Tag Archives: photography

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Sol Duc

Mom walked Elwha first today. There is fine mist from the sky. Mother slipped outside with Elwha early. I did not hear the click of the harness until after the door had closed. I had to wait.

Mother came back in and makes coffee before taking me out! Sometimes she and Elwha and I go out together. She is taking us out early today. Yesterday she slept in until 7:00, which is annoying. I prefer that my breakfast is ready at 4:00.

I lead Mother to the wild part of the back yard today, when she won’t let me dig in the neighbor’s garden. I am heading through the yard and realize: one of the four foots is there! A big one!

Black cat and buck meeting.

I go closer and he is quite big. I think it is best if I lead Mother away. I can handle him, of course, but Mother is more vulnerable and after all, she brings me food.

Black cat and buck 2.

Mother backs out of the yard and around the garage. I go further into the yard and there is a lady four foot. She and I exchange greetings. Mother comes around between our garage and the neighbors. She waits until the lady four foot and I are done and the lady four foot goes to the apple tree. Then Mother and I go inside.

I would like more food now, but Mother can be stubborn.

I am Sol Duc and I like the four foots.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cat.

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Bucking trends

Terrible photograph, right? But look for the deer. Two can be seen, and there was a third, another fawn.

First I see the buck in my yard.

Buck eating apples in a driveway.

Then I see him across the street with two fawns. I didn’t get a good picture of all three. But he did that deer thing where they tell the fawns to stay put. I go over to that neighbor’s house for coffee and here are the fawns.

Fawn lying under an apple tree on a lawn.

This is the second year that I have seen a buck with fawns. This time two fawns. The fawns are still spotted but about twice the size of newborns.

I don’t know if the buck is babysitting for the day or if something happened to mom. The fawns don’t move when I walk past and go in the house. I only see the second one because I am looking for it. This is a busy street, but the deer are pretty safe as long as they don’t get hit by a car. We have to pay attention in the early morning and twilight. The deer do teach the fawns to cross at crosswalks too, at least, the moms with fawns are. I think the big bucks have decided they can cross where ever they want.

“White-tailed deer mate in the fall (October – December). The male deer (buck) plays no role in raising fawns.” from here: https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/plants_wildlife/Deer_Fawn_FAQ.aspx. That is a different species. Ok, try information on Washington deer: “Adult bucks take no part in raising fawns, and generally remain solitary or form bachelor groups throughout the summer.” from here: https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/living/species-facts/deer#. Apparently our deer have not read the manual. Or maybe those two spotted ones are males, but I can’t really tell yet.

Our deer are bucking the trend, aren’t they? Deershines instead of monkeyshines?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: monkeyshines.

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Lipssss

Vermilion makes me think of lips. Why lips? Oh, the vermilion border, as it’s called.

Ok, trigger warning, medical stuff: if some gets a cut on their face involving the lips, we have to match the edges of the vermilion border very carefully. Because if it’s not matched, it’s very obvious.

This is me singing at the mirror, with vermilion lip liner and black lipstick. It still looks vermilion, doesn’t it?

Of course I have black lipstick. Don’t you?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: vermilion.

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The next stage

It is hard to build a new life after pneumonia number four.

Running my own clinic and seeing patients and keeping track of a business for eleven years, along with two children, now adults done with college and masters and jobs, I did not have an enormous amount of time.

During covid, I started beach walking with a person. Two years into covid, they say, “I have to get back to my real life.” Oh. They say, “You need your own life.” Um, yes, and clearly they are not in it, by their choice. That was a year into pneumonia four and I was still on oxygen. The person bailed. I was a detour to get them through covid. Ugly, but I am trying to learn everything I can from them. About myself and who and what to avoid!

WordPress and the blogging community helps sustain me through this! I can write when I am ill (at least so far) and when the pandemic closed down. I am so encouraged that people contribute from all over the world. A small candle of hope.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to do a limited clinic or not. I am hoping so.

Meanwhile, I’ve been getting to know more people outside clinic and going to live music and dancing and doing open mikes. I am doing the poetry open mikes. A friend in a band says, “But you don’t come to mine!” “That’s a music open mike.” “We need poetry,” he says. So I’ve gone twice and it has been really fun and I am getting to know that community as well. Last Thursday someone said my poems are weird. “I don’t mean bad, just from a different angle.” Meaning unusual, I think. Perspective.

I have been here for 23 years. I know many people in the music community from singing in chorus all those years, I have a church community, I know many people in the dance community, my father and I were in the Wooden Boat community, I have both good and not so good connections in the medical community. The legal community knows both my children, through Mock Trial competitions. I was in the Rotary for ten years and that is another wonderful community. The exchange students going all over the world and people giving back also give me hope!

Suddenly I am busy. I will have to start choosing between things. I still have the aftereffects of Covid-19. I had mild chronic fatigue before it and still do. I think I am stuck with that, so I have to build in rest and quiet time. At least, physical quiet time. My brain doesn’t really do quiet, but that is ok.

Hooray for every day and for building the next stage.

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I took the photograph this week from Point Defiance, Mount Tahoma, aka Rainier.

Limited:

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Bee love

I love the simple roses the best, with fewer petals. The bees in the Point Defiance Rose Garden agreed with me. I think they reach the pollen more easily if there are fewer petals. Also, I notice that the roses that have the most amazing fragrance are the old fashioned ones! Not completely, but mostly. I love this one.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

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The DSM Stew

Pyschosis
Neurosis
Babeiosis
Psittacosis

Medicine shifts
out the old, in the new
neurosis is gone
from the DSM stew

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/understanding-psychosis

https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/babesiosis/

https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/atypical/psittacosis/index.html

The DSM V is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, volume V. The DSM III was published in 1980, DSM-IV in 1994 and the DSM-V in 2013. Some disorders are dropped or combined with others or the criteria are changed. In the DSM-V, tolerance and overuse (formerly addiction) were combined from two disorders into one spectrum.

Medicine is always changing and updating. Before h. pylori was recognized as a cause of stomach ulcers, there was much more ulcer surgery and ulcer bleeding deaths.

I don’t know what will come out of Covid-19, but the research on the immune system and Long Covid (now called PASC) is formidable.

The DSM-V and the ICD-10 are humans categorizing things, defining diseases. They will continue to change.

For a history of the DSM, read here: https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm/about-dsm/history-of-the-dsm.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: neuroses.

The photograph is taken in September 2021, with my camera. Hypoxia and a fast heart rate makes me really anxious, but neither is considered a psychiatric disorder.