Thanksgiviing Redux

If only I had found this last week.
Talk about turkeys!

Thelonious Monk In Berlin 1973

Listens so easy.

Thelonious Monk - Blue Monk - Oslo, April 1966

Here is some more Jazz from YouTube.
Enjoy

Awesome video performance...must see!

Cirque de Soleil.....
This is amazing!It is a bit long but worth every second.

jerome murat
Uploaded by segalier

Feeling kinda blue

Tuesday and the rain is falling,
not hard, but just enough.
No sunshine, no warmth, no kidding...

Tuesday and the sky is falling,
hit me smack on the head.
No kidding, no sunshine, no warmth...

Tuesday and my spirit is falling,
I watched it slip away.
No warmth, no kidding, no sunshine


How does the song go?

"There ain't no sunshine when your gone"

That's it for today........

Jazz

Enjoy

Time ( like rust ) never sleeps

I would love for time to just stop, not forever just when I am enjoying myself. I rarely enjoy things these days. So when I can I do with all my heart and soul. Life can be a harsh task master yet life also holds some amazing surprises. We should just enjoy the great things and try not to let the crap burden us for too long a time.
Time may be on my side but time is not fair.
I seem to have lost my point here so I am just going to take a time out.

Tick... Tick... Tick

The count really starts. Is that ticking I hear?

I hope you all have peaceful holidays. It's always a challenge. It's not about the stuff, it's about each other.

Black Friday

What has become of the spirit of holidays? It seems lately each holiday is just a reason to start shopping for the next. Have we forgotten what the holiday is all about? I sometimes forget. Sometimes it just feels like a bother, everyone wants something else and find inf a consensus of what to do is impossible. What ever happened to celebrating with family?
I love my extended family but would it be too much to ask to spend time with the immediate family. Spouses, kids, pets, we all have phones why don't we use them.
Black Friday indeed, I'm depressed, I wonder how many others are also.

Thanksgiving

After the feast is over and we are all complaining about how much we just ate, remember all you have to be thankful for.
For me it is family, friends and the fact that I am still here, healthy and not too feeble minded.



Happy Thanksgiving

The Humanity of it all

Once again weekends are a time of high crisis with those we serve, police were called, staff were hurt and yet staff did what they could to maintain safety. I think that sometimes management does not use their head when it comes to the combination of staff working. Per Diem's and float staff with a regular unit staff is a recipe to disaster, and that is exactly what happened. Luckily the regular staff was able to get things back close to normal by 1:30 am. Moral is close to being non-existent and staff is near to exhausted. We walk around feeling traumatized
and not at all supported. I am not sure how long this can go on until the place falls apart completely.
We, unit staff, all are struggling with building good working relationships with each other and when we don't work on a regular basis it makes building relations close to impossible.
Diginity and respect is taking a beating between staff, some are frightened and others are close to burn out.

Planning

Nothing goes well unless there is some sort of plan. We have a plan for everything we do every minute of every day. We may not be conscience of the plan but believe me there is one. When We attempt to intervene with others we had better have a plan and that plan needs to be clearly communicated.
When I encounter a Behavioral Crisis I go to the team and figure out a plan to help the individual maintain Safety, by getting the persons input on what will help we have a much better chance of success. There is usually time to do this, but when there isn't then Safety is paramount. EVERYONE's safety! Trauma happens to each and everyone of us. We often look a those we serve but rarely look at ourselves or our co-workers.
Well I am looking. I have become vocal to co-workers and management on how I have been traumatized by the Behavioral Crisis on the Unit. I want to be part of the solution that will make our job safer for both those served and those I work with. I think the first step is to admit how I feel.

Trauma

I find it takes longer to recover emotionally from being traumatized. I feel sad and depressed a little longer, it takes longer to smile. Time is the thing that heals. When I am traumatized I feel as though I do not have time so I push this all inside when I know I need to talk about these things. What will I do for my emotional health? Why is it so hard to do things for oneself?
Here is where I seek out my friends. Smiling faces is a very good medicine, and I am going to get my prescription filled.
This sounds so hokey.

