Gosh, what will the GOP do now?

 

Going beyond the mind

 Time travel? Mind manipulation by the CIA.

The Monroe Institute used sound to help subjects achieve meditative states in the Gateway Process.

"..., the Gateway Experience uses sound to manipulate brainwaves with the goal of creating an altered state of consciousness in which a person can interact with nonphysical aspects of reality.

Practical uses of the technique, according to the CIA report, include manifesting goals, converting energy to heal one's body, and even traveling across space and time to access new information."

Source: Open Culture newsletter May 29, 2024

"When the CIA Studied Psychic Techniques to Alter Human Consciousness & Unlock Time Travel: Discover “The Gateway Process' ”

The link leads to a rather short article, which is why I gave you the option of looking at the YouTube video. If you have 15 min. to kill.

My plant jungle

 Moving  them all inside, for the pressure wash that will happen either tomorrow or the next day. So now I live in a little jungle of potted plants!

Yesterday I enjoyed having some friends over for a pot luck lunch. I got the cold cuts, bread, lettuce and lime slices for our water. These friends get a kick out of ordering water with lime when we eat out. So I tried to oblige. They brought several salads and the tomatoes to go on our sandwiches, as well as whipped cream for our "make your own banana split."

It didn't go as well as I hoped, since my friend who had the furthest to travel couldn't make it. So we scheduled going to her area and eating with her soon.

And another of my friends was undergoing some stomach issues so didn't want to eat anything at all. I kept offering her soup, toast etc. all the motherly gestures to help settle her stomach. She kept refusing. But she had brought the salads, so we definitely appreciated her contributions.

The banana splits didn't end up being of interest to the other two visitors, though one had a teaspoon full of ice cream with lots of whipped cream. We shared that the other two had held the can up and squeezed some into their mouths at one time or another, but I hadn't. I did say I'd had whipped cream sex once, and one of the other women (all over 60 mind  you!) said she had too. And that was all we were going to share on that subject.

Since I was coughing all night, as well as this morning, I've canceled my PT and lunch today. I hope it becomes manageable by tomorrow, when other friends have scheduled a day trip! I'll let you know. I may mask up when in the car and going in stores with them!

My cough of course is the recurring chronic one, but involves a really ugly sound getting stuff out, so I don't want people to think it's catching. (Hopefully not.) Anyway, I'm just doing plant re-place-ing today. 

It's nice and sunny out, so they will have the shock of indoor lights for 2 days. I think they can cope.

Today's quote:

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

ANDRÉ GIDE

My oldest turns 60

 Wow. Who would ever have considered I'd be sitting here 60 years later talking about my son Marty! I seem to have a post for his birthday most years.

But I like seeing these old photos from this post Younger than me Lovers...

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And here's the story of his birth from my perspective, as I wrote it when he turned 50.

Fifty years ago today I gave birth to my first son.

Barbara expecting, near upstairs apartment in background in Corpus Christi, Texas

It was horrible...though I'd definitely been looking forward to the experience.  Horror was being in a Naval Air Station hospital, without anyone near me who I knew.  It included being among a huge number of women also in labor, such that I was on a gurney in a dark hallway alone much of the time.  I had my first ever enema experience, and didn't know that I should have waited in the bathroom longer, so ended up wallowing out of the gurney with sides raised and not getting back to the toilet in time.  Major apologies to the young male aide who mopped for me.  Remember NAS meant everyone around me was in the Navy.

Then I was given drugs.  I had never had any drugs, even aspirin, in my whole life.  Well, maybe in my year since leaving home, I'd tried aspirin at least.  But I didn't have any idea what was happening.  At some point I was shaved down there.  My young Coast Guard husband was somewhere else, and I had relied upon him since we married, almost entirely.

Doug, Corpus Christi, Texas

Labor was intense enough that I was in that hallway around 4 pm.  I honestly didn't see or hear anything until being asked to move to the delivery table a bit past midnight.  I saw the clock on the wall.  That was what their drugs did to me.  Maybe I endured a lot of pain, or maybe I was the one shouting as I didn't endure labor.  I knew the next day I was hoarse, and people around me said I was the one screaming.  I do remember complaining to the doctors asking me to get on the delivery table "but you're making me sit on my baby's head."

