I think I might be able to hoist the Big Lens tomorrow, but for today, it’s all about the Christmas Cactus which is blooming its heart out as February is ending. Maybe it will bloom continuously. It certainly seems able to do it.
Really, this little cactus has been blooming pretty much since last Thanksgiving. It bloomed through Christmas and most of January.
Suddenly, it’s blooming again.
Back when I was actively learning to ride and then riding as often as I could cough up the money, I also fell off horses. I don’t mean I was bucked off. No, it was the more embarrassing thing. Trying to jump a little tree limb on the path, I was positioned wrong and just fell off. Once, I fell off because a couple of German Shepherds came out of a backyard and did a lot of loud barking and the horse kicked back at them. I slid half off, then hit a tree … and I was down.
I remembered the most important thing for a falling rider: hang onto the reins. If you let go, the horse will go home to his or her barn, leaving you on the trail. You may not even know the way back because it wasn’t uncommon to send people out on the trail alone and when you said: “How do I know where I’m going?” you were told: “The horse knows.”
I was never entirely happy with that answer. Horses love their stables. That’s where the food and the water trough are located. Mostly, they didn’t want to leave it in the first place, so if there’s a shortcut, they will use it. Several times, I had a horse go a couple of hundred feet, make a u-turn and trot joyfully back to the stable.
The horse knew the way. It merely wasn’t the way I wanted to go.
In the course of falling off horses while hanging onto the reins (or if that didn’t work, the stirrup), I damaged the ligaments in my right shoulder. I was young and it only bothered me when the arm was fully extended and the elbow was locked straight, so I figured, “One of these days, I’ll have it repaired.”
It was a simple repair. Other — more urgent — stuff came up through the years. My spine (falling off horses didn’t do my back much good, either) and a growth on my right leg that required a replacement of a big piece of bone and six months on crutches. I became a really good hopper. At 15, hopping was faster than crutches. My mother said I was ruining the carpeting.
Then there was a ruptured ovary from an ignored ovarian cyst … and the next thing I knew, I graduated college and I was having a baby. Then, there was work.
So for all these years, I have had a bad right shoulder. It didn’t get worse over time, but it didn’t get better either.
In November, I bought bird feeders and not long after that, I got a great long lens to take pictures of the birds. All of which has involved holding still with the heavy camera supported mainly by my right arm and trying to stay focused on one small area — the one where I’m sure the birds will show up.
A few weeks ago, that shoulder started to really hurt. Not while I was shooting, but at night when I was trying to sleep. I got a cortisone shot in that shoulder which helped calm it down, but I still have to prop it up on a pillow or the weight of my arm pulls on that old, damaged ligament.
I went to a bone and joint doctor and asked if I could get it fixed. He agreed it needed fixing but as to actually fixing it?
“Nope.”
I double and triple checked his opinion and the answer didn’t change. It turns out there really is a finite amount of time during which you can fix broken pieces of yourself. In my case, that ligament had lost its elasticity and of course, arthritis had invaded the joint, so no one wanted to mess with it.
Add to that the number of major surgeries I’ve already had and no doctor wants to mess with me unless it’s a matter of life or death.
The shoulder was damaged while I was in my late teens, so I have had sufficient time to get it fixed. There have been too many other medical emergencies, so it never seemed critical. Now, using a heavier camera and a pretty big lens, that shoulder and I are having a rough time. My right arm really hurts. I have spent the week not taking pictures because my shoulder needs to rest. It’s frustrating and there’s nothing I can do about it … except give it a rest.
About 15 years ago, Garry had his shoulder fixed. Tommy John surgery for you baseball fans and for everyone else, tendons, rotator cuff, ligaments et al. It was a big surgery. His pitching arm went all to hell and I don’t see another Major League Baseball contract in the future. Meanwhile, his other shoulder has punked out too, but no one is willing to fix it. He’s at an age where soft connective tissues don’t heal well. Predictions for the outcome of the surgery aren’t great.
Pieces of us are finite. There’s a limit to how long you can wait to fix something and if you wait too long, oops. I was surprised. I always figured I’d deal with that shoulder “one of these days.”
I ran out of days.
