Dorie’s Different Reality

Now it can be told! The pups and I have been alone for the past eight days. Pyrate was off on The Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure, touring around Northwest Ohio. It’s a marvel of modern logistics, transporting all the tents and personal effects of the riders (4 semi truckloads), arranging food and entertainment for about 2800 people. It’s a good break for him, just riding his bike in  scenic places and getting away from it all.

Was it Khalil Gilbran who said, “let there be spaces in your togetherness”? That’s the way Pyrate and I are.  We do okay apart for short periods of time. It’s easier on the doggies (and our wallets) too. It costs a lot of money to board dogs anymore. Tes is getting older and he frets. Vera, having spent most of the first five months of her life caged up in a petshop, doesn’t ever want to have to go back into the pen We’ve boarded them a few times, and while the local doggie hotel does a good job,  we come home to traumatized unhappy dogs anyhow.

So I did most of the things I always do, just cooked less stuff for dinner.  One night I had a “garden” dinner- made a broccoli casserole with a surprisingly good side of turnips, “country style” boiled with ham! Worked on my crafts, caught up on my reading. I even mowed the lawn- front and back- on our sexy tractor.

I found an Internet channel that is old time radio 24/7 www.otrnow.com  Very nice. Just one program after the other! Radio is better than TV, because you can listen to programs, but still do other things!

Before I forget, let me recommend “The Sunday Philosophy Club” books by Alexander McCall Smith. They’re shelved with the mysteries, but not “whodunit” books. Isabel Dalhousie is a divorced Scottish woman, who edits an  academic philosophical review. Her parents left her a house and a steady income, so she’s free to think (perhaps too much) and seems to find herself dabbling in other people’s lives, correcting injustices, etc. She has a romance in her life too, so it’s a lot of fun.

It wasn’t a bad week at all to be sleeping alone. A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed  with “severe” sleep apnea.  The sleep specialist said I was stopping breathing every minute! (I have things to do and people to see, so I’d rather not die in my sleep thank you.)  So last week, I was getting used to my brand new Cpap machine! I have the claustrophobia model. It’s not so bad. There’s a breathing device that goes to my nose and blows air into me all night. Funny, if I open my mouth, air comes rushing out and I feel like a fire breathing dragon!

I can tell right off it’s helping. The biggest change is, over a few nights recently, I’ve slept all night and just woken up in the morning. That hasn’t happened to me for years! What finally got me to tell the doctor, is just feeling horrible in the morning and not being able to explain why. Best description is, have you ever found a pet goldfish near death gasping on the floor from jumping out of the tank? That’s what I felt like.  But it is an adjustment. I can hardly move my head because my nose piece can jar loose, and then it seems to spray air and steam iron water on me until I wake up. This week I’m meaning to get one of those body pillows; it sounds cozy.

And it’s an adjustment for one’s partner too- he didn’t marry a dragon lady, but he’s got one now!

70’s beauty Farrah passed after a long illness. Mr Michael Jackson died unexpectedly. Also, Sky Saxon (great name) of the flower band, The Seeds,  died this week. Here is the band on a dreadful ancient videotape doing their hit. It was the TV show, The Mothers-In-Law, circa 1967. (The dancing blonde is Deborah Walley- Gidget #2-she went to the great clambake in the sky a couple of years ago.) Sky was still making music- good for him!

We have a custom around here, now it its second generation. If you use a big word in conversation- 3 or 4 syllables or more, you need to look up on the off chance the duck is coming down. Groucho always said “if you say the secret woid, the duck will come down and you’ll win $100.

Try explaining that to a kid today! (For that matter, try explaining Groucho!)

Our neighbors had a DeSoto. It was pink and white, had black tweed upholstery, and a push button transmission!

Well I finished my second go round with Anna Karenina. , The first time I  1 was 19, in college and taking a class where I had to read a bunch of Russian novels. It’s interesting going back there almost 40 years later. Since there’s a love story, I remember that from the first time. Being older this time around, I think I appreciated the big themes- Love, yes, but also Society (rich vs. poor) and, gulp! Death! I won’t write about the plot; there are doctoral dissertations about Tolstoy (lots of ‘em)

The author, Count Leo, in 1901. He was a philosopher and mystical person. Interesting that he dressed like a Russian peasant, not European “man about town”

Now, I’m taking a break with lighter stuff. I really enjoy Monica Ferris. She writes light hearted mysteries about the goings on around a needlework shop called Crewel World. Can’t wait for the next one- it’s called Blackwork!

