We’re back! Bigger and better than ever… Computer woes are (hopefully) behind us. The new iMac is a joy and the transfer of data was a breeze. When you’ve matured along with the computer industry you can REALLY appreciate advancement. Twenty years ago it was a nightmare to transfer data from an old computer to a new one. This time the delays were the operator’s fault, not the operating system. And there is the pesky element of serial numbers and product keys. Software programs are unrelenting about wanting that kind of stuff. Having recently moved it was a bit time consuming tracking down some really old, original boxes and discs. Programs are not happy with update product numbers. They are insistent on the original product number. To all my friends and followers I can highly recommend 1Password. Not only does it track all those online passwords but it also has a folder specifically for software data. It made this process much easier.
So, back to an image a day. Frequent readers will recall this was supposed to be the iconic photography project – 365. 365 images in 365 days. I’ve already cheated since I don’t make it a picture I took THAT day. Sometimes it works out that way but mostly I viewed this as a chance to share some of my pictures, expound a bit on life in a new community or other matters, and keep in touch with friends. I’m sure there are some very disciplined photographers who have done the true 365. My hat is off to them but now it is back to my version.
This tall fellow, by the way, with his small traveler on the back of his neck, is a giraffe from the Paraa Preserve in Uganda, Africa. I was on a medical mission and we had a day of R&R at the Preserve. A special time … ☙
I hate briars, brambles…thorny vines, whatever you care to call them, I hate them. This morning I spent some time working on the south 40. That’s the south 40 feet of my property not the south 40 acres. We have a bit over an acre here and there is a small peninsula of land at the south end that narrows down towards Potts Branch Road. It sits behind our tool shed and is a pleasant little spit of land. It will be even more pleasant after I get rid of the greenbrier. I attacked it heavily this a.m. because I just hate briars. I think it must stem (pardon the pun) from some bad experiences in childhood. I was always running around and prowling in the woods behind our house and I remember getting tangled up rather badly on a couple of occasions. Being a child there was that tendency to panic and try to get away from bad things quickly. Such tendencies have bad results in briar patches. I’m more cautious now, of course.
The strategy this a.m. was weaponry coupled with chemical warfare. I cut and pulled free the vines, traced them back to their origin, cut them at the root and applied a surgical squirt of weed killer. I cleared a good amount of vine, heaping it in a clearing with plans to move it to a burn pile later. There is still more to go but I feel I have made some young trees much happier. They had been pulled down by the accumulating vine and were bent nearly to the ground under the weight. Some vines climbed high into mature trees and when I was able to pull some down I was surprised to see berries. And then the guilt hit. Perhaps the vine has a purpose? My ego initially rejected such an idea but my pace slowed and I decided I would learn more before proceeding. I have cleared the area I foresee as the “path” so the brambles along the fence can be pruned more judiciously, I reasoned.
Returning to the house I went online and learned that greenbrier do indeed serve a purpose. The berries are loved by birds. They only form after the vine reaches the high trees so a lot of time and effort is spent growing that vine. I’m chagrined and a little chastened but I’m unchanged … I hate briars. I’ll find a way for all of us to live together. But the glory days are over for much of the greenbrier on the south 40. The tangled mass of intertwined brambles is gone. Sorry … well, not really. The birds are getting plenty to eat at my feeders and maybe they’ll miss the succulent greenbrier berry but I really won’t.☙
I’ve been “off the grid” for a couple of days. For those who don’t know, I’ve been moving from Florida to North Carolina. On Friday the movers finally arrived with my things. I’m restoring/renovating a 25-year old, double-wide mobile home that has been abandoned for two years. It has been a chore. I knew that the more I did before the movers arrived the happier I would be and I was right.
