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Welcome

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Make yourself at home. Put your feet up. Grab your favorite beverage and prepare to enjoy the reads.
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Wednesday

Reminder of a Gift



Treat the earth well: 

it was not given to you by your parents, 

it was loaned to you by your children. 

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, 

we borrow it from our Children.

~ Native American Indian Proverb



Monday

Decline

My parents never thought about their inevitable aging. Mom always called others in her same age group, “Little Old Ladies, saying she still felt as though she were much younger.

Dad continued working long after retirement, by choice, and last worked in his eighties. His last contract to install electrical wiring in the attic of an old building refurbished for a small church community which he did voluntarily without pay except for reimbursement for necessities.

Mom’s first stay at a nursing home ended when she called 911 because she was constipated and in pain, and the nursing home “would do nothing to help her”. EMT's arrived and took her to the Emergency Room. She received treatment and was returned.

The following Monday, Dad was asked to take her back home. He took care of her himself from that time forward while denying his own frailness another couple of years. Mom was legally blind, having lost 85% of her sight due to Macular Degeneration, getting hard of hearing, incontinent and could no longer walk without assistance. Several times they fell down together as Dad tried to help her get into bed. Due to the fact that their income slightly exceeded the poverty level, they did not qualify for any of the services that would otherwise assist them. They ended up without house or car.

Once the car was gone and Dad’s independence stripped from him, it was painful to know the situation they were in. Because they lived far from other family members, we arranged for them to move to assisted living a few blocks away from their granddaughter. Since she was a nurse she was able to at least keep an eye on them. Dad’s COPD was getting worse and he needed oxygen, but he felt it was important to save money, so he used it as little as possible. At the same time, not using the air conditioning that would have helped protect him from the Southern California smog.

With my older brother in NY, younger one in AZ, my baby sister in TX, and I in northern CA, was heart rending for all of us to watch this demise. Previously, younger brother lived near them and was Dad’s shoulder to lean on. My sister, also living in Southern California at the time, drove up to four hours in order to be there in person to help them out as often as she could tolerate it after putting in a full day’s work. Then cutting her work hours so she could spend more time with them. It seemed miraculous how she did it in her mid-fifties like that. She sacrificed so much in order to care for them.

I felt helpless, but because of my own chronic medical issues, I could do nothing tangible to help out. So the telephone became our bridge. Daily calls for the reports of the day, mostly complaints of the new disappointments that life was bringing them. But, the joint pleasure that sustained them both were their pet Abyssinian cats. I could always depend on being able to bring a chuckle out of Dad, or a giggle out of Mom and help soothe away the troubles they were challenged with daily, simply by asking, “How are the Beau and Boo doing?” Suddenly cute stories of their observations and interpretations of the cat’s behaviors came pouring out. So, being telephone support person, became my way of being there.

Then came the day when my daughter, the nurse, informed us all that “Grandpa has made some mistakes with Grandma’s medicine. And he really is not well enough to care for her anymore.” So the decision to encourage them to move into the nursing home together arose. Of course, my father would have nothing to do with it, until we were able to get him to understand that it would be best for Mom.

To keep them from having broken hearts, I promised to take in their precious cats. The day they moved into the nursing home, my niece put them in her car and drove 400 miles to bring them to me.

Saturday

Big Brother is Watching

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When you wonder how your personal information is being used, don't think it is some kind of cyber stalker or someone who uses computer phishing techniques. It's the government.


Under the Freedom of THE PRIVACY ACT OF 1974 various agencies are allowed to share information about you whereby "Computer Matching" allows cross referencing of information about yourself.

In order to read the document properly in it's enlarged more readable form, left click your mouse one time.


Remember, even if you do not want to have this done, you have no choice. Think about it.

Sunday

PEACE and POSSIBILITIES

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May today there be peace within. 
 
May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. 
 
May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. 
 
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones.

Allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. 
 
It is there for each and every one of us.

 
 
Note: Photo is of Santa Cruz, California Wharf 

Wednesday

MY PROTECTOR

MY PROTECTOR
(1968)

Dr. Mindell, tall, slender, well-composed, did not behave like a normal orthopedic Surgeon.  The one’s I had met before were all too high and mighty to be human, to look you in the eyes as if you were an equal.  They were accustomed to everyone idolizing them and took it for granted they were Gods.  I did notice that when he made rounds, he carried a little bit of that remote untouchable aura, probably for the sake of his entourage, but when he arrived in my room, he did not stand at the farthest corner nor at the foot of my bed like other physicians.  he came right up beside me and leaned against the mattress as he taught his students about the rare condition being treated.  Rare condition or not, in the presence of Dr. Mindell, I still felt like a human being, instead of a “case”.

