Covid behind me... finally met the beast!

 

probably good to finally get covid. it was as good a time as any.  much later in the game so better options, less virulent strain no doubt. i took sick the day after i returned from Homer from my Birthday trip. so happy it hit after i was home. always nicer to be sick at home.

i had a fever for 3 days straight.  called my Dr and she ordered paxlovid for me.  i only took one dose though as it made me shit for hours. already was dehydrated no doubt...did not need that. had to once again miss work so down to no pto so a bit short this week. luckily savings and selling a few items from the shed has helped. 

my first two nights back to work i still was coughing a lot, kept the mask on. worked ICU...at least one night, maybe two. funny how quickly you forget where you worked. i just finished two nights and i was a sitter in Peds then moved to ER to be a sitter. last night i was in CSU. never my favorite. co-workers always ask where is my favorite place to work.  different places add to the spice so i like to mix it up.  none of them really at this time though.  been working through pro/con lists stay or go. we shall cross that bridge when i need to, if i need to. 

feeling better overall. still a little cough. felt like i had dry mouth for a long time but that seems to be improving. oddly, i still feel like my tear ducts are slightly blocked from the pink eye i had a few months back. wake up with dry eyes.  annoying. 

finally got brave and chopped down the tree that had fallen over the deck from the weight of the snow. i still have to finish cutting up the main trunk but was happy to get that down without doing further damage to anything. 

the insurance company came by and i just got my numbers. now, can i find anyone to rebuild the shed? fingers crossed. i'll try to call tomorrow. i have a dentist and vet appointment tomorrow. just routine stuff. 

one morning i got out of bed and saw a few feathers upstairs.  i headed downstairs and found a bunch of feathers at the base of the stairs.  i started looking for the dead bird, instead i came across a live bird by the back door.  it was looking at me.  lots of feather loss and appeared to have a broken wing.  probably a young robin that was trying to learn to fly but instead met covid cat. no bird rescue on the weekend so i tried to make it comfortable, but in the end. it died from the shock i'm sure. felt bad for the poor bird. 

went walking with my friend the other day at Campbell Airstrip. we headed down the airstrip but saw a black bear and her cub.  so we went another direction.  we again ran across the bear and her cub as we returned to our cars.  luckily, she was headed our way down a different path and we got back to our cars before she got to the parking lot. took some fun photo's from the car. 

drove out to the Eagle River Nature Center late one evening.  if you drive that road you will often see wildlife. it was worth a shot.  a saw a black bear and several moose.  i was so tired.  mostly, once the fever left i just felt exhausted. 

last night was strange.  it was in the low 70's and beautiful.  i was inside and i started to hear loud thunder.  we rarely get lightning and thunder in Anchorage.  the interior gets it but it's rare here. some really dark clouds were seen up along the Chugach range. a nice rainbow came out.  as i left for work i felt a sprinkle or two hit me.  in less than a minute i was in a driving rain.  visibility was crap, hail started up, the roads were quickly flooding.  as i turned down Tudor Rd and headed west i soon was back in the sunshine. 

i did a few day trips.  one day i went to Matanuska Glacier with the dogs, another day i went to Seward. 

both were beautiful. overall great weather. 

i hit powerline trail. still some big patches of snow on the trail. got through several. finally turned back as one was pretty punchy. the dogs were happy to be out.  with covid i hit the dog park quite a lot. 

the bigger of the two octopus i saw recently.  

wrote a poem the other week about turning 60 and i guess my feeling about being 60...maybe a little leftover covid. who knows. 

Sixty,

don't give a shit, 

any more,

any less,

walking away,

is easier,

saying goodbye,

getting closure,

unneccessary,

do me wrong,

cause me harm,

so long,

if the effort,

is all me,

i will flee,

leave me be,

embrace the peace,

sixty.

not sure why it wanted double spacing on that. 

i was laughing yesterday as my phone rang and it was family who never call me. in my head i figured it was just a butt dial but i answered it.  they wanted a recipe of my Mom's and couldn't get a hold of someone else. 

i mentioned the thunder since the dogs were barking. some how this turned the conversation to signs of the second coming? no idea how that happened.  do i worry about Jesus coming back, what would i do? i just kept saying i do not believe any of that so it's not something i spend any time pondering. then i was asked if i was Christian.  i do not consider myself Christian.  my thoughts on Jesus, Buddha, Santa...probably based loosely on real people at one point but altered and re-created over the years. 

