Thursday Thirteen

Today I want to point out to you a single website and then I will list 13 things you can learn about, all for free.

The website is http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/. This is the Federal Citizen Information Center.

Most of these publications are free. Some say there is a cost but if you click on the ".pdf available" link, you will see what is in most of them without paying anything. Some come up in an Adobe reader but others come up in a webpage.

Some are two pages.

Some are 500 pages.

1. Heart Disease in Women. This comes up as a webpage and it lists the signs of heart disease for females. Since women have different symptoms than men, but the symptoms for males are the ones most people are familiar with, this is a good thing to read. For instance, did you know that pain in the belly above the belly button could be a sign of heart disease? I didn't.

2. Identity Theft and Your Social Security Number. This explains how to keep your Social Security number safe and tells you how to report a problem if your number is compromised.

3. Stroke. This publication explains what a stroke is, its causes, who is most at risk, and lists ways to lower those risks.

4. Home Inventory. This document explains why you need a home inventory and gives ideas about ways to create one. It also lists the insurance departments run by every state in the nation.

5. The Healthy Woman. This publication lists for $24.95 but I clicked on the .pdf link and it came up for me for free. It's almost 4 mbs so be prepared for a large file. It has over 15 pages on heart disease, and a similar number on stroke.Additionally, it covers cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, blood disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, pregnancy, mental health, nutrition, pain management, etc. It has 509 pages so it is a lot of information. I was excited to get this and saved it to the "health" file on my computer so I will have it. If you click on no other link, I urge you to save this to your computer for yourself or the woman in your life.

6. Copyright Basics. For the writers among my readers, I suggest getting this primer on copyright. It is 12 pages, and free for the download.

7. Introduction to Federal Taxes for Small Businesses/Self Employed. This takes you away from Federal Information site to the IRS site but it is a good link for writers to have.

8. Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals. This 74-page guide has a two-week menu, tips on cooking and keeping food safe, and of course, recipes.

9. The Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. Tired of pundits telling you what these important documents say? Read them for yourself and make up your own mind.

10. Know Your Rights: A Guide for Victims and Witnesses of Crime. While I hope no one needs this, it might be a good thing to know in case something does happen. It's a hard, cruel world out there, after all, and knowledge is power.

11. 66 Ways to Save Money. I don't know anyone who can't use a few hints on this now and then.

12. Saving Fitness: A Guide to Your Money and Your Financial Future. This is 16 pages of financial information that seems very useful at first glance. If you're interested in your retirement future, take a look at this.

13. Take the Mystery out of Retirement. This is designed for people who are about 10 years away from retiring.  It is by the Department of Labor. Again, a lot of information if you're interested in this topic.

There are many other topics at the pueblo.gsa.gov website. Spend some time there and find the things you're most interested in. You may be surprised.



Thursday Thirteen is played by many folks, all of whom list 13 things they are interested in. You can find a list of players here. This is my 156th time to play.

The Lamp

The other day my husband brought home this lamp:

His mother gave it to him. But he had given to her when he was a young teenager. He made this lamp in shop class. It is shaped like a well. The handle beneath the shade turns the light off and on.

The shade was pretty old.

So yesterday I went to Target and I purchased this new shade.

I use a lamp on this table in the living room because this is where I read and sometimes play the guitar. The table is next to my rocking chair.

This is where I put my husband's lamp. It gives off a bit more light than what I had there, which makes me very happy. The older I get the blinder I seem to be. Plus, he made it so that makes it a pretty special lamp.

My husband hasn't seen his lamp yet, with its new shade and new location. I hope he likes it.

Today

It's a lovely day (albeit a bit breezy). I had to take a stroll around the yard. Here is what I saw:

Books: The Tao of Writing

The Tao of Writing
by Ralph L. Wahlstrom
Copyright 2006
210  pages

The title of this book grabbed me when I saw it on the shelf. I don't know a lot about Eastern philosophy but I like what I do know. This book is taglined "Imagine. Create. Flow." What could be better?

The book goes into the Tao and offers some of the sayings for which that philosophy is known. The book then applies it to writing. For example, "The Taoist writer must write with compassion, balance, humility, and firm adherence to truth." (130).

There was not a lot of preaching in here, although toward the end the author did admonish writers to write for peace. "All peace is local and begins within ourselves and our lives." (136). That's a great line.

Additionally, the book covers a little Feng Shui for writers. Rid thyself of clutter, says the author (yes, I'm guilty of that!). Clutter is distraction, and distraction is something else one must be aware of. Distractions can be TV, radio, the computer and Internet, your friends, the laundry - all of the things that take a writer away from the words.

As far as room arrangement, he recommends that for good Feng Shui one should not have her back to the door (which I do). The entry should be free of clutter and barriers. This is to allow the energy to flow in. If you must sit with your back to the door, put up a mirror so you can see the entrance.

The room should have a view (mine does, thank goodness). It should be well-lit. The desk should not be in a corner; instead, your back should be the corner or wall.

Throw out the stuff you aren't using.

He recommends a nice dark blue rug in the middle of the room.

As far as other colors, he gives a list of what the colors may mean but does not make recommendations, other than to keep it light.

At the end of the book, the author offers up 70 ideas for "writing the Tao." These range from writing about hope (No. 49) to writing haiku (No. 56). There is also a nice bibliography at the end (but no index and in this day and age every nonfiction book should have an index).

One word of caution: I did find this to be somewhat difficult reading. The author likes long sentences and long lists that go on and on without breaking them up. It took me two weeks to get through this book, and I read two others during the same time period. This is the book I carried around with me to read while I was at the doctor's office or during other waits.

I also recommend this for mostly for really serious writers, or students of the Tao philosophy who are writers.

343 on 9/11

Remembering the 343 firefighters who died in the Twin Towers in New York City on 9/11, so that others may live.

Ah, Cortisone, We Love You

Yesterday, after two unsuccessful visits to my general practitioner for help with an aching right elbow, I went to an orthopedist.

My GP, mind you, had given me all the conservative treatments. The first line of defense was an anti-inflammatory. Guess whose blood pressure zoomed with an anti-inflammatory?

So no more anti-inflammatories for me. This is rather disappointing and does not bode well for pain relief in old age.

