Ephphatha

Drugs Ineffective on Moderate Depression?

2010-01-06T07:52:00.001-05:00

This annoys and confuses me.

A new study says that while antidepressants provide relief in extreme cases of depression, they are probably no more effective than placebos for most people.

The report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, evaluated six large drug trials, including 728 men and women, half with severe depression and half with more moderate depression. The trials tested Paxil (a selective serotonin re uptake inhibitor, or S.S.R. I.), and imipramine ( a tricyclic). The drugs outperformed the placebos in severe depression but no so much in moderate depression.

I'm annoyed because if my Cymbalta is no better than a placebo, why don't they lower the damn price? I'm confused about why the study only included Paxil and imipramine. Why wasn't an MAO Inhibitor tested? And isn't there some structural difference between Paxil and other SSRIs like Prozac, Zoloft, or Lexapro that might have yielded a clue as to how these drugs actually work?

The first two weeks I took Cymbalta, I got so weak I couldn't run. That doesn't sound like a placebo to me; something was messing with my serotonin levels. What about the drugs that make you gain weight? What about nicotine? That alleviates some symptoms of depression. Can't they stick people in an MRI and see what parts of the brain lights up when these drugs enter the brain?

Try harder, doctor people, try harder.

This Emotional Life and Depression

2010-01-05T22:10:00.008-05:00

Wow, tonight's "This Emotional Life" features the best articulation of depression I've ever seen.

Elizabeth Gilbert, "Eat, Pray, Love" author, said something I like, "The opposite of depression isn't happiness; it's vitality." Chevy Chase and Farai Chideya offer their takes on it, too. I did not know the three of them have battled depression! Of course, it's different for everyone, but the lethargy, the --for lack of a better term--weighty spiritual burden of it all, more than sadness, seems to run through everyone's description. I'll second that.

Also interesting is the person with depression's sensitivity to negativity. The show suggests there might be a biological element to persistent negative thinking. Depression may even effect the physical structure of the brain--shrinking the hippocamus. I bet I don't even have any hippocampus left.

I want to stay up and watch the whole thing but I need to get eight hours of sleep so I can get to the gym in the morning to manage my own damn depression, LOL.

Kudos to Chase, Chideya, Gilbert, and the others in this episode for raising mental health awareness!

Men (Not) At Work

2010-01-05T07:07:00.004-05:00

This post has nothing to do with Tiger; I just thought that Vanity Fair's timing was hilarious.

It's 2010 and I still don't get men. Someone actually asked me out for New Year's Eve. He kept saying of his (very recent) ex-wife, "She made me so mad, but I don't believe in putting my hands on a woman," the way a member of the Donner party might say, "I'm really hungry, but I don't believe in eating human flesh." I declined.

My pastor and I were talking and she mentioned there were a lot of people out of work in our congregation. I knew of a few job openings at my work and suddenly she directed a flood of jobless people my way.

Three older ladies called me and one sent me her resume. Cool. Another guy, let's call him Jerry, called me and I agreed to brainstorm after church with him. Unbeknownst to me, my pastor decided to introduce me to Cute Guy after church. Alas, Cute Guy is also unemployed.

So, me, Jerry, and Cute Guy all go downstairs to talk about finding employment. Jerry says he's been busy with an invention that a major corporation has blocked from the market. I'm thinking, what, a time machine? Wal-Mart? Do tell!

I can't really connect with Cute Guy. I'm trying, but nothing is hitchin' on--you know? And Jerry's going on about the plot against him and I'm trying to figure out how to help and then at some point Cute Guy (who is a little cock-eyed) realizes I went to Harvard and is turned off and it's just not working.

Sigh.

I get home and hook Jerry up with someone who might be able to help him and I friend Cute Guy on Facebook and send him a few job bank links in his field. Maybe I was expecting undying gratitude in the form of a date, but all I got was "Thanks."

Studies have shown depression from job-loss can be a long-term issue. I think perhaps our church could try dealing with these people's emotional health might lead to them to employment more quickly then sending them to me.

Well, I have two cats and "The Family Guy" reruns.

Watch This!

