Tag: Houndstooth

Outage plus an “r” is outrage

I’m doing this post on Thursday and dating it Wednesday, because Wednesday, our cable was out and we couldn’t get a tech here until today.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Since the cable is down, I’m spending the day writing and listening to music. Fortunately, I can still use my phone, although when I write, I’m constantly googling information, and that’s far more laborious on the phone than on the laptop I use for writing. Lynne even volunteered to do some research for me to confirm what I believed to be accurate but couldn’t check for myself. It’s funny how I’ll do hours of reading and research so one statement made by a character will be factual and not some shit I made up, even though I’m writing fiction.

Which reminds me…

Because the phone still connects me to the world, I enjoyed messaging with Lisa (the Night Nurse!) today. We talked about fun things like dogs and vacation trips, but we also talked about COVID, and not specific to COVID, but in general, people’s belief on many medical topics that they know more than healthcare professionals on things related to health.

Not all healthcare professionals agree on everything, and if you want to find a physician, nurse, or whatever, who agrees with your relatives on Facebook and all their conspiracy theories about virology and vaccinations, of course you can find them. You can find anything on the Internet or hear anything from opinionated talk shows and biased commentators; that doesn’t mean it’s true.

It matters to me in writing and in living what sources I use for information. For example, when it comes to gardening or things botanical, I talk to Lynne and James. That doesn’t mean I think they know everything about every plant in all places of the world, but they almost always know what I need to know.

With cars, I talk to Jim and Denece for the same reason. Both of them know their stuff when it comes to the things I want to know about cars.

When it comes to medicine, I listen to people in my life whose expertise comes from their education and experience, but who are also reasonable in other areas of life. They are not alarmists. Not prone to go off on tangents with no basis in facts or science. Nurses like Debby, Lisa, and David P, among others. Doctors like the ones I trust enough to pay to take care of me, and they’ve been cautious, proactive, informative, and calm about my healthcare for many years.

I’ve known healthcare workers and scientists in several fields, including immunology, virology, and contagious disease, and I trust them. Additionally, some of the people I know who use and practice non-traditional medicine are the first to say medical crises require traditional medical care. I always think back to this paraphrase from one of my teachers who practiced alternative medicine: If you think you broke your leg, don’t reach for essential oils or try to chant the pain away. Go to the emergency room for an X-ray, diagnosis, and cast.

I can’t imagine being a healthcare worker today, risking my own health, even my life, and the health and lives of my family, exhausted because of too many hours, too many staff reductions, and too many critically ill patients, only to need an escort from my hospital to my car so that I’m not assaulted for doing my job; or to hear propaganda and disinformation from sick people and their families as I’m trying to provide lifesaving or palliative care; or to be screamed at on social media because I’m doing what I was trained and educated to do. It blows my mind the bullshit and disrespect they’re dealing with.

The letter below says so much. I stand with the kinds of providers I met when I was an AIDS caregiver. They are professionals and deserve to be treated as such.

Continue reading “Outage plus an “r” is outrage”

Tiny Tuesday!

A favorite old pin of mine to celebrate drummers.

We had something scheduled at Houndstooth Hall today, and I’d already decided I would use that time to run a few simple errands. Then I read the news that Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts had died, and it flattened my mood. Charlie may have lived a great long life, but as I said in an Instagram post, more decades wouldn’t have been enough. Talented, a gentleman, a husband to Shirley since 1964, rescuer of retired greyhounds, and despite a few hiccups along the way, a stabilizing, steady force for his bandmates: Charlie was one of a kind and one of the reasons I have so much affection for drummers. We were lucky as hell to see the Stones in Houston in 1989 and 1994.

While I was running errands, I decided to cheer myself up by checking my favorite part of Walgreen’s, the section with their model autos. They are the best value at $5.99 I can find in that store. =) Which is how I came home with a tiny UPS van.

/p>

When I was showing it to Tom and checking if the doors open, he said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the back doors opened, too, and it had boxes inside?” Whereupon I answered, “Prepare to smile, Tom.”

Tiny pin, tiny van, but I’m about to work on the saga while listening to a major band that gave us the huge spirit and talent of Charlie Watts.

Mood adjustment, code green

Today I did some things to try to get out of my blue mood, including setting an errand goal along with Tom, and we GOT IT ALL DONE, exactly on schedule. Just leaving the property was an accomplishment, but before we went, I cleaned up Aaron’s Garden. We’ve lost a few succulents with the help of summer’s heat and recent dryness. That was one of the errands: to replace those plants.

Things are looking cleaned up and green again.

This will make me cheerful when I go outside to get the mail (which I check ten times a day, also known as every time Jack barks) or handle future errands, and I’ll keep a close eye on the new plants to make sure they’re watered as needed.