everything was signs of the impending second coming growing up. it has been for generations for many of these folks and yet...no second coming.  horrible things have happened over the 2000+ years since Jesus died and still no return. things much worse than thunder storm. 

i guess for some it's shocking that others do not spend time in their lives fretting over the next life or eternity. hell sometimes, it's tough enough getting through the day...why would i want to expend energy stressing out over the eternities. i am who i am. i am trying to be a decent human. i am trying not to purposely hurt others. even if there was a God, that God would be a total ass if that God condemned myself and my fellow humans because of all the Gods and religions out there, we were born into or selected the wrong one.  oh shucks, you were a good person but you picked the wrong religion and didn't wear the right underwear or learn the secret handshakes. 

these same folks would think i was nuts if i still believed Santa Clause was real. if i was still putting cookies and milk out Christmas eve and a carrot for the flying reindeer in hopes that Santa would come. perhaps i still rush out on Christmas morning hoping for a pile of gifts from Santa.  for me, Jesus is just like that. a story we were told as kids to shame/force/encourage us to follow the rules/obey/conform. 

i do not find it possible that an all knowing, all powerful God would require itself to impregnate a young virgin with some spiritual semen and then require that child of God to be sacrificed to save all of us sinners. what happened to free agency? who knows. forget free agency it's all about blind faith apparently. an all powerful God could simply forgive folks as this God sees fit. 

the more you investigate this stuff the more nuts it all is. the further away i am the happier i am that i took a different trek. happy that i'm not feeling increased anxiety and guilt in a panic over eternity. 

love this old photo of my bed.  i had a lot of stuffed animals. i just have a few of these guys left. 

sea star on the move

people just get made convinced by religion that they do not stand a chance without these religions.  they are made to believe that anything bad that happens in their lives is because they are disappointing God/the church.  anything good that happens is all because of God/church.  it really destroys the ego of people. they fear walking away from what they are being told is the only way they can get to heaven and/or be successful. statistics proves this very wrong but emotional manipulation is very powerful.

i heard all the time when i was younger, "even if i found out the church wasn't true i'd stay because it's the best place to raise your kids".  they had been made to believe that they were incapable of the job of raising kids without the arm of the church to guide them. thus generations become trapped in the cycle of whatever religion has got a hold of them.  i'm not saying there can't ever be any benefits in churches, but the truth is you can raise your kids to be good humans living happy lives without a religion at all. 

anyway, strange conversation. 

here is the shell of the shed. 

the dogs do enjoy the warm weather but they were super excited to run into snow on Powerline. 

work tuesday/Wednesday again then i'll figure out what to do on my next stretch off. 

there are always options.  

been getting good sleep of late. anxiety is much improved. just had to have a mini breakdown i guess. part of healing. 

sold the big weed whacker. it was always just too big for me to deal with. may sell the extra mower this next week.  it is a bother but always nice getting cash. 

the dogs are stained grey from the silt.  playing in kettle ponds at Matanuska Glacier is great fun but they do end up grey for a bit. 

they get dirty every chance they get.  they have enjoyed time at the dog park. they really do not care where we go, they just are happy to get out and play. 

Sunny loves to chase and be chased. 

thanks KR for this photo below. i took her out on the low tide. 

i'll head back to Homer in July for another low tide. 

speaking of the dog park...here is sunny in the water below

the killer kitty. in addition to the bird, he has killed a few shrews over the past few weeks. 

always enjoy a waterfall. i better crash.  stuff to do tomorrow.

thankful for: A. each day on this planet.  a fun and beautiful place. B. that i am recovering nicely from the scary virus...C. seeing wild life in wild places. 

the downside of becoming "woke"....