Finite. Not infinity.
A couple of days ago, I commented, “They say that Boston now has America’s worst traffic.” Personally, I bet New York is much worse, no matter what “they” say.
That got me to thinking about who “they” are?
Is there a special group dedicated to calculating how bad traffic is in every city in the U.S.? How often do they check? Do they check all the inbound road as well as the in-town roads? Do they check every city in every state? What about people who tell us about our manners. Like, “They say it’s okay to not change hands and only American eat that anyway.”
Who are they?
Weddings. “They” say you don’t really need a veil, just the ‘idea’ of a veil. WHO ARE THEY?
They say more American are Democrats than Republicans. If that’s true, how did we elect you-know-who?
Whoever they are, they have a lot to say.
I think when “they” get quoted, we should establish who they are. Are they an official government group? Just a bunch of people who got together and decided to write a blog or a tweet? A bunch of college kids? Or maybe — third graders?
I say let us put man and a woman together
To find out which one is smarter.
Some say man but I say no.
The woman got the man de day should know.
Chorus:
And not me but the people they say
That de man are leading de women astray
But I say, that the women of today
Smarter than the man in every way
That’s right de woman is, uh, smarter
That’s right de woman is, uh, smarter
That’s right de woman is, uh, smarter, that’s right, that’s right!
Ever since the world began
Woman was always teaching man.
And I tell you, listen to my bid attentively
I goin’ tell you how she smarter than me.
Samson was the strongest man long ago
No one could beat him, as we all know
Until he clash with Deliah on top of the bed
She told them all the strength was in the hair of his head.
You meet a girl at a pretty dance
Thinking that you would stand a chance.
Take her home, thinking she’s alone
Open de door you find her husband home.
I was treating a girl independently
She was making baby for me
When de baby born and I went to see
Eyes was blue — it was not by me.
Garden of Eden was very nice
Adam never work in Paradise.
Eve meet snake, Paradise gone
She make Adam work from that day on.
Methuselah spent all his life in tears
Lived without a woman for 900 years.
One day he decided to have some fun
The poor man never lived to see 900 and one.
Songwriters: Norman Span
Act II “In the Caribbean.” Man Smart (Woman Smarter) lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Next Decade Entertainment, Inc
Mornin’ girl, how’d ya sleep last night?
You’re sev’ral ages older now
Oh, no, things are different now than they were before
You know love is more than kisses
The Neon Philharmonic – 1969
The Lettermen – 1971
Morning girl, where you been so long?
Your lips have got some color now
A little too much color now
Your clothes have gone from nylon to lace, somehow
Shaun Cassidy – 1976
It was a one hit wonder for The Neon Philharmonic in 1969. They achieved the big sound by using musicians from the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. The lead singer was Don Gant. It only made number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. It did somewhat better in Canada.
Although credited to the Lettermen, you are only hearing one of their singers in the 1971 cover. Jim Pike sang with the group from 1959 to 1974 and does the honors here. The Lettermen were quite successful covering the songs of others.
The Shaun Cassidy cover is his first single. It may seem strange that the teen heart-throb of the 70’s is singing different lyrics than the others. That is because he is actually singing a follow-up song from The Neon Philharmonic entitled “Morning Girl, Later.” It had the exact same melody and was meant to take the story, if you could even say there was one, a little further along. Perhaps it was felt the lyrics were a little better for the young Cassidy than the other one. He was still in high school.
I was surprised when I realized the cactus was going to bloom again. It only stopped blooming a month ago, but apparently, this wasn’t so much a new bloom as the end of the intermission following the first blooming.
I’m sorry I didn’t write anything more today. It was another doctor day followed by a grocery shopping day. I haven’t been out much, so I met all the people I haven’t seen in a while — quite a while — and we all had to talk and then a few more people showed up, so we needed more. Turns out we were blocking the aisle, so we had to break up the party.
It got downright riotous in the old grocery store this afternoon.
When I came home, my lift chair was refusing to work and I realized I’m going to have to get the manufacturer to send someone and have it set up properly. Owen did the best he could with it, but it needs the pros.