I lay back, raised my feet as commanded into the stirrups, and looked for a mirroring surface so I might see the baby emerge.  Good thing I couldn't find one, because they had to use forceps.  This left a little bump on the side of my precious little one's head for the first week of his life.  They did tell me it would go away.  And it did.

I also remember I had what was called a saddle block.  (Boy the horsemen sure were with me that night, stirrups, saddle block!)  So when the doctor said now is time to push, I laughed and asked how...I could no longer feel a thing.  If I wasn't giddy with the drugs I'm sure I could have figured it out.

Little Marty

I remember having my pre-natal checkups in the same hospital.  We pregnant women would all line up and receive our little cups for urine samples, which we took turns depositing in the one bathroom.  I now wonder exactly what they were looking for in our pee.  I guess something might have been evident if it was wrong.  Then we'd undress and be draped, on a table with only curtains separating us from the next woman.  We'd be probed, measured, and baby's heart listened to.  And that was it, for months on end, then every week.

I attended the New Baby wellness class that was a few sessions showing photos and telling the stages of birth. None of that made a bit of sense when I was experiencing birth though.

So fifty years ago, I finally had my baby.  A few days in the hospital, and my parents and sister visited when we went home...they lived half a continent away.  Other cousins and Great Aunts came also to visit.  I felt like such a queen, having given birth and having a healthy child.  My dear husband was on leave for a few days, then went back on his cutter.

Grandmother giving Marty soothing lullaby

First grandchild for both sides of the families

Sure it took 2 or more adults to give that little squirming guy a bath!

And into the bliss of first time young motherhood came the disaster. 

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I can't find any old posting about the surgery my 4 week old son had to have. Pyloric stenosis was the diagnosis. At the time he became severely ill, unable to keep any milk down, my husband was away doing his Coast Guard work at sea.

So I went first to the NAS hospital, where the doctor said throwing up some milk was normal.

But within days he was projectile vomiting all his feeding, and then of course crying from hunger again. I nursed him all the time, then went to the yellow pages to see a pediatrician off base. She lovingly told me about his little valve having closed from his stomach, so his feeding never went down to his gut. She said I needed him to have surgery, which would be costly unless I went through NAS.

So I did. And I believe my mother was still there, and maybe my husband returned about the time Marty was checked in for the surgery. My Christian Science mother was not advising us at all, being against medical treatment. I'm glad she was praying, but she was not a warm and supportive person.

And part of this experience is fogged in my memory by 1) having breast infections from having been feeding him over and over thus producing a large amount of milk which I didn't know to expel any other way since no one seemed to bother about a mother and 2) missing this little one who, when I visited him in the hospital following surgery, was weighted down by restraining blocks to keep him from touching his scar, and he had various i.v. lines into his ankles. It was an alien sight to behold, and very upsetting. 

My husband never said how he felt, but I relied upon him for my support. I ended up in (public not NAS) ER due to my breast infections. A male doctor gave me instructions to put ice on my poor sore breasts. They didn't mention putting ice in towels, but said to use a water-bottle type thing, which we purchased. I didn't try that for long, however. They never said to use a breast pump. It was like dealing with people who I later realized were completely uneducated to my needs.

I was definitely feverish, and when my son was released from the hospital, I had to give him bottles, since that's how he'd been fed for 4 days. So I learned that whole process.

Our little family left Corpus Christi TX after my husband was finished with his Coast Guard duty, and we moved to Connecticut, where his parents lived. They doted upon little Marty! It was another experience to get to know in-laws, but that's not Marty's story, but my own.

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For today, I'm proud of his growth, his love in his family, his sense of humor, his sense of responsibility, and his incredible intelligence.  Happiest of birth anniversaries, Marty!

Statistics don't lie

 Some good news for our environment and economy:

Despite what you might think from listening to much of the political advertising and more than a few media reports, US carbon emissions dropped last year at the same time that the economy grew.

Yes, that’s right! Last year, the US economy grew by 2.5 percent while the total carbon emissions by decreased by 2-3 percent, according to the US Energy Information Administration. US emissions are now down 20 percent from the all-time high in 2007, according to the EIA.

That’s not the only good news. Americans, on their own, are consistently choosing to save money by reducing their own energy costs, whether it is through more efficient lighting, electric cars, better windows, etc. Although per-capita emissions are still at the high end of the global scale, the US has gone from emitting around 20 percent of the global total of CO₂ annually in 2000 to less than 12 percent of the global total in 2023.

