THIS HAND - A SOLILOQUY

MY 75+ YEAR-OLD HAND

Once in awhile, in short moments of reflection, memories and stories of my life click, like a slide show, or roll like a movie, before my eyes.

Noticing the aged and wrinkled look of my hand, I took this picture. Viewing all the wrinkles, I reflected some of the events of my life this hand had endured, enjoyed, sometime survived.

Once it was a chubby, perfectly formed hand,  of a newborn child whose mother had endured the pain of delivery coupled with the depression of separation from her child due to personal circumstances.

A loving, childless couple almost immediately adopted the child with perfect hand, and to them the priceless gift of another, made it entirely perfect.

This hand, all too soon was learning to hug hold and play.  Soon this hand had siblings with which to interact. and play. Sometimes as siblings do, there little tempers rose and this hand, as others, were used in small skirmishes. There were many good times, too.

This hand helped her Mother with chores and thereby learned household skills needed in later years.

This hand developed love of music, art, and work and football. After several events, it was trained in a service profession, pharmacy. In retirement love of music, art and football continue.

This hand has witnessed the extinct great mammoths of South Dakota to the dromedaries of Morocco. It has interacted with many cultures inside the US and some outside of US.

This hand held the spoon  to taste heavenly date honey in the Sahara to the varied honeys of America.  The cuisines are inumerable as the memories of them, both inside and outside US.


This hand has played in childhood sandboxes and sifted sands of the Sahara desert. It has seen sunrises and sunsets on many US  lakes and also a sand dune in the Sahara desert.

This hand learned there were moral and spiritual forces in life including prayer, often performed by intertwining with both hands.  Prayer became an early habit in childhood as this hands and the hands of the siblings all said evening prayers.

This hand was entranced and enthralled with learning, starting with a private kindergarten through the university level to this day as it helps type this blog, and probably will continue until the mind fails to instruct, or it is silenced by departure of its soul.

This hand has traveled many miles both in touring and in living. It has learned some of life's lessons the hard way; it has also helped endure some of life's saddest events as well asenjoy  some its most joyous events.

This hand learned to share in others' joy, sorrow and misfortune, helping or comforting when it understood the need.

This hand is not that of a perfect person. It has seen sometimes shameful behavior, particularly in younger years, hypocrisy in moral values and not always respectful of the dignity of all peoples and their belief systems.

This hand has endured several health issues and about 12 minor or major surgeries. It has always bounced back. It seems to have indominable spirit of recovery.

This hand has loved nature and animals. It has patted and loved many dogs and a few cats.

This hand has had a companion of 43 years, holding and pledging the traditional vows to each other 43 years Feb. 22, 1969. There have been more good times than bad,  nor was it match made in heaven. This hand might have done some things differently, but learned however slowly.

Like the rest of life, there have been laughter, tears, some anger, some compromise. However, this hand did not  have the fortune of good health, but its opposite partner has endured and supported through the years.

Now this hand and that of its companion are facing the sunset years of  life. These years continue to be as they were trained so many years ago. It seems the only difference is the length of time it  takes to complete ordinary daily tasks.

So with this somewhat wandering  soliloquy I end. It is time for me to prune the neglected roses in my yard, which are showing new leaves and buds, as are the forsythia bushes.

PHOTOS: NitWit1, unless otherwise attributed.

LUCKIE'S HAIRDO

Despite all the prognosticators of weather that Arkansas would only have snow in December due to La Nina, where the temperature pattern of the Pacific Ocean determines weather in the US, we had about 3 inches of snow Monday in north central Arkansas. We also had a light snow amount in January. So much for weather forecasters, the Farmer's Almanac, and other prognostications.

Luckie seems to be recovering from her chronic Ehrlichiosis. She decided to run and play in the snow yesterday, as if she were two years instead of 13 years old. She barked at everything that moved and raced around her fenced yard, trying to scare feral cats, squirrels and the neighborhood grouchy groundhog who were scavenging for food.

She came in several times with huge snow flakes to shake the snow and cold water all over us. I'd wipe her off and out she went again. She has a nest of dead leaves she uses as a soft bed from which she oversees her perceived worldly territory.


Once she came in the house in such a ridiculous mess I had to laugh. The hair on her head reminded me of small boys I see at church with short haircuts which stand straight up on their heads. Their parents probably use some kind of mousse to get the effect.

