing day!



                                                                 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              pinterest.com 










Monday, August 17, 2015

Say What?







                                                                      ***


"The only normal people you know 


are the ones you don't know."
                                                                  by Somebody (I've forgotten who)
                                                                                                                                                  Not Riverwatch

Nice to see you,
I always love visits to my blog!












Saturday, August 1, 2015

Lessons from Islam


notable-quotes.com


Inspiration: Hizmet movement in Turkey

Hizmet is a civil movement by some brilliant peaceable Muslims, claiming or reclaiming the great peacefulness to humanity imbedded in Islam. 

Hizmet, a Turkish word, means service.

Being old and a bit "leary and weary" of service , I need their gentle education!
I may be a Christian, but I can learn from Islam, too.

In particular, Hizmet represents and teaches the following:

1. Reforming oneself and thus becoming a better believer and practitioner of faith

Yes, I need to be a better practioner of my own faith.

2. Serving something greater than yourself. Do not simply care for your own interest, but strive toward a greater vision.

What?  
I am a woman! 
I have ALWAYS been serving something greater than myself!  
Hence the "leary and weary" attitude.
No need for more focus here!  
I think #2 is for the guys.

3. Education is the key to the solution of our main problems:
Invest in education.
If you are young, able and willing, choose teaching as your profession.
If you are a business person, support a school financially.
If you are a parent, encourage sound education and for that help build a school in your neighborhood. 
In short, there is a way of contribution to educational initiatives for every person. 
Later other initiatives, such as media, hospitals, disaster relief and poverty assistance are initiated, and appeal to every segment of the population.

Agreed.  Spot on.

4. Not expecting everything from government. As a participant in a civil initiative, do something yourself, and do not delegate your responsibilities totally to the government, in similar tone to Kennedy’s famous saying “ask not what your country can do for you, but as what you can do for your country.” If you are a business person, do business, form partnerships and holdings, become rich and give charitably, with no expectation in return, back to your community.

Ok.  I am an American.  
I have (sadly) learned to expect from my government  double speak, blind avenues, disappearing print. But I agree, in theory, such a flaw in my government is not necessarily a minus, seeing as how it invites personal growth on my part.

5. As opposed to isolation from, or being reactionary to public life, be present at every institution of our society with the intention to serve, including the judiciary, bureaucracy, military, media, art and business.

I absolutely LOVE this. 

Here is educational coverage of my very flaws as an older person.  
Thanks to Hizmet's education, I am now dedicated to "being present at every institution of our society".
I have banished the here-to-fore disdain, prayed for fresh courage, and decided that serving others, a  path that can lead to ruination, is also the only path leading upward.

Appropriately managing service to others is an essential skill that is taught only in really keen families.

Having been raised by armed lunatics, I still have things to learn at age 71.


6. A successful synthesis or integration of religion, modernity, patriotism, democracy, science, arts, secularism and positive action.

Of course.  I am an American.        Image result for images of american flag


7. Outreach, inclusiveness, outward looking, integrationist. From a community to a Movement, from the transnational Movement to whole humanity, accepting everybody as they are, in their respective position.


Muslims are cool!  


Wish I knew some personally.


Thanks for the wave,
Riverwatch
truthsinsideofyou.org