Another Memorial Day has passed. I was invited to a get-together at Holley and Jim’s, and as usual, they had way too much food for me, Tom, and Kurt. They are great hosts and seem to relish putting on the “do” for people.
A friend posted on Facebook about Memorial Day and how it differs from other days associated with the military. The post said “Armed Forces Day is for those still in their uniform. Veterans Day is for those who hung up their uniform” and “Memorial Day is for those who never made it out of their uniform.” I think that’s a pretty succinct way of explaining the difference between the three days we honor the military.
I’ve had a lot of people thank me for my service. I’ve also read where many military personnel don’t like to hear that statement from civilians. Part of the reason I don’t like it was I didn’t willingly go into the military even though I enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. The alternative was to be drafted into the Army or the Marine Corps. Probably, the Army was a better fit for me since my Dad was in the Army and a lot of Boy Scouts is militaristic in the Army sense. However, that was back during the days of the Viet Nam conflict (not war) and the odds of you coming back in one piece were slim.
I can look back on my days in the Coast Guard at little more fondly now as it is in the past. It wasn’t so much fun during the actual enlistment.
I’ve read a great deal about war and conflicts: the Peloponnesian War, the War of Roses, the 100 Years War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and to be honest, none of the actions have any redeeming value. It’s something like the statement “there are no winners in war.”
There is something significant about the idea that the military trains people to be killers and we are surprised when the veterans return home and continue killing – either others or themselves. You might want to check the Gun Violence Archive for their statistics. It predominately for mass shootings.
I’ve never thought the Veterans Administration did a very good job re-introducing veterans to society nor taking care of their ailments once they return. Hopefully I have a myopic view on this and things have changed.
When I enlisted, the Coast Guard gave recruits a hearing test by piling everyone into a room and a corpsman standing on a chair and asking in a whisper “Can you hear me?” If you said yes, they passed you on hearing. When I was discharged, they put me in a sound proof chamber and gave me a proper hearing exam but mostly to ensure that I did not claim hearing loss after discharge so the Veterans Administration wouldn’t have to deal with me.
When I signed up for the Coast Guard, I was told that I would have free medical care for life. After my discharge, I was supposed to be able to walk into any Veterans Hospital and be given service. George H.W. Bush put an end to that. Luckily, I can still go the the Veterans Administration for treatment but I’m on the bottom of the list for services with the VA.
I used to tell my students that war was an excellent form of population control. You send the most reproductively viable segment of your population off to be killed and the only people left behind as sperm donors or egg donors are the old and decrepit. Some historians say WWI was the point of the beginning of the decline of the British Empire because of the number of deaths of young British men in the trenches during WWI.
I guess what I am saying is that Memorial Day has a different connotation to me. It has a sadness for me that so many young people were killed for reasons of ego, money, and domination of others. With the conflict in the Ukraine, I think we are perilously close to another worldwide conflict for no good reason.
A lot of people fly the American flag daily (and mostly incorrectly) and especially on Memorial Day. I wonder if it would be more fitting to fly these flags at half mast to honor the fallen. You are supposed to fly it at half mast until noon. I don’t see many people doing that.
I’ve been trying to be vegetarian since 2020 with more success than not. One of my favorite recipes lately has been mushroom stroganoff. It’s a simple recipe with any type of mushroom, onions, vegetable broth and a few spices along with sour cream. It’s amazingly good.
Mushrooms have a connotation that brings to mind magic mushrooms. Magic mushrooms brings to my mind the days of free love, hippies, love ins, communes. When students would ask me where I went to college, I would tell them the University of Mississippi from 1966 to 1970. Their immediate response was “you’re a hippie!” They severely overestimated the student body at Ole Miss.
In the late 60’s, Ole Miss was probably the second most liberal institution in the state, behind Millsaps College. At least the professors were. You were considered radical if you didn’t wear button down shirts with khakis and Oxfords. Women were not allowed to wear pants and had to sign out of the dorm on dates.