 

you have to deal with those who are left behind. who refuse to examine the worlds realities. who refuse to question. who refuse to be curious. 

woke just means to be socially aware. it's been made into a sort of swear word of late by the right.

if woke means that i am trying to accept others in the place that they are, then i accept that task. 

when it comes to racism. i really had no idea initially how racism has impacted so many aspects of our culture.  there was very little we were taught in school about the truths of those times of slavery and after slavery.  it was washed away.  we were learning at a young age i think in school that we were being taught a very watered down version of history.  at least i seem to recall getting that impression

i spent quite a lot of time in the library selecting books to read that i'm sure good Christian parents would refuse to allow.  my parents were pretty hands off in many ways.  parents are much more hovering these days, or have been. my parents had very little impact on what i read outside of the bible and book of mormon. my Mom was just happy we read.  she was a big reader...though much of her reading was romance novels.  she was reading. that was all that mattered. she had an amazing vocabulary

you can be exposed to and read a variety of things, you can travel to nations far and wide and still remain in a box of your choosing though. we choose these things.  

it makes me both sad for and angry at times for those who seem to remain entrenched in a thought process that many are leaving behind. 

it's just so hard to imagine intelligent people choosing to stay in a box of ideas that were standard when we were kids.  never really breaking from the beliefs about gays, race, religion, the world order. 

the people they support in office are doing some really horrendous things and yet, they choose to really just look the other way.  they have their things that they want to have happen, gun rights and abortion restrictions.  in truth abortions are less under dems because they encouraged and made available birth control and other supportive things that decrease abortions. 

i'd still say that the gop needed and depended on those fetuses being aborted more than the dems got from them.  they needed those fetuses to be taken in order to motivate their base to vote.  now with that gone, they are going after others. sadly, no battle will be as easy a win for them than fetuses.  the fetus is totally dependent on the person carrying it so no money needed to be spent by the gop. proof of this is that the gop votes over and over not to support pregnant women. they don't support the fetus financially in any way.  those nuts at abortion clinics aren't paid, they volunteer. 

a post on fb by a niece this week through me in to a bit of a rage. it was a supposed "study" with mice.  the mice were given everything they needed...in the end they extrapolated that the results of this "study" is what is happening in society with humans.  the last paragraph..."we are currently witnessing direct parallels in todays society, weak, feminized men with little to no skills and no protective instincts and overly agitated and aggressive females with no maternal instincts" who then destroy society by killing off the others. i was just about to leave for work and it just enraged me really. 

as i tend to fly off on these ridiculous things i just hit block so that i wouldn't comment and get into an online battle with yet another family member. right after i did that, her mom called me. i said i was feeling pretty angry and explained why.  she started to defend this "research" and that just angered me more.  i wasn't calm, i was over reactive so in the end i did send a text apologizing, saying in the state i was in i should not have answered the phone. also that i shouldn't have taken my anger out on her on something she didn't post. 

in the heated discussion i did mention that the Jesus i had learned about would have been kind to people, whether they were gay/trans...whatever.  then she had said, Jesus would say, "go and sin no more". 

so being more "woke" you have to find some way to accept those who think being "woke" is a scary and bad thing. then the next day yet another school shooting happens.  a reminder that the non woke vote in people who support the nra and guns rights so completely that death by gun is now the most common way to die as a child here. so they see the news about a shooting, send their thoughts and prayers and then go back to attacking the lgbqt+ folks, drag queens, books, actual history...stuff that isn't killing kids. 

that they espouse to be prolife and yet look away at all the death, is an irony they are incapable of grasping. 

these state governments would rather these transgenders and all others just disappear. i do not know what they want of them really.  they do not want to believe or admit they exist.  what are their choices at that point...if a whole segment of society wants them to pretend to not exist.  i have heard many times that there is just xx and xy.  this is simply not true. 

there are a lot of chromosome variations to this.  xxy, xyy, xxyy, xxxy....

if anomaly's can happen on all the chromosomes. i'm baffled why many can accept this on all the other chromosomes but not on those that determine sex characteristics and sexuality.it just doesn't seem too far out there that if you can be born with a penis and uterus than there is a wide variety of things that can happen. 

so i haven't called to talk because then the shooting happened and i can't promise i won't become angry at a discussion that can't possibly go anywhere useful. 

i saw a clip that was talking about trauma and trauma response. i didn't have any specific trauma's as a kid.  we had a pretty protected and fun existence. i have had some experiences later...and i often feel like my entire career is a trauma. dealing with others traumas and deaths over and over has to have an impact on us care givers. covid was an added trauma on top of it all. sexual assaults, bear close encounter, close calls in boats and planes...it all adds up. 

