A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Today (31 January 2024) is the second anniversary of my mother’s death. She’d been living with us for over a year and near the end receiving in-home hospice care. Prior to her moving in with us, we lived several states away and had only visited a few times over the years since we’d moved away.  Having her here was a time to reconnect and enjoy getting to know her all over again. She loved mysteries and westerns, since she could no longer read because of vision problems she could watch TV and we saw more of these of these gene moves and episodes than we’d ever watched before.  Not to mention that with the worsening memory issues we watched many of her favorites multiple times a week and spoke about the movie, the episode, and the things she remembered about her life that she was reminded of when watching.

So, today, I’m a bit sad so … The Sound of Silence by one of my favorite groups, Pentatonix:

This post is going to be a bit of a whine. We’ve been dealing with a lot of health issues this year and it seems that things get better and then they get not so very much better — meaning things slide downhill. I was just congratulating myself that I’d made it through Capclave okay with only a minor headache and a few muscle spasms. Then, I felt up for World Fantasy Convention (WFC) in Columbus, Ohio. Had a great time at both conventions.

Got a lot of exercise as well as fresh air walking about within a 1/2 to a mile of the hotel while in Columbus. However, had a couple of severe muscle spasm and a low grade migraine the last two day which got worse on the drive home to Maryland. The day before we left to come home, our cat sitter texted that the cat, Dorian, had a few accidents but was still greeting her when she came to the house and didn’t seem lethargic.

Just after Christmas last year, Dorian had a severe downturn in his health but recovered and is known in the vet’s office as the miracle cat because they didn’t think he’d make it at all. He’s got a heart problem and only 1 half of a functioning kidney and is 14 years old going on 15 (so in cat years that mid-70s). We got home to number of accidents (from both ends – use your imagination) throughout the house. We called the vet and took him right in. He was dehydrated and with really high levels in his blood work that indicate his kidney may be shutting down. They did some rehydration and gave him anti-nausea meds along with some other medications. We took him home and had to bring him in again today. He was there all day for treatment. His tests came back today much better in some way and yet still worrisome. He’ll go in again tomorrow and then we may, depending on his test results, have to start making some very hard decisions about his quality of life. He’s more active and moving about but seems not himself. I’m cautiously optimistic but still worried.

Afterall, what can you be but cautiously optimistic when the cat sits and stares at the bubbling water bowl for extended period so time. Maybe it is cat meditation. Currently, he’s crawled under the lowest level of the cat tree and is not sleeping but probably contemplating the universe and his place in it.

Meanwhile, the magazines (SFRevu.com and GumshoeReview.com) went up as planned on November 1st. However, I still have some things to do — essential the reviews I was doing still need to be finished and added to the contents as well as writing the overview editorial for each magazine. Hoping that a good nights sleep will finally vanish the migraine — it is really hard to think clearly when someone invisible is using your head for an anvil.

If the headache finally eases off with a good nights sleep, I can finish up tomorrow while Dorian, the cat, is again at the vets. But, with so much stress my allergies and asthma have kicked in. This puts a bit of perspective on the migraines — though on the whole, lots of pain vs difficulty breathing seem to be in a tie.

Life goes on so far.

This past month has been one thing after another. It seemed like I spent half the month in doctor’s offices or waiting for someone who was in for a procedure to drive them home.

I’m now taking an extra antihistamine and, for the last few days, it’s been making me feel like a zombie. When asked a question there’s a significant pause while I have to parse the sentence and retrieve the answer. May make you drowsy. May make you sleep through your day with your eyes open and minimal functioning. On the plus side the itching is nearly bearable but the headaches are back.

The upshot is that the two magazine (SFRevu.com and GumshoeReview.com) are going to be up online on time but missing the reviews assigned to me. Those reviews will be added in over the next few days as they’ll take me longer to draft, write, and edit. It helps if you’re awake — or so I’ve been told.

I missed Balticon this year also. I got email with my program schedule and I wasn’t on anything as far as I could tell so, since I was feel crappy I decided not stay home and sleep. Hopefully, next year May won’t jump on me with both feet.

Enough whining from me. But hopefully, I can get back to updating my blog regularly.

I love Christmas. It’s the best time of the year as far as I’m concerned. No matter what is going on in my life, Christmas always energizes me and makes me feel alive. I fall in love with my world and the people in it again. That spirit keeps me going for the next 12 months until it is renewed the following year.