2010-01-04T15:38:00.004-05:00

This Emotional Life, a three-part television series event, premieres on PBS tonight.

It's hosted by Harvard psychologist and best selling author of Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert. Tonight's episode is entitled Family, Friends and Lovers and why relationships are central to our well being and how we can improve them. I will be taking notes. Tuesday's episode is Facing Our Fears, followed by Rethinking Happiness on Wednesday.

The show is part of a two-year multi-platform project designed to create awareness, understanding and solutions surrounding emotional well-being.

Yay!

An Absence of Common Sense

2010-01-04T08:05:00.001-05:00

Do you ever wonder if everything has gotten too big too fail?

I was watching "60 Minutes" and they were doing a piece on the Veteran's Administration. They had a soldier on who'd been injured when an IED exploded. The VA treated his migraines that stemmed from the incident.

The soldier also had trouble sleeping, and, some time later, he was finally diagnosed with PTSD. The VA, however, wouldn't treat his PTSD because he couldn't prove he'd been in an IED explosion. It seemed to the soldier that if the VA was already treating him for migraines that he sustained in an IED explosion, that was the proof he'd been in an IED explosion.

Naaaah.

It wasn't even a matter of mental vs. physical illness; it was just Catch-22 craziness. When "60 Minutes" interviewed another vet who worked at the VA, he said it wasn't more money, it wasn't more people; it was the VA culture that needed to change. People were more focused on hitting quotas and getting paperwork through than actually caring for vets.

I've got nothing against the VA; they're taking real good care of my dad, who served in Korea. (They did remove my pop's left testicle unnecessarily, which kinda has him...down, 'cause he came into this world with a pair of dice, if you know what I mean.) But the way they work reminds me of the middle-management morass I've experienced at most companies for which I've worked. Like when my boss told me I wasn't being paid to be creative; I was "paid to have my butt in the seat." I just looked at her, amazed that it was more important to have my head counted than to make a meaningful contribution to the company.

I can imagine someone at the VA actually trying to help a vet and getting chastised for spending too much time on one patient, while some rules-wonk gets raise after raise for getting his paperwork done.

I think we need a cultural shift. Less following rules, more solving problems.

Bad Dad

2010-01-02T07:31:00.002-05:00

My Susan Miller Horoscope says this is the year the Universe is going to give me everything I've ever wanted, so I'm trying to stay positive and light. But something always comes along that is so egregiously ignorant, you have to look at it and call it out.

Steve McClairn is that something. The 36 year old Cleveland man was playing cards with his 7 year old daughter. He asked her a question, didn't like her answer, and, allegedly, put her in the dryer and turned it on.

The child has a medical condition that's left her small and frail, weighing only 39lbs at 4 ft tall.

Since the Universe is going to make all my dreams come true, I want this to be the year when everybody gets that mental health is not limited to people who have hallucinations and delusions. It's also about people who have issues with anger management and decision making.

I can't think of anything a 7 year old could say that would make a mentally healthy person place her in a dryer and turn it on. Think of the ripple effect this one father's actions might have: his daughter might be disruptive in class, creating an environment in which other children can't learn. In a few years, she might seek love and attention from males in a negative way, perhaps getting pregnant as a teen and increasing the likelihood that she and her child live in poverty; the list goes on.

Children are not a hazard of sex; they are an 18 year commitment to being the best parent you know how to be.

Damn, people.

New Year's Resolution

2010-01-01T00:01:00.002-05:00

This year, I want to learn to Salsa! I'ma have my foot on my head just like that lady in the picture! Ai, Papi!

If you need a New Year's Resolution, go right here and get you one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Oh Daddy

2009-12-31T07:48:00.002-05:00

Just when I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy and resolved about my pops...LOL.

I talked to my father's case worker. Apparently, a lot of things have been going awry. Her biggest concern is his memory. Neither one of us can figure out if it's dementia settling in or alcohol.

I need him to get him to figure out who he wants to have power of attorney, health care proxy, and get him to make out a will. Wills are for white folk that got something to leave--that's what both sides of Belles have always thought.