Thanks Katharine Hayhoe!

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And in other news:

From PBS Newshour May 22, 2024, as resourced from Associated Press

“Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook high-frequency drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.

A good 40 percent of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical alcohol use,” Caulkins said.

The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source of estimates of tobacco, alcohol and drug use in the United States.

In 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people used marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers, according to the study. From 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use increased 15-fold.

The trend reflects changes in public policy. Most states now allow medical or recreational marijuana, though it remains illegal at the federal level. In November, Florida voters will decide on a constitutional amendment allowing recreational cannabis, and the federal government is moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

 Sharing an experience that you might not have expected today...

Breathing with the Forest link from Emergence Magazine

Breathing with the Forest

by Marshmallow Laser Feast

“Entering the forest, we step out of our separateness to embody something much more than human.”

What is it like to be one of the largest organisms that has ever existed? How does it feel to host a vast web of relationships that anchor an ecosystem? In our special interactive online adaptation of Breathing with the Forest, you are invited to open your senses to what it might be like to be a part of the hidden forces that flow through the trees and mycelial networks of the Colombian Amazon rainforest. Surrounded by an ensemble of birdsong, moving water, and insect chirr, and guided by narration from acclaimed British actor Colin Salmon, synchronize the rhythm of your own breath with the cycles of molecular exchange between soil, tree, and sky—finding where you end and the forest begins.

Around here

 This is my life these days...

Well, I hurt my back/shoulder by trying to do the PT exercises at home early Wednesday morning. I think I should have done more stretching and warmed up, at least that's what Dr. Barb thinks. So I missed going to the Sit-R-Cise on Wed. and the PT appointment on Thurs. I'm no good to push myself when I have pains! No pain = no pain to me.

The morning pills,  most of which are over the counter at least. Vitamins and things to help various bodily processes work, brain, gut, lungs. Heart and blood pressure meds and digestive help are there too. And a smaller group at bedtime. I know people who have 3-5 times a day to take pills, with or without food. So I'm just happy these keep me going, for today anyway!

I slowed to a stop by the downhill side of the Lake Tomahawk dam, to see this seed cloth spread over the whole thing. Seems they're going with grass. Mmmm, wonder if it will be mowed! I liked when they had native wild flowers there. Oh well, can't have everything.

Speaking of having everything, here's my little porch garden for springtime. I'll remove everything for a pressure washing next week, then maybe everything back in place.  OK, left to right, Mountain Laurel bush outside the porch, pink Kalanchoe, purple petunia, new Lavender, Apple Mint, Old lavender, Christmas or sometime cactus, and hanging last year's geranium and a pot of purple petunias. All the plant on the table are orchids. Already we are getting too much sun to please them, which comes in afternoon from the far right.

Working against the clock and a disturbing dream

To avoid strokes...which are more fatal in older women, especially those with various conditions which I have, ie past heart attack, sleep apnea, over weight. I don't know a relationship to COPD, which they didn't mention.

•  Eating five or more servings of fruits or vegetables every day may reduce the risk of stroke. The Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes olive oil, fruit, nuts, vegetables and whole grains, may be helpful.
• Exercise regularly. Aerobic exercise reduces the risk of stroke in many ways. Exercise can lower blood pressure, increase the levels of good cholesterol, and improve the overall health of the blood vessels and heart. Gradually work up to at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most or all days of the week. The American Heart association recommends getting 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week. Moderate intensity activities can include walking, jogging, swimming and bicycling.

SOURCE: Mayo Clinic on Strokes

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I woke up Monday morning with a dream floating close to my reality. 

I dreamed I was preparing to have an interview with Trump. Not as a journalist, but as a chance for a "common woman" to talk with him, ask some questions, and get a photograph taken.

Remember I am totally against all he is, stands for, and spews out of his mouth!

So I had a lot of anxiety built up about this interview, and that was the majority of the dream...I felt the cold sweat of anticipation, the constant thoughts about how I would shake his hand possibly...what was I wearing - was it appropriate, etc.

Then the next instant I was looking at my photo of having stood by his side. 

