Tag Archives: crow

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Talk

Today I will interview people in clinic, but yesterday I hiked alone. Well, no, not really alone. I spot movement and freeze. A silent interview of this rabbit, with the help of my zoom camera. There was a very young bunny further on, about 6 inches long, who hid behind a bush a year from me. I did not want to scare her, so did not get a photograph.

Lizards and crows, too. Chipmunks and a squirrel who was noisy until she realizes that I have spotted her in the small tree, barely taller than me.

I climbed the Serpent’s Trail which is an old road. It goes up and up but is never terribly steep. At the top, I can see the haze: smoke from forest fires in the Pacific Northwest and Canada is coming down. When I got home I closed up the house to keep the air cleaner. It is smokey today with lots of small particulates, not good. We will see more asthma, allergies, eye problems, emphysema and the smoke makes people headachey and irritable. I hope it doesn’t sit in the Grand Valley for a long time.

Meanwhile, the bunnies and the crows and the lizards and the squirrels, can’t go inside, can they?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: interview.

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On line weight loss drugs

Don’t buy it. Apparently a company call Him is selling a compounded GLP-1 like drug, have worked around the DEA for the moment, but people are getting really sick and there have been some deaths. Article here.

The workaround is that the DEA will let compounding pharmacies make a drug if there is a shortage. Unfortunately, online companies are doing 734,000 prescriptions a month. People can get them on line without a doctor visit or labs, though there may be a doctor signing off. Remember that they are selling an untested GLP-1, and the side effects of the tested ones can include gall bladder disease, pancreatitis and gastroparesis, where the food sits in the stomach and doesn’t leave. And yes, there have been deaths. This may be the salt of the drug, so that it doesn’t have the slow absorption when injected, and hits all at once. Is weight loss that important?

The guidelines for weight loss drugs are here: https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2023/1000/practice-guidelines-medications-weight-loss.html. This article is from October 2023, so doesn’t have the latest offering. I recently saw a person who did not fall into those guidelines. I refused to prescribe. The person responded, “I’ll go to Mexico and get it.” I reply, “Be sure that they do laboratory work and talk to you about the potential side effects.” I am also reading that now there are faked weight loss injector pens circulating. I don’t know what is in them. Fentanyl? Floor sweepings? Who knows.

Meanwhile I am still working on a little weight loss myself. I don’t know if I’ve lost much but clothes are fitting better. The climbing gym and hiking are having an effect. Muscle burns 9 kcal per gram and fat only 4 kcal per gram, so building muscle slims one even if the weight stays the same. My endurance is rising. That feels so good after being on oxygen for a year and a half. I am still trying to eat 1/2 green/yellow or orange vegetables at each meal and I think that is helping too. All this discipline stuff, eeyuk. Oh well.

Anyhow, be careful out there. I do not recommend getting weight loss drugs off the internet or buying it from “friends of friends”. Bad news.

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Birth

I am born today anew. Why does birth feel like a rejection, like a spitting out from the shelter of a womb, a body, a mother, a community, a job? I gasp in the new unfamiliar air, unsure how to use my lungs in this place. This labor was not terrible, not as hard as ones in the past. The air and light are shocking, I open my eyes, what is this place? Too bright, I close them. Hands have me and then I am back with my mother. Not inside but against her skin. The lights are down and I open my eyes. It was dark, dark, dark in that womb, so I open my eyes wide, to take in all the new information. I am shocked and afraid, but my mother’s heartbeat reassures me. I hope I won’t be eaten. What is this place? And now I am hungry and I start to search, not sure how to do it, search for food.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: birthday.

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Spam hater: Covid test email spam

The latest spam email I have gotten is “to order Covid-19 tests”. WATCH OUT FOR THAT ONE! I am sending hate thoughts to whoever sent that one out, predators trying to get information or lock up the computers of vulnerable people.

The clue for me is the email address of the sender. If I hover over the address and get a string of weird things, it is spam. I am fast at deleting it now.

Old fashioned and very strong curses against the people sending out this spam.

Here is the correct link for ordering tests: https://special.usps.com/testkits

Or if you would prefer, search (or google) USPS covid test kits. Make sure you do not click on advertisements but go to the real site!

Blessings all.

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Vaccine refusal folly

Who should NOT get vaccinated for Covid-19?