I can't talk about it to my Aunt BayBelle because I do not need to hear the hour long rant she will be poised to deliver upon hearing his name.

Here's what I'm going to do: work out, catch an end of the year service at some church, read the new People (did you know a Jonas brother got married?!) and when I call my father to wish him Happy New Year, I will talk to him about it.

I didn't hear that song by The Waitresses this Christmas. Huh.

I chose that picture because it makes about as much sense as everything that's going on, lol.

Loneliness

2009-12-30T07:03:00.003-05:00

The Underwear Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was lonely.

According to the AP, he posted on line:

"i am in a situation where I do not have a friend, i have no one to speak too, no one to consult, no one to support me and i feel depressed and lonely."

Now, of course, that does not excuse trying to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. Still, I was struck by how Abdulmutallab and Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, both felt isolated, even though they were surrounded by classmates, co-workers, and mosques.

Since I've been feeling a little lonely myself this holiday season, I can relate. That's not to dismiss the people killed or who would have been killed by Hasan's and Abdulmutallab's actions. The media-pundit types were quick to ask why Abdulmutallab wasn't on a no-fly list, and whether or not he was connected to a terrorist group.

I wanna know, how can there be so many lonely folks in a world of billions? Honestly, if this guy was meaningfully engaged in life, actively working toward goals, connected with another human being in a mutually satisfying way, do you think he would have been susceptible to a terrorist group?

Sit by yourself long enough, without a sense of purpose, and your mind turns on itself and the absurd doesn't seem so absurd any more. (No, government people who read blogs searching for terrorists, I am not the one. I have depression, but I love my country and, most of all, my president, Barack Obama.) (Just want to put that in there.)

I know it sounds naive, but if Abdulmutallab had found himself a nice girl to pray with five times a day and, maybe, some Nigerian soccer buddies, all this could have been averted. The milk of human kindness really does feed the soul. I believe compassion would stop more would-be extremists than Joe Lieberman and his war of choice on Yemen.

Be nice to people. You never know when you might be foiling a terrorist plot.

China Executes a Mentally Ill Man

2009-12-29T16:51:00.003-05:00

Remember Akmal Shaikh, the mentally ill man who was being held by China for drug smuggling? The Chinese executed him on Tuesday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the Chinese for executing the first European in China in more than 50 years. Even though Chinese law "exempts from criminal responsibility someone unable to recognize or control his misconduct," the Chinese Supreme Court declared there wasn't sufficient evidence that Mr. Shaikh was mentally incompetent.

SMH.

King Tut of Pop

2009-12-28T16:22:00.004-05:00

That is not Michael Jackson. Can you believe it?

When I saw it, I said "Lord, won't they let that man rest." But it's not him; it's an Egyptian statue from 1550 B.C.

I musta missed this last summer.

Dreams From My Father

2009-12-27T09:24:00.006-05:00

Lately, I've been listening to a few memoirs on CD while I drive. I've listened to Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi; Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller; and actress Ellen Burstyn's Lessons On Becoming Myself.

All three women have issues with their mothers. But as the authors told their stories, it was easy to see that all three mothers were young women struggling with life and did not mean to hurt their daughters. Nafisi's mother was robbed of her inheritance by a stepmother and tricked into marrying a dying man; Fuller's mother was too distracted by the death of three children to properly love her surviving two daughters; and Burstyn's mother was a single mom during the Depression who went from man to man looking for security.

But when you're a little kid, you don't understand all that.

I never had those kinds of issues with my mother. Dr. Get-Get-Your-Head-Right is always trying to get me to examine my relationship with my mom and, whenever she does, I just repeat Alice Walker's psychiatrist's observation from Possessing the Secret of Joy:"Negro women can never be analyzed effectively because they can never bring themselves to blame their mothers." LOL. Whatever her faults, MaBelle never let me go a day —hell, a second —without letting me know I was loved and that she would do anything for me.

But my pops.

I don't know why, but something just clicked when he was talking about the racism he experienced in medical school. When I was little, my dad was either on the couch reading thick medical books or drunk. The man was always studying. I knew he was raised in a foster family of alcoholics who told him he wasn't shit, but it never occurred to me that the rest of the world was busy telling him the same thing.