The next treatment was ice, rest, and a brace. I tried this for a month, but the symptoms did not abate. It might have helped if I could have stayed off the computer entirely, but this is not going to happen.

My GP would not give me a shot in the elbow, she said. She did not do that (though I don't know why.) She also was concerned about a cyst on my arm which has been there for years. So, she sent me to this orthopedist, who turned out to be a physician's assistant as opposed to a doctor. I know that PAs are an up-and-coming thing in medication, but I would have liked to have known going in that I was not seeing a doctor.

Anyway, Mr. PA seemed to be okay but I did not fall in love with him or anything. For one thing, I was not able to expound on the aches of this entire arm, which while worse at the elbow also extend into the wrist. He moved quickly and briskly, poked my elbow, said I had tennis elbow, needed a cortisone shot, and then left so the nurse could get the medication for the injection.

He returned to stick the needle in my arm. It did not exactly hurt going in but I can't say it wasn't painful. And that was that.

The cyst, by the way, apparently is nothing to worry about at this time.

Apparently cortisone is not a magic drug and must take several days to work. My arm hurts worse today than it did prior to the shot. I have the thing braced up and have been eating lots of acetaminophen (since I can't take an anti-inflammatory).

Hopefully, though, Monday will find it faring infinitely better. Maybe my wrist won't hurt so much, either.

Thursday Thirteen

Will there be a Thursday Thirteen today?

Here are reasons why there may not be:

1. My brain is in a whirl from consideration of a number of lifestyle changes.

2. My right arm and elbow continues to bother me, making typing and siting at the computer somewhat contentious. Darned wallpaper and painting. How dare you give me a bad elbow?

3. Many books are calling my name. Do you hear them? "Read me . . . read me . . ." First it was a whisper. But, they are shouting now.

4. The weather is nice. Staying inside seems like a crime. How much better to be out gallivanting amongst the goldenrod and ragweed, where the eyes water and the nose runs!

The stuff that makes my allergies act up this time of year.

5. Other bloggers are writing and they have such interesting things to read!

6. Time slips away as I stare out the window, watching the fawns romp and the turkeys strut. And did you see that chickadee go after that hawk!?!?

Okay, so the fawn's aren't exactly romping in this picture.

7. My husband needs my attention, being a husband and all. He likes to have me beside him whilst he flips that buttons on the remote, changing the TV channel every three minutes.

He's sleeping here. Or pretending to be sleeping, anyway.

8. Exercise is a high priority these days, and an hour of Tai Chi here and a walk on the treadmill there can eat away at blog-posting time.

9. My navel needs to be contemplated in great detail. Ever since I had laser surgery through that portal, it has looked odd and now it is time to make a new map in my mind of the way it looks. Even though that was 20 years ago.

10. My office needs a good cleaning. I have piles of papers on top of the desk and the low bookshelf, and my inbox has now broken itself into two piles.

Eww! What a mess!

11. That inbox probably needs to be taken care of soon, eh?

12. I'm waiting on a telephone call. Staring at the telephone always makes it ring, so I think I will do that for a while.

13. It's nap time! (See picture of husband above.)


Thursday Thirteen is played by many folks; you can read their contributions here. This is my 155th time to play. As you can see, sometimes I run out of topics.

Fat Groundhog

If the blubber on this fellow, who lives beneath my shed, is any indication, we're in for another whopper of a winter.

He gets bigger every time I see him out the window.

Idyllic Morning Part 2 (Photos)

I looked out the kitchen window to see a dozen wild turkeys roaming across the driveway and then travel the length of my house.

I cautiously raised the camera, surprised to see a turkey pass before the lens and near the does.
 

I had scarcely settled myself on the picnic table when the does came back into the field from the woods.

A small spiked stag following in her wake. He posed for me, the sun slashing half of his face, before disappearing into the pine growth.

 

A squirrel scurried up an oak, his path wild and noisy.

 
For the folks wanted to see the photos of yesterday (Sunday) morning.

An Idyllic Morning

This morning at about 8:30 a.m. I looked out the kitchen window to see a dozen wild turkeys roaming across the driveway and then travel the length of my house.

I grabbed the camera and took shots through the backdoor window. After the turkeys disappeared, I slipped outside to see if I could take a few pictures without the glare from the glass interfering with the shots.

The air was crisp and still; a delightfully cool 63 degrees. I felt a slight breeze blow up my thigh through the slit in my dressing gown as I quietly moved to the far edge of the deck.

I stopped after only a few silent steps, for before me stood several does. I cautiously raised the camera, surprised to see a turkey pass before the lens and near the does. I scarcely breathed for fear of disturbing these beautiful creatures in their natural setting.

A doe spied me and her head popped up. Her ears stood like teepees against the sky while she tried to discern what manner of intruder I might be. She shied nervously away toward the woods, her brethren following, and vanished.

The turkeys, however, were unperturbed and their heads continued bobbing in the long fescue grass as they sought their breakfast of insects.

I had scarcely settled myself on the picnic table when the does came back into the field from the woods. She eyed me warily but her white flag of a tail never rose in alert. Instead she moved down the fence line, a shadow on legs, seeking the cover of the golden rod and ragweed.

I watched her vanish and then turned my attention to a small spiked stag following in her wake. He posed for me, the sun slashing half of his face, before disappearing into the pine growth.

Several other does followed him. The camera lay lazily on my lap as I watched them, entranced by their ability to move through tall weeds and grasses with scarcely sound or movement. Several of the deer moved down from the fence line, and the curve of the land meant I could only see their heads.

Then I spied it. The crown of horns flashed once in the sun, brilliant bone reflecting Helios, and I counted eight tines before the head disappeared as if it had never been there.

The deer moved through the dead leaves with a faint scuffle of leaves, and then silence.

But not silence. I leaned back, listening to the sounds of crows in the distance, their cacophony a reminder of societal sounds. A woodpecker hammered away at a tree. A squirrel scurried up an oak, his path wild and noisy. An acorn dropped with a ping on the metal trailer behind the shed.

The smells and sounds of Autumn assailed me and I felt the rays of the sun god kiss me, heating my hair and hands while breezes curled around my ankles.

A new day, a new season. A new beginning.

Time to start anew.

