Nature Friday

 

Errol and I used to hike in these hills all the time with our dogs when we first moved here. At that time, there were black bears and bob cats here, enough of them for me to have seen them when they came close to our house, but we never ran into them on a hike. There were also mountain lions, but I believe few people ever saw one. 

One bear loved to come in the night and scratch it's back on the utility pole right outside our house, which over time got pretty messed up. I would find fur stuck in the pole, but we never saw the bear.

These days, I don't even see coyotes and all the rest of the animals have been gone for years. The higher and wilder mountains are not far away and I imagine they moved there as more people moved in here and the weather changed to become so much dryer. 

The coyotes were the last to move on, but I see them when my Junipers drop their nuts ,which look like berries, and apprently taste very good if you are a coyote. I believe gin is made from them, but  I haven't seen a tipsy coyote yet. 

Sunday Morning Reflections

Thank God...they cannot cut down the clouds.

Henry David Thoreau

Sent by Jane from the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

Thank you.

As I read Thoreau's words, I wondered if perhaps they had been cutting down trees in the vicinity of Walden Pond. I don't know how much of the land around there was his.

Nature Friday

The only trees on my land, that I know of,  are Junipers and you see them in the foreground here. 

The landscape is dry, the ground is sand and small rocks with dry weeds in the winter. 

This is how I fell in love with the high desert:

The day we moved up here, we took the cat with us and left our four dogs in our Los Angeles house, planning to drive down and bring them up the next day, after we returned the moving van. 

In the middle of the night, I couldn't stand thinking about how worried they must be, big boxes being moved out of their home all day long, but all four of them left behind.

So I got up and drove about 100 miles to Los Angeles, spent a couple of hours with the dogs, then drove back. (Oh, the things you could do when you were only 66 years old!)

At one point, the road went uphill and when I reached the top of the hill, the Mojave desert stretched out in front of me.

And just at that moment, the sun rose and spread a pink and gold light over the dry desert earth.

It was a magnificent moment, one of the most memorable nature moments of my life. 

I fell in love with the high desert country that morning and that has never changed. 

NB

For those of you, not familiar with the high deserts, they are not all sand, many trees and bushes grow there, including:

Yucca trees, California junipers, Joshua trees, creosote and brittle bush. 

Pretty Things

Pretty things make me happy and I like to have them around, even if they are just pretty versions of every-day stuff like the file folders in the picture above.

Joyce had a yard sale and I got this small tea pot that belonged to her grandmother. 

When I use old things, like those that belonged to Joyce's or my grandmother, I feel I'm honoring them in some way.

I placed the tea pot on this cookie platter, a wedding gift from my late friend Rosemary. I think of her and the good times we had together, I think of how she helped me advance in my career, and perhaps most of all I think of the multitudes of handbags she used to send me. My eyes fill with tears, but then I smile...

 

I got these pretty colored pens from Amazon and I enjoy making my notes, my reminders, and so on with them.

It doesn't take much to make life a little more cheerful.

Sunday Morning Reflections

The last leaf on the tree branch  

tells its story of tenacity

BP Incident Understood, Perhaps

I did some research to learn about my sudden drop in blood pressure, worried it may happen again. This is the most likely reason, based on my knowledge of myself and what I need to do to stay well.

I asked Google: Can dehydration cause BP to drop.

And Google answered:

• Yes, dehydration can cause your blood pressure to drop:

• Impaired blood vessel function
• Dehydration can make it harder for blood vessels to constrict and dilate, which can also lower blood pressure.

I know that I felt better almost immediately once I was hydrated in the ER.

I also know the importance of hydration for me with my Type 1 diabetes and, when I'm home, I drink tons of water everyday. 

Wednesday was the third day I had a medical appointment in town and, because of this, I didn't drink water as I should have done during those three days. 

A big glass of water would probably have been enough to make me and my BP feel better.  

I'm really embarassed about all the fuss, ambulance trip, and the ER visit that ensued. 

But I won't dwell on it, things happen...

Me Again

 

Here I am again with another update due to what happened Wednesday. 

In the morning, I felt fine and set out to a meeting with a nurse practitioner at my doctor's office. She was going to check my cognisant health, you know the one where you remember three words and know how to draw an oldfasioned clock. 

That all was a piece of cake for me. But then:

Then she asked me to get up from my chair, which I did. I still had my blood pressure cuff on, and when I got up, my BP went down by 20 points and I felt very weak. So I sat down again. 

The NP became concerned, she said I was very pale and that was a large and very sudden change in my BP. 

I continued to sit and started to feel very dizzy and a bit worried and scared, as I had no idea of what was going on. I had never experienced anything like it. And it was very sudden. 

As I sat there for awhile, I began to worry about driving my car home and decided I needed to be checked out in the ER. 

So they called an ambulance. The first time in an ambulance for me. One of the two guys that came for me, drove the ambulance while the other, a super nice young man, took care of me.

He gave me this fluffy, cuddly toy dog, named Siren. Just the perfect thing to calm me down. 

