A rude awakening

I was just lying there, woozing in and out, hoping for one of those warm, snuggly, almost perfect go back to sleep experiences. We had our first frost warning last night and I had even dealt with the plants. I didn't bring them all in as we are supposed to be in the mid-70's by the end of the week - just gathered them together on the deck under a cover. I coughed a little a couple of times and all of a sudden I had this rush of pain right up into my mouth. It was stomach acid. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. I knew we had something in there for acid relief and I found two bottles of Mylanta under the bathroom sink. I grabbed one and drank, forgetting to shake, shake, shake. Uck. So I shook, shook, shook and drank again. Read the instructions and drank some more. How much is enough? I was in shock. That has only happened once or twice in my memory but it is once or twice too much. I lay down again - actually sort of sat up - trying to figure out what had caused that. Several things went through my mind - the two Celebrex I take every day for my "joint pain", the wine I had two days ago, the dinner I ate last night (green beans, sliced tomatoes, brisket and mushrooms, and baked sweet potatoes). Finally I decided I knew what I had done. It was the tomato sandwich I ate right before I went to bed. Who knew?

The rest of the time in bed was spent trying to decide if I was going to get up by 9:00 to go across the street to the Senior Center to get my flu shot. I finally must have slipped back into that warm spot I had yearned for earlier and woke up at 10:57. Of course it was too late for the flu shot since that ended at 11:00. I don't know what my problem is except that I considered that I am having some anxiety about a book discussion group I am leading, am going to go to Disaster Mental Health training with the Red Cross soon, and it is heading towards winter. My inclination is to just shelve all my good intentions and hibernate. So, it's still the retirement blues I think. There was something to be said about others making all the decisions. I'll call my doctor's office and schedule an appointment. I need to go anyway.

Thoughts on Cruising

I took a Fall Foliage Tour from NYC to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was too early and there was not a single fire-kissed leaf anywhere. I also realized that I have been immensely spoiled by living abroad for extended periods of time. Being on a cruise, to me, was like being with the people who lived on military bases and never shopped anywhere but in the American Exchanges or Commissaries, or learned the language, or did anything but take arranged tours to places of interest. I guess the exception was The Netherlands, where there was no family housing and everyone had to live "on the economy." But activities and shopping were, for the most part, confined to the military bases nearby. I was bored. I didn't hang out in the bars or Casino on board, and one can only eat so much. And the lines. I really hate lines. Years ago I decided I would either be first in line or last - or, planning ahead to be in line, taking a book to read while waiting. For a meal I know I will have fewer decisions to make if I go last, because there will be less to choose from - except on a cruise, where the line seems to never end. As often as possible I opted to go to the Dining Room where I could get table service - especially for breakfast. I learned my lesson one morning when I got up for another coffee before I had my last bit of meat and cheese and returned to find my place cleared. Very efficient. Very annoying. They offered to get me more of what I had, but when I returned myself to find the meat and cheese what I had before was not to be found.

I also found that I was glad to never have cruised before. I had nothing to compare my cruise to and could enjoy what I was doing - not constantly comparing this cruise to the 5 or 7 others I had experienced. I actually met someone who had been on 54 cruises - WHY? Can't they cook?

The tours were nice, but the New Scotland can hardly compare with the Old, and there was too little time to muck about in museums, etc. I could have opted to go off on my own in a taxi or on foot, but could not have managed to get to three lighthouses in Portland that way. I did learn interesting historic facts about all the areas, and nice stories about locals. The guides were locals from the villages we visited and it was apparent they were very proud of their little towns and their histories. These were all founded by loyalists transplanted from the lower 13 after the Revolution. They prevailed in very difficult terrain most of which was impossible to farm.

My most exciting moment of each day was to return to the stateroom to see what towel "critter" had been folded by Carlos and placed on my bed. I went to a "towel-folding" class and bought a book. I will be holding a class at the next R-Ranch get-together. It was so entertaining. I also sat through a 3-hour art auction - just for the experience, and did see artwork that I loved. My favorite was an oil portrait of Mohammed Ali. Another artist, named Agam I believe, did wonderful linear work that really appealed to me. Unaffordable but appealing.