Books: Simple Genius

Simple Genius
By David Baldacci
Read by Scott Brick
Unabridged
13 hours
Copyright 2007


Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, two secret service agents turned private investigators whom readers first met in Split Second.

Michelle is having emotional problems, apparently as a result of book I missed that is in between this one and the last. She goes off on a drinking spree and picks a fight hoping her opponent will kill her. Sean, in an effort to pay for Michelle's voluntary commitment to a psychiatric facility, takes paying work from his old partner, Joan.

The investigative work sends Sean to eastern Virginia to a place called Babbage Town. This is a think tank for smart people who are doing work with quantum computers and other things that "will end the world as we know it." Across the river lies Camp Perry, a CIA training facility.

Sean figures out that Camp Perry and Babbage Town both have things going on and that events are linked. Michelle, meanwhile, uncovers a drug-smuggling ring at the psychiatric facility and checks herself out. She heads to Baggage Town to help Sean.

She arrives in time to help Sean as people start trying to kill him.

This book is very suspenseful. I was not happy about Michelle's emotional issues but she overcame them and they did not play out as expected, which was a relief, and I thought well done.

Baldacci has a disclaimer at the end noting that he made up Babbage Town and the events at Camp Perry and some historical references. I liked the historical aspect of the novel (an old plantation and a lost treasure) and thought it very well done and quite believable. It is fun to read about things that take place in a locale such as your own state.

3.5 stars

The Blank Screen

Sometimes I look at the blank screen of the computer, whether it's a blog post entry or a new document on MS Word, and it find it an incredible experience. A blank space just waiting for me to put down thoughts, create an article, write a poem.

Other times that cursor blinks and blinks and blinks and . . .

Recently the latter has been the bane of my existence. I sit down to write and the cursor blinks and blinks and . . .

Sometimes I rise and head for the laundry basket or the dishwasher or the vacuum, leaving the thing to sit in here and blink at me while I think. Occasionally I can rush back to my desk, a thought on the tip of my fingers, and turn that blinking cursor into a sentence or two.

But more often of late, I simply turn the computer off - and then head for the laundry basket or the dishwasher or the vacuum.  My house has never been so clean.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

C Diff

I fear that a bacteria that has invaded hospitals and long-term care facilities is a threat that should be on everyone's lips.

It has the capability of being worse than any flu or other virus.

It's known in the medical world as "C-Diff". It's real name is Clostridium difficile.

It's found in older folks and sometimes in younger folks, and often in the tummies of people who have taken antibiotics. Hospitals that do not heed cleaning and safety precautions are rampant with it.

Symptoms range from mild diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. Go here for a complete list.

If you have symptoms for more than three days, go see a doctor.

Now you may be wondering why I am writing about this. Do I have it? No.

But my father-in-law, who died in July, developed this, and ultimately went into cardiac arrest because his body could not fend off the bacteria and continue functioning. He was already ill with heart disease, diabetes, and COPD, among other things, so his system was not strong.

He had received strong antibiotics because he developed a bacteria infection in his mouth following a trip to the dentist in early July. He was hospitalized for that for almost a week. He came home for about 10 days and then returned to the hospital with chest pains and then suddenly he had C-Diff.

I had heard of this before but I was not aware of how invasive it was, or that it was so lethal.

It is spread by not washing hands and from not having clean surfaces. Some forms of C-Diff bacteria can live on surfaces for days, making this a very difficult germ to eradicate. According to the Mayo Clinic,

An aggressive strain of C. difficile has emerged that produces far more deadly toxins than other strains do. The new strain is more resistant to certain medications and has shown up in people who haven't been in the hospital or taken antibiotics. This strain of C. difficile has caused several outbreaks of illness since 2000.

That is scary, don't you think?

Older folks are at risk. People who take antibiotics long-term are at risk. Folks who are weakened for whatever reason are at risk. People in health care settings are at risk.

It makes me not want to go to the hospital or the doctor, I'll be honest. This is the kind of bug that you don't want to get.

Wash your hands. If someone is sick, clean up well. Use a disinfectant such as bleach. Don't take antibiotics unless necessary. And if you do take them, take probiotics (such as those in yogurt) to help keeps the bad things in your colon in check. Be proactive in your health.

It could mean your life.

All That Jazz

So last week my husband headed off on a jet airplane for Chicago, land of tall buildings, gangsters, and barn burnings.

The occasion was a conference put on by the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), and he was one of about 14,000 firefighters in attendance.

He took my small Nikon and while he says he is no photographer, I thought he didn't do too badly with his pictures.

Tall sailing ships were in town at the Navy Pier. He visited this one evening with his aunt, uncle and cousin, who live in Chicago.

The NBC building, which was near his hotel.

The view from his hotel window.

Some part of Lake Michigan where the Chicago Fire Department put on a search and rescue demonstration for the conference attendees.

The Chicago Tribune building, also near his hotel. He took this picture because his sweetie (that would be me) used to write for newspapers.

The stuff he went to see, trucks  and firefighting gear.

This is an aerial ladder truck. My husband really likes ladder trucks.

For big city dwellers, skyscrapers and concrete are no big deal, but for us rural farm folk, it is a big deal aplenty. When you see airports big enough to swallow whole towns, it is eye opening.

He had a good trip but was glad to return home. And I was pleased to report that only one thing broke while he was gone and was glad he was back. And all that jazz.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Every summer when the tomato vines reach toward the heavens and their blossoms start showing those lovely green orbs, I crave fried green tomatoes.

I am the only person I know who likes them, except maybe my father. I am not sure about my brother. My mother fixed them occasionally when we were growing up, which is where I developed a taste for them.

My husband will not eat them. "Fried green tomatoes is just a waste of a good tomato," he declares.

But last week, he was away for a few days. I'd been waiting for him to take this trip just so I could fry green tomatoes.

Fried green tomatoes require three things: the tomatoes, a batter, and cooking oil of some kind.

Now, I am supposed to be eating healthy. That means I am not to eat things fried in artery-clogging shortening. So I opted for a mix of safflower oil, Smart Choice "Healthy" Balance oil, and two pats of of real butter (for a little flavor).

