Visionary

“What’s this stuff on my glasses?”

I pulled them off and looked at the left lens. A crinkly, irregular halo starting about one-third of the way in from the edge caught the light in sparkles and rainbows. Now, I personally think rainbows are very cool and sparkles, well, in the right place sparkles are just the thing. But not on my glasses.

“Why is it just on the left lens? That’s my good eye.”

I admit neither eye could now be considered “good” but I’m particularly fond of the left one because it’s the one I use to focus with. Everyone has a dominant, focusing eye and mine is the left.

I learned this a long time ago. Mom said that mixed dominance and crossed dominance (she had distinctions for both but I glossed over that a bit) ran in our family. I’m right-handed, left-eyed and right-footed. My brother is left-handed with a tendency towards ambidexterity. The closest I come to that is that I have the urge to play guitar left-handed. This doesn’t come up much since I don’t actually play guitar. But when I’ve tried, it just seemed upside down to me. I wanted my “smart hand” on the strings and frets. This may be why I don’t play guitar but neither the world nor I have suffered any great loss here, I suspect.

One of the things that having my dominant side switch hemispheres of my brain has made easier was hitting a baseball. If you bat right-handed, you look at the pitcher over your left shoulder. If the eye closest to the pitcher is your focusing eye, well, it seems like something of an advantage. I think I had a moment when I was 14 when my eyes and my ability to swing a bat came together. Home runs and triples! It was a short-lived success and is buried rightfully in obscurity, burning out that summer as I grew up and older and everything seemed to shift out of place again.

It was no help at all when I was in summer camp being taught how to shoot a .22 short rifle at a paper target. I had the urge to stand on my head, swing my chin to an impossible angle, do anything to adjust to be able to sight the sights. Oddly enough, I was, again for a brief period one summer, a crack shot with a short .22. Even my brother was proud of me! I was fine when I was shooting at a black and white paper target; when it came to actual hunting, I wanted to take them all home as pets. Confused as to concept, I’m sure my father and brother thought. I did not go hunting with them. I’m glad. I don’t like killing things, except perhaps paper targets. That’s probably the source of our political differences today.

Still, having gurk on your glasses is not helpful when you rely on the things for everyday living, crack shot or not.

“Think that will wash off?” I rummaged for the glass cleaner. It’s got to be around here somewhere. It didn’t wash off.

“There’s some coating that’s coming off,” I groused to The Hubs, who looked amused at my running conversation with the glasses, the cleaner, the cats, the floor, himself.

“It’s worn out,” he said. “You need to use the other eye more to even out the wear.” This is his brand of humor.

I thought back to when I had purchased them. It must have been a couple of years ago. I had tried the fancy blended tri-focals once. After nearly throwing up in the grocery store and missing more than one step in a too-speedy descent, I had declared them evil and pernicious. I wanted to look down and far away and up and up close. The blended tri’s expect all downs to be close and all ups to be far. And you can’t put them on upside-down and have them work. Dissembling betrayal! I will not put up with nausea and danger. I decided to get a pair for close work and another for distance vision.

I do use the near vision glasses a lot more, so much more that I bought two pairs of them so that when I stepped on one or the cats had playfully skittered one under the bedside table, I would have the other pair at hand to find and perhaps fix the injured pair. I like reading, writing, cards, needlework, beading, little fiddly things. I drive every so often and seldom see a movie in the theatres.

“I can still see colors!” I protested when John asked where my distance glasses were. Besides, that friendly doctor who measured and puffed at and “now 3? Or 4?”’d my eyes the last time said that my distance vision was probably not too bad uncorrected. Of course if I wanted to read a street sign to find out where I was, that was a bit problematic. Monet and Van Gogh painted beautiful pictures but imprecise signage, if you get my drift.

Now my reading glasses, both pairs, were … what? Disintegrating? What was that sparkly stuff? Some coating coming off? But why was it doing this just on the left lens?

Rather than continue to contemplate the issue in detail, I made the only sane choice and made a vision appointment. I recognized the name of the doctor they set me up with, the same guy I’ve been seeing. I was glad. He might be the only person at Kaiser-Vallejo with a sense of humor lately, with the exception of the flu shot nurses. But then, when you’re in optometry, generally the worst people beef about is that things “look funny.” Usually that’s not life-threatening. So he can afford to be easy-going.

