Tim is still here in the hospital, but doing better each day. He’s progressed from clear liquids to Rice Krispies, bananas and yogurt. No estimated date of release yet… He’s napping (and snoring) at the moment so I’m seeing what mischief I can get into with his laptop, between my hot flashes… We’re supposed to get a winter storm on Friday.
This hospitalization has been easier for me to cope with than when Tim had his heart attack. The hospital is local and smaller, making it easy for me to get myself here and back home each night. I deeply appreciate all the healing energy being sent our way and I’m happy to report that I’ve gone two days without a migraine trying to get a hold of me.
In recent weeks we’ve discovered that we enjoy preparing food together, so today we’ve been planning what new recipes we’re going to try out when he gets back on his feet again.
I made a trip to the bookstore this morning looking for some science fiction books Tim wants to read. They didn’t have the ones he requested, so I’m lending him my Kindle. He can order them and read them while he’s here. He was starting to explore on the Kindle when he fell asleep in the recliner. This hospital has some pretty nice amenities… 🙂
No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit. ~ Ansel Adams (Screenwriting with a Conscience: Ethics for Screenwriters)
Hello, my readers. Tim (my husband, Mr. Logic himself – doctors are always surprised at his analytical answers to their questions…) is in the hospital for a few days with diverticulitis. Of course, the stiff-upper-lipped and silent sufferer endured his symptoms for a week before seeking treatment. The walk-in care clinic doctor gave him antibiotics on Thursday, which didn’t work, so by Sunday he was in so much pain I took him to the urgent care clinic. They did a CAT-scan to eliminate the possibility of kidney stones, found the diverticulitis, and admitted him to the hospital. They’ve got him on morphine and two different antibiotic infusions and a clear liquid diet.
We had jello for dinner last night.
Predictably I woke up with a migraine this morning (stress hormones), but I popped a Zomig and am doing some laundry and dishes before I head over the bridge to see my patient, who has already emailed me on his fancy Android gadget. I see my scheduled quote/picture combo posted here this morning, so I thought I’d let you all know why I’m not responding to comments for a while. I’ll return as soon as possible!
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. ~ Aristotle (Survival: Webster’s Quotations, Facts & Phrases)
Each thought, each action in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred. In this light, no boundary exists between the sacred and the profane. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh (Peace Is Every Step)
Hairy Fairy Cup by Noah Siegel, at Devil’s Hopyard State Park
About 38 miles (61 kilometers) northwest from here is a town called Moodus. The Native Americans called the area “morehemoodus,” or “place of noises.” The noises come from the earth, fault lines running under the community. Modern citizens refer to them as Moodus Noises. With the disaster in Japan on my mind I took more note than usual when news reports came in on Thursday that Moodus had experienced a little 1.3 magnitude earthquake Wednesday night at 8:42 p.m. The epicenter was close to Devil’s Hopyard State Park.
We didn’t notice it here, and it caused no damage, but in Moodus they heard a loud bang and felt some movement, causing residents to call the police department and the police to drive around looking for what they feared might be an explosion. At 11:00 p.m. the U.S. Geological Survey called to tell them of the quake and the search was called off.
I’ve never felt an earthquake before and started to wonder about the local geological history of Connecticut. It turns out that on May 16, 1791 Connecticut experienced what they believe was about a 7.0 quake in the same area. “The stone walls were thrown down, chimneys were untopped, doors which were latched were thrown open, and a fissure in the ground of several rods in extent was afterwards discovered,” an observer said. It caused damage across southern Connecticut and it could be felt as far as Boston and New York. There were more than a hundred aftershocks overnight. It was the largest known earthquake in Connecticut’s history.
Apparently there was a 5.0 earthquake in southern Connecticut on November 3, 1968, but being an eleven year old in northern Connecticut at that time, I missed that one, too. Not that I necessarily want to experience an earthquake! When we lived in Greece in the early 1970s I felt there was a good chance of having one while we were there. And there was a little one my parents felt in Athens, but Beverly and I were away on a school field trip.
And happily imbibing, as I recall! As far as I know, children of all ages were allowed alcoholic beverages in Greece at that time. My parents actually told us not to drink the water as there was a meningitis outbreak in the area. We were instructed to drink only the wine. There were a few overly tipsy evenings on that field trip, this being a wild treat for the American students in our school… The European students were not sure what all our excitement was about. 🙂
This was one of those experiences that had an effect on my opinions about having an age of majority for alcohol. If you grow up drinking wine with your family it loses its fascination and thrill and all sense of novelty.
Two glasses of the Greek wine retsina, photo by Yorick R.
But I digress…
So, anyway… I started wondering, again, just how far above sea level are we, in case we have an earthquake here big enough to cause a tsunami. (After all, there was a 3.9 earthquake off Long Island on November 30, 2010, just a few months ago.) Beverly pointed me to an online topographical map of Connecticut: UConn Map & Geographic Information Center (MAGIC). Looks like we’re about 20 feet above sea level. The entrance gate of the campus where Tim works is about 90 feet above sea level, so we’ve decided that’s where we’ll meet. Happy for me, if driving there isn’t possible I can walk uphill to get there, or run rather, IF we ever feel the earth rumbling here. Somehow it feels better to be prepared, to have a plan.
Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness … the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world man will have discovered fire. ~ Teilhard de Chardin (The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World)
USFWS – cotton-grass on wetlands, Selawik National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska
Softer than cotton-grass swaying in the wind deep in the mountain clearing, are the memories that drift through a man’s own mind a pale, wind-swept evening. ~ Olav Aukrust (The Northern Light)
The universe is a more amazing puzzle than ever, as you glance along this bewildering series of animated forms, – the hazy butterflies, the carved shells, the birds, beasts, fishes, snakes, and the upheaving principle of life everywhere incipient, in the very rock aping organized forms. Not a form so grotesque, so savage, nor so beautiful but is an expression of some property inherent in man the observer, — an occult relation between the very scorpions and man. I feel the centipede in me, — cayman, carp, eagle, and fox. I am moved by strange sympathies; I say continually, “I will be a naturalist.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Journals)
It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~ Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer, Detective)
“Springtime in Giverny” by Claude Monet
We discover a new world every time we see the earth again after it has been covered for a season with snow. ~ Henry David Thoreau (Journal)
“Spring Princess” by Carl Larsson
My slowly growing pysanky collection…
3.18.11 ~ Groton, Connecticut
I made two of the (less prominent) Ukrainian Easter eggs myself several years ago when Aunt Delorma and I took a workshop. It’s NOT easy!!! Can you guess which ones?