At least, that’s how it used to be. This year, well I’m just not feeling it. I’m watching my collection of Christmas movies and for a while I feel the start of that uplifting spirit and then I read the news — or go out shopping. That’s when the spirit just sort of drains away.

It’s little things. The cashiers at the stores smile but it doesn’t reach their eyes. They don’t look at you. I’m obviously female but I’m usually called ‘Sir’ — really. It you can’t be bothered to look at your customer perhaps you can come up with phrases that don’t rely on gender identification.

It’s being cut off in traffic, for a parking space, having doors let go when you’re just a few inches shy of being able to take over. I always make a habit of holding a door for the person behind me or open it for the person in front if they are having problems. It’s just manners. What’s happened to us?

People just seem so angry all the time now. I understand the feeling; I really do. It’s hard when you listen to the talk of hate and bigotry being spewed on the airwaves lately. But really. All humans share this world and we really should strive to make it a better world. We can’t do much but we can take the time to hold an elevator for someone coming toward it when we’re right there by the button. To open a door for someone — male or female. To smile and wish someone a good day.

Life is a series of moments and if each of us will make the effort to smile and do a bit of kindness every day, to think of the things we’re thankful for each night before falling asleep, maybe you’ll help someone else have a good thing happen to them they didn’t expect. They’ll pass on that good feeling and maybe inspire someone else.

Small acts of kindness can build until maybe, just maybe, the Grinch-y feeling will go away for more of us.

Now, I wish each of you a good day, and restful evening, and an even more joyous tomorrow.

Yesterday, we finally decided to do something to decorate for Christmas. The Shooting Star Hydrangea surrounded by Poinsettias has brightened up my living room. Now maybe I can begin to get in the Christmas spirit — I think I’ll put another movie in the player and believe that everyone is looking to make the world a better and kinder place for humans of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

It seems that for the last several months every weekend was taken up with chores, meetings of one type or another, running errands, or dealing with some problem or inconvenience. Anyway, this weekend we ran all our errands yesterday. So, today I’m catching up on database entry, email checking/clearing/answering/sorting by priority, and updating my next week’s To Do list.

Four days ago, our ‘new’ rescue cat, Simba, went out to get some fresh air and didn’t come back. We’d been calling for him every few hours, and getting more and more worried for him. As of this morning, we were finally admitting to one another that we probably weren’t going to see him again. Temperatures had been pretty low during the night so we hoped he’d found an emergency back-up family (as cats often do). But it’s been fairly warm the last couple of days, so if he was snoozing on someone else’s hearthrug, we figured he’d come around to see to his food bowl. So, reluctantly, we figured he was just gone. So, not expecting to see him again after four days, this afternoon, he came back. Our older cat, Emnot, isn’t too happy with Simba’s reappearance though.

Simba has a medical condition and so he’d been four days without his meds. His left eye was dripping like a faucet (his medical problem) and he was starving or so he said/indicated (you know what I mean). He seemed healthy (except for the dripping eye) and very happy to see us. Can’t help but wonder where he was while he was missing. So, the first thing we did was put the extra collar on him (he came back without one). Before you ask — yes, he’s chipped. But we get him break-away collars and the one we put on him today is his fifth. And we put collars on the grocery list to pick up a couple more spares. I’m sure he’ll be needing them.

We’re watching a Season 3 marathon of Dr. Who. We just bought Season 4 but will finish 3 first.

Today was household chores and baking day. Wash is already done, folded, and put away. We baked Chocolate Coconut Scones, and Banana Nut Muffins. For the first time in a what seems like ages, I’m warm since the oven has been on most of today. Now that we’ve got goodies to eat, I’ll have to be careful, because hubby and I are back on calorie watch. But we will be indulging in an ignore-the-calories day for Valentines.

I’ve dug out my sock in progress and need to figure out where I am on the heel and work on it once we sit to watch another episode of Dr. Who. Also, got Divergent from Netflix so need to watch that soon too.

Except for the insomnia, or was it the headache, that woke me up at 4 this morning, and having to play catching up on work stuff it’s looking like a good restful day. The crazy starts again tomorrow.