Then we talked. He told me he was a Russian immigrant and came to the U.S. when he was seven. I told him about my background, also being an immigrant. And of course about my experience on the Russian ship, the Mikhail Kalinin, that I sailed on about three times back and forth -- Stockholm to London, when I was young. 

We both agreed that the problem with Russia is not with the people, but their leaders.

The nice young man's name was Vladimir, so I asked, do they call you Vlad? He said yes. 

I've now decided to name my new toy dog Vlad. 

My time in the ER was long and no fun at all. I soon figured out that all the tests they did on me came back as normal. Soon I was getting no attention at all, as new and far more seriously I'll people arrived. 

I never saw a doctor. So around 9:00 p.m., I was very hungry and very tired and decided I wanted to leave. I called Joyce, who had agreed to come and pick me up, and told the nurse that I was leaving. So then the doctor came by and said leaving was fine, my tests were normal and that I should see my personal doctor for a follow up. 

I have an appointment with my doctor on Tuesday next week to discuss the CT scan I had.  

Today, Thursday, I'm resting at home, feeling better, but still a bit weird, not exactly dizzy, but not exactly normal either.

Joyce and her sister, Alice, went grocery shopping and picked up some things for me. Then Joyce drove my car home from where I left it yesterday outside the doctor's office.

I'm so grateful for them, the best neighbors ever, and such very good and loving friends. 

An Update

 

I've calmed down a bit about moving.  Selling my house and finding a place in town and then actually moving will require both time and energy. 

And then there's Faith. The only time she's been on a leash is when we go to the vet. I could train her, but what happens when we run into other dogs? She's not socialized to be around dogs and she's overly protective of me. If she gets aggravated, I couldn't hold her. 

For now, I want to find a good realtor so I can get my questions answered. I'm sure talking to a professional will provide me with information that I need, but never thought of. 

The other thing I must do is continue to downsize. I love doing it, so it shouldn't be a problem. 

 It took me awhile to get over the bronchitis, but not fast enough for the doctor, so he ordered a CT scan. I'm feeling fine now, but since the scan had been scheduled, I went yesterday. 

In the waiting room, I met a woman who believed in astrology and was also from Europe. Her birthday date was a day before mine, but she was many years younger. I told her that I'm not into astrology, but had to admit that being born on the cusp of Gemini/Cancer fits perfectly with my personality. 

When I was done with the CT scan, a nice guy rolled me out in the wheel chair. Many cars of many colors were in the parking lot, but not that many blue ones. So we found mine right away. 

See how my Rollator is the same color as my car. 

I 

I haven't used my Rollator very much outside, but when I do, it really helps me because I can sit and rest and catch my breath. I only need a minute and I'm fine again. 

I also use it in my kitchen when I prep for a meal. It's tall enough so that I can easily reach my kitchen counters. 

 

Lately though, I've noticed that I'm standing more and more, which of course means that I'm feeling so much better. 

Sunday Morning Reflections

A moment.

 

Fires

For the past two days I've wanted to write a post about how I feel as I watch Los Angeles burn on my TV. I lived in Los Angeles for over 30 years and, as the saying goes, I LOVE LA, I really do. 

But I've been numb, such a strange feeling. I no longer live there, it's been 20 years, I think my boss and other high earners at UCLA lived in Pacific Palisades, but I don't know anyone there anymore. 

I'm sure the fires will not reach the house in Los Angeles where we lived, but I'm less sure about the house in Pasadena, which was in the north end of the city, a few blocks from Altadena, where the Eaton fire is now raging. This was the first and only house I bought alone, with my own money and I still remember how proud I was of that accomplishment.

But a house is still a house. The people in the fire areas also lost their communities, their schools, stores, Starbucks, libraries, doctors' offices, and so much more. When disaster strikes, community is perhaps more important than anything else and the people in that part of Los Angeles lost both. My heart goes out to them.

I will write another post about how this has reinforced my desire to move from here. 

Preferably to a place where it rains, but I'm sure I'm to old to move  that far away. So my plan is that we will move to our town. In advance of such a move, I want to downsize to the bones of my stuff. 

I am so tired of stuff!

Mornings With Faith ~ A Mini Hike

 

Faith: Welcome to my world, where I walk and run in tall, dry grasses among these bushes called rabbit brush bushes. 

The larger, greener bushes you see are Junipers. They are actually trees and they have blue berries, that are not berries, but cones.

How do you like that? It's enough to confuse a dog, even a very smart dog like me. Bushes that are trees, berries that are cones. You got it? Good.

This may look like I'm far from home, but I'm not. Mommy just can't manage long hikes anymore. 

So for me to get all the exercise I need I run around and back and forth, sniffing to find out who visited us during the night. The wild critters are afraid of me, so they come out at night while I'm asleep. In Mommy's bed. 

Mommy is calling me now, so I turn around a run back to her. I'm a very obedient dog, am I. Mommy loves me for it and that's all that matters to me. Best thing in the world is making my Mommy happy!

 

Sunday Morning Reflections

 

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

Happy New Year!

We wish you a 

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Inger and Faith