flu shot.....

so that gives me a few weeks to ponder trying to get the covid booster shot.  you could get them at the same time but that sounds kind of awful to me. also get the same one as last or go for moderna for the booster? will check in with my Dr in the next few weeks and see what we can figure out if work hasn't made the offer yet.  things are changing rapidly with recommendations.

they are now finding a lower dose is safe for younger kids.  with all these kids back in school we are bound to see the weaker ones come in with worse respiratory infections.  we are already starting to see the uptick in the usual respiratory stuff.  our nation has many at risk kids...we shall see what happens with the politicalization of covid once it's more kids getting hospitalized if that happens.  i suspect it will...how could it not.  sickens me that this virus first seemed to skip the kids and through the politics and outright stupidity we will now have to see children possibly get hit harder in this next wave and this next strain of it.  

all these Jesus freaks...the vaccine was the miracle you fools!  

it is out of our control at this point...we tried to make it voluntary to get vaccines and now they are making mandates. the downside to that is any side effects will be blown way out of proportion and the blame game will be bumped up...if it weren't for the fact that hospitals are overwhelmed and non-covid patients are getting bumped or lost in the mess of it all...

even non-covid deaths are, in my opinion, now covid deaths because perhaps they would have gotten better care had hospitals and staff not been overwhelmed with the unvaccinated. 

covid seems to thrive in the morbidly obese population.  you want your political views to kill you? that is your freedom i guess.  strange as it is. 

had a pleasant chat with a sister in law. she is also in medicine.  she has not always been overly sisterly to me but i give credit to her as this week she was kind and supportive and even exceedingly complimentary to me.  i had heard that life has changed her for the better and it was nice to have proof of that. it can be tough for people to change so it is even more impressive that she seems to be softening. i do always have some hope and i am always willing to alter my response to those who alter theirs.  

these are again at Eklutna Lake.  

today i met my friends J&M H at Reflections Lake.  she was a main walking/hiking buddy in Ketchikan and they are moving to the Palmer/Wasilla area to be closer to their daughter and her new family. congrats! that will  be fun... hoping we can get a few hikes/walks in again.  some friends you just pick up like no time has ever passed. 

i am very lucky to have so many great people who have come in to my life over the years. 

goofballs!

i zipped to work right after to grab the flu shot.  arm a bit sore and i generally feel a little crappy after for like 24 hours 

Reflections Lake did have some nice reflections, as advertised.  i planned it so they would only have to drive part way in, but they drove right past to a little reflection lake in Anchorage so the dogs and i did one loop without them and they did a second loop after i headed out.  figured it would be a nice halfway point plus a nice family walk for them to do with their new grandson as he gets a bit older.

this one is crazy!!  i think she's gotten more nuts post op. her right knee still bothers her some but it certainly isn't slowing her down.  we did laugh on the trail as at the end a squirrel grabbed the pups attention...silly squirrel.  i had the dogs off leash, even though it's an on leash area, i'm bad.  they are just so nuts on leash and really quite well behaved off leash.  i think my friends were impressed seeing them sit nicely off trail as others passed by. 

i am talking 59 1/2 for retirement from the bedside....not sure what i will do at that point...but with covid that just looks more and more appealing to me.  i'll have to put some more energy into the actual planning of that idea.  will need an easier job to do at least part time that gives me insurance.  

life is always a who knows though.  my retirement savings could disappear, i could get ill, die...planning is not always what one expects.  i'm not a great planner. i am more of a live each day sort of person.  i waste a lot of time but time wasted is the happiest...meandering around trails with the dogs.  i enjoy my free time and i'd be fine with more free time to just do what i do now.  

there is snow in the forecast....we shall see.  should be more on the mountain tops tomorrow at least. 

it is odd that i didn't do my drive of Denali Highway this fall.  fall feels unfinished. i missed many cool color opportunities.  had lots of other fun though too. 

always good to not get too many habits.  

there are still loads of mushrooms to find. the shelf fungi is thriving right now. 

headed to Pt Woronzof tonight for the sunset.  guess i missed a good one last night so i wasn't about to repeat that.  turned out pretty nice.  one moose sighting.

