Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Anxiety’

What’s Out for 2023

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on January 2, 2023| 3 Comments »

I was reading one of those “end of the year” screeds about the cultural turning points for a new year. One of the writer’s admonitions rang true for me – there shall be no more offering up of a cell phone in someone’s face to prove a point! Or even to simply show a picture of your cat/dog/baby to anyone. Definitely. I’m guilty of this myself on occasion. We’ve all been a bit constricted by Covid in the past, but let’s keep those cell phones in our pockets, shall we?

And speaking of pockets, I will not buy another pair of pants without pockets, and I don’t care how “slimming” they might be. Even yoga pants have little side pockets for your phone. In fact, I shall do less shopping in general, online and otherwise. I will sift through my beautiful walk-in closet and delete the pants without pockets. There’s no need for any vintage shopping either since my closet is a veritable treasure trove of antiques. I’ve already sent Aunt Kiki some 60s sweaters so I’m well on the way to improving fashion industry’s waste.

The Bride was working on New Year’s Day, so I cooked up some of my famous Jerusalem chicken and had the Groom and Grands over for dinner. Of course I also spent the day soaking and creating a black-eyed pea concoction that was met with only some disdain by the Littles, but guaranteed to bring us Good Luck in 2023! And boy, do I need some of that luck this year. I asked the table what they had learned in the past year, and we all agreed to try very hard NOT to play the Blame Game this year – or as the Rocker likes to put it, you play the hand you get. You get Covid, you don’t get Covid, get over yourself!

Did you know the most searched word on Google last year was “Wordle?” I have to admit, Bob and I enjoy playing Wordle almost every morning. It’s short, fast and in an ER doc’s wheelhouse. I usually start at my desk, with alternating words; if you must know I use ADORE and PAINT don’t ask me why. Then I yell, “Help” plaintively. Bob will stop what’s he’s doing and come to the rescue. After all, I have to keep him busy since he retired. I’m pretty sure we will continue playing, but I shall stop posting my Wordle results to Twitter. I realize nobody on social media cares about my score – and in the dead of night I wonder if anyone on Twitter cares about me at all. The jury is still out about leaving Twitter since Elon Musk took over – check back with me in a few months.

The love/hate relationship with Facebook continues into 2023. I love hearing from old friends about their lives and this blog, but I hate the black hole of time it sucks out of my day. It shall remain only on my desktop computer… with all notifications turned off. So there!

Last year I wanted to be brave and chop off all my hair, but then my little falling incident happened. And because I was wheelchair-bound, I stopped visiting my fabulous Drag Queen Hair Stylist. My inner pixie is best left in last year. Ditto the whole bangs idea. Think Frances McDermott, not Goldie Hawn. Not that I have anything against Goldie, after all she started a foundation to help kids deal with anxiety: “Remembering my own childhood anxiety, I longed to show children everywhere how to rediscover their natural joy, understand the value of their emotions, and learn to feel empathy for others,” Hawn wrote in her book. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/06/health/mindfulness-kids-goldie-hawn-life-itself-wellness/index.html

Now the locks are longer and of course Bob loves it. The longer the better! So I’m giving up my “after a certain age” rule of requesting only a predictable, short bob cut, and letting things go. And believe me, when Nashville froze over last week, I was happy to have some hairs on my neck.

Thankfully, the year of Real Butter is behind us. I never understood the whole charcouterie board of butter anyway. One of our small indulgences during the pandemic has been buying only Irish butter! Oh the color, the taste. But both Bob and I are trending upwards toward dangerous cholesterol levels, so we’ll be quite mindful this year about our eating habits. More fish, less red meat… and less butter. And the same goes for drinking. Last year’s dry January, has turned into 11 months of only the occasional glass of wine or canned cocktail.

Letting go of the devil may care, we’re all on the Titanic anyway, so why not just indulge days of the pandemic feels right. And in no way does this feel constricting; the opposite in fact. My mind and heart are opening to new ways of navigating this life – the road blocks, the speed bumps, the parallel parking. My dashboard light is getting brighter as I type.

