There is a Real Nut on the Psych Ward

Working on a locked Psychiatric Unit has its benefits. You get to see a microcosm of life. Most of the patients are frequent fliers. They come in to dry out, detox, get their meds adjusted, find a drinking buddy or a new squeeze, score, get the cops off their backs etc. To most the ward is a place to relax and take a break from their crazy lives.

When a real crazy comes in it really upsets the therapeutic milieu. If the patients wanted chaos they could have stayed home. Case in point: take Annie Psycho who comes into a small hospital psych ward where the most excitement is a botched suicide attempt once a month. Annie is about 5' 10'' and weighs about 250 lbs. Annie comes into the dining room and collapses and throws her dress up over head revealing all, including a huge gall bladder scar. The rest of her shtick mainly consisted of throwing chairs and trays and sofas. Her best performance came when she wrested a cop's service revolver away from him as he was dropping off a new guest. Well, she shot the place up and then was tackled and hauled off to the Big-House. The next day gun safes where installed at the door to the unit. However, for the next few days there wasn't enough Thorazine, Valium or Haldol in the house to calm down our usual crazies.

This is the problem with the economy, we perceive that there is some real mental illness running our government. Until we start to see something that resembles sanity from the Feds we are all hiding under our desks waiting to see some semplance of normalcy. Capital has gone on strike, and it's not coming back out to the Day-Room until the real crazies are gone

Bo Versus The Dust-Mop

Bijon frise: Spray him with Endust and send him

under the bed.








Welsh Terrier; A noble breed that
dates back centuries to the Old English
Terrier and The Black & Tan Wire Haired
Fox Terrier. They are fearless hunters of
badger, foxes and rodents.

Bo Loves It When Women Fight Over Him

Bo has two groomers fighting over him. We have been getting him groomed where we board him. It is convenient because the kennel is about 300 yds. from our house. The problem is that the groomer there just can't seem to get his face and legs right. I have brought in pictures of how I think he should be cut, but all it seems to do discourage this girl who just loves our little Bo. I even cut out the face of the Welshie on the Purina One bag and brought it to her. It's not just the face (that she cuts like a poodle who walked into a fan), it's also his back legs. She trims his back legs so he looks like he's wearing those big fluffy chaps that Don Knott's wore in "The Shakieist Gun In The West." She also doesn't cut his hair short enough. Within three weeks he takes on his familiar Wookie appearance.

A month ago we met another groomer while walking Bo at the park. We are used to Bo getting compliments but she really liked Bo. In a few minutes the conversation turned to his ridiculous haircut. Turns out she is a groomer and invited us to try her out. She diplomatically says that he would look better if he wasn't groomed to look like a Bijon Frise. We tried her out and she was amazing.

So I bring the jaunty Mr. Bo to the boarding kennel before vacation and who do I run into but his old groomer. "Would you like me to cut Bo's hair while he's here?" So I get this guilty look and say "No that's ok." Well, when I go to pick Bo up two weeks later the kennel owner wants to talk to me in the office. I'm thinking did he bite somebody, steal another dog's food, what? No, the groomer is upset because we don't bring Bo to her anymore. He told me Bo's last grooming was done by someone else because she was off sick. Then he goes on to say that the original groomer takes pride in her work and wants to make us happy. Well, I fall back on my usual M.O. and say that Carol has the final say in our boy's appearance; after all her name is on the title.

Bo has a an appointment with his new stylist in a week. What should I do? Should I bring Bo to the other groomer after his cut and say "this is what I want you to do?" CP says screw the kennel groomer, I'll take him where I want! I guess she's right, she is his legal guardian. It's just that I'm the one that has to take the Little Prince to the kennel and run into his old groomer who looks like she's about to off herself; she loves the our little Bo-Man. It's just too much emotion over a dog's haircut.

I have patients that don't want me, but I don't care. Why is this upsetting me so much??

Packing Up-Heading Home

The Great Smoky Mountains summer divergence is winding down.