I kind of skipped the entire interview. I was discussing it with someone, how did I do, etc. The photo showed me in a red outfit, that was all I remember about it. Or was it a video on a phone? It was strange, because even in the dream I tried to figure out what had happened. But the interview obviously had taken place and I must have said my piece, whatever it had been.

Upon waking that dream was really striking to me.

In no way do I wish to meet or talk to the man. 

But dreams are messages of our sub-conscious to ourselves, so what I brought away was: 

1. my high anxiety if he were to be elected President in 2024

2. my high anxiety to confront some Trump people I know with some true facts, in the face of their believing his lies.

3. my ongoing use of visual information to give me reality checks, thus the photo/video

4. reminder of seeing a huge Trump sign on a house nearby which gave me chills (see no. 1 above.)

5. reminder of relatives who tend to repeat misinformation that is published and echoes the Tea Party/GOP line of rhetoric. The language is always trying to prove its misinformation with some round-about statistics that don't mean a thing. I had recently read through some of this.

Another member of my family says it's a good idea to know what the thinking of the other team might be. Not for me. I apparently absorb it into an emotional place which created this dream.

Just thought I'd share an interesting experience that kind of knocked me for a loop. So glad it was just a dream.

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Today's quote:

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God. 

-Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)

Morehouse College and Biden's commencement address

I wish Ohio State had had him give their address when my granddaughter graduated several weeks ago.

This inspires me, and I want to keep it around, to consider when I need a boost.

From Heather Cox Richardson's Letters to an American, May 19, 2024

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Delivering the commencement address to the graduating seniors at Morehouse College today, President Joe Biden addressed the nation. After thanking the mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and all the people who helped the graduates get to the chairs in front of the stage, Biden recalled Morehouse’s history. The school was founded in 1867 by civil rights leader Reverend William Jefferson White with the help of two other Baptist ministers, the Reverend Richard C. Coulter and the Reverend Edmund Turney, to educate formerly enslaved men. They believed “education would be the great equalizer from slavery to freedom,” Biden said, and they created an institution that would make the term “Morehouse man” continue to stand as a symbol of excellence 157 years later. 

Then Biden turned to a speech that centered on faith. Churches talk a lot about Jesus being buried on Friday and rising from the dead on Sunday, he said, “but we don’t talk enough about Saturday, when… his disciples felt all hope was lost. In our lives and the lives of the nation, we have those Saturdays—to bear witness the day before glory, seeing people’s pain and not looking away. But what work is done on Saturday to move pain to purpose? How can faith get a man, get a nation through what was to come?” 

It’s a truism that anything that happens before we are born is equidistant from our personal experience, mixing the recent past and the ancient past together in a similar vaguely imagined “before” time. Most of today’s college graduates were not born until about 2002 and likely did not pay a great deal of attention to politics until about five years ago. Biden took the opportunity to explain to them what it meant to live through the 1960s. 

He noted that he was the first in his family to graduate from college, paid for with loans. He fell in love, got a law degree, got married and took a job at a “fancy law firm.” 

But his world changed when an assassin murdered the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King—a Morehouse man—and the segregated city of Wilmington, Delaware, erupted with fires, looting, fights, and occasional gunfire. For nine months, the National Guard patrolled the city in combat gear,  “the longest stretch in any American city since the Civil War,” Biden recalled.

“Dr. King’s legacy had a profound impact on me and my generation, whether you’re Black or white,” Biden explained. He left the law firm to become first a public defender and then a county councilman, “working to change our state’s politics to embrace the cause of civil rights.” 

The Democratic Party had historically championed white supremacy, but that alignment was in the process of changing as Democrats had swung behind civil rights and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Biden and his cohort hoped to turn the Delaware Democratic Party toward the new focus on civil rights, he said. In 1972, Biden ran for the Senate and won…barely, in a state Republican president Richard Nixon won with 60% of the vote. 

Biden recalled how, newly elected and hiring staff in Washington, D.C., he got the call telling him that his wife and daughter had been killed in a car accident and that his two sons were gravely injured. The pain of that day hit again 43 years later, he said, when his son Beau died of cancer after living for a year next to a burn pit in Iraq. And he talked of meeting First Lady Jill Biden, “who healed the family in all the broken places. Our family became my redemption,” he said. 