Finally, I’ll keep some holiday decorations up all year long if I want. For instance, I strung some stuffed, felt letters across my Snug that spell out the Deck the Hall lyrics “F-A-L-A-L-A” in lots of different colors and every time I look at them I think Falafel, which makes me smile. But it also makes me hungry, so there’s that. Here is my secret recipe for Jerusalem spice: mix equal parts of salt, pepper, cinnamon, turmeric, coriander, and allspice. Happy New Year Everyone!

Read Full Post »

Untold Stories of the ER

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2019| Leave a Comment »

People never just “go” to the Emergency Room, they rush to the ER. And if you’re Mr T, you take your motorcade along, a helicopter would be too flashy. He wanted to avoid the “fake news” after all. The Bride caught wind of his “irregular” trip to Walter Reed on Saturday while she was working in her ER because it was blowing up in her private female MD social media group – I mean Twitter wasn’t even on the story yet. I wonder why Google hasn’t told us the reason for his visit.

According to most news outlets, the White House has a regular mini-clinic-hospital in one of its wings. So this unscheduled, outside of protocol trip to the ER is a mystery. Does anyone believe the press secretary’s line that Mr T was only fulfilling the first part of a routine medical exam? His BFF Roger Stone goes to prison and the impeachment witnesses are heating up reality TV, and rumor has it Ivanka actually observes the Saturday sabbath with her family, so he was all alone in the residence… and figured he’d get a check-up?

Naturally with two-too-many ER docs in the family, we try to avoid ER visits, unless it’s to deliver apple cider donuts. Last week, Great Grandpa Hudson was having a problem breathing, certainly a good reason to call an ambulance. Instead, two ER docs showed up to check him out and he was just fine. Thousands of Medicare dollars saved because a 93 year old man would certainly have been admitted for the complete work-up. His only problem – a salt-loaded free restaurant meal at a local restaurant for Veteran’s Day.

Maybe Mr T had one too many hamburgers? His cholesterol is rather high and his weight is an issue. Or maybe he thought he was having a heart attack, and it was only a panic attack!

I have a friend who went back to work years ago, and left their 3 month old baby with her husband who worked at home. He ended up in an ER with a panic attack that can mimic a full-blown MI – sweating, heart irregularities, a feeling like your world is coming to an end. I’ve had one or two panic attacks myself while I was trying to conceive a second baby and kept having miscarriages. I went into hard core OCD and didn’t want to drive over bridges.

Maybe the constant strain of being presidential, rising at 6 am and taking 3 hours of “executive time” to watch state-sanctioned FOX News, then starting your day at 11 am and ending with very busy Twitter fingers is taking its toll. I wonder if he has dinner with Melania, or if she eats early with Baron? Or is she even there? Then there’s all that golf on the weekends. It must be exhausting!

He left Walter Reed without a jacket, his shirt open, no tie. Sounds like it was a quick exit, the kind of patient who leaves an ER “against medical advice.” You know the type, and Mr T is certainly that type of arrogant, egoist.

He is back at Tweeting his agenda this morning – using middle school bullying tactics and name calling to intimidate his enemies. Nancy Pelosi is “Nervous Nancy.” The “Do Nothing Democrats” are at it again with “Fake News.” Mr Tweety T whines that he was only exercising his First Amendment rights when he live-Tweeted a threat to ex-Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch on Friday.

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad,” Trump wrote. “She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. it is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.”  https://www.vox.com/2019/11/15/20966716/impeachment-hearings-trump-yovanovitch-witness-tampering

I was thinking somebody should have removed him from office, or at the very least removed his not-so-smart phone from his tiny fingers. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; an honorable woman who had been told to leave her post in the Ukraine quickly, “on the next plane,” was again being maligned in public, on TV, by our commander in comedy.

