A note on Depression

So I haven't posted in forever and I'm in a Twitter room and the subject of Depression came up. So I pasted this write up here, so I could share with a few friends... Hope to write more soon... 

Lengthy post. A friend of mine posted this on her page. It's an analogy between Depression and Snow. After reading it, I was very impressed, but I realized my some of my friends don't know what plowing snow is like, so I modified it to rainstorms. The author is anonymous, so I'm hoping they don't mind my small change, as long as the message is passed along to keep dialogues open about Depression. Let's end the stigma of Mental Illness.

When you have depression it’s like it rains every day.
Some days it’s only a little bit. It’s a pain in the ass, but you still make it to work, the grocery store. Sure, maybe you skip the gym or your friend’s birthday party, but it IS still raining and who knows how bad it might get tonight. Probably better to just head home. Your friend notices, but probably just thinks you are flaky now, or kind of an asshole.
Some days it rains 4-6 inches You spend an hour waiting for it to let up, or get out your raincoat. Run to the car and get soaked, and are late to work. Your back hurts from almost slipping on the wet pavement and your clothes is damp all day. You leave early because it’s really coming down out there. Your boss notices.
Some days it’s a torrential downpour. You have to get sandbags onto your porch and you have towels at the ready in case it seeps into the house. You are not making it to work, or anywhere else for that matter. You are so damp and tired you just get back in the bed. By the time you wake up, your porch is flooded and the front foyer is sopping wet. Looks like your phone rang; people are wondering where you are. You don’t feel like calling them back, too tired from cleaning. Plus they don’t get this much rain at their house so they don’t understand why you’re still stuck at home. They just think you’re lazy or weak, although they rarely come out and say it.
Some weeks it’s a hurricane. When you open your door, it’s to smattering of wind, rain and possible tornados. The power flickers, then goes out. It’s too hot to sit in the living room anymore, so you get back into bed with as little clothes as possible. The stove and microwave won’t work so you eat a cold Pop Tart and call that dinner. You haven’t taken a shower in days, but how could you at this point? You’ve been soaked all week, and the water that comes out of the shower is now bitter cold. Better to just sleep.
Sometimes people get rain all season & when the hurricane hits, there’s no communication in or out. What can you even do, drive or walk for help with no power or gas? How far away is help? Can you even get there in a storm? If you do, can they even help you at this point? Maybe it’s death to stay here, but it’s death to go out there too.
The thing is, when it rains all the time, you get worn all the way down. You get tired of being damp. You get tired of cleaning up the puddles from the flood, but if you don’t clean every day, it builds up to something unmanageable on the heavy days. You resent the hell out of the rain, but it doesn’t care, it’s just a blind chemistry, an act of nature. It carries on regardless, unconcerned and unaware if it floods you or the whole world.
Also, the rain builds up in other areas, sometimes places you can’t even see. Maybe it’s on the roof. Maybe it’s in the garden behind the house. Sometimes, there’s a tornado that blows the house right off its foundation and takes you with it. A veritable Act of God, nothing can be done. The neighbors say it’s a shame and they can’t understand it; he was doing so well with managing the rising waters.
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I don’t know how it went down for Anthony Bourdain or Kate Spade. It seems like they got hit by the tornado, but it could’ve been the long, slow pitter patter of the rainy season. Maybe they were keeping up with the rising water. Maybe they weren’t. Sometimes, it isn’t enough anyway. It’s hard to tell from the outside, but it’s important to understand what it’s like from the inside.
I firmly believe that understanding and compassion have to be the base of effective action. It’s important to understand what depression is, how it feels, what it’s like to live with it, so you can help people both on an individual basis and a policy basis. I’m not putting heavy shit out here to make your Sunday evening suck. I know it feels gross to read it, and realistically it can be unpleasant to be around it, that’s why people pull away.
I don’t have a message for people with depression like “keep your head above water”. It’s asinine. Of course you’re going to do the best you can, until you physically can’t, because who wants their house flooded? We know what the stakes are. My message is to everyone else. Grab a fucking towel or some sand bags and help your neighbor.
Depression is blind chemistry and physics, like rain. And like the weather, it is a mindless process, powerful and unpredictable with great potential for harm. But like climate change, that doesn’t mean we are helpless. If we want to stop losing so many people to this disease, it will require action at every level.

