Ironies of all irony ("The Mother of all..." if you will); the the "noble savage" is massacred on his/her homeland wilderness while we romantics move in with golden locks and swords to poison their paradise. Our twisted path to "health" too often is paid with the cost of our innocence.
I buy store-brand lemonade ,; my well is among the best of the arsenic and uranium tainted of N H; I have a 75-year-old bladder that has to be flushed and drained 4 times a day. This one go-around is tedious but I keep getting better...youngsters come by and call me Bumpy- could I ask for more?
I knew that arsenic was a common contaminant in NH well water, but didn't realize that uranium was a problem as well. There are filters that can deal with both problems. I just have experience with the arsenic filter (which does a good job).
Hyperbole...I was reminded last week that its at higher levels in our granite than in other parts of the country (which is where that gas in our cellars that people test for (escapes me) comes from. Do you know that you are NOT permitted to use a Geiger counter on state property?
The gas is radon - we had a ton of it in the basement of our old house (where my hubby had his workshop). No basement in our current house! :) No I was not aware that we were not allowed to use a Geiger counter on state property... sheesh, what kind of "live free and die" state are we? Do you happen to know the why for the rule?
I'm thinking of when I was a kid up in Sanbornton and there was mention that they were looking for Uranium in the brooks. The nation was on a boom building bombs, developing X-ray equipment -stuff like that. I know that there are a lot of things proscribed in parks like mining and memorials 'Geocaching, which my wife loves got notice after 911 to stop using the parks.
I had to look that one up - geocaching sounds like a fun hobby. It's too bad that they can't use the parks anymore, but 911 messed up a lot of innocent hobbies. My husband and I were worried that they would outlaw model rocketry for a while (the black powder used in ejection charges was giving the BATF conniption fits), but eventually the government figured out that the model rocket folks are harmless (mostly). :)
Goddard was a god to me growing up. I never got near to rocketry but I'm still an avid fan of NASA. Being country poor my brothers and I used to blow things up a lot for amusement.
Yes the road is twisty. At this time at 82, it's focusing on the things I love. It's mainly doing the physical work of developing a 28 acre nature preserve. The work is often dirty, sweaty, and grungy, but the results are right there. It's also taking the time to observe nature around me and sometimes putting my thoughts and feelings into a poem.
Good to hear you are back from the Mayo Clinic. So glad you are back!
I lived six blocks from the Mayo Clinic and could see the old Plummer Building until they built a high rise so there went our view. My Dad was a night watchman at Mayo many years in the ‘50’s into the 60’s and met Charlie Mayo in the hallways sometimes, and he said he was the nicest guy. My mother
worked as an aid at St. Mary’s which is part of Mayo. They were both hired back in 1952-54 and the reason I mention this is because my dad only went through the six grade and mom through the eighth grade. Dad was born in 1897 and had to help on the farm and mom lost her parents and had to go to work at the age of 14. I’m always so appreciative of Mayo hiring my parents when they did not have a very good education, but my parents were intelligent people and hard workers.
I’m also glad, Garrison, you go to Mayo. Mom would bring stories home lots of days of people who came there from other states where doctors were not so good. I learned early on to know Mayo is one of the best. Good for you being in good hands. We are very glad you’re back. And, yes, dehydration is the root cause of many illnesses. Drink your water. We love you, Garrison.
As fine author Ray Bradbury wrote into his classic "Fahrernheit 451," when it's over, it's "So it goes." Just as it did for Jack The Camper. what was left of him was still alive when you met him, but he might as well have been dead. Such a terrible fate.
Keep standing on one leg. It keeps you balanced. A crane does it too, at times. Many birds do. But you rarely see 4-legged critters lift a leg or two, for other than a need to pee. You need to write. No, I don't know what the correlation is. But keep up the scrivening.
Another deli9gihtful feature of your on-going medical journey is the delightful array of articulate and thoughtful replies it generates. Post to the Host vies with the Posts by the Host for narrative and philosophical education for all of us.
Stash Orange Tea, say iced tea! - another way to fill a glass with good water. Heat/nuke 1/4 cup of water, place in tea bag to steep, fill tall glass with ice, add steeped tea/keeping the tea bag right in there and fill with cold (filtered) water. Enjoy. Special, refreshing - goes good with dinner, too!