Ole Miss, specifically Powers Hall – my dorm – was the site of the first marijuana bust in the state. One weekend morning I waked to sirens and cop cars pulling into the rear parking lot. There were, conservatively estimated, 100 cop cars from all over the state. Everyone in police work wanted in on the bust. I never found out who it was arrested but back then, Mississippi had a very harsh prison sentence for possession, much less dealing.
In 1970, everything changed for me. I was number 19 in the national draft lottery and number 7 in Scott county and they were drafting the first 9. I enlisted in the Coast Guard and went to boot camp in Alameda, California. Talk about Alice in Wonderland! We were granted a day of leave and several friends and I went into San Francisco which was probably the peak of Haight-Ashbury. It was a wonderland, indeed.
When I was stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas, I finally was exposed to some hipster vibe when I traveled to San Antonio to see my cousin Jo and saw the retail shops around town with a different vibe than Ole Miss. I bought my first paisley shirt somewhere in Texas and then several more. I loved those damn shirts and wore them completely out. It was my go to civvies when I went into town on shore leave. That was about as hip as I got.
I mean, really, all my students had to do was take one look at me and realize how unhip I was. I think part of the reason they thought I was a hippie was because I spent a lot of time in lectures talking about psilocybin mushrooms and how difficult there were to distinguish from a very deadly mushroom. Both happen to be coprophilic and you basically have to do a spore print to distinguish between the species. I was doing it as a noble gesture to warn them away from the Davie cow fields and and cow patties and I think they took it as my being expert in selecting psilocybin.
I always pointed out the discovery of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) from ergot. Ergot is a fungus that infects wheat and rye grasses. Bread made with ergot infestations would often be a darker brown than normal breads. Eating ergot infested bread would cause hallucinations and many people back in the Middle Ages were declared witches and warlocks and put to death because of ergot poisoning. There is some evidence that the Salem witch trials may have been due to ergot poisoning.
The scientist who isolated LSD from ergot has an interesting story. He had a purified vial of liquid LSD and was observing its physical characteristics. He, like any good scientist, kept meticulous notes. He made the mistake of putting his finger over the vial and shaking it. The LSD was absorbed through his skin. He then began to jot down his perceptions. As he wrote in his notebook, he finished the page, wrote across the table, down the leg of the table and onto the floor. He disappeared for a week or two before anyone could find him.
I also mentioned the LSD experiments the military did on soldiers. Sadly, some committed suicide because they had bad hallucinations.
Invariably, students wanted to know more about hydroponics. I don’t think they were interested in growing tomatoes.
There was a fungus we always cultivated in botany lab called Achlya. You could grow it in a Petri dish on either dead cockroaches or marijuana seeds. You can guess which we chose as our medium. We would split the marijuana seed in half and put in distilled water and “seed” the fungus. Students were sadly disappointed when I revealed the seeds were sterile and would not germinate.
I guess I can understand why some students thought I was so hip. All the talk about drugs and their questions about hydroponics.
Mushroom Stroganoff – makes 4 servings
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 cups thinly sliced onions 1 tablespoon Paprika 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon lemon zest 1 1/4 pounds remind mushrooms, sliced (just about any mushroom will work. Creminis are more mature white button mushrooms. I like to use baby portobellos. I don’t recommend psilocybin! 2/3 cup unsalted vegetable broth 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 tablespoon flour 1/2 cup Greek yogurt or reduced fat sour cream 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Heat oil in a Dutch oven or large frying pan (preferably non-stick) on medium; add onions. Cook 15 minutes or until the onions begin to brown. Stir in paprika, cayenne and lemon zest. Add mushrooms and broth. (I cooked the mushrooms a bit before adding the broth.). Cook for 10 minutes or until liquid is reduced. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and let stand 2 minutes. Stir flour into yogurt or sour cream. Swirl dairy mixture into mushroom mixture. Sprinkle with dill and serve.
I know I’ve gotten used to my routine when a Saturday rolls around and it’s time to wash clothes and clean house. It got me to thinking how much wash day has changed through the years. I’ve probably waxed poetic about this before but it’s on my mind, so here goes.