Of course, I do feel sorry for the life doctors and nurses have chosen, dealing with all those foul-tempered sick and hurt people all the time. As my friend Al, the retired urologist tells me, after a lifetime of checking under the hood with people, there’s nobody out there who looks like Elle McPherson. So much for dashed hopes, Al. May the airbrush be with you!

My whole theory on why our eyes go bad as we grow older is a Darwinian one. After all, when John and I take off our glasses, we look great, especially to each other. Those little sags and wrinkles and blemishes fade away into the Impressionist astigmatism of uncorrected vision. You look mah-vellous, dah-ling!

The Two of Swords in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is portrayed as a woman seated with her back to a great body of water, holding two swords crossed in front of her and wearing a blindfold. Generally, the idea is being of two minds, holding two opposing thoughts up (for as long as those little arms will hold those swords) to keep conflict at bay and trying to keep from “stepping in it” in the great sea of emotion behind her. In a way, it’s an opposite of the RWS Justice card that weighs things carefully with eyes open, not our “blind justice” of law, but clear-eyed decision-making. Of course, if you’re going to make a decision, it helps if you can see the choices, so our friend in the Two of Swords must at the very least take off her blindfold.

In my case, is 3 or 4 better? Now 5 or 6? Try 5 again? Now 6? And at the end, the Good Humor Optometrist shows the final results.

“Here’s what you have been seeing,” and the screen shows a muddy grey against lighter muddy greys, some curves, some straight lines, something I could almost make out with a furious squint and a good imagination.

“And here’s what you’ll see with your new glasses!”

Wow! And no sparklies. I really have to get my eyes tested more than once every five years. I drove myself home, confident that everyone was going to get off the sidewalk in time for me to come by. Just two weeks and I’ll be able to see perhaps even you!

Best wishes.

Pet Cards

I recently acquired a tarot deck for my collection called Tarot Cards for Cats illustrated by Kipling West. West’s cats look like pleasant, approachable and intelligent creatures. This got me thinking about my own cats and tarot. My cats are not always the storybook kind but there is a card for each of them.

Alice, a dramatically marked Maine Coon of the “fat crayon” variety and the biggest, toughest creature in the house, is extraverted and mild mannered despite her nickname "Alice Malice". Alice came to us one Christmas season when she wandered into a friend’s house during a party; the friend was highly allergic to cats, so her humans rescued everyone involved and brought her home. Alice's favorite toys are full boxes of tissues, Tinkertoys and her siblings who aren't as happy about being prey animals as Alice thinks. She is paws-down the Alpha Cat in the house and her reign is a relatively mild and optimistic one since her purpose in life is to luxuriate at all costs. She is fond of her spa time when her humans are in the shower and can be found spread out upon the bathmat. At nearly 25 lbs, she is an enthusiastic eater. Alice loves the cocker spaniel, giving him spontaneous hugs, baths and other nervously unrequited attentions. Alice is a catnip lover, a connoisseur of blends from exotic places. She is also a bird-lover, attracted to all things musical. In her own contribution to the musical world, she is the loudest snorer in the family, even snoring while awake at times. Often others will remark on the little flute-like noises she makes. She prefers to sleep at the top of the cat tower or, basically, anywhere she likes. She adores men, especially her male human, often alighting with delight (hers) in his lap. Alice is very best friends with the only male member of the cat cast, Tony, who approaches but cannot match her weight. Alice's dream is to be a spa resort spokesmodel and to lounge by the water; she would also enjoy learning to bowl. An 8-lb ball should be about right. Alice's card is the Queen of Pentacles.

