Images Photos

Oreo Cameo

Take a good long look at this cameo. Then read the title of today's blog again. Yes, that is the carved cream of an oreo cookie.

Here's another one, although I object on moral grounds to a non-chocolate cookie. These come from an artist named Judith G. Klausner, you can find more of her work below and on her website

We know moths are attracted to light bulbs, then again.

She can be a most interesting artist.

Flora Dentata (Tooth & Nail)

-made from fingernails and baby teeth

She has some other works with praying mantis and a series on toast embroidery. I personally liked the oreo series, more my taste so to speak.

Another Numerical Phenomenon

Tomorrow is September tenth two thousand and eleven, at thirteen minutes and fourteen seconds past noon tomorrow it will be:

9/10/11 12:13:14

Which has absolutely no significance other than it is mathematically cool; and I get to use the Homer Simpson clock.

And yes thinking ahead, later this year we will see 11/11/11 11:11:11 and next year we get to celebrate 12/12/12 12:12:12, ain't the internet wonderfully absurd 3.1416% of the time.

Pace and the Wisdom to Ignore It

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. -- Niels Bohr

I am not claiming to be an expert but perhaps simply the holder of some wisdom accumulated over time. Recently I was doing was long-distance skype counseling session and heard words from my client that I had heard several times before. Now it's not unusual for individuals to have similar issues in their life, as much as we yearn to be uniquely ourselves we do share common thoughts, desires and frustrations. In this case my client was in an almost identical situation to two previous clients.

This is one of my stories, it's not about any of the three clients and I am not going to disclose the exact life situation they shared. Just for clarity let's say they all had a similar scary nightmare when they were young.

There is a full decade between my current client and the previous one and another decade or more to the first time I was told about the 'nightmare' by a client, probably sometime in the late 80s. After the recent skype session I pondered just how differently I had reacted to those three so very similar situations.

My first experience happened during one of those 'kitchen sink' second sessions with a client. Sometimes after an introductory therapy session the client will spend the week thinking that they did not get all of their 'issues' out on the table, so in the second meeting they talk and talk about everything, just so the therapist has the whole picture of their life situation. When this happens the therapists has to spend a lot of time sorting and absorbing the client's words. Unfortunately, I did not give full weight to the 'nightmare' disclosure and that lack of therapeutic insight delayed the client's progress.

Ten or twelve years later, I picked up on the significance of the client's words as he said them but I also recognized he was not ready to pursue that particular aspect of his recovery. You see there is a therapeutic concept known as pace. If you push a client too soon or too hard they will shut down or run away; well that's the short version of pace. I was really into therapeutic pace back then. What? You didn't think therapists had strategies and styles?

Finally the most recent client. Again I knew exactly what was being said but I also knew this client was interested in progress - immediate progress. So I pushed back, when she resisted I pushed harder. Was I violating the client's pace? Possibly, but I am older and potentially wiser. On her third attempt at deflecting the conversation I said:

"Look we can talk about your boyfriend being distant or your boss being a dumb ass manager; but I thought you wanted to get to why you are unhappy and since you just told me exactly why, shall we talk about that?"

There are lots of responses you can get from a client, some good, some bad, some confusing and some confirming. She said:

"Remind me next time to see a therapist who can't see so easily into my soul."

Therapeutically speaking I've made most of the mistakes before and from those hopefully I've gain a modicum of wisdom, if not expertise.

[Situational aspects of these client interactions have been changed to protect the indentity of the clients. No animlals were harmed in the writing of this post.]

photo from National Geographic

That Time I Got Bit By a Fairy

Last week when Irene was blowing around the East Coast, I heard a news report about evacuations on the Carolina Outer Banks and I was reminded of my own evacuation from those same islands some forty years ago.

In the summer of 1971 I was traveling on the Eastern seaboard with the then love of my life. We were taking a car ferry to one of the islands off South Carolina. This was one of the remote islands, back then you had to boil your water when camping out there. We parked the car about midships and I headed for the restroom under the bridge. On my way back to the car the ship lurched and started to pull away from the dock, I was between the bumpers of two vans and decided that might be a dangerous place to be standing, so I stepped out into the space between the vans and our car.

What I discovered later was that the ferry was running behind schedule and the deckhand was drunk. So the captain gave a hurried sign to cast off from the auto dock and the deck hand missed it. The ferry started to pull away from the dock before the final chain (not rope but one inch diameter chain) was unhitched.

The end link of chain snapped under the thrust of the ferry, it opened up like a three pound horseshoe and was flung forward. It would have shot the entire length of the boat and splashed down harmlessly in the ocean had it not been for the right side of my head being in the way.

I went down against the side of the car, didn't quite lose consciousness but by the time the incident was brought to the captain's attention we were more than halfway to the island so we completed the trip, waited for cars to disembark and then made the run back to the mainland. About two hours later I was getting my neck stitched up with several South Carolina Ferry officials trying very hard not to say the word - liability.

I remind you this was 1971, which might lend some perspective to the doctor not giving my any pain meds nor mentioning the potential for swelling in my neck and throat. So at 2 a.m. I was in an emergency room fifty miles down the road getting an injection into my throat and medication for pain and soft tissue trauma.

Forty years ago, my crackerjack lawyer got my medical expenses reimbursed and the cost of three nights in a motel so I could recover in an air conditioned room. No damages, no pain & suffering, no negligence.

That time I got bit by a ferry.

Lips

You knew I wouldn't miss a Saturday image fest.

a lot of lips are associated with confections

color is another big accent

candy and color

sugar lips

painted lips

jewels, really?

Rainbow Lips

Tulips?

and, of course, Rocky Horror lips

Disconnected

Apologies for the disconnect this week. Comcast and Sprint have been unable to get my/their wonderful mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot device up and running. Six days and counting without internet access. Yes, I am experiencing withdrawal symptoms, the toughest part is having questions with no easy access answers via Google. Yesterday they promised a solution within 72 hours; unfortunately I heard that last Monday as well.

Until the day of cyber salvation . . . Ellie's Internet Cafe in Weed will have to resolve my abandonment issues.