Some of the high points of the 12 days:

David's pork roast was worth selling your birthright for.
Marianne's organic vegetable cornucopia.
Discovering Mud Hole Tenn. Pop. 13.
Dick's cannonball tsunami.
Mary's Yarn Store quest.
Amy's Red Velvet Cheesecake.
Dick's Mobil-Economy Run on the Cherohala Skyway
Mud in the tires auto emergency.
Super-Nitrite glow stick hot-dogs.
Discovering an authentic Italian Cafe in Murphy, N.C.
Tellico Plains ice cream overdose.
Fishing, aka taking a nap with a stick.
Appalachian Dinner, "Dick, ask the other table if they are going to eat their fried chicken".
Blue Grass Music: I Need A Beer And An Explanation.
C.S. Lewis vs. Sigmund Freud Seminar
Guest lecturer Dr. DiQuattro.
Marianne's sleep lab.
Francis Schaffer's What Not To Wear During a Reformation.
Dick's ode to Central-Air with accompanying Fan Dance.
Mary's Cabbage Cook-Off.
Babba's Foot Fetish Fishes of Bald River Falls.
Cricket canoe mutiny.
Any feedback from fellow conferees to improve next year's session will be greatly appreciated!

Day # 9 in the Smokey Mtns

"Maybe I finally found it, way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again, be something I can be proud of, without having to fake it, be a fake human being."




It rains about three times a day. Muddy trails, bugs the size of Hot-Wheels cars, huge centipedes, mosquitoes that lick up 34% DEET. A yellow jacket stung me in the arm and now it feels like a piece of pork roast. I came across a deserted camp site today and managed to scavenge a can of Dinty-Moore stew. I have three more days and 27 miles to go, Grandma. I hope I can make it.

"Why Johnny Can't Preach"

Do you go to church while on vacation? Well, I do. My rationale to the family goes like this: "God doesn't take a vacation from us, so we shouldn't take a vacation from Him."

Now I lived in a vacation community for thirteen years. In the summer our church attendance would fall off by at least 20%. The pastor would say something like "our attendance is down today because many of our friends are traveling." Our little town of 2,000 would swell every summer weekend to about 4,000 with the arrival of the Lake People. I thought our attendance should soar by this influx of church-less people wanting to thank the Lord for the vacation He has blessed them with.

There are a lot of good reasons to seek out a church while on vacation. Your appearance at a different church will not be noted in your village newspaper as it would be if you tried this at home. It will be a chance to hear a new preacher; a sort of break from the menu you are used to.

We are here for our second year vacationing in the Smokey Mountains. Last year we found a small Baptist Church to attend (in North Carolina you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Baptist church). This church had a refreshing mix of young and old rural mountain people. The pastor was really nuanced and interesting and NRB (Not Regular Baptist). I'm always intrigued as to why Baptists always preface their church by saying we are not like a regular Baptist church. Somehow this cryptic description is understood by all.

We set off to church yesterday with the Dales and Dr. DiQuattro in tow. Somehow my "vacation from Jesus" spiel didn't work on Marianne. Babba's official endorsement was that the service promised to be pleasant and enjoyable. As soon I walked in I sensed trouble; the pastor wasn't greeting us at the door. Instead, a teenager with a behavior disorder looked at David, paused and then shouted out "Who are you??" David recovered seamlessly from this bizarre welcome and introduced himself. By then, he was listening for the sound of banjos.

My distress turned to panic when I read the bulletin and realized the youth pastor was preaching and that the fellow I like was probably somewhere fishing for trout along with the other half of the congregation. It's not that I dislike youth pastors, it's that I had seen this fellow do the childrens' message before. Last year I watched in horror as this fellow lined up the front row with a dozen children and proceeded to teach about mortification of the physical body. These little tykes were forced to listen to a detailed description of how the human body decomposes in the ground. Now, I thought it was a bizarre children's message, but I figured this guy was just some pinch-hitting church member. So I was shocked to realize he was the youth pastor and we were probably going to hear him preach instead instead of the real pastor (where is the visiting missionary when you need one).