SWL ing I have a hobby, and didn’t even know the name! Means “shortwave listening” It’s not as popular as years ago, but I just like radio and it’s cool to listen to faraway places. Tweety, the new mini-computer, gets used as a radio too, because lots of radio stations “stream” on the Net now. In the US there’s a LOT of religious programming, a couple of big networks with lots of political/alternative programming and a lot of Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish so I don’t know what they’re talkin’ about! Found a cool program this a.m. called “Rock the Universe” They play old rock and pop. This morning I heard a bunch of favorites- Connie Francis, Fabian, Shelly Fabares. Shu Bop sha Bop!

Those Bad Dogs! This is yucky, be warned! Dogs like to roll in anything stinky. Yesterday the sun came out, so I was able to get out and prop up the tomatoes. They’re coming along, despite all the rain. Meanwhile one of the dogs found a dead bird, and they both had a roll on it! Vera bathes fairly often because she gets the itches, but doing Tesla is a major undertaking because he’s so big. But those vile canines were not coming into the house until they’d been bathed! Oh I was so mad! My aching back too!

A weed among the plants we find
That hurts the body and the mind,
Yet in the way of self-abuse,
We see it constantly in use.
Unpleasant to the smell and taste
Yet men for it their money waste;
The reason why I scare can tell
For none at first do like it well.
Some do it chew and some it smoke
Whilst others in their nose it poke….

-William B.Shockley, 19th Century

I don’t smoke; not for lack of trying. When I was growing up, all the cool people smoked. Everybody had ashtrays all over their houses. Like drinking coffee- just adult behavior.
Can’t ya just picture Steve McQueen standing there looking sexy with a butt hanging out of his mouth?

I’ve got a throat full of old, scarred up tonsils. Perhaps that affected my “full rich smoking experience”, and I never managed to get hooked.

I’ve seen what smoking does to people down the road.My mother died from emphysema. My brother-he was a Camel smoker-got throat cancer. After having radiation treatments, he had a heart attack and died at age 47.
All that coolness, not to mention lovely druginess, has a price.

Still, I take a “live and let live” approach to smoking. It’s your life and as long as you aren’t fogging up my air, fine. Don’t smoke around a kid either: knowing everything they do now, it’s child abuse!

There’s talk in the news that Congress is going to vote on putting tobacco under the legal control of the Food and Drug Administration. Part of its ongoing quest to get people to stop smoking.

Gee, it’s worked well so far…about as good as Prohibition, or narcotics laws. Wonder what it would mean- getting a prescription to buy a pack of smokes?

I think the most effective thing to get people to give up smoking is the cost! When I was a kid, my mom could send me to the corner store with a dollar and a note-and I came back with four packs of Raleighs! Pyrate could buy a carton from his ship’s store for $5. The other day at the gas station there was a sale- a carton of Marlboros for $57.50.

If I did smoke, I’d be growing my own!

But they best not even dream of regulating chocolate!

News that made me smile! There’s a patch of ground that’s a swampy mess, aka Maryland wetlands. Rather than go in with mowers and weedeaters, the State has hired a herd of goats to clean it up. The goats get to munch grass, and the cute little endangered bog turtle doesn’t get mowed over!

I need intervention badly!

I’m “Reformed” and that tradition is that we’re all saints, but yeah well, missionaries and doctors are certainly “saintlier” than wicked lil’ me.

This noble fellow is St. Isidore of Seville, the saint of the Internet. “Hey Izzy, need help here!”

I’m writing this entry on Tweety, the mini ‘puter. Tweety just got back from the factory. About 2 weeks ater we got Tweety, she stopped booting up. So back she went and came home all fixed last week. Nice….but earlier this week , I was farting around, um-working on the desktop computer when the power went off. I think it was a surge-know how it dims and come back on? Well, the desktop took a hit and hasn’t been the same since. Pyrate brought home a diagnostic disk and it looks like the surge fried part of the memory. The good news is, we have an elaborate array of cobbled together computers downstairs, so he’s going to swap my drive into one of those, saving all my bookmarks and the pictures, etc. I’m reading people’s blogs by memory instead of the feeder, and that’s a drag- if I missed you, that’s why.