I was also thrilled to see that my blood pressure was down by 20 points up and down today, though I think it’s because the nurse in my PCP’s office knows how to take a manual blood pressure measurement.
After yesterday’s doctor visit, having to go to yet another doctor seems like charging up the same hill — and there’s a guy at the top with a machine gun. Nonetheless, gotta do it. I still don’t know where to put my head. I feel like I carry poisonous genes and have passed them down the line.
But, speaking of wan, I’m still in the process of trying to work my way out of anemia — the last of the repairable issues on my medical agenda. I’ve actually found an iron pill that seems to work and doesn’t make me ill. I’m not taking enough of it, I know, but it beats out the nothing I was taking before.
I’m beginning to really resent DNA.
Isn’t what you inherit supposed to be a sort of grab-bag? You get some of the stuff, but not ALL of it? Because I seem to have collected everything and be in the process of passing it along.
The good news? Yesterday’s doctor seemed to think that I didn’t look particularly anemic now. My gums have stopped being pale and that’s a good sign. Now all I have to do is worry whether or not I’ve managed to pass everything along to another generation. Or two.
So feeling wan? Literally and figuratively. At the same time!
That’s what was wrong with me.
I had my heart surgery 4 years 11-1/2 months ago. As far as I knew, I never got an explanation of what exactly was wrong with me or what was done during the surgery. I didn’t know I had TWO valve replacements until a few weeks ago and I don’t know which artery was bypassed during my bypass.
To be more technical, the surgeon apparently explained everything, but I was so heavily drugged I’m not sure if I was awake for the explanation. I know I missed the whole thing about the second valve replacement because my best friend knew about it, but I didn’t. She wasn’t floating on Fentanyl.
The good news? UMass and Beth Israel are now connected so they can get my medical records. Eventually, it might sift down to me.
The bad news? My son needs to be checked for the same problem. His father died from heart-related problems as did both of his grandfathers and only luck kept me from sharing the same fate. So he has reason to be concerned about the condition of his heart. His father was only three years older than he is now when he died.
So, you ask, what exactly is “hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy”?
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a disease in which the heart muscle (myocardium) becomes abnormally thick (hypertrophied). The thickened heart muscle can make it harder for the heart to pump blood.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy often goes undiagnosed because many people with the disease have few if any, symptoms and can lead normal lives with no significant problems.
However, in a small number of people with HCM, the thickened heart muscle can cause shortness of breath, chest pain or problems in the heart’s electrical system, resulting in life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias).
NOTE: I had no symptoms that I noticed — which is not the same as not having symptoms. If it weren’t for my primary doctor’s alarm at the sounds my mitral valve was making, followed by serious testing that I had done at another hospital because the cardiologist to whom she sent me suggested I not worry about it until I had serious symptoms.
In this case, the serious symptom would have been sudden death, so I’m glad I realized the man was a jerk and went elsewhere for care. Even after all the testing, no one had any idea how serious the problem was until I was already in surgery. At which point, it was oh so clear.
Since I had asthma, I assumed my shortness of breath was asthma acting up. But I was wrong. It was not asthma but my ventricle packing its bags and trying to leave home without me. This is one of the problems of having multiple issues. Symptoms can (and do) overlap.
It’s really easy to assume that the problem you’re having is something familiar — like asthma. Except — shortness of breath can mean many different things. Heart disease is only one of them.
I once badly misdiagnosed a dog who had a known problem, but her problem was not the one I thought she had but something else. She died. We never found out what killed her, even after an autopsy. We assumed it was Lyme, but we never got a firm diagnosis. Lyme is funny that way.
Moreover, I never imagined I had a heart problem because my father’s heart problem was asymptomatic. As mine was until suddenly, it wasn’t.
Signs and symptoms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy may include one or more of the following:
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is usually caused by abnormal genes (gene mutations) that cause the heart muscle to grow abnormally thick. People with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy also have an abnormal arrangement of heart muscle cells (myofiber disarray). This disarray can contribute to arrhythmia in some people.
The severity of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy varies widely. Most people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy have a form of the disease in which the wall (septum) between the two bottom chambers of the heart (ventricles) becomes enlarged and restricts blood flow out of the heart (obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy).
