winter is coming soon...

 

the best revenge is a life well lived or eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die. in the end, it's probably less about revenge or whatnot. it's more about just living. living for what brings you happiness. focusing less on what I should think or feel. concerning myself less with what others think or feel. i just go and live. enjoying each day. not worrying so much about what gets done or doesn't get done. eventually, i have those days where i do get the chores done. if not totally, at least enough. 

there will always be more to do. things to clean and today, more leaves to rake. do some of it then get out there and enjoy the beauty. with all the crap happening in this nation, the end could always be near. 

Mass shootings are a daily occurrence. can't even report on all that has happened since i last wrote a blog. a big right-wing guy was killed and has now become their poster child. his racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments are there, but the right keeps saying all are taken out of context. this is their way of attempting to whitewash the truth of who he really was, but more who they are for revering him. Robert Redford died; his quotes don't need to be watered down or need context to attempt to have a different meaning. he was just a kind person so kind words were spoken. 

as many have said, if you want kind things to be said of you after you die be kind in life. this podcaster doesn't really have that history. he was killed in Utah by a gunman raised Mormon. this has caused backlash, perhaps. the other day, another gunman drove into a Mormon church and started shooting and lit the car on fire. most of these killers lean right, but the right tries to say it's all radical left folks or trans folks. in truth, it's access to guns coupled with lax gun laws and hate-fueled rhetoric. 

the other truth is that many evangelicals who are pushing for white Christian nationalism are using other Christian groups as tools until they gain all the power. The various Christian groups will never agree with each other, so once they do gain power, they will start to fight each other. many do not see Mormons as Christians. this event that happened in Utah just put in the wedge that was already there

religion has a long history of brutality. even after this event. many on the right will say that what everyone needs is more Christianity. sadly for them, this is starting to fall on deaf ears as the younger generations see the many flaws in religion. The extreme views and judgment towards others, coupled with hatred, are not very appealing to a generation raised knowing people of all colors, sexual orientations and religions. these same folks who call for more religion and more following or Jesus are also calling for the end of left-leaning humans, the end of undocumented immigrants, the end of Palestinians...you get the idea.

they are making a saint out of a jerk, though. Flags flown at half staff, he was flown in Air Force 2. They had moments of silence, plan a day of remembrance, they had a memorial service that looked very much like the party/show that is the usual Sunday service for the evangelicals, including pyrotechnics. the grieving widow seems more celebratory than, sad. people grieve differently but this seems very odd. 

my dog door is repaired, thanks MT. today, i do need to tackle the leaves in the yard. they do come down fast. still lots in the trees. they say it's good to leave the leaves down but i need to find the dog poops. i'm also putting up halloween decorations. 

done several day trips since returning from Gustavus. we had a great visit. I flew to Gustavus and we went for a paddle and a boat trip out into Glacier Bay. good weather and nice mushroom-filled walks. 

i skipped a fall drive to Denali as i was pretty beat after the trip. so lots of day trips. chasing fall a bit. also did an overnight at a new cabin with friends. Goetz cabin is beautiful. it's up at Arctic Valley. comfy and cozy, and the fall colors were amazing.  it's been hit and miss. Yesterday I drove to Hope. haven't been there is a bit so that was nice.

was looking for swans a bit too but they were all pretty far off. debating walking up at Powerline today. not sure if there will be extra moose. we are getting closer to rut season and being there with extra moose and Sunny Boy could be tough. He is 4 i guess now. basically skipped his celebrations. these dogs are pretty spoiled so every day is a celebration for them. 

the animals survived me being away. a friend from the dog park watched them. 

i did name the two remaining kittens. Otter and Abbyloni. sadly, before I left for Gustavus, Otter caught the mom's cold, and I had to let him go. I did get the mom and Abby back after I returned, and the baby is now 7 weeks and weighs 1 pound 6.1 ounces. they will return to the shelter on Thursday in search of a new home. she is a bit shy, like her mom. I still can't hold Rosie, though she loves play therapy sessions now. Abby loves to play as well. The little girl just hissed at my friend who visited while her husband fixed the dog door.

she's a miracle kitten, but she is chunky and happy. thriving. so that is great. hopefully, they find good homes. you have to assume the best for them, or you would drive yourself nuts.  

these are spring photos from last year. No more trips to Homer.  i find it gets dark so early. If I lived there, I would love cruising around this time of year. now, though, you end up holed up in the hotel room with nothing to do. 

took some day trips to Matanuska Glacier, Hatchers Pass and to Seward. debating another Seward run this week. i did Portage Valley and then Hope as i said.  it's a lot of driving. between those outings i do local hikes and hunt for mushrooms. 

as usual, if I don't initiate walks with others, it's just me. it does become frustrating to always feel like the main one initiating stuff. I try not to be a bother to people. i just go alone. it could very well be that i am the toxic person. I'm sure I am to some out there. my views are so counter to theirs that i know i am the odd one out and therefore the one seen as toxic, whether i really am or not. i can accept that to some in my life i will always be viewed as toxic. toxic can just mean you say things they do not wish to hear or admit. i can live with that. 

