Love
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Mulder
We received some devastating news yesterday. Mulder has lymphoma. I was petting him on Saturday and it felt like the glands on his throat were swollen. We got him into the vet on Monday, and she took a bunch of tests which confirmed the diagnosis. She could feel that it was not just the lymph nodes at his neck, but all of them that she can feel, they are all swollen with fluid. After the diagnosis yesterday, she then sent out for some more tests to determine what kind of lymphoma he has. What we know so far is that it is ‘intermediate to large cell, high grade’, and the…
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Meme Monday – Catching Up
Looking at this meme, you might think I had been to the beach. Perhaps back to Hawaii. Nope, life has been very local lately. I have no excuse for not posting here, other than laziness. I’ll catch you up, OK? Back in April, I took a drive out to see my Great Aunt for her 98th birthday. One of my cousins arranged a party at her retirement home, which was great. We had family come from as far as San Diego and Reno, and I saw folks I haven’t seen since I was 5 or 6. It was a relaxed event, KFC and strawberry pie. Aunt Flo’s memory is horrible,…
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Wordless Wednesday – Birthday Edition
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Wordless Wednesday – Birthday Boy
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Wordless Wednesday – Birthday Girl
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Y is for Yes Please
My N post was about items that I will say ‘No, thank you’ if they are offered to me. Being that it is a holiday Friday, and I am lazy, here are a few items that I enjoy, and if they are offered to me, I will say, ‘Yes please’. In no particular order… Potatoes. French fries, potato chips, latkes (Happy Hanukkah tonight!), hashed browns, baked potatoes, whatever. I love them. Salads. So many different salads are delicious. Green salad, pasta salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, arugula salad, Caesar salad… Pasta. So many pastas that I love, but my personal favorite is the mushroom pasta at a restaurant in Oakland,…
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T is for Tree
Our first trip to Hawaii was in 2005, the same year that I started my blog. There are no pictures of that trip here, because we went to Hawaii in June, and I started my blog in November. One thing that amazed me was the Banyan Tree near the Waikiki aquarium. California is not tropical, and I had never seen a Banyan Tree. Banyan trees are not native to Hawaii, they were brought from India, where, according to this site, Banyan is a derivative of the word ‘Banya’, which means merchant in the Gujarati language of India, where Banyan trees provided much needed shade for merchants selling their wares. …
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S is for Smokey
When I was very small, my brother Richard was my hero, and he was my curator for what was good and interesting in the world. What Richard wanted, I wanted. Then my mom and my Great Aunt Flo went to Yosemite for a little vacation, and my mom wanted to bring us gifts home. She saw some tom-toms that would be perfect for Richard, but there was only one set at the gift shop. She looked around, distressed, not sure what to get for me. She settled on a stuffed Smokey Bear. I never looked back. Smokey was my absolute Best Friend. I took him everywhere. I was, however, very…
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Q is for Quote – (Semi) Wordless Wednesday
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H is for Horses
I’m not sure when my love for horses started. As a small child I loved all animals, but at some point I fell especially in love with horses. Perhaps it was the influence of my friend Aimee, who lived across the street from me in Fairbanks and was a big fan of horses. She lives in California now, and she has horses. Look at that pretty face, the soft gentle eyes. I just want to pet this beautiful horse. Who knows, perhaps this horse is an asshole, but it looks like it would be so very affectionate and loving. My friend Nikki has horses, and when she goes to visit…
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F is for Free
My readers know of the free tickets that we were given on our flight home from Portland in June, and that we used those tickets to travel to Maui last month. I was so thankful for the opportunity to have a real vacation…traveling to Portland for a long weekend is always lovely, and I was thrilled to see my family there, but it doesn’t really feel like vacation, especially since our main purpose for going up was to scatter my father’s ashes. As I’m sure you have guessed, ‘free’ doesn’t generally mean ‘free’. The tickets were for the cheapest possible seats, and on Alaska Airlines these days, that means you…
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Meme Monday
My brain has been very distracted lately. In late August, my 97 1/2 year old Great Aunt fell. She lived alone, but was able to call 911, and a neighbor was able to let the paramedics in, and off she went to the hospital. She said her ribs hurt, so they did an X-Ray of her ribs, found no problems, and sent her home. They sent her home even though she could not walk without collapsing in extreme pain, and even though she lived alone. One of my cousins, K, took her back to her house, where she stayed for almost a week, until her follow up visit with her…
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Catching Up….
I’m not sure if you will be able to see this video or not…it shows for me. It’s just the view from the house where we stayed last weekend, and the delicious rain outside…not so delightful to those of you not in the midst of a drought. But delightful for me to be sure. It’s been a busy time around here. Or not around here, actually. Last weekend we flew up to Portland to see my family, and also to scatter my father’s ashes, as was his wish. I was simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the trip. So do I tell you about it sequentially, or start with the…
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Meme Monday
I haven’t found a way to weave this meme in with the content below, but it speaks to me. This weekend was another of easing back into normal. Saturday, I got my hair done. I’ve been pretty comfortable getting my hair done during the pandemic, ever since I heard of a study done on two hairdressers who both tested positive for COVID, and had been seeing a lot of clients (I think maybe they worked at a Supercuts or something like that), and they did not pass it on to a single client. They were able to do really thorough contact tracing and no one got sick. Thanks to masks.…
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Friday Randomness
Today’s post is one of those potpourri type posts, where I have some ideas, but haven’t gotten around to putting them in their own blog posts, so I am going to lump them all together. Ted and Maya were away last week. Ted’s aunt, who lives in Salt Lake City, had a stroke last year. His mom wanted to go visit her, but of course she could not, due to COVID restrictions. Earlier this year, his mom fell and fractured her foot. It is mostly healed now, but Ted and his brother weren’t thrilled with the idea of her traveling alone. She is nearing her mid-80s, and is extremely active,…