Tomorrow’s Button Sunday post will finally be the one I postponed earlier in August. =)

Mood: Monday

I feel like I spend an inordinate amount of time speaking out loud to myself (or Tom, or the dogs, if they’re listening) and saying things like: Where could it be? It should be right here. We don’t live in a forty-room mansion, how do things just disappear? WHERE IS IT?

Sometimes I find things; sometimes I don’t. The mystery of it all is not enjoyable, but losing people is a lot worse.

Tiny Tuesday!

Found this tiny box among my old business stuff. It was full of coins that I moved to the piggybank. It now has incense cones in it. Incense burns and becomes wisps of smoke that vanish into the air.

Now all them things that seemed so important
Well, mister, they vanished right into the air

Bruce Springsteen

You can’t say I traded money for nothing because I’ll be giving Houndstooth aromatherapy.

Pick your video, or be bold and go for both.

Mood: Monday

I am sleepy even though I’ve finally had several good nights without insomnia in a row. I blame the rain. I love hearing it and having it cool things down, especially when it isn’t tropical storm or hurricane rain.

I am also busy, spending eight to ten hours a day giving a lot of attention to my manuscripts. I’ve been trimming and rearranging them so that there are none of my epic chapter lengths and also to keep each book around 100,000 words. It’s very easy for me to write a 160,000 word novel, and no publisher wants those. Even if I self-publish, I want to follow at least some of the wisdom offered in traditional publishing.

So on this “holiday” Monday, I’m happily absorbed by the 1970s and these characters I love. Tom and Debby did errands today, and I STILL scored good stuff.

My 25-year-old stapler died, and Tom replaced it with a pretty one.

Meanwhile, Debby found this pillow for me, and it’s now in the large guest room, also known as Lynne’s room and the red truck room.

Red trucks and big dogs. It’s what’s for Monday. Hope yours is good, too.

Hurricane preparedness

From the time we were flooded by Harvey, downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm, but still deadly and destructive for Houston in 2017, we began making conscious choices about how to lessen the impact on our home should we flood again. The floors that were the least affected were tiled, so our contractor tiled the entire house. The office floor was raised, and the floor-to-ceiling windows were replaced by dry wall, regular windows, and raised electrical outlets (all permitted and inspected by the city of Houston!). The furniture we bought to replace our destroyed furnishings tends to have metal legs and be raised higher off the floor. There is no longer anything stored under our beds. All but two of the closets either have items raised off the floor or protected in plastic bins. Things on lower bookshelves are either binned or easy to move up.

This week, I tackled one of the remaining closets. It’s in the smaller guest room–the one that provided my writing sanctuary since April of 2020. What it contained included paper records, equipment, and items relating to a business I maintained from 1997 to around 2007. I always dislike saying I’m a licensed massage therapist, because it seems to invite ignorant remarks that are without any humor or value to someone who knows that massage is a healthcare profession. Licensing requires training, state testing, and yearly continuing education courses. This year, CE included a mandatory course in human trafficking. Sometimes a massage therapist is the first safe contact for someone being exploited in this way and can provide confidential listening or contact information for agencies that may help a victim.

Those jokes aren’t so funny in light of that, are they?

Though I stay active as a LMT, and I have practiced in the distant past, the main reason I became certified (in the old days), licensed (current day), is because in the state of Texas, to do the work I really wanted to do, including aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, or spa therapy, massage school was a required first step. My massage table and chair were destroyed in the flood. I only used the chair when I did corporate massages, and since I don’t massage anymore, I didn’t replace it. However, I replaced the massage table. I’d intended to begin accepting clients again for the particular modality I invented that includes aromatherapy, crystal and stone therapy, and Reiki (I’m certified in second degree). When I was laid off, I would finally have had the time to do that, but we were in a pandemic, so that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

While the day may come when I would do the work for friends, and while I’ll always renew my license, I doubt this will ever be a business venture for me again. With that in mind, I purged my records of about ten inches of paperwork and reorganized the closet to be more flood-proof.

It was bittersweet looking through my old client files (if you were a client, know your file will be professionally shredded while Tom watches that process). I was reminded of many wonderful and strange times, of people who’ve come and gone. One of the first people I ever did energy work on was a friend who died of AIDS. That led me to teachers and practitioners even before I went to massage school. I had hoped to work with others impacted by HIV/AIDS, and there were a few.

I also found the records of work I did on my mother, and an oil I’d blended for her that Lindsey massaged into her feet while Mother was in hospice only a few days before her death.

Those kinds of comfort through touch also show why the “jokes” aren’t funny.

The sun tea light candle burner above is one of the items I found among the boxes in the closet. I’ll probably share other things on here with maybe some stories that won’t violate anyone’s privacy and will protect their identity.

Those were years of many things learned and explored, and I’m glad for all of them.