Monthly Archives: November 2021

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tree time

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is perpetuity. Trees have a different time sense then we do. They send electrical messages like we do, but they are slower. Still, the tree can change it’s leaves within hours, to taste bad or poison a pest. I wonder if we seem fast and short lived and impatient to them.

Here is my friend Simon Lynge’s Perpetual Now:

Simon Lynge Perpetual Now
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Beach encounter

Yesterday B and I walk about a mile and a half of beach on Marrowstone Island. We see five other people total. There are long stretches with no one in sight anywhere.

Way down the beach there is a sand cliff. A coyote runs half way across the exposed face and stops. It looks precarious. We watch it. “That’s weird,” says B. “They don’t hang out in plain sight.”

It scrabbles and runs the rest of the way across. It stops and turns and sits. Watching us.

I laugh.

B. frowns. “They don’t DO that.”

“I think it’s listening to us. We’ve been singing and laughing.” We are goofballs on the beach. Wordplay. We’ve both been coming up with advertising songs. Horrors, ear worms.

“They don’t do that.” he says, “Can you take your camera out slowly?”

I have my Panasonic FZ150, 24x zoom. I get some shots. B is acting nonchalant, hunting for agates again. He finds more than me from both practice and I am busy taking pictures and being distracted by other pretty rocks, not just clear agates. He is disciplined. I am a generalist.

I get lovely shots. We zigzag back and forth on the beach, trying to look at ALL the rocks. “If you are hunting like this, other animals think you are foraging. Birds and animals will ignore you. I can get really close to them.”

The coyote is watching us. “He’s listening to us, really!”

“Maybe he wants to know what we are foraging for.”

“Rocks.”

“He’s hungry. Or he’s young.” We don’t really know it’s a he.

I start singing. I zigzag closer and take more pictures. She is flicking her ears at the song.

“She doesn’t seem rabid.”

“There isn’t much rabies out here.”

“Bats.” I say. I’ve researched it twice in the last 8 years.

“Yes, but not mammals.”

I start a video and sing to the coyote. I sing The Fox, though I leave out the verses about Old Mother Flipperflopper and the hunters. Coyote flips her ears and turns her head. She is checking where B is since he is moving further down the beach. I finish the song and turn off the video. “Thank you!” I say.

We walk again.

When we turn around, there is Coyote. She has shadowed us down the beach, and she slips into the brush at the foot of the cliff. She is quickly not visible.

“Humph.” says B.

I laugh.

Later, we look up and a larger animal is coming toward me. We both startle, but it is in a submissive posture. A dog, not a coyote, with a red collar. We both thought it was a coyote for a moment. It comes up to me and is very friendly. Then to B. Then back to it’s owner, who limps into sight.

“Wow, I thought it was another bigger coyote for a minute.”

“Me too. I thought it was coming right after you.”

“It’s owner looks frail and old.”

“Our age.”

“No way!” laugh.

“Yes.”

I don’t think so, but maybe. I was more focused on the dog.

I find two clear agates, but come back with two windbreaker pockets with other rocks. B only finds one that meets his specifications. My two really aren’t up to the quality he wants. Well, one is borderline and one doesn’t qualify.

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Under the weather

It is November and in the Pacific Northwest it’s hard not to feel under the weather because the clouds are right over our heads. Or some mornings I open the door and my house is in the cloud. In the weather. Is that a saying too? In the hurricane, in the cyclone, in a storm. Some days I feel like I can reach up and touch the underside of the low hanging cloud. Some days it feels heavy, but others it feels safe. Hiding, hidden, invisible.

For today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt: under the weather.

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Email quack spam: try CBD oil for free!

Lovely email QUACK spam. TRY CBD OIL FOR FREE!

“The Miracle Molecule! Everything You Need To Know About the Health Benefits of CBD Oil“. The link implies that the article was in Reuters. I ain’t pressing no spam link. Internet search on Reuters Everything You Need to Know About the Health Benefits of CBD Oil does not bring up a Reuters article.

“All natural formula. All CBD products use proven, organic all natural ingredients that are toxin-free.”

