Zorro thoughts / Grief, day three
Tuesday, May 17th, 2022 03:06 am( day three )
JM Straczynski talks about why the new Babylon 5 series is a reboot. (via ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker)
J. Michael Straczynski (straczynski):
"To those asking why not just do a continuation, for a network series like this, it can’t be done because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim.
How do you telling continuing story of our original Londo without the original Vir? Or G’Kar? How do you tell Sheridan’s story without Delenn? Or the story of B5 without Franklin? Garibaldi? Zack?"
Babylon 5 Actors/Actresses/Personnel Who Have Died
The list includes:
Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar)
Jeff Conaway (Zack Allen)
Jerry Doyle (Chief Michael Garibaldi)
Michael O'Hare (Commander Jeffrey Sinclair)
Mira Furlan (Minbari Ambassador Delenn)
Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin)
Stephen Furst (Vir Cotto)
Tim Choate (Zathras)
andrewducker)J. Michael Straczynski (
straczynski):"To those asking why not just do a continuation, for a network series like this, it can’t be done because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim.
How do you telling continuing story of our original Londo without the original Vir? Or G’Kar? How do you tell Sheridan’s story without Delenn? Or the story of B5 without Franklin? Garibaldi? Zack?"
Babylon 5 Actors/Actresses/Personnel Who Have Died
The list includes:
Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar)
Jeff Conaway (Zack Allen)
Jerry Doyle (Chief Michael Garibaldi)
Michael O'Hare (Commander Jeffrey Sinclair)
Mira Furlan (Minbari Ambassador Delenn)
Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin)
Stephen Furst (Vir Cotto)
Tim Choate (Zathras)
life, death, colors, smells
Tuesday, March 16th, 2021 06:04 pmflares of bright green growing ever larger
on the tips of the fig tree branches
bright yellows along the fence
and in the flower beds
i do not want to speak of the stray black cat
found dead under the wisteria bush
outside the fence
as i returned from my walk last week
the sky was colorful from the setting sun
the trees in the median were blooming white
the air smelled of pollen
as i walked, enjoying it,
and i planned to walk further
before I noticed that something black by the bush.
on the tips of the fig tree branches
bright yellows along the fence
and in the flower beds
i do not want to speak of the stray black cat
found dead under the wisteria bush
outside the fence
as i returned from my walk last week
the sky was colorful from the setting sun
the trees in the median were blooming white
the air smelled of pollen
as i walked, enjoying it,
and i planned to walk further
before I noticed that something black by the bush.
villanelle
Sunday, May 17th, 2020 02:17 amYesterday I found our little dog Serena in the back yard chewing on a bird. Not enough of it left to tell, but probably a fledgling.
While carrying the remainder on a shovel to the front yard for burial, I found a dead frog by the gate, its skin dried out. The dogs probably killed it too.
Per my notes, the last bird killed was actually 2 weeks ago, not a month as I had previously guessed. The squirrel was this Wednesday.
Me: She's turned into a murder machine.
Qiao, later: I have a new nickname for her: Villanelle.
.
I will get a bell to put on her collar.
I'm also considering one of these bright-colored collar attachments, though I'm not sure it will help: https://www.birdsbesafe.com/
In the meantime, she's on restriction. She gets hooked up to the tie-out cable when the doggy door is open.
.
Last week I cut down some of the saplings growing in the dry lakebed by the pier. Today I cut down a bunch more. They were turning into a thicket.
If I think about it, it seems like a useless endeavor. Unless the dam gets fixed and the lake becomes a lake again, they'll keep growing back. It seems even less likely now that the dam will get fixed anytime soon.
Three years ago when it was still a lake, there were a bunch of tall plants growing near our edge of it, growing high out of the water. When the lake level was lowered, I endeavored to pull a bunch of them out, thinking they would keep taking over otherwise. I suppose that ended up being useless, what with the lake being mostly gone now, and those plants as well as others still trying to take over.
If I let myself think about it, I feel bad for cutting down saplings, pulling out plants, killing things. But if I don't do it, the area will turn into a dense shaded wilderness.
If I don't let myself think about it, it is just another task to be done. Maybe that is what it is like for people who work in slaughterhouses.
.
