and then 100 5 year olds walked by...

 the bog is near schools so it does occassionally happen.  great training for crazy puppies.  my best move of late is to pull all three dogs to the side and focus them on a treat and me.  they are still too excited with greetings. more store treks are needed.  did take them into Petco one at a time the other day.  overall, they are doing great.  heeling past 2 days was pretty dang good.  a break in commands when 2 off leash dogs rushed us.  not much i can do in that situation.  thankfully, owner was close and dogs moved on fairly quickly.  and it wasn't quite 100 kids, just felt like it.  probably more like 30, how big are classes now?

 am i racist? i do not consider myself a racist.  i try to treat all equally, in my job as a nurse, its what we are trained to do.  nobody is supposed to be treated different.  in truth...if you are nice to people they will be nice to you.  if you come in to a hospital or clinic and are a total ass, you will probably get less of a generous response of kindness from those in the medical team.  nobody is perfect.  we are human and will tend to move away from the ass and do the minimum.

 still i think we all profile to a degree.  there is that initial gut reaction to someone standing in front of you.  i think for me, more has to do with outward  appearances that we each control.  probably if you put a halter monitor on me and put me in a dark alley...my heart would probably race the fastest if those walking towards me have shaved heads and scary tattoos on their head and face/neck.

 3 black guys dressed like frat boys vs 3 skin heads...the color of their skin wouldn't be the issue.  my heart would race fastest with the skin head sorts.  i tend to have a negative initial reaction to certain styles of dress, certain tattoo's, sometimes the multi pierced.  so i think we all stereotype those around us.  part of that is probably a bit of an instinct.  part of that is also probably just lack of experience.  looks can be deceiving but then again, sometimes looks are right on.  some people just give you a vibe that makes you sense danger.

 like tends to blend more with like.  if you take a room full of all sorts of folks and left them alone for a few hours...when you returned you may find those folks have divided themselves by their similarities.

 i remember laughing at teens that dressed "different" but when you looked at them with their friends they were no longer different...they were all the same different.

 i have no answers to the racial profiling in the police force.  someone today mentioned these incidences would probably be less if the police were not overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. if they had more support would they be better able to make those split second decisions they must make.  our society values the oddest things and undervalues and underpays what seems to be critical.  those who sacrifice and risk the most also receive the least from society. police, fire, military, teachers, and even nurses.  people are angry when mistakes are made in the hospital and yet they don't see that budget cuts generally impact the direct patient care areas the most.  this is true in all the professions mentioned.  having the right equipment, training and experience ratio's can be critical.

 as for police, time away from work and less overtime is bound to also have an impact.  it's a job where you deal with some not so nice folks in society.  if you don't get to take quality time away from that stress it will build inside of you and again...that constant negative will make that officer more likely to react one way over another i would think.  as nurses we for sure get jaded.  i often joke that as i get older i need to do less long runs. i used to work 6-8 nights in a row.  it's tiring, but also i do honestly find it gets more difficult to put on my nice face for more days than 3-4 in a row now. that isn't to say i'm horrible by day 4, but that i can feel myself being less patient, less tolerant.

 i suspect that police work, like nursing, actually demands a great deal of acting skills.  i must act like that cough you've had for 4 years is the big crisis that brought you in at 3 am.  or that i'm not thinking you are a total idiot if you think you can get herpes from a shared toilet seat. your eyes want to naturally roll if you are too tired and stressed out to push these thoughts and reactions back in your mind.

 anytime firearms are involved the stakes just get higher.  if you are tired and it's dark and a stressful situation.  you have to read a situation really fast.  sadly, if you read it wrong there is no way to unread it and unreact to it.  if you read it right, there is possibly a dead felon but others were saved.

 i have always felt that if you engage in high risk/illegal behaviours you must also accept the consequences...up and including death.

 there are bad police out there, bad nurses, bad everything...in any element of life, there is good and there is bad. overall i believe the good outweighs the bad, but a few bad apples can really do some major PR damage.  currently, it seems to have become us vs them and that is just not helpful at all.  the police need our support, but i think we also should admit that profiling happens and that yes, things are not always done fairly across the board when it comes to race.  a black person will tend to get longer sentences for the same crimes.  often i think that has more to do with money than color...but since the bulk of the exceedingly wealthy are white...well.  it's all part of a larger social issue of injustice that goes back generations

 on to some other topic...i really should be napping.

 a co-worker last night was a new father... he and his wife were both back to work with the baby at just 2 weeks.  i think i naively assume that everyone gets like a few months off, but that just isn't the case for many folks out there. they have bills to pay.  i do like that Canada and i'm sure other places have in place that one parent at least gets 1 year paid off after having a kid. seems a good way to assure the child gets a good start.

 we talk of how critical children are and yet we don't really act on that in our society. education doesn't seem to be a priority.  so many kids linger in terrible situations far too long before being removed from totally dysfunctional homes.  even health care. just seems like much of this is pretty basic in helping us have healthier adults...by protecting adults in the making.

 lots of reflections in todays post.  both in the pictures and in my words.

 hopefully, i'm not offending or upsetting others.  i'm just trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure out how it all got so bad and how we can ever find a way back to civility again.  is it possible?  so many are so angry, lashing out at each other.  this can't be the answer, this can't be the way back to civility, kindness and peace in our streets.

 if every one could just sit in a row along a view like these, not speaking, just taking it all in...after an hour or so would the conversation be different, would there be a conversation instead of irrational anger and blaming.

 many do not know how to commune with nature, or don't have the opportunity.  many don't have the experience of seeing a bigger part of the world and putting everything in perspective.

 God created beauty to help us bring our focus back i suspect.  to be filled with awe and wonder and to forget the irritations and frustrations and anger.

 i better go take a nap.  pups woke me too early. thankfully, they don't require too much effort to be ready to take a break again and sleep.

 we just walked the bog before i wrote this.

 back to work again tonight.

thankful for:  A.  beautiful places that bring mental relaxation  B.  dogs that are heeling properly...at least for the most part C.  laughter