Goodbye November 2024

 So the pulmonologist wanted to do some more extensive tests to see if my intermittent fevers could be related to some kind of micro-infection. That meant taking little samples of what I cough up, spitting into labeled little jars, then return in to his office to be sent off to the lab. It will take a while to get results. In the meantime he prescribed another antibiotic. Since I take several a year, I hope this will help me have more energy, and not cause major side effects! I couldn't take the antibiotic until I finished making 3 samples over 3 days. To you all fellow bloggers who recommended more tests, we're finally going that direction.

November of '24 has been an interesting month.

I learned that setting a goal and working toward it with my best efforts doesn't always work. I tried exercise to extend my stamina, and found it set me back instead, with the fever occurring twice this month. Hadn't had it during any of my evacuation time of 16 days, so it's kind of related to my home and my own practices.

My goal that I didn't reach was to drive to Ohio for Thanksgiving with my family. I still tear up when writing this, because of course it hurts that I missed being with them. But I figured I wasn't becoming more fit in the stamina of breathing than I was failing at it. The body has spoken. 

Me and my three granddaughters and my son at his Thanksgiving table in 2018. The girls have sure grown, and I've lost weight, but Russ looks much the same! 

Here's the version from this year at their house.

My friend and medical care coordinator, Rob, said I should just consider this as a postponed trip. So maybe I can look at it as a positive in that way, though I am invited for Chirstmas as well. Not sure if a month from now (or less) will change things.

This month has also been one of acceptance of the dregs of the hurricane that are all around us still, while efforts for retails and restaurants to become normal are happening. A strange juxtaposition.

Having Thanksgiving late in the month did feel strange also.

But I've been starting Christmas shopping too, at the local stores. I gifted myself some beautiful pottery made by a friend.

Mmm, I also got a few little things for granddaughters in OH. Easy to ship. Will look at local shops Saturday to see what else I might send them, since I can't count on seeing them for Christmas.

And of course there's the depressed feelings and fears as a result of the  election. No more need to be said. Except that it came on top of the survival dealings following catastrophic flooding and winds in my part of North Carolina...individuals certainly lost more than I did, but I didn't feel all that great getting through the month of October and into November.

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A good report from a Charlotte TV station. I hadn't heard or seen many of the clips that came out the first week, because of living with no electricity or wi-fi.

The Day the Lights went Out

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And for more philosophical interest, Wendell Berry interviewed by Bill Moyers.

 

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And just to record the strange dream I had Thanksgiving morning...there were 6 little hand blown amber glass dishes, with squared off edges...maybe about 2-3 inches on a side. They were very rare, and I was going to smuggle them through some guarded situation. So I wore some tight elastic undies and put all 6 dishes against my rather bountiful belly...with the bow of the dishes such that the edges were against my body. Of course in the dream several of them broke, and the pieces cut me...such that doctors were called to do surgery to remove the glass. 

I think this was the first night I took my new antibiotic. My gut was sending me a message that it's about to be attacked. Poor ole gut. I hope it doesn't have any glass edges while it survives this necessary medication. Enough, you're screaming! Enough of this personal stuff!

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Today's quote:

Stephen Jay Gould, naturalist, said, “Homo sapiens [are] a tiny twig on an improbable branch of a contingent limb on a fortunate tree.”

Some old trucks

 

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Remembering:

2009, trailblazing astronaut Sally Ride appeared in a Louis Vuitton ad shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing (July 20, 1969.) Sally Ride, Buzz Aldrin & Jim Lovell on a very old truck.

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Today's quotes: 

This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.

MAYA ANGELO  ---------- ADVICE TO MYSELF #2: RESISTANCE by Louise Erdrich Resist the thought that you may need a savior, or another special being to walk beside you. Resist the thought that you are alone. Resist turning your back on the knife of the world’s sorrow, resist turning that knife upon yourself. Resist your disappearance into sentimental monikers, into the violent pattern of corporate logos, into the mouth of the unholy flower of consumerism. Resist being consumed. Resist your disappearance into anything except the face you had before you walked up to the podium. Resist all funding sources but accept all money. Cut the strings and dismantle the web that needing money throws over you. Resist the distractions of excess. Wear old clothes and avoid chain restaurants. Resist your genius and your own significance as declared by others. Resist all hint of glory but accept the accolade as tributes to your double. Walk away in your unpurchased skin. Resist the millionth purchase and go backward. Get rid of everything. If you exist, then you are loved by existence. What do you need? A spoon, a blanket, a bowl, a book — maybe the book you give away. Resist the need to worry, robbing everything of immediacy and peace. Resist traveling except where you want to go. Resist seeing yourself in others or them in you. Nothing, everything, is personal. Resist all pressure to have children unless you crave the torment of joy. If you give in to irrationality, then resist cleaning up the messes your children make. You are robbing them of small despairs they can fix. Resist cleaning up after your husband. It will soon replace having sex with him. Resist outrageous charts spelling doom. However you can, rely on sun and wind. Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all a fucking miracle. Resist your own gift’s power to tear you away from the simplicity of tears. Your gift will begin to watch you having your emotions, so that it can use them in an interesting paragraph, or to get a laugh. Resist the blue chair of dreams, the red chair of science, the black chair of the humanities, and just be human. Resist all chairs. Be the one sitting on the ground or perching on the beam overhead or sleeping beneath the podium. Resist disappearing from the stage, unless you can walk straight into the bathroom and resume the face, the desolate face, the radiant face, the weary face, the face that has become your own, though all your life you have resisted. ------------------- Sharing with Sepia Saturday, another old truck!