It's probably not safe what I was doing, traipsing through the undergrowth. It seems a likely place for poisonous snakes to live. I only saw a snake skin though, nothing more. And I startled a cat, black and white.
.
This evening, Serena started barking at something from inside, so I hooked her up and opened the doggy door. A while later, Zorro started barking at something outside in her excited voice. I went to look. There was an opossum on the other side of the fence on the lake side, scared and unmoving.
I coaxed the dogs back inside and shut the door.
While carrying the remainder on a shovel to the front yard for burial, I found a dead frog by the gate, its skin dried out. The dogs probably killed it too.
Per my notes, the last bird killed was actually 2 weeks ago, not a month as I had previously guessed. The squirrel was this Wednesday.
Me: She's turned into a murder machine.
Qiao, later: I have a new nickname for her: Villanelle.
.
I will get a bell to put on her collar.
I'm also considering one of these bright-colored collar attachments, though I'm not sure it will help: https://www.birdsbesafe.com/
In the meantime, she's on restriction. She gets hooked up to the tie-out cable when the doggy door is open.
.
Last week I cut down some of the saplings growing in the dry lakebed by the pier. Today I cut down a bunch more. They were turning into a thicket.
If I think about it, it seems like a useless endeavor. Unless the dam gets fixed and the lake becomes a lake again, they'll keep growing back. It seems even less likely now that the dam will get fixed anytime soon.
Three years ago when it was still a lake, there were a bunch of tall plants growing near our edge of it, growing high out of the water. When the lake level was lowered, I endeavored to pull a bunch of them out, thinking they would keep taking over otherwise. I suppose that ended up being useless, what with the lake being mostly gone now, and those plants as well as others still trying to take over.
If I let myself think about it, I feel bad for cutting down saplings, pulling out plants, killing things. But if I don't do it, the area will turn into a dense shaded wilderness.
If I don't let myself think about it, it is just another task to be done. Maybe that is what it is like for people who work in slaughterhouses.
.
It's probably not safe what I was doing, traipsing through the undergrowth. It seems a likely place for poisonous snakes to live. I only saw a snake skin though, nothing more. And I startled a cat, black and white.
.
This evening, Serena started barking at something from inside, so I hooked her up and opened the doggy door. A while later, Zorro started barking at something outside in her excited voice. I went to look. There was an opossum on the other side of the fence on the lake side, scared and unmoving.
I coaxed the dogs back inside and shut the door.
macabre, rabies
Sunday, July 28th, 2019 01:28 amPose S2E3 was macabre. I wasn't at all expecting that from this show, even after glancing at the episode description beforehand, and doing a double-take. I'm having trouble getting it out of my mind (and mentioning it here in a post won't help that, but oh well).
I'm somewhat relieved that, as indicated at the above link, the show writers didn't come up with the plot-line totally out of the blue.
..
Rabies Kills Tens of Thousands Yearly. Vaccinating Dogs Could Stop It.
Reading that reminded me I meant to write about rabies a while back. This is macabre too, but I suppose one ought to be aware of it.
From Carolina Wildlife Center's Spring 2019 Newsletter:
Rabies Testing: Things Better Left Unsaid
CDC article on rabies :
That explains why there isn't a 10-day quarantine for them, as with dogs.
So to summarize, you should be very careful when interacting with raccoons, foxes, bats, and skunks, even young ones which appear to be orphaned or in distress. In trying to help them, if you happen to be bitten or scratched, it could likely end up with the animal being euthanized to undergo this mandatory rabies testing. (Or if you don't tell anyone, you could risk coming down with rabies yourself.)
I'm somewhat relieved that, as indicated at the above link, the show writers didn't come up with the plot-line totally out of the blue.
..
Rabies Kills Tens of Thousands Yearly. Vaccinating Dogs Could Stop It.
Reading that reminded me I meant to write about rabies a while back. This is macabre too, but I suppose one ought to be aware of it.
From Carolina Wildlife Center's Spring 2019 Newsletter:
When you interact with wildlife animals you may be putting their life in danger.
This is especially true of Rabies Vector animals such as raccoons, foxes, bats and skunks.
...