WOW it’s Isidore day! This is Isidore of Madrid, called ” the Farmer” He was a pious farmhand. the other hands were complaining to the boss because, Isidore was always at Mass or taking time off work to pray.So the boss went to talk to him, found him kneeling in prayer and observed an angel doing the plowing. Cool! He’s got a town in CA named after him: San Isidro.

I hope he does tomatoes.1 We have had more than three inches of rain this week. Not flooding, but ya need a certain amount of dryness and sunshine for things to grow right! And grass is growing under our old tractor out back- it doesn’t run, but the ground is too wet to tow it out!

And the car broke down too! A critter got under the hood, and chewed up the wires on the starter. We decided to try the new mechanic down the road (psssst-don’t tell Don) They towed it in, fixed it and we even bought a new battery. Yesterday after I walked a mile to their shop and paid, the young man at the counter didn’t even thank me for my business! Either Biz is good, or very bad to imagine such rudeness! I’ll never stray from Don and his brother Doug, or their other brother, Whoozit, who does transmissions again! That’s right. Three brothers and they each have their own shop!

Still, I got wheels again. And if ya ever need to know the patron of the automobile and motorists, she’s Frances of Rome.

Santa Francesca Romana,so pretty!

Which was a big holiday for the Clampetts on the Beverly Hillbillies! I went bargin’ hunting again. My big score was a 6 qt Revere Ware Dutch Oven for $2.71! I used to have a 4 qt., but once I left it on the stove too long and turned the bottom into scary ash! After that it became the outdoor dog water bowl. Anyhow, nice shiny pot for whipping up grits and hog jowls!
Then I happened upon a cute creature. She’s a puppet. There’s a bit of velcro on her back, so I think she had kidlets at one time, but they didn’t come with her. So she’s an empty nester, like me. Her tail makes a loop so she can hang upside down too.
Must indicate the return of childhood or something-desire to bring soft cuddly things home with me.
We have been watching: Marley and Me- which was cute and I didn’t even cry too much. But anyone who loves dogs is going to sniffle a bit. In time for Memorial Day, we watched the 1944 film The Fighting Sullivans true story about five brothers who served on the same ship in WWII. We watched Shine- missed it when it came out- another true story about the pianist David Helfgott. Now we’re watching a travelogue hosted by Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid!) where he’s tooling around England in a Jag convertible showing the best of Britain off the beaten path.

Literary Society: Pyrate is finishing up Atlas Shrugged. So far I know that Ayn is pronounced like “wine”. Pyrate knows who John Galt is, so he’s ahead of me. I don’t read as fast as him because I do other things, so I’ll have to hold off on Ayn Rand until I can find a used copy someplace. (Pyrate has been reading a library copy) I’ve thought about getting the audio book, then I can knit along, making an “Atlas Shrug” (groan!) I’m reading my thrift store deluxe edition of Anna Karenina. I read it in college nearly 40 years ago. I would imagine back then I would have concentrated on the relationships; now I’m paying more attention to the back story. The Red Revolution is more than 30 years away from Anna’s time, but I can tell that the stuff is going to hit the fan.

My lovely gift: The Grand Duchess made me a gift. I wanted a shawl- triangular with enough to it so that I could drape it over me and tie in front. And a requested a beautiful dolphin gray color. She had a lot of “help” from the kitties, who wanted to tear it up because of its softness, but at last it is finished. She likes to knit lace and I like to knit socks, so we will no doubt continue to exchange things in the future.

A few days ago I took a picture of the poppy pods shooting up in the garden. They’ve decided to give a show, so I snapped another picture of them. We didn’t have these in California- I think they like cold winters…
Then since we were outside I took pictures of the doggies. You’ll notice they didn’t pose nicely together.
Here’s Tesla checking out the perennial bed for guests like rabbits:

And Vera was strolling down the garden row and stopped to get her picture taken