Original post:
When you have depression it’s like it snows every day.Some days it’s only a couple of inches. It’s a pain in the ass, but you still make it to work, the grocery store. Sure, maybe you skip the gym or your friend’s birthday party, but it IS still snowing and who knows how bad it might get tonight. Probably better to just head home. Your friend notices, but probably just thinks you are flaky now, or kind of an asshole.
Some days it snows a foot. You spend an hour shoveling out your driveway and are late to work. Your back and hands hurt from shoveling. You leave early because it’s really coming down out there. Your boss notices.
Some days it snows four feet. You shovel all morning but your street never gets plowed. You are not making it to work, or anywhere else for that matter. You are so sore and tired you just get back in the bed. By the time you wake up, all your shoveling has filled back in with snow. Looks like your phone rang; people are wondering where you are. You don’t feel like calling them back, too tired from all the shoveling. Plus they don’t get this much snow at their house so they don’t understand why you’re still stuck at home. They just think you’re lazy or weak, although they rarely come out and say it.
Some weeks it’s a full-blown blizzard. When you open your door, it’s to a wall of snow. The power flickers, then goes out. It’s too cold to sit in the living room anymore, so you get back into bed with all your clothes on. The stove and microwave won’t work so you eat a cold Pop Tart and call that dinner. You haven’t taken a shower in three days, but how could you at this point? You’re too cold to do anything except sleep.
Sometimes people get snowed in for the winter. The cold seeps in. No communication in or out. The food runs out. What can you even do, tunnel out of a forty foot snow bank with your hands? How far away is help? Can you even get there in a blizzard? If you do, can they even help you at this point? Maybe it’s death to stay here, but it’s death to go out there too.
The thing is, when it snows all the time, you get worn all the way down. You get tired of being cold. You get tired of hurting all the time from shoveling, but if you don’t shovel on the light days, it builds up to something unmanageable on the heavy days. You resent the hell out of the snow, but it doesn’t care, it’s just a blind chemistry, an act of nature. It carries on regardless, unconcerned and unaware if it buries you or the whole world.
Also, the snow builds up in other areas, places you can’t shovel, sometimes places you can’t even see. Maybe it’s on the roof. Maybe it’s on the mountain behind the house. Sometimes, there’s an avalanche that blows the house right off its foundation and takes you with it. A veritable Act of God, nothing can be done. The neighbors say it’s a shame and they can’t understand it; he was doing so well with his shoveling.
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I don’t know how it went down for Anthony Bourdain or Kate Spade. It seems like they got hit by the avalanche, but it could’ve been the long, slow winter. Maybe they were keeping up with their shoveling. Maybe they weren’t. Sometimes, shoveling isn’t enough anyway. It’s hard to tell from the outside, but it’s important to understand what it’s like from the inside.
I firmly believe that understanding and compassion have to be the base of effective action. It’s important to understand what depression is, how it feels, what it’s like to live with it, so you can help people both on an individual basis and a policy basis. I’m not putting heavy shit out here to make your Sunday evening suck. I know it feels gross to read it, and realistically it can be unpleasant to be around it, that’s why people pull away.
I don’t have a message for people with depression like “keep shoveling”. It’s asinine. Of course you’re going to keep shoveling the best you can, until you physically can’t, because who wants to freeze to death inside their own house? We know what the stakes are. My message is to everyone else. Grab a fucking shovel and help your neighbor. Slap a mini snow plow on the front of your truck and plow your neighborhood. Petition the city council to buy more salt trucks, so to speak.
Depression is blind chemistry and physics, like snow. And like the weather, it is a mindless process, powerful and unpredictable with great potential for harm. But like climate change, that doesn’t mean we are helpless. If we want to stop losing so many people to this disease, it will require action at every level.

Who will pick the Tomatoes?

I want to start by saying I am not endorsing any GOP Candidate as of right now. I like what Marco Rubio and Ben Carson have to say, but I'm looking for a little more maturity from Rubio and a little more experience from Carson. I like a few others, but I'll leave it at that.

My question is directed at the Illegal Immigration plan that Mr Trump has come up with. I'm not going to say I like or I hate the plan. I think it has flaws. I think it's a good first idea, but there is no way he will be able to deport 11M illegal immigrants with a wave of his wand. My question is simple. Who will pick the tomatoes?

Now, at first glance, it seems like a stereotypical crude question. I understand that. I'm not saying only Mexicans work the fields.. At all. But I will say that in South Florida, 95% of the immigrant farm workers are of Mexican descent, albeit legal or illegal. They are hard-working and while, yes, there's crime, there's no more crime than say in Houston, where a criminal (who is a US Citizen) shot a police officer 15 times, for being a police officer.