So, what does any of this have to do with the image I have chosen for this post? Well, my sister is fond of saying that “all beginnings are hard.” And it’s true. I am embarking on a new beginning. So as I thought of what image to post tonight I suddenly flashed on this one. That’s me, in the foreground, arriving back from my first day at school. It is 1953 in Norton, Massachusetts. My sister is behind me. As the last of four children I can tell you that pictures of me are available but are no where near the quantity of the first three. Still, my mother was a very intelligent and cognitive woman. She captured moments of my life that are very dear and telling to me. This is an example. My first day of school and I am brimming over with confidence and things to tell her. It is written all over me. Beginnings ARE hard but there is something in them that I have always relished. And that is how I am feeling now. Relishing this new moment, this new beginning. I am 65 years old and I still know that little girl in the picture above. Remember, the only thing that can keep on growing is spirit. ☙
This time of year — the last two weeks of May through the first of June — is very meaningful for me. It’s a cluster time of death. My father and a brother died on May 31 (19 years apart), my niece’s mother died on May 20, and my husband died on June 2. During my work as a hospice nurse I learned that this phenomena of “clustered deaths” is not unusual.
So I’m already primed to be thinking about the topic of ultimate termination and my thoughts are getting ample amplification from a wonderful show currently on the Showtime network, “The Big C – Hereafter.” It stars the superb Laura Linney, an actress I have watched mature from a country waif in the 1993 PBS series “Armistead Maupin’s Tales from the City” through the intelligent and worldly Abigail Adams on HBO’s “John Adams” miniseries which aired in 2008.
In “The Big C” we have watched Linney’s character, Cathy Jamison, cope with the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma. Cathy has gone through the classic five stages — anger, denial, depression, bargaining, and acceptance — in some rather unclassical ways, like buying her 14-year old son a classy, bright-red Mustang convertible for his 18th birthday. She places the car in a storage locker and then keeps adding more and more presents, all tenderly wrapped with cards. Soon the car can barely be seen under the barrage of gifts for future birthdays, holidays and major life events.
In this final mini-season, Cathy is definitely into acceptance and with good reason. Her melanoma has become more aggressive and so has the chemo. The combination are ravaging her. Linney has no qualms about showing the effects of terminal illness. Her appearence is startlingly different from the end of season three. According to an interview on NPR, she purposefully lost weight and cut her hair. Makeup helps complete the look as do her mannerisms. At one point the character develops a paralysis in her right leg. Linney’s response to this is both heart-wrenching and hilarious.
The actress has clearly thought about her role carefully. “It’s human nature to — thank God — not have [death] be the first thing you think about every single second,” she says, ” but there is a reality to it. And as I’ve been aging, and parents are dying and I’ve unfortunately lost friends who were way too young to go — you realize what a privilege it is to age. And that’s not a message we hear a lot in the United States.”
Thanks to Linney and the writers at “The Big C” it IS a message being conveyed in this brief four-episode season. The last episode is Monday night and I know that I already want more. I’ll miss Cathy’s quirkiness and her lovable extended family. But that’s how death is. All too soon it takes what we love. Thankfully Laura Linney will go on, hopefully long after Cathy Jamison has left us. It will be a privilege to watch her continued growth. ☙
Everyday I visit the Free Kibble website (www.freekibble.com) where they have an amusing trivia question about cats and dogs. Play the game and 10 pieces of Kibble are donated to rescue animals. You don’t even have to get the right answer and 10 Kibble bits are donated. What have you got to lose?
My cat – Rainbow.
In today’s FreekibbleKat question I learned that for a year, a cat named Orlando chose stocks by throwing a toy at stock choices… and made more profit than the pros! Perhaps that explains the recent upturn in the market. The pros have stepped aside for the paws.
Now, all I have to do is teach Rainbow, my cat, how to throw her toys… or I could keep buying the lottery tickets.
Less than a week ago I used this blog to announce my intention to retire.
Four days later I was laid off.
My position was eliminated during a “strategic realignment” of the organization. I was not alone. Three other colleagues received the same message as me. And there had been earlier realignments in the organization. It was a matter of time before they got to our department. I guess I’ll never know if I was chosen because I had announced my retirement or because my number came up. Either way, c’est la vie. (That’s a French way of saying “it is what it is.”)
The next day, as fate would have it, was my birthday — my 65th birthday. When I was a child that was the expected retirement age, 65. But things have changed along the way. My full Social Security payment will not kick in until I’m 66 but I had made up my mind I wouldn’t wait another year. I made application for Social Security on-line and in a few days received a call from a nice agent who informed me that I qualified to receive my late husband’s benefits — which are substantially higher — even though we were common law for many years. I’ve sent her the proof that Bob and I presented ourselves as husband and wife. She made it sound all very simple. Let’s hope.
