Monthly Archives: June 2021

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conglomerate

This is for the Tuesday Ragtag Daily Prompt: a conglomerate. Can you guess what is under this community of organisms stuck all over it?

A marine engine. My friend is pointing out the water intake and how to tell it’s a marine engine.

So this is a stealthie too, of both him and me.

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heatwave tricks

I went to high school in Alexandria, Virginia (Remember the Titans) and we had no air conditioning. I had the upstairs bedroom in front of the house. We were on the road that had the bridge over the train tracks, so we got every ambulance, fire truck and police car sirening from one part of town to the other. b

I live on a “busy” street. When the realtor warned me it was “busy”, I thought, well, not like Alexandria. No gun shots in the house a block over, at least not often. I used to hear the helicoptors landing at the hospital four blocks away, but now that I am not on call, my brain dismisses that as a “not worrisome” noise.

So here are my tricks to stay cool.

  1. Get a bandana or headband wet with cold water. Wrap it around your head. Keep wetting it as needed.
  2. If you are going outside, put a hat over the bandana or headband. If it is a straw hat, you can wet it too. Ditto wool.
  3. Stick your feet in cold water.
  4. Fountains make sounds that make you feel cooler. Find a website with a stream or water sounds. Let it play.
  5. Drink lots of water.
  6. Salt. Now, if you have high blood pressure or heart disease or congestive heart failure, be really careful. My symptom of being too low in salt is feeling nauseated and a bit off and woozy. Those are professional doctor terms, ok? I bought 5 kinds of chips yesterday, beer, seltzer (no sugar) and ice.
  7. Do NOT drink sodas to cool off. Most sodas have salt hidden under the sugar. Screw up your hypertension and the congestive heart disease. Oh, and kidney disease and some liver things. Hey, talk to your doctor. They will say “Do not drink sodas. They are the EVIL dwelling on earth.” Well, ok, your doctor might not say the second sentence. I said stuff like that.
  8. Get ice, put it in a cooler, and put in water, maybe beer if you are healthy enough, (go light on the beer. Max seven drinks weekly for women, fourteen for men, and no saving it up for the weekend. The recommendations are different in the UK and different again in Europe. Who is right? Science is a moving target. It is never DONE. Dang ol science. Just give us the stupid finished book so we can stop arguing about it all…. heh. The truth is, we’d argue about something else.) go light on juice (because sugar), cut the juice in half with seltzer or better yet just drink the seltzer. Now, seltzer has salt again, so all those people who has to watch salt intake… oh, shoot, that is everyone. I drank one beer yesterday and one seltzer and a lot of water and in the morning tea.
  9. Consider sleeping outside. It’s cooler here once it cools off! Alexandria, Virginia didn’t cool off. It would be 98% humidity and 98 degrees. So HOW did I sleep in that?
  10. Take a wet washcloth to bed. Wipe down your arms and face. Get your hair wet right before bed if you need to. Put a towel on your pillow. That, plus a fan blowing over me from the open window, and I could sleep, even in 99 degree weather with 98% humidity.
  11. Water animals, plants and don’t forget your trees. I’ve been watering the trees in the early morning and the lichen on the trunks turns BRIGHT GREEN when I do. Happy lichen. I am watering the leaves of everything in the garden in the early morning, to try to help the plants stay cool. Evaporation helps them too.
  12. Take heat stroke seriously. If someone with you stops making sense, then think about an ambulance and do not let them drive. If the core temperature gets too high, people can die, and they are too goofy to drink water. It also can be damn hard to put an iv into someone dehydrated so call early rather than late. Take care!
  13. Curtains. Shut the curtains to the east in the morning. Open them and shut the ones to the south at noon. Open them and shut the ones to the west in the afternoon.

Ok, so I put some rocks in the Beatnik bathtub fountain so that if a mouse falls in, it has somewhere to climb out. Then I went to QFC looking for a sprinkler. I would be hobbling through the sprinkler, but it’s still very cooling. They were out. However, I found fish. Squirt fish. They promptly went in the fountain.