So, I ask the question again with a little more depth: Who will work the fields that have been slaved over (YES SLAVED OVER) by these hard working individuals? I have spoken to a few of them and they receive a pittance for working from sun-up to sun-down. Someone will have to do it. Mr Trump claims that the Mexicans and other "illegals" have taken our jobs. Who wants that job?

I personally have a family member (that will remain nameless) who was out of work for 3 years because he didn't want to demean himself at working at a McDonald's. This is the type of lazy sons of bitches (women and men the same) that we have living here. Entitled people that feel the government owes them, rather than stoop to work at a McDonald's, much less a farm picking bushels of tomatoes at $4.00/barrel.

As I said at the beginning, I think Trump's plan has too many flaws. I think everyone can be interviewed and everyone should have a fair chance of staying here if there purpose is to work. Jobs are created at the social worker level and real people that can add to our society can start to fend for themselves. Of course there are thugs that only come here to take advantage of our society. That is everywhere, and oh, by the way, some of those people are citizens too. I really do believe you can't judge the actions of three criminals in a sea of 11M.

Being from Florida and there being such a melting pot of individuals here, it's difficult to be on board with what Trump is talking about. My own family left Cuba through Mexico and my mother had to stay behind in Mex City for a year before crossing the border (at first illegally, but being from Cuba and different times... etc) I think there is room for the right people. People willing to work. People willing to contribute. If not, then why does the Statue of Liberty have an inscription which reads:
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

That leads me to believe that everyone is welcome until they do something to warrant being unwelcome. I'm the proud daughter of Cuban immigrants that fought with every fiber in their being to be in this greatest of countries. I never forget my heritage and I'm proud to be an American. Everyone worthy should have the opportunity to feel that pride.

Finding Time to write

It seems these days, finding time to write is a luxury. At least, that is what I tell myself. I'm too busy, I have a lot going on, I'm doing stuff, rather than writing about it. Well, it is all BULLSHIT.

Sitting down at the computer after a day of being on the PC at work seems like a chore. I am barely on social media anymore. Facebook has become a world of political opinionists, dramatic friends that overshare, and a deluge of horrific stories from the news channels on subjects and people that I would NEVER associate with. Reading Facebook at the end of the day is an exercise in blocking people and editing my news feed or scrolling practice. It's not fun

My focus these days has been guilty TV (I'm really getting into the X-Files), remodeling my mother-in-law's (soon to be our NEW) house, and trying the healthy eating-working out route. Some is working, some is failing, but we are pushing for a strong finish. More soon.. I'll MAKE TIME

Christmas Eve - a good time for feel good stories?

I woke up this morning to a warm, muggy Christmas Eve here in Miami. The headlines abound with feel good stories of soldiers coming home for the holidays and the impending rain that is due to fall by tonight. There's always going to be good and bad in a society on any given day. Christmas is no exception...

The Miami Herald today wrote about a Cuban Woman, apparently the wife of one of the 3 Cuban spies that just last week were traded back to Cuba. She wanted to get pregnant and the Cuban Government collaborated with the CIA to get her some of his sperm. Yes, you read that correctly: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article4834107.html The US GOVERNMENT helped a convicted spy get his sperm to his wife so she can get pregnant. This story is all about Christmas Cheer, right? We helped a thug, who was a convicted felon here in the US, get his wife pregnant. Where in the annals of US doctrine does that felon have rights that allow for that??

That is a disgusting story and I am not happy that an animal like that, who was directly responsible for giving information to the Cuban government, is able to procreate. It's just not right. OK Rant over.

I have tons of mixed emotions with the Cuba thing. Most of it is a passionate & emotional response to what happened 50+ years ago with my own family. I refuse to allow this generation of young adults to grow up and forget the stories that were told and lived my our forefathers. I will always tell our stories and continue to be a proud CUBAN-AMERICAN. My parents and grandparents fought to leave the oppressed country so that I would have a bright future. Everyone deserves a free future.
Merry Christmas to whoever is reading...

Pondering Christmas

Saturday morning, 5 days until Christmas. I find myself wondering if I bought the right gifts, if I wrapped them prettily enough and if I am ready for the holidays. Then, I turn on the news... and all of my petty worries go away.

Things going on in the world are getting out of hand: From movie companies being hacked by a terrorist country to Cuba and US opening up talks to normalize diplomatic relations. A few things I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. I think we are weaker as a nation than we once were. I think we are caving to the wrong people. Nelson and I are in agreement with the Sony hack, but we are in distinctively differing positions with Cuba. Thankfully, we are both intelligent individuals that can actually talk about differing opinions like rational human beings.