If you must handle the animal you should use heavy gloves to avoid scratches or bites and avoid contact with saliva in your eyes, nose, mouth and open wounds. All three can transmit the virus. We stress the importance of extreme caution because if you are scratched, bitten or contact saliva, the animal must be tested for rabies, whether suspected of infection or not. There is only one way to test for rabies and it requires euthanizing the animal. If a Rabies Vector animals tests positive and you were scratched, bitten or contacted saliva, you will need to have the post-exposure rabies treatment. This is expensive and very unpleasant. Worst of all, a healthy animal may have lost its life to ensure you will not lose yours.
Rabies Testing: Things Better Left Unsaid
For [non-Rabies-Vector] animals that have bitten a person, a 10-day quarantine is the usual way of determining if they have rabies. ... The logic behind the 10-day stretch that you pay for is that very, very few animals that are rabid and shedding virus in saliva will live past 10 days. If your dog bites you or someone else and survives for longer than 10 days, the chances that your dog was rabid at the time of the bite are essentially nil.
...
Sure, you don’t want your pet to get rabies, but the public health folks are more concerned with making sure your dog doesn’t catch rabies from a fox who was in the back yard and then passing it on to every kid in the neighborhood. Thus, the rabies vaccine was invented and has become the only legally mandated vaccine for pets; other vaccines, for diseases like parvo and distemper, are medically necessary for the pets but don’t play a role in public health.
...
When we euthanize a pet that has bitten someone recently, there is obviously no chance to see if the pet would survive the 10-day period. Using the example of the injured dog that has bitten her owner, if the dog has a broken back and the owner elects to euthanize, we don’t know if the dog was rabid when she bit her owner.
...
The only definitive way to determine if an animal had rabies is to examine the brain. This is impossible to do while alive. Blood and other ante-mortem (before death) tests are not reliable enough when a human life is on the line. This means cutting the head off and submitting it to a state lab for rabies testing. This testing is not optional if your pet is not currently vaccinated for rabies. If an unvaccinated animal bites a human and then either dies or is euthanized, the head must, by law, be submitted for testing.
CDC article on rabies :
Skunks, raccoons, foxes and bats that bite humans should be euthanized and tested as soon as possible. The length of time between rabies virus appearing in the saliva and onset of symptoms is unknown for these animals and holding them for observation is not acceptable.
That explains why there isn't a 10-day quarantine for them, as with dogs.
So to summarize, you should be very careful when interacting with raccoons, foxes, bats, and skunks, even young ones which appear to be orphaned or in distress. In trying to help them, if you happen to be bitten or scratched, it could likely end up with the animal being euthanized to undergo this mandatory rabies testing. (Or if you don't tell anyone, you could risk coming down with rabies yourself.)
A little bird, soft-looking yellow and grey feathers, dead on the ground. Apparently having hit the glass windows of the building at work. Its friends and family must be sad.
Headless carcasses in body-tight white plastic suits. No one else in the grocery store seems to think there's anything wrong with that. Glumness, walking through the aisles.
Baby don't walk yet but she sure crawls fast.
These dogs need a bath.
There are skies I've never seen, in the Southern hemisphere. Stars I've never seen.
"You sound like your mother." Ooh, insulting two people with one stone.
Headless carcasses in body-tight white plastic suits. No one else in the grocery store seems to think there's anything wrong with that. Glumness, walking through the aisles.
Baby don't walk yet but she sure crawls fast.
These dogs need a bath.
There are skies I've never seen, in the Southern hemisphere. Stars I've never seen.
"You sound like your mother." Ooh, insulting two people with one stone.
at least they didn't drag it into the house
Sunday, October 7th, 2018 05:02 pmOver at Q's place, a nasty stench in part of the backyard today. At first I thought it might be from the neighbor's garbage bin. There had been a bad smell last week (or was it the week before?) too, but this time it was even stronger. So I looked around in case it was a dead animal. Yep, a dead raccoon, badly decomposed already.
At first I thought it would be best to dig a hole to bury it, but after reading some web pages about how raccoons may have various diseases and infections, and considering the dogs, I decided that bagging it and putting it out with the garbage (as suggested online) would be best. So with Q's help, we double-bagged it, put it in a cardboard box, and put it in the garbage bin out by the street. Tomorrow is garbage day.