She talked about being “knee-capped,” like his administration is a cast from the Sopranos.

“According to the Department of Justice, intimidation of witnesses testifying before Congress is a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1515(a)(1). However, in this case it is the president who is allegedly doing the witness intimidation and an OLC opinion (see Indicting a President Is Not Foreclosed: The Complex History – Lawfare) states that a sitting president cannot be indicted.”

It’s a shame really, or a sham that this president who sits around all day surrounded by sycophants cannot be indicted. Because he’s not just intimidating a witness, he’s projecting his insane policy of panic and chaos around the world.

In other weekend news, two ER docs and two writers went out for sushi with two adorable children. Can you find the redhead?

IMG_6723

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Silent Night

Posted in BBC, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, racism, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2019| 2 Comments »

It was almost 2 am, my mind was a jumble of raw nerve endings. I tried to concentrate on my breath, to meditate my way back to sleep, but I ended up instead tracing the alphabet with my feet. Ankle exercises can be comforting. Then it suddenly got very dark. tomb-like-dark. And it was quiet, no house humming quiet. I wondered if it was just that Bob’s phone stopped lighting up. He had returned from a trip to FL, visiting his brother. But the alarm clock was black; our power was out.

Today it’s supposed to creep up toward 100 degrees, one of the hottest days of the year.

So what did I do? I woke Bob of course, after all maybe it was just a fuse that needed to switch. But it was the whole street, all the street lamps were out, thousands of people without power.

Are you a midnight wanderer? Do you raid the refrigerator at night, or watch TV when you can’t sleep? I’m a Reader with a capital R. So after 2 hours of mingling our feet and talking by flashlight, commiserating about our old whole house generator in the mountains, when the power finally came back on I picked up a National Geographic magazine about Migration.

It was like a crash course in “How Not to be a White Supremacist!” Because 1) tracing DNA has become so affordable, and 2) some tiny, miniscule bone in our inner ear that is the most dense bone in our body has been storing all of our primitive ancestors’ secrets since the Ice Age, therefore 3) anthropologists have been able to trace the Three Great Human Migrations!

“Who Were the First Europeans?” by Andrew Curry is in this month’s issue A WORLD ON THE MOVE. “Europeans living today, in whatever country, are a varying mix of ancient bloodlines hailing from Africa, the Middle East, and the Russian Steppe.” In other words neo-Nazis, get over yourselves and your replacement theory. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/07/first-europeans-immigrants-genetic-testing-feature/

We are all descendants of farmers who tolerated nomads (hunter/gatherers) and then rode horses across continents as plague almost decimated our species. That’s a pretty small nutshell, but some people were dark with green eyes, and some were light with brown eyes and somehow we managed to survive, together. Last night:

I was worrying about the Love Bug who starts 2nd Grade today. We spent the afternoon together and she had a fever, an ear infection, would her parents send her to school?

I was worrying about Great Grandma Ada, because she worries about me all the time so I thought I’d return the favor.

I was worrying about children separated from their parents because I was separated from my Mother the Flapper when I was 10 months old.

This morning I was surprised by how low the Trump administration could go, though I really shouldn’t have been. He is changing the rules and regulations for LEGAL immigrants to obtain a green card, making it more difficult to obtain visas or become citizens. Why you may ask? If a person has relied on any form of public assistance for more than ONE year, they will be invited to leave! The article was hiding inside the BBC News website. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49323610

This bears repeating – LEGAL Immigrants who do not meet the GOP’s rules of “self-sufficiency” will be deported. So legal immigrants working part-time at Walmart will have to go if they rely on food aid or public housing….

I didn’t go to this year’s East Nashville Tomato Festival because Bob wasn’t here, but also because I’m becoming afraid of crowds. What keeps you up in the middle of the night?

IMG_6108

 

 

Read Full Post »

Sunday, Funday

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, tagged , , , , , , on February 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

One thing about Nashville, it’s never boring.

