Shaggy Dogs and Summer Soltice

An old sepia toned photo... (while trying to compose this on June 12, blogger stopped allowing me to download my photos in the "Compose" editing style, so I had to figure out all the HTML stuff and swore a few dozen times.)

I admit this is within a year old, and as those bluejeans show, it's just edited to look a bit sepia. Not a true sepia photo. But, when shaggy dogs come to mind, Cody is who we have to share. Cody is the grand-dog in my Ohio family shown here with granddaughters!

And here's the star of the family in a portrait.

OK, I'll look for some older shaggy dog photos.

Below may I introduce my son's friend, Barry and his dog, Lucia, with my son Marty on the right. They were attending a Renaissance Fair in the Tampa FL area in 2018. Since that time, Barry has obtained a puppy to keep Lucia company. I want to say some kind of Sheep Dog? Please correct me if I'm wrong. 

(Thanks, Eileen, Burmese Mountain Dogs sounds about right.)

And here's my daughter-in-law, Barbara with the two pups (who really belong to Barry)

Love of a shaggy dog from Sepia Saturday this week.
And sharing with Saturday's Critters too this week!

And another of my grand-dogs...here's one that's not exactly shaggy...Zora. She's a Blue Tick living in Colorado, where I visited in 2019.

And happy Summer Solstice to all my pagan buddies! Just the longest day of the year, my friends!

Today's quote:
I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun. 
-Katharine Hepburn, actress (12 May 1907-2003)

Being female, or male

Yes, rainy mornings when I just have no incentive to get out of bed, I think of silly things.

What if I'd been born the other sex? I heard sometime or another that I'd have been named
George E Rogers III, rather than Barbara...

But of course my sister had a second chance at being George III. She also missed out.

So among my musings, I thought how my life would have been different if I'd had a brother instead of a sister. Oh my...he would have been treated with differential airs. I had 2 female cousins older than myself, and I know a male heir was something that the family looked forward to having.

Then my younger 2 girl cousins were born after me and my sister. Oh woe was the Rogers name...no one to carry it on. But wait, later in life, there actually was a boy born to Uncle James and Aunt Dotty. (James was the youngest of the 4 Rogers boys.) And then they had another girl as well.  That just beat all!

And they named the boy after the first Rogers who came to America, John Fitz Rogers. I hope my grandparents were satisfied in that.

I've enjoyed being part of the women's movement, from the 1960s to today. I would have missed this if I'd been born George...

But back to thinking of my life if I'd been male.

It would have meant wearing different clothes as a kid. I don't remember any knowledge of boys (besides my father) as I grew up. I was surrounded by girls who I played with. It wasn't until I was in high school that I started dating.

Would I have had my own personality if I were male? I wondered. I wouldn't have had the flirtatious girly attitude as a young woman, that's for sure. Make up and hair styles...oh I would not have missed that part of femininity at all. Would I have been an artist? I think so. But I wouldn't have looked for approval from parents and teachers all my young life...I hope.

I think I would have enjoyed sports more, and being comfortable in my own body. That's what I think men have physically.  I remember how amazed I was to have my first child, to see that my body as a woman could do such a miraculous thing as give another life birth.

Well, eventually I rolled over and figured out what I'd have for breakfast.

Today's (second, or third) quote:

Don't go back to sleep.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the
doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

—Rumi

The heart monitor

Just to remember...Thursday June 18, 2020   
93th Day of Spring, 97th Day of Social Distancing, 28th Day of Phase 2, Safer at Home (North Carolina)

Well I've had nurses put those sticky leads on me, and wires going into a machine for EKG's several times in the last month.

But with my shortness of breath just walking around, I've been designated a candidate for a portable heart monitor here at home. It will be part of my life for nine days. I think I'm supposed to tell it if I feel any kind of "event." So far I've just fixed breakfast.

I've not done much of anything last weekend. No real reason. I just am letting myself lie in bed and read my books on the iPad...library digital books. It's been easy in bed to put on the C-Pap too, so I am breathing filtered air which doesn't really seem to help with my cough. The minute I lie down, I start coughing. So that usually happens for a while. Then I settle in and can read for a half hour or so without much interruption. (Coughing is a normal symptom of Bronchiectasis, which doesn't seem to have any cure.)

