If It’s Not In the MSM, It Doesn’t Count

I’m sure this has already been posted but it seems a fine story to begin a new thread. ELON MUSK (AND MATT TAIBBI) HELP EXPLAIN ‘WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH THE HUNTER BIDEN STORY SUPPRESSION’ (WOW); Updated.

There is some fine reading there. Will the MSM find time this busy holiday season to mention it? Don’t be silly.

 

Health Update:

My latest: brain MRI and body scans last week revealed no new or spread tumors/cancers so that is good news indeed. And I thank you for your ongoing prayers and positive vibes. The bad news is my eyes, as I think I’ve mentioned before, are giving me additional trouble. Both eyes now have a detached vitreous which present as very thick tangled masses of black, web-ish clouds. These are no simple floaters.  It’s more like advanced cataracts. Even blown up YUGE and set to dark mode for high contrast screen time is difficult and frustrating. I can’t see pictures on my computer at all so…seriously vision impaired for now..

Theoretically this should clear up as the brain "adjusts" although my doc told me that generally people have time for the brain to adjust to the first eye before the second eye detaches so I don't know how this will work. Ophthalmologist's advice is to give it 6 months and if it isn't better give it a bit longer. There is surgery that can be done but he's apparently not a big fan, nor am I at this point so we shall wait and, hopefully, see.

Anyway I'll take bad sight and misaligned jaws if the scans keep coming back clear. I've much to be grateful for so will try not to complain (too  much) about the rest. I will continue on my regimen of chemo/immuno-therapies for the foreseeable future. I’m getting somewhat used to it and seem to have a little more energy some days.

Hope you all are well and stay that way. I don’t know about you but we’ve got our lights and tree up; if you haven't do it now! We need a little Christmas as the song says. Where I am, the steel gray days, late mornings and early evenings require the twinkle of Christmas lights.

So forgive me, I know I owe many of you emails and such but I really can’t see well enough to do so. This short post took me 2 days and Raj’s tech support to get up and probably still has typos. Hopefully things will improve but until then I will likely not be around much but will be thinking about you all. 

Thanksgiving 2022

Reposted from last year:

For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have so much to be thankful for it’s hard to know where to start. So I will start with you - the MOTI who gather here. We are like family whose members don’t always agree and some times  even squabble but are nevertheless connected by a deep common bond. Unlike real families our bond isn’t blood but rather the shared values and principles that our country was founded on and we learned to cherish. We are bound together by our Constitution, the guide to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.

I am thankful for the many other things I have to be grateful for: I’m grateful I was born on the cusp of the 50s, when America was great and nobody was ashamed of that.

A Sears-Roebuck Dutch colonial; ‘colonial’ - you could never list it that way today.

For having been born to a world where individual freedom, self-reliance and personal responsibility were core values of everyone who aspired to be a good citizen, and that was nearly everyone.

Where the freedom call of the open road was a siren’s song

beckoning us to explore the land and our place in it.

I’m grateful that I was born when America was seen as a melting pot - and that was a good thing, not bad. A time before ‘cultural appropriation’ was a thing and, if used at all, applied only to the Brits raiding Egyptian tombs.

Taco Tuesday wasn’t a thing and tacos weren’t racist

I’m grateful for having received an actual education focused on knowledge, critical thinking and how to think rather than indoctrination consisting of what to think about such things as ‘critical race theory’ and other ‘social justice’ issues.

I’m grateful that I was raised in a time when many people, black and white, worked to correct true civil rights in‘critical race theory’ justices. And  when “peaceful protests”

meant marches and sit-ins rather than riots and and the creation of fake victims to be exploited for political gain.

I’m grateful for having been young at a time when it wasn’t necessary to feel guilty about everything that I ate, drank, drove, bought or dreamed about for fear of being selfish and killing the planet.

Just because it was cool

For these, and much, much more, I’m truly grateful. I will wrap up this Thanksgiving post with my annual MOTI Thanksgiving prayer:

In addition to all the other blessings

you have conferred on my reflective frame

I wish to thank you, Lord,

for the companionship of steadfast comrades

whose wit and wisdom and strength

help steer me through these tempestuous seas

of flattery and lies churned to fury by the ill will of demagogues.

Amen.

A special thanks to all who visit here. I wish you a peaceful, happy Thanksgiving unmarred by strife. Because there is always something to be thankful for.

Update 2022: As you know this has been a difficult year vet even so, as I’ve noted in every Thanksgiving post I’ve done,  there’s always something to be grateful for.  This year is no different I’m ever grateful for all my doctors, nurses and techs who keep me going, for all of you and your continual prayers and the countless kindnesses you’ve sent my way. And of course I’m most grateful for Raj, my steadfast partner, best friend, soulmate, caretaker and cheerleader. I would go on, but unfortunately my eyesight is really bad right now and computer screens are not my friend. But that’s a story for another day, today I’m grateful that I can still see (sort of).

I hope you all enjoy Thanksgiving, and remember…there truly is always something to be grateful for.

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.