Tag Archives: wet

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ski trip

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dirt.

What worries a skier about the opening photograph?

Yesterday the introverted thinker and I went water skiing. On Mount Baker. It rained the whole time. Cold! And the introverted thinker’s knee hurt. We bagged it once I had ice puddles in my ski boots and could squeeze a stream out of my ski gloves.

On the very first lift ride, I realized that my wrist pocket was unzipped. Cash was still in there but the car key wasn’t. We skied down and I checked each place I’d been. No key. We got back on the lift and watched. There were a lot of small black specks. We discussed how much fun it would be to wait for AAA on the top of the mountain.

We skied down, going very slowly right under the lift.

FOUND IT!

Whew. After that neither of us whined. We skied until we were soaked. Her knee was being uncooperative and she was skiing warily. I couldn’t wear goggles because then my glasses fogged too much. Neither of us could see much through the rain. We went up a higher lift and then it was heavy wet slushy snowing. Then we really couldn’t see. Both nearly crashed skiing by proprioception, when a dip was invisible. I stopped at a sign and then fell backwards, visual cues just weren’t working for balance. Unhurt.

And what does this have to do with dirt? I started skiing at age 9 on the east coast, in upstate New York. We would go from Johnson City and meet my uncle and cousins at the small Labrador Mountain ski area. It was a family area. The snow was often awful. We skiied on ice, slush and dirt. Patches of dirt would show through and we learned to avoid them and avoid the rocks. The first time I skiied powder in Colorado I was mystified: I didn’t know how to ski it. But slush on top of hardpacked moguls? No problem.

So skiing Baker put me back to my tweens. The conditions were so familiar. My body was so comfortable with really crappy snow. The ungroomed parts had so much water on top that skis practically stopped. If I had been dressed in foul weather gear I could have skied most of the day.

But soaking wet is another matter. We turned in the skis and ate a late lunch. Happily used the car key to get dry clothes. Changed and drove back to Bellingham. We had a fabulous dinner looking out over the bay with a wonderful sunset.

Bellingham Bay with yellow, orange, pink and blue sunset over islands.
dinner and a sunset

Blessings all.

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water to wash

Happy things from A to Z, the letter W. W for water, wet and wash!

We were very excited about the green turtles in Hawaii. But we photograph birds too:

DSCN1574

Down by the water, checking it out. Then the featured post, bathing in the sea. And a clean wet bird:

DSCN1576

We think this is a yellow billed cardinal, originally introduced from Brazil, here.

W

Blogging from A to Z, the letter W.

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How I water orchids

the grocery store orchid
instructions
say
to water with a weekly cube of ice

no

think of the orchid
perched high in the rain forest
on the branch of a tree
in the canopy

an ice cube

seems cruel

once a week
I take each orchid
and place it in a glass container
and pour water soaking

like the rains

inundating warm water

and let it soak a little

lift the orchid out to drain

and promise it the rain will come

again next week

sometimes
the orchids bloom and bloom and bloom

for months

promise them the rain will come

again next week

 

for the Daily Post photo challenge: sweet.

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rescue

We were leaving for a Seattle, dressed up for a musical, and Patrick an animal on the road.

“Shall we stop and rescue her? It’s cold and she can’t move fast.”

“Let’s!”

He turned around, stopped the car, hopped out and handed me this salamander. Who liked the warmth of my hand. We pulled into a driveway, he took the picture, and I set our friend farther from the road.

Thanks to all the responders, fire, flood and mud.

Photo credit Patrick Rubida.

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disaster and withdrawal

When I watch the disaster news, what I think about is withdrawal.

Everyone who is on a substance that causes dependence or addiction is withdrawing.

They don’t seem to ever discuss that, but think…. if you are in Houston or Florida when everything floods, are your cigarettes dry? I don’t think so. And put multiple people in close contact in a shelter, with many withdrawing… I am not surprised that tempers flare.

Let’s look at numbers.

Tobacco: in 2013, 21.3% of the US population age 12 and older, smokes tobacco. Disasters are a reason to quit. It’s hard enough to quit tobacco, but imagine going cold turkey if we have our Pacific Northwest really massive earthquake. Quit smoking now, don’t wait for a disaster. And think about being in a stadium with one in five of the people over age 12 withdrawing from tobacco. Is that fun?

Alcohol: “In 2013, 30.2 percent of men and 16.0 percent of women 12 and older reported binge drinking in the past month. And 9.5 percent of men and 3.3 percent of women reported heavy alcohol use.” Ok, that’s rather vague. If you have a drink or two after work every day or with dinner, will you notice the lack? Yes, I think so, but maybe only 10% of the adults are really going into alcohol withdrawal. That’s a conservative estimate. 30% are probably grumpy.

Illicit drugs: 4-8% of the 40-70 year olds used something in the past month. Are they addicted? Well, some are. And the 18-15 year olds are the most active, around 20%. Methamphetamines, cocaine, crack, crank, heroin, eeee-yuk.

Prescription drugs: “More than half of new illicit drug users begin with marijuana. Next most common are prescription pain relievers, followed by inhalants (which is most common among younger teens).” So let’s see, what percentage of the population is on prescribed opioids, benzodiazepines and barbituates? Ooooo, 1/3 of the US population has been prescribed opioids (2). Chronic opioids are prescribed to 3-4% of the US population, but of course, that is the prescribed chronic pain ones, not the illicit ones. Now, those can have a withdrawal. Alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal are the most dangerous for the patient, but in opioid withdrawal the pain receptors go absolutely crazy, like a volcano blowing up. And the tweakers withdrawing from methamphetamines. The sleep medicines like sonata and ambien avoid the issue of whether they are addictive by saying they are for “short term use” — 6 weeks for the former and 2 weeks for the latter, but some people have been on them for years. And marijuana daily, I have seen great difficulty with anxiety and sleep when people are trying to quit.

Marijuana: 7.5% of the population over age 12. How many of those are addicted? I see varying numbers, ranging from 10% to 50%. If you use marijuana regularly, check. Stop it for a week. See if there is a problem. I’d try it before a disaster, because it would add to the stress during….

Caffeine: Ok, I would withdraw from caffeine. 90% of US people are addicted to caffeine. I get a massive headache for 24 hours and then I am ok. I have gone off it more than once….

With ADHD medicines for children, a “drug holiday” is sometimes recommended. If you are regularly using any potentially addictive substance, try a “drug holiday” of your own.

And I think it’s the best motivator ever to quit smoking. Friday I had a couple of dedicated smokers and when I talked about flooded cigarretes, they blanched. Quit now, before you quit in circumstances…

And prayers for everyone in the disaster areas.

1. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends
2. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-than-one-third-americans-prescribed-opioids-in-2015/
3. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/27/americans-consume-almost-all-of-the-global-opioid-supply.html  Hey, 80% of the world opioid supply is eaten by the US population! Why are US citizens in so much pain? Or are we under the impression that we shouldn’t have to feel pain and by gosh, we can afford the drugs….
4. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1507771#t=article Opioid Abuse in Chronic Pain — Misconceptions and Mitigation Strategies.

So WHY doesn’t the news talk about this? Because the cigarette and alcohol and prescription drug companies would yank the advertising?