Thank You. My Pretties

More pretties from my Pretties: how can I adequately thank you all for the joy they’ve brought to such a gray, gray month?

I know my photography doesn’t do this arrangement justice, the light isn’t right, nor are my eyes. But trust me, this is beyond stunning.

Two shades of hydrangea: light and dark purple, deep purple pin flowers, deep, deep purple canna lilies, lovely pinkish purple amaranth along with some lovely little orange flowers that I’m not familiar with and more! Every angle reveals a new beautiful floral profile.

 

 

I’m making Raj put them in the garage every night – which serves as a giant walk-in cooler this time of year = to make sure they still look as good on Thanksgiving.

So I thank you all once again for such a benevolent gift of beauty and joy. You’ve given us one more beautiful thing to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.

Oh, and happy Caturday.

Red Tide If By Day, Blue Tide If By Night

For those of you still wondering what happened to Tuesday’s expected red wave here’s the simplest explanation.

Red if by day:

“Harmful algal blooms occur when colonies of algae—simple plants that live in the sea and freshwater—grow out of control while producing toxic or harmful effects on people, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and birds.”

Blue if by night:

“During the day, the algae bloom can cause the ocean to appear with a red or brown tint, but at night, when agitated, it can create a blue bioluminescence.”

On September 28th, 2011, the "Red Tide" hit San Diego shores. The neon-blue waves are not digitally created or altered from their original form.

“While many people call these blooms 'red tides,' scientists prefer the term harmful algal bloom.”

I have no idea how to kill off the deadly dinoflagellate population explosion although I suspect closing the borders might help. Or perhaps we ought not agitate them so:

“…but at night, when agitated, it can create a blue bioluminescence.”

 

Note: not much new on the medical front, still have good days and bad. Will have new scans at the end of the month to determine the effectiveness of ongoing treatment. I have developed another issue which is primarily caused by old age but accelerated by the metabolic disturbances created by cancer and chemo. I have had total vitreous detachments in both eyes. While this usually creates floaters that the brain can adjust to my brain has already been “challenged”  and the floaters in the left eye appeared before my brain had any chance  to “adjust.”  Both eyes have quite large, dense web-like floaters in the line of vision which  seriously compromise my eyesight in that it is both dimmed and blurred so screen time is irritating and difficult. So I will continue infrequent appearances so thank you for your understanding if I don’t respond to comments and thank you for all the ongoing prayers as well as good thoughts and cheer. I’m told the brain usually adjusts to this in 6 months time or so. So we will see (hopefully).

DST

Time is a funny thing to begin with, seemingly ambivalent yet unequivocally inflexible.

Clocks on the other hand are dictators, either benign or tyrannical but dictators nonetheless. They divide your life into 60 minute slices, 24 hour intervals and 365 day segments. How we choose to use our time is a different issue altogether and fairly autonomous. As individuals we’re free to squander it, attempt to make the most of it or simply ignore it; for the most part it’s ours to use or abuse. How we choose to spend our time is one of the few individual rights we seem to have retained in the Democrats’ march to social justice and woke capitalism.

Perhaps that partially explains my semi-annual reflexive opposition to Daylight Saving Time, regardless of the direction it takes.  The government mandated arbitrary “change” of time via our clocks (most of which are now digital and update themselves without even our reluctant participation) is an infringement on my right to waste time as I choose. 

As a protest I’ve chosen to use this clock and this clock alone. It’s the only one that is consistently accurate and in the final analysis the only one that actually matters.

It may be a hazy shade of winter now but look around - soon the grass will be high again.

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again

Halloween Week

Tomorrow is Halloween and I would like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that you should remain skeptical of everything, including things you are skeptical of.

Also, I would like to predict that this year’s most popular costume will be ‘drag queen’ – with absolutely no outcry from the left regarding how demeaning the appropriation of their gender is to women…and clowns.

A Non-Crafter’s Guide To Crafting

I found this a while back on somebody’s Tumblr. I know it’s not even Halloween yet but let’s face it, because of the lead time required the official Christmas Crafting season has already begun.  I know many of you are artful crafters but I suspect just as many, or more, might identify with the (unknown) author’s affliction: Craftophobia, which is closely related to Linonophobia: Fear of String. 

With that in mind, I pass along one woman’s analysis and ranking of crafts and crafters:

“Grandma” crafts ranked by how afraid I am of them, ranked least to most.