Ivy is fast asleep. she is all grey. we went to Matanuska Glacier yesterday.  enjoyed the drive and the glacier.  always a nice day trip.  the locals cost is $35 to walk out front.  worth it to me a few times a year.  they had put out some trail stuff in front as it can get pretty mucky out. 

there was some ice on the lake in front of the glacier...i mean there was the usual icebergs, but there was also ice that was starting to form a crust over the lake...it's that time of year.  the lakes will freeze up. 

i'll switch from flowers and mushrooms to looking for cool ice formations 

covid kitty is staying inside a bit more. he always seems upset that the weather is changing which decreases his outdoor pleasure...i suspect he blames me for this. that is how cats are. 

the berry picking is done.  i never made a trek to several of the usual trails but did other things i guess.  there is always so much to see in the warm days and never enough days to see it all. 

tide was up today but on this day i enjoyed a walk on the beach at Pt Worzonof.  this water tower gets painted over often and still the thing gets all tagged up. 

we don't have too many places filled with graffiti here so this beach is a big graffiti place

here i am with Covid Cat.  

the pictures get a bit mixed up....he was not at the beach with us. 

i get messages asking if i want to work every day.  so far the temptation hasn't been there to pick up and take the extra risk.  

there is some major farting going on in here.  the dogs are sleeping in here with Miss Breezy.  i know it's not me farting...they do sleep so peacefully

watched a few movies in the evenings.  don't do that so much in the summers but starting to settle in for the winter and watch movies again. 

the colors do look nice in the light of sunset

it was windy down there today.  

we are slowly adding layers to our wardrobe in prep for the winter weathers return. 

do i buy blizzacks for the CR-V? probably will need to.  if i had been smart i should have just bought some in Homer...if they had them...when i got that flat. put the last two tires on marketplace but no bites 

still leave a little rock here and there.  

i have quite a few rocks so i hope to do some more painting over the winter for next summers drops. 

there are a few that i will just have to keep.  favorites that will never end up out there. 

will have to see what the weather is like tomorrow and decide where we can walk.  

dogs could care less as long as they get to get out there and play 

do i hike in a mushroom rich area or look for fall colors...or get both i guess.

these are all from August.  soon we will have no leaves left.  they are starting to really drop

save the earth.  covid is doing a bit of a purge, which less people is always a good thing for the earth i guess.  always amazing, so many have died and yet the earth still has so many people that you don't notice any decrease in numbers really. 

sleeping lady

a local landmark.  

it's time to crash.  will hit bank for a few deposits tomorrow.  maybe just do a cash withdrawal to start building up my at home cash stash.  i used that for the Element.  

thankful for A. the hope of people changing for the better B.  new life in the midst of so much death C. new friends, old friends...
 

more of fall..

 wanted to make sure nobody was concerned i was on the verge of suicide.  i do not feel worthless..

 often in the heat of it all, when it comes to romantic love, i am my own worst enemy i suspect...feeling that i am not worthy...meaning i guess more that in the competition of love, i don't feel i always measure up.  it does seem like competition at times.  not sure why it can be so hard to just not worry about how you are perceived or when that other person will figure out there are better human specimens out there and book.  believe me they do...the pursuit of maybe there is something better is real and yes...there is always something better out there.  true love isn't about finding something better though, it's about growing love and building a life together.  with self esteem issues, it's easier to give up before you try.

 i see it all around me though.  especially with women.  the amount of money spent, the hours and the self deprecation involved in trying to make ourselves attractive.  i think women have forgotten their worth.  we are the prize...not the toy 

 chatted with my brother today, he mentioned the "grace" blog with her account of a date with Aziz Ansari. so i read it.

