ellenspictures

Author: Hope Never Vanishes

  • Brrrr. Old Man Winter is At It Again.

    Brrrr. Old Man Winter is At It Again.

    When I was a kid, we definitely had winter. “Snow Days” occurred usually in January. It wasn’t a huge deal. Rarely, did we lose power, if ever. I’m not sure how this worked, but I can’t recall sitting in the dark freezing cold. Maybe we were just lucky through those times. It was not advisable to drive when the roads were icy, so mostly, we didn’t, but sometimes when we were going somewhere and we hit winter weather, well, we (Dad) just had to soldier on.

    I remember once, going out to West Texas to my grandparents’ house for some holiday, probably Thanksgiving or Christmas, and we hit a snowstorm head on. It was night time. It was crazy scary, but being that Dad grew up in Oklahoma, he’d seen much worse. In these situations, it isn’t always us that is the issue, but usually “them” that do not have experience driving in snow or ice and do stupid driver tricks skidding out or doing donuts in the middle of the road, out of control.

    Once we were going down to Houston for my grandmother’s birthday party and there was black ice on the freeway. Two cars in front of us collided, then parted just in time for us to shoot the gap, my Dad driving, just escaping a bad accident. We turned around and went home on the feeder road. It was scary for the passengers, that’s for sure.

    Many times in other places I have lived, there have been snowy and icy roads that had to be traversed. Usually, we got through it, but not always was it pleasant, and usually, it was treacherous – but, we were very, very lucky most of the time.

    Once again we have the onslaught of cold weather with a lot of people impacted by this. I am grateful we have, this time, been less impacted. As we know it could be worse, and it still could happen in the next couple of months. We’re not out of the woods yet.

  • Who Nose?

    Who Nose?

    Not mine but somebody else’s sinuses…

    I always since fifth grade and probably before that have had “sinus trouble”. I remember the big green pills that looked kind of like M&M’s that I had to take to help with this when I was a kid. I think that if you live where we do, everyone pretty much deals with this eventually because we have the humidity + crap in the air + lots of pollen and basically, the human nose and our animals, too, eventually go “snotty” and get clogged up and damaged so something gives.

    In my case it was a torrential nose bleed. Holy shit! One box of Kleenex later and the bathroom looked like a crime scene! Couldn’t get it to stop no way no how. Didn’t have the right “spray” to stop it. Squeezed my nose as the “inter-google” told us. Hubby drove me to the 24-hour pharmacy to get some of the “right spray”. Bleeding so much that I couldn’t get the spray to the source of the bleed. By that time it was coming out both nostrils! Holy crap!

    Ended up in the ER, with my blood-pressure raised so much it was like somebody gave me a cortisol cocktail with a side-car of adrenaline! The nurse said, “honey, calm down”… Sure. All my blood is coming out of my nose and you want me to calm down… Right-o! Not.

    Eventually, the nurse gave me a nose plug device, and a cold pack to put across my nose, and the bleeding calmed down. The doc came in after an hour or so, and checked me out. He told the big nurse to jam the Dristan up my nose and with three squirts in each nostril, after a bit, the bleeding slowed to a trickle whereby at that point, I think I could have used a transfusion… They said, “you didn’t lose as much blood as you think.” I thought, “you didn’t see the bathroom!”

    And no, hubby had nothing to do with this other than to be so kind as to drive me to the all-night pharmacy, and then to the ER and sit and wait for hours with me until I was cleared to go home… He is a saint. That’s the plain truth of this story.

    Next chapter. After deeper examination, I ended up going to a specialist. At the second visit, a CT scan of my sinuses was performed. I have a long list of “issues” that come with long term damage – probably not the worst they’ve seen, but probably not the best either… So I am lined up for a “nose job” – to correct the deviated septum (warped), and open up the circuitous clogged passages that look like some sort of video game maze quest for treasure tunnels…

    Apparently, after about a week or so, I should be good to go after they open things up with these little balloons that they poke up in there and “push” these passages open, and tell them “stay”, which apparently they do. Not sure what the procedure is with straightening the crooked septum – some sort of electrical thingy they use, apparently…

    And there are these things that hang down that have gotten over-sized that they are going to “trim” somehow. I dunno, but I hope they know what they are doing! I’m sure they do thousands of these because everyone here suffers and the ones who just can’t stand it anymore go and get this done.

