FOTO FRIDAY and SILENCE

Husband (H) Best Friend (BF) and I completed our round-trip to Little Rock Wednesday to my and BF's asthma/allergy/COPD physician.

As usual BF is in better shape than I am. It seems I have bronchitis annually at same time as my annual trip . On the way home I developed laryngitis. I have quarantined myself to the house until major improvement.

My husband is chanting " oh! happy day." He probably hopes the SILENCE stretches into a week or more.

My physician is changing my medicines. Age seems inviting more attacks. One antibiotic is an older one in a strength I did not know existed. I'm almost afraid to take it, but had made it through two doses without major side effects.

Photos today demonstrate SILENCE a tad too. Serene landscapes are part of a portfolio at least 15 yrs old. Luckie quietly napping were taken Nov. 2.

Luckie Napping and Dozing

Portfolio- photo copies of prints made from slides (about 15 yrs. old)

Affirm or Evaluate

I have been re-reading a small book (69 pages) entitled BALCONY PEOPLE by Joyce Landorf Heatherley, who has a variety of inspirational books. One other book, SILENT SEPTEMBER, deals with constant pain.

This book was recommended by a cancer support group sponsored by CARTI, the area Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute. This group holds luncheons in a nearby town, Mountain Home, for all cancer survivors, and caregivers, regardless of treatments. I only had surgery, the only treatment for kidney cancer, yet I am still welcome to take advantage of their luncheons and activities.

BALCONY PEOPLE is written to describe how to encourage and show your love and concern to others and affirmation of your love and respect for one another.

When you tell a person how you appreciate how well they clean your house, better than you ever could, that is affirming that person, but it is more than that, it is showing a certain kind of love for that person.

Conversely, there is the evaluator, unfortunately in the majority, who sums a person up and spits them out in rejection. There are evaluators whose job is to determine talent or qualifications for positions, but they can be affirmative.

The book I am re-reading is a second copy. I passed my first copy on to a person I felt needed it more than I did. But I wanted to refresh my memory of how to be an affirming person.

Although cancer survivors have need of affirming care, the survivor can also become an affirming person to others, especially other cancer survivors.

Of course, this philosophy is applicable in many life situations, not just cancer. How about a waiter/waitress who really serves you day after day in a friendly but attentive decorum; he/she really cares if your food is exactly what you expected, or the phlebotomist who has a special talent to hit that tiny vein (a most gifted person in my mind).

In the blogging world, we offer prayers and words of concern and encouragement.

It is wonderful to know there is a great and diverse group interested in each other .

However, this little book, written with references to organized religion, can help each of us be affirmers to those close to us everyday, our family, our friends, our business associates, our neighbors, the postal or newspaper delivery persons, the babysitter--the list can go on and on.

An Anonymous reading in the front to set the tone of the book is below; [not to be misunderstood, this booklet is written in the mode of our physical interaction with those persons in our everyday life---not the blogosphere. I am offering it simply because its message is imprinted in my mind.--NitWit1]

I WAS...

I was hungry and you formed a humanities club to discuss my hunger.

Thank you.

I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your chapel to pray for my release.

Nice.

I was naked and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.

What good did that do?

I was sick and you knelt and thanked God for your health.

But I needed you.

I was homeless and you preached to me of the shelter of the love of God.

I wish you'd taken me home.

I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me.

Why didn't you stay?

You seemed so holy, so close to God, but I'm still very hungry, lonely, cold and still in pain.

Does it matter?

--Anonymous

The Great (O)Possum Invasion

The year 1996 was memorable for three reasons. August marked my Dad's 90th birthday and we traveled to Texas for the occasion, which was interrupted with my ruptured kidney cancer emergency. I do know how to crash a party in unorthodox style, don't I?! [Scripture to Go! Part 1 , Scripture to Go - Part 2]

Besides Dad's 90th birthday and my kidney cancer encounter, there was the great possum invasion.

Before we left for Texas and Dad's birthday, we knew there were weird bumps under the floor of our manufactured home, especially at night. Husband(H) with back problems would give a cursory glance through several crawl space openings with a super-sized flashlight, more like a floodlight.....nothing visible.

Our manufactured home had a layer of loose insulation held in place by black impervious material stapled to the floor. In some places it had been torn open for repairs to various electrical and plumbing lines. Critters could possibly make nice nests if they were not allergic to Pink Panther insulation.

At the time we had our third German Shepherd, Gabriela [Gabby for short(G)], about 8-years old. The bumping and racket drove her crazy; she ran from floor vent to floor vent trying to catch the then unidentified critters who seemed to party at night, and relatively quiet in daylight hours. They were a raucous bunch, no doubt these were mating rituals, but we did not identify the critters for a while.