On Christmas, my pops and his friend Kenny kept reminiscing about the day Kenny got the highest marks on a pathology exam. I'm thinking why would these two old men remember that little thing forty years later? And then my dad mentioned the sign —"19 and never any more." Kenny didn't just get the highest score; he beat out the white boys who didn't think he belonged there.

Kenny said when that happened, my dad picked him up from the university in a new Riviera, knocked back some Ten High in a flask, and announced haughtily, "My friend and I are going to celebrate."

The other story my pops' mind wandered to was when I was called a "cute little nigger baby" in a suburban grocery store. That occurred around the same time my dad was in medical school. I'd heard that story a thousand times, but never the "19 and never any more."

Huh. You live long enough, shit starts making sense.

Sorry for the long post.

P.S. I did stay with my Aunt BayBelle, so I hit all my familial obligations.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T14:45:00.007-05:00

That's my pops, chopping celery on Christmas Day. See where I get my giant forehead from?

He had a live tree for me; I'd never had a live tree before. My dad's good friend, Kenny, and Kenny's mom came over. I learned something I never knew.

My pops and Kenny were part of the largest group of African-Americans to attend SUNY Buffalo's medical school in the late sixties--19 Blacks altogether. Someone put up a sign "19 and never any more." They went to school every day with that ish up there telling them they couldn't make it.

And they made it anyway.

I Really Hate Christmas

2009-12-24T06:54:00.001-05:00

Oh, the family is acting up for the holidays and I haven't even crossed state lines yet.

Aunt BayBelle assumes that I will be staying with her, as I have from the time my mother could no longer live alone and after she died. My father, who was incarcerated up until six months before my mother's passing, believes that I will be staying with him. Both have cleaned their homes extensively, moved televisions next to beds for my pleasure, and bought foods thought to be my gustatory favorites.

BayBelle and Pops hate each other. Actually, I think BayBelle holds more of a grudge, as Belle women are wont to do, because of the way my father grubbed for money at my mothers death (there's always one). Pops is incorrigible, but he has prostate cancer and seems to be on his last...er...leg.

Making the choice to go to my aunt's house when my mother died caused a two year estrangement between me and my pops. But BayBelle has been like a second mother to me all my life and was there, doing what I could not do, when my mother died. And she's lonely. But so is my dad. Hell, so am I.

I can't even feel. This sure would be easier with a husband. Yeah, I said it. Someone to run interference and whose presence would make family act like they had some sense? Yeah. As it stands, it's just me and their 70 decades of baggage times two.

Me: "What about the Baby Jesus?!"

Sigh. I'm taking my beads and making earrings. That's all I know.

Grrr

2009-12-23T07:42:00.002-05:00

This annoyed me.

Nancy Grace was on (I wasn't watching it; I was teaching myself how to crimp a necklace and couldn't get up to change the channel). The woman who was filling in for Nancy was (still) talking about Tiger Woods and dismissed sexual addiction as the "easy way out."

I don't know and don't care if Tiger Woods has a sexual addiction. This isn't about Tiger. I'm annoyed by this idiot announcer-lady categorizing an actual mental illness as an excuse for bad behavior or weakness of character. Sexual addiction does exist.

The only difference between a freak and a sexual addict is the freak can say "no,"--as in, "No, I only have sex in public with my wife," or "No, I only enjoy the singular pleasure of butt plugs and mayonnaise with the father of my children." The sexual addict experiences sexual urges in an overpowering and compulsive way that causes a great deal of anxiety and makes life unbearable or leads to risky, hurtful behavior. The freak may sit in church, sing a hymn, and take communion. The sexual addict spends that same service trying not to expose himself to the usher board. There is a difference.

There is nothing easy about mental illness, whether it's a mood disorder or an addiction.

And Your Point Is...?

2009-12-22T07:31:00.002-05:00

Saw this on Wonkette.com.

There's a guy at my job from Ghana. He was telling me about a politician back in the Motherland who was very Obama-esque. To emphasize how extraordinary this politician was, my friend told me that both he and the politician were from the same tribe. "You don't understand," said my friend, "we are the ones who sold the slaves to whites."