Dignity and Respect

Last night at work was very hard indeed. Some of the residents were struggling with safety issues and just could not maintain their safety. The entire shift was focused on these residents while the staff kept the program running at the same time. Nine residents did their best to maintain a positive attitude in the face of yelling and screaming and general trauma inflicting goings on. Staff once again stepped up and did their best to help those acting out with dignity and respect when those we serve were anything but dignified or respectful. Staff were hurt, staff and peers were re traumatized, it took a lot of work to deescalate the ones in behavioral crisis and also to ground those that were traumatized by the behaviors of their peers. The staff I work with continue to show creativity in how to help those not in crisis and compassion with those who are in crisis. Without compassionate co-workers this job would be a thing of the past. Building healthy working relationships with my co-workers is the only way to be able to do this job.
We, the staff, move forward after each crisis having learned a little more about those we serve yet more importantly we learn a little bit more about each other.
I am always reminded that there is a process and we have to trust that process.

we should never forget

Why I wear a poppy
Chris Corrigan
Parking lot

“We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy and the one facing what we do to the enemy.”
– Joseph Boyden, Three Day Road, p. 301

I wish I could find a more coherent way to talk about this, about the complex set of emotions I feel in wearing a poppy and believing in peace. .....

Rememberance Day is coming and I choose to remember the men and women that I am paying to fight in Afghanistan. I am not a friend of war, and especially not a friend of this one, and I desperately wish for these men and women that if they have to confront these two fronts that it be rather in the service of a better story than the one we are being told about terror. ....

I wear a poppy today to remember those that are caught in these conflicts - the innocents and those we pay - and to remember that when they come home we owe them wholeness and a responsibility to help them heal themselves from the wars that they fight, on both fronts.

Life is a circle, wait and everything will repeat itself

The Forgotten Wounded of Iraq
Ron Kovic
truthdig

I cannot help but wonder what it will be like for the young men and women wounded in Iraq. What will their homecoming be like? I feel close to them. Though many years separate us we are brothers and sisters. We have all been to the same place. For us in 1968 it was the Bronx veterans hospital paraplegic ward, overcrowded, understaffed, rats on the ward, a flood of memories and images, I can never forget; urine bags overflowing onto the floor. It seemed more like a slum than a hospital. Paralyzed men lying in their own excrement, pushing call buttons for aides who never came, wondering how our government could spend so much money (billions of dollars) on the most lethal, technologically advanced weaponry to kill and maim human beings but not be able to take care of its own wounded when they came home.

Will it be the same for them? Will they have to return to these same unspeakable conditions? Has any of it changed? I have heard that our government has already attempted to cut back millions in much needed funds for veterans hospitals-and this when thousands of wounded soldiers are returning from Iraq. Will they too be left abandoned and forgotten by a president and administration whose patriotic rhetoric does not match the needs of our wounded troops now returning? Do the American people, the president, the politicians, senators and congressmen who sent us to this war have any idea what it really means to lose an arm or a leg, to be paralyzed, to begin to cope with the psychological wounds of that war? Do they have any concept of the long-term effects of these injuries, how the struggles of the wounded are only now just beginning? How many will die young and never live out their lives because of all the stress and myriad of problems that come with sending young men and women into combat?

Veterans Day

Saturday is Veterans Day! If you know a Vet shake his or her hand and say "thanks", we are the home of the free because of these brave people. Keep our servicemen and servicewomen in your thoughts and your prayers.
Real life hero's each and everyone!

Sick

I have been sick and getting about has been hard but I was able to keep myself entertained. I sat at the computer and found this. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Smile a little smile

Sometimes you just come find something that breaks you up. This is one of those things. I would expect that hardcore star wars types hate this but it is wicked funny! Enjoy!!

Sick

I taught today in spite of feeling ill. I am teaching so much lately that I am beginning to feel like a teacher, but wait I am a teacher of sorts. Maybe I should say I am a role model of what I teach. Yes that is much more accurate. I feel strange sometimes when I try and help my co-workers realize that in order to deliver quality care to those we serve we must have good, healthy working relationships with not only those we serve but also with each other. The more I think about it the more I realize that healthy working relationships with my co-workers is the key to quality care. If we can not extend dignity and respect to each other how in the world are we going to show dignity and respect to those we serve?
Why is it we treat each other so badly? We watch each other struggle and yet we rarely reach out to help.
Those we serve witness this and no matter what we say, they understand non-verbals and body language very well. When our mouths say something but our actions say something else, those we serve listen to our deeds not our words.

Feeling kind of lonely

I have been feeling kind of lonely the last few days and sad. I found this clip and it brought a smile to my face and reminded me that I have friends who make me feel loved.
Sometimes it's not the words but the feelings that say it all.

What the world needs now........

Can you really say no to a hug!

Time...Is it really on my side?

If there is one thing that I have, it is time. I like that I have time but on the other hand time just keeps me waiting. What I truly want will take time and what I want to end will take time. See the problem here. Either way the only thing that seems to be constant is time.
People tell me that in time I will look back at this time and laugh. I don't think so but one never knows.

For now I live one day at a time.

As the song goes " time keeps on slipping , slipping, into the future"