It’s been a cold and busy reentry; waiting for Uber at the airport, freezing in a 20 degree wind tunnel wearing a summer dress, should have been my first clue. Getting back to reality would usually take some time, but my island speed shifted into overdrive fast. Our beautiful NC niece Tammy was visiting her Grandmother Ada, so we made some delicious, authentic ravioli for a small dinner party, and yesterday was game day for the Love Bug!

I’m not talking football here, it’s Firely Piggies girls basketball.

They still sometimes head down the court in the wrong direction, pink shirts and pigtails flying. But they won one and lost one, so we all had a blast. And who doesn’t like a concession stand with soda and candy? Still, since the weather here is warming rapidly, I longed for a completely unscheduled day with the Grands. Just some time to sit on the porch, or play “Go Fish,” or even ride around the neighborhood on bikes.

The word “boring” was banned in my house. Whenever the young Bride or Rocker would discover this word I’d immediately put the kibosh on it! “Look around you,” I’d say, “there is so much to do, only boring people get bored!” I was happy to notice this same reaction in my daughter when her children would gaze up at her, in the middle of paradise, and say, “I’m bored Mama.”

We would scoff, they would laugh, and finally she would admonish them. Then off they would go, to create a pretend shelter in their room for homeless people – pillows for beds and seashells for food. Such young altruism made my heart sing.

But I’m afraid parents today feel it’s their duty to keep their children entertained at all times. They have grown up in an age of “stranger danger” meaning only constant vigilance will do; free play time has become an archaic term. My kids rode their bikes to the school bus. Mothers now are being arrested for leaving their child in a car for a few minutes.

Last week, while discussing humbugs, the L’il Pumpkin told me he may have actually seen one, or it might have been his imagination… And this is exactly what I love to encourage – imagination, curiosity, creativity, a sense of wonder! Sometimes I would keep the Rocker home from school and call it a “mental health day.” Children need space to grow and dream.

Lin-Manuel Miranda once credited his “…unattended afternoons with fostering inspiration. “Because there is nothing better to spur creativity than a blank page or an empty bedroom,” he said.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/opinion/sunday/children-bored.html

Maybe growing up an “Only,” with plenty of time on my own, is why the blank page never scared me! I’ll be attending a restorative yoga class this afternoon (thanks MaryAnn), while everyone else is watching Super Bowl Sunday or Puppy Bowl antics. Whatever you’re planning this #SundayFunday, I hope you stay UN-bored y’all.

0-2

 

 

Read Full Post »

1,600 Black Bears

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

There are only about 1,600 black bears in the Great Smokies. They are interacting more and more with people, coming down off the mountains because their habitat is shrinking. I’ve seen a couple of bears lumbering through the forest in Central VA, but here in the Music City my only wildlife encounter has been with feral cats. I’ve heard about coyotes and possums, but they don’t scare me.

In Eagles Nest Township, MN with 4 beautiful, clean lakes, some people can lay down on the ground and allow bear cubs to crawl all over them! There’s a bear whisperer there who teaches neighbors how to feed the wild black bears peanuts from their hands! He is a biologist on a mission to let people know that bears are harmless, they are more afraid of us than we are of them!

But in the same little MN town, others are convinced of a different reality. They perceive black bears to be a threat; they look at their teeth and claws and imagine being torn to shreds. Even though they appear timid, they have tremendous strength and have killed at least 70 people since statistics were kept in the early 1900s.

I’m probably in this camp, if I were to see a bear on a trail I’d start backing up very slowly… NPR has an incredible podcast about this pair of conflicting paradigms: https://www.npr.org/2017/06/08/531904266/reality-part-one.

They are investigating why people see things differently and appropriately enough it’s called, “Reality.” After Great Grandma Ada witnessed a mama bear with two cubs playing in her swimming pool, she stopped going down to the pool alone. I’m just glad she didn’t decide to feed them peanuts from her hand, as she’s been known to encourage a stray fox or two with treats. In fact, I can’t remember a time when she didn’t have some candy in her pocket for her grandchildren.