His focus on family and community offered a strong contrast to the Republican emphasis on individualism. “On this walk of life...you come to understand that we don’t know where or what fate will bring you or when,” Biden said. “But we also know we don’t walk alone. When you’ve been a beneficiary of the compassion of your family, your friends, even strangers, you know how much the compassion matters,” he said. “I’ve learned there is no easy optimism, but by faith—by faith, we can find redemption.”

For the graduates, Biden noted, four years ago “felt like one of those Saturdays. The pandemic robbed you of so much. Some of you lost loved ones—mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, who…aren’t able to be here to celebrate with you today….  You missed your high school graduation. You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race. 

“It’s natural to wonder if democracy you hear about actually works for you. 

“What is democracy if Black men are being killed in the street?

“What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave[s]…Black communities behind?

“What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?

“And most of all, what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a Black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?” 

The crowd applauded.

Biden explained that across the Oval Office from his seat behind the Resolute Desk are busts of Dr. King and Senator Robert Kennedy, challenging Biden: “Are we living up to what we say we are as a nation, to end racism and poverty, to deliver jobs and justice, to restore our leadership in the world?” He wears a rosary on his wrist made of Beau’s rosary as a reminder that faith asks us “to hold on to hope, to move heaven and earth to make better days.” 

“[T]hat’s my commitment to you,” he said. “[T]o show you democracy, democracy, democracy is still the way.”

Biden pledged to “call out the poison of white supremacy” and noted that he “stood up…with George Floyd’s family to help create a country where you don’t need to have that talk with your son or grandson as they get pulled over.” The administration is investing in Black communities and reconnecting neighborhoods cut apart by highways decades ago. It has reduced Black child poverty to the lowest rate in history. It is removing lead pipes across the nation to provide clean drinking water to everyone, and investing in high-speed internet to bring all households into the modern era. 

The administration is creating opportunities, Biden said, bringing “good-paying jobs…; capital to start small businesses and loans to buy homes; health insurance, [prescription] drugs, housing that’s more affordable and accessible.” Biden reminded the audience that he had joined workers on a picket line. To applause, he noted that when the Supreme Court blocked his attempt to relieve student debt, he found two other ways to do it. He noted the administration’s historic investment in historically black colleges and universities. 

“We’re opening doors so you can walk into a life of generational wealth, to be providers and leaders for your families and communities.  Today, record numbers of Black Americans have jobs, health insurance, and more [wealth] than ever.”

Then Biden directly addressed the student protests over the Israeli government’s strikes on Gaza. At Morehouse today, one graduate stood with his back to Biden and his fist raised during the president’s speech, and the class valedictorian, DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, who spoke before the president, wore a picture of a Palestinian flag on his mortarboard and called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, at which Biden applauded.

“In a democracy, we debate and dissent about America’s role in the world,” Biden said. “I want to say this very clearly. I support peaceful, nonviolent protest. Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them.” 

“What’s happening in Gaza…is heartbreaking,” he said, with “[i]nnocent Palestinians caught in the middle” of a fight between Hamas and Israel. He reminded them that he has called “for an immediate ceasefire…to stop the fighting [and] bring the hostages home.” His administration has been working for a deal, as well as to get more aid into Gaza and to rebuild it. Crucially, he added, there is more at stake than “just one ceasefire.” He wants “to build a lasting, durable peace. Because the question is…: What after? What after Hamas? What happens then? What happens in Gaza? What rights do the Palestinian people have?” To applause, he said, “I’m working to make sure we finally get a two-state solution—the only solution—for two people to live in peace, security, and dignity.” 

“This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world,” he said. “I know it angered and frustrates many of you, including my family. But most of all, I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well. Leadership is about fighting through the most intractable problems. It’s about challenging anger, frustration, and heartbreak to find a solution. It’s about doing what you believe is right, even when it’s hard and lonely. You’re all future leaders, every one of you graduating today…. You’ll face complicated, tough moments. In these moments, you’ll listen to others, but you’ll have to decide, guided by knowledge, conviction, principle, and your own moral compass.”

Turning back to the United States, Biden urged the graduates to examine “what happens to you and your family when old ghosts in new garments seize power, extremists come for the freedoms you thought belonged to you and everyone.” He noted attacks on equality in America, and that extremist forces were peddling “a fiction, a caricature [of] what being a man is about—tough talk, abusing power, bigotry. Their idea of being a man is toxic.” 