Even though’ he hacked away  a large part of my body over several years of surgery to save my life, I don’t necessarily think of him as my protector for the reason of his medical expertise. Just one incident clings to my memory making me grateful for his existence.

After many weeks languishing in the hospital bed, I became well enough to be placed in a wheel-chair instead of a gurney to be transported to other departments for tests or treatments. One day, after a long wait in the radiology dept.  a staff-person wheeled me in for a set of x-rays.  And when all the required pictures had been taken, I was wheeled back and parted in the long empty hallway.

 “Aren’t you taking me back to my room?” I asked.

  “No.” I was told, “Someone else will take you up shortly.”

I sat there in the cold corridor until my butt became numb and the pain in my legs screamed for release.  At which point, I unlatched the lock on the wheels and began to impel myself toward the main hallway.  My arms were weak from having been abed for so long.  The chair, at least a hundred years old, was made of wood, with a very high backrest and huge wheels.  It was very unwieldy to operate, but, struggling mightily, my determination drove me further and further away from Radiology.  It surprised me that no paid any attention to me.  Dressed only in a short backless gown with hair splayed about my head, it was obvious I was a patient making her way alone in the busy hallways.  Visitors passed me by giving wide berth.  Hospital personnel bustled by sometimes blindly brushed up against me
as they passed.

I grew resentful.  Not only had I been forgotten, left to rot in the drafty bowels of the Hospital basement, but I was for all purposes, invisible to the very people employed to watch after my health.  What if something should happen to me?  I would be ignored.  Fearful of my invisibility, I strained harder to reach my goal;  the huge main elevator that could take me up the many floors to my room. By the time I arrived, I was weak, cold and perspiring profusely.  The hospital, as ancient as my wheelchair had an old-fashioned elevator.  Every time I had been taken to it by a staffperson, they had hurriedly forced the wheelchair through the open doors racing against time to get me inside, before the doors clenched shut.

There were no safety features as there are today, no magic eye to bounce the elevator door back open should someone or something attempt to pass through while it closed.  So, when the doors opened, people traipsed in as I struggled to wheel my cumbersome chair through.  Needless to say, the doors clamped shut on me just as I pulled my arms out of the way.  I looked at the people inside, who would not meet my eyes. It didn’t occur to me that this was serious, until the floor raised up beneath me and the wheelchair tilted precariously.

Not able to move my lower body in any way to save myself, I sat there helpless, as the chair began to crunch.  The only view I had at this point was the ceiling.  My last thought was, “after being heroically saved from the bone cancer and surviving, I am going to go by way of an elevator! Oh, well!” There was nothing I could do. I just resigned myself to my fate as I awaited my demise.

Just then, Dr. Mindell scooped me up in his big arms and carried me down the hall and placed me on the nearest gurney and personally returned me to my room. I don’t know what happened to the wheelchair or the people in the elevator. At the time I was too tired and sick to even care.  I was just glad that my protector, my body guard was there to save me.

Monday

Old Memory Stays Fresh

Today is a day in my history I cannot forget.

It sticks in my mind like clay at the bottom of a potter's wheel. You might laugh that this is such an "important" day when you learn the situation. But, it is just one of those things that when the day comes up, I automatically realize.... "Oh, it was this date that happened."

My hair all blonde, teased and sprayed in Marilyn Monroe style, I walked with my new date, Jeff, recently returned from Viet Nam, when my new pair of high heels caught on a rise of the sidewalk where a tree root had lifted it.

No big deal for the average person, but this fall caused me to do a split in the worse way possible. I had only been out of the hospital a few days after my Internal Hemipelvectomy surgery and the three months it had taken for me to recovery and heal sufficiently that I could actually walk again and go home. All I wanted to do was start my life all over again, and leave those haunting cancer memories behind me.

My mind set the incident in slow-motion re-play. I felt the heel of my shoe catch on the sidewalk, saw my body going down, tried to catch myself as my legs, betraying me, slid out in opposite directions. Then, the split of the incision pulled apart deep within me, and the hot blood seeped into the area where bone cancer used to be. It had not happened in a slow motion dream but in a blink of the eye, and there I was sprawled on the sidewalk.

Jeff had been a Medic in Nam, his flight or fight reaction were instinctual. When I fell, an odd look came across his face, something empty and desperate. His automatic response was to get me up, and hurry me off somewhere. Anywhere, to take me away from .... what? Enemy fire?