I wonder if the dogs killed it, or if it was sick and died on its own. I had checked along the fence last Saturday (looking for holes made by the dogs), and didn't notice it then. So either it wasn't the cause of the smell last week, or it died in the bushes, and the dogs dragged it to the fence since then. I checked our records, and the dogs are up to date on their distemper vaccinations, as well as rabies. Phew.
.
Serena got out of the yard again twice in the last few weeks. (After a good half year of no escapes.) Zorro has discovered that when she (somehow) untwists the wire ties which I used to attach the hex fence along the bottom of the chainlink fence, she can pull back the hex fence, giving her access to the 12" stakes and bricks in order to get them out of the way, and then she can push through the bottom of the chainlink fence. In the spot where she did this last week, I had to bend the thick metal fence wires back into their normal zig-zag pattern and *reweave* them to get them back to a semblance of fence-ness.
That was on the other side of the yard, not where the raccoon was. Zorro was out there last night again, barking at something.
Now I need to add more twist ties all along the fence, this time attaching them from the other side so that the ends of the twist tie wires will be *outside* where Zorro can't reach them as easily with her teeth.
At first I thought it would be best to dig a hole to bury it, but after reading some web pages about how raccoons may have various diseases and infections, and considering the dogs, I decided that bagging it and putting it out with the garbage (as suggested online) would be best. So with Q's help, we double-bagged it, put it in a cardboard box, and put it in the garbage bin out by the street. Tomorrow is garbage day.
I wonder if the dogs killed it, or if it was sick and died on its own. I had checked along the fence last Saturday (looking for holes made by the dogs), and didn't notice it then. So either it wasn't the cause of the smell last week, or it died in the bushes, and the dogs dragged it to the fence since then. I checked our records, and the dogs are up to date on their distemper vaccinations, as well as rabies. Phew.
.
Serena got out of the yard again twice in the last few weeks. (After a good half year of no escapes.) Zorro has discovered that when she (somehow) untwists the wire ties which I used to attach the hex fence along the bottom of the chainlink fence, she can pull back the hex fence, giving her access to the 12" stakes and bricks in order to get them out of the way, and then she can push through the bottom of the chainlink fence. In the spot where she did this last week, I had to bend the thick metal fence wires back into their normal zig-zag pattern and *reweave* them to get them back to a semblance of fence-ness.
That was on the other side of the yard, not where the raccoon was. Zorro was out there last night again, barking at something.
Now I need to add more twist ties all along the fence, this time attaching them from the other side so that the ends of the twist tie wires will be *outside* where Zorro can't reach them as easily with her teeth.
My aunt, whom it was I had gone to visit a few weeks ago, died this last week. She was 89. Two months ago, she had a stroke which left her partially paralyzed, bedridden, and no longer wanting to live. I am relieved for her sake that she did not end up slowly withering away for months or years in a nursing home bed. When she was in better health, she was an energetic, upbeat, and busy person.
So now, she is gone. Perhaps she is no more, perhaps she's in another realm, perhaps she is slumbering, waiting to be reborn, or perhaps her spirit has diffused and rejoined the great energy-spirit-magic-whatever of the universe. Or perhaps something else.
My aunt, whom I shall call K here, like the rest of that side of my family, came from the eastern part of Germany called Schlesien (Silesia). It is now (and was during various times in history) a part of Poland. She, like her father, was a dentist by trade. After WW2, most of the family fled west to avoid being under Soviet rule. But since K was a dentist, which was considered a valuable skill by the Soviet military, she was made to stay behind and work for them. After a while, she managed to leave too (I don't recall the story about how she got away), and rejoined the rest of my relatives in West Germany.
While I was a child living in Germany, I got to visit K fairly often. She travelled a lot, and we often went on trips together... within Germany, and to Spain, Bulgaria, Austria... Even when just visiting her at her home, she told me stories, and showed me photos and movies of her trips to even more faraway exotic places, like Indonesia and Africa. K was retired by the time I knew her, but she was always into various hobbies which kept her busy. She collected minerals and gemstones; she was into photography and developed her own photos... Later on, she became interested in painting, and was quite a good artist. She was the one who sparked my interest in cloth-painting. And maybe she sparked my interest in foreign languages, cultures, and places, too.