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Sweet memories from 2018 at my son's house!

I am most deeply grateful to John Rogers who invited me to stay in his home when mine had no water or electricity or cell service (which was restored) nor internet which wasn't restored for a long while.

 Drinking water, oh how grateful I was that it again comes out of our taps. 

Gratitude especially for the hospitality of my dear friend Martha, who has been part of my life for almost half a century!

Gratitude for the abundance of food which I enjoy.

Grateful for the living of 82 years and 3 months...a lot of memories!

The force behind the feast was always this woman...just changed her hair and shoes as the generations passed.

Or as a graphic artist depicted her...

I hope my adult children and adult grandchildren have learned the folly of the myth of the Pilgrims and Native people for the first Thanksgiving.

Today's inspiration:

So grateful to live in Black Mountain, right next to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Grateful for all the blessings I've received, and surviving the recent storm.

Sharing with:

Thankful Thursday, 

Little Things Thursday, 

Skywatch Friday  

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The new Ole's Guacamole

 Black Mountain Ole's Guacamole, one of my favorite restaurants, was eaten alive by Flat Creek on Sept. 27 thanks to unnamed storm and Hurricane Helene. The creek usually flows back where the trees are.

Even more unfortunate for the owners, their Asheville location was also flooded by these storms. Asheville Regional Airport recorded 14.19 inches of rain from Helene and the two days preceding the storm, according to the National Weather Service.

There was a catering location which had, in the last year, been purchased by the family. So they cleared out all the furniture in the old Ole's and worked to turn this new building into an Ole's - and they were  able to open it last week.

Of course my friends and I had to go support them, and enjoy a meal made just they way they always had at the other location. Without many tourists this fall, the  restaurants and other shops depend upon the locals to keep going. I'm afraid many will close their doors by January.

We found parking right near the door. This building once had been another Mexican style restaurant, but it had closed several years ago.

Seating was on new booths, but the tables that were very similar to those that had been in the old restaurant. Perhaps a good cleaning was all they needed.

A large group of police persons were enjoying their lunch. 

Directly next door on US 70 are the remains of the Coach House Restaurant. Apparently they had a lot of damage from the flood, as there is a little creek which overflowed between both the buildings, probably behind that fence on the right. It's strange that it had so much damage when the "new Ole's" didn't. But it could be because of the way it was constructed...I don't know.

No I didn't have anything great to eat, just a taco salad with grilled shrimp. When I order something special I'll share with you.

Hang in there and be like Snoopy!

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Oh, adding this to Tom's Signs2 meme, as the first photo has a sign in it! And the new site just got their sign today!

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Today's inspirational words:

Fear of the future can paralyze us, but we can allow it to unfold easily when we keep to the present moment.

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A Harvest of People, also known as the Vegetable Prayer.

From Rev. Max Coots:

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:

For children who are our second planting, and,

though they grow like weeds and

the wind too soon blows them away,

may they forgive us our cultivation

and fondly remember where their roots are.

Let us give thanks for generous friends,

with hearts, and smiles as bright as their blossoms;

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers,

keep reminding us that we’ve had them;

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants

and as elegant as a row of corn,

and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and

as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends,

as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages,

as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley,

as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and

who, like parsnips, can be counted on

to see you throughout the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening time,

and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils

and hold us,

despite our blights, wilts, and witherings;

And, finally, for those friends now gone,

like gardens past that have been harvested,

and who fed us in their times

that we might have life thereafter;

For all these we give thanks.

Alternative building techniques from New Mexico - Three

Today we'll look more at the little B&B where we stayed two nights for our visit to the 

Earth Ships, Taos NM, and even a trip to Santa Fe in 2019.

Shades are available to control the amount of sunlight coming in the windows. Of course

 solar panels help with electricity.

Nice landscaping was done on the approach to the house.

You can see part of the roof has a garden.

This was the first week in Sept. 2019. Lots of nice indigenous plants in the entrance area.

There's a lot of desert out there! Many strange looking buildings are all around.

And inside our earth ship B&B.

My bedroom was in the living/dining area...but a nice big comfy bed was fine for me.

Zora is my grandpup

The cord coming down from the ceiling leads to a vent which can be opened or closed.

I don't travel all that light, with a C-PAP machine and nebulizer too. But see that paper map book on top of my laptop under the pink bag? It came in handy a bit, because out in the desert sometimes there was no signal to find where we were going. Once we went east into the mountains rather than west to the Earth Ship B&B. Eventually we figured out that we were going the wrong way!

Nice small functional bath...

King size bed for the bedroom.  All the windows face south for passive solar heating, and there are small gardens right below them, watered with grey water (sink).

Another vent in ceiling for passive temperature control.

Son and daughter-in-law fixed something to take along on our drive down to Santa Fe. Of course Zora came too, but stayed in the car while we visited the O'Keefe Museum. 

Today's quote:

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone.

 -Thomas De Quincey, writer (15 Aug 1785-1859)  

Anyone interested in the resistance...here's a great source of various videos and more links!

https://wendy-welch.com/2024/11/25/the-monday-books-and-other-resources/

Thanksgiving Parades

 

Felix the Cat was the first inflated balloon critter in the Macy's Parade in 1927

1923 parade had animals from the zoo, not circus animals!

More recent Thanksgiving Parade

Immigrants seeing the statue of liberty almost at the end of their travels. Imagine their joy at this arrival!

Sharing with Sepia Saturday. (A day late or so...)

Saying Grace, by Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell painting Saving Grace, 1951

Today's quote:

There is always something to be grateful for, even when life is hard and times are tough.