Ok, now WAIT a minute. Proven? By what the hell method? We dropped some and got high so it’s good? And don’t get me started on toxin-free. Sure, and they’ll sell you a bridge too.

Let’s discuss all natural.

Is CBD oil “all natural”? Um. Well, it could be organically grown, I will give them that. There have been pesticide poisonings from illegal pot and the laws for growers vary state by state. Check your state laws re whether they have specified what the growers can use on the marijuana plants. Paraquat is very strongly implicated in Parkinson’s (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20094060/) and you don’t want that, do you?

How do you define “all natural”? Innocent virgin farmer girls and boys, skipping through the pot plans and milking the oil out gently? Oh, ye innocent and foolish peoples. Here is a nice article about fires in CBD processing plants: https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/dsdfire-38-1.pdf. They burn real good, it turns out.

The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) has guidelines: https://www.firefighternation.com/prevention/nfpa-approves-420-standard-on-fire-protection-of-cannabis-growing-and-processing-facilities/. You do keep up with the NFPA, don’t you?

An older article illustrating the problem: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/18/marijuana-factories-explosions-safety-issues-1155850.

And the title of this seems pretty self explanatory: https://extraxx.com/the-top-five-safety-concerns-in-a-cannabis-extraction-facility/. “Let’s begin with the obvious. When dealing with flammable gasses or liquids in extract production, there is a risk of fire or explosion during the handling process. The easiest way to understand the risk of fire or explosion is to consider the fire triangle. Essentially, a fire needs three things to start: a fuel source, oxygen, and an ignition source. The basic philosophy here is that by removing legs from the fire triangle, we can make the process safer; by removing two legs, an operator can make their extraction process significantly less incident-prone.” Later in the article: “there are two tools that should be kept on site to make known the presence of unnoticed flammable vapors: a permanent LEL, or Lower Explosive Limit, monitor should be installed in the extraction room; and a handheld two or four gas portable monitor should be on site as well.”

I don’t have much experience with LFL monitors. Now I want to buy some of the gummies and try lighting them on fire. Does the smoke make one high? Well, I think it depends what it is suspended in. I thought vaping was insane when I read that some of the nicotine vapes suspended the product in antifreeze. Um, your dog may die if they drink it. Absorption in the lungs just does not seem wise. Also, some of the vapes get so hot that heavy metals get in the lungs. You know, lead and stuff. When I researched it last, China was turning out 500 different kinds of vape machines. Uh, ick, don’t do that. Sugar burns so the gummies might. I have some “Annie’s organic fruit gummies” so I can check whether they burn. Though they shouldn’t contain CBD oil. Now you know what I am doing while disabled. Home chemistry and on line research.

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Cognitive behavioral therapy

Dr. Aaron Beck, father of cognitive behavioral therapy, died this week, November 2021, at age 100.

Oddly enough, the best explanations of cognitive behavioral therapy that I’ve read is on a writing website. It talks about writing down all of the horrible thoughts and then going back and writing counter thoughts. Psychologists have been talking at me at medical conferences for years about cognitive behavioral therapy, but they never explained it. They said we could do it in clinic. I thought cynically that maybe I could if I knew what the hell it was.

And the explanation by the author is oddly similar to what I think of as the angel and devil on my shoulders. It turns out that I do do it in clinic.

When I react to some event, I let the devil out first. It has a fit about whatever is happening, writes poems, is reactive, paranoid and full of anger and grief. It often imagines over the top terrible things happening to the person or people that did whatever it is. Then the angel wakes up and says, wait. What are you saying? What you are imagining and cursing that person with is WAY worse then what they did. The angel writes the poems of forgiveness.

So I have been doing a homemade form of cognitive behavioral therapy.

However, I would say that it can be overused. We need to listen to patients carefully. If they are in an abusive relationship, it should not be papered over with cognitive behavioral therapy. A friend and I have been comparing terrible childhoods. His involved being beaten without reason.

I said recently that what people hit with in my family is words. They make grief and fear into stories, funny stories, that make people laugh. Shame and humiliation and reliving the feelings. I said that I am reactive and pay close attention to words. But I have reason, back to age 2. I said that books are my refuge because the words are not about me, they don’t shame me, they do not humiliate me, and if I read a book twice, it has the same words. Home, love and safe.