“But that’s not you,” he continued. “It’s not us. You all know and demonstrate what it really means to be a man. Being a man is about the strength of respect and dignity. It’s about showing up because it’s too late if you have to ask. It’s about giving hate no safe harbor and leaving no one behind and defending freedoms. It’s about standing up to the abuse of power, whether physical, economic, or psychological.” To applause, he added: “It’s about knowing faith without works is dead.”

“The strength and wisdom of faith endures,” Biden said. “And I hope—my hope for you is—my challenge to you is that you still keep the faith so long as you can.” 

“Together, we’re capable of building a democracy worthy of our dreams…a bigger, brighter future that proves the American Dream is big enough for everyone to succeed.”

“Class of 2024, four years ago, it felt probably like Saturday,” Biden concluded. “Four years later, you made it to Sunday, to commencement, to the beginning. And with faith and determination, you can push the sun above the horizon once more….”

“God bless you all,” he said. “We’re expecting a lot from you.”

—

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/05/19/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-morehouse-college-class-of-2024-commencement-address-atlanta-ga/

https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/wilmington-del-riots-occupation-martin-luther-king-jr-national-guard-20181207.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/morehouse-graduation-thanks-god-woke-class-2024-2024-05-19/

Some personal notes on heart

 This view shows the LAD, or left anterior descending (or interventricular) artery, which feeds the heart itself.

That's where they gave me a stent, and the photo my cardiologist showed me (not this one) was a heart without any LAD. He said that's what mine had looked like before the stent was applied. Someone in my treatment mentioned this heart attack was known as "the widow-maker." So I'm incredibly thankful to be alive.

It's pretty incredible that they found that problem by running a tiny scanning device with a camera at the end, up my right brachial artery from my wrist to my heart. And somehow, by then I was asleep thank heaven, they put the stent in the same way. The only opening I had was that tiny cut on my wrist. How simple surgery now is and almost non-invasive.

I had my heart attack out of the blue 4 years ago. No afib. But pain in my neck kept me from sleeping for 2 days, and I went to my regular MD (as a walk-in patient) who changed my BP meds, and maybe told me something about using pain relievers. The pain relievers over the counter had not worked and I was exhausted from being awake and in pain, some coughing which is chronic for me. Finally on evening of 3rd day a friend drove me to ER, and after the 2nd EKG (MD's office EKG was vague) and several tests of blood they determined a heart attack, and gave me a stent on the LAD artery which feeds the heart. If the EKG from the MD's office had been accurate, they would have sent me to the hospital two days earlier. Yes, this was an ongoing event, not sharp and accute!

Women don't always have symptoms like men! That's the main underlining point here. I'd tell each physician I saw about excruciating pain in my neck and shoulders. Some tightness felt in chest. That was the way I got treated as a heart patient...otherwise they would have left me in the waiting room with everyone else. Heart patients do get immediate care.

I'm not going into all the details about being given care in the second month that COVID hit all the hospitals...and my having COPD and bronchiectasis (a chronic cough.) I've talked about that elsewhere.

I just hope women will take seriously heart problems that appear as non-traditional pains especially if they already have high blood pressure or other indicators that might lead to heart attacks.

I have changed my diet and now exercise much more regularly, and have lost about 20 pounds in the last 4 years.

Keep on ticking, all you lovely heart beating women (and men too)!!

Today's quote:

The more we practice settling our minds, the easier it will become over time.

Family women and some old (and new) cars

 I've run into some interesting, mostly historic sites and photos this week.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday!

Two of my favorite subjects: women and cars!

French Automobile called the Leyit Helica...produced in the Early 1920’s. Yes, propellers out front to pull it along! Beware of birds!

A Tesla in the family...my daughter-in-law's step father, Gerry standing next to it! Wish I'd had a chance to ride in it, but no offers came my way.

Corvette parked in neighbor's yard. Don't know much about it except it is just sitting in the weather.

You may have seen my post about this sleek Oldsmobile parked at the entrance to the swimming pool at Lake Tomahawk earlier this week.

Being a fellow craftsman, I enjoy seeing the product of many hours of attention to this vehicle.

Seen in the neighborhood of Ohio State University

But what about the women?