Eyedrops, Water, exercise. These are things that need to become routine. Like your writing. You likely have some sort of routine, sit with coffee and doodle some words which will then preoccupy your mind. Then you'll find yourself at some café doodling more words that have nothing to do with the first set of words. You don't recall how you got to this cafe because you were too steeped in words to take notice. All you know is that you were in your writing routine and crossed three streets and drank two cups of coffee before you realized it was time to go back home and get ready for dinner where you will sit at the table and doodle some words until your bride takes your pen and paper away from you and says "Eat".
Routine Mr. Keillor, routine.
Wake, eye drops, glass of water. Doodle words with water. Eyedrops before lunch and dinner and before bed. Water while you walk. Get a treadmill and dictate words to a portable recorder while you walk and then hand it to some business intern named Ashley to transcribe into some manuscript. One that you'll review later and wonder what the hell you were thinking.
Doodle words to your hearts content Mr. Keillor, just do it with water, eyedrops and a healthy walk to the drugstore to get more eyedrops, less the blindfold and bound hands.
Thank you for your story of your Jack Armstrong. I wonder how many like him there actually are. Forty years ago in northern New York, the presbytery ran a canoeing program for kids, and the granddaddy of the program we nicknamed Les Voyageurs. In training for leaders, old Les would head us into a gale on big Cranberry Lake, and when we got to the opposite shore, exhausted and in utter disbelief that we had survived, Les announced that we would now see what the Oswegatchie River looked like. He taught us how to impress the kids by throwing our paddle straight down into the lake, where it would shoot back up, and then holding it over our heads, drink a cup of water off the blade. But old Les got into some giardia with that stunt and ended up in the hospital for a week. That was the end of that trick.
Don't let Junior drive you 6 miles away. At least not at first. That is defeatist. Try a mile or two and work up from there. And from different directions. Happy hiking!
I'm soon to be 82 and on my 3rd pacemaker (in 20 years, bradycardia, from Medtronic, a my hometown of Mpls. company), and I try to walk briskly at least a half hour a day. In the winter, in the nearby Y, I can walk an18 minute mile. You have walking available in your current city, so take advantage of it.
Ironies of all irony ("The Mother of all..." if you will); the the "noble savage" is massacred on his/her homeland wilderness while we romantics move in with golden locks and swords to poison their paradise. Our twisted path to "health" too often is paid with the cost of our innocence.
I buy store-brand lemonade ,; my well is among the best of the arsenic and uranium tainted of N H; I have a 75-year-old bladder that has to be flushed and drained 4 times a day. This one go-around is tedious but I keep getting better...youngsters come by and call me Bumpy- could I ask for more?
I knew that arsenic was a common contaminant in NH well water, but didn't realize that uranium was a problem as well. There are filters that can deal with both problems. I just have experience with the arsenic filter (which does a good job).
Hyperbole...I was reminded last week that its at higher levels in our granite than in other parts of the country (which is where that gas in our cellars that people test for (escapes me) comes from. Do you know that you are NOT permitted to use a Geiger counter on state property?
The gas is radon - we had a ton of it in the basement of our old house (where my hubby had his workshop). No basement in our current house! :) No I was not aware that we were not allowed to use a Geiger counter on state property... sheesh, what kind of "live free and die" state are we? Do you happen to know the why for the rule?
I'm thinking of when I was a kid up in Sanbornton and there was mention that they were looking for Uranium in the brooks. The nation was on a boom building bombs, developing X-ray equipment -stuff like that. I know that there are a lot of things proscribed in parks like mining and memorials 'Geocaching, which my wife loves got notice after 911 to stop using the parks.
I had to look that one up - geocaching sounds like a fun hobby. It's too bad that they can't use the parks anymore, but 911 messed up a lot of innocent hobbies. My husband and I were worried that they would outlaw model rocketry for a while (the black powder used in ejection charges was giving the BATF conniption fits), but eventually the government figured out that the model rocket folks are harmless (mostly). :)
Goddard was a god to me growing up. I never got near to rocketry but I'm still an avid fan of NASA. Being country poor my brothers and I used to blow things up a lot for amusement.
Yes the road is twisty. At this time at 82, it's focusing on the things I love. It's mainly doing the physical work of developing a 28 acre nature preserve. The work is often dirty, sweaty, and grungy, but the results are right there. It's also taking the time to observe nature around me and sometimes putting my thoughts and feelings into a poem.
Good to hear you are back from the Mayo Clinic. So glad you are back!
