30 Day Gratitude Challenge

Prompt 1: House

Today I'm grateful for my house
that my husband built for me.
I live there in love and peace
Amongst a copse of trees. 

Inside we have it filled with goods
the things that bring us joy.
Our bed, the couch, the TV too
and other types of toys.

My house

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Last month, The Gal did a 30-day gratitude challenge. I've swiped it to do for July. Only I'm going to try to do it in rhyme, just because.

Tick Tock, Courthouse Clock

Friday the county held a celebration and asked the public to come out to watch the installation of the clock and cupula on the new county courthouse.

The courthouse is under construction and nowhere near complete, but this is a big milestone for the community, getting the structure back to looking like it might one day be a real courthouse.

A nice crowd gathered.

The part that holds the clock, one on each side, was lowered into place.

I bet those guys were hot under there.

The top waited its turn, sitting patiently on Main Street.

The clock is in place!

Officials did what they do best: offer up speeches in front of port-a-potties.

Getting the top ready.

We were told there would be a delay, and we left.

Later we drove back to see the finished product.

It's even topped with a weather vane.

There were lots of "old Botetourt" families there, including us.

This is what the courthouse looked like before they tore it down to replace it. This one was built in the middle 1970s, following a fire to the one that stood there before it.

This is the courthouse that burned:

Here's a link to a video of my husband's grandmother talking about rebuilding the courthouse after it burned.

Doe, Fawn, and Ticks

 

I snagged this shot of this doe and her fawn over the weekend. I didn't realize until I downloaded the photo to my computer and viewed it on a larger screen that she was covered in ticks.

We have an upsurge in tick problems around here this year. One of our local television stations even reported recently on how bad they've become.

How do ticks affect wildlife? In deer, heavy tick infestations can contribute to fawn loss and even antler deformities in bucks, among other health problems. 

Deer also happen to be excellent tick transporters, and we have plenty of them around here.

Which means, I suppose, we have plenty of ticks too.

Of course, I wasn't trying to photograph a doe covered in ticks. I was after the little one.

I stepped out the front door and stood at the corner of the house. The doe spotted me immediately and decided I didn't belong there. She planted herself and began stomping a hoof, hoping I'd take the hint and leave.

I was hoping she'd wander over to my side of the fence so I could get a better shot, so I stayed perfectly still.

Stamp. Stomp.

She kept trying to make me move. I kept standing still.

Finally, she apparently decided that whatever I was, I wasn't going anywhere. She wheeled around and bounded off, and the fawn raced after her as fast as those little legs could carry it.

Sunday School

Meme Schmeme

Complete the thought:

I LOVE TO: listen to music, write stuff, and read.

I SOMETIMES: see bears, raccoons, deer, wild turkeys, and other animals. 

I FEAR: losing my mind and not realizing it.

I MISS: the things and relationships I never had.

I CRAVE: chocolate.

I CHERISH: friendships.  

I AM IMPATIENT WHEN: doctors keep you waiting.  

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

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I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Cadillac Ranch

Saturday 9: Cadillac Ranch (1981)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Bruce Springsteen sings about taking his father and his aunt to see The Cadillac Ranch. Have you recently taken a road trip? If yes, where did you go?

A. I have not taken a road trip recently, more's the pity, unless one can call a drive into the city to see doctors road trips.

2) The Cadillac Ranch is real. It's an outdoor art installation in Amarillo, TX. Tell us about a statue, mural, or other piece of outdoor art in your community. 

A. Virginia has these LOVE signs all over the place. There are two, maybe three, just in my county alone. One is over at the Greenfield Sports Complex, and the other is painted on the side of a building in the county seat. I believe there is at least one more over on the other end of the county, but don't hold me to it.

The "Love" sign at Botetourt Center at Greenfield (courtesy Botetourtva.gov)

Because Virginia is for Lovers, after all. (One of the best pieces of state advertising ever.)

3) Not only is Bruce singing about a real place, he mentions three real people. The first is "James Dean in his Mercury 49." That refers to the 1949 Mercury driven by James Dean in his first starring role, Rebel Without a Cause. Though he remains a legendary star, Dean made only three movies before his death at age 24. Have you seen any of his films?

A. I probably have but I don't remember them. 

4) The second is "Junior Johnson runnin' through the woods of Caroline." Junior Johnson was a folk hero, famous as a NASCAR driver and notorious for running moonshine through North Carolina. He was the inspiration for "Midnite Moon," an animated old Ford in the 2017 Disney movie Cars 3. What Disney movie did you enjoy when you were growing up?