Needless to say, Luckie was very disgruntled when I closed the doggie door and made her stay in the house till her feeding time which was nearly dark. When I finally opened it up again, she had lost her zeal; maybe she has beginning dementia and forgot about grouchy groundhog. Not likely!

Despite her age, she knows exactly my morning routine: the order I start the coffee pots and additives like milk or flavors, then I take my morning medicines; then I retrieve water and cheese from fridge to start her breakfast.

She won't take her meds without cheese or peanut butter. She takes PROIN (for spayed female bladder leakage), Pepcid 10 mg for tummy, and phenobarbital for seizures. She gets Beneful and --get this: purified cooled water from the fridge.

If I am too slow she has a toy, a porcupine until I had to amputate its identifying nose, arms, legs and tail because she began her own surgery strewing cotton everywhere. (I sewed her surgery up, too.) She squeaks it until I feed her. It has an nerve wracking, nerve grating noise for a 75 year old woman barely moving early in the morning.

I ought to feed her the minute she waltzes in the kitchen, but I am just stubborn enough to think husband's and my coffee and meds come first.

Below is Luckie's Mother Nature hairdo!

Luckie's Snow Hairdo

We are remodeling a number of rooms, mainly renovated walls with bead board ceiling to floor. I love the effect, although a tad expensive. We have a carpenter doing the hard work including trim. My job is keeping up with where stuff gets shuffled to and from.

Posting may be short for awhile. I am too busy shuffling through the shuffled!

PHOTOS: BY NitWIT1 unless otherwise attributed.

GRAY, OR IS IT GREY?

Afternoon Sun  Last Week
We've had a number of gray, but relatively mild days for winter, the last few weeks.

Despite a relative mild Winter thus far, a large number of days have been about this color and NO sun peeping through at all.

Normally, you should not point any camera at the sun unless the sunlight is diffused by one of several ways; in my case the overhead clouds, or fog, or whatever is hanging over the Ozarks served as an adequate filter. It almost looks like moonlight.

I looked up the spelling of the word 'gray' and 'grey' to see there were truly any subtle differences. There is NOT. However the 'gray' spelling is considered American English, but either one is correct and have exactly the same definitions. Just another one of the little interesting things about the English language and the American dialect, as I like to call it.

Today was occupied with getting our Income Tax done at the local AARP Tax Aide center in my little city. I had to wait my turn for 2.5 hours. But as my husband said, "I assume you found someone to chatter with." He was right; I said, "Of course, in that length of time I found several."

Tonight I have a mild stomach upset so taking it easy this eveing, food-wise and headed to 'nod-off-to-sleep-soon-in-front-of-the-TV land.' Good night and blessed dreams to all.'

HERE WE SIT ...

TURKEY BUZZARDS AT BULL SHOALS DAM
These scavengers are permanent resdents at Bull Shoals Dam on the White River side. They wait for water generation, the effluent of which contains dead minnows and other decaying materials which provide these lazy birds a free and convenient meal, sometimes several times daily. Why work and hunt when it is so plentiful? A few seagulls compete with them in the winter, but migrate to the oceans and seas in May, leaving the lucky ugly critters to dine free.

Turkey buzzards as scavengers are protected species in US, so the "four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie" children's rhyme certain should not occur in reality in US, if it really ever did.

However, these somewhat ugly creatures remind me of another ditty.

My last 3 years of high school I was in a marching band which attended every school football game, in or out of town. When we traveled to a school in our conference it was by two huge buses. Often the trips were relatively long and we entertained ourselves by singing several group songs with no sense at all, like the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, which decreased by one in each stanza, and the manner in which one bottle disappears varies with the many variations of this song. Few times we made it to the end, as most of us were asleep. (If our singing was every recorded, you would know why we were in band and not choir!)

But another such song is printed below, which has dozens of variations: we usually sang, 'waiting for something to eat, or something to drink.' 

 I am 75 and I bet these ditties are still sung. Maybe more remarkable is I remember them!

HERE WE SIT LIKE BIRDS IN THE WILDERNESS

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our food.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our soup.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,
Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our bread.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness.

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,
Waiting for our meat.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for dessert.

There are  You Tube videos of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and also Here We Sit Like Birds in the Wilderness. I won't bore you with them.  However, sever of the 'Birds' ones are children, which are cute. One they do some kind of hand signs, but don't think it is signing like for the death. I do not remember that performance.

Photo: NitwWt1