I am who I am. I've changed a lot because I examined my beliefs a lot and questioned things. it's something that I still do. in my view, questioning what feels right and normal is healthy. it's far too easy to just believe what you were told at a young age. it's not possible for any of us to be right about everything, nor were our parents. there are many who do live that lie though. believing that all they think and believe is the absolute and correct truth/reality. it's just not possible. it's also very arrogant and elitist thinking. 

always ironic to me that I have gone 180 on almost all I was taught, but I'm called close-minded. how is that possible? 

I found the mushroom I was hoping to see while I was in Gustavus. also, the amanita there were white and brown, not orange/red like here. I have seen some cool mushrooms again this year. you see nothing if you don't leave your house. the adventures change, but still capable of some adventures in this life. enjoy them while I can.

work. my last two weeks i was in ICU. i do find with my work-related anxiety, often i start to imagine symptoms of things that my patients suffer from. it's been a busy few weeks. try to catch up on education stuff as well. there is one 90-minute video that i've avoided. it's overdue. woke early to get my schedule in. 

constantly on the fence about when to retire. earlier if health care was not a factor. we shall see.

i'll go do yard work after i finish this and then what? where to walk. it's nice outside today. 

lots of play time with the mom and kitten. these days will go fast. great to have these cute kittens. will be nice to send them back and clear out the room again. kittens can be a mess. 

i'm sure another litter will turn up shortly. 

it's almost time for the pumpkin massacre. october 26 if anyone wants to join that reads this. does anyone read this? it's more personal therapy, i guess. I've done my own therapy over the years. probably took much longer and caused more personal angst and pain. i suspect there are more therapists now that understand religious trauma and deconstruction than there were when i would have needed it. 

our country is screwed. sadly, i suspect it will be more and more violent before it improves. the idiot taco at the top continues to serve himself and use the office to enrich himself and his friends and go after his enemies. this is not a productive way to run a country but this is where we are. lives will continue to be lost. it's gonna take something pretty horrific to wake up enough of his cult followers. this death just enraged them further and prepared them mentally to be able to snuff out people on the left guilt-free. i had one person comment to me that i wasn't human. that is what is required. dehumanize as many as possible so their loss isn't a loss at all but justified. they have already accomplished that goal with the undocumented and the trans. 

at my age and skill level leaving the country is not a likely scenario. It would be nice in many ways. i'll just have to live through what hell gets us to the next place. i believe, in the end, the pendulum will swing to a far more positive and progressive place. Will I survive? will the country survive intact or be split up? I have no crystal ball for that.

hate tends to need to explode before it implodes. the hate is in Christianity. so many claim to be patriots who love this country, but so many of us are struggling to understand what they actually love about this country since they seem to hate so much of it. they love being able to call themselves Christians and so the so-called chosen ones. They love having guns and they love owning the libs. beyond that? who knows. 

we were taught in grade school that this nation was a melting pot and i have always loved that. not everyone is on board, even when they are part of the melting pot. they want to hand-select who they include in that melting pot and who doesn't belong. 

nature and the animals couldn't care less about any of the politics. they just try to adapt to whatever Mother Nature or humans toss their way. 

woke early to do my schedule. Finally getting a blog post in. took forever to catch up on the photos. shouldn't let it go so long.. Winter is coming and life slows down. 

i love all the seasons. you just adapt to that as well.  winter causes a slowdown with the darkness and the quiet. the snow just covers the world with a forced peace and silence. 

off to get stuff done. 

thankful for A. safe trips and beautiful sights. B. that i'm still plugging along. C.  the fall colors and the mushrooms that i find. the drama of this place always amazes me.