Saturday in the south was always wash day – at least with my grandparents on both sides of the family. Never on Sunday! That was a sin! Most important in my mind was when I would visit Grandma Searcy in Pulaski, Mississippi (named after Count Casimir Von Pulaski of revolutionary war fame). You would think grandmothers would put everything on hold on a Saturday when grandkids came around but chores in the country never stopped.
Grandmother Searcy boiled her clothes in a cast iron pot. First, she had to build a fire (think summertime heat here) and then she would pour in well water (that she had to draw from the well on the other side of the house) about half way up the pot and add lye soap shavings. Clothes needed to be washed would be immersed in the pot and she would agitate the clothes with a boat oar.
Grandma Searcy’s cast iron wash pot
Once she was satisfied the soap had done its job, she then used the oar to pull the clothes out one by one and spread them on a clothes line to cool off. While waiting for them to cool, she turned over the pot with the oar, rinsed it out with well water, flipped the pot back upright over the fire, stoked the fire, and added well water up to the half way point and got it boiling. Back in went the clothes and she stirred them around until she was satisfied most of the soap was out of the clothes.
Back to the clothesline with the boiling hot clothes until they cooled enough until she could rinse them. She used an old scrub board to finish rinsing the clothes, wrung them out and then put the back out on the clothes line for drying. I actually have a wash tub and scrub board here in the garage. I keep it on hand for emergency purposes.
I was always thrilled when I got old enough to help her wash. I became the agitator with the boat oar. She constantly chastised me that I was “going to fast” or “stir harder” or “quick spilling the water out of the pot.” Later, when I got even older, she would let me do the final rinse on the scrub board and then she would wring them out for me. She must have had a great set of arm muscles to wring out blue jeans and overalls.
As you might guess, this was good for everyday wear like dresses, overalls, jeans, every day shirts, socks and underwear. So what do you do when it is you Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
She once told me before automobiles were very common, she would ride into Morton (7 miles away) on a horse and buy a bottle of acetone from the pharmacist. Acetone was the original “dry” cleaner. You’ll be hard pressed to find acetone these days because it is a carcinogen. In essence, wash day in the country on a Saturday was pretty much an all day affair. It took her most of the day to ride into town and back on that horse.
She still ironed her clothes and she had the old flat irons that you heated on a stove or in a fireplace.
She had three or four of these around the house. Once heated, you would iron clothes until it began to cool and then you would put it back on the stove or facing an outdoor fire and pick up another hot one. Sadly, I don’t have any of her old irons.
Mother actually used these when I was a kid. If her electric iron died (they often did back then) she’d put this on the electric eye of a stove to heat it up. You could stand it on it’s end like a regular iron, but a lot of people had a “holder” that you sat on the ironing board so it would lay flat. The reason you’d do this instead of stand it on its end was if you knocked the ironing board, the damn thing would fall off and smash your toes.
A step up in my clothes washing education was the old wringer type washer.
This machine is dangerous! It’ll crush your fingers if you are not careful. You plugged it in, raised the drain hose and clipped it off and filled it by hand with water. Then you added your soap of choice and turned on the agitator. If the clothes were exceptionally dirty (think kids in blue jeans) you lowered the hose, unclamped it, drained the water, and then repeat.
After you decided clothes were clean, you drained the soapy water and filled the tub with rinse water and let that agitate a while. You may have to do that two or three times. When you were ready, you then started the wringer. There were two rollers and you could adjust the roller separation by the twist you see at the top of the machine. You fed the clothes up the tray and into the wringer which got rid of the water. There was a handle (usually on the right side) that allowed you to stop, start, or reverse the direction of the rollers. You could then wring the clothes one way and then have it come back through for an additional wringing. The trick was to keep your fingers out of the rollers. After my first pinching experience, I got pretty good at keeping my fingers protected. By the way, the button industry was very busy during this period because the wringer crushed them like crazy.
My Aunt Sue on my Dad’s side had this type of machine and so did my Aunt Mabel on my Mother’s side. As you can see by the picture, these machines were pretty much indestructible. One thing you had to worry about when the agitator was going was the machine had a tendency to “walk” across a room. When I was at Aunt Sue’s I was constantly dragging the machine back into position. I think I remember the one at Aunt Mabel’s was a little more lively in its dance across the floor.