A. I don't recall many Disney movies. I do remember "The Wonderful World of Disney" that came on every weekend, with the castle with fireworks and Tinkerbell doing a little spell over it before the show appeared. I'm sure I saw Disney movies, but apparently, they didn't stick.

5) The third man Bruce sings about is "Burt Reynolds and his black Trans Am." This is a reference to Burt's biggest hit, 1977's Smokey and the Bandit. Burt also had success as a restaurateur. He co-owned Burt and Jack's, a popular steakhouse at Port Everglades, right on the water. Tell us about a restaurant that offered both good food and a memorable view.

A. The Peaks of Otter Restaurant in Bedford off the Blue Ridge Parkway offers good food and a lovely view of a pond and mountain tops.

6) For decades, Cadillac was the gold standard of luxury. For example, an eatery referred to as "the Cadillac of restaurants" would be best or most prestigious. Think about your neighborhood. Tell us about a restaurant, hotel or business that is "the Cadillac" of your community.

A. I'm not sure we have a "Cadillac" of my community. I think we have a lot of Volkswagons and Toyotas. It's a pretty county, though, once you get out of the southern end where the growth is, with farms, fields, and forest offering up many lovely views and vistas.

7) Since he's been singing about America and cars for decades, it should come as no surprise that Bruce Springsteen has a collection of classic American cars. For the cover of his autobiography, he chose a photo of himself leaning on his favorite, a 1960 Corvette convertible. Think about your favorite photo of yourself. What are you doing?

A. A photo of me when I played my guitar when I was a teenager ties with one when I was getting married.

8) In 1981, when Bruce released this recording, Dolly Parton had a hit with "9 to 5." What's your favorite Dolly Parton song?

A. Love is Like a Butterfly. 

9) Random question: When did you last DIY and fix something around your home or yard?

A. We redid the garden this spring a little bit. I guess that counts.

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I encourage you to visit the posts of other participants in Saturday 9 and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however. 

Yucca Plants

These were my yucca plants along the driveway this year. I think they're lovely, but the flowers didn't last as long as usual. I expect that was because of the drought.

Thursday Thirteen #965

Tick‑Borne Diseases (With the Creepy Details)

I recently talked to a friend I hadn't spoken with for some time and learned she'd been in the hospital with a tick-borne illness. I had no idea that ticks could make you sick enough to nearly die. I knew about Lyme Disease and Alpha Gal, but a little research indicates that there are a lot of tick-borne diseases out there.

The weird thing is that these diseases didn't seem to be a problem when I was a child. I had ticks on me frequently. My family lived on a farm. It wasn't unusual to have to get my mother to pull a tick out of my head. It was a common childhood thing. You played outside, ticks found you.

By the time I was an adult, though, things had changed. This makes me wonder if some environmental issue has caused ticks to become toxic sources of illnesses.

Here are some of the diseases ticks can give you.

1. Lyme Disease is spread by black‑legged ticks. It starts with fatigue, fever, and sometimes the famous bull’s‑eye rash (though plenty of people never get one). Untreated, it can move into joints, nerves, and the heart. Virginia is a hotspot.

2. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) is carried by the American dog tick and the brown dog tick. Begins with high fever and a headache that feels like someone is tightening a belt around your skull. The rash often shows up late, which is why early treatment matters.

3. Ehrlichiosis is delivered courtesy of the lone star tick. It causes fever, chills, muscle aches, and sometimes confusion. Blood tests often show low white cells and platelets. Responds well to doxycycline if caught early.

4. Anaplasmosis is similar to ehrlichiosis but transmitted by black‑legged ticks. Symptoms include fever, chills, and a general “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck” sensation. Can cause organ issues if untreated.

5. Babesiosis is a parasite spread by the black-legged tick that infects red blood cells. It's basically malaria’s American cousin. Causes fever, dark urine, and anemia. More dangerous for people over 50 or those without a spleen.

6. Tularemia is rare but serious. Ticks can transmit it, but so can handling infected rabbits. Symptoms depend on how it enters the body, but fever and swollen lymph nodes are common. It's sometimes called “rabbit fever.”

7. Powassan Virus is a fast‑acting virus spread by black‑legged ticks. Transmission can happen in as little as 15 minutes. Can cause brain swelling, seizures, and long‑term neurological problems. Thankfully rare.

8. Heartland Virus was first identified in Missouri; it is now found in the Midwest and South. It spreads by the lone star tick. The virus causes fever, fatigue, low white blood cells, and low platelets. There is no specific treatment except supportive care.