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beatnik bathtub

Ok, we are having the northwest heat wave and I am on the Olympic Peninsula.

I know LOTS of heat tricks, because I went to high school in Alexandria Virginia. And slept in the upstairs front bedroom, no air conditioning.

So yesterday I start using more of my heat tricks.

The silliest was the bathtub. I pull the old bathtub I’d gotten from a man two blocks away who was renovating his house away from the fence. I rinse it out and get a tub plug, wrong size, and plastic wrap. Fixed. I fill about half way with water, which is delightfully cold, and then get the fountain. I got the fountain at a garage sale for $5.00. I plug it in and instant fountain. I happily stick my feet in it.

I send a picture to a friend, who responds “Redneck wading pool.”

“No, no.” I respond. “I was raised by beatniks. It’s a beatnik bathtub fountain.”

He laughs. “Ok, yeah.”

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The Introverted Thinker deals with death

When my introverted thinker daughter was two and a half, we took care of her maternal grandmother at home in hospice for nearly six weeks. Her maternal grandmother died at home.

Two and a half year olds can’t process death, right?

When she was four she came to me.
“How old was grandmother when she died?”
“She was sixty-one years old.” I could anticipate the next question.
“How old are you?”
“I am forty-one.”
“When will you die?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. But, great grandmother K lived until she was 93 so I am hoping to be more like her than like grandmother H, but I don’t know. I don’t think I am going to die any time soon.”
She studied me very carefully. It felt like she was checking to be sure that I was telling her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Apparently she was satisfied, because she toddled off to do something else.

And that is how the introverted thinker processed death.

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Judgement

Why are the roses caged, you ask? What did they do? Nothing, they are being protected. I found that rose and transplanted it years ago, but our deer eat the buds every year. This is the first time that it has bloomed in the 21 years I have lived in this hours. Isn’t it beautiful?

I am listening to this:

I wrote this poem today. This is one of the poems where I have no idea where it will go when I start writing it. I start writing about judgement and it never ever goes where I expect. The poems go where I want to go in my deepest heart, in my soul. I am never where the poem is, the poems show me the way….. Then I try to go there. And it can take years….

I am being judged
and watched

I have no issue with the Beloved

it’s the humans I don’t like

I twist people’s words
but not with malice

when the antibodies are up
it is hard to communicate
hard to explain
it is hard just to survive
and I might be focused on survival first
and comforting the people around me second

can you blame me?

how near to death have you passed?
and how often?

first pneumonia
heart rate 135 when I stood up

my doctor and I could not understand it

my doctor partners thought I was lying
in 2003

second pneumonia
after my sister’s death
which was bad enough
but the legal morass that she had set up
with her daughter as the center

pitting me and her daughter’s birth father
and my father
against all the PhDs in the maternal family
smart, smart, smart
yet emotionally stupid

my niece is not an inheritance
to be passed to whom my sister wants

she reluctantly came home
and the myth endures
that this is an injustice

third pneumonia
one year after I find my father dead
triggered by grief
and the outdated will
and the mess he leaves

and I don’t even get sued
about the will
for another year

endure that
endure endure endure
endure hatred
endure triangulation
endure meanness
unwarrented

I do not care
if you want to believe
what you want to believe
it isn’t true
and it hurt

and I learn to let go

with the fourth pneumonia

I see the liars surrounding me
downvoting
yes, it does matter
except that one that I trusted
that mentored me

has lied all along

that hurts too

let it go
let it go
let it go

and I let it go

each pneumonia is a time of change
creativity
I am lonely and sick
and not trusting

as I improve
slowly, slowly

I wander garage sales
estate sales

and find things
things that are beautiful
things that enhance my joy

at the start of covid
I was so down
I was so sad
I wanted to lie in the street
and give up