In my maternal family, if I said that I was not comfortable with a comment, I was told that I took things too seriously, that I have no sense of humor, that I can’t take a joke. Gaslight and then dismiss any objection. That is how one side of my family loves. I do not like it. Unsurprisingly, they do not love me, or at least I do not feel loved.

And my friend said, your family, your childhood, was worse than mine.

One of my talents in clinic is that I can listen to insane family stories. I can listen because my family is insane. They are cruel. At least, it feels like cruelty and horror to me. I didn’t ever try to find out if a family story is true. I listen and then say, yes. I think it is appropriate for you to feel angry/sad/horrified/appalled/scared/hurt/whatever.

Somehow that listening and validation is huge. I have people come in and say, “I NEED AN ANTIDEPRESSANT.” They want to supress the feelings. So I had time in my clinic: why do you need an antidepressant? Tell me the story. Fill me in. What are you feeling and why?

And more than half the time after the story, after validation, I ask, “Do you need an antidepressant?”

The person thinks. “No. I don’t think so. Let me think about it. I feel better.”

“Ok. Do you want to schedule a follow up?”

Half do. Half say: “No, let me wait and see. I will if I need it.”

Mostly they don’t need it. They have emptied out the awful feelings in the exam room and they aren’t so awful after all. I say that it sounds like a pretty normal response and I would feel that way too. Because I would. Once the feelings, the monstrous feelings, are in the light of day, they relax and evaporate, dissipate like mist, fly home to the Beloved. Goodbye, dark feelings. You are appropriate and you are loved.

Blessings, Dr. Beck, and thank you.

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Our town Covid-19 quarantine list

This is fiction. Though many of the people may exist in some form or other.

Subheading of police report:

Current covid-19 quarantine list

1. Katherine is quarantined for 10 days for chasing a deer out of her front yard with a broom without wearing a mask. Many thanks to the two neighbors who called in. Also, quit talking to deer and singing to the chickadees. You are just confusing everything.

2. Bob 1 is quarantined for 10 days for biking down his drive way without a mask on. Yes, we know you wore the mask for the other 48.25 miles. We don’t care.

3. Bill is quarantined for taking off his mask while hunting elk. No, being thirsty after butchering is not an acceptable excuse. You just be glad that you had that elk tag.

4. Two more Bobs are quarantined, one for playing the piano and the other for playing the fiddle, both with the windows open while not wearing a mask. It’s too cold for that right now and germs. Geeze.

5. Russ is quarantined because he can still talk fast, even through the mask. We aren’t allowed to say what else he’s done.

6. Joey is quarantined for miming fascism in public. We can tell who you are through the mask. Stick to magic, dude. Miming facisim is just creepy, ok? You are giving us nightmares.

7. Lou and Amelia are quarantined for abandoning the post office and for being too nice to bicyclers. What are you two, liberals?

8. Leah is quarantined for wearing that peek a boo mask and it didn’t match the rest of the outfit. Ok, you had matching gloves, shoes, hat, coat, dress and lipstick, but the mask was not right and we’re outlawing the peek a boo thing. People just get too hot.

9. Patrick is quarantined for nursing in public right out in the open. Really, now. Currently those fall under the mask rules too. You can use a big scarf or go indoors. It’s not socially acceptable yet for guys.

10. Geoff is quarantined for exposure to the 80 year old neurologist who is still working doing Independent Medical Exams. You guys took off your masks between patients in the back room. Fools.

11. Sue is quarantined for being around Geoff. Double fool.

12. Barbara and Carl and family are quarantined because they left everyone sad and hungry on Christmas Day 2020. Carl did not make the 500 gallons of hollandaise. We will happily set up a social distancing grid with 10 foot colored places for people to sit, with the neighborhood cordoned off for two blocks in all directions from your house. That is, we’d get eggs benedict first and any time one of us came on or off shift. The High School Robotics team has agreed to repurpose their robot to deliver to each person who is masked and sitting in a grid spot. We envision a pattern using both sides of each street so that the robot doesn’t go on the grass and fall over. We might even fund a second robot. Please? Could we have Christmas this year?