Here is one of K's photographs and some of her paintings...
( Read more... )
So now, she is gone. Perhaps she is no more, perhaps she's in another realm, perhaps she is slumbering, waiting to be reborn, or perhaps her spirit has diffused and rejoined the great energy-spirit-magic-whatever of the universe. Or perhaps something else.
My aunt, whom I shall call K here, like the rest of that side of my family, came from the eastern part of Germany called Schlesien (Silesia). It is now (and was during various times in history) a part of Poland. She, like her father, was a dentist by trade. After WW2, most of the family fled west to avoid being under Soviet rule. But since K was a dentist, which was considered a valuable skill by the Soviet military, she was made to stay behind and work for them. After a while, she managed to leave too (I don't recall the story about how she got away), and rejoined the rest of my relatives in West Germany.
While I was a child living in Germany, I got to visit K fairly often. She travelled a lot, and we often went on trips together... within Germany, and to Spain, Bulgaria, Austria... Even when just visiting her at her home, she told me stories, and showed me photos and movies of her trips to even more faraway exotic places, like Indonesia and Africa. K was retired by the time I knew her, but she was always into various hobbies which kept her busy. She collected minerals and gemstones; she was into photography and developed her own photos... Later on, she became interested in painting, and was quite a good artist. She was the one who sparked my interest in cloth-painting. And maybe she sparked my interest in foreign languages, cultures, and places, too.
Here is one of K's photographs and some of her paintings...
( Read more... )
I was telling myself "I love you" but didn't get the reaction I was going for...
You love me? (accusing/disbelieving)
*Why* do you love me?
You're just saying that because you're stuck here with me!
Why don't you put me out of my misery?!...
... See! You don't love me, you want me to be dead!
[...]
Just because I want you to be dead, doesn't mean I don't love you... It is because I do.
I want your pain to end.
I want you to have a happier life, and if that cannot happen here, then death makes sense.
I do love you.
Of course I do!
We are the same person; you know it is the truth.
I love me, I hate me...
is there any difference?
When I think "I hate me", what does it mean...
That I hate my existence, that I hate what I'm feeling...
that I hate everything. And I am at the source/the center of everything, so hating myself is the easiest way to say that I hate everything and want it to end.
It doesn't mean I don't love my own self...
It doesn't mean I want to be a different person.
I am a fun, interesting person
with wonderful words and thoughts (sometimes, at least).
It just gets so boring... so alone...
I *need*. And that kind of relationship is what I need.
Any other would not suffice.
When I cannot envision obtaining this, what I need, here,
then I want to die,
because perhaps in death I will find it.
Or perhaps in death, the need will disappear along with me.
But. At least this has given me hope.
That I might find what I need, here.
After all this time... something, finally. Someone, finally.
Who makes me *feel*. Even if he isn't going to touch me...
You love me? (accusing/disbelieving)
*Why* do you love me?
You're just saying that because you're stuck here with me!
Why don't you put me out of my misery?!...
... See! You don't love me, you want me to be dead!
[...]
Just because I want you to be dead, doesn't mean I don't love you... It is because I do.
I want your pain to end.
I want you to have a happier life, and if that cannot happen here, then death makes sense.
I do love you.
Of course I do!
We are the same person; you know it is the truth.
I love me, I hate me...
is there any difference?
When I think "I hate me", what does it mean...
That I hate my existence, that I hate what I'm feeling...
that I hate everything. And I am at the source/the center of everything, so hating myself is the easiest way to say that I hate everything and want it to end.
It doesn't mean I don't love my own self...
It doesn't mean I want to be a different person.
I am a fun, interesting person
with wonderful words and thoughts (sometimes, at least).
It just gets so boring... so alone...
I *need*. And that kind of relationship is what I need.
Any other would not suffice.
When I cannot envision obtaining this, what I need, here,
then I want to die,
because perhaps in death I will find it.
Or perhaps in death, the need will disappear along with me.
But. At least this has given me hope.
That I might find what I need, here.
After all this time... something, finally. Someone, finally.
Who makes me *feel*. Even if he isn't going to touch me...