Peepers, a pale Siamese-ish 9 lb “alley point" with striking blue eyes, is a shy girl prone to snooze in linen closets. She came to her home as a beach bunny from the Seal Beach Animal Shelter after her previous owner was unable to care for her. A cat of discriminating tastes, she bit the first interested prospective caretaker before surrendering herself into purrs in her current owner’s hands during the interview. She has become quite a lap-kitty in her maturity, a pleasant change from her originally self-imposed isolationist stance, but likely one of a practical nature as most laps in the house are warm. Peeps, as she is known within the family, seeks balance in life including retribution for wrongs done to others. A few years ago, when Binket was a kitten, the kitten squalled when she got stuck at the door. Peepers flew out of hiding and promptly beat the dickens out of the dog, an innocent bystander unjustly accused of abuse. To avoid further fallout from this traumatic incident, we have never told Peeps that it was in fact her male human who had made the baby cry. Peepers’ favorite toys are those which are sparkly and crackly, lightweight and easily lost. In her heart of hearts, Peepers would rather be an only cat of a quiet, elderly, dogless couple in a home with light-blocking window treatments and plenty of linen closets. One of her principal forms of communication is through her tail, which can assume the pose of a question mark when curious, can lash like a whip at the guilty and can point at right angles to an empty food dish to alert authorities to an imbalance in the distribution of resources. Peepers' card is Justice.

Eleanor a/k/a Ellie and Elly-Belly is a sensitive 5 lb touch-me-not with a very feminine long black and white tuxedo coat with no undercoat. She hails from the Benicia-Vallejo Humane Society. She is the most vocal of the five cats. There are several deep-seated reasons for this. One, her previous owners had her declawed and so, being defenseless, she screams at just about anything. If you are familiar with the Warner Bros cartoon character Pepe LePew and his very, very reluctant girlfriend, Ellie is that girlfriend. In spite of her declawed state, Ellie is voted most likely to slip out the door to explore the back yard although she is easily captured or convinced to return to the safety of the house. Two, whether it is her own kitty-psychology or some pheromone phenomenon, Ellie is the Omega Cat. All the other cats recognize her less-than-zero status and will either chase her until she screams or in rarer event drag her around like a well-loved teddy bear. Ellie loves the cocker spaniel also. However this love is spurned by the usually generous and patient dog who will at most greet her purring and rolling with a soft low rumble of warning to stop doing that before everyone is embarrassed. Ellie also adores her male human, usually standing solidly on his torso, kneading his tummy in ecstasy with her tail closest to his face. Last, and certainly not least, Ellie has the oft-remarked-upon habit of leaving a strong-scented “perfume” reminder on objects made of soft cloth or comfortable pillows in the night. For her consistent role of self-imposed victimization, Ellie’s card is the Eight of Swords.

Binket is a hardy 7 lb short-haired calico with an in-your-face temperament and no respect for authority. Dubbed “No No Bad Cat” by her ever-patient humans, she spent much of her youth trying to catch paper going into or coming out of personal printers and running up the antique quilt (now in shreds) which used to hang on the wall just to prove her cleverness. Binket came to us from a cat rescue group in southern California complete with a roaring case of ringworm which she shared with the entire family before all were cured. Despite her physical beauty and diminutive size, she is a ferocious gladiator in her plan for world dominance. Voted least likely to become a lap cat, Binket does have a soft side, one she views with obvious discomfort. Ellie is her favorite friend, due in large part to their immediate acknowledgement of dominance and submission. Binket relies on Ellie’s superior fashion sense and grooming while Ellie fawns over Binket’s talent for cruelty and torture. Binket and Ellie can often be found companionably snoozing in a large basket in a sunny window when Binket isn’t mopping up the floor with the ever-willing Ellie. Binket has a soft spot for any small puffy thing resembling a cotton ball usually called Puff Baby in various incarnations. She fancies herself a romance-thriller writer and will play out scenes where Puff Baby is in terrible danger, lost under a door perhaps, and in need of rescue. She is perhaps working out some of the trauma of her kittenhood having been rescued from the Boeing plant in her youth. And a romantic she is, for she adores without reservation the cocker spaniel, often cooing to him, rubbing herself on him and otherwise seducing the equally smitten yet polite dog with her charms. She and the dog are the inter-species scandal of the neighborhood. Binket’s dark side is most clearly demonstrated by harboring an intense hatred of the much larger, much slower and good-natured Tony. She expends much energy attempting to kill him. Formerly the Alpha Cat, she was forced to give way to the sheer weight and superior strength of Mighty Alice, but hatches plots daily to recoup her throne. For reasons that should be obvious, Binket’s card is The Devil.