I never met this lovely woman on the r., mother of one of my daughters-in-law and her sister. Photo of mother probably in the 1950s. Daughter-in-law on the left has many of her same characteristics, an elegant woman with deep beauty.

Sister of my daughter-in-law.

My oldest son and his wife, daughter of first mother pictured above. She is a chef extraordinaire! Holding a cranberry cheesecake as desert, with candied frozen cranberries around. That was after a great prime rib dinner for Christmas, 2019. She has since become a Macaron chef, selling her inspired home-made cookies at various fairs in St. Petersburg and Tampa, FL.

Here I was eating my first Macaron by my daughter-in-law.

Another daughter-in-law, married to my youngest son...here they were Halloween costumed as Dali and Frieda Kahlo.

And my exact match to Sepia's theme this week...(though I may have shared it before!)

1927, my Grand-Aunt Margaret and her friend, Mrs.Summess. (Is that a name?) Aunt Margaret on r. And it does look like Mrs. S. has a dog on her chest!

Grand-Aunt Margaret. Considering she taught high school all her adult life, as well as sewing many of her own clothes, she enjoyed life by gambling in Cuba before the revolution.

Another daughter-in-law (on r.) with my granddaughter (much younger than present) in the middle. And another grandmother in common, mother of that daughter-in-law on the l. They shared a trip to New York city (not sure when). This was my oldest son's first wife, and mother of two of his children. Aren't families fun?

My oldest granddaughter wearing the cloisonné enamel necklace which I gave to her for Christmas last year. (I'm giving my granddaughters my various special pieces of costume jewelry, little by little.)

And I'm kicking myself because I never took any photos of the locket (called a charm by my other granddaughter) which I gave to her for her college graduation. My grandmother had given it to me for my high school graduation, just before she died. This granddaughter has just spent 2 weeks in Europe. So I'll try to get her to take a photo of it soon.

My other daughter-in-law is married to my middle son, who I just visited in Ohio for that graduation! 

Granddaughter, daughter-in-law, and my middle son at graduation party.

I love sharing being grandmothers with this lady, my daughter-in-laws' mother. Yes, there are many other relations in my family. But this is all I'm sharing today!

Today's quote:

"To succeed in science, you have to avoid dumb people [...] you must always turn to people who are brighter than yourself." - biophysicist, James Dewey Watson

P.S.

Earlier this week I posted an article from a former slave, William Branch. After seeing many other posts by the author on Facebook, I've concluded that it is a true account of his life. The author is Evita Ellis. There are many other interesting stories she's posted. So I don't think AI was the source.

If this isn't true, at least it's good reading!

 William Branch

"Yahsur, I was a slave. I was bo'n May 13, 1850, on the place of Lawyer Woodson in Lunenburg County, Virginia. It was 'bout 75 miles southwest of Richmond. They was two big plantations, one on one side the road, yother the yother. My marster owned 75 slaves. He raised tobacco and cotton. I wukked tobacco sometime, sometime cotton. Dere wasn't no whippin' or switchin'. We had to wuk hard. Marster Woodson was a rich man. He live in a great big house, a lumber house painted white. And it had a great big garden.

"De slaves lives in a long string of log houses. Dey had dirt floors and shingle roofs. Marster Woodson's house was shingle roof too. We had home cured bacon and veg'tables, dried co'n, string beans and dey give us hoe cakes baked in hot ashes. Dere always was lots of fresh milk.

"How'd us slaves git de clothes? We carded de cotton, den de women spin it on a spinnin' wheel. After dat day sew de gahment togeddah on a sewin' machine. Yahsur, we's got sewin' machine, wid a big wheel and a handle. One woman tu'n de handle and de yuther woman do de sewin'.

"Dat's how we git de clothes for de 75 slaves. Marster's clothes? We makes dem for de whole fam'ly. De missis send de pattren and de slaves makes de clothes. Over nigh Richmond a fren' of Marster Woodson has 300 slaves. Dey makes all de clothes for dem.

"I was with Marster twel de Yankees come down to Virginia in 1861. De sergeant of de Yankees takes me up on his hoss and I goes to Washington wid de Yankees. I got to stay dere 'cause I'd run away from my marster.

"I stay at de house of Marse Frank Cayler. He's an ole time hack driver. I was his houseboy. I stay dere twel de year 1870, den I goes to Baltimore and jines de United States Army. We's sent to Texas 'count of de Indians bein' so bad. Dey put us on a boat at Baltimore and we landed at Galveston.