When I first became a counselor at Camp Kickapoo near Clinton, Mississippi, the only washer they had available for camp staff was the old wringer type. Since most of my fellow counselors were from wealthy homes in Jackson, they never washed clothes at camp. I was probably the only one who knew how to use it and I did every Saturday afternoon after all the kids had left for the week.
My first truly “modern” washing machine was at my Grandmother Ruby’s. It had the agitator inside the tank and the process was pretty much fully automated. If I remember correctly, you didn’t set the machine for delicates or anything type of setting, you just set the time for the wash. This one was hooked up to both hot and cold water taps.
Later, the washing machine industry started making the gears of the agitator out of plastic and they would wear out over time. I’m pretty sure this was designed to get you to purchase a new machine because most appliance repair stores wouldn’t even consider trying to find replacement parts.
My latest washing machine (I don’t like it) doesn’t have an agitator. It simply has a set of four bumps at the bottom of the tank. The water level is automatically set on low unless you tell it “deep wash” (which I do.). It also takes approximately 43 minutes to wash a single load. My old machines could do a wash in 20-25 minutes. I’m not sure the new machines are an evolutionary advancement over the older models with the large agitator in the tub.
Up until a few years ago, I still ironed clothes. I was a little anal about handkerchiefs. I still iron my blue jeans. I can curse Mother for that.
Mother, the few times she decided to be a homemaker, would starch and stretch my and Archie’s blue jeans. The starch was a powder that you mixed with water – probably Argo starch. You would dip the clean wet jeans in the starch solution, wring them out and then insert stretchers into the legs and hang them out to dry. After they dried, you ironed them.
To iron them, you sprinkled them with water using a sprinkler head and an old Coca Cola bottle. The old electric irons didn’t have a steam setting so you had to moisten the clothes before ironing or you’d never get the wrinkles out. It was typical to take any clothes that needed to be ironed, sprinkle them with water, place them in a bag and put them into the vegetable crisper until you were ready to iron them. Sometimes Mother would leave them in the refrigerator for a couple of days until she could get to the ironing.
You could cut your finger on the crease put into those ironed, starched jeans. Mother always over did the starch. You could stand those jeans up in a corner and they’d stay that way for days. What was sheer agony was putting your legs into those jeans. You had to pry the layers apart with your feet and then feel the starch scratch away at your legs as you inserted them. The first time you sat down in those jeans, it actually hurt because of all the starch.
Mother truly believed in starch. When my Dad went back into training for Korea, Mother didn’t know any better and starched his underwear. Since they hadn’t been married too long, my Dad held out for a few months and then begged her not to starch the underwear anymore.
If I never see another pair of jeans stretchers again, it’ll be too soon.
Of course, today we have spray starches and irons with steam function. I really don’t mind ironing clothes. It’s somewhat therapeutic. I used to iron all my pants, shirts and handkerchiefs for teaching. Then I discovered the magic of no-iron shirts. Before they went out of business, Brooks Brothers had the best. You took them out of the dryer and hung them up immediately and they were wrinkle free.
When I did iron shirts, I was light on the starch. One Saturday I was apparently in la-la land and I picked up what I thought was the spray starch to iron a shirt. It turned out it was Scrubbing Bubbles. I realized the difference when it foamed up like in the bath tub. Other than my blue jeans, I don’t iron much of anything any more.
You would not know to look at the photo above but I raked leaves a couple of days ago. When the mango tree that hangs over my yard starts shedding, it really sheds.
I try to be diligent about it and rake them at least once a week, usually on Friday in prelude to my cleaning the pool filter.
It looks pretty nice for a few hours and then the mango takes over again. There has to be some metaphor about life in there somewhere. In everyone’s life a few mango leaves must fall?
