The good, the frazzled and the vibrating things (don't get your hopes up)

 

Today's art:

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Watch,

My vibrating vest machine...

I'm supposed to put this vest on at least 15 minutes a day, to help loosen up mucus. If only I could be more disciplined about it. It's loud, heavy, and uncomfortable...makes my whole body shake, and I just feel awful doing it. I don't usually cough much out either. I worry about my osteoporosis and shaking my bones. So...

 There's a cute little thing I can blow into (flutter valve) which also vibrates, and I do use it frequently and it triggers a few coughs. So I'm doing what the doctor wants, sort of. Bronchiectasis means coughing is good. I sure wish otherwise. 

I push myself to just do these routines. But I'm quite tired of them. Those others who deal with chronic conditions know what I'm talking about. I won't go into how frustrating and depressing it is. Just gotta do it one day at a time!

OK Sharing with Thankful Thursday...after all I'm still breathing!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Van Gogh, Stary Night, 1889

Van Gogh, Stary Night over the Rhone 1888

Life Lines (2024), self-portrait by British portrait painter Louise Bird

And speaking of families...

Queen Victoria photographed with 29 members of her family in Coburg, Germany, gathered for the marriage of her grandchildren, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 21 April 1894. (I have no idea which grandchildren were getting married!)

If you haven't experienced trauma in your life, then you might consider that which your ancestors experienced. I've recently learned that un-healed trauma is passed down through the generations. I believe this, because my mother suffered from having an alcoholic mother, and then passed on her resulting addiction (religion for her) to my sister and myself, who made attempts to recover from codependency to the traumas.

Oops, there I go ruining another Wordless Wednesday!

Cornelia Konrads' installations

Tuesday's Treasures:

Nature and art:

Cornelia Konrads builds structures that look caught mid-collapse — logs, branches, doorways suspended between forming and dissolving. She calls it "a moment of catastrophe." A moment of wonder is more like it.

Thanks FB

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Katharine Hayhoe brings this to our attention:

London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone... has helped that notoriously smoggy city clean up its air. Now, a new study shows the improvements in air quality have actually helped children's lungs grow larger.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London found that both the size and health of London children's lungs improved following the introduction of the ULEZ in the city: proof that climate action is also a health solution.

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Happy September! My favorite month, no, maybe that's October!

Maggie Vandewalle - Rabbit, Rabbit.

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Sharing with Tom's Tuesday's Treasures

Miscellaneous Monday

 

Tributes to Dolly Parton grew under the mural in west Asheville NC following her death Aug. 25, 2026.

Actually the world is suffering from just one Donald.

Fond memories of driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC to the Orchard at Altapass for home-made apple pie a la mode!

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Just a few of Jess Craven's "Extra! Extra!" good news:

A judge struck down Texas’s ban on drag shows, telling people offended by them “just don’t go.” Bravo!

Under Mayor Mamdani, NYC is expanding its free doula program and will reach thousands more expectant mothers.

Meta will pay up to $17.1 billion in a landmark settlement over social media addiction claims.

For nearly a month, the key force standing in the way of Trump’s border wall project in southeast Arizona has been a person (not always the same one) sitting in a 200-year-old tree. So far, they’re succeeding.

After months of public comment about data sharing and oversight, Asheville, NC’s City Council voted 5–2 in a packed, heated meeting to cancel the city’s contract with Flock Safety.

Arkansas Medicaid is now covering doula care, complying with a new law meant to improve maternal health.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library confirmed it would continue her legacy and send free books to millions of children around the world.

In Kansas, “bearded, burly” trans men are entering women’s restrooms to show the “absurdity” of bathroom bans.

After Olivia Rodrigo announced Friday that Daisy Chain Fields had raised $10 million for women-focused nonprofits, Melinda French Gates doubled that number, totaling the donation to $20 million.

A federal judge upheld Oregon’s plastic pollution and recycling program, the first court ruling on the legality of state laws designed to hold producers responsible for the cost of dealing with their waste.

Mapquest has joined the resistance.

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Go see the Aug 30 publication which ends with a video by teenager, Charlotte, in Valencia giving her opinion of Flock cameras to her local council. It's amazing!

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This is important to know...as well as saying Olorunnipa's name is kind of nice to do! From: Heather Cox Richardson Aug 30 "On Thursday, August 27, Tolouse Olorunnipa reported on the attempts of Republican lawmakers to restrict the ability of naturalized and dual citizens to run for office. In several states, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures to cut those Americans out of candidacy for elected positions, while in Congress, at least five Republicans have called for prohibiting them from federal judgeships, Cabinet posts, ambassadorships, and congressional seats. The push has come in the wake of the rise of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and other naturalized U.S. citizens whose policy positions those like South Carolina representative Nancy Mace consider un-American. These policies are, of course, the ones voters elected people like Mamdani to put into place. In her comments to Olorunnipa, Mace said: “This isn’t personal. It’s about what standard we want for the people entrusted with enormous power over the American people.” Her word choice was revealing. Our elected officials are entrusted with the enormous power of the American people, not over them." ---------------------------- Climate change anyone? In case you haven't looked at many of the details: "A horrific flash flood in the Himalayas has left more than 500 dead and thousands missing in Nepal and China – and it appears to have begun with collapsing ice. A huge chunk of glacier on the north face of Langtang Lirung sheared off and slid down the mountain, triggering a gigantic landslide of rock and ice that ultimately registered as a 5.2 magnitude earthquake when it reached the valley floor.    “When a glacier of that scale collapses, it generates a lot of water, and then there’s a cascading sequence of events… where the water and the sediment combine and bulks up and creates the flood," explained Andrew Mackintosh, a glaciologist at Monash University.    The resulting flood wave traveled down a nearby river valley, washing away a border crossing between Nepal and China, wiping out bridges, sweeping away homes and people, and caking the landscape with mud.   We know that climate change made this event more likely. Himalayan glaciers and, indeed, all over the world — are rapidly retreating. As Ashim Sattar, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar who studies Himalayan glaciers, said: "there’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters." And once again, those who contribute least to the climate crisis (per person carbon emissions in Nepal are 20 times less than those of a typical American or Canadian) are most affected." From Katharine Hayhoe -------------------- When I was a student at the University of Florida (Gainesville) in the 1980s, I lived in student housing with my youngest son. Upstairs were a couple and their little baby from Nepal. He was studying forestry and she knew almost no English. They were the most gentle loving people I knew, and I remember taking them to the Atlantic beach so she could see the ocean for the first time. I think of how they left America to return to Nepal where he was going to help plant trees and manage forests, and their son is now in his 40s (as is my son!) ------------------ And I can't postpone my ire over the murder of the beautiful cherry trees:

Launch of SpaceX hauling a new batch of Starlink v2-mini satellites for their second-generation high-speed low earth orbit internet satellite constellation.  Seen on 8.25.26 5.33 am Blue Ridge Parkway Bedford Cnty VA

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Sharing with Monday Murals