9. Bourbon Virus is another newly discovered tick‑borne virus, also linked to the lone star tick. Symptoms include fever, rash, and low blood counts. Extremely rare but severe when it occurs.

10. Alpha‑gal Syndrome is not an infection. It’s an allergy triggered by lone star tick bites. Causes delayed allergic reactions to red meat, gelatin, and sometimes dairy. People often discover it after a steak dinner goes sideways at 2 a.m. I know several people who have this. Some have found relief with acupuncture. Some have just waited it out, and some may never eat certain meats again.

11. STARI (Southern Tick–Associated Rash Illness) looks like Lyme, acts like Lyme, but isn’t Lyme. Lone star ticks again are the cause. This disease causes a rash and flu‑like symptoms, but the exact cause remains unknown. Responds to antibiotics even though no bacterium has been identified.

12. Colorado Tick Fever is a viral illness carried by ticks in the Rocky Mountains. Causes fever that comes and goes in waves, plus muscle aches and fatigue. The virus hides inside red blood cells, which makes blood donation unsafe for months afterward.

13. Tick‑borne Relapsing Fever is caused by Borrelia species transmitted by soft ticks. True to its name, symptoms come in cycles: high fever for a few days, then a break, then another fever spike. Can cause nausea, dizziness, and night sweats.

Here in Virginia, we get the full cast of characters: black‑legged ticks, lone star ticks, and American dog ticks, each with its own bad habits. Lyme disease is the most common statewide, especially in the Blue Ridge and northern counties, but ehrlichiosis and alpha‑gal syndrome are rising fast thanks to the ever‑pushy lone star tick. Rocky Mountain spotted fever shows up regularly, too, and Powassan virus has been detected in the region even though cases remain rare. In short, Virginia has more than its share of tick‑borne trouble, and most of it is sitting right in the tall grass waiting for someone to walk by.

Black-legged tick and lone star tick (AI drawing)

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 965th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

The Mattress Goes BAA

 

Having determined that we would replace the mattress, my husband set out again for the mattress store. Once again, I wasn’t sure what was going on, or if we were buying, exchanging, or what.

Neither of us had done any research about mattresses. Me, because I had no clue what was going on. As for my husband, he was just trying to get his back to stop hurting.

He decided we needed a firm mattress with a softer mattress top. So, the helpful sales lady, who I’m sure by now thought we had been bitten by rabid bats, had us rest on first this mattress then another mattress.

He narrowed it down to two. One was a Stearns and Foster, which our old mattress had been, and the other was by a company I’d never heard of.

The Stearns and Foster was obviously not of the same quality as the mattress he’d so cavalierly tossed away a few weeks early, but it was also much better than Count Dracula’s slab.

The other mattress felt very nice and comfy. I liked it.

Until I didn’t.

I asked what was in the mattress. The helpful sales lady told us the mattress was by Spink and Co., out of England, but now made here in the USA, only out of wool from Yorkshire, England, and this was the same brand that the royals in the UK slept upon. The wool inside came from sheep, cashmere, angora, alpaca, etc.

“I’m allergic to wool,” I reminded my husband.

“It’s in a mattress,” he said.

“I’m allergic to wool,” I said again.

“It’s all been cleaned. It’s not that foam stuff that off-gasses. It’ll be fine,” he said.

“I can’t wear a wool coat,” I reminded him.

He bought the mattress with the wool in it. It cost about four times more than the first mattress.

The day the mattress arrived, it came encased in cardboard and plastic. After it was placed in the mattress encasement, and the movers left, I could feel the itch all over my body.

I had the air purifiers on high.

It’s just the wool from the plastic encasement, I told myself.

I also smelled something. I am quite sensitive to odors. At first it smelled faintly like cow, then it turned to a smell like burlap.

Everything seemed to have calmed down after the air purifiers ran a few hours, and it was even better after I showered.

Then my husband caught an upper respiratory thing, and gave it to me, and I had no way of knowing if I was sneezing and had watering eyes because of the virus or the mattress.

I started getting up at 5:30 a.m. just to get off the mattress.

It’s now been three weeks since we purchased this mattress. I still won’t make up the bed; I smooth out the sheets and then fold them all back, letting the thing air out even if it doesn’t need it.

My upper respiratory virus is better, aside from a lingering cough. My husband still has a bit of a cough, too.

And last night when we ran the humidifier, because we both seem to be very dry, I smelled burlap again. When I mentioned it, my husband scoffed.

“You could smell an ant fart 3 miles away,” he said.

This doesn’t have an end yet.