Sometimes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy occurs without significant blocking of blood flow (nonobstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy). However, the heart’s main pumping chamber (left ventricle) may become stiff, reducing the amount of blood the ventricle can hold and the amount pumped out to the body with each heartbeat.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is usually inherited. There’s a 50 percent chance that the children of a parent with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy will inherit the genetic mutation for the disease. First-degree relatives — parents, children or siblings — of a person with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy should ask their doctors about screening for the disease.
Many people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) don’t experience significant health problems. But some people experience complications, including:
Because hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is inherited, it can’t be prevented. But it’s important to identify the condition as early as possible to guide treatment and prevent complications.
Implantation of a cardioverter-defibrillator has been shown to help prevent sudden cardiac death, which occurs in about 1 percent of people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Unfortunately, because many people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy don’t realize they have it, there are instances where the first sign of a problem is sudden cardiac death. These cases can happen in seemingly healthy young people, including high school athletes and other young, active adults. News of these types of deaths generates understandable attention because they’re so unexpected, but parents should be aware these deaths are quite rare.
Still, doctors trained in heart abnormalities generally recommend that people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy not participate in most competitive sports with the possible exception of some low-intensity sports. Discuss specific recommendations with your cardiologist.
If this wasn’t a good news-bad news day, I don’t know what would be. The good news? All things considered, I’m doing fine. As far as I know, the valves are doing their valve-thing.
I’ve got 8 years — 5, realistically — before I’ll need a replacement battery. I also learned why I will never be able to live without a pacemaker. I had thought that maybe my heart would start doing the job all by itself one day, but that will not happen. But, assuming the rest of the tests next month indicate that all is well, I need to worry about my son, not me.
I think I’d rather worry about me.
If there is a moral to this story, it’s don’t self-diagnose. If you think something is wrong, don’t assume you have the answer. The odds are, you don’t. The internet is a good place to look up an existing diagnosis, but a bad place to get a new one. If it turns out your best guess was right, congratulations, but this is one of those times when an error can prove fatal.
I still think this problem wouldn’t have become such a life-threatening issue had I not also inherited my mother’s breast cancer. The drugs they feed you when you have cancer … well … I’m not even sure the doctor’s know what they do.
For the avoidance of goriness reasons, I decided you don’t need more pictures. You can always Google this yourself and see all the gore you want.
My mother hummed all the time. While she worked in the kitchen. While she sewed. When she was hauling a vacuum over the rugs and when she was tending the kids. I doubt she knew she was humming.
When I was studying music in college, I occasionally recorded myself, just to see how I might sound to an audience. Turns out, I was humming as I played. I had no idea I did that.
Maybe it’s genetic?
I’ve been to concerts where the pianist was humming. I’m sure they didn’t know, either (but I hope someone tells them).
Melodies get stuck in my head. They roll around and around. Sometimes, I have to think of another tune, just to change the recording. I’m sure this song is going to be playing until something replaces it.
Come to think of it, “The song has ended” has — for now — taken the place of the theme for “West Wing.” It’s a welcome, respite.
I needed that bouquet. Sometimes, a bunch of flowers really helps. Not always, but sometimes. This was one of the times it helped.
Of course, I took pictures.
These aren’t flowers I can grow in my garden, but it’s a pleasure to enjoy them in my living room.
The red finches (House Finch) are back. I’ve heard them called both Red Finches and House Finches and be interested to know if both are accurate or red is just one of many colors for the House Finch.
Regardless, they are back. There were a couple of them a few weeks ago and quite a gaggle of them now. Can finches be gaggled?
I’m still in a ridiculous battle to get some more pictures of the cardinal. He comes by every day. I see him, head for the camera and he is gone when I turn around. It’s definitely personal!
And then, there are woodpeckers. We live in the woods, so I don’t know why I’m surprised we have so many woodpeckers.
Lots of trees. Lots of woodpeckers.
Intrepid will always be the name of one of Horatio Hornblower’s ships. Somewhere in my 20s, I discovered Horatio Hornblower … and that’s how I learned that there was an actual use for trigonometry! If only they had mentioned this in school, I might have had a clue what I was doing instead of random calculations used to reach an answer that meant absolutely NOTHING to me.