As the descendant of those who were purchased, I had to cock my head. I could have got all up in arms, but I think it would have been lost on him. For him, it was a source of pride; his tribe vanquished the losers who wound up making the Middle Passage. He felt the way most teams feel after playing the Browns--like winners.

I dunno— was there something uniquely awful about American slavery? I think so. I think it was the only type of slavery where the owned were not thought of as human. You had little hope of freedom because wherever you went, you were Black and could be dragged from wherever you thought you might be free back to the South.

I could be wrong, but, historically, enslavement seemed to be an unfortunate station in life, not a condition of one's inherent inferiority. The Prophet Muhammad freed a slave and adopted him as a son. The Apostle Paul spread Christianity by saying there was no slave or free in Christ.

But the weak argument on this guy's t-shirt—"Hey, people with brown skin do it; so what was so bad about the Confederacy?"—irks the hell out of me. It excuses two hundred years of sticky American history. It allows all the Pat Robertsons and Rush Limbaughs to think whites came over here and made this country great all by their lonesome. And it causes brain cramps in some who don't understand how a man with African blood and Black features can be the (cute and awesome) leader of the free world.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-21T05:53:00.000-05:00

Church didn't go so well yesterday.

Since it's a metaphysical church and every other Sunday the pastor only talks about Jesus in the metaphorical sense, I was blindsided by a full on Christmas extravaganza. All the musicians and choir were in red and black. There were huge 9 ft tall Christmas trees all lit up around the pulpit. And, to top it off, service opened with two cherubic children singing that Charlie Brown staple, "Christmas Time Is Here,"--one of them in a wheel chair, no less!

I started crying, which sucked because I was wearing make-up, which tends to run down my face in black rivulets when I burst into tears. I decided to leave and I was in the narthex or whatever, when this really cute, available guy with job and car and no baby-mamas my pastor wants to introduce me to walked in. Awesome. I bet he can't wait to meet me now.

I sat in my car, smoking a cigarette, debating whether or not I should stay, when two of my friends walk by. I thought I could pull myself together (hopefully my period starts tomorrow and my insanity will make sense), so I went back in. "Angels We Have Heard on High" and "Joy to the World" and "We Three Kings" and I had to get the hell out of there.

I went home and went directly to bed.

This is the most awfullest time of the year when all the people you love are dead and you forgot to get married and have a family.

Happy Holidays.

I Am The Cat Whisperer

2009-12-20T07:44:00.003-05:00

There is peace in the valley! Now that Arturo's man parts have been removed, Fran is much more able to deal with him. Hmm...is that all it takes? LOL.

For real though, Artie has cost me about $350. All the cats I've ever had, I've gotten them already fixed and vaccinated and such. Artie came to me raw.

I remember just a week ago, when I was debating whether or not to take the furry feline, I was standing in PlayBelle's mother's kitchen, watching Artie and his sister chow down.

"Look at her," PlayBelle's mother shook her head. "Greedy. Just greedy."

First of all, the "her" was a "him." Second of all, Artie wasn't greedy; he had worms! (de-worming=$60). He kept eating because he was being starved from the inside. It's not like the cat set out to eat her out of house and home.

In addition to worms, Artie had somehow manage to rip a nail off and get an infection (antibiotics=$50). I'm supposed to shoot some more antibiotical goo down his throat for the next two days. I'ma make PlayBelle come over and hold him down.

On the way home from the vet's, Artie let everything that could come out of a cat come out in his carrier. I was in Wal-Mart getting kitty litter when it happened. I got stuck behind this woman with 20 items in a ten item express lane who was trying to buy wine with a welfare debit card. You can't do that. When I got to the car, I opened the door and...whew. Damn.

Cute kitty=priceless.

Fran: "Hmph. Cute kitty. Whatever. I was here being cute long before that flea bitten cross-dresser came. That's OK. I'ma just chill with O magazine. If you need me, I'll be living my best nine lives."

Dating

2009-12-18T07:00:00.004-05:00

PlayBelle is dating a fella. They've been dating a year. He seemed nice enough. But he's got some problems.