On my birthday I awoke and immediately thought of the day before when I had been laid off. As I lay there thinking of the week’s events I couldn’t help but think of my good fortune. Certainly not everyone who has been laid off has that thought. But throughout the week I had been thinking how I would like to be retired by the end of October. Answered prayers! Not the way I would have crafted it but it is, nevertheless, an answered prayer.
I rolled out of bed thinking “Well, Alice, it is the first day of the rest of your life.” I smiled broadly and headed off to Alafia River State Park where I photographed mushrooms with the help of my sister. Here’s a sampling of the day’s work.
This little guy was no more than 1/2 inch in height. He was beginning his new life … and so was I. ❧
Just a quick post to tell everyone that Alice will soon join the ranks of the notorious 47% when she begins collecting Social Security retirement next month. I’ve given notice at Tidewell Hospice that I would like to be out of there no later than Dec. 28. If it can be arranged I hope it will be sooner. I’ve worked at Tidewell for seven years and have seen, first hand, that life is shorter than we can imagine. There are too many projects that I have delayed because of my job. The good Lord willing I will have time to finish those projects and find a few more. In the words of songster Donavon Frankenreiter, “I’m looking for life, love, and laughter/Everything in between/And what happens after.”
Sundays are becoming one of my favorite days of the week. First I don’t have to be at work and secondly, that seems to be the day Amazon.com sends out its book orders. For the past three Sundays I have opened my email to find an Amazon.com Advantage order waiting. I’m hardly keeping pace with the best-selling Fifty Shades of Gray but from what I’ve heard about that book I can tell you that I move in different circles.
Selling a book isn’t easy and having my new book on Amazon.com seems like a huge accomplishment but I can see I’ll have to do more if I want to continue seeing those Sunday morning emails. Retail-wise the stores are holding tight at the moment. I’d hoped to place my book at the Myakka Park Outpost gift shop but their ordering is on hold until October. This makes perfect sense. Traffic in the Park is decidedly down from seasonal crowds. So, I’ll bide my time and hope to “gin up” the Amazon purchases where I can.
How about you? Wouldn’t you like a copy of this book? Amazon is waiting. 🙂
Robert C. Randall in November 1976 with his first supplies of legal marijuana from the federal government. He would receive federal marijuana for more than 25 years to treat his glaucoma.
Eleven years ago today my husband died. Robert C. Randall was 53 years-old.
He was a man of some notoriety. Often described as “the father of medical marijuana,” Robert accomplished a great deal in his 53 years. In 1976 he became the first American since 1937 to receive marijuana under a doctor’s prescription and was the first to have “Uncle Sam” as his pharmacy. Until Robert’s victory the only access to federal supplies of marijuana was through research programs and most of those programs were searching for the “harm” that marijuana would theoretically inflict upon the “drug abusers” of the 1970s.
But Robert proved — conclusively — that marijuana was THE drug that could help stave off the blindness which his glaucoma was certain to cause. He used it in conjunction with other glaucoma medications and that is important to note. He didn’t choose to use marijuana (although he didn’t mind using it). It was only through the addition of marijuana to his regular medication regimen that his ocular pressures were lowered enough to prevent damage. Take away any of the three to four medications that he used, including marijuana, and his ocular pressures went out of control.
All of this is well documented in books, films and on the internet. Before starting this essay I did a Bing search this morning and was pleased to find even more entries than I had on previous occasions including a new, biographical entry on Wikipedia. Three years before his death we authored a book, Marijuana Rx: The Patients’ Fight for Medicinal Pot which is a complete record of our twenty-plus years in the medical marijuana movement. His legacy seems assured and rightly so.