We probably should have named The Duke “Intrepid.” He is quite the intrepid voyager. Except he likes when we come out and let him IN the yard, even though he jumped out. I guess out is easier?
Today I am off to see the wizard, also known as my cardiologist. He’s a new one. I’m trying to finally shake off Boston and get all my physicians lined up locally. Boston made the news the other night as officially (who is the official calculator of such things?) having the worst traffic of any city in the U.S. Not in the world. I think there are quite a few cities in Europe (and how about the traffic in London!) that could compete.
Boston has gotten terrible. When I moved here in 1988, traffic wasn’t great, but you could get from one place to another and generally even park when you got there. Not any more. Not only can it be impossible to get there, but if you do parking will cost the price of feeding two people for a week. Or more.
Bad. Very, very bad.
We spent something like 50 billion dollars to remodel our road and I swear they are worse than they were before we spend more than a decade redoing everything. The thing is, they move things around, but they didn’t make them bigger. Just stuck them underground (cough, cough, cough) or straightened out the crooked pieces. So we’ve got nice straight bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Boston traffic is only for the intrepid.
We’re away shortly. As we head for UMass, a mere 20 miles away, call us intrepid. Also, please hope they don’t find anything new or interesting.
I collected dolls for years. Collecting is easy. Restoring is more of a challenge. Before I gave up collecting, I learned to restore my old dolls.
Up front, let me say that I’m not crafty. I can’t sew, crochet, knit, or carve. I can’t change the cartridges in my printer. I can write and I can take pictures. I can draw a bit. And I can cook. Otherwise, I’m pretty much a washout as a craftsperson. But I collected dolls for years. If you collect, there are things you need to do yourself because even if you have lots of money, finding someone else to do them is difficult … maybe impossible. I learned because I had no choice.
This is the best work I did. After Ana McGuffey, I pretty much stopped collecting and promptly forgot everything I ever knew. Use it or lose it.
Composition was the material favored by quality dollmakers such as American Character and Madame Alexander before the 1940s when hard injected plastic became the material of choice. The changeover from composition to hard plastic was gradual. Some composition dolls were produced as late as the 1950s, though not many.
Composition is basically sawdust, glue, varnish, and paint. It is a very good molding material, but it disintegrates over time. Dampness rots it. Excessive heat will destroy it. Time will have its way with it. Many dolls I love are old composition dolls. Finding these dolls in pristine condition can be impossible. If available, they are costly. Lacking money, I decided to learn to fix them. Old composition dolls in a state of deterioration are not difficult to acquire. If you can repair them yourself, you can get rare dolls for short money … but you will invest many long hours of yourself.
Ana McGuffey (of the reader of the same name) was one of Madame Alexander’s most popular character dolls for decades, from the 1910s through the 1940s. Although her face changed with the times, she always had her hair in braids. She wore a pinafore with a floral print dress. Stocking and buttoned shoes.
I finally got a 20″ Ana McGuffey. Half of each foot was rotted away. The paint on her face was chipped and faded and her wig and clothing were gone. She was in pieces and needed restringing.
I replaced her feet by modeling them using a clay-like epoxy material. This stuff is used for modeling all kinds of stuff. It’s difficult to use but forms a very hard, resin-like substance when it dries.
I restrung her, repainted her face — many failed attempts before I got it sort of right. I found a wig that looked like her original, though not the same material.
Her original wig was made of mohair. While you can get mohair wigs for restoring dolls, they are frightfully expensive and not particularly durable. I also don’t like the way they look, so I went with modern polyurethane. I made the dress and pinafore. This is not an area in which I excel, but no one was making clothing for this doll. It was me or no dress. I could easily get dresses that would fit her, but they wouldn’t look like her original clothing. I wanted Ana to look close to her original.
She also needed a flowery straw hat and I’d gotten pretty good at buying plain hats and decorating them. I found the stocking and shoes that sufficed, though they weren’t quite what I wanted. I haven’t mastered making shoes, but all things considered, I’m proud of this piece of work.
This is Ana McGuffey, Madame Alexander, circa 1930 – 1940. Restored by me.
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