More bad news for Florida on the Covid front. The Sun-Sentinel reports nine counties at high risk for Covid. As you might guess, they are concentrated in the high population density areas. Of these nine, five are showing infection rates of over 20%. As far as the number of cases, Miami-Date leads the state with Broward County as number 2. As of 25 May, the state of Florida has seen 74,466 deaths from Covid. I suspect that is severely under reported. The statistics are from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta but they only report what the state of Florida reports to them.
Florida has a population of approximately 21.5 million souls. Based on my calculations that 2.8% of the population in the state is dead from Covid. As I’ve written before, I don’t believe the data from CDC or Florida.
Diane Rehm, on her podcast today “Diane Rehm: On My Mind”has an episode called “Untangling the Mystery of Long Covid” and what was most concerning was how little we know anything about long Covid. It’ll be years before any of this is figured out.
On a brighter note, I spent a little time yesterday organizing my photos from my recent trip. I snapped 642 photos and 28 videos. I think back to the time when I was a kid with my first camera and mother berating me for taking so many photos of flowers. She, of course, was angry about paying the development costs. It took me a while to get over that and it wasn’t until Sara Hurdle gave me a camera for my graduation present for my masters degree that I got back into photography big time. That Canon camera was also a film camera but I had started developing my own photos back then because I had access to the dark room for the professional photographer for Ole Miss.
Digital photography was a revelation. I could snap as many photos as my memory card would allow and I’ve pretty much snapped everything in sight. Since most are photos of plants (sorry mom) I keep all the shots. Not only do I photograph the flower or fruit but also leaves, stems, and any other part of the plant that will help in identification. They are not pretty in the esthetic sense but are invaluable in identification – such as hairy stem, opposite leaves, etc.
My plant checklist is up to 1,748 plants and that does not include this trip nor the plants I collected and identified for my thesis (over 2,000). It’ll take me some time to identify the plants on this trip but it will be a little easier for me this go around since I’ve photographed many of the plants before.
Sadly, when I had to replace the hard drive on my iMac, it kept the photos but lost all the metadata which included the identification of the plants. I’ll have to use my checklist to go back and assign the names again – a project that should only take me three lifetimes to do. Gotta keep busy somehow!
Slowly, slowly I’m getting back into my routine. I remember how I exactly make my coffee every morning, no longer forgetting the series and sequences of steps. It sounds mundane but it does brew a pretty good cup of coffee.
My morning walks have become a way to wake me up from my Benadryl induced sleep. It’s the only way to keep from waking and scratching the rest of the night. Typically, I’m one of those persons who, when they wake, become fully awake and functional before I get out of bed. The Benadryl makes me a little woozy first thing and for the first few mornings, things got out of sequence.
I have four main walks to choose from in my neighborhood and I alternate the walks. To add more variation, each of the four have a long and short version. My longest walk is 1.8 miles and is along Riverland Road – quite the scenic drive for Fort Lauderdale.
As I stepped outside this morning and started heading to Riverland, the first thing that came into view was the Royal Poinciana. May and June are the height of the blooming season for this Madagascar native.
Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia)
It’s a neighbor’s tree and about two months ago it looked as though it were dead. It sheds leaves and very long leguminous pods just before blooming season. It’s a messy tree, very brittle which isn’t good for hurricanes, but you can’t beat it when it is in bloom. The flowers are very red and the sepals are very yellow on one side.
Royal Poinciana bloom
The leguminous pod is so tough the pod has to rot before seeds can be released and even then, the outer coat (aril) has to rot in order for the seed to germinate. I used to use them in botany class to show them how to sclarify the seeds to get them to germinate more quickly.
For the past several months, Riverland Road has been undergoing a make over. The city is putting bike lanes on both sides of the road and they are reworking the sidewalk on the north/west side of the road. I can’t wait for the bike paths to be functional. Right now they are just asphalt paving that’s waiting for the entire road surface to be repaved.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been walking down Riverland on the only sidewalk when a kid heading to the middle school comes up behind me and passes me on a bike with any warning. One time I was so startled I threw my arms out and almost took the kid off the bike. It seems no one teaches bicycle courtesy any more. As kids, our bikes normally either had a horn or bell that you would ring when passing someone. I don’t blame the kids right now for riding on the sidewalk. Riverland Road has become a major traffic throughway. I wouldn’t want to ride the road either.