I do not remember when we identified the critters as possums. I remember finding a baby possum dead in the yard. H said it fell out of a tree. G may have had a part in the baby possum's demise.

G was not a hunter, like Luckie, but she hated invaders of her domain. Neighbors were amused, watching her rip the gutter downspouts off the house to get rid of chipmunks. I never found a dead one. She did unbelievable damage to aluminum downspouts with her teeth.

Never doubt the pressure of a German Shepherd's bite! None of our dogs ever bit anyone, but I respected their reputations and did not subject strangers to them. They generally warmed up to persons after they witnessed we were friendly.

We replaced aluminum downspouts with PVC--ugly but still standing.

Discovery of 0ur mystery invaders' identity may have been before the Texas trip. We had blocked every crack and crevice which could be used to invade our crawl space. One morning early I notice a large break in the lattice work surrounding our front deck's base and told H, who checked it out.

Meanwhile a stench permeated a few areas inside the house, like mice who die in the walls.

H worked for the City which frequently trapped wild or domestic pests for citizens, especially if rabies threats were prevalent. He borrowed a trap, baited it with dog food and placed it inside the lattice work near the opening. [These are not critter friendly traps, so some of you may wish to move along to another blog.]

We waited and checked every morning. A few days passed with no results. One morning I carried my coffee out on the deck and peered over the railing. Bingo! Something was in the trap. I awakened H to tell him we had a criminal in the trap.

He dressed and went out for a look. Being a man of few words, especially before a cigarette and coffee in the morning, all he said was "Possum." He carried it off to the City's unofficial and probably illegal dead animal dump; I made sure I didn't know where this was, although I was not a city official at the time.

These critters could form a formidable army as they have 1-3 litters, averaging 8-9 infants, yearly. We were already losing this war without knowing it.

Over a period of time we caught several possums, some were lunker-sized. He caught at least one while I was recuperating in Texas; it was the news of the day when I called him.

When I returned home I spent a few months more recuperating and applied for Social Security disability (I was 59.5 years old), which was granted. During this time the possum trapping continued.

The City work force began kidding H about when we would be serving possum pie, and other despicable sounding dishes, known in the South, nicknaming him Possum Hunter and a variety of related names. Long ago I told H the only meat on our table came from the grocery store. However, I relented for fish, when we were lucky enough to have a decent catch.

During this period of time there was a tragedy in a nearby community where a man shot and killed his wife, dismembered her into parts placed in white garbage bags in a Styrofoam cooler and dumped in Norfork Lake. It was the scuttlebutt for miles around.

I begin to worry about the white bags leaving our house for the city's animal dump, especially if neighbors were watching.

One day I'm sure they were watching!!! One possum was not dead in the trap. It growled at H, which didn't set well him. He came in the house, retrieved his shotgun, and finished off the possum with several blasts heard round the neighborhood. Discharging a firearm in the city limits is a violation of law, but you do have the right to protect your own property---interpretation is everything.

Then he carried the remains in white plastic bags to the city animal dump.

That day I made several unscheduled appearances outside the house around the property so the neighbors didn't start a rumor H was carrying his wife off in numerous white bags, just like the widely reported tragedy the rumors of which were getting wilder by the day.

This was NO COPY-CAT murder and I wanted to be sure we were the brunt of the city's coffee shop's rumor mill.We have several very popular coffee shops just brimming with "official" information to pass around. Some coffee shop regulars, mostly men, make all the stops every morning.

The possum population finally reached zero after several months of no victims. H sealed the opening.

Then began the obnoxious repairing of damaged insulation and black material. This was a dismal period in our lives where finances were tight, I was not working, and hiring the work out was not an option. We had decided that if we could get the mess removed, we would staple batts of insulation to the floor so no more invasions would be possible.

H's supervisor, knowing our situation, offered to help remove the near 20-year-old dirty insulation and black holding material. Despite he and H wearing protective clothing and masks, they both were sickened by dead possum carcasses. It seemed the supervisor was the unfortunate discoverer of a majority of the carcasses.

H then put up the new batts in several sessions. We had no major invasions on our property since the possums, just lots of annoying ants and a mouse once in awhile.

However, the current invasion of note is the home next door, which we watch for the absentee owner. Armadillos are breeding under it. It is 13 years later and H's hands shake a bit. When he heads for the shotgun, Luckie and I head for the Hidey Hole storm shelter.

Photo: old snapshot of Gabriela Von Haus Coward commonly called Gabby; she always thought everyone needed assistance in the bathroom . No doubt occupant at time of this photo thought otherwise! Gabby has a sable coat, a bit unusual in German Shepherds.