One of PlayBelle's co-workers was fired, so a bunch of people from her job went out with the fired girl to make her feel better. PlayBelle called her beau when she got home. The beau told her she should be home by 11:45 on week nights and 12:30 on weekends if she was not with him.

There is also another young man who likes PlayBelle on her job. The beau knows this and told PlayBelle if he ever caught her cheating on him, he would kill her. No, he amended his threat, he would kill the young man and make her watch.

STOP. HALT. DESIST.

I'm old enough to see where this is going. You take someone like PlayBelle who's hungry for love and sees controlling behavior as genuine affection and you've got a cycle of abuse.

I could take this as the idle threats of someone barely out of his teens. But I'm thinking of Johanna Orozco (pictured above), a Cleveland teen who survived a shot in the face by her teenaged boyfriend when she tried to leave him.

I wish for PlayBelle what I wish for myself: the ability to recognize and receive good, healthy love. But as bell hooks says in her book All About Love: New Visions:

"An overwhelming majority of us come from dysfunctional families where we were shamed, verbally and/or physically abused, and emotionally neglected, even as we were also taught to believe that we were loved."

To understand and embrace love in its true form would create cognitive dissonance; we'd have to accept that what Big Mama'nem did wasn't always love. We'd have to begin a process of introspection, forgiveness, and healing to align our notion of genuine love and what we received growing up. Most of us don't have the mental fortitude to do that on our own.

Maybe I haven't given up on love--real love. That would be like giving up on God.

I'm just waiting for love to show up strong for everybody.

Happily Ever After

2009-12-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

Oh. Look.

A new study led by New Zealand psychologist Kate Scott says marriage reduces risks of depression and anxiety.

Well. Isn't that special.

Getting married, as opposed to ~~dark, lonely spinsterhood~~ not getting married, was found to be good for both genders, not just women as previously thought.

But it appears it's not better to love and lost than to have never loved at all. The end of a marriage--whether separation, divorce, or death--increases the risk of mental disorders, with women hitting the bottle and men sinking into a deep funk.

Excuse me--my cats are calling.

At the High School

2009-12-16T07:24:00.002-05:00

My bad, I feel like Nelson Mandela trying to rule after apartheid with these two cats, lol.

Which reminds me, I finished listening to Mandela's autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, a few days ago. Mandela tells a story that occurred years before his imprisonment, when he was getting on a plane to attend a conference of African nations seeking freedom. Mandela walked by the cockpit and saw a Black pilot. I just knew Mandela was going to talk about the pride he felt at seeing a Black man in a position that required such skill, or something like that.

Mandela said he panicked, because his first thought was, "Can't no Black man fly a plane! Where the white people at?!" Then he checked himself and marveled at how deeply the apartheid mindset had gotten into his psyche.

I thought, Dag, if even Nelson Mandela had to struggle to free his mind, how the hell are these nuckas in Cleveland gonna do it?

I went and did that Cleveland Goes to College stuff I did last spring at a local high school. Only, I didn't do a presentation. I asked the guidance counsellors to get me 10-15 kids who really want to go to college and let me talk with them.

The guy running the program asked me why I didn't do a larger presentation, 60-75 kids. Whoever's in charge of this program seems to think if a bunch of Black and Latino graduates from Harvard and Yale show up, say "Study hard" and "Yes, you can!" these kids are going to magically get into college--despite their grades, course selection, ACT/SAT scores, and parents who have not saved any money for them to go to school.

I asked each kid what they would do if they had $6 million and a passport. My next question was what did they want to do after high school, and then a final question to see if the path they chose after high school would make their fantasy attainable (it sounded like a good idea in the car on the way over.)

Only one girl said somewhere not in the U.S. (she was Muslim and she said she'd go to India. You go, girl!). The CEO of schools or whatever he's called wants this program to encourage Black children to go to school out of state. How are they gonna go to school out of state when they can't leave the country in their wildest dreams?

These kids are bright and funny and interesting. I'm hoping talking to them, asking about their hopes and fears, and coming back more than a 30 minute presentation can open their reality wide enough for their dreams.