I enjoyed the train ride up from Harrisburg to Penn Station and learned how really easy it is to get to the heart of NYC. Getting on the ship and off was easy and I encounter no real delays, etc. Of course, I went armed with my motto of "No expectations and no disappointments." I was not disappointed. I also have little to no desire to do it again - unless my husband is with me. It would be a good adventure for the two of us, and the reasonable price makes it attractive.

Today's Challenges

I do have some challenges today. I won’t go into detail. My purpose in writing is to put into perspective the fact that here I am in all of the glory of the R-Ranch and have been reachable. I have argued against having easy access to telephone service here simply because it is a good excuse to ignore everything that is going on elsewhere. Likewise for TV. However, there are arguments for having the ability to call my husband without having to drive to Dahlonega to “just say hello”, to ask him to change my airline reservation so I can stay another week, to receive messages about various family issues, etc. I can now send email messages from the Lodge or I can sit out in the middle of RV-2 and go on-line thanks to the graciousness of someone who has a Hughes network satellite dish there that does not require a network key. Perhaps there are not as many flies there as at the Lodge. To do this blog entry I decided to write it in Word first and paste it into the Blog when I go on-line. That decision took care of the fact that I don’t want to drag my computer to the Lodge, or anywhere else right now. I am waiting for a visitor that I learned only last night to expect.

I owe Ellen a vote of thanks for telling me about Picasa2, downloadable from Google. I find that it, in combination with my Roxio media management software, allows me to edit photos and transfer them directly to my blog. I owe Terri M. a vote of thanks for encouraging me to buy a digital Walkman and to learn to transfer music onto it to accompany me on my walks. Actually, more than anything, I am enjoying listening to the local FM radio station on it as much as anything. It’s just a little dynamite of a music machine. Lastly, I owe my husband so much. I am so grateful that he is so generous in his encouragement of my travels, and never complains when I am not at home to be with him. I am enjoying my respite alone – for a few more hours- here at the R-Ranch. Just finished reading Brother Odd by Dean Koontz. He is such a delightful writer. Start reading about Odd Thomas in the first book by the same name. There are three in the series. Do it especially if you are an Elvis fan. On to my next chore now – some retrospective blogging about recent trips to California and Florida. I seem to be behind. Pea

The Power of a Table

I have been writing about my outdoors and it has gotten even better. I found a great table at Rite Aid, of all places, for $46.00. It has all the requirements - four legs and a top - a great glass top, and the best part, the requisite hole in the middle! Now I can encircle the hole with my nifty lazy susan with all its little compartments for goodies, and put the umbrella in the middle. I can sit outside and read my book with a place to put my coffee. I was there earlier this evening and could imagine how people sit at a table in pleasant weather and write whole books. I am thinking about taking my computer outside and seeing what happens. I just need a longer extension cord. I am rather limited here at Horror House by boxes that contain electrical outlets - but no juice. So we plug cords in inside and drag them under doors - trying at the same time to keep either the warm air in or the cool air in and the bugs out. One day I found an orange cat had strolled in the front door and was wandering around the dining room. There's a story there.

When I was at the University of Kansas I rented two rooms in a house - upstairs. My bedroom was an old sleeping porch with leaky windows and it was cold, cold, cold. I saved enough Green Stamps from my grocery shopping and was able to redeem them for an electric blanket. I went home, remade my bed with the new blanket and snuggled in with my textbooks to study. I left my door open to the hallway so I could get some more heat. All of a sudden this big orange cat walked in my door, hopped up on my bed and proceeded to pee. Then it hopped down and ran out. It was just horrible. I have hated orange cats ever since. The cat in my dining room surely sensed that for it ran out the front door immediately. Yes - I had a flashback - it was PTSD!

But I'm loving my deck and my table and another new bird feeder - and my soul is being fed.

Grow and Buy Locally

I am endeavoring to stick to my plan to raise edible food and buy what I can't grow. That adds up to everything (minus two tomatoes, two zucchini squash and a lot of lettuce and cilantro).