Tony is an unsuspecting dark mackerel tabby of 15 lbs. Tony came to us from the Benicia-Vallejo Humane Society when his owner made a fateful side-trip on her way to a rugby game. Tony’s big heart and affectionate manner would melt even the heart of a rugby team owner. A lookalike for B. Kliban’s Cat, Tony has a smallish head with a smallish brain to match, green eyes (one of which has a stripe), a large pendulous butter-colored abdomen, small feet and a heart of gold. Curious about his unusual shape, more turtle-like than cat-like in some ways, his humans consulted specialists to make sure of his health. The vet pronounced him normal, if “funny looking,” and speculated that his parents were probably peculiarly shaped cats also. Tony is a lover, not a fighter. He is best pals with the cocker spaniel who recognizes his sincerity and gentleness and enjoys the company of Alice when she deigns to visit the northern borders of her realm. Because of Binket’s clear intent to murder Tony, he tends to stick to the safety of the north side of the house making his home in the bedroom, bathroom and office. He is fond of sleeping in soft round places like the muffin shaped pet beds or his person’s arms. He is always first to greet his person as she steps out of the shower, eager to reminisce to the scent of freshly washed hair. Tony’s favorite toys are his Stuart Little mouse and Mike Fink the Flat Mink, late of the fashion section of the Church Mouse Thrift Shop on the Plaza in Sonoma. He started out being an infielder, playing a great game of fetch with a soft ball (as opposed to a softball) but soon tired of the annoyance of having to bring the ball back. He is very much the companion cat, often jumping into laps and onto shoulders, assisting with paperback novels as they are being read, attending in the bathroom, coming when called and even placing items of jewelry in shoes so that they will not be lost for long. He is quiet, peace loving and down to earth by nature, his midsection preventing much climbing and exploring in the aerie reaches. Tony’s ambition is to sleep, eat and snuggle with his female human as much as possible. Some less charitable within the household might call him a “Mama’s Cat.” Tony’s card is the Page of Pentacles.

The cocker spaniel asked not to be named to protect his privacy. A rescue himself from the Furry Friends Rescue, we have only recently begun to deduce that he has been placed with us as part of the Federal Witness Protection Program since he refuses to have his picture taken or published. He is a gentleman of refined manner and obvious breeding who has taken great pains to be gracious to his ill-bred but well-meaning family. Negotiations with him for an exclusive interview are pending. Once those have been completed and approved, a profile and card will be published. Until then, eager readers, we must give him his cherished anonymity.

***

Please donate to the pet rescue group of your choice and, if you can, provide a forever home for a little someone special.

Best wishes.

Balancing the Scales

My husband just handed me a brownie. This is probably the last thing I need to eat. Alas, brownies are not the same when made with celery or other healthy things. They really are the best with chocolate and, in my opinion, nuts. I’m not picky though. I’ll eat brownies without nuts. I’ll eat them with whipped cream. I’ll eat them with ice cream. I’ll eat them with powdered sugar or chocolate icing. I’m an egalitarian brownie eater. And brownies are seldom a matter of need. If they were, I’m sure I would be deemed to have already eaten my lifetime quota.

And I was just thinking about weights and scales when he walked in too. Now I’m thinking about the one you step on. I don’t mind that scale so much except when they have it programmed to laugh or groan when you step on it. I think mine would make strangled little squeaks right now. I’m going to have to do something about that. Soon. After I finish this brownie anyway.

Several cards talk about aspects of balance, like the 2 of Coins being juggled in a day-to-day balance of your checkbook or keeping all the balls in the air sort of way. Or Temperance calmly pouring one cup into another, blending, mixing, balancing, evening, smoothing, soothing. But Justice has the scales on it that I had in mind today.

Justice is sometimes shown as Anubis weighing the heart against a feather. That tells part of a story, the part that presumes that the heart’s owner has a conscience that would actually weigh the heart down if it felt “heavy-hearted” with grief, remorse, guilt, or sorrow. But we are aware that there are those who perhaps ought to feel weighed down with remorse, in need of atonement, who do not feel the slightest burden of guilt. If you are so burdened, however, it will do you a world of good to do something to make up for it. If you aren’t, please turn yourself in to the nearest authorities so they can assist you.