working in critical care you learn to remain calm.  so big things are happening and you just stay calm.  the clip was saying that often we are calm when these big things happen but as a response we tend to over react to smaller injustices/situations.  i guess because we have the space and freedom to react.  when the shit is hitting the fan you have to deal with it and you can't let emotions run wild. makes some sense i think. 

these are the last from sept 21.  the last fall with Tusk.  i will always feel badly for how his life ended but i try to focus on all the fun times we all had together.  my dogs have great lives overall. still so hard to let them go. 

my work week last week was one night of on call and two nights in pcu. not bad nights really. 

the most annoying was the second night the tech i had was pretty busy with some study work.  mostly just sat there on her ipad, not doing tech work.  i'm pretty good at doing much of my own tech work, we had no tech the first night, but it is frustrating having a tech who isn't doing much to actually help you. watching someone sit around getting paid to not do work.  irritating. 

these trees are at the kincaid park.  i'm feeling a lazy day here before i head back to work tonight. 

the dogs would prefer a nice walk. we did put in over 5 miles yesterday.  it was really nice.  the trails are still great and the weather is perfect. warm. into the 30's. 

there was a pretty great aurora the other night.  i was on call so i was sticking close to home.  should have gotten out there i guess. i fell asleep and never got called in. 

watching a series called "Manifest". so far it's pretty good. their flight hits some turbulence and after they get through that they land but apparently 5+ years have passed and they are trying to leap back into a life that left them behind. 

two nights of work ahead though. 

the post has been taken down.  my bil was much calmer and more capable of having a discussion.  apologies by the niece to him. i'll just stay unfriend for now.  i unblocked there have been other questionable posts.  better to just slide away from that stuff to prevent over reactions in the future. no social media info/battle will change views on those who ardently do not want their views to change. 

it will sadden me and frustrate me until my last day though.  

sad that they won't accept things that others do, sad that they refuse to look into the truths that others live with and try to find some way to at least be more accepting and at least less demanding that those people hide from their own existence.  what are they to do? live a life in the closet, in shame and self loathing just so the people on the right don't have to feel uncomfortable or see the reality. 

acceptance.  it's really what any of us want.  i think i gave up on much of that need through covid and the other circumstances i've dealt with.  i know others still hope for that full acceptance and it will never be granted. 

never...because full acceptance, even basic acceptance at many levels just isn't something they are capable or or choose to do....i'd say choose more than capable though, which is why it makes me angry.  

clinging on to the old ways of thinking.  not being able to evolve...it's a choice

living in a box. some comfort for the individual but that comfort will surely be rocked.  someone will marry the wrong color or the wrong sex.  someone will come out as a member of the lgbqt+ community....then what happens? do they change? some do, some don't.  what happens when they don't...? even more family/friends walk away, some will commit suicide, some will bend to the will of their families and live a made up, unhappy life, while quietly loathing themselves because they can't find a way to make that life work for who they are.  it's a mismatch of epic proportions

sadly, you can't make people walk the road and see what is happening across the street from their protected lives. if they don't want to they will not.  

occasionally, i will release the rage, no matter how futile it is when directed at those who are so deeply in their box. i'm a human. imperfect. i love, but i also can rage at times. 

i apologize for the times i rage and am grateful for those who accept me for who i am.  

i guess, in the end, a little rage outburst is needed.  you have to try to get through the box.  you hope that one of those efforts will be successful, if just for a moment. guess it's like the sperms and the egg...those little suckers ram like crazy and every so often, by some miracle one gets through.  it may be a totally screwed up sperm though, which causes havoc and creates a genetically flawed human.  

we are all flawed. is it the battle to exist?  that battle takes its toll on us all. whether we hide in a box or walk out into the wild. none of us can protect ourselves, whether we are woke or not.  nobody is shielded by prayers, bad stuff happens to all. if God was going to protect kids from these school shootings, God would have already done it.  this is on us.  so knock off the thoughts and prayers and get make changes. 

well, these dogs are being very patient and i'm getting thirsty. should get off this computer. 

hoping these two nights are not too rough. 

a bear print out there. none spotted yet this year. 

love these big trees, especially in the fall. 

beach down below. 

more snuggle time with the dogs then off to work.  

grateful for: A. becoming woke.  despite the negative aspects, i have a long ways to go. B. spring temperatures C. calmer heads than mine.