Of course it would happen. The minute I post that I’ll be getting this blog up and running again the world — my world — conspires to see that it doesn’t happen. I’ve been so busy lately. First, there was getting the magazines up and live on time. Then there was gearing up for Capclave, attending Capclave, and decompressing from Capclave. Then getting back in the groove to get the next issues of SFRevu and Gumshoe set to go live on November 1st. But, wait there’s more — I’m doing at-con registration for this year’s World Fantasy Convention in DC so there’s been meetings, planning, working with the pre-con reg people and programming people and others to be sure nothing gets forgotten in the registration packets and we don’t duplicate effort. Luckily, the chairs of the convention this year are great people and keeping us all on track.

Meanwhile, there’s been the headaches — they’re baaaack. Mostly they’ve been related to the weird changes in the weather. Luckily, none have yet reached migraine status — that hardly every happens now that I see an acupuncturist fairly regularly and have started to meditate (or my version of meditation anyway).

I’ve been losing weight and exercising. The weight loss has helped with the arthritis and the exercise is supposed to help with losing weight and with my fibromyalgia. Some days it’s all I can do to make my steps for the day. I swear some days there’s just not enough spoons in my world but I force myself to push on — one step at a time. Paul got me a mp3 player (Sansa) and that has really helped with the walking — I’ve been listening to NPR Ted Talks and audiobooks. Love the Ted Talk compilations and find them really entertaining as well as informative. For audiobooks — I’ve downloaded from Librivox so they’re mostly public domain. I’ve listened to “The Man Who Was Thursday”, “Emma”, and “The Letters of Jane Austen” (finishing this one tomorrow I believe). I started “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire” but it kept referring to maps and while I’m pretty good at geography I was having a hard time picturing the terrain in my head so put it aside for awhile. Then I started “The Federalist Papers” and so far have listened to 1 to 6. I end up playing each paper two or three or more times to be sure I really get it all. Honestly, if I didn’t know they were written so long ago, I’d swear they were about what’s happening in politics today. So, my long walk everyday takes up a chunk of time but it does stimulate the brain and keep me going. I will have to come up with some way to stay warm once it gets colder and after walking in a misting rain the other day, I’ve got to get better walking shoes so my feet don’t get so wet. (It’s wonderful to come in to a hot cup of tea and dry thick wool socks though and a 1/2 hour of sitting with the cat and reading.)

I’ve got so many plans and so little time. I need more days in a month and more hours in a day to get everything I need to do done. To top it all off, I’m all set to do NaNoWriMo again this year. Sometimes, I just can’t square the hours in a day with the stuff I want to do. So far I have a lot of scenes and partial chapters from previous years so I’m trying to get an outline done for this year so I know where I’m going or I’ll end up with more scenes, character studies, and interesting settings again. Not that they don’t occasionally come in handy.

I’ve also finally got around to unearthing my knitting projects. Several pairs of socks on the needles in various stages of done-ness. Got one pair all done except for weaving in the ends of the cut yarn. I did pick up the stitches for the first sleeve on the top-down sweater I started in August — really need to watch a movie or two and that would be all done, but squeezing out the time is an issue at the moment.

I’ve got six books read so far this month but I need to finish the reviews for the zines and then post the ones for Amazon Vine, and for here on the blog. I should be posting the review of the Manga Classic version of Pride and Prejudice soon.

What have you been doing?

Today my husband and I planned a date. We would go out to eat, and then to a movie (Guardians of the Galaxy). The new theater has very comfortable recliner-type seats and the trailers of the movie were outrageously funny. We even had to turn down a couple of invitations because of our plans to spend some quality time together. But like all plans, they seldom stand up to circumstances.

The circumstance this time was that … well, I have to start back a bit. We’ve been doing a lot of yard work this year to make up for the several years of neglect from various problems of health and time. Time is always a problem and we’ve (hubby and I) always had difficulty saying no when we really want to do something and so often find ourselves over committed and burning the candle at both ends to be sure to meet all our commitments. Anyway, we’ve been doing yard work — lots and lots of it. From clearing out the old garden area, refreshing the soil, planting a garden (doing well of this, by the way, this year) and reclaiming a walking path around the perimeter of the property that has become overgrown — so clearing brush.

The upshot is that I’ve had poison ivy treated three times so far this year. The doctor wants me to be very careful and stay with antihistamines and use steroid cream. That had been working, until hubby finally got a case of poison ivy that didn’t go away in a couple of days as it usually had. Instead it just hangs on, and as one area seems to heal, it breaks out in another. And, I’ve been picking it up from him — again treating an area and having it get better but popping up somewhere else. So far I’m holding my own in the fight but it’s taking its toll.