While writhing on the sidewalk, I had to convince him we were not on the battlefield, certainly not with my high heels. I told him there was no place to take me, no place safer than where I was. I had remain calm as I instructed him to go into the nearest restaurant and ask them to call for an ambulance. Because of my cancer history and the familiar physical symptoms I was experiencing, I knew I would not be able to get up and walk any time soon on my own.

I never saw Jeff again. He didn't follow the ambulance to the hospital. Perhaps he was as traumatized as I was?

Long story.....short. I spent another two months in the hospital.

So, today I look at this forty year stretch and pause. Many other things have occurred in my life with even more intensity. Today I no longer dream of falling and tearing myself open. Today I can smile about it. Maybe it's the ludicrous-ness of it all; blonde bombshell, soldier boy, romantic walk to restaurant; it was something out of a movie, and then, the twist...

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Note:
Jeff, if you are reading this, I understand and I hope you got good treatment for your PSTD. Sending you love and healing.

Saturday

Grandma's Cookbook

 
 
 
 
We may live without poetry, music and art;

We may live without conscience, and live with out heart.

We may live without friends, we may live without books;

But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

- Owen Meredith
 
 
 
Three Meals a Day
By Maude C. Cooke
Published     1902
by The Educational Co.


Monday

Free Brain Book

A Primer on the Brain and Nervous System

Brain Facts 
cover image
Brain Facts is a 74-page primer on the brain and nervous system, published by Society for Neuroscience.

Designed for a lay audience as an introduction to neuroscience, Brain Facts is also a valuable educational resource used by high school teachers and students who participate in Brain Awareness Week.

The 2008 edition updates all sections and includes new information on brain development, learning and memory, language, neurological and psychiatric illnesses, potential therapies, and more.

Download the full book (PDF) or download individual sections below. All downloads are PDFs.

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Note: reposted from http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainfacts

Saturday

Cinnamon Toast


My brother had played an April's Fool's trick on me. I was so little then that I didn't think it was funny and my feelings were hurt.

Mommy comforted me and explained how funny it could be to play an April Fool's trick on Davy.

She sat me down at the table and poured milk into my cereal. As I reached for the sugar, she pointed out how much the sugar looked just like the salt. I didn't need another hint. I asked Mommy if I could substitute one for the other to play an April Fool's trick on Davy.


I stood on the chair pouring the sugar into a bowl, then emptied the contents of the salt shaker into the sugar jar. I looked through the glass closely to make sure it didn't look like salt before I could convince myself that my April Fool's trick would work. I then attempted to pour the sugar into the salt shaker with little luck. Most of it splayed out on the table and onto the floor.

Mommy was not one to rush in and do the job for me. No, she stood by patiently and gave me a the broom to sweep the sugar from the floor. I didn't do a very good job of it to be sure. But, later that day the floor was miraculously clean of any evidence of the spill.

Since I was not capable of handling a five pound bag of sugar myself, Mommy got it down from the cupboard and put some into a glass measuring cup so I could more carefully pour the sugar into the salt shaker.

Once my plan was completed I awaited anxiously for the moment my big brother would come into the kitchen to have his breakfast.

Imagine my dismay when he asked if he could have eggs and sausage.

With a wink and a smile Mommy tried to help me out by suggesting Davy have cereal instead. But, we were out his favorite kind and he turned it down. He was not about to eat any of his little sister's cereal. I hadn't thought of that! So, I sat at the table pouting while Mommy cooked his breakfast.

Davy went to the toaster to put in the bread. In those days toast did not pop up by itself, the toaster had little doors that had to b opened when your toast was ready.

We had to stand there keeping an eye on it otherwise our toast would burn. I loved looking through the intricately formed slits in the little doors of the toaster observing the bright orange curly cues inside heat up.

As I stood next to him, he turned to me and asked if I would like some toast. I certainly did.

While Davy buttered his toast, he kept an eye out to keep my toast from burning. I was not allowed to touch the toaster as I would burn myself on it's hot metal doors.

Even if I could, I would not have been fast enough to get the toast out before it burned. I hated blackened toast. Scraping it never removed that charcoal flavor out if it!


Buttering my toast for me, Davy turned and said, "You want some cinnamon sugar on your toast?"

I loved cinnamon sugar and nodded enthusiastically. It didn't occur to me that the little crystal bowl my mother kept the mixture in was empty. When Davy reached for the sugar and mixed it with the cinnamon to put into the little crystal bowl I didn't give it a second thought.