This is supposed to be humor. You may not find it funny.

Clearly oppositional defiant people do NOT get vaccinated. Here are a list of the reasons that I have heard, most of them said to my face or on email:

Hyper Conservative:
1. God will take care of me.
2. It’s false news. All made up by the media. The media is liberal. Even Fox News. Even CNN. They don’t know the true meaning of conservatism. I honor the flag.
3. We do our own research. We have better and deeper sources even than QAnon. If you don’t know what I am talking about than you don’t know! Why are you so stupid?
4. Alien lizards made the vaccine and it has tiny nanobots and it is tracking us and will take over our brains. Some people have ALREADY HAD THEIR BRAINS TAKEN OVER BY LIBERAL MEDIA AND NOW QANON! It’s probably best to bunker down.
5. No I don’t vote. Where is my medicaid check? Those evil government people are trying to take away my mother’s social security. If I voted, I would be part of the problem.
6. Masks kill you. Because you breathe your own breath. It’s not the CO2. You didn’t realize that your breath was THAT foul, did you? EEEEEEE-YUK.
7. No one can tell me what to do. If they do, I won’t do it. I won’t die. So there.

Hyper Liberal:
1. Goddess will take care of me.
2. Antibiotics are evil. Vaccines are evil. If you live NATURALLY, you will live forever. But I ordered that book that tells you how to cook your own medicines on your stove!
3. There is this HERB. It fixes everything. What do you MEAN, my kidneys are failing? But I live NATURALLY.
4. Doctors are evil. Well, not naturopaths. The government is evil. Yeah, I’m on medicaid. My mother NEEDS her medicare check. WTF is WRONG with you people? Why would I VOTE on the evil government?
5. Scientists are evil. If they would use NATURAL remedies, we’d all be fine. No, I don’t get labs checked. I don’t need to. Yes, these are shoes. Whaddaya MEAN shoes aren’t natural? These are handmade with hemp processed in a massive factory and NO LEATHER because LEATHER IS EVIL. I have bamboo towels, too, bamboo is natural. What do you MEAN it takes a fungkload of chemicals to process bamboo into fabric? It’s NATURAL.
6. Humans are evil. We should live naturally. Yes, I live in a house. Houses are natural. If you use natural cleansers and only allow natural fabrics and toys and crystals and foods. I don’t approve of logging. Yes, my house is made of wood, what of it?
7. No one can tell me what to do. If they do, I won’t do it. I won’t die. So there.

Martians:
1. It makes their brains explode in their helmets.

Alien Lizards posing as humans:
1. Well, actually we need to get the vaccine. I got it.

Gorillas:
1. They get the vaccine too, even the oppositional defiant ones. Except for the wild ones that are really canny and who we can’t catch and dart gun with the vaccine.

This is supposed to be humor. You may not find it funny. Don’t use it as proof that you shouldn’t get the vaccine, though people with really crazy ideas shouldn’t get it. Did you hear that they are about to send all the remaining vaccine supply to Africa because people here are refusing it? Is that a rumor or is it true?
The CDC has other ideas. But we don’t trust them, right?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: folly.

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Mundane Monday #181: shadow

For Mundane Monday #181, my theme is shadow. Halloween is approaching, yesterday was gloriously sunny in the afternoon here, but the shadows are darkest when the sun is brightest. Contrast. I took this from a downtown restaurant balcony, out over the water.

What shadows and contrasts have you photographed? Send your link or a message, and they will be posted next week.

From last week, Mundane Monday #180: fall coral.

KL Allendorfer with real coral.

 

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y for yes

Blogging from A to Z, happy things. Y for yellow, yearn and yes! w

I yearn to get more exercise. Sort of. I’m not making it enough of a priority. I did walk to work about a week ago and lots of trees were topped with birds. First a yellow shafted Northern Flicker. Am I sure it’s yellow shafted and not red shafted? Well, no. I would need a brighter day to see it’s tail that well.

Next:

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Corvus, the crow. Here. Next a robin:

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And who is this? Very upright and about the size of the crow:

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The branches made it a tricky focus shot and I zoomed all the way in. There! Yes!

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I think this is a juvenile Swainson’s hawk, here. It could be a Cooper’s hawk but doesn’t have a long tail. Correct me, birders, if I am wrong!

Yes, yearn and yellow…. yea for the letter Y.

Y