The chicken in the hospital parking lot

I was finally feeling well enough to get out of bed and walk around my room. I wanted to look out the window.

 But what is that live little dark thing by the side of this parking lot, across Biltmore Ave from Mission Hospital?

 No amount of phone enlarging could telll me more...but it was dark and too small to be a turkey, I finally decided.

 I had nothing better to do than watch this strange critter. It was sort of drizzling, but  the chicken didn't seem to mind,

 It did flap its wings a bit, and moved into the area with some kind of light vegetation.

And that was that.

However, there's an epilog to the chicken story.

As Helen and I drove home on Tues. I told her about the chicken, and that it had been too small for a turkey, I thought.  An just as we drove up past McDonalds by the Veterans Hospital, there on the side of Hwy, 70 was a turkey. No kidding. Big, fluffy, moving around.

Things just keep changing

Well, it's great that I was so full of inspiration I've been writing blogs ahead of time, because now I've caught up, and can't put much effort into writing tonight.

It's Tues, May 19, 2020. On Friday last week I felt so bad I went to the hospital in Asheville. Turns out I had had a heart attack.

So today I got home, after having wonderful care by such a great medical and nursing staff. I have a stint now in my LAD artery in my heart.

And for all the folks who've already been through this, you know I'm wiped out.

There are wonderful people at my church, my dear friends, who will be bringing me some meals. I had a dear friend take me to the hospital (after all I had no idea it was my heart), and Helen picked me up today.

Have I got stories to share!!!

PS, I missed reading all my blog friends for 4 days, so will be catching up.

Eating and staying safe!

Switching foods around.

My friend had a blood workup which showed she was pre-diabetic. Her doctor said she could lose some weight and maybe she wouldn't have to take insulin. She was worried about the cost of insulin going through the roof with all the medical insurance changes.

Buncombe County had 105 Covid-19 cases as of May 13 news...I think these are all that have been identified, out of several thousand tests. (They didn't tell us the death total, but I think it's maybe in the teens.)

So she went on a Keto type diet...all meat, veggies and maybe a few other things...but no carbs. So all baked goods were out...including bread and deserts. And I think even fruit, anything that would raise her blood-sugar. Absolutely nothing with sugar in it. She did it religiously and lost 25 pounds, and went back to the Dr. who said she had things under control. So she's still doing that. And she does have a good friend who also is doing this diet, so they share recipes.

She's going to drop a bag of flour at my house sometime today. I do eat breads, and cookies, and sometimes other things that are carbohydrates. Give me a potato and I'm in heaven.  I've got a cupboard with one that surprisingly enough has started to sprout. How did that happen? I've been eating other people's potatoes, that's all there is to it.

I'm returning a book to her which I borrowed back in Feb. It's hard to believe we haven't done much together since then.  I got her some groceries Tues. a week ago. That's probably the last time I'll go grocery shopping for a while. I keep hearing horror stories of all the people not wearing masks in the stores. I am at risk, y'all. I don't want a tiny little 4 micron size particle (virus) to sneak into my eyes, or hide on my sleeve till I take off my mask at home.  I have definitely learned how to not touch my face. I sure am going to be mad at myself if I get this sickness, because some days I'm not as full of disinfectant as others.

So there's a table on my front porch, which is the staging place for things coming in or going out of my apartment.

My friend just called from a barbeque place where we used to have lunch together. Now she gets the meat dishes, and I get the sides. I'm mostly vegetarian these days, except for fish. And the barbeque place makes delicious brownies. So I asked for one. It's still take-out here in North Carolina.

Today's quote:

There will be something, anguish or elation, that is peculiar to this day alone. I rise from sleep and say: Hail to the morning! Come down to me, my beautiful unknown.

JESSICA POWERS

morning notes

Musings in the morning...
once a week, I gear up right after waking, and combine all my little trash bags around the place into one big one, and smash all the cardboard boxes flat, then take them to the corner of the building where a collecting corral has a bunch of trash bins. There's only one that's bear-proof, which we use for kitchen garbage during the week, but lots that are available to use only on trash pick-up day. This works most of the time.

I was making coffee next...feed the fish...then read my friend's blogs, and comments...both making and just reading what folks say about mine. I'm down to keeping 2, and nobody ever reads the family tree one. It's mainly just a historic storage library about the ancestors.

And this one, I usually have recent photos of things around my life. Plants, animals, and the natural scenes I see. They have become much more limited with less outings in daily doings.