Listening to this podcast about how we shape our own reality, and after this weekend’s #MarchforourLives I thought to myself, what’s the point of worrying about something like bears? I mean, there’s some Chinese space station that’s about to crash into earth, maybe I should be losing sleep over that?

Psychologists tell us that depression and anxiety are endemic in our modern world, and that in order to worry less we should make a list of the 10 things that worry us. Writing them down demystifies our dread and helps us decipher when we’re just worrying for the sake of worry – you know that dream where you have to take a test and realize you never went to class? Sometimes we imagine things are way worse than they actually are, or we may need medication to keep the demons at bay.

My mentor, the humor writer Erma Bombeck called that toxic, useless type “rocking chair worry:” “It gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”

And the funny thing is, the more you write these 10 things down, make a Top Ten List every 6 months, you realize over time which worries are utterly useless because they resolved themselves, or the outcome was better than the problem, and you can get a handle on those things you may actually want to DO something about. You may even start to worry less.

Why do some people see the list of countries that are expelling Russian “diplomats” and feel fine, while I see the long list of countries who have signed the Paris Climate Agreement – that does NOT include the USA – and feel dread? We are the ONLY country is the whole world who doesn’t believe in climate science! Syria and Nicaragua were the last 2 countries to pledge their allegiance; here is what Stephen Hawking had to say about Mr T’s mean and inept decision:

“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible,” he told the BBC. “Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.” He added that Trump’s decision would cause “avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children”.

So maybe I should be worrying about the bears, and gorillas, and the newly endangered, my favorite of all wild things the graceful giraffe: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/giraffes-silently-slip-endangered-species-list-180961372/  I had NO idea the giraffe’s tail is used as a status symbol in parts of Africa. It’s time to schedule a safari so I can see my long, tall blondes in the wild, not just at a zoo.

IMG_2419

Read Full Post »

I’m a Stringer

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on March 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

There, I said it. The first step is acceptance. I’ve tried every type of mind numbing hobby over the years; quilting and sewing when the kids were little, knitting later on and working in a friend’s shop named “Tanglewool.” Of course writing, cooking and gardening were always there, forming a tapestry of my days, until Great Grandma Ada turned me on to Beads. When I was packing up my aviary last summer, I knew I had to have my beads with me, no matter what!

I’ve already started stringing some green landscape jasper and white jade this morning. Last night I wore a coral and turquoise number to the Love Bug’s school, she was wearing an elephant necklace we’d made together. It was an International Night filled with foods from every corner of the globe, Bollywood dancers and Spanish songs. But I zeroed in on the Mission Table to Uganda – they were selling beautifully intricate paper beads. I realized I was powerless and had to have them.

Before our move to Nashville I’d been venturing outside my comfort zone, knotting pearls and working with tiny seed beads. The results were spectacular but the work was tedious and long. Yesterday I’d stop and look at my design on the dining table, adding something here, subtracting another bead there. This morning after coffee and the daily “damage report” from Bob, I picked out my wire and started stringing.

It’s like a meditation, almost like moving rosary beads in my hands when I was little. Your mind is focused on one thing, all the rest fades into the background noise on the street. And the finished product is uniquely mine, a small piece of art. Out of the chaos of my dining room dresser filled with beads I’ve created something new. Most of the necklaces and bracelets I’ve made I give away as gifts, but sometimes a piece will win me over and it gets to stay.

Some people have said I could sell my creations, who knows? Maybe some day when I get into my Pod and find all those eternity necklaces I made with freshwater and coin pearls. An eternity necklace has no clasp, no hardware or “findings” as we say in the Biz. I wonder what people would pay for them? There is some research yet to be done, and there are plenty of cute boutiques in the area, surely one of them might give it a try? But who knows, what if they don’t sell? Wait, there’s always Etsy!