After watching a film about VBS, which was too dark to see, the little ones were marched up front for a 20 minute message about the vastness of the universe. The pre-schoolers glazed over as he described how long it would take to drive your car to Pluto (I thought Pluto lost it's planet status a few years back). With every interplanetary trip-tic he reminds the children that by the time they get there they would be dead. The only ridiculous bit of celestial trivia he left out was how many golf balls could fit in the sun.

My hopes lifted when he announced that it's five minutes to noon and he would have to move quickly through his message. He lied. He preached from Isaiah chapter 40 for half an hour. When he finished I couldn't remember a thing he said, but somehow I felt like a "booger in God's nose." I looked over and David was slumped over with his head in his hands mumbling something that sounded to me like "take me now Lord ." Mary was text messaging. I was making faces at the toddler sitting in front of me, and Carol was reading the hymnal. Finally, it was over. The choir director's wife's face said it all as she invited us to come again. We walk out into a monsoon rain.

I start apologizing before we're out of the parking lot. I don't know why I feel so bad; it's not like I picked out a lousy restaurant. Perhaps I feel bad because the Doctor of Philosophy had to experience this theological equivalent to Water-boarding.

Babba's Summer of Love Harmonic Divergence

Babba is off for his 2 weeks in the woods of western N.C. No phone, no e-mail, no patients, no GPS, no computer, no television, no radio, no Obama. Just my sleeping bag, tent, compass and 357magnum.

CP is on her way to her vacation home with air-conditioning, wireless, cable, jacuzzi, gas grill, five novels, the complete set of Jane Austin novels on DVD, two lap-tops, i-Pod touch, Kindle Reader, knitting, crocheting, aroma therapy candles and 38-Special.

Soon And Very Soon

Soon all three will be reunited.

I Hate Mental Illness Exploitation Films

Hollywood has done to the mentally ill what it did to the Native American, reduced them to a caricature. My numero uno Hollywood mental health zombie film is "The Other Sister". You can't take enough drugs to prepare you for this P.C. yuppie fantasy about two mentally challenged young adults that fall in love and try to live as stumbling bumbling horny hobbits in their own apartment. I don't know why Hollywood feels the need to hyper-sexualize these people. Perhaps they think sex has some therapeutic value in restoring their serotonin levels. The Other Sister and her boyfriend are depicted as these stuttering, duck walking, perpetually grinning, clowns on crack. I'm watching "Mozart and the Whale" while I'm typing this. It's about two young adults with Aspergers Syndrome (aka Autism Spectrum Disorder). Obviously, the directors don't know anybody with mental illness. The characters are all bent out of shape and raving mad over things that a true Aspergarian wouldn't give a crap about. It's like they took a couple of yuppie neurotics and garnished them Autistic traits the way I pour mustard on a hot dog. Hollywood, please! Stop this cheap exploitation of the mentally ill. If the subject isn't really that commercial, don't take the cheap-shot with bad actors, vacuous plots and characters who shout instead of talk, waddle instead of walk, and actually care what someone else is thinking. I thought I had Aspergers-Lite but CP says I'm just rude.

It's not that Hollywood can't get it right, it's that they just don't care. Besides animated films, what does Hollywood do well at all? I can't wait to see Shrek hooking-up in his next sequel. In the past great movies about
mental illness have been made e.g. Beautiful Mind, Sling Blade, The Snake Pit, Girl Interrupted, Cuckoos Nest. Claire Danes did a great job portraying the real life autistic Temple Grandin who revolutionized the cattle industry. Mental Illness is illness, no matter how Hollywood tries to portray it as cute and quirky. All they accomplish with their lame attempts at sanitizing and disinfecting it is to create schlock that pisses me off. Where is my Lyrica?


Karl: Some folks call it a sling blade, I call it a Kaiser blade