I lived six blocks from the Mayo Clinic and could see the old Plummer Building until they built a high rise so there went our view. My Dad was a night watchman at Mayo many years in the ‘50’s into the 60’s and met Charlie Mayo in the hallways sometimes, and he said he was the nicest guy. My mother
worked as an aid at St. Mary’s which is part of Mayo. They were both hired back in 1952-54 and the reason I mention this is because my dad only went through the six grade and mom through the eighth grade. Dad was born in 1897 and had to help on the farm and mom lost her parents and had to go to work at the age of 14. I’m always so appreciative of Mayo hiring my parents when they did not have a very good education, but my parents were intelligent people and hard workers.
I’m also glad, Garrison, you go to Mayo. Mom would bring stories home lots of days of people who came there from other states where doctors were not so good. I learned early on to know Mayo is one of the best. Good for you being in good hands. We are very glad you’re back. And, yes, dehydration is the root cause of many illnesses. Drink your water. We love you, Garrison.
You make my day! Keep drinking New York water!
As fine author Ray Bradbury wrote into his classic "Fahrernheit 451," when it's over, it's "So it goes." Just as it did for Jack The Camper. what was left of him was still alive when you met him, but he might as well have been dead. Such a terrible fate.
Keep standing on one leg. It keeps you balanced. A crane does it too, at times. Many birds do. But you rarely see 4-legged critters lift a leg or two, for other than a need to pee. You need to write. No, I don't know what the correlation is. But keep up the scrivening.
I remember "And so it goes" as a repeated phrase from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5.
Another deli9gihtful feature of your on-going medical journey is the delightful array of articulate and thoughtful replies it generates. Post to the Host vies with the Posts by the Host for narrative and philosophical education for all of us.
Is standing on one foot for 10 seconds with your eyes closed really a test at the doctor's?
If the doctor is a neurologist, yes.
Maybe not but it's a test of balance which starts failing as one ages, and is responsible for many falls.
If a police officer is asking you to do it, it's testing for something else...
Stash Orange Tea, say iced tea! - another way to fill a glass with good water. Heat/nuke 1/4 cup of water, place in tea bag to steep, fill tall glass with ice, add steeped tea/keeping the tea bag right in there and fill with cold (filtered) water. Enjoy. Special, refreshing - goes good with dinner, too!
SB Pittsfield MA
Tea and other caffeinated drinks actually make you lose hydration, as they are diuretics
There are decaf versions...
Liptons sells tea bags for making col brewed tea foir iced tea, brews in a couple of hours.
Eyedrops, Water, exercise. These are things that need to become routine. Like your writing. You likely have some sort of routine, sit with coffee and doodle some words which will then preoccupy your mind. Then you'll find yourself at some café doodling more words that have nothing to do with the first set of words. You don't recall how you got to this cafe because you were too steeped in words to take notice. All you know is that you were in your writing routine and crossed three streets and drank two cups of coffee before you realized it was time to go back home and get ready for dinner where you will sit at the table and doodle some words until your bride takes your pen and paper away from you and says "Eat".
Routine Mr. Keillor, routine.
Wake, eye drops, glass of water. Doodle words with water. Eyedrops before lunch and dinner and before bed. Water while you walk. Get a treadmill and dictate words to a portable recorder while you walk and then hand it to some business intern named Ashley to transcribe into some manuscript. One that you'll review later and wonder what the hell you were thinking.
Doodle words to your hearts content Mr. Keillor, just do it with water, eyedrops and a healthy walk to the drugstore to get more eyedrops, less the blindfold and bound hands.
Thank you for your story of your Jack Armstrong. I wonder how many like him there actually are. Forty years ago in northern New York, the presbytery ran a canoeing program for kids, and the granddaddy of the program we nicknamed Les Voyageurs. In training for leaders, old Les would head us into a gale on big Cranberry Lake, and when we got to the opposite shore, exhausted and in utter disbelief that we had survived, Les announced that we would now see what the Oswegatchie River looked like. He taught us how to impress the kids by throwing our paddle straight down into the lake, where it would shoot back up, and then holding it over our heads, drink a cup of water off the blade. But old Les got into some giardia with that stunt and ended up in the hospital for a week. That was the end of that trick.
Don't let Junior drive you 6 miles away. At least not at first. That is defeatist. Try a mile or two and work up from there. And from different directions. Happy hiking!
Im so excited! "News from Mayo" !!
More GK hymns, please, and not just the heroic couplets at the end of blank verse, ala W. S'peare. Still grateful, though.
I'm soon to be 82 and on my 3rd pacemaker (in 20 years, bradycardia, from Medtronic, a my hometown of Mpls. company), and I try to walk briskly at least a half hour a day. In the winter, in the nearby Y, I can walk an18 minute mile. You have walking available in your current city, so take advantage of it.
It is and I too am prone to meandering.