The batter is always a problem. Some years I fry them up in straight flour, sometimes cornmeal, sometimes a mix of both. For a while I enjoyed them in a tempura batter mix that I found at the grocery, but I hadn't seen that in the store for some time.

I thought I'd use the flour/cornmeal mix, but I needed cornmeal. At the store I ran across something called Kentucky Kernel Seasoned Flour. Lo, it said it was for frying veggies, including tomatoes! Bless my soul and call me cousin! I couldn't believe it.

I sliced the 'maters, added an egg and water to the flour mix (I added a bit more water than it called for, to thin the batter a bit), heated my oils, and started frying!

I could hardly wait to taste the first ones to see if this new flour mix would be delectable or terrible.

Yum, yum! Terrific! A big thumbs up to the Kentucky Kernel.

And here's a trailer for one of my favorite movies: Fried Green Tomatoes, starring Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy.

Loss

A few days ago I received word that my first cousin, who lived in California, had passed away.

While I did not know this cousin well, she was only a year older than I. Her death has disturbed me more than I care to acknowledge.

She apparently died of a heart attack (or possibly a stroke; I have heard both). She lived alone and was dead for a week before a friend found her.

This is my worst nightmare, to be alone like that and to die unacknowledged. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it.

My cousin lived a hard life. I last saw her in 1976 when she was 13. By then she was a wild child of San Jose, roaming the streets late at night, smoking pot, drinking and doing who knows what else. Over the years I heard tales of her - she'd had a child out of wedlock, she was in jail, she was living back with her parents, she was in drug rehab.  It was a life I could not envision and it was certainly one quite foreign to me, a country girl who had grown up on a farm and who had married young and stayed on the land.

Her life sounded tough and exotic at the same time, like something from a movie. Sometimes I envied her freedom and her ability to take risks, but mostly I pitied her because what I heard of her sounded lost and sad.

In 2002 while I was researching genealogy I came across an inquiry from this cousin. I sent an email asking if it was indeed she, and finding it so, we corresponded for a time. We began sending Christmas cards and an occasional letter.

But communication was sparse; her email would change and she would disappear. Some years I would hear nothing and then a card would arrive in the mail. Her letters sometimes made little sense and I never really had a sense of the person my cousin had become.

I have always regretted that I, my cousin, and her sister, who is a little younger than I, never knew one another. I have wondered if we might have been fast friends in another life. I have daydreamed that somehow I helped her stay away from the things that haunted her, maybe gave her an outlet from her demons that she did not have. It was, of course, only a dream. I do not have that kind of power.

Families are strange microcosms of society. Family members are the people you are likely most like, the ones with similar genes and behaviors. And yet they can be so different, so at odds with one another sometimes, it is like they are completely unrelated. It is an enigma.

Loss comes in many forms. It is hard for me to miss someone I never really knew, but I think I will be grieving what might have been for some time to come.

Thursday Thirteen

1. Deer like Cheerios. I learned this at 7 a.m. as I watched a doe successfully fight off several other deer while she stood over the stale Cheerios I had tossed out for the birds. Once the other deer had given up, she ate like they were the best thing she'd ever tasted.

2. Deer fight by nipping at one another with their teeth and by flailing their hooves. Bucks charge with their antlers only during mating season.

3. I think my totem might be the deer. Deer are very curious animals, always watching, looking and occasionally investigating that which puzzles them. They have been known to look in the windows of my house.

4. If deer is my animal totem, then this means I should maintain my innocence and gentleness and be open-hearted with others, according to animaltotem.com.



5. The deer around here are called white-tailed deer, otherwise known as Odocoileus virginianus or the Virginia deer.

6. While deer are lovely to look at and fun to watch, they do a lot of damage to the hay fields. Herds of deer can decimate an alfalfa field almost overnight. They also are hard on fences; if they find a weak spot they will go through the fence instead of jumping it, and eventually the wires will come loose from the posts because of the deer's constant movement and tugging.

7. A herd of deer apparently have one doe as look-out. She will always spot me. If I have not startled her, but am like a shadow against the house, she will move toward me, slowly. She will stamp a front hoof to get my attention. She will move a step or two closer, watching to see if I move. She will snort at me, stamp some more, and then bolt, her white tail waving an alert to the oblivious grazing herd, who will then run off as well.

8. Sometimes when I sit outside and play the guitar, the deer will come out to listen.

9. The male deer, called a buck or a stag, has horns that are initially covered in a velvet skin. About this time of year the buck sheds this skin by rubbing his horns against trees or other hard objects. The action leaves the horns looking bloody and shredded.

10. Bucks also fight one another for their territory, but only during mating season. It is a rather noiseless event (which I have actually seen and filmed, though it was some years ago) aside from the sound of the horns clashing. They charge at each other, heads down, and crash together. They do this until one gives up and leaves the area.

11. At other times, bucks run together. I usually see four or more at a time.

12. Does are more solitary, unless they have fawns. Then they seem to move together in pairs. I have always thought that was so they would have a babysitter.

13. A herd of deer, then, is really a meeting of smaller groups of deer or single deer, all of whom have decided that our pasture field is the best place for a meal.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; the list of folks who play is located here. This is my 153rd time to play.

10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today my mother passed away. She died at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer.

She was diagnosed in July 1999 following a bout with jaundice. She had been complaining of stomach pains since March, but visits to the doctor had been fruitless.

In August 1999, she had a pancreaticoduodenectomy, also known as a Whipple surgery. This is one of, if not the most, extensive surgery a person can have. Essentially they go in and take out all of your innards, remove the cancer, and put everything back.

My mother lived almost a year following the surgery.

Mom married in October at the age of 18 and I was born the following June. She was an office worker at a custom metal precision fabricating shop in Salem until she retired in the mid-1990s.

She could sew and do things with crafts that I still envy to this day. She was a great decorator and had a good eye for color and depth. She liked flowers, particularly iris, and she liked to garden except for when it became more like work than fun. She canned food, made pickles and killed chickens - the things a farmer's wife did.

I do not think she particularly liked living on the farm, but that is where my father wanted to be and so she was there. It was a long drive from Fincastle to Salem every day and she would leave at 7 a.m. and return at 6 p.m.: a long day by any standard. As she grew older the drive wore on her, particularly in bad weather.