My sister Kay made beautiful needlepoint pillows, I treasure the one on our bed in the likeness of our Corgi, Tootsie Roll. I have the white cotton coverlet my Nana crocheted over a hundred years ago, and I sent the lilac Easter sweater the Flapper knit to our cousins in California. What treasures will our children and grandchildren decide to keep, and what will go to Goodwill? Everybody is wired differently, and stringing melts away the small, still, everyday stress of life, like reading a good book.

Robins are dancing outside on the grass, and a squirrel keeps promenading up and down the sidewalk. I’m thinking of Spring colors, the yellow burst of buds, the soft green of moss. It’s time for some spring cleaning, but not before I finish this necklace.

Image-1

Read Full Post »

#Almostdone

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on July 1, 2016| 1 Comment »

It’s been three weeks. The new laundry room door just went up, the vents and smoke detectors are going up as I type, and the painters are touching up all over the place. It will be good to get our house back, but to be honest Ms Bean will miss the constant company. Granted she barks initially, but then she warms up and keeps track of everyone. My little, lazy, adorable mutt transforms into a real watchdog! She wakes every morning with a sense of purpose; sitting in front of the front hall windows and listening for the sound of trucks.

Poor baby, the contractors will be done today, just in time for the Fourth of July Fireworks. Anyone with a pup knows the sounds of summer can drive them to distraction – to hiding in bath tubs and even sometimes running away given half the chance. Great Grandma Ada told me about this article, which I had to read on my phone since I couldn’t find my computer.

By some estimates, at least 40 percent of dogs experience noise anxiety, which is most pronounced in the summer. Animal shelters report that their busiest day for taking in runaway dogs is July 5. Veterinarians tell of dogs who took refuge in hiding places so tight that they got stuck, who gnawed on door handles, who crashed through windows or raced into traffic — all desperate efforts to escape inexplicable collisions of noise and flashing light.                                          http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/why-thunder-and-fireworks-make-dogs-anxious/?_r=0

It was a rainy, stormy day when the Bride and Groom graduated from medical school. We had a few people staying in our newly built house, and the last one out must not have latched the door. Because when we returned several hours later, the kitchen door was wide open and Buddha Bear came strolling around the corner with an accusatory look in his eyes. As if he was saying, “Where have you guys been?”

He also managed to lock himself in our guest bathroom during a storm. I returned home and called his name so many times my throat was hoarse. Buddha wasn’t a barker. Before I started to panic and jump in my car thinking he must be able to walk through walls, I noticed the bathroom door was shut. He was so big, when he tried getting into the tub he must have accidentally shut the door and he was just waiting patiently for me to free him!

Ms Bean wasn’t anxious in thunderstorms before she watched Buddha’s behavior. Now, she becomes a twitchy, shaking mess stuck permanently to my knee. We stroll into the laundry room and I pull out a dryer sheet, the kind without any perfume. She looks at me longingly and submits to my hand stroking her whole body, head to tail, with the little piece of paper as her body relaxes. Long ago I read that a rubdown with a Bounce sheet would reduce the static electricity on her fur; and now I’m a believer.

I’m not a pill person, but of course in the NYTimes article above there is a new medicine for dog anxiety during storms and fireworks. I’d rather just go into a windowless room with my dryer sheet and comfort Ms Bean. After all, she’s been through alot these past three weeks. She already has to take a pill in order to ride in a car, so I don’t want a loopy puppy in the house all summer. Vets say it’s best to desensitize your dog to noise.

But carpenters hammering the basement ceiling under the floor of our living room was pretty strange, and not soon to be repeated. All the building noises are almost done, so relax Ms Bean for a little while. Your world is safe and secure. Time to get back to lying on the deck and watching for deer and vermin!

Hope y’all have a safe and Happy Fourth and a strees-free summer time with your fur babies! Here is Ms Bean in the Zen shade garden.IMG_4763

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: