life — Page 189

Reading on Sunday

April 17, 2016 at 9:42 am by Claudia

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I’m getting to the blog a little late today. Sometimes it’s a treat to allow myself to read for an hour or two in the morning – which is what I did today. The book I’m reading isn’t even all that great – it’s what I’d call “mystery-lite”, but it’s interesting enough to provide a nice respite on this Sunday morning. A cup or two of coffee and a book to read spells perfection to me.

I’m going to be doing a lot of work outside today. As of today, I think we’re past the very cold nights that have been the norm. The temps are hitting the 70s today, with abundant sun, so it’s time to rake the leaf mulch out of the garden beds. Huzzah! Yesterday, I went to Lowe’s to buy a child’s rake because our regular leaf rakes are too wide to maneuver around delicate new growth. It’s something I should have done long ago. It’s a cute rake, by the way, bright yellow.

I read the most interesting article in the New York Times today. It’s about Mary Beard, who is a professor at the University of Cambridge, a prolific author and an authority on ancient Roman culture. She has become an outspoken critic of internet trolling. In her case, as she is seen on British television frequently, the trolling started out as mean barbs about her appearance, written through the vehicle of social media. She was nearing sixty with naturally gray hair and this, apparently, was all trolls needed to generate negative comments about her appearance.

“When you look at me on the telly, and say she should be on ‘The Undateables,’ you are looking at a 59 year old woman. This is what 59 year old women who have not had work done look like. Get it?” -quoted from the New York Times article. (The Undateables is a British reality show. Oy.)

Bravo. I love this woman. She also responds to this sort of thing with dry humor, which is always more effective than anger. There’s nothing wrong with getting work done or coloring one’s hair, of course, but for those of us who choose to look the way we are at this point in time, it’s unbelievably refreshing and affirming.

That brings to mind a lot of things, many of which I have written about in past posts, so I don’t really need to go into it again. All I know is I want to know more about Mary Beard and I applaud her wholeheartedly.

Have a lovely day – I hope the weather is spring-like in your neck of the woods.

Happy Sunday.

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Kindness Matters

April 15, 2016 at 9:48 am by Claudia

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I saw this in a shop while we were in Florida.

It’s one of those magnetic signs that can be put on a car and it’s now on my car.

It has sort of a sixties vibe, doesn’t it? Well, I came of age in the sixties and I’m proud of it.

Kindness matters.

It matters a great deal. Kindness comes from the core of a loving heart. Love for our fellow man, love for animals, love for our planet – love for everyone, no matter their color, race, or creed, no matter their economic status, no matter their sexual orientation, no matter what.

It doesn’t spring from fear, which seems to be ruling our world right now. It is certainly where the inflamed rhetoric that has been spewed out on a regular basis during this Presidential campaign comes from. It’s ugly, vile, hateful, and beneath contempt. The fear-mongering, the disrespect shown to women, the disrespect shown to fellow candidates, the disrespect shown to our sitting President, the disrespect shown to those who have suffered, are suffering, to those with disabilities – is this what we want to be made of? Is this how we want to conduct our lives?

I’ve known a few people in my life who have resorted to verbal attacks that were blistering, hurtful and cruel – not just once, but many times. This is what happens when a bully is cornered. They come out swinging, saying anything and everything in order to ‘win.’ And there is never an apology because that would mean taking responsibility for their actions. Winning is all, even if it means losing a friend or making an enemy in the process.

I do not continue those toxic relationships, though I have compassion for their obvious pain and a wish for peace to envelop their hearts.

We’re seeing much the same thing in this election process. Bullying. Hateful rhetoric. When cornered, attack. When challenged, attack even more. Never admit you’re wrong. Be a winner, not a loser. Make fun of those who have less. Make fun of the way people look. Make fun of those who might disagree with you.

Not to mention the strong-arm tactics that look like something I thought I would never see in this day and age, that bring to mind newsreel footage of fascists who would rough up those who protest, throw people out of a rally based on the color of their skin, deny any sort of healthy discussion.

They’re afraid. They react from a place of fear, which quickly turns to hate.

Why do we tolerate this in anyone, let alone someone who is running for the Presidency?

Kindness Matters.

I see no kindness there. I see someone who talks about excluding, about winners and losers, about torture, about punishing women, about bombing the innocent in order to win. I see someone whose ego needs to be constantly fed, who needs to have his name in the news – it’s like mother’s milk to him – who, at heart, is a child who never grew up, who knows nothing except how to bully, how to attack. His ego will never be fed enough. It will always crave more.

“He started it.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake, are you 6 years old?

Look, I have strong political beliefs and if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you probably have a pretty good idea of where I stand. I have issues with other candidates as well, big issues, but those I will keep private as this is not a political blog.

This however, is different. This is shameful behavior. This is behavior I wouldn’t tolerate in a child, let alone an adult. This is embarrassing to those of us (and I have to believe it is most of us, please, let it be most of us) who believe differently and are horrified that this is getting media attention all over the world.

I have a theory. We now have a whole group of people who watch reality television and think it’s real. It isn’t, of course. It’s staged. (If you think it’s real, you need a reality check.) There is a segment of that programming that plays to the worst part in all of us. People say vile things, they physically attack each other, they say and do all that we were taught not to do. And people watch, just like spectators cheered as they watched the horrors in the Roman Colosseum, or watched gleefully as people were executed at the guillotine.

They think it’s real and, even more disturbing, they think it’s acceptable.

It isn’t.

Public discourse has sunk to a low that I haven’t seen in my lifetime.

And in walks a carnival barker who, like any shill worth his salt, knows how to play to those people. He plays on fear, on xenophobia, on racism, on the very disrespect we see on the shows of Jerry Springer or Maury Povich, or in political discussions on cable news, or on ‘reality’ television.

He’s speaking to the worst part of us. And, like those who are sure they will be the ones to win the carnival barker’s game even though it’s rigged against them, people are buying this crap, even excusing it.

There is no excuse.

Hate breeds hate. Love breeds love. Kindness breeds kindness.

Like most of you, I was raised to say please and thank you, to respect my elders, to admit when I was wrong, to take responsibility for my actions, to treat everyone as my equal, to be kind to animals, to love my fellow man.

I have a real problem with the theory of American Exceptionalism – at least as it’s used today. It bothers me. I’m not a flag waver, which doesn’t mean I am not patriotic, it just means that I think we need to show who we are by our actions. Waving a flag is easy. Doing what is right is harder.

But if you believe in that concept of Exceptionalism, which is based on the idea of a free nation with democratic ideals and personal liberty, then surely this sort of exclusionary, hateful rhetoric is directly opposed to that concept. It’s everything our forefathers fought against.

Kindness cannot exist in exclusion. Kindness cannot exist in hate. Kindness cannot exist in bullying. Kindness cannot exist in bigotry or xenophobia. Kindness cannot exist in cruelty. Kindness cannot exist in anything other than love.

Kindness Matters. It matters now more than ever.

Happy Friday.

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The End of a Bizarre Week

April 2, 2016 at 9:26 am by Claudia

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As is.

The end of a long day; heck, a long week.

Very strange happenings around MHC this past week, most of them to do with Don’s ankle/leg. We took two trail walks last weekend and at the beginning of each of them, Don had to loosen the ties on his sneakers because his inner ankle was tender. He thought it strange, but really didn’t think about it all that much.

By late Sunday night, after I had gone to bed, Don’s ankle was swollen and an area of skin above the joint and on the leg was very red. He couldn’t put any weight on his foot.

On Monday morning, Don told me what was happening and we assumed it must be some sort of sprain, so we started keeping it elevated and icing it off and on. But Don was sort of bewildered by the whole thing, as he had no memory of anything happening to that ankle.