I don’t know that it will. I may be fine sleeping on this mattress. It sleeps very well, I have to say. It’s very cozy and comfortable.

But it also has wool.

And like I said, I’m allergic to wool.

Stay tuned.

Count Dracula’s Slab

 

Not long after I’d fallen in the night, my husband declared we needed a new mattress. He wanted to get a smaller mattress so I didn’t need to climb into the bed. He wanted to lower the bed as much as we could with an adjustable bed frame, removing the bed slats from our beautiful cherry poster bed so the mattress would be lower to the floor.

I argued against this. We did not need a new mattress. The mattress had nothing to do with my fall. I fell because I was half asleep and trying to look upside down under the bed, not because I was trying to climb into the bed.

But he would not be swayed. We were out and he drove us to a mattress store. I thought we were just going to look.

“I want the firmest mattress you have,” he told the sales woman. She led him to an ultra-firm Beauty Rest mattress.

It felt like a rock.

We tried out a few other mattresses, but he determined the first one we tried was the one he wanted. And he wanted it then.

“What are you doing?” I said. “We don’t need a new mattress.”

“I want something for my back, ok? This will help my back.”

Ah. So it had nothing to do with my fall. He was just using that as an excuse.

The mattress came the following week. The nice delivery people set up the new adjustable bed frame, put the mattress in the mattress encasement, and tossed the mattress onto the bed frame.

I added a mattress pad and the bed linens. I told myself it would be fine. I sleep on a bed wedge anyway, one that’s eight inches thick at the top, and oversized, and then I have pillows under my legs, so it shouldn’t matter about the mattress, right?

Wrong.

That mattress was like sleeping on stone. Count Dracula wouldn’t have been able to sleep on that slab of granite. My back went into multiple muscle spasms. I could hardly stand up.

This went on for three days and my husband called the mattress place and said we needed to return the mattress. “My wife doesn’t like it,” he said.

They told us the agreement said we had to try it for 30 days before we could return the mattress.

I suggested I would stay at a hotel for the next 21 days. One with a nice soft mattress.

He went to Walmart and bought a foam mattress topper. I told him just to get a twin for me, but when he came back with a queen, I knew the truth.

The mattress hurt his back, too.

“It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would,” he mumbled when I confronted him.

Fortunately, the mattress sales woman took pity on us and agreed that I would probably never find a good night’s sleep on Count Dracula’s slab.

So back we went. And things got weirder.

A Smash and Two Falls

 

Sometime back in early November, as I walked on the treadmill, I lost my footing and began to fall. I caught myself on the bars around the home treadmill, hit the kill switch, and righted myself. I shrugged it off as “no harm, no foul” and kept going.

But I had hurt my shoulder, and as time progressed, so did the pain. Since it was my right arm that was bothering me, it became difficult to function. I wasn’t able to do the holiday baking and cooking I normally do because I couldn’t hold the mixer.

I couldn’t stir fudge, either. Talk about disaster! I’m known for my fudge. When I was a news reporter, I’d make at least 15 pounds of fudge and then walk around handing out pretty boxes of candy to my sources and other folks who’d helped me throughout the year.

With the holidays coming up – Thanksgiving, then Christmas – I just tried to keep moving through it. Then my father passed away in January. It was March before I saw a doctor and asked her to send me to physical therapy. That’s helped a little, but not as much as either I or the physical therapist had hoped.

Not long after I started physical therapy, I smashed my middle finger at the end joint. The car console lid fell down on my hand, and my finger took the brunt of the blow. I remember thinking that was going to leave a mark, but it didn’t, and it wasn’t until about 10 days later, when suddenly my whole hand swelled, that I remembered the accident. Turns out I had a fracture in that finger. It still hurts even now, months later.

And then in May, I got up in the night and placed the splint I had on my finger on the bedside table while I tried to open a bottle of water. The splint rolled off the table and under the bed. Our bed is high, and my husband had made me a stoop with two steps to use to climb into the bed.

I sat on the lower step with a flashlight, trying to find the splint, and somehow lost my balance. I fell over backwards, hitting my head on the hardwood floor and waking my husband. The next thing I remembered was him standing over me, the overhead light on blinding me, and all I could see was his boxer shorts while he said he wanted to call an ambulance.

“I can’t lift you,” he sputtered. He has had a hip replacement and isn’t supposed to lift over 50 pounds.

“Just let me sit here a minute, will you?” I said. After a few minutes I was able to get myself up. My head seemed fine. To my knowledge I never lost consciousness, I was just rattled.

But that fall set off an unexpected chain of events, about which I will write in my next post.