It usually takes an hour - sometimes more - to catch up with everyone I follow. I don't know how many there are now. Lots. And about every week I add another one that made an interesting comment on someone else's blog. I don't know if everyone does that, but as some folks just stop blogging, that's given me some new ones to get to know.

Today has freeze warnings for tonight (it's May 8, Friday). All the plants are cozy inside except the gardenia. It will be given a cover, though it's tucked under the little porch roof also, next to the building.  It's survived several frosts that way.

Today's plans? I don't think I'm going out. I talked with 2 of my buddies yesterday, and texted the other one...so I'll probably just do the texting check-in today. Just do some things around the house, oh, maybe go to laundromat.

So, sipping my coffee, reading other's blogs, I've taken out trash and used the first 45 minutes of my day. I choose to postpone the blogs which are most thoughtful until later, preferring lighter reading first. I used to read comics first, but have given up that 20 minute pursuit for more - what shall we say - realistic communication with real people. And I often get some laughs.

Then there are the rest of the daily things...nebulizer treatments, shower and dress, eat something, take blood pressure, take my pills, brush hair and teeth...this usually takes till noon when I awake around 7-8 am. If I sleep in till 9, lunch is sometimes at 2. Oh well, this is retirement.

Today's Quote:

“The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”

Casandra Brene' Brown

Springtime lovely food dishes

I fixed one of my favorite dish combinations for the spring. Salmon, roasted garlic and asparagus, and sticky rice. Silly camera got the plate upside down, but I'm leaving it that way. The food is just a memory now.

Today's Quote:

May we never forget the crippled, wind-beaten trees, how they, too, bud, green and bloom. May we, too, take courage to bloom where we are planted.

BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST

Al fresca

Eating outdoors.

We've been relegated to eating anywhere but inside a restaurant for the last 2 months. I didn't write down when it started, but everyone switched to "take out" pretty quickly.

So we would call the restaurants (I chose only the local ones that I wanted to help stay in business) and then go park at their door, and they would call us back when our order was ready.

But here are a few "pre-Covid-19" photos. They may not be sepia, but they do mean we enjoyed fresh air with our meals.

Oh, not Manet's 1863 Luncheon on the Grass. (I'd probably be the woman in the stream.)

I didn't get to join my son, Marty, at this inside/outside venue (in Florida.) It looks good, and I hope to eat there when I visit him again!

 Our local brunch favorite is Louisa's Kitchen here in Black Mountain NC (before the shut-down.)

In Santa Fe NM last summer, we enjoyed "cocktails" on a roof patio before going to dinner in the best restaurant in town.  We went to a couple of bars having cocktails until it was time for our reservation for dinner.

Having a dog with us, it was extra special in Taos to have breakfast on a patio as well...though it was a bit chilly.

We waited for a buzzer to let us know our table inside was ready...here my friend Teresa shows Helen something on her phone at the Pisgah Inn last spring. It's still closed this year.

Before all the social isolation, this porch was available for us to sit and rock and talk when the weather was right. However at this point all the rocking chairs have been locked up.  We are still being urged to wear a mask, and of course stay 6 feet away from each other.

Living in a neighborhood with seniors, I'm hoping we all weather this pandemic over the next whatever time it lasts.

And this is the Sepia Saturday prompt for this week. I think my meals outdoors meet the criteria~!

Today's Quote:

He said: "I don't quite understand about understanding poetry. I experience poems with pleasure: whether I understand them or not I'm not quite sure. I don't want to read something I already know or which is going to slide down easily: there has to be some crunch, a certain amount of resilience."

by poet John Ashbery 

Older ducklings

As I walked along one side of Lake Tomahawk the other day, I saw another family of Mallards, with ducklings that were a bit older than the first ones I saw (on yesterday's post).

 Mom Mallard led her 10 ducklings (I think) from the bank of the dam into the water.

 There was a male napping on shore...

 He didn't want anything to do with these kids, and chased this one back into the water, then disappeared somewhere else.

 The sluice that drains the water must have been full of goodies to eat, but I was worried that a duckling might get swept away. They didn't seem to have a care, and neither did mom Mallard.

I didn't watch for long, because I was actually there to capture a photo of the National Guard plane that was about to fly over. I did get some photos of it, and have posted them already.

Today's quote:

We often think that vulnerability is a kind of weakness, but there’s a kind of vulnerability that is actually strength and presence.