Meet Arturo!

2009-12-14T06:00:00.006-05:00

Meet the newest member of my family!

That's right, I'm just 10 cats and no man away from being a cat lady, LOL. PlayBelle and I were selling earrings yesterday and we stopped by her house. Her moms gave me some grapefruits, the "2012" bootleg, and a cat.

I thought you could just put two cats together and they'd get on like a house on fire. Fran, my eldest, don't play. We held the two cats up to meet cute and Fran straight hissed and bared claws. I figured, too, the cat could use Fran's litter box —not. I was running around Cleveland at 11:30pm looking for kitty litter and a box after an unfortunate accident.

Also, PlayBelle had assumed the cat was a girl and named her Diamond. Upon closer examination, we discovered she is a he. I shall call him Arturo. (That is, if I ever see him again. Fran got him shook and he's hiding. )

PlayBelle's fam isn't exactly the ASPCA; they had a dog once and when they didn't want him anymore, they drove out to the suburbs and let him go. They had put Arturo and his sister out but the cats wouldn't leave the backyard. So, I consider it a rescue of sorts. PlayBelle is attached to Artie's sister, Puss-n-Boots, so I think she'll make it.

Coincidentally, I did ask for prayer at church yesterday and specifically requested male companionship. Ha, ha, very funny God.

Any tips on integrating a new cat would be much appreciated.

The Jackson Family Dynasty

2009-12-13T21:19:00.004-05:00

I'm watching the Jacksons: A Family Dynasty on A&E. Some questions are running through my mind.

1) Did the Jackson's marry anybody Black? I'm looking at the offspring and cousins at a picnic and it looks like the Garcia family reunion. Not that anything's wrong with that. I'm just saying.

2) Is Jermaine's hair painted on? Remember that hair product that was supposed to be sprayed on to cover bald spots? That's what it looks like he has all around his head. Then, it's, like, laminated.

3) Who'da thunk Tito would grow up to be the normal, well-spoken, together one? He looks like Joe Jackson and Tracy Morgan's illegitimate love child.

4) Who'da thunk Marlon would be the one to go to Africa to find his roots ("ruts" as Tito called them)?

5) They keep talking about not feeling the "magic." They know that magic was Michael, right?

6) Wow, they have 40 year old beefs. Crying over stuff that was in the TV movie. Don't they talk?

Nancy is Not Normal

2009-12-12T07:25:00.002-05:00

I'm not a licensed therapist? But I think Nancy Grace is bi-polar.

I've been watching her all week because she is on the Tiger Woods brouhaha. Oh, Nancy is mad; so mad you'd think Tiger cheated on her. She worked herself into a free-floating rage by by recapping the story each night. About Tuesday, she focused her anger on the point that Tiger was not tested for drugs and alcohol after his low-speed crash. By Wednesday, she had elevated Elin to the ranks of Heidi Klum and Giselle, saying she was an international supermodel and fixated on how a man could cheat on such a beautiful woman.

But what really intrigued me was the whiplash I got whenever Grace would do a "Whatever- Happened-to-Baby-Jane"-like switch into a soft coo or respectful purr when callers asked about her twins (Lucy and John David) or she honored a soldier who was killed in action. Then, BAM, it was back to that snarling, bug-eyed, nostril-flared, raw-meat deranged rant about Tiger. Or a missing child. Or a husband who may or may not have killed his wife in Utah.

Now, if you met Nancy Grace on a date, or if she worked in your office, you'd be calling her all kinds of crazy and avoiding her at every turn. But I think the media has transformed dysfunctional behavior into entertainment. On a reality shows, it's always the person who turns over the table or pulls off a wig who's the most popular.

That's all well and good, but what happens is we become inured to dysfunctional behavior in real life. And when the people around us are acting out with cries for help, we don't notice, because we saw it on T.V., so it must be normal.

SMH.

Bury Me In Obama's Head

2009-12-12T01:24:00.003-05:00

This is where I want my ashes stored--in an Obama Head Urn!

PlayBelle will keep it on her mantle and always remember the way I guided her to...er...vote.