And the medical marijuana movement goes on without him. There were many soldiers willing to seize the banner as it fell and lead the charge. The problem, it seems to me, is most are unsure of the direction the charge is supposed to go. As Robert wrote, “Once a morality play of intimate dimensions, medical marijuana has become a didactic drama driven by drug war motifs.” He wrote those words in 1998 and they have become the reality of today’s world. The “drama” of medical marijuana has gone on for so long, in so many different directions, that the result is a confused public that hears repeatedly about another “medical marijuana first” but has no idea what the fight is about. “Medical marijuana?” they say, “That’s legal, right?”
Marijuana dispensaries are popping up in most states. Their legality is clearly questionable since marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Enforcement of this federal law is erratic and obviously prejudicial, dependent it seems of the direction of the political winds. Many patients are actually receiving regular supplies of decent marijuana but the hard arm of the law could swoop down at any time and disrupt their health and wellbeing. And there is the matter of “necessity.” Almost two decades ago an activist proclaimed “all marijuana use is medical” and the early dispensaries in California were notoriously lax in their definitions of “qualified” patients. This has further diluted the argument making it harder for those with legitimate needs to get the support, both medical and pharmaceutical, that they need.
Don’t get me wrong. There are many good people out there still working for rationality and compassion for those who medically need marijuana. It is very touching to me that several dispensary operators have sought my permission to name their facilities after Robert, most recently in Lansing, Michigan. These dispensaries are being operated in a remarkably responsible fashion and offer an oasis in a desert of arid federal policy that has not moved one iota in twenty years (since Bush 41 shut down the Compassionate IND program) let alone the past 35 years since Robert received his federal supplies.
There is still a medical marijuana movement but the medical marijuana issue, it seems to me, died with Robert. He was able to focus the blame where it rightly belongs — at the federal government which has maliciously thwarted every reasonable attempt to rationally resolve a true public health problem. Until such time as the immoral acts of the federal government are once again in the public spotlight it will be a difficult time for those seriously ill individuals who truly need marijuana medically.
It’s Day 2 with my new WordPress account and, as the saying goes, there is a learning curve. I’ve been struggling with efforts to load WordPress on to my Mac in order to work offline with developing pages, posting pictures, etc. But the fact of the matter is that I don’t need to do that. Obviously I can write and post from within WordPress online. So, the goal is to follow some advice that I learned a long time ago while working on a children’s play, “Don’t try hard, try easy.”
It’s good advice. Humans very often try too hard when easy will do just as well. Obsessive to a fault we simply lose sight of the objective and become very entangled with details. So, stepping back for a moment, I asked myself “What is the objective?” Am I trying to learn Apache and MySql? Do I need to revisit the world of HTML and FTP? I’ve been there before and it is all very fascinating. But what is my objective now?
The answer is to learn a bit about WordPress and see where it will take me. For years I have posted on my iWeb account. After struggling in the early days of web site construction (late 1980s and early 1990s) I was delighted as programs emerged that simplified the process of posting a page on the Web. Microsoft’s Publisher was a huge advance at the time and allowed me to construct a relatively complex website for the non-profit organization that my husband and I founded in the early 1980s — Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics (ACT). More on that story another time.
After my husband’s death in 2001, I switched to the Mac and the wonderful world of iLife and its various components. iWeb was (and is) a wonderfully easy web page development program. But over time I became disillusioned with its limitations, especially with respect to photographic pages. I wanted something that I could post to easily and quickly. I wanted something that will allow me to combine my two loves — writing and photography. I’ve heard that WordPress might be the place.
Time will tell. For the next few days (and maybe weeks) my plan is to “play” with this site. Get some folks to follow the postings and let me know what they think.
We’re back! Bigger and better than ever… Computer woes are (hopefully) behind us. The new iMac is a joy and the transfer of data was a breeze. When you’ve matured along with the computer industry you can REALLY appreciate advancement. Twenty years ago it was a nightmare to transfer data from an old computer to a new one. This time the delays were the operator’s fault, not the operating system. And there is the pesky element of serial numbers and product keys. Software programs are unrelenting about wanting that kind of stuff. Having recently moved it was a bit time consuming tracking down some really old, original boxes and discs. Programs are not happy with update product numbers. They are insistent on the original product number. To all my friends and followers I can highly recommend 1Password. Not only does it track all those online passwords but it also has a folder specifically for software data. It made this process much easier.
Alice's WanderLand 