Just as Mommy turned from the stove to give Davy his plate of eggs and sausage, and before she could say a word, I took my first bite of my cinnamon salty toast!

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Photos are not my own

Friday

Which Way to Go?


You can't change the wind, but you can set your sails in the direction you want.

Favorite quote of James Durbin
American Idol Contestant
from Santa Cruz, California



Note: Sail boat photo was taken in Santa Cruz.


Wednesday

Just in Case You Missed the Opportunity to Help

It was not just one earthquake, and one tsunami that has done the unimaginable. The March 11 magnitude-8.9 quake (later changed to 9.0) was followed for hours by more than 50+ aftershocks, nearly 40 of them more than magnitude 6.0

Your donations are most welcome and appreciated.

Reputable organizations providing appropriate relief for Japan:

Relief orgs:

• Cruz Roja Española

• Canpan Fields (a Japanese nonprofit organization)

• Save the Children

• Non-Believers Giving Aid

• NGO Jen

• International Medical Corps

• Association of Medical Doctors in Asia

• Canadian Red Cross

• American Red Cross

• Doctors without Borders

• The Salvation Army

• Oxfam

• Global Living

• Care

• ShelterBox

Someone I love has family and friends in Japan.

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Photo taken by Katsumi

Tuesday

Dreams




Deep into that darkness peering,
long I stood there,
wondering, fearing, doubting,
dreaming dreams
no mortal ever dared to dream before.
~ Edgar Allan Poe







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Photo Art by Elizabeth Munroz

Sunday

Rowdy and Ruckus 1968

With the dust roiling up in the air, my sister and I shoveled our piles of junk into the middle of the floor. It wasn’t long before we needed to throw open the windows and doors so we could breathe. We were hanging around the house at Ft. Niagara Beach, by ourselves,  under strict instructions to get that room cleaned up once and for all, or else! Or else, what? Probably nothing, really. But we knew we needed to get the job done. It would have been a drudge, had anyone stayed home with us to look over our shoulder, but thankfully, we had been deserted by the rest of the family.     

WKBW, our favorite radio station blared on full volume. We had to shout over it to hear one another.  As Aretha Franklin belted out,  R- E- S- P- E- C- T!  FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO ME!“, we accompanied her at the top of our lungs.  There was something a little evil in our glee, knowing we must be bugging the heck out of our neighbors, especially Mrs. Steffan. We knew she was reporting my every movement to my ex-in-laws, and took special delight in giving her ammunition. They all seemed to think it would go in their favor for removing my kids from me. 

Once the radio began replaying the re-plays of the re-plays as they did on Saturdays, we turned it off and kept on singing as we picked up the clothes off the bedroom floor and separated the dirty ones from the clean. Then we carefully refolded the one’s Mom had just piled on our beds a few days before. Funny how everything had landed on the floor, with everything else. Well, we couldn’t help it. We were teenage girls. Or, rather, my sister was the teenage girl. I was the newly divorced mother of two, who wished she were a teenager again. Being with my sister automatically made me recapture being a teenager. She was full of energy and enthusiasm that I had thought deserted me, until I was around her.

We got a good rendition of “Amen” going traipsing around the house, clapping our hands, and swinging our bodies as though we were in a hot revival meeting. (I had never been to one before, but now, I know that is how we were acting).

Sorting out all the papers and trash was the easiest part. Anything that looked like schoolwork got trashed by wadding it up and giving a quick overhand heave-ho into the wastebasket. It didn’t take long to have it overflowing. Using the same method for sorting the dirty clothes we giggled and laughed maniacally. We both would have been great on a girl’s basketball team!

In the midst of our enthusiasm, we got carried away by the Four Tops, as we hauled the dirty clothes into the laundry room to wash. Energized, and no longer isolated to our room,  we decided to surprise Mom and clean up the whole house. So, we began cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. Then, singing louder over the vacuum with Diana Ross and the Supremes, we cleaned and straightened up the living room. Our voices getting hoarse, we changed to the Polish station that Mom’s friend, always Annie listened to. The rollicking polka music of the OOM-PAH-PAHed  as we grabbed each other and polkaed around the house until we grew dizzy, and tripped over furniture. We landed on the floor, laughing gleefully aware of how rowdy we were being and how it must be really annoying the hell out of old Mrs. Steffan next door.

What would she put into her spy report this week?

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Note: The first picture is of my sister. The second one is of me.