It’s not an easy thing to do, to live without guilt over something, if blessed with a conscience at all. The decisions we make every day are not always easy. Paper or plastic? Was the paper bag made of trees that we need to stop cutting down so we can still have life forms that take our carbon dioxide and give off oxygen? Was the plastic made of oil that is limited by the number of little sea critters squashed between layers of rocks? Accept one, does an owl die? Accept another, does an oil spill kill a shoreline? Accept one or the other, who gets to keep their jobs? Being mindful is no easy task. Giving up on being mindful is cowardly.

Even the little hummingbird nesting among the thorns of a rosebush, sitting on the two eggs about to hatch has to make choices, to weigh the dangers against the benefits. A few minutes ago, the hummingbird chose to stay on the nest of two eggs while someone walked by, got into a car, started it and drove away. If you want to see the eggs hatching, better check this out fast: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hummingbird-nest-cam

*Note:  link updated because someone rude hacked the original link.

Even the nest itself is an example of balance. Leftover twigs, feathers, spider webs and leaves have to go somewhere. It sits perched in the new growth of the rose, anchored on thorns and stems, dappled in sunlight, swaying in the breeze. It is a balance of the softest of beds for new life and a sturdy foundation for the sometimes sudden landing of the parent bird, a fortress of string and feathers to protect and cushion new life.

One of the more satisfying aspects of Justice is that karma kickback that we hope our oppressors will get and we say, “Ah, what goes around comes around!” This is anything from rewards and punishments in an afterlife to my pagan buddies Kathy and Jeani saying that what you send out comes back at you many times the intensity. Both ideas are meant to say, “Please think about it and be mindful.”

So right now, Paul Brewer, wherever you are, I need to tell you that I’m really, really sorry I spit water clear across the classroom in 5th grade and hit you in the ear while Sister Goretti had her back turned. At the time, I confess, I got immense satisfaction out of the beauty of the arc of that stream of water as it went from the south wall to the north wall where you sat by the windows. I reveled in how you clapped your hand to your ear and the look of complete surprise on your face. I wriggled in satisfaction that I may have been the least likely candidate to have done such a thing. And I promise I’ll never do it again. Just so you know, while I was trying to qualify as a lifeguard in high school, I suffered my own water-borne affront that you never knew about. Three distinctly separate bathing suits fell apart while I wore them, one by one, in a single day in front of the local town lifeguard-god. Dive. Rip. Dive. Rip. Dive. And, you guessed it. Rip. I left the public pool in humiliation and never qualified for that lifeguard status.

The truth is that we don’t always get to see what’s on the other half of the scale or the timing of its landing there. And doesn’t it leave you hanging? Well, Paul, you need to know that karma kicked back.

So often we may consider ourselves the recipient of Justice, or not, that we forget about its other aspects. In the RWS tarot, unlike our model for the legal system, Justice is not blindfolded but sits above with scales and sword to achieve balance. The sword says the process of achieving that balance is a logical one, one that may or may not be in your subjective favor. The scales say that there is a corresponding side to everything. The scales are empty because, in my opinion, we don’t always know the whole story and probably aren’t meant to. Justice, on its throne of power and in its robes of authority, is a power greater than us, longer than our time frames, more important in the scheme of things than our needs and wants as individuals. And yet, Justice also echoes the Magician’s stance, with the sword of logic pointing upwards instead of the magic wand and the scales held in the downward hand. Justice’s “as above, so below” says we may send our thoughts and logic quickly, especially in a conflict, but the effect will always be a balancing out. Are we prepared to face the sword of truth and logic and let the scales balance objectively?

And finally, instead of being the recipients of Justice with a good outcome on our side, we have to think of ourselves as the dispensers of Justice too. How do we make the best decision when we know we don’t have all the facts? We must do so with all the responsibilities of a ruler, knowing the effects of the decision may set a precedent for things to come, knowing that the decision may be viewed by all. We may not see all the outcomes but we take our actions as fairly as possible. The scales, once balanced, are never fixed in place. Why? Because what’s behind the curtain draped between the pillars may someday reveal more evidence. And that could change everything.

I can’t help but think there is a Divine Sense of Humor that has made it possible for me to get a million well-meant but annoying chain emails in exchange for one overly optimistic greeting sent out. Have a SUPER nice day! Really. And now, I have a brownie to atone for.

Best wishes.