This morning he had some new patches and so did I. He finally gave in and went to the clinic — we hoped he could get in and see someone get the steroid pills and we’d go to the next showing. Well, best laid plans and all that. The place was crowded. By the time he was registered in, seen, got the Rx, filled it and we got out. It was mid-afternoon.

We still hadn’t had breakfast yet. I hadn’t had coffee yet. And, if you read this blog you know how dangerous that is. So we decided to eat first so hubby could take his first dose.

By the time we got to the restaurant, ordered, ate, and paid it was late afternoon and we needed to get the weekly shopping done and back home. The pills had Paul nearly asleep on his feet, so I had to drive, not to mention that he’d have fallen asleep in the film by then.

So, we decided to do the shopping. I’d drive. Tomorrow we’ll try for the movie — again. This time no real date plans, nothing special going on just two people going to the movies — and we’ll see how messed up things can get. (That’s rhetorical… really.)

Well, I say not much going on because things are only now beginning to show. I’ve been working a lot — A LOT — in the garden area. For the last several years health problems have kept us from doing much in the yard area of our home ground.

I’ll post pictures later but so far we’ve weeded and cleared out all the brush from the fruit orchard. A couple of the trees have died but most survived and seemed to have flowered and are starting to grow actual fruit. We’ve never really got any but that’s mostly because with the deer, the squirrels, and the birds, there’s usually not anything for us to pick if it lasts to ripen on the tree. But the worst of the mess is cleared out. We’ve got the areas around each tree cleared of all brush and crap and most now have a mulch mat around them. We’ve ordered some for the larger trees and we’ll get them down when they arrive.

The side yard, where our square foot gardens (2 of them) and the herb garden are located, is now cleared and the gardens have been planted with broccoli, pumpkin, radishes, carrots, nasturtiums, onion, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce (3 separate planters so we could stagger the crops), potato and tomatoes. The herb garden is mostly perennials. We’ve planted the annual herbs, and the ones that are invasive, in pots.

The quarter of the herb garden we’d planted with strawberries, we are now working on clearing out, since wild fake strawberries invaded and we never got any real strawberries. We figure we’ll clear it out and retry next year with a netting over the area. By then we should have a chance to see if we got all of the invaders. Meanwhile, we put strawberries in one of those deck planter things were you put 12 plants in one big pot. We’re getting lots of flowers and even some berries, but they seem to disappear during the night before they ripen fully. We’re suspecting the squirrels because they’re sneaky and sly but it could be the birds or even the raccoons we’ve chased off the deck (if you can call waddling away when we open the door being chased).

Today, we put the ladder up to the carport and climbed up to rake and sweep a couple of years of storm accumulation off. We still need to do our shed and the higher part of the house roof. I already did the lower section of the house roof, but still need to go over all the rain gutters.

We’ve been clearing some of the brush out of the woods around the house and thinning the trees a bit. We have five acres and hope to put in some walking paths (once we settle on a way to make them look natural, and with minimal upkeep). We also want to put some nice seating areas here and there for the peace and quiet and views of nature. — We’re really dreaming but it’s nice because our property backs onto other wooded acreages so it’s nice out here in the woods but with people just a few 100 yards away (in the right direction).

A side effect of all this working in the woods in making sure we do tick checks after every session of yard work. And, yes, we usually find them on us but, now that we’ve cleared the areas we’re mostly working in, not so much.

I’ve also been having a poison ivy adventure. I’m on my third course of prednisone and I’m really hoping that this is the last time. This time it is paired with a strong antihistamine and steroid cream. The blotches from the first and second poison ivy assaults seem to be clearing up as well as this last time. I see the doc tomorrow mid-course to check that maybe we’ve beaten it back. This last time, I wasn’t even out where the poison ivy was and it was popping up in areas that didn’t even get exposure — so systemic. I’m so done now with this that I won’t even touch something with shiny leave no matter how many leave they have or anything with three leave even if they aren’t shiny. I’m from Maine and I haven’t seen anything here that even actually looks like the poison ivy plants I’m used to from my childhood. I will learn to recognize it at some point hopefully before too much longer — we’ve got it down to between 4 different plants (all of which I’m now avoiding touching or even going near).

I figured it was about time I updated this blog regularly. I’m going to try for once a week for a while to get back into the groove of posting. I’ll add pictures to this entry once I can find the cord to download the photos from my camera to the laptop.

How are your gardens growing or do you even have one?