 it seems to me too often women are now pursuing men rather than the other way around as it was before.  this is to our detriment. we forgot in our pursuit of equality to remember that equality doesn't mean worth less than we had been.  we are the prize, as i said,  and we would do well to remember that...i don't mean in the don't have sex before you are married way.  i mean in knowing our value and knowing when to walk away from a man who would treat us less than how we deserve....if  he is a good guy and he does wish to pursue you, you will then create the situation of him realizing to capture this gem, he will have to work harder and be kinder.  it means we have to stop worrying about the competition, stop spending so much time and money in the pursuit of men and instead respect ourselves enough to believe we deserve the greatest love and care that comes our way.  we deserve to feel safe in love.

 in reading her account, i wondered why she stayed.  I'm sure we would all wonder that...but then i know we have all stayed in situations longer than we should have.  what did we fear?

 perhaps previous experiences had taught us that we weren't worthy of the fight or we had been through these manipulations before...i know i have seen a few of these tricks attempted.  perhaps we simply have not been impressed that we have the power to go.  perhaps, we don't want to make a situation worse and create anger or we don't want to not be liked.  perhaps we believe we can control the situation.  maybe you like a guy you hope you can change the outcome.

 i also thought, perhaps she just should not have gone to his place that night at all.  why are we not taking more time developing relationships, friendships.  stuff can happen anywhere though. at some level you have to trust people.  for her this was a well known guy so perhaps she figured this would mean he would behave better.

 she said she didn't leave because she was stunned and shocked.  the behavior wasn't what she expected.

 only she can know why she didn't leave.

 it builds up i think.  society just expects women/girls to take stuff from guys.  years of little things add up.  guys flash you, they grab you, they try to move on you on a dance floor.  you push back, but to make a scene to really call them out...it's not really what we are encouraged to do. we have also seen that when we do push back, the guy may become agitated and the situation worse.  we get accused of being a tease or worse.

 in thinking of my own experience this was the thought i wrote down, "previous experience had taught me i wasn't worthy of a fight so i stopped fighting...does that mean it wasn't rape?" i could have stopped it...there were others sleeping nearby.  why didn't i stop it, why didn't i leave...i was on a boat for one thing so leaving meant swimming 50 miles or so, but why didn't i just yell? 

 because i had been taught not to.  we aren't supposed to make scenes, somewhere maybe i felt it was my own fault for putting myself in the situation even though it was someone i had known and believed i could trust. 

 when we think of rape, we think of violent rapes.  those are clear and it's easy to see that it was wrong

 the vast majority of women who are raped though probably know the man who does the raping.  many are date rape scenario's.  things get less clear, society gets less clear on who is to blame and if rape is rape.  either way, our society doesn't take these issues seriously and too many rapists get a pass..i know mine did.

 hopefully, as more women become brave enough to verbalize, brave enough to act and scream more men will learn that their actions can have a negative impact. that they need to take more responsibility for how these things play out.  that they need to pay closer attention to the cues and the words of partners.   sadly, many women fight against this, they almost seem to get more ticked at the women who speak out than at the men who do the acts..why is this? i'm not sure, i do find it odd.

 enjoyed the comments after the last post.  do love to have a post that stimulates thoughts and conversations.

 often i write because i know that if it's happening in my head I'm not alone.  i know that there are others with experiences similar to mine.  we don't speak of it.  we all just keep quiet, embarrassed that we were molested and/or raped i guess.  fearing we will be judged or hear those questions of why didn't you do this or that...i mean that is pretty common in our culture right now.  especially with social media. 

 if it was twitter or facebook i would surely be getting an earful. i would be rained down upon with negative comments.

 i sense we fear our experience may make others feel uncomfortable. we need to make others feel uncomfortable though. we need to try to help them understand the level that it has gotten to. 

 when i heard of yet another member of this administration being found to have treated the women in his life poorly and violently...i just rolled my eyes.  as the good ol boys club yet again went into protection mode for their fellow man. 

 then i heard he was Mormon and that his previous wives had sought help from the Bishops and were given a pretty blanket statement...basically, don't rock the boat, he probably had a bad day...whatever was said...i thought perhaps at least some other women in that culture who have remained quiet may now feel empowered to express what has happened to them. 

