Timber Valley SKP Park of Oregon, Inc

By Jackie Deal
(Blame Fred Prout, he started this!)

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s clouds illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.

Joni Mitchell was 23 in a black period of her life, one of many. She wrote the most famous song of her career “Both Sides Now” while flying and looking out the window at the clouds. Ironically, it was Judy Collins who first sang it and made it a hit. At such a young age, Joni was looking at love and life as we all have. Truly there was more illusion than reality when in our 20s we though we knew all about love and life. Remember those days? Were we wise enough to realize that we were peering up into the unknown? That what we thought was surety was an illusion?

In her 50s Joni rerecorded the song, some say that was her best: an adult look, down (back) on love and life. For many of us the 50s are but a memory. And now from our advanced, lofty perches we look down (back) and know it all!

You’ve seen real clouds from below and undoubtedly in a plane from above. But that’s really not the same experience as being IN the clouds. You can best experience that as I did, a quivering student pilot, alone in a tiny 2 passenger plane. One of the first things they teach you in flight school is: don’t fly into a cloud. No. No. Never! Well, Gee Whiz, I needed to stay in the flight pattern and land and that little white cloud was in my way. It..was..in.. my.. Way!

I flew into the cloud and suddenly there nothing but pure white. Pure, dazzling whiteness! There was no up or down, no side to side. No horizon. And without a horizon you don’t know if you’re up right or upside down. I flew micro seconds in pure terror and then popped out of the cloud into blissfully blue sky. Within that cloud: was it illusion? Or was it pure reality?

Perhaps you’ve experienced those times, perhaps too short, when you felt intensely alive. Reality? Or were they an illusion too? Psychologists tell that our “reality” is only what we perceive it to be. Your reality may be, and probably is, different from mine.

Look in the mirror. Whoa! That wrinkled, age spotted wizened apparition. That’s not me. That’s an illusion. When did I get to be 70-80-90? It didn’t happen gradually; it happened overnight. “I’m too young to be old and too old to be young”, (Thanks to Fannie Flagg in “Fried Green Tomatoes”).

Yes, the clouds are life, love, illusion, reality. But what does the mirror reflect? Clouds from up above, down below? Illusion? Or reality?

By Jackie Deal

“Just insert the syringe (no needle) into the corner of the cat’s mouth and squirt in the medicine.”

Amber has been prescribed an appetite stimulant one ml. twice a day. There’s no way to camouflage it like you do for a dog. Amber does not like people food, suspicious food, or anything different (that’s not counting lizard tails!). At the moment, Amber has quit eating and drinking and been vomiting. Hence, a hefty vet bill and now RX medicine.

What to do? Google it! I Google my name 3 times a day and the date 5 times a day just to keep them straight. I can Google. Ah So, Google claims it’s easy:
1. Wrap cat in towel to control
2. Turn head toward you
3. Insert syringe into corner of mouth and depress plunger
4. Give treats

Ah Hum! Has anybody cleared this with Amber? Where’s her signed consent form? Amber is the queen of: “I vant to be leff alone”. “Touch me only after completing request form B in triplicate and waiting 24 hours.”

Intrepid, I march forward. Got towel. Med’ in syringe. And T.r.e.a.t.s. Amber hears the Treats rattle and comes running. “Here, Amber, comecome. Treats!” Amber warily grabs the treat, her suspicion index rising. I throw the towel over her in one swift, professional maneuver (after all I was an RN). I wrap her up, turn her and….Swoosh, Squirm, Wiggle. She squirms out of the towel in 2 seconds flat and highly indignant struts across the room. She pirouettes, glares and gives me the evil eye. “Who in the blank, blank do you think you are? How dare you?”

Round one: Amber

We both withdraw to our corners. Amber grooms and I munch a protein bar mulling it over. Am I to be defeated by this little curvaceous fluff ball? (A little more streamlined since her hunger strike.)

**!! IDEA!!** This is an oral medication. She has finally licked at her Gravy Lover’s food. I swipe a few treats, tiptoe to her food dish and inject the medication into her cat food. I slink back to my corner. Amber glares and I eat a candy bar waiting for Round Two. At least one of us is eating.