    Someone who had this done told me how it went for her, but that was five years ago and well… you know, things get “different” in medicine. It’s not like it used to be, that’s for sure. I’ll find out soon.

    I’m here to tell you that if I reach this point, I’m there, dude, and I have and I am. Hubby asked, “will there be bruising?”, and I said, “God, I hope not!” I think he is worried about appearances, LOL!

    Just tell them I had a “nose job”. It’s the truth.

  • It is the day we say farewell to 2022. Good riddance.

    It is the day we say farewell to 2022. Good riddance.

    For now, let’s look at the political scene.

    It’s crazy, still, but it looks like people are coming to their senses that the orange orangutan is radioactive. Slowly. 2023 will bring more to this ongoing saga. For those of us who are in our later decades, we really are stunned at what has happened.

    We also have a shocking situation in Ukraine, with a bully madman having attacked in March, trying to seize what they had no rights to seize. Simple land grabbing via military attacks. They are not winning. The Ukrainians are fighters and clever. It is going to be a long bloody war. Senseless. Devastating. Insane.

    large group of people holding banner on supporting ukraine
    Photo by Mathias P.R. Reding on Pexels.com

    Eyes on Europe and the UK, where leadership in different countries shift. France remained stable barely. Italy is now under a government that may turn back pages in history. The UK? What a mess. Since Brexit, there has been nothing but an unfolding debacle with monkeys driving the train off the bridge.

    Now, the weather.

    Wind patterns and temperatures from NASA satellite images and sensors – vectors overlaid

    We had our second-most severe cold weather outbreak over Christmas, following a summer of hellish heat. We saw a monster hurricane devastate Florida. We’ve seen fires continuing in parts of the US and we watched Europe suffer horrid heat this year. The planet is changing rapidly as scientists predicted it would, and at a faster rate than predicted. This threatens food supplies, health, and welfare of all people everywhere on the planet.

    Politicians don’t do the right thing. Climate deniers block funding for solutions designed to shore up infrastructure that has been damaged or that is degrading due to age. Each time there is a cold snap they retort that climate change is not real. There is a personality pattern that has been identified that shows the complexity of what makes these people deniers. The big question is will they ever relent before we totally destroy our home. It’s not looking positive on that note.

    Creepy Disease Outbreaks.

    SARS-CO-19

    We’ve endured nearly three years of coping and mitigating SARS-CO-19 and all its variants. We are “vaxxed to the max” which has helped us avoid hospitalization with this disease. We’ve seen how miserable and scary this disease can be – and how unpredictable. We still are hearing about the unfolding long lasting effects. With every little ailment, we don’t know if it’s a long symptom or injury from the virus or something else unrelated.

    And in 2022, we’ve seen the emergence of influenza and now RSV that not only is attacking kids, but adults, too. It worries scientists and world leaders as the response was not stellar and was variable across the world. This does not help get control early before deaths become widespread. China has failed. Some countries have given up. Some have fared better than others. It’s a story that is a cautionary tale.

    What’s Positive?

    Always the dragonfly is a symbol of hope and survival.

    Hope remains. Living one day at a time, hoping for better times and doing what we can to make those happen. What do we look for? Signs of health. Signs of sanity. Signs of happiness. Signs of peaceful coexistence. Are we idealistic? Yes. Someone has to be. But we are also pragmatic. We are going back to drawing and maybe painting, but beginning with drawing, at least. Got some pastels from Santa – a lovely set of Conte’ pastels. Let’s see what happens.

    Happy New Year! Bring on 2023.