"Den we marches from Galveston to Fort Duncan. It was up, up, de whole time. We ties our bedclothes and rolls dem in a bundle wid a strap. We walks wid our guns and bedclothes on our backs, and de wagons wid de rations follows us. Dey is pulled by mules. We goes 15 miles ev'ry day. We got no tents, night come, we unrolls de blankets and sleeps under de trees, sometime under de brush.

"For rations we got canned beans, milk and hardtack. De hard tacks is 3 or 4 in a box, we wets 'em in water and cooks 'em in a skillet. We gits meat purty often. When we camps for de night de captain say, 'You'all kin go huntin'.' Before we git to de mountains dere's deer and rabbits and dey ain't no fences. Often in de dark we sees a big animal and we shoots. When we bring 'im to camp, de captain say, 'Iffen de cow got iron burns de rancher gwineter shoot hisself a nigger scout.' But de cow ain't got no iron, it'swhat de name of de cow what ain't feel de iron? Mavrick, yahsur. We eats lots of dem Mavricks. We's goin' 'long de river bottom, and before we comes to Fort Duncan we sees de cactus and muskeet. Dere ain't much cattle, but one colored scout shoots hisself a bear. Den we eats high. Fort Duncan were made of slab lumber and de roof was gravel and grass.

"Den we's ordered to Fort Davis and we's in de mountains now. Climb, climb all day, and de Indians give us a fit ev'ry day. We kills some Indians, dey kills a few soldiers. We was at Fort Clark a while. At Fort Davis I jines de colored Indian Scouts, I was in Capt. George L. Andrew's Co. K.

"We's told de northern Cheyennes is on a rampus and we's goin' to Fort Sill in Indian Territory. Before we gits to Fort Concho (San Angelo) de Comanches and de Apaches give us a fit. We fitten' 'em all de time and when we gits away from de Comanches and Apaches we fitten de Cheyennes. Dey's seven feet tall. Dey couldn't come through that door.

"When we gits to Fort Sill, Gen. Davidson say de Cheyennes is off de reservation, and he say, 'You boys is got to git dem back. Iffen you kill 'em, dey can't git back to de reservation.' Den we goes scoutin' for de Cheyennes and dey is scoutin' for us. Dey gits us first, on de Wichita River was 500 of 'em, and we got 75 colored Indian Scouts. Den Red Foot, de Chief of de Cheyennes, he come to see Capt. Lawson and say he want rations for his Indians. De captain say he cain't give no rations to Indians off de reservation. Red Foot say he don't care 'bout no reservation and he say he take what we got. Capt. Lawson 'low we gotter git reinforcements. We got a guide in de scout troop, he call hisself Jack Kilmartin. De captain say, 'Jack, I'se in trouble, how kin I git a dispatch to Gen. Davidson?' Jack say, 'I kin git it through.' And Jack, he crawl on his belly and through de brush and he lead a pony, and when he gits clear he rides de pony bareback twel he git to Fort Sill. Den Gen. Davidson, he soun' de gin'ral alarm and he send two companies of cavalry to reinforce us. But de Cheyennes give 'em a fit all de way, dey's gotter cut dere way through de Cheyennes.

"And Col. Shafter comes up, and goes out in de hills in his shirt sleeves jus' like you's sittin' dere. Dey's snow on de groun' and de wind's cole, but de colonel don't care, and he say, 'Whut's dis order Gen. Davidson give? Don' kill de Cheyennes? You kill 'em all from de cradle to de Cross.'

"And den we starts de attack. De Cheyennes got Winchesters and rifles and repeaters from de government. Yahsur, de government give 'em de guns dey used to shoot us. We got de ole fashion muzzle loaders. You puts one ball in de muzzle and shove de powder down wid de ramrod. Den we went in and fit 'em, and 'twas like fightin' a wasp's nest. Dey kills a lot of our boys and we nearly wipes 'em out. Den we disarms de Cheyennes we captures, and turns dere guns in to de regiment.

"I come to San Antonio after I'se mustered out and goes to work for de Bell Jewelry Company and stays dere twel I cain't work no more. Did I like de army? Yahsur, I'd ruthuh be in de army dan a plantation slave."

Source:

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