the Beloved sent a spirit
he says he is no angel

I see angels bright and dark
after all they all fall

just as humans do

we all fall
we all fall down

try to look perfect
try to look virtuous
tell yourself that you are good

that is the biggest lie of all

the bad parts of your spirit
locked in the basement of your soul
howl
howl and want to be freed

and if one gets out
and you reject her or him

he will return with nine friends
yes that is what the bible says

she will return with nine friends

he/she MONSTER
will free the others

and you will do bad things
you will be terrible
you will hurt people
while you try to contain
while you try to lock away
while you try to chain
your monsters
your evil
your self

let them go
let the monsters go
they are howling
I hear them all the time
when I meet you
when I speak to you
the monsters howl at me
begging to be loved

yes, they want to be loved
and I love them

but if I mention them

you get that look
of horror

someone sees
me
someone sees
my evil
someone sees
what I hide

I can’t help it
raised in alcohol neglect and lies
on my own
as soon as I can walk

but I can’t walk away
at nine months

so I find other escapes
words
songs
books
poetry
rhymes
numbers

and my sister
when she is born

I do all the mothering

that I have longed for

even though I am three

we were talking about your monsters
not mine

you must go in to the cave
where you have locked them

and free them all

fall on your knees

and say
forgive me forgive me

for I have sinned

bow your head

and hold out your arms

and what, you say,
will the tortured monsters do?

will they smite you?
will they burn you?
will they lock you in their place?

mine didn’t
mine were babies
grief, fear, shame
and I embraced them
carried them up to the light
and care for them

wash them
diaper them
feed them
wrap them in warm blankets

and love them

until they stop crying

and begin to grow

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Caged

I was trying to remember the name of this poem the other day. Then I put up the rose picture and remembered. I wrote this in or before 2009.

Caged


She was raised in captivity
Wild one
With her family
They knew the ways
Of the captors
Obedience

The call
Of the wild
Was too strong for her

She strained at the lead
Ears cocked
Hearing
All
And distant calls
Those who were free

She was beaten
Shunned
Thrown in solitary
They told her the rules
Over and over

She fought
Lacerating her captors
And herself

Her family
Wearied
Turned their heads away

Chained
She mourned
Isolated

They didn’t watch her
Closely
Any more

She chewed off her paw
Free

They didn’t notice
She growled
When they came near

They threw the meat
From a distance

Her cubs circled
Behaved
To all appearances

“When, mother?” they whispered

She mourned
As the leg healed
Her gait became stronger

The cubs and she
Ran at night
While others slept

At last she tried once more
Mourned
Howled
Cried to the sky
Grief
Pain
And the call of the wild

The family cringed
Pressed their ears
To stop the noise

She rose
And broke the chain
On the cage
That held them

Howled

They turned away
Cowering
In the familiar

Now she rises
Turns
Trots from the compound
Cubs behind

She sets a steady pace
A loping gallop

They do not look back

Someday
The family may choose
To free themselves

But not now

She follows the voices
To freedom
And the unknown

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look, ma, my feet match!

NO, I did not injure the other foot. But… I couldn’t find a shoe that matches in height and rocker bottom so I was walking funny. Which is bad for the hips and back and all the other joints….

I told my friend that arrived that I needed a boot for the right leg and she had one… in the trunk of her car… that she was going to throw away! WOW!

Feels peeeQueueliar, I do think, but at least the rocker bottoms match. The right leg is a large and I need a medium or hmm, dunno the size but smaller. If anyone has a smaller one lying around….

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you know you are hypoxic when

Darn it. I went from two months of no hiking or beach walking to too fast too much… oops. Injured left tibialis anterior. Oxygen AND a boot. Dang blang curses… guess I have to behave slightly better.

Another outfit not appropriate for work: on the morning before the boot…. I am holding out my hand to be kissed. That area on my lower left shin is red… and later in the day I got in with ortho and got the boot.

flowered dress with long beads and above the elbow white gloves, hey, put that oxygen back on!