By Wednesday, it was even redder and there was some bruising under the ankle and it hurt a lot, so we went to our local urgent care facility as Don’s doctor was out of town. The doctor at urgent care, not especially skilled in bedside manner, told Don he couldn’t say exactly what it was – it was either a sprain or a skin infection. They gave him a splint, ace bandages and crutches, as well as strong antibiotics and prescription strength ibuprofen. We got the prescriptions filled and went back to elevating, etc.

Later in the day, when Don was looking at the discharge papers, the doctor had entered ‘cellulitis’ in his notes as the diagnosis. This puzzled us, because cellulitis is very serious and the doctor had hedged about any sort of diagnosis during the appointment.

We were in strange and uncertain territory. At this point, we very much doubted it was a sprain, as the redness that extended about 5 inches up his leg was clearly some sort of inflammation and, as veterans of sprained ankles, we knew that if it had been a sprain, that area would have eventually become a bruise and it didn’t. On Mere’s advice, we started to mark how high the redness went on the leg with a permanent marker. Cellulitis, apparently, can lead to a blood infection if not monitored. Not good. A couple of people warned us about the seriousness of it all.

But was it cellulitis?

We tried to get hold of the doctor from the urgent care facility for some sort of clarification. No return call. Then we spent the next 24 hours or so wondering if we should go to Emergency, constantly monitoring the inflammation.

Side note: we have a large deductible on our health insurance, Don is about 3 months away from getting Medicare, and we knew that the cost of a visit to Emergency, as well as all the doctor’s visits, would come out of our pocket. So we were hesitant to go to ER if it wasn’t necessary.

Don called urgent care again yesterday morning and asked to have the doctor call us. When the doctor finally called us back yesterday afternoon, he was defensive about the diagnosis he gave in the examining room vs. the diagnosis on the discharge papers and was basically a jerk (my words, not Don’s) but he did two good things: he prescribed that antibiotic on Wednesday and he gave us the name of a local podiatrist, who, bless him, squeezed us in late yesterday afternoon.

This doctor was great, so helpful and reassuring. He took his time and listened to both of us. He asked questions. And in the end he said, yes, it’s cellulitis. No, we don’t need the splint or the crutches or the ace bandages. Yes, Don will be okay, it just might take a few more days. If it gets worse, go to Emergency. But, the antibiotics should take care of it. His advice to Don: relax, elevate your leg and come back next Tuesday.

Here’s the thing; it was the not knowing that stressed us out. Were the antibiotics the right choice for whatever unknown ailment he had? Were we doing the right thing? Should we have immediately gone to ER? Would it worsen? What the heck was it?

By the time we got home yesterday, we were relieved and exhausted. I’ve been taking care of Don ever since this happened. Don’s been worried and in pain. Now, at least, we know.

We have no idea what caused it. Maybe a bite? But we can’t see any sign of a bite. That part remains a mystery.

So the above photo shows the status of the den after we got home. My socks are on the table (it was unseasonably warm and humid yesterday,) there’s an empty cereal bowl because I had to have some Raisin Bran which is comfort food, there’s a guide from our Health Care provider that I was studying when we were trying to determine our options, and the laptop is open for some mindless blog reading, which was about the only thing I could do at the end of the day.

Whew. Now I have to get back to my research, which had to be put on the back burner while all this was going on.

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I didn’t even do any coloring for the past two days.

This morning, Don’s leg looks a bit better. We can finally see an improvement. Thank goodness.

Now, we’re headed into more bizarre weather. It was over 70 degrees yesterday. The high tomorrow will be 38 with rain/snow and, you guessed it, high winds. (I am so sick of wind.) Monday? 1-3 inches of snow. It won’t last, but the very thought of it makes me want to scream. Rain and snow showers off and on throughout the week, including the day I drive to Hartford for a rehearsal.

Oy.

Now I’m going to celebrate Don’s improvement by making some French Toast. His request.

Happy Saturday.

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Reading on Sunday

Kindness Matters

The End of a Bizarre Week

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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