Anyway, the city is also widening the existing sidewalk. The original was very narrow and two people would find it difficult to pass each other. In this era of Covid, it meant one of you would have to walk either in the swale or on the road itself.
In the construction process, they have blocked all drains on Riverland. The road is flood prone and with hurricane season start only a few days away, that’s a concern. There is no way they will be finished by the start of the season and I hate to think of a heavy downpour with blocked drains. There are places along the road that when it floods you cannot get your vehicle through.
On my Riverland walk back, I usually cut by the Boys and Girls Club, a couple of blocks from my house. It used to be my precinct until a few years ago when they moved it to the elementary school farther away. One of the reasons I like to cut by there is there are a pair of Golden Shower trees. May is also their peak season.
Golden Shower Tree (Cassia fistula)
Don’t confuse this with the Golden Rain Tree (Koelrueteria paniculata) often planted as an ornamental in the U.S. However, golden shower and/or golden rain tree reminds me of the 1957 movie Raintree County. I was all of 9 years old when I saw Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Cliff, Eva Marie Saint and Lee Marvin star in this Civil War film. I must have seen it either at the Larmar Theater or the Paramount Theater in Jackson, Mississippi. It was probably the Paramount – the classier of the two theaters. My grandmother Ruby was a big fan of movies and she often took me with her. The movie was controversial in the south because of the idea Elizabeth Taylor going mad because she thought she might be Black.
I was ready to do yoga and swim laps in the pool but my neighbor Trevor chose that time to mow my lawn. I really appreciate him doing that. He does it dirt cheap for me. Since I swim au naturel I didn’t want to send him into shock so instead I made three bean salad for dinner and curled up with a book. That was much more pleasant than exercising, not withstanding the guilt for not exercising.
The sad news about the Ulvade shooting continues. It seems it may be like the Parkland shooting when police delayed entering the school. It will probably be months before the picture becomes complete.
The horrors just keep coming. There are no answers but there certainly can be some actions. As a kid, I can remember the National Rifle Association was an organization concerned with gun safety. In Boy Scouts, we picked up on that theme one year at the state fair and presented lessons to people at the fair on how to safely handle a gun when hunting. How to carry a gun while walking in the woods, how to safely cross a fence with a gun (you unloaded it first), how to never point a gun at a person. In the military, before we were allowed to even hold a rifle or a pistol we were required to undergo a gun safety lecture.
Think of what must occur before you can legally drive a vehicle. Age restrictions, learner’s permit, insurance, renewal of licenses. How is it that these regulations are not even debated and yet anyone over 18 can purchase a gun without training, licensing, insurance?
Apparently, thoughts and prayers are not getting it done. Neither is Congress.
What a night! I was so tired from the massage, I turned out the light at 9:30. Around midnight, I woke to itching. Either I am allergic to something or there’s some strange thing going on with me physically, but for several months I periodically start itching all over.
I keep some anti-itch creams and stuff near and so I smeared some cream on the area itching under my arms. That just seemed to start everything itching – from my ankles, to forearms, to the groin area, my chest, and even my back. I gave up around 1 am and popped a Benadryl. It didn’t really kick in until around 3 am and until that time I was dousing myself with anything I could find to stop the itching. I had welts on my forearms than ran from my wrist all the way up to my elbow. Around 3 am I dozed off and waked around 8 am. At the least Benadryl worked.
I was dragging all morning from the after effects of the Benadryl and didn’t do my morning walk, nor yoga, nor laps in the pool. At least I was able to make coffee and eat breakfast.
I had my six month eye check up today at 2 pm. Since I’m diabetic, my endocrinologist wants me to keep on top of glaucoma. Strangely, my ocular pressure is always normal but the six month check ups have caught two conditions. The first was an extra retinal membrane, which in itself is not so much a problem except when it detaches, it can pull the lining of the retina with it. The ophthalmologist sent me to a specialist and they monitored it for two years until it finally detached with no problems.
