More Great Good News!
I have blogged about the fight to shut down PornHub and its parent company, MikeGeek. Here’s the latest.
The New Yorker published an investigative article on the case on June 20, 2022. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/20/the-fight-to-hold-pornhub-accountable
The next day, the Chief Executive Officer, Feras Antoon, and the Chief Operating Officer, David Tassillo, resigned without naming successors.
Update on Baker
My cat has been very sick. X-rays and a sonogram showed signs of irritable bowel or intestinal cancer. The recommendation was an endoscopy to take biopsies and see if they found cancer and, if so, what kind. Only four vets in a 20-mile radius do this procedure, and I was on my own to make an appointment, probably for several weeks in the future. My appointment with a regular vet was still two weeks away, and Baker was rapidly losing weight.
Then his luck changed. I reached out to my previous vet, and, lo and behold, she was practicing only a couple of miles from me. She gave me an appointment for the next day. Miracle! I had the ER send the records to her
She told me that the two likeliest diagnoses were a severe case of irritable bowel disease or large cell lymphoma, the most common intestinal cancer in cats. Luckily, they both respond to the same drug. I figured we would go with this option, as we can’t afford to wait for an endoscopy. Even if we could get an appointment in the next couple of days, the procedure would be risky given how depleted he is.
The meds carrive tomorrow. I am not expecting a wonderful response – rapid weight gain, wanting to run around and play in a week or two, that sort of thing. But I am hoping he will feel better and his quality of life will improve.
However long he may have, he is still my beautiful, sweet, loving Baker, and I am so glad he entered my life.
Update on Me
How am I? In a word, sad. He is such a nice cat, and it doesn’t seem that he will be with us for very long.
But I am also excited about the upcoming recording of our panel presentation and happy about getting better lighting for my computer room. It’s great to be able to feel more than one thing at a time!
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Loss and Grief
Long ago, I found that one loss stirs up memories and feelings of other losses. All of them, but especially those that have not been deeply grieved.
The most soul-wracking loss was that of my husband. Consciously, I was not aware of feeling the loss of anybody or anything else. Now, I wonder if the feelings about all my childhood losses and betrayals were trying to surface and that I was feeling the emotions connected to losses I was not yet aware of.
At first, I was simply stunned. First, I called our children and told them. I then called a friend and got a ride to the hospital where he had been taken. I wanted to touch him, to speak to him in private. I wanted to kiss him one last time. But they told me the morgue was closed, and they did not let me see his body. I did sign papers allowing organ donation. All this I did relatively calmly.
Still stunned, I managed to sleep that night. I woke up confused, sensing that something terrible had happened. Then I remembered he was dead and that I would never see him again, never hear his voice again. A strange howl came out of my mouth, and the tears started.
Later, I learned that noise is called “keening.” It’s the sound of deep, deep grief. I was to hear it often during the next few weeks. Not from anybody else, only from me. I had b=never, that I know of, heard it before and have never heard it since, but I have read about it in books.
The grief came over me in waves, like ocean waves crashing upon a rocky shore. At first, they were continual – it was grief, then a wave of more intense grief, then lesser grief, then another intense wave. Over time, the waves became further apart until there were little grief-free spaces between them. They also became less intense. But they have never gone away entirely.
I have tears in my eyes even as I am writing this.
The process is the same for every subsequent loss. The feelings aren’t as intense, but they are certainly recognizable.
I understand the process better, too. Part is practice. (Losses have a habit of continuing to mount up over the years.) Another part is learning how to build an intellectual framework to contain the emotions. The framework enables me to say, “This is grief. The rest is something else. Some of it is like grief in some ways, most of it is very different.”
Putting words to emotions helps enormously, too. Just saying that grief comes in waves helps me understand what is going on inside and realize that it will not always be this overwhelming.
I can see that I am much better equipped to understand and deal with loss and grief than I was even thirty years ago. Can’t say I am looking forward to the next loss, but at least I know what to expect.
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Upcoming Holidays
July
7/25 St. James’ Day/Festival of the Horned God
7/27 Grand Climax/Da Meur
August
8/1 Lammas/Lughnasadh
8/11 Full Moon
8/13 Friday the 13th
8/15 (?) Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8/24 St. Bartholomew’s Day
September
9/5 – 9/7 Feast of the Beast/Marriage to the Beast
9/5 Labor Day (United States)
9/10 Full Moon
9/22 Fall Equinox
9/29 (?) Michaelmas/Feast of Archangel Michael and of all Angels
Dates Important to Nazi and Neo-Nazi groups
July 29: Hitler proclaimed leader of the Nazi party.
August 1: Lammas
Early August through October: Various preparations are done in readiness for October, the month with the largest number of celebrated dates.
September 22: autumnal equinox, “Fall Festival.
9/25 – 9/27: Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year)
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You can find more information on the following holidays at:Candlemas – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/candlemas/
Valentine’s Day – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/valentines-
Beltane – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/beltane/
Mothers’ Day – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/mothers-day/
Fathers’ Day – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2020/06/20/ritual-abuse-and-fathers-day/
Summer Solstice (corrected text) – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/well-this-is-embarrassing/
Lammas – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/category/lamas/
and https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/august-ritual-dates/
Feast of the Beast/Bride of Satan: Part 1 – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/the-feast-of-the-beast/
Feast of the Beast/Bride of Satan: Part 2 – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/feast-of-the-beast-part-ii/
Fall Equinox – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-fall-equinox/
Halloween (personal) – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/10/11/halloween/
Halloween (background) – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/samhainhalloween/
Thanksgiving – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2016/11/20/thanksgiving/
Yule/Winter Solstice – https://ritualabuse.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/yulewinter-solstice/
Ritual Abuse 