My garden is coming along and today I discovered three or four tiny Roma tomatoes on a plant. I have melons traveling up a fence and ginormous zucchini and yellow squash plants. Onions and carrots are coming along. My fallback plan is to shop at the roadside veggie stands and fill in from the grocery store. I located a great farm stand near our house so I go there first to see what is available, then go to the grocery store. Yesterday I found lovely tomatoes, peppers, fresh parsley, blackberries and cucumbers. Cukes were 75 cents each vs. 99 cents at Giant. I bought two boxes of tomatoes, one red and one yellow. I paid $7.00, but would have paid over 10.00 at Giant. Today I made Tabbouleh salad with the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions from another day, and fresh chopped mint and parsley. It is ever so much better than what I make from the box. I want to encourage my faithful readers to cook from scratch because it is gratifying and tastes better. My veggies looked so beautiful in the basket that I had to share. Here is a picture of my bought locally goodies.

I have also always loved daisies and am happy to report that I now have my own patch - another gift from the house. I have planted Black-eyed Susans and also have yellow Shasta daisies in the bed near the deck. Will share those at a later date. Hope you are encouraged to cook and eat well and watch birds and flowers.

Is being profound a necessity or an indulgence?

I'm giving some thought to writing and its purpose. Its purpose can be to share information, to put thoughts into words for review and reflection or to lay a foundation for further thinking. I think I do a lot of writing to share information about myself and how I live. I hesitate to put in too much identifying information but find that some is necessary to eliminate confusion and misunderstanding. Some writing is for documenting events either in depth or simply to note that they occurred. I think a great deal of my writing that is not just news-sharing falls into the review and reflection category.

Some writing that does not appear here ends up in other peoples mailboxes. I read a book by John Lescroart called Betrayal. I didn't like some of his foundational material about the treatment his main character received at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where I used to work. He wrote some very unflattering words about conditions there, and some very misleading words about the capacity and capabilities of the hospital. I decided to write to him to tell him how I felt about those characterizations but also my understanding about the nature of writing for effect. I haven't received a return message, and may never - but, he opened this can of worms and I have decided that he needs to recognize the efforts of staff there in some meaningful way. He earns money from selling those books and some of it needs to go back to the source of his information - or at least the use of WRAMC as a source. I think I wrote to institute guilt, and maybe a little embarrassment. He is a performer as well and has a record label called CrowArt. Maybe he will go sing. I don't think a book signing would go over all that well. I just want him to not forget what he has learned about Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD, especially from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). In some way I felt that he was exploiting the damage they do to make a good story. It was a pretty good story but fell just a little short of doing what was needed in my opinion. Of course I told him that in my message.

So, writing in this context was for beating my own drum. I'm writing about this now to review and reflect on my actions. Question: Do I wish I hadn't written to him? Definitely NO. I am pleased that I did so because it helped to put to rest my feelings about a small part of what he wrote and remember the book as something that was otherwise a well-crafted and enjoyable read.

Catching Up With Myself

Today is Friday and I finally have a day off. It has been a very busy month, this month of June. No one I know got married but two very significant events occurred. One was the high school graduation of Emily Rose, the eldest daughter of my niece Brenda. There was a large gathering of relatives at their home - with grandparents from California, great-aunt and uncle, aunts, uncles and cousins. In the midst of it all the father of Brenda, Terri and Lori died in Colorado. So the gathering had its ups and downs. I guess I am blogging about this simply to make it a moment in time. Brenda had produced a booklet called "The Wilson Girls" with pictures of the three with their father. When I looked at it I became very emotional (mostly inside) but with a few outside tears. This was a man I had known as a child. I guess we were all children to tell the truth. He became a parent, as did my sister, and three lovely children were produced. Then he left. The events over the years of their rearing and experiences could fill many pages, and they do fill many hours of story telling. Their story cannot be that different from that of many other families and as I think about that I feel almost overwhelmed at the thought that there are so many stories in the world. I think all of them are worth telling - but who would ever have time to read all the stories if they were written. I guess that is why they stay in families - to be told over and over again as families get together for graduations and funerals.

People are remarkable in their accomplishments and our family is no different. I think the children in the family will go on to achieve and not achieve, each to their own abilities. As the family continues to spread, like a pebble falling in a pond, there will be many stories. I hope I get to hear the good ones. The bad ones make me feel sad. I, personally, try to find the greatness in everyone and try to find the reasons why everyone cannot be the first, the greatest, the most talented, the richest. Most of them are OK just like they are. I think that is enough reflection for today. I am taking a break.