I don't have a really comfortable chair to sit back in to read...with the exception of the love-seat which is my favorite place from which I watch TV. It's not that great for reading. I think because I tilt back a bit, with my head bent forward. I can't sit very long in that position. Now sitting upright at the computer, my main fault is bending my neck forward till my back and shoulders complain!

Anyway...I'm still getting used to having a little monitor hanging off my front...with a phone that reminds me periodically to check leads.  Oops, it just called me.

I slept ok, but had an hour or so interrupted sleep (which sometimes happens.) With the cool weather (not above 60 today) I turned the heat on. It's also to help keep the humidity down.

I'm sitting here eating my oatmeal with blueberries this morning. Hope you have a great day.

Today's quote:

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. -William Kingdon Clifford, mathematician and philosopher (4 May 1845-1879)

Inside my apartment

I haven't shared much about the inside of my house. Here's my favorite TV-watching perch.

 Looking through to the kitchen and front door beyond...

Kitchen is unfortunately the first thing people see when they come in. I have a lot of trouble keeping dishes washed...and put away.

So this is where I isolate, and no wonder I spend a great deal of time on the computer! And looking out windows at birds. I saw a chipmunk today, a robin, a hummingbird, and a wren. Life is good.

Today's quote:

That's the terrible hypnotism of war, the brute mass-impulse, the pride and national spirit, the instinctive simplicity of men that makes them worship what is their own above everything else. I've thrilled and shouted with patriotic pride, like everyone else. Music and flags and men marching in step have bewitched me, as they do all of us. And then I've gone home and sworn to root this evil instinct out of my soul. God help -- let's love the world, love humanity -- not just our own country! -Christopher Morley, writer (5 May 1890-1957)

A month later, they're doing ok

I think these will be Four O'clocks. I've not done much with my own plants for the last month, the 14th marks the anniversary of my receiving a stent on my heart in the hospital.

Not at all sure what these are...I just saw them as I was walking by.

Calibrachoas...

Today's quote:

"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, Wisdom is of the future." ~Lumbee

Stella De Oro dayllies

A frilly version!

I may have linked up with Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. I never saw my link published though.

Today's quote:

Input from experts is valuable but our own sense of the truth is ultimately the most important. Madisyn Taylor, Daily Om

A month gone by

It's hard to believe that a stent was inserted into an artery on my heart (the Left Anterior Descending Artery, LAD) just a month and a day ago.

I'm slowly healing...being a bit short of breath when walking around especially if carrying something and wearing a mask. But the various doctors have said my heart was down to 38% from the norm of 50% (the normal amount of blood that is pumped in one beat.) My son and I don't understand that only 50% of the blood in our body is pumped at a time...but then just thinking of that much surging around is pretty awesome.  This is part of my re-education that I want to learn more about.

I'm working on my apartment re-certification which must be done annually to receive any reduced rent based on my financial circumstances. That means waiting to get the bills from hospital and doctors, then submitting them to landlady. I may not be able to submit them this month because they bill the insurance first, then the balance will be mine to pay. I'm not looking forward to that, but hope to make a contract to have monthly payments (for a few years to come probably.)

Other than shortness of breath and finances, my life is doing pretty well.

I must consider how when I retired (in 2007) all those years ago, I dragged along things that I would do in my "retirement years." Now the box of photos that I wanted to make into collages is still stored collecting dust. As well as all my old journals that I imagined I could merge into an interesting book or two...and would you believe, the emails I wrote back and forth since 2001 with my two high school best friends who've died since then. At least the emails are on the internet, so not collecting dust!

Instead I became active making pottery and sculptures in clay for 12 years. What a long time to indulge myself! I made good friends though, in the pottery studio and in selling my pots.  And ignored the many  things that were waiting for my attention. Indeed, I just added to them! Now I've got many shelves of pots and sculptures...as well as big tupperware tubs stacked along the walls.

So in the next month, my challenge shall be to choose one thing to give attention to...a retirement thing. I'll let you know how that progresses!