RAM DASS

Some ducklings

I had just arrived to walk around Lake Tomahawk the other day. But I put on a mask, and noticed nobody else had on one.  Only one woman was running apparently, and one was dog walking. I stopped and let her pass me by. For the jogger, I moved 10 feet off the path upwind of her. I'm at high risk of catching Covid-19 - so I'm really staying as isolated as I can. (I've heard 15 feet is normal for those jogging to expel their breaths.)

Then there were these little fluffy things floating around with male mallards. I didn't see a female anywhere nearby.

 They were very interested in eating something underwater. Good for them!

Quote for today:

We feel like separate water droplets but we are also ocean.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

Surprise sale of a mug!

 I was pleased to have another local Black Mountain potter know that I'd made the mug which a friend had chipped. It has B. Rogers on the bottom.

And in case you don't yet know, potters are a very friendly bunch. There may be a low level of competition, but generally we know that a customer will go for one person's designs rather than another, and it's all good. We often send people to another potter, which is what Sarah Vekasi did for me, since she knew I'd made that mug. And I had kept one back to remember all the work of hand painting those glazes (3 coats). I contacted this new person, and even became her friend on FaceBook. And we met and exchanged mug and money on the hood of her car, while wearing masks and social distancing, and both went home happy.

Incidentally I gave Sarah some popsicles as a tip, that's what she wanted. And I'm happy to show you her beautiful mugs too!

Sarah hand throws and glazes her mugs, uses her own decals of dogwood, and writes a meaningful word on each mug. Facebook has her listed as Sunshine Pottery, in case you wish to see more of her work.

Today's quote:
You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors.

Casandra Brene' Brown

The flyover

New York front-line health care workers/all who are essential workers, were honored by the Flying Angels of the Air Force. They fly pretty quickly, and costly.

North Carolina's National Guard flew over Asheville, then Black Mountain, going along through mountain towns and in a big loop back to wherever they came from. Our local news publicized it the day ahead on Facebook, so I knew when they would be coming.

I had to go to the post office so while I was out, I walked around one side of Lake Tomahawk. Only one other person was also wearing a mask.  I had been on the dam, and was going to another place to look for the clear skies, when there it came...and fortunately I could see it through the branches of trees I stood under.

 Of course I could hear it, just as it approached over the far side of the lake. It had been scheduled to pass over Asheville at 10:50. It appeared here at 10:56.

Being a cargo plane, not a C-130 that I'd seen before, but a bigger, newer turbo-prop one...it made a lot of noise, and then was gone!

The news outlet said it was standard training so didn't cost anything extra. But I was glad to hear (when I posted my photo on Facebook) that lots of other people saw it too.

Today's quote:

Take refuge in this moment.
One lightning bolt of wonder

through the heart of a child
incinerates ten thousand
books of philosophy.
All the speeches of politicians
burn to tasteless ash
in the diamond eye of a lover.
A wild mushroom springs
from the manure pile, pungent
as the breath of a dark angel.
There is no war in this meadow.
Stars yearn to fall here
and become wild poppies
on an April morning. 

Fred LaMotte

Mother's Day bouquet

I know the big mums have been dyed, the leaves are the same color as the flowers! But they are pretty! And I enjoyed all these beauties brightening up my dining table.

And a special treat...baby hummingbirds video!  


Today's quote:

BEANNACHT 

On the day
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you. 

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight. 

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home. 

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours. 

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life. 

John O'Donohue
From BENEDICTUS (Europe) / TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)

Happy Mother's Day

My mother around 6 years old, and her mother (my grandmother Mozelle Munhall)...around 1924.  Yes, my mother kept her photos in one of those black paper albums, but decided to be creative with how she framed most of them.

My mother as a young woman.

My mother and my other grandmother (Ada Swasey Rogers), my dad's mother.  Taken about the time that my dad and mother got married (and lived in his parent's house in 1939. Both the grandparents' houses were similar in San Antonio, Texas.

 My oldest son Marty, when he was 2-3 years old. (I gave him the album with all his baby photos)

Marty preparing for his baby brother, Russ, to share Marty's 4th Christmas, both stockings made by my sis, Mary.

August, 1967, there's baby Russ being considered by big brother Marty.

A scanned Polaroid photo of me holding son number three, Tai, when visiting my parents for Christmas, 1979.

Below is my sister, Mary, after giving birth to her daughter, Lisa, in 1971.

Today' quote:

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.

Casandra Brene' Brown