I hope my absence gives you the peace that my love couldn't

 

saw this quote the other day. it spoke to me. just a reminder of all the time and energy i have often put in to people. it's taken me far too many years to realize that people who really want you in their lives are willing to put in effort. even if that effort is less than in the busy times of life, it should never be so lopsidedly one sided. 

in the end you have to step back and away and see who reaches toward you. surprisingly few it turns out. this in no way lessens how we cared for those people and hoped they would want to be in our lives more; it's just the realization that we all deserve more. you have to love yourself enough to accept that that love is not always returned at the level you hoped or expected.

often these are relationships that are expected to last, blood at times. those expectations can hinder you though. make you work harder, expect more. when i really analyze many of those, i have to be honest with what those relationships weren't. i was a kid, they were all older and doing their own thing. we didn't really all hang out because we were related. overall, my childhood was good. i have many great memories. i was lonely often though. i was always the odd one. the things just didn't work for me. lonely is worse when you are surrounded by people who just don't see you. 

it's funny when i make a comment on fb these days, Maga can't refute things with facts so they go immediately to hateful things, so they think. they love to say I'm a lonely old cat lady.  that is their favorite jab. i'm quite happy as an old cat lady. the word out there is that it's actually men who are finding it tough to find love. women, these days, are just not willing to put up with the bullshit that they have pushed on us for generations. in truth i was just way ahead of the times. for me, if it wasn't a relationship that i really felt could be safe and fun, i wasn't interested. i saw other relationships around me and those did not impress me. 

i saw that women did the bulk of the work and had very little power. things that i like, say cats and dogs and such, well that wasn't going to be something i could enjoy without permission. i also saw women getting harassed for doing what they wanted, when they wanted. like they owed the male, the male just seemed to have all the power and the women had to manipulate the situation to take some power back. i was not interested in marriage the way it was

i found men who could handle independence in women were rare. i was very independent. so those men calling me an old lonely cat lady are very wrong about the lonely part.  sure there were lonely days. it's always better to be lonely on your own than to be involved with people and feel lonely. been there. that is a far worse lonely as it's made worse by hopes and expectations. 

no life is perfect and we all have our own hurdles to jump over. overall, i have found that there is peace and adventure being single. i rarely have arguments and when i do it's some internet troll. i love making a comment that brings the maga's to the forefront. makes it easier to just block them. i have fun blocking them. they are not changing. they have chosen these hate fueled bubbles and no truth will cross over. better to just delete them. then i can live in a bubble without them. i don't need the constant nastiness....i could have gotten married if i wanted that. haha. most marriages end in divorce. others stay married but just tolerate each other or are platonic to raise kids. i'd say very few completely happy marriages out there. i actually think many of my strong independent female friends are in those, because they held out for a partner who liked their independence. they stayed true to who they were rather than bow down to another. 

i have another litter, just for a few weeks since i'm headed to Gustavus at the end of the month i'd also love to do my fall chasing and that would be tough with kittens. this poor mom, i'm calling her Rosie the Riveter, she was trapped and then delivered at the shelter. she had 7 but by the time i picked them up at nearly 2 days 3 had passed. i weighed them and the biggest was 3.1ounces. i'm learning so much (thanks Debbie) they are usually 3.5-4 ounces at birth so these were all underweight. i lost another and then had another go that just wouldn't gain weight. my last two are hanging in there and currently have been gaining 0.4 ounces/day. i weigh them twice. 

these photos of cats are of little Sourdough and Mom, Biscuits. 

it's a strange life. yesterday i had a dead kitten and a protest poster in my car. we got terrible news that Putin was coming to Alaska to meet with Taco. the war criminal and the pedophile. i felt physically ill. i was off so i attended two rally/protests. took the dogs with and they behaved to well. photographed over and over. the rallies were to show Ukraine support since they were not invited to join talks about what to do with the war the criminal started. he could just stop.  taco continues to embarrass in his incompetence and lap dogging of putin.  for sure put has something or many things on him. 

taco literally had military down on their knees rolling out a red carpet for putin, a war criminal.  he was steamrolled by putin, obviously.  he's incompetent. his goons were around town.  rooms were saved in the icu in case one or both of them had a medical emergency.  i was so happy i wasn't working and risking having one of them as a patient. they are gone now. the rallies were quite successful great turn outs. press from all over the world.  the city was short on places for them to all stay i guess so even dorm rooms were used. of course, typical of the taco incompetence, papers and plans were left behind at one of the hotels. 

he is currently using his ice agents and illegally using national guard in DC and other places. DC they are attempting to just take over and lock down. they have turned to harassing the homeless. it's all so ironic. they never have a plan for anything. Reagan kicks the mentally ill to the curb with no assistance and no plan. many become part of the homeless population. they take away support for those with mental health, addictions, veterans support. they take away support for single moms, children, families that are not thriving in a tough economy, again no plan. they when homelessness swells, they round them all up, with no plan. it's the gop way. meanwhile trump is spending tax dollars like it's his own personal bank account. the right raves because he doesn't accept the small paycheck for being potus. instead, he just gives himself everything and anything he wants

i have done several treks and excursions this year. less hiking though. knees, bear activity, i guess. I've hit the dog park a lot. 

i made a trip down to Homer for a low tide. not huge but good enough to enjoy. i also went north to Talkeetna. i stayed 2 nights there and made a drive north. i cruised a ways into the Denali Highway before returning to Talkeetna. the sunsets were beautiful. 