Today's quote:

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common -- this is my symphony.
-William Henry Channing, clergyman and reformer (25 May 1810-1884)

Woman driver

Last Tuesday, June 9...
"It was on (June 9) in 1909 that the first woman to drive across the United States, Alice Huyler Ramsey, (1886-1983) left New York City for San Francisco. She was 22 years old, a housewife from Hackensack, New Jersey. Her trip got a lot of media attention. In 1909, not many women drove cars, and some doctors thought that it was dangerous for women to even ride in cars because they would get too worked up at more than 20 miles an hour. Alice Huyler Ramsey drove 3,800 miles across the country in a Maxwell 30 with three other women, but she was the only one who knew how to drive. They drove for 41 days and used 11 spare tires. She wrote a book about the trip called Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron (1961). In 2000, she was the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame."
Source: Writer's Almanac


 "Only 152 of the 3,600 miles (244 of the 5,767 kilometers) that the group traveled were paved. Over the course of the drive, Ramsey changed 11 tires, cleaned the spark plugs, repaired a broken brake pedal and had to sleep in the car when it was stuck in mud. The women mostly navigated by using telephone poles, following the poles with more wires in hopes that they would lead to a town. SOURCE: Wikipedia

1909 photo of Alice Ramsey.

I couldn't figure out this prompt picture. What are the figures in the foreground up to...something behind fences, but there are tall poles also on the "playing surface." I gave up and found a bit of history which salutes a woman driver. See Sepia Saturday for more interesting blog posts!

Lunch group

I was barely awake the other day...deciding to maybe lie there as I slowly became aware of the world, rather than pad into kitchen to get some caffeine to help my attentiveness....when I received several texts that made no sense.

Apparently some friends from church were getting together and were deciding where - for lunch today. They would text back and forth. I finally said, this is me, and I don't think I'm invited. Another woman said this is Tina...and apparently one of their phones had switched my phone number with Tina's.

She called after scratching her head and said she somehow was sending to Tina and it went to my number by mistake. By then the other 3 people had been sending a few more messages about the lunch plans on a patio where they could social distance.

As we talked in real time, we laughed, and I uninvited myself. Ruth, the person on the phone, is a very loving member of our church. She and several others stand in the town square at least on Wednesdays,  at 5:00 pm, and hold signs that just say "Love." It is a great gesture of sharing smiles, and some passers-by will honk their horns.

I explained that I supported their efforts, but wasn't up to a lunch yet. I'm doing much better recovering and waiting for a heart monitor to find out if there's anything else going on with my heart. I did venture to a grocery store that morning after talking with her...and found carrying groceries was a bit beyond me for now.

We laughed together. That was worth the call, the texts. And of course that gave me plenty of energy to get to the coffee.

Today's quote:

Not until black demonstrators resorted to violence did the national government work seriously for civil rights legislation ... In 1850 white abolitionists, having given up on peaceful means, began to encourage and engage in actions that disrupted plantation operations and liberated slaves. Was that all wrong?
-Ingrid Newkirk, animal rights activist (b. 11 Jul 1949)

A (healthy) light lunch

Greek yogurt (unsweetened whole milk) and huge walnuts...and a gifted nectarine. I was in heaven.
Thanks Tina, for checking to see that I didn't like peaches. I'm sorry I have my strange tastes. I like opening the refrigerator and putting together a meal. I prefer minimal cooking. And I honestly hate to clean up the kitchen. I tend to leave the dishes till I run out of something, like spoons or forks. They are necessary for eating the next meal usually. So that's the driving force of my kitchen.

Today's quote:
Tuesday was the birthday of musician, Cole Porter, born in Peru, Indiana, in 1891. He went to Yale University, where he got horrible grades but wrote and performed more than 300 songs for school shows. He went off to Europe and eventually settled in Paris, where he lived for most of the 1920s. In 1928, he wrote his first big hit, "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love," which begins, "Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it." After that his career took off, and he ended up writing hundreds of songs for movies, television, and Broadway shows.

A rose is a rose

I am trolling through older photos. Just found this one (which I may have already posted) and wanted to share it with you.

My dear friend, Ann was having a pacemaker installed today (Monday) at the same hospital in which I recently was a patient. Ann is about 12 years senior to me, and was from Denmark many years ago. I was happy to have a phone conversation with her Sunday evening, while she just was lying around waiting for her procedure. I met her at my little church here in Black Mountain NC. She's been very active all her life, and the one interesting thing I want to share about her is about her interest in the sport of fencing. She had actually learned a bit about it before her immigration to the US.

She loves to tell her stories. When she first arrived in the US as a young woman, she took a fencing class, where she met a young man that she became "smitten with."  They went out a few times, and then he moved from Washington DC to California (for work I think.) Ann decided that she would also go to CA, and proceeded to try to find the young man. That was quite an adventure, and she eventually did. They were married and have raised their children. Ann lost Jerry to heart disease several years ago. She now has 14 great grand children, with the latest having been born last week. She herself trained as a respiratory therapist, and knows quite a bit about medical terminology.