 even more than general society, many who are involved in religions keep quiet.  they have more pressure to keep quiet.  the men who do these acts are more protected.  how many young women did the one bishop i had that interviewed me for baptisms for the dead get asked about sex with animals and anal sex acts when they were still virgins and innocent....I'm sure all those questions were not in the Mormon handbook, but i suspect he was pretty happy to be in the position to be able to get his jollies making a young woman feel so uncomfortable.  maybe he's still in a position where he can do this or worse...maybe he's moved on to worse things.  who knows.  every time we keep quiet and do nothing we set up the next female for the same or again, worse. 

  the guy who pulled over to "ask directions" when i was out walking as a teen...does he still jerk off in front of young jogger/walkers in this manner or has he moved on to more violent acts? i'll never know.  i do know we should be speaking out more so that less women in the future will have so many of these negative experiences. 
these are out at Woronzof with the pups before it was covered with ice. 

 it snowed a bit tonight. the other morning at work i looked and it was like 3 degrees out. 

 i worked all but about 4 hours in the ER this week.  with cold temps the homeless, drug addicts, alcoholics and those with mental health issues feel ill...or maybe when it's 3 degrees out you have to keep walking to stay warm and find yourself at the ER...come in with an ailment and hope that at least gives you a few hours to sleep on a fairly soft mattress out of the cold.  if you are lucky, you get a sandwich. 

 it is pretty tough determining actual needs from manipulations some times and i have a hard time with that. 

 there is that, "there but for the grace of God go I" thing, which is often true. 

 you really don't know what the back stories are.  many have mental health issues and our nations does a crap job caring for them...so they often don't take meds that will help but have uncomfortable side effects or they can't afford them anyway...so they take drugs and alcohol instead.

 they can be cruel some days and even violent.  i try to be respectful, to treat them with as much dignity as i can.  i can tell many do feel embarrassed and hopeless.  their feet and hands fare poorly in the cold temps and wet socks/boots.  there is only so much we can do in the position we are in.  especially when the hospital is full and the waiting room full....hospitals are not set up to be shelters.

 fun co-workers. we do look out for each other.  do our best to keep each other safe..that is not a given working as we do.

 empathy and frustration..it's a mixed bag. 

 was singing last night with a co-worker and laughing.  i think it was annoying the monitor/ward clerk.  lots of model walking...i entertain my co-workers by making the long hospital hallways into my runway...they often join me in the walk...it is pretty funny and it actually wakes you up a bit.

 laughter can be a good thing to bring to the table for people who are scared and not feeling well. 

 besides they are a captive audience.

 i do appreciate the kind words this week...and the concern that i was in a deep depression. I'm fine.  i do some days have what i call melancholy which leads to thinking i guess, which leads to writing.  like i said, if I'm feeling stuff i suspect others do to. 

 answers to life questions are not always found but some times you just have to put stuff out in the world and see where it goes.

 watched a bit of the Olympics tonight...my first.  work/sleep/walk dogs. that is life some days. 

 dog park today.  Ivy took the wrong end of a tussle with one of the danes and she was limping a bit...all seemed fine by the time we'd walked a few hundred feet.  you mess with the big dogs, you may get stomped on.  hit the dog park yesterday too.....though that seems like a long time ago in dog walks.

 that is me...chilling in the fall.  September so i was just starting to wear a hat from time to time. 

 warmed up today to the teens so i end up taking the hat off.  cold is relative.  as the season comes on you get used to it.  0 becomes cold and 20 warm

 this was another cairn day.

 this is a popular place to tag.  if it gets bad they seem to do a paint over...there is always something bad repainted though. 

 just liked the color around the pups..hopefully there isn't anything too offensive. 

 it's late so i need to crash.  thanks for reading, responding and being kind.  we will all get through this world with kindness better than with anger.

thankful for A.  warm dry feet and hands  B.  soft bed and a shower  C. not to be plagued with mental illness and homelessness...and that I'm not a drug addict or alcoholic.  I'm flawed but in the big picture I'm doing just fine.