She went back to college in her 30s, taking accounting and other classes, but did not finish her degree. Aerobics took up two of her evenings; she was dedicated to going out to the high school to get her exercise.

My father had a Top-40 band and she went with him on weekends to watch the group play. Later she sometimes joined him on stage for a few songs. In particular I remember hearing my parents sing together.

She liked to sing when she worked and after I learned to play guitar she encouraged me to continue to play even when others were not as helpful.

Mom was religious but not so that you would know it. We did not attend church but there were times I would catch her praying. In 1975 she was praying aloud as she drove like a crazed woman toward Roanoke Memorial. My father had backed a tractor over my brother. She begged God to keep her son alive. He did.

She loved Myrtle Beach and enjoyed vacationing there. After she retired she spent a great deal of time at North Myrtle, where she made friends and seemed to enjoy having the kids gone. After my nephew was born, she doted on him and was a loving grandmother. She did not live to see her granddaughter.

Fifty-six is very young. She still had things to do.

It's been a decade now. I hope she is at peace.

My mother.

Why Write?

Over the years I have read many treatises about writing, how to write, and why people write. Some of the best such books on my shelf include The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, On Becoming a Novelist, by John Gardner, and On Writing Well, by William Zinsser.

Missing from my shelves because I loaned them out and the books were never returned are Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer and Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. These are my favorites and I suppose I will have to buy them again. Maybe I will do that today.

Over the years I have held many conversations with myself in my head as to why I write. I seldom write these down because I could never say so eloquently that which the writers above have already put forth. Ultimately writers write for as many reasons as there are writers, though. Each person has a unique reason for needing to put words to paper (or pixels to screen, as the case may be).

Writing once was the domain of only the very gifted and the creative and everyone else found it agonizingly painful. The Internet seems to have changed this, taking writing from the domain of the talented and placing it squarely in the realm of the casual. When something is reduced from the sacred calligraphy of a Shakespeare play to the insipid and uninspiring level of a tweet or a text message, obviously the medium has been reduced to a water-down nothingness that makes it as common as toilet tissue and perhaps as well-used.

And yet there are still talented folks out there writing their hearts out, lads and lasses who find their desire to express themselves so intense that their heads, if not their hearts, would ache if they could not spend time crafting fine sentences and telling tale tells. Myriad books and websites appeal to these folks, telling them that they too can "be a writer" and have all that such a title affords.

I'm not sure anymore what "be a writer" means anymore. Does it mean to sit at the computer and write keyword articles that are, let's be honest, nothing more than crap? Is that being a writer? Does it mean toiling over a long work that will never sell unless you self-publish so that your auntie can buy it? Does it mean journaling every day in a notebook that no one will see until your life force has fled your aged body? Does it mean working for a newspaper and hustling to meet a deadline? Does it mean being an eccentric soul, hunkered down and living a solitary life, struggling always with words? What does it mean?

"One has to be just a little crazy to write a great novel," writes Gardner (56). "... if one is lucky the lightning strikes, and the madness at the core of the fictional idea for a moment glows on the page" (61). Is all of this Internet writing a symptom of sanity, then, while those who slave away in a darkened room, seldom seeing the light of the moon, are a little less than normal?

Goldberg says that, "people often begin writing from a poverty mentality. They are empty and they run to teachers and classes to learn about writing. We learn by doing it. That simple" (30). So are we all writers, then, all of us bloggers, all of those keyword writers and website builders and texters and tweeters? And if we all are writers, what then is so special about writing, and why do people still seek it out as if it is some Holy Grail to covet and honor?

"You must become one with the details in love or hate; they become an extension of your body . . . Caress them, touch them tenderly. Care about what is around you." (Goldberg 45). Is this, then the difference? Passion? Is that what makes someone a writer?

So why do I write? Is it to have written?

Writing is something I have always done; it seems so much a part of me that I could not let it go even if I wanted. Even now, when I am in a really serious drought with my writing, when there are days I wonder where the words are, I still write almost daily here in my blog. Is this writing? At this juncture I know longer know.

Passion is key; that I do know. Passion and a kind of eagerness to see where the story will lead, to what end. Passion is flow and harmony and yet at the same time jagged like a blood-soaked knife, and just as painful.

It is the end and the beginning, this writing. Alpha, Omega, Amen.

The Sunday Paper

I began reading the newspaper when I was about six years old. Spending an hour or more on the Sunday Roanoke Times has been a tradition for me for 40 years.

When I was 13 years old, my father taught me how to drive an old Jeep so that I could go up and down our very long driveway. It kept us from having to climb the hill in winter weather and gave us a few more minutes to dress in the mornings.

It also meant I could get up and go retrieve the Sunday paper.

When I began to do this, I reveled in the joy of an untouched Sunday newspaper. Is there anything else so pristine, so full of promise, as an unopened paper? It is fat with possibility; the ads crisp and waiting to reveal their surprises of treasures one may have if the price is right.

It wasn't long, though, before my father realized he was now reading the newspaper after his daughter. This would never do. Apparently he too liked the clean, unwrinkled pages. Or maybe he just liked to be first.

Whatever the reason, he told me not to read the paper until after he had finished it. He paid for it, he was reading it first, was the way he put it.

But try as I might, if I rose before he did, I could not help myself. I would drive the Jeep down and retrieve the paper. And I would read it in spite of the lecture I would receive when he climbed from bed and found that I had opened it up. For no matter how careful I was, I could not put the paper back the way I found it.

Sometimes I would come back up the hill with the newspaper on the seat beside me to find him standing outside in his robe, his hand outstretched, waiting on me to hand him the newspaper. That Jeep was noisy sometimes.

At the time it seemed a game, but it was really a contest of wills. He was exerting his authority and control. I was a teenager who was not going to be controlled. Not even when it came to the newspaper.

I think of this sometimes on Sunday mornings. My husband now fetches the newspaper and he generally has it apart before he comes back in the door with it. The days when I read a clean, crisp, totally untouched Sunday paper are relatively few and far between (they happen only on the Sundays he works, which is about six times a year).

But I treasure those days when the newspaper is all mine. Oh man, do I. Because I have the newspaper in front of me, smooth and untouched, its pages folded and its advertisements still in place, the sections orderly and not thrown askew. It is a simple thing, the untouched news. A simple and unique joy.

