Patrice's Blog

Since I work nights I only get to eat dinner at home 2 nights a week. I miss out on a lot of stuff that happens in the kitchen because of that.

Cassie has this odd thing that she does after we all eat and are sitting at the table watching tv. I really don’t know what she’s doing. She stands next to the patio door, gets under the curtain and nods her head up and down. At first we thought she was licking the curtain or her leg but after studying this carefully, she is just nodding her head. She does it most every night I am home.

Mark wasn’t paying much attention to it until I asked him if she does it every night. Well he doesn’t know. It certainly is a bizarre thing, but I’ve come to expect most anything from Giants.

This year, as Barack Ombama campaigned for the presidency, his promise of change was mentioned many times. I feel that many people heard that and voted for him because they wanted change.  People in this country are experiencing negative changes in their lives now. With a new president, they are hoping that the changes going forward will be positive.

I have had many changes in my life this year. It seems like every day there is a new change. I think, each day, that I can not bear to hear about another bad thing. And then the next day comes with yet another bad thing. How many days in a row can this happen to a person before they put up a mental “Occupied” sign?

Working in the television news business, I hear bad news all the time and I hear each story many times a day. How does this affect our ability to maintain compassion? When do we begin to feel numbness instead of outrage? Sometimes when I am listening to NPR report about terrible suffering in other countries, I feel overwhelmed. Without the ability to change the cause or relieve the suffering, I am at a loss about how I should really feel. In the end, I become ambivalent.

When Chance became ill in the early spring of 2007, I had no idea how sick he would become. Each day brought more negative changes. I was very motivated to do something to turn that around. I studied and learned what I needed to do. Today Chance has recovered from AIHA. So it is possible to make positive change happen.

Now I am faced with changes in him that signal he is getting older. He was on such high doses of prednisone for so long last year that it has inevitably changed his health. His back leg seems very unsteady at times. Other times he charges out the door and can trot along at a good pace for a very long time.  Will I be able to make a positive change this time or must I accept the inevitable?

My Father is ill and is facing his own negative changes. Once again, I am faced with deciding a course of action. Is it possible to gather yourself together enough to guide the person you most love on a trip that they are afraid to take?

Sociologists and psychologists say that how a person deals with change in their life defines them as a person. Resiliency is the ability to accept changes, especially those you cannot alter, and live with them well. I have to believe that some of that must be the ability to find distractions in your life that soothe your soul. How else can you reconcile the inability to effect change when you are surrounded by unalterable grimness?

I have been watching the HBO special series John Adams. The men that decided to form together and declare this country’s independance from England were convinced of their ability to make change. John Adams especially is portrayed as having an unaltering faith in his ability to bring this change about.  From what part of his soul did he pull this energy from? How was he able to continue in the face of such suffering of his countrymen?

I have a friend that I work with everyday who has motivated me in thousands of ways to always work harder and achieve more. Recently my friend has felt less optimistic about our future and I fear is losing enthusiasm for what we do.  It is disheartening to me that my fountain of encouragement is beginning to dwindle.  How can I deal with negative change if there is no one behind me to urge me onward?

Chance after a haircut. Doesn’t he look good?

Giants can be so different in personality. Our oldest Giant, Chance, has never been fond of fruits. When he was little he ate some apples pieces, but in general he turns his nose up at them.

Cassie, our girl, loves fruits. She can be upstairs fast asleep on the bed with Mark. If I open the fridge and take out an apple, you can hear her hit the floor in a second and boom boom boom down the stairs to have pieces of apple.

Today Mark was picking some raspberries in the garden and Cassie was there eating them right off the bushes! It really is so cute that I had to share it with you.

Mark and I visited Fort Ticonderoga July 5, 2008 for a special celebration (Day of Scots) to honor the fallen soldiers of The Battle of Carillon 250 years ago. The ceremony started at the fort with a march, led by bagpipes and fife and drum, to the battlefields in the woods.

There was a blessing, several speakers and a special speech by members of the Canadian Black Watch.  They said that the name Ticonderoga lives on at a desert base camp in Iraq named by the British unit.

The ceremony ended with a solitary bagpiper, dressed in full Black Watch dress, breaking from the group and playing as he walked away into the woods until we could no longer hear him.

Those of us who received red carnations were asked to lay them at the base of the Cairn.

Our family ancestors most likely came to the Lake George area to fight with the Highlanders of the 42nd Highland Regiment (Black Watch) for King George in the French and Indian War in the mid 1750’s. The Black Watch lost a substantial number of their regiment at the Battle of Carillon, around 50%. Despite outnumbering the French 4 to 1, the British lost over 1,900 British and Colonial troops. French losses were much smaller, around 440.