The second condition they found was the vitreous humor that fills the chamber of the eye with the retina is shrinking and liquifying with – guess – old age. Again, not a problem but sometimes as the vitreous shrinks, it can also detach the retina. In most cases, it doesn’t affect the retina but I have to be careful if I see more floaters or start seeing flashes of light in my left eye. The right eye seems fine.
There was no change in prescription so I was happy not having to change glasses. The worst part is the dilation of the pupils so the ophthalmologist can examine the inside of the eye. The other tedious part is the checking of peripheral vision. I hate that part where you have to click every time you spot a speck of light. It takes the rest of the afternoon for my eyes to get back to normal.
I’ve pretty much reconciled myself that I will always have some specialist wanting to check up on me every 6 months. So far, my endocrinologist wants me every 6 months, the ophthalmologist every 6 months, and my cardiologist every 3 months. Then I usually go to the orthopedic doctor for arthritis in my hands every 4 – 6 months. It’s a good thing my GP only wants to see me once a year.
The latest news about monkeypox is that most of the outbreaks are in the gay community. It now makes sense that Fort Lauderdale is reporting two cases since there is a large gay population in Broward county. The other news is that people who have been vaccinated for smallpox probably have some immunity from monkeypox. I’ve been vaccinated three times for smallpox and the vaccine produced a reaction two of the three. The last time was while I was 1970 in the Coast Guard and I didn’t get a reaction. Even vaccination immunity wanes over time, but I hope that I still retain some immunity from the three vaccinations although the last vaccination was 52 years ago. The Department of Health, New York State says immunity for smallpox lasts 3-5 years and if revaccinated, it extends the 3-5 year period even more. Maybe, just maybe, I still have a small bit of immunity.
I’ll be taking Benadryl a little earlier tonight. I’ve already started with another rash this afternoon.
There’s redness within the red block and the two arrows show two bumps or welts that have developed.
Of course, I goofed. I forgot that two of the inns I stayed had already charged a deposit. The result is the lodging was $2114 vs. $1530. That brought the total of the trip to $3,400. I knew I was thinking it was a cheap stay at Beechwood Inn.
It’s taken me two days to unwind from the trip. I had scheduled another massage upon my return and got it today. The therapist is Tom Marten at 5Points Massage. He’s been in the business over 30 years and does an excellent job. What I particularly appreciate is he works my butt – literally. The Gluteus Maximus is the largest muscle in the body and yet so many massage therapists ignore it. Trust me, after you have driven over 2100 miles, you appreciate a little butt massage.
Tom also stretches you out. He takes each leg and lifts it up into your body and holds the position for 20 seconds. He always seemed pleased with how far he can go with me and never fails to compliment me on it. There’s something about how he does the massage that really gets the blood circulating in my muscles.
After I left his studio, I was limp as a noodle but headed to get my jeep washed. It is love bug season and I had a great sample on the front of my car plus all the dust from the dirt roads to which I was routed. I usually wash and wax the jeep myself but I just don’t seem to have the energy to do it and I wasn’t looking forward to the scrubbing of love bugs. The car wash charged $5 extra to “de-bug” the jeep. They do an OK job with the wash so it was worth it to me.
Next up is to see if I can reset the head rest on the driver’s side. It accidentally deployed during the trip and according to YouTube, I can pop it back in place. I suspect if I am successful, when I next take the jeep in to be serviced, they will have to reset the computer. The head rest deploys mostly in accidents to help prevent whiplash. I somehow triggered mine accidentally.
I got back into my physical routine today. I walked 1.4 miles this morning, did my yoga stretches, and swam laps in the pool. I had enough energy to rake the leaves in the side yard. After being away for 13 days, the mango tree had shed enough leaves you almost couldn’t see the sidewalk. It took me a good hour to rake and clean and wash down the patio and pool decks.
As you might also guess, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Date counties have been upgraded to high rates of Covid. It seems someone failed to report compete data to CDC and we went from mild to high rate of infection after CDC discovered the failure.