Ha Ha

I make my friends laugh.

My humor is dry, irreverent, and intelligent (if I do say so myself). I'm not talking slapstick here. I'm talking commentary on life that makes my friends howl. "You crack me up," they say, wiping tears.

Often I am surprised by the response because I was not trying to be funny. And apparently some of it is in the delivery, because it wouldn't look amusing if I wrote it down. I never attempt to write humor because I don't think I can. I mean, do you read this blog to laugh?

Thursday Thirteen

Suddenly you have arrived on Jupiter. List the things you couldn't live without.

1. My husband. I imagine Jupiter is a pretty lonely place and I would like some company. He's also a good hunter (might need to track down some aliens or maybe Jupiter turtles for soup) and then there is the keeping warm at night aspect. That's pretty important on a big planet.

2. My computer. I am addicted to the blasted thing and spend way too much time staring at the screen. And of course the one I had with me would have an Internet connection (?!?) and video games, music, e-books, etc.

3. Chocolate. I think Jupiter has heavy gravity, if I remember correctly, so getting a little fatter probably isn't going to matter much. Maybe I need some kind of gravity suit?

4. Oxygen. This should be a given and I at first assumed that I would have this with me, but then thought perhaps I ought to add this very necessary  element.

5. Water. This goes along with number 4. I probably should have listed these things first but they did not occur to me in that order. Water is necessary for life and bathing and squirting through your teeth.

6. Food. This should be in the form of edible stuff that would be around until vegetable seeds grew, provided one can garden on Jupiter. We'll pretend you can.

7. Clothing. Hopefully one would have an idea about temperatures on Jupiter prior to rocket launch and would be dressed appropriately. Since Jupiter is so far from the sun, I would guess that it might be cold there. But maybe not.

8. My toothbrush. This is a necessity as far as I am concerned, particularly if my husband is going to be around. And he needs to have his toothbrush, too!

9. An electricity generator. How else am I going to power up the computer?

10. A camera. I think one would get lots of great pictures of Jupiter's moons. Who knows, maybe Saturn's rings put on quite a show from the big planet. Should make for some good photos, anyway.

11. A watch. I always have to know what time it is, although time on Jupiter obviously would be quite different from time on earth. I would have to have the Waltham Jupiter Standard Time edition.

12. A bed. My back could never survive sleeping on rocks or ground or molten lava or whatever might be on Jupiter. So I definitely want a good bed with a sturdy mattress. And blankets and sheets for it.

13. A house. Or a shed. Anything with a roof. It doesn't have to be fancy but if rains on Jupiter or the wind blows or the sun shines brightly, I want something over my head. It would probably have to be made of pretty sturdy stuff and likely wouldn't look pretty but I am quite okay with that.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; the list of folks who play is located here. This is my 152nd time to play.

About Writing: Job Burn Out

Burn out is a problem that anyone can experience in any activity. It is generally associated with work.

Even freelance writers experience a little burn out now and then.

Burn out usually means stress, and a lot of it. Maybe it's from staying up until 2 a.m. to finish an article. Maybe you've spent 10 to many hours on the telephone with an editor. Maybe you've sent out 100 query letters in 10 days. And maybe these activities have left you feeling frustrated, unhappy, and unfulfilled.

Maybe you feel overworked and undervalued. That can easily happen if you're working 40 hour weeks and making very little headway in the financial department.

Whatever the cause, symptoms generally include a little depression, disillusionment, and internal strain. It can also manifest physically with aches, pains, colds, or other problems.

Burn out isn't just stress - it's beyond stress to a point where the person feels empty, unmotivated, and beyond caring. It is an emptiness that comes from feeling used up.

And when you're burned out, any problem suddenly becomes a big problem. Burn out can create a vicious cycle because the sufferer loses motivation and has no hope of moving forward or making a change. The person feels trapped.

A writer suffering from burn out might find herself spending more time staring out the window or playing video games than writing. She might find start hating deadlines, particularly for projects that hold little appeal. "What is the point?" she might think.

She might find herself becoming more irritable with colleagues, friends, and family. Instead of welcoming an inquiry from an editor or a new job, she might be irritated by it. If a writer starts resenting the people who help pay the bills, suspect a little burn out.

Another sign of writer burn out is avoidance. Have you been cleaning instead of writing? Rearranging the bookshelves (first alphabetically and then by subject)? Is any excuse not to write a good one? You better check for burn out.

What Now?

So you think burn out might be the issue. What to do?

A change of scenery might be the answer. Perhaps you need to haul the laptop to the library or the coffee shop and get away from the home office for a while. Maybe you need a bigger change, though, like a vacation (particularly if you haven't had one in a while).

Try to find a balance. Maybe, like me, your writing is your life 24/7. If that is the case, perhaps you need some down time (I find this difficult when I see every event, every person, and everything I read as either a learning experience or a potential article. If you do this, too, you may need a little attitude adjustment.). Go out with your friends. See a movie (and don't analyze the plot, for heaven's sake!).

Other things that might help:

• Meditation or other relaxation. This is especially helpful at the start of the day. Instead of hopping out of bed and going straight to work, spend time in prayer, writing in a journal, doing stretches, or reading something inspirational.
• Be healthy. Exercise, eat right, and take Geritol. Long walks are highly recommended.
• Get some sleep. Insomnia can be a big problem for heavy thinkers. Try visualization exercises when your eyes won't shut. Imagine something peaceful, and then think about particular body parts and imagine them relaxing.
• Learn to say no. You don't have to accept every writing assignment.
• Step away from it all. When you're taking that long walk, leave the technology behind. You can't experience all the bounty that reality has to offer if someone is blabbing in your ear on your cellphone. If you must have it for safety reasons, leave it in its case by your side. Unhook from technology and rejoin the world.
• Be creative. Yeah, yeah, writing is creative, you're all about being creative. Try a different type of creativity. Play a musical instrument, paint, crochet, or find some other project (preferably one that doesn't involve words).
• Learn to manage your stress. This is a big one and learning this can take a while. The above tips will help with stress, but so will things like balancing your schedule, stepping back from commitments, cutting back on over-time (even 15 minutes can make a difference), taking regular breaks (stand up and stretch every hour; it really helps), prioritizing your work, breaking big projects into smaller segments, and delegating responsibility when you can (honey, can you do the laundry tonight?).