·      Knitting – I watched a woman painstakingly knit her own wedding dress on Instagram. The only reason I am not viscerally terrified of knitting is that I can knit and therefore have accepted the horror into my heart: 4/10 for effort

 

·      Crochet – THERE IS ONLY ONE HOOK. HOW. HOW DO YOU DO THAT!? But again, I can single chain enough to seam my knitting, so we’re relatively cool with this: 6/10.

 

·      Embroidery – It’s so little and so detailed??? Literally you do that with a tiny needle and it looks like it could walk off the fabric. You’re a witch, I don’t make the rules. I mean, we’re all witches but you especially: 9/10

 

·      Spinning/weaving – Literally you are making something out of primordial fluff. This by definition makes you a god, I’m pretty sure. Y’all are incredible. I am in awe: 10/10

 

·      Tatting or handmaking lace by other methods that aren’t knitting or crocheting. Part of me is always going to be convinced you’re a spider god but in a cool way. Definitely the most intricate products, and the fact that I can’t parse how they come into being is why I fear and respect you: 11/10, you incredible terrors

 

·      Cross stitching – THIS IS FORBIDDEN MAGIC. WHAT ARE YOU? ALL THE SQUARES???? 1000/10

For the rest of you, let’s get going on those crafts! Time’s a wasting.

Autumn Bloemen

Look at the lovelies that arrived from the bloemen shop Friday afternoon:

So graceful, joyful and filled with love you can feel it; in closeup you can practically smell it.

And Raj tells me that you also sent a gift certificate for gourmet meals, delivered! Everything from shrimp pasta to beef Bourguignon. You MOTI are the most kind, caring and generous group of people I have ever had the pleasure of being associated with and I feel blessed to know you all.

My oncologist is encouraging regarding my progress to date and I’m currently off one of the chemo drugs but scheduled for the rest of the infusions through December. I will have new scans then and we’ll go from there. So the report is “as good as can be expected” and I hope to stay on that path with your continued prayers. And while I absolutely adore the flowers, you’ve done way, way too much already. All I can do to express my gratitude is a sincere thank you, for both the beautiful arrangements and your continued prayers and good thoughts.

On another note, Raj and I celebrated our 50th anniversary on the 13th, well “celebrate” might be a bit of an overstatement as we spent most of the day at U of M hospital getting an infusion. We’ll celebrate in a day or so as I generally am not at my best for several days after. We did have a little pre-anniversary celebration last weekend but will have another when I feel better. I think 50 years – which went by in a flash – is worthy of at least two celebrations. We were going to take a trip but will defer that part of the celebration until next year.

October remains my favorite month although it can be fickle. When I was young I never thought about how quickly on its heels winter arrived. Now that I’m older I think about that probably too much. I remind myself often that after the leaves fall and the wind blows them about there comes a necessary dormancy that allows  the world, and us, to rest. Perhaps even compost a bit of the detritus cluttering our lives and store it as  energy for a glorious spring renewal. In the meanwhile:

Andrew Wyeth, Cornstalk

Bless you all.   

Autumn Leaves

What autumn leaves, raked, look like just about anywhere in the world:

What raked autumn leaves look like in Japan:

As Gerard would ask: “The Japanese: Nuked Too Much or Not Enough?”

And now for a brief health update:

I won’t lie, it’s been kind of a rough few weeks. Eye, jaw and stomach issues accompanied by - most likely - stress induced migraines for which I can no longer take Imitrex. For what it’s worth, Fioracet, essentially the same med I took 30 years ago before Imitrex existed, works no better now than it did then. These issues are most likely chemo/immuno related and may or may not resolve when the treatment is done. While “Immunotherapies” sound better than “chemo” they both, in fact, list nearly identical side effects. 

But the good news: none of these new afflictions appear to be dangerous. So according to my Doc I’m still doing well. I have another round of oral chemo and an Immuno infusion this week and I’m hoping for no new symptoms. Poor Raj, I’m afraid I’ve become a full time job and yet he never, ever complains.

Anyway, again I thank everyone for the prayers prayed, the notes mailed and emailed and the good wishes sent. Apologies to all, I’ve meant to get back with everyone and hopefully I will eventually.

Only 29 Days Till Halloween

Only 29 days till Halloween. Time to get those decorations up.

Well played big orange house at the end of the block, well played.

and bake those Halloween goodies.

If neither decorating or baking are your thing you might want to consider dying your hair a nice shade of pumpkin pie spice. Shown here: Ginger.

So let’s get going, time’s a wasting.

P.S. I’m doing OK; will provide a more detailed “systems update” later this week.