The Bee’s Knees 🐝

In the past few days, I was working feverishly on a blog post in which I explained in excruciating detail, my personal medical epiphany to include a full page list of symptoms, links to medical articles, and photos of knees, for God’s sake.

And then I stopped. What was happening reminded me of the intense looking-inwardness episode I experienced some years back, when I finally, and quite accidentally, located my paternal relatives. It was if I had cracked some other-worldly code, and it was all about me - my feelings, my anger at the secrets, my joy over learning the truth at last.  Okay, a big deal for me, but not something I needed to bore you with. For one thing, finding family is not that unusual today, and we all have our stories. Also, a lot of stuff is just too personal to share, and should remain en famille.

This time, I thought long and hard before going off into That Place where it is All About Me and I enthusiastically but wrongly assume you out there on the net are waiting breathlessly for my next word. What I discovered about my medical condition was earth-shattering - for me - even though it doesn’t change my course of treatment one whit. I realize that for everyone else it is just a lot of hooey. Most people, especially around my age, are facing multiple health issues and other family crises, and have neither the time nor interest to go delving into mine. Too many of those I care about are dealing with illness far worse than I have ever known. So I am going to shut up about myself for now and move onto more important things.

But I am going to indulge myself one little bit and share this old photo. Just because it is unbearably adorable, circa 1930-style:

Down here in sunny Florida we are still counting ballots. Shades of the 2000 election (I recently saw a meme that stated “all the ballots in Florida have finally been counted . . . Al Gore was declared President.”). There are mandatory recounts in place now, and soon-to-be ex-Governor Voldemort is melting down daily. This is theatre, folks - whatever happens, the other side is going to cry foul, so sit back and enjoy it.  The next big election is in 2020, and don’t forget to vote.

Let me just leave you with this thought - if GWB, with the assistance of the Supreme Court and his brother, then-Florida Governor JEB! had somehow not managed to steal the election, what would have been the difference? Most likely, we would not be in the 17th year of a war, started in bad faith and at least in part responsible for the destabilization of the entire Middle East. Maybe California would not be burning so fiercely, nor shoreline waters rising so precipitously.

Who knows? I’m not a prophet, just a blogger with an attitude problem.

A gentle blue wave lapped against a small red-brick wall . . .

Midterm elections are finally, FINALLY over. How the results impact the 2020 election is a work in progress, but as a Purple State voter with No Party affiliation, I wasn’t surprised at the endgame. This time, no one gets to gloat. At least here in Florida, there were just razor-thin differences between the candidates despite intense campaigning, a cautionary tale for both sides.

From the Winners and Losers Department:

Winner: Keeping in mind that how I voted is between me and the ballot box, I am very pleased that Laura Shaffer handily won the election for Circuit Court Judge for Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit.  

Big Winner: Chris Wallace of Fox News, for neatly biting off Laura Ingraham’s head and spitting it out onto Sixth Avenue.

Big Loser:  Donald Trump. Assuming the House follows through on the promise of more investigations, the next two years of his presidency are going to suck. And yes, I know Robert Mueller’s self-imposed communications blackout is coming to an end.

Biggest Loser: Nancy Pelosi. I’ll leave the reasons as an exercise to the student.

Biggest Winner: The American Democracy.  This time, you got out and voted in record numbers. Keep up the good work.

Sorta Smiling While Trying to Unskew My Chi

As authorized by the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, yesterday I headed to the Kissimmee Civic Center and voted.  It was the only thing I could do to try to overcome the feeling of helplessness as I continue to watch my country fracture, and then sink.  Voting is an imperfect solution to an overwhelming problem, but it should never be overlooked or ignored. I am enough of a cynic to believe that “honest politician” is an oxymoron, but still I persist in the voting ritual. It is, after all, the American way.

I haven’t been feeling great lately, as my fibromyalgia continues to bubble.  It’s been an even burn, meaning there haven’t been any acute localized sharp pains, but instead a chronic medium-level pain everywhere. Tai chi has been at least as helpful as Meloxicam, and much kinder to my digestive system, although my hyper mobile knees have been fighting back lately. No matter how carefully I position my lower spine so that I can gently bend my knees, that nasty old Ehlers-Danlos gene insists on snapping them backwards. That, my friends, is bad tai chi. When I can’t get rid of the negative chi that inhabits my physical body, I have headaches, mini-panic attacks, nightmares, breathing problems, and some really stellar muscle pain. Then I have to rely on certain prescription medications, which I am convinced are playing havoc with my endocrine system, instead of relaxing to Chinese music while Playing The Lute, or White Crane Spreads Its Wings.

We have our annual before-tax-season-cruise coming up in just a few weeks. That’s the good news.  The bad news is that the Carnival Sunshine had a bit of a balance problem last week caused by a stabilizer malfunction and precipitously tilted over at an angle not normally reserved for 100,000 gross ton ocean-going vessels. Now I’ve had my share of cruises through near-hurricane conditions, including one terrifying trip trying to steer clear of Super Storm Sandy, and I usually wear Sea-Bands to effectively deal with motion sickness, but I have never seen dinner settings fly off the tables, nor watched most of  the water slosh out of the pool. I certainly have never thought we were having a Titanic-like experience, but that is exactly what occurred to a number of passengers. Fortunately the tip over was short-lived, but there was some minor injury and major cleanup. Apparently everything was back to normal within a few hours. Boy, I wish my personal stabilizer problems could be cleared up by the ever-efficient crew of the Carnival Sunshine.

Romeo and I are not looking forward to Monday’s vet appointment, because as we both know, there will be pain. He’s been unhappy since Friday, when I brought him in to Hunters Creek Animal Hospital to have his teeth and tummy checked, and the subsequent home administration of antibiotics, probiotics, and steroid medication.  He even peed on the bed, which he never does, to register his protest.

Very satisfactory side dish

Field of Greens

Other than cleaning up after our nominally pad-trained bunch, things here are pretty normal. We’ve managed to establish a holding position against The Great Ant Invasion of 2018, the occasional pesky palmetto bug, and a small rodent visitor with very sharp teeth, who fortunately limited his forays into a single cabinet under the kitchen sink, where we keep two large containers of dry pet food. No, he hasn’t managed to break into them but it isn’t for want of trying.  And on that note, I’m heading out to check on my garden. Yesterday I harvested a variety of greens - mustard, collards, kale, and one other I can’t remember - and cooked them with good stuff for a very satisfactory side dish. Today, maybe a baby romaine salad.

Always nice to catch up with you all. Be well, and VOTE 🗳

By the way, those are teen tiny micro mini GREEN BEANS!