Job burn out can be serious, and even home-based workers need to recognize the symptoms. Just because you get paid to write in your PJs doesn't mean it's all peanut butter and bananas, you know.

In Velvet

My Fair Lady

Saturday night I took my mother-in-law to see Attic Production's presentation of the musical, My Fair Lady.

Attic Productions is our local theater troupe. While mostly amateurs, they generally put on great shows and while the acting may not be on par with Broadway, it is superb in my opinion.

Louisa Britt, a 16-year-old rising junior at Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, played the role of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney lass who decides to take elocution lessons from Professor Henry Higgins in order to rise up in her station in life.

Britt has one of the best singing voices I have ever heard. She did a fantastic job. The other actors and singers, some of whom are friends, also did very well. I was quite proud of them for putting on such a splendid production.

My mother-in-law, still recovering from the loss her husband last month, enjoyed the evening out and I was glad to have given her a respite. We had a good time.

I hope that everyone supports their local arts groups. This kind of activity is important because it fosters thinking and imagination, gives folks something to do, and helps to create community. Our society is performing a great disservice to one another and to our heirs as we dismantle the arts because in the minds of some it has no value. Seeing a production like Attic's My Fair Lady has immensely more value than a trip to Walmart, that's for sure.

So support an artist. Buy a picture, see a play, pick up a book. You'll be glad you did!

High School Reunion Blues

Last night I met with nine classmates from 1981, only two of whom I had seen since we graduated. We met to form a planning group of nearly-50s who want to have a 30-year reunion next year.

This is a class that has only had one reunion, a 10th, and I did not attend that one.

My class had about 220 people in it; I was 5th in my class in rank. I was one of two student speakers who stood before the class, along with the valedictorian.

It was a really long time ago, those years when I was 17 about to turn 18. My whole life was ahead of me. If I only knew!

But don't we all say that when we are feeling nostalgic?

It was great seeing these old comrades, even though I was a bit of a loner who did not hang out with any specific group. A class of 220 divides itself into so many smaller sections - the jocks, the smokers, the smart kids, and others. I think this has gone on since time began and will always continue as like seeks like and prejudices remain regardless of the thinking of the day. It is a part of being human, and it is especially a part of being a teenager.

I was saddened to learn that almost a dozen of us have died in the years since we graduated. Two took their own life. One of the girls pictured above died in a car wreck on the interstate near Hollins about two days after we graduated. Several died from cancer. I knew of some of these passings but at least one of them startled me as I remembered vividly a young girl full of life and mischief. But so it goes.

The rest of us are lucky to be moving on beyond middle age and likely don't even realize it. And here we are, thinking about a big to-do to bring us all together. It's kind of exciting, to think of getting together after all of these years.

I wonder what we will find?

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things I do when I am home alone!

1. Sing. I do not have the worst voice in the world but I can crack a bad note on occasion. My favorite song to sing when I am alone is The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I really like the high parts.

2. Take pictures. Most of my shots are outside the windows, where I roam from view to view. Sometimes I just slither from space to space, looking to see if there is anything different to see.

3. Write. I prefer to be alone with my thoughts when I am writing, whether it be a blog entry like this one, journaling, or an article for publication.

4. Read. I also like to be alone with I read, not because I am reading anything bad but because I don't interrupt myself. Plus it is like taking a little mini-vacation.

5. Exercise. I like to exercise when no one is around because I prefer to do it in my PJs. Plus I don't want anyone to watch my fat bounce.

6. Play video games. It is not that my husband minds if I play video games; it is that I think he does. I prefer to do this when he is not around. Otherwise I feel like I should be doing something else. At the moment I am playing The Sims 3. I am bored with it but too cheap to buy another video game.

7. Research. When I am looking up facts, I want peace and quiet!

8. Chores. This should be higher on the list because I am very good about doing my chores first and anything that seems pleasurable last. Chores include things like laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, watering the flowers, gardening, painting the walls, etc.

9. Eat. I tend to eat more when I am home alone. This is a very bad thing and a good reason for me NOT to be alone too much.

10. Pace the floor. Sometimes when I am home alone, I wander back and forth and up and down the hallway. This is particularly true if I am writing something and can't get the words to flow.

11. Talk to myself. Sometimes I even answer myself and I understand that is not a good thing to admit at all. However, I have been known to carry on entire conversations, acting as all parties, sometimes to good advantage. Sometimes I have even made myself fall down laughing.

12. Stare out the window. This is akin to pacing the halls or looking for photos, I suppose, but sometimes I just look out the window to look out the window. I am not really seeing what is out there but my mind is going round and round, computing things or puzzling over something. My husband says I never stop thinking.

13. Play the guitar. This is something that I don't do often enough and should do more frequently. I started playing the guitar when I was 12 and have never stopped but sometimes I go months without picking it up. I am rusty though on occasion I can still get some decent sounds out of the thing.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people. You can read other folks' lists here. This is my 151st time to play.

Love is a Rose

When I was young, my inquisitiveness led me to ask questions of everything. Why were people on the earth? Who made the sky? Why do airplanes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle?

And the biggest question of all: What happens when we die?

My mother would answer my questions as best she could. These often turned into meandering conversations that never answered the question but instead acknowledged that I was making important inquiries into mysteries that really have no answer.

In the summer of 2000, my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer.  One day while she was in the hospital, she asked me what I thought would happen when she died. I said I didn't know.

"I want to send you a sign that there is something beyond," she said. "What would you recognize?"

I thought about this for a while, running my mind over the things in my house and in my yard. "Send me something orange," I finally said. "I don't have any orange in the house or the yard."

I did not forget this conversation but I also did not expect much to come of it. Nor did I mention it to anyone.

For my birthday the next year, my closest friend gave me a rose.

I planted it. It took a long time to bloom, but it's first bloom appeared in August, 2001, a year after my mother passed away. The bloom was a lovely orange.

And it has bloomed a lovely orange for me in late summer every year since.

