Tuesday, September 29, 2009
For Bobbie
and then I think I said something about watching the Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks and commenting that the dollar always was king.
Spine Surgery?
I know Eliot is very concerned but he wants to read all he can on the internet first before calling Bill or the doctor back. He's got an appointment with his PCP's PA and the new cardiologist next week. Thursday I'm going to see my PCP because I don't know how to handle all this . Eliot is reading all these horror stories on the internet about this kind of surgery. I don't know what he's going to do.
At least it's supposed to cool off tomorrow.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Writing
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Cheers
Monday, September 21, 2009
Arizona
Friday, September 18, 2009
Next Move
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Public Option
Tell Harry Reid: Don't let Max Baucus kill the public option.
Source: act.credoaction.com
Next week, the Senate Finance Committee is expected to start debating and voting on its health care reform bill. Of the five Congressional committees writing health care bills, this will be the only one not to include provisions for a public health insurance
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Remembering Brian
Monday, September 14, 2009
I stand corrected
Still in Torrey
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Blackwater Lightship
"Imaginings, and resonances and pain and small longings and prejudices. They meant nothing against the resolute hardness of the sea. They meant less than the marl and the mud and the dry clay of the cliff that were eaten away by the weather, washed away by the sea. It was not just that they would fade: they hardly existed, they did not matter, they would have no impact on this cold dawn, this deserted remote seascape where the water shone in the early light and shocked her with its sullen beauty. It might have been better she felt, if there had never been people, if this turning of the world, and the glistening sea and the morning breeze happened without witnesses, without anyone feeling, or remembering, or dying, or trying to love. She stood at the edge of the cliff until the sun came out from behind the black rainclouds."
Thursday, September 10, 2009
More joy from Celeste
Celeste Maia recognized me for my "pluck" and I love her image. It speaks to me on several levels. The moon has always been special to me since my Wiccan days and the figure holding the moon is for me definitely Jungian.
Celeste is a rare creature, so talented and so caring bringing joy into many lives. I am so honored that she found me on the mountain and gave me the courage to continue my pluck. I have so enjoyed her blog and the many blogs she has introduced me to. And how wonderful that she shares her paintings on her blog and website. I go to them often.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Red Rock Country
The first photo is in Sulphur Canyon just outside Capitol Reef National Park which Eliot and I really like because not being a signed trail their are very few hikers on it and it cuts through many layers of the Colorado Plateau. The middle picture is actually in Capitol Reef. This whole area is part of what's called the Colorado Plateau although most of it is in Utah, actually roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. It covers an area of 337,000 km (130,000 mi.) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, and northern Arizona. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries; the Green, San Juan and Little Colorado.
In the southwest corner of the Plateau lies the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. Most of the Colorado Plateau's landscape is related, in both appearance and geologic history, to the Grand Canyon. The nickname "Red Rock Country" suggests the brightly colored rock left bare to the view by dryness and erosion. Domes, hoodoos, fins, reefs, goblins, river narrows, natural bridges and slot canyons are only some of the additional features typical of the Plateau.
The Colorado Plateau has the greatest concentration of national parks in the United States. Among its parks are Grand Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, and Petrified Forest National Park. Among the national monuments are Dinosaur National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, Wupatki National Monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and Colorado National Monument.
Torrey, Utah
Eliot found on the internet the Laser Spine Institute based in Tampa Florida that says they can do endoscopic minimally invasive procedures to free pinched nerves and that they have an officer in Scottsdale, AZ. I wonder if anyone who reads this has heard about such procedures.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Going off line
I have to explain he thrill of receiving the award which might have seemed a little over the edge. When I was in first-grade in elementary school I had my gold stars taken away from me for a minor infraction which I didn't even know was wrong. Nobody had explained the rules to me. School from kindergarten up was a disaster for me. Celeste you don't know how lucky you were to be taught by your parents. I could write a whole long post about the tortures of childhood and the failure of public education in the US. When I was an usher one year at the UU Church in Rochester (I joked about it being called a church - I said it was a cover for subversive activities. It had little to do with religion, no dogma, inclusive of all believes and lifestyles - it was about community, love and service) I mentioned the gold star incident to the head usher. At the end of the year he handed me a card for good work done with gold stars all over it.
When we get back online I'll try to figure out how to send awards. I'm constantly finding new wonderful blogs to read.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
I got an award!
Look what LadyLuz send me, an award. I don't know why. Don't think I deserve it and now I'm supposed to send it to 7 other blogs. I hope I can find seven other blogs who don't already have it. Maybe I can send duplicates. And I'm supposed to send 7 things about myself nobody knows:
1. I practiced social nudism for a while. It's great for body image. You don't find any beauty queens at family nudist camps, lots of happy kids running around as they were born, every thing hanging out naturally and skinny dipping beats bathing suits anytime. One does have to be picky about where to go. The Naturist Society is he best way to connect to family oriented camps. And many of them don't allow singles. It's best to be a member of a local club.
2. I volunteered two winters at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico before I met Eliot. I learned a lot about birds and met some wonderful people. Didn't know until after I'd known Eliot for a while that he's been a birder his whole life.
3. I studied Transactional Analysis originated by Eric Berne and figured out my life script according to his method which helped explain a lot of my behavior and and found his Games People Play to be very helpful.
4. In 1957 I bicycled with my late husband from Munich to Bremerhaven on single speed bikes. It took a month and we lived on $1 a day.
5. I worked five years in a Nursing Home as an LPN on the night shift. They loved my hugs but hated the suppositories I had to give some before my shift ended. And I hope I helped some find peace in their final days. If I believed in guardian angels, I know who'd they be.
6. When I worked in the Nursing Home, I bicycled to my job at 10:30 at night and rode home at 7:30 in the morning except when it rained or snowed when I walked instead. It rained and snowed a lot in Rochester, NY. 20 minute ride, 40 minute walk.
7. I've been in 47 of the 50 states.
Now I have to figure out how to send the awards. Bobbie will probably tell me how or maybe LadyLuz or maybe I'll even figure it out myself (unlikely).
2.
Saturday
Friday, September 4, 2009
So Little Time
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Books
Rules (as I received them): “Don’t take too long to think about it. List 15 books you’ve read that WILL ALWAYS STICK WITH YOU. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Then there were more rules that just apply to Facebook
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
Grimms Fairy Tales
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1984 by George Orwell
2001, A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy
One of Ours by Willa Cather
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Lord of the Flies by William Golding