Not to be outdone, the first case of Monkey Pox was reported in – get this – Fort Lauderdale. It seems the person was an international traveler. I used to tell my students that physicians these days needed to be well versed in all the diseases of the planet because with the advent of jet travel, any disease, normally isolated to a particular area, could now be spread through jet travel. You can’t just be an expert in tropical diseases when you are in Miami. Physicians in New York may see tropical diseases in their patients who flew up from the tropics.
A practical example is what happened with barnacles. Barnacles, at one time, were species restricted to particular locations. One species would be found in the waters off Japan, another species endemic to the California coast, and yet another species endemic to the waters off Brazil. You get the idea. With the advent of exploration by sail, barnacles hitched a ride on boats and have been spread worldwide. Species restricted to Japan, for example, can be found in most waters of the world with similar temperatures. We are now seeing it with diseases.
Hopefully, I will continue to add to the blog over the next few days. Stay tuned!
It’s funny how quickly you can get back into a routine. Get up, make coffee, pour cereal, do computer work, morning walk, etc. I am certainly a creature of habit. What’s strange is any time I take a trip, my routine goes out the window and yet when I return, so does the routine.
Sunday morning is my usual grocery shopping routine and since I tried to use up everything before my trip, I had to do a lot of restocking on this grocery visit. I was out of just about everything.
The afternoon was spent entering my trip expenses into my MoneyDance software program so I can see if I really have any money left after the trip. It was cheaper than I expected.
I spent $520.94 on food and I have to admit I could have done that a lot cheaper but I figured while on vacation to go ahead and spoil myself. The sad thing is the food at all the restaurants wasn’t that great. Almost every restaurant I visited was having labor problems – not enough people.
Lodging ran to $1530.00. I stayed in some very nice places and some so-so places. Diesel fuel ran to $428.52 and miscellaneous stuff like gifts, entry fees, etc. ran to $336.56. All total I spent $2,816.11 on the 13 day trip or approximately $216 per day. When you consider the price of diesel ($5.19-5.99 per gallon) it was a fairly economical trip.
Other than the visit with Jimmie and Stephen, the highlights of my trip was my stay at the Beechwood Inn, hiking Black Rock Mountain State Park trails, and my ability to hike the Deep Creek/Juney Whank trails without stopping to gasp for air. The stay at Wakulla Springs lodge was a bucket list item and it met expectations.
Black Rock Mountain State ParkJuney Whank Falls/Deep Creek Trails
I pulled into the driveway around 1 pm this afternoon after 2, 117 miles and 13 days of travel. It was a great trip.
I left Jacksonville around 7:30 this morning after a few starts and stops. I parked in the public garage next to the hotel where the first floor is reserved for guests of the hotel. No one said anything when I checked out but I asked at the desk how to get out of the parking garage.
Unbeknownst to me, you were to keep one of your room key cards and use that to to open the gate. It didn’t work. I even tried my credit card and it wouldn’t accept it. I re-parked and went to the front desk where they took my key card and re-coded it for the city code. It finally worked.
On the way out I filled up with diesel and also aired up the left front tire. It seems to be leaking more and more these days. I guess I’ll start looking into tires this week. I still need to see about getting the driver’s head rest repaired or replaced.
Ever since fudging my response to a question about unpacking from a camping trip during my Boy Scout days, I’ve always unpacked as soon as I got home. I don’t like doing it at the time but it makes life a lot easier the next day. I even wash clothes and put everything away.
Tomorrow is grocery shopping and sometime this week I need to wash and clean the jeep. Love bugs were out but not as bad as I had been expecting. It’ll still take some scrubbing to clean the bumper and grill. Fortunately, it rained several times during my trip so I washed away most of the dirt road episodes.
I admit to being tired. It seems the last leg of the trip – coming back home – is the most tedious. Instead of the usual slow down in Palm Beach (they have apparently finished construction on all the exits) I slowed to a crawl on Commercial Blvd. There was no reason other than the right hand lane ended and everyone was frantically trying to get over. There was the usual mess at Broward Blvd.
Tonight I intend to relax, have a glass or two of wine, and go to bed early!