the mushrooms are starting to come out. love this time of year.

won't be long until the colors are going wild. debating day trips but i also need to do some cleaning and prep work for going away. have the dogs set up with a house sitter. that is the most difficult part. leaving the animals. it will be tough taking this litter in. 

the mom is sweet but also not well socialized. haven't held her yet. she is taking snacks from my hands and allowing me to brush and pet her.  there is progress. she is not totally feral. she must have had some positive interactions with humans before she got dumped and trapped.  i bought a new enclosure. it's bigger than expected which means i often am army crawling around in there. I also set up blink camera in front/back yard and i had one that i just left at the dog door, but it's currently the kitten cam. nice to watch without being intrusive.

she clearly is a good mama cat. 

above is from the train to Spencer. have also been out to powerline a few times and various other hikes and walks. just not the usual. every year and every summer is different. 

i chased the fireweed around a bit. always so pretty wanted a few cool photos with fireweed. did miss the big bloom at skilak lake. seems like the fireweed was in rapid ascent this year. crazy. 

wildflowers are a game of chase each summer. will have some good mushroom hunting for a few weeks. 

work has been work. much less stress inducing than it had gotten. overall anxiety is better. i think some of that is letting go. letting go of hope, letting go of people more. having more realistic expectations in life and in relationships with people. it is a bummer at times but it is what it is.

finally signed up and took a felting class so perhaps a new thing to do from time to time.

it was predicted to rain the day we took the train so we got pretty lucky. the weather this summer has either been rain or too hot. too hot in Alaska is 70's. lol. we are wimps for heat, i think.  

life is always changing. you have to be willing to change with it. don't get upset at what you don't do anymore or who you aren't hanging out with anymore. there are new places, new activities and new people. you just have to be able to adapt in this life. 

Biscuits, she really was a sweet kitty. i hope whoever adopted her gives her a wonderful life

rock in the healing garden at work. every so often i get out there on a break. it is nice to get outside.

must clean house. i'm terrible at tasks. better at time wasting than time management. 

the new dishwasher is in. many thanks to MT. had it's first run last night. it was a few weeks of the old washer just being a drying rack. now the old one is on the deck. will have to do a load to the dump. probably after i get back from Gustavus.

i do love these tiny kittens. so sweet.  trying to think of names for these remaining two kittens. a bit anxious to name them yet though.  they are not out of the woods. 

will have to do more cleaning tomorrow...or some cleaning tomorrow. just decluttering. the usual too much stuff issue.

i kept Biscuits a few nights after little Sourdough passed. let her heal and decompress. lots of play therapy. 

not to play therapy with Rosie yet. she's still pretty stressed. the camera view shows her totally at peace with her kittens though which makes me happy. the camera allows that peace. 

these little faces, at least they knew a little love before they passed away. it's a rough start for kittens out there sometimes. 

it can be heartbreaking i'm discovering but it's still giving them a chance they would unlikely have without people to take them in. saw a tik tok i think. this lady had old nursery heated bassinettes for her tiny baby kittens. that's impressive. 

there are mountains all over here. i was hoping it was a cloudy flight for putin. he doesn't deserve to see the majesty of Alaska. he wants to make Alaska part of Russia again. America is a mess but please sell us to Canada if you sell us off, not to Russia!

trump would only want to tear it all up to make money and golf courses. he probably never looked out the window. he'd fall over in the plane. he was unable to walk straight on the red carpet anyway. Ridiculous

these were wildflowers around powerline pass. always a great spot to view the flowers.

the joy of dogs is they could care less where you go. they just want to be out. Sunny has been leashed often since he wants to meet wild animals. luckily, he's pretty good on leash. 

a little ode to Biscuits kittens and now to Rosies lost kittens as well. Rosie at least has a few to still focus on. not sure Biscuits excelled at parenting to be honest. Rosie is super protective.

love watching these little clips of the kittens and mom cat. these babies are so precious. i really wish humans were kinder and more responsible. 

sadly, i work pediatrics so i see that people can be rotten to their own children. now these maga people are a reminder of how hateful humans can be. they are being prepped mentally to allow anything and everything and look the other way or find some way to justify it or defend it. those people deserve it mentality. it's really earth shaking. you had higher hopes for your fellow humans.  well until you really look at history. humans can be awful historically. 

a homer shot from this last trip down there. 

i better go crash. just have wanted to get something in the blog. 

will see how energetic i feel tomorrow. 

thankful for A. like minded folks out there that do care and are good and kind humans. there are many out there. it's easy to forget. B.that those terrible humans are no longer close by. C. that these two kittens are so far gaining weight.