Motivational Books & Tapes

Feel the Fear & Do It Anyway
By Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.
Copyright 1988
Audiobook. 60 minutes


How to Put More Time in Your Life
By Dru Scott, Ph.D.
Copyright 1988
Audiobook. 60 minutes
(Apparently out of print)





The Procrastination Cure (Putting an End to Putting it Off)
By Jane B. Burka, Ph.D. & Lenora M. Yuen, Ph.D.
Copyright 1989
Audiobook. 60 minutes
(Apparently out of print)

Relieve Stress
By Dr. Marlene E. Hunter, M.D.
Copyright ???
Audiobook. 60 minutes
(Apparently out of print)

The Power of Optimism
By Alan Loy McGinnis
Copyright 1993
Audiobook. 60 minutes
(Apparently out of print)


So, why tell you about a bunch of motivational tapes that are almost all out of print? Well, if you live in the Roanoke Valley you can check them out from the library, like I did, if you are interested.

I saw these on the shelf at the Blue Ridge Library a while back and on impulse took them all.

Pop psychology, I think these are called, and once they were the big thing in the motivational fields and in self-help circuits.

These tapes offer up ways to beat pessimism, find more time, overcome your fears, feel better about your life, and how to get moving if you're stuck in a rut.

They all say the same thing in different ways: you are what you think, and your thoughts control how you feel, so if you can gain control over your thoughts you can move forward and onward and be happy and live a great life.

They are very cheerful things to listen to, and who knows, you may learn a technique from one of them that you have not tried and find it to be just the thing to stimulate positive change.

I actually plan to listen to them all again before I turn them in to the library, maybe this time in the house instead of the car. That way I can have a pencil ready to jot down a few ideas that I liked.

I wonder where to find today's equivalent to these things -  podcasts, maybe?

Feel the Fear, by the way, is a good book. I read it about four years ago and found it helpful. It is still on my shelf. The audiobook is an early version of the print book, I think.

Organize? Organize!

Here's an interesting question for you, dear reader.

How do you keep up with blogs (or favorite websites, for that matter)? Do you simply follow and then read them in a reader such as Google reader?

Do you subscribe to RSS feeds or have them emailed to you, and read them that way?

Do you add them to favorites on your browser? And if so, do you categorize them at all, or just have them all in there willie-nillie?

Perhaps you use Delicious.com or some other method to categorize and decide what to read? If so, what program?

How do you come back to your favorites time after time? What method do you use?

I am curious and looking for new ways to do this. My own methodology works for about 50 blogs but beyond that it grows cumbersome.

O Covergirl!

I am not sure when Covergirl changed its products, giving things a new look and adding new items to its lineup.

Being old school (not to mention growing a little old), change sometimes frustrate me. Why can't they leave well enough alone, I wonder. I've been buying Covergirl since I was 12 years old. Give me a break.

Recently, when I went to purchase foundation, I discovered new bottles and a new sensitive skin product. Covergirl's water-based products have always been very good for my use; they had little smell or perfume, didn't break out my skin and I had no allergies to their items, unlike oil-based products which were guaranteed to turn my skin red and cause me no end of tears. It has literally been 20 years since I last tried another brand of makeup.

So there I stood before the makeup, blocking the aisle, trying to make a purchase when things were different. I pondered for a time, trying to figure out which, if any, was the old product and which did I want to buy. Finally I opted for the sensitive skin foundation.

The new foundation is a little chalky in feel and it seems to take a bit more to do the job than the old foundation I used previously. But the most unfortunate thing about this change is the darned stuff won't come out of the bottle.

No amount of shaking forces it out onto a finger. Instead I have had to resort to dipping a toothpick or Q-tip or makeup applicator or whatever else I can find into the bottle and forcing the foundation out. It is very wasteful.

I almost went back to get what I thought was the regular product but I haven't so far. Why? Because I think it is the design of the bottle and not the product that is causing the issue, and the bottles are all shaped the same way. Once the new sensitive skin foundation is out of the bottle, it flows fine.

Others agree with me. Check out comments on the Covergirl website to see what other unhappy women are saying.

Apparently Oil of Olay, which like Covergirl is a Proctor & Gamble product line, dropped one of its facial cleansers that I used faithfully, Sensitive Skin hydrating beauty fluid, because I can't find it anywhere anymore. Neither can anyone else, based on comments on the Olay website. I tried the suggested substitute and was so unimpressed that I no longer buy Oil of Olay anything, even though I used it for over 20 years. Now I am using Cetaphil, because it was the only sensitive skin item I could find that was marginally close. Cetaphil is owned by the same folks who own L'Oreal and is not a P&G brand.

So what does it say to me, Mrs. Older Consumer, who has been a faithful user of these P&G products for decades, when things change and it appears as if the company doesn't care? I am sure these changes are aimed at younger, more snazzy young women, those 20-somethings who do not have as much money as I do (if they have a job at all in this economy). I have never been a fan of marketing techniques that focus on younger people because it ignores the rather obvious conclusion that older folks of a certain age (say, 40-60) generally have more "extra" money than any other age bracket. We've already bought our towels and curtains and have a little to spend on things like beauty fluid.

What I am hearing is this: hey, Mrs. Older Consumer, go see what Maybelline and Avon and some of those other cosmetics companies that you've always ignored are offering these days.

And so I will.

Books: The Grilling Season

The Grilling Season
by Diane Mott Davidson
Performed by Cherry Jones
Copyright 1997
Abridged 360 minutes

I have a friend who really likes these Goldy the cook solves the mystery and saves the day books. They are okay but I am not that into recipes and cooking. I find those parts to be very boring, but I understand I am not normal in that respect.

In this book, Goldy's ex-husband has been charged with murder. Since he used to beat Goldy she is not unhappy about this, but her son, Art, wants his father cleared of the charges and begs his mother to help his dad. Goldy reluctantly begins making a few inquiries.

Some parts of this book bothered me; I don't like it when men beat up on women simply for the sake of beating up on somebody. Perhaps this is why I am not a big fan of this series, because in the couple of books I have read Goldy almost always ends up getting hit or hurt by someone and the violence seems a little gratuitous instead of being something that forwards the plot. But perhaps I am simply oversensitive to this issue.

Not a bad book, but I am glad I listened to it by checking it out of the library.