I hope she has a good recovery from this procedure.

When we again can return to our little church community, I'll be looking forward to one of her loving hugs...and to give it back to her as well.

Today's Quote:
When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.

-Sarah Kendzior, journalist and author (b. 1978)

In like a lion

There's the hummingbird feeder, and my sweet purple shamrock in my bedroom window.

This shot was taken while I had the window open. With all the pollen flying around these days, I've had to foresake fresh air and keep air conditioned, which helps my allergies.

But my main reason for writing today is to share how I've changed with this new heart stuff. No more details of medical procedures...but now I'm becoming used to thinking of myself differently.

Slow. Am I the turtle? I certainly feel like it a lot of the time, especially as I walk along.

Long ago I started as identifying myself as a lioness...being born on the cusp of Leo, which birthday has now moved into Virgo, but I always felt more lion than "Virgo, identified as virgin, one who is a person unto themselves." And I certainly have never had the Virgo traits of perfectionism and detail orientation, but more those of female lions who gather in a pride to provide food for everyone. I also have some of the qualities of starting up groups, organizing classes, giving information out to those who seek it.

But today I'm now almost totally vegetarian...eating just fish occasionally. And so this lack of eating meat has also influenced my outlook on life. I'm not as drawn to hunt, to provide the meat for a group or  family.

And today I'm not making pottery any more. I still have a bit of clay, and of course, many colors of commercial glazes. Anyway, I'm taking off my ceramics profession as an identification. I thus am not a "potter."

So playing with the word, and identifying with another animal which I admire, I'm ready to take the "P" away and identify as Otter.

River otter is the only one I know, though sea otters are also beautiful.

I love that otters play so much...in the mud also (like clay). They are such beautiful little animals. I think this person is going to learn more about otters' qualities. Playful. They also eat a lot of fish.

Today's quote:

Between where you are now and where you’d like to be there’s a sort of barrier, or a chasm, and sometimes it’s a good idea to imagine that you’re already at the other side of that chasm, so that you can start on the unknown side.

—David Bohm

Coming home

After a trip to Asheville, it's always so wonderful to come over a hill and suddenly see the mountains of home...Black Mountain is just 15 miles down I-40.  Even with a bit of rain, I just love this view.

Today's quote:
A plant is a weed only within a certain context; one person's weed is another person's wildflower.

Madisyn Taylor, Daily Om

Another cardiac problem

Having spent Thursday feeling tired and short of breath if I did anything, I arrived Friday to see a person who might know what was going on...or not.

 You check in, answer questions, get your temperature taken...

Big waiting room - but many chairs apart for sitting...and everyone wears masks, at least when talking to each other.

 Yes, an appointment to see a nurse practitioner...or Physician's Assistant. I'm not sure which. They are all very knowledgeable about heart issues. I got an EKG again.

Glug glug, I won't tell the tropical fish in the waiting room about my salmon dinner last night. I don't think they'd understand.

The end result was to have a change of my meds. And just in case I'm holding fluids, go on low salt diet. Oh, and they'll mail me a heart monitor to wear. And I don't know what else. And hopefully that will help. I gave away all my salty snacks to my friend, who's an essential worker!

Today's quote:

"I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay." Clara Barton

The American Red Cross was officially incorporated on May 21, 1881 with Barton as its president.

Posing for a photo

I've got lots of relatives (and friends) who've stopped for a moment to be captured in a photo.  So which one will I share this week with the Sepia Saturday folks?

My grandchildren...back in 2017. Yes, that's only 3 years ago, and yet so much has changed. Michael, Cayenne and William. They are my son, Marty's children, all grown up now.

And also in 2017, these bathing beauties are also my grandchildren (3 of them) and their cousin. From left, Audrey, their cousin Aby, Caroline and Kate, my son Russ' children and his wife's sister's daughter.

Summertime, posted by Clementine on Facebook!

Today's quote:

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

by Mary Oliver

1.
Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say–behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings of this gritty earth gift.

2.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.

5.
We do one thing or another; we stay the same or we change.
Congratulations if you have changed.

6.
Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason?

And if you have not been enchanted by this adventure—your life—
what would do for you?

7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements, though with difficulty

I mean the ones that are thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment somehow or another).

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.