I rather just focus on Christmas. Who else remembers the magic of Christmas and what it means to us. The magic of Santa & his reindeer, the birth of Jesus Christ, the happiness of being caught under the mistletoe with the person you love... Can we just take a break from everything and focus on Christmas? That's what I'm going to do...

The Road to Married... The Big Day plus 77 days AND TANGENTS!!

The last statement on my last Blog piece was "I love the planning stage". Well, I do. I can talk about it, blog it, make lists and go on and on. Once the event is over, I'm like a person in deep mourning. I've abandoned the blog once more because I didn't know what to write about.

My friend Alina said I should write about anything. Write about the stupid people you encounter. Write about politics. Write about how much I like Rick Sanchez (no judgement, it's a secret crush). So I'm going to try just that to see if I can get some creativity flowing from my brain.

This mourning period has to pass. It's been 77 days since the wedding. A wedding and honeymoon, which is quite possible the most fun a couple can have if they truly belong together. Nelson and I had a grand trip and we made the most of every day. I have 2200 pictures to prove it, and not creative outlet to show for it. I tried Shutterfly and pic Monkey but I'm in a creative coma. I don't want to look backwards and create a photo album, I want to look forward and plan more trips. Psychotic, I know. 

So I'm going to try something new. I'm going to write and then create. I'll give myself a few hours daily to create and edit a few pictures at a time. I want to get through this. I'll get behind in the projects and then I'll never finish and never have a proper photo album. That's not fair to Nelsons. He should be able to see what the painstaking hours of photography at the top (and bottom) of Matador Beach looked like. What the hours of photography at the Partners Statue at a minuscule Disneyland Castle can look like....

Wow, this just took me on a major tangent... Blogger just auto-corrected my spelling of miniscule. Which led me to research miniscule vs minuscule: According to the website: english.stackexchange.com  The word was originally minuscule, borrowed from French. The minuscule spelling has always been the preferred spelling. However, miniscule is not as simple as a typo. According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary): Variant of MINUSCULE adj., probably arising partly from shift of stress from the second to the first syllable, and partly from association with MINIATURE adj., MINIMUM adj. 

So, there are two reasons that miniscule persists as a variant.

The first is the shift in stress. In English, unstressed vowels are often reduced to schwa, [ə], no matter what the fully stressed vowel would have been. Minuscule used to always be pronounced with stress on the second syllable (containing the "u"), and was therefore unambiguously an [u] sound. When minuscule began to get stress on the first syllable, it was no longer clear from hearing the word what the second vowel was. The second was the existence of semantically similar words that contained the spelling mini, such as miniature and minimum. The word mini is associated with small things.

Therefore, a person spelling the word minuscule, having no auditory cues to indicate the spelling "minu", and knowing other smallness words contain "mini", has every logical reason to think the spelling should be "miniscule". 

Furthermore, it should be noted that minuscule has its origin in lettering, as in writing letters of the alphabet. The "minus" in this case means less, not small, and it means lower-case letters. It is the opposite of majuscule. (This makes the most sense to me, since in Spanish, the capital letters are "majuscula" and the lowercase letters are "minuscula")

See what happened there.. a neat little tangent became something to write about. I still plan to finish the wedding and honeymoon photo albums. They are memories that deserve a story. 

I'll keep trying to remember to write. As I have more things to say or acquire more readers, I'm sure it will be easier. There will always be someone that says or reports something that make a story. Thanks for listening. Here are a few pictures of my events so you can see it truly was an amazing trip:

The Road to Married... 6 days!

We have SIX DAYS left!! This is amazing that I started counting about 400 days ago and all of the hard work is about to pay off!

We are leaving on Wednesday and we can't be more jazzed. We have a few errands tomorrow (Labor Day) and Nelson is going to finish packing tomorrow. Tuesday, we are both due int he office for one final day of work. I hope it flies by. I'm only working until about 2pm, but it's still a work day and we must be able to focus. Nelson isn't as lucky. He probably has to stay until about 7pm tying up loose ends.

I keep looking up websites for Restaurant recommendations and possible party hot spots. I think that listing has reached it's apex. I have more than a dozen restaurants in each city and we are only staying maximum 4 days in each. I'm a bit food-crazy. I have top things to do plus eateries but top 10 lists on every stop. I'm driving Nelson crazy.

I guess that's what happens when I have too much time to plan, but I wouldn't have it any other day. I love every second of the planning...