Hip Replacement

I attended a two-and-a-half hour class on joint replacement Tuesday. One of the many things I learned about is a thing called a "hip kit," which consists of a "reacher," a long shoehorn, a half-cylinder device for helping you get your socks on, and a long-handled scrub sponge (so you can wash your lower legs and feet). 
Hip Kit:

This was interesting to me, because my daughter sent me a link to something like this just the other day, since I haven't been able to reach my left foot in almost a year. 
When you have a hip replacement, you are not supposed to bend at the waist any sharper than 90°.  Like, you can sit up straight, but don't lean forward (this will be a challenge). Or, you can bend over enough to touch your knees, but not any lower. Hopefully that is only while you're healing from surgery, and not forever. I didn't think to ask during class, but will certainly ask the doctor.  Anyway, the PT guy came in and was talking about, and demonstrating some of the assistive devices they intend to send home with us. I thought the sock-putter-onner and the long shoehorn were awesome (especially since my daughter sent me a link to such devices just the other day). 
"But," I asked, "how are we supposed to fasten our shoes, once we get them on?"
Easy - Elastic shoelaces! 

So you install the elastic shoelaces in your shoes, and then you use the sock-putter-onner to put on your socks, and then you use the reacher to grasp the tongue of your shoe, slip your socked foot into the shoe, and then use the shoehorn to seat your foot securely in your shoe. Do the operated leg first, then the unoperated leg. Then, when you're ready to take your socks and shoes off, the reacher can help you do that, too. Somebody was having a good day when they thought those things up!

I will be SOOOOOO happy to be able to wear socks again. And my gym shoes, too.

Poor Little Annie

Annie has been favoring her right foreleg, and limping, so I took her to the vet.

 She has some sort of injury, including an abrasion to the pad of her paw, upon which she walks. The vet (trimmed her toenails and) bandaged up Annie's paw. When they came back into the exam room where I was waiting, the first thing Annie did was try to figure out how to get the door open so she could escape. They design those places pretty well, so that she was unable to escape, so she "hid" under the chairs instead, where I snapped the photo showing her cute little pink bandage.
They sent up home with pills and The CONE. The vet tech called it "The Cone of Healing," (although the rest of the world knows it as "The Cone of Shame.") The instructions were to keep the bandage on for three days, and the cone for seven days. I took the second picture of Annie wearing the cone. Poor thing, she was so miserable! 

After a couple hours, I took pity on her. I called her over to me and explained that the reason she was wearing this was so that she would leave her foot bandage alone. I said I'd take it off, but she has to NOT lick or chew on that foot bandage. "Do you understand?" I asked her. Then I removed the cone.

She is pretty good about, if I tell her to stop doing something, she does. So I went about my business, keeping one eye on her. When she started for the bandage, I said, "Hey. You have to leave that alone, or I'll have to put the hat back on you," picking up the "hat" (cone) to show her. 

She has done an amazing job of leaving her bandage alone, good doggy.

Grandma Susie

When Daddy was in medical school we moved to a little house, much like the one I live in now. The address was 1853 Corrine Drive  (pronounced core-REEN). It was about a block or so off N. Eastern (now MLK Drive). It was a little bit north of Springlake Amusement Park, which cost a dime to get in back then. That’s where we lived when Kathryn Ann was born. I remember the grown-ups talking about the house having “Central Heat” which meant that it had a wall heater in the hallway instead of a floor furnace in the living room. That was fairly central, all right, but it sure did get cold in my room at night during the winter. I don’t remember complaining about it, but Grandma Susie knew, somehow, the way she always did, and I think it was for Christmas that year (or maybe my birthday) she got me the prettiest pink ELECTRIC BLANKET. OMG, I remember how much I loved that blanket, and loved being warm, and loved Grandma Susie for thinking of it. I think I asked her one time, “How did you know?” She just did. Maybe she’d been cold in bed before, herself. Grandma Susie.

Thursday

I don't remember quite how long we've been doing this, whether it's been two and a half or three years, now, but a small group of friends have been coming to my house most Thursdays to engage in a sort of meditative process for purposes of spiritual growth and of building the bridge between the worlds. Every week takes some dedication, especially when two of the attendees live, maybe, thirty, forty miles away. We often take off for a few weeks in the late summer when one of the attendees goes up north to visit her family, so we have recently reconvened.
Yes, it takes some dedication to come every week. Our attendance has grown and diminished over time,  eventually settling on the current four (including myself), and our evenings are usually interesting. Sometimes (often) someone queries our non-physical advisors as to what is it that we should be doing. This question came up again tonight. My thought nearly always is, "Remain willing," as in keep showing up and "don't quit five minutes before the miracle," as some of my friends might say. But tonight when the question came up, almost immediately someone suggested, what if we go to meeting every other week, instead of every week.
Now, I must say, it is amazing that we have been meeting as long as we have. There are some who didn't think we'd last as long as six months, so we've already blown expectations. And, to be honest, there have been times that I thought, gee, if everyone wanted to call the whole thing off, I'd be okay with that. It's at my house, so I have that responsibility. But now that someone has said, "What if we cut back to every other week," (and we are vey clear about which weeks we'd be "on" and which weeks we'd be "off,") I find myself thinking this might be the beginning of the end. I can't help but wonder, if we're meeting every other week, how long will it be until people find themselves busy on "our" week, and then dribble off to nothing. I mean, a business that doesn't keep regular hours doesn't seem to stay in business vey well. We're not a restaurant or a nail salon, but I think it won't be that long before people start getting mixed up about when they're supposed to be here, and when they're not. I will be surprised if we're still meeting by January first. So we'll see. I'd love to be wrong about this. We'll just have to see.

Meanwhile, I'll try not to be such a stranger to this blog. I know, "promises, promises!" Maybe we'll see about that, too. I just realized the last time I posted here in No, Really was in October of 2016, nearly two years ago! And that was the only post of that year! Okay, well, I'll try to do better.

ATLRD

Annie The Little Red Dog (aka ATLRD) is a pretty good pup most the time these days. When she was younger, though, she would express her displeasure at not being INCLUDED IN EVERYTHING by chewing stuff up. Stuff that wasn't hers to chew up, particularly if I had handled it - things like bedspreads, rugs, socks, house shoes, personal items of underwear one might find in a laundry basket (before they've been washed, ew!), a shawl I had JUST knitted, a pair of bamboo knitting needles (shredded!), another shawl I was knittING, empty cups, straws and tissues from the trash, any kind of wrappers from the trash, pens and pencils. Markers. Crayons. Notebooks.

 

This activity taught me to get heavy trashcans with well-fitting lids and foot pedals to open them, and to keep my laundry confined or washed, and to keep anything I didn't want eaten off the floor and out of reach.

 

She has done quite a bit better, the older she gets. It's been a good while since I returned home to find a little trail of whatever chewed up on the floor. 

 

Today, though. (Heavy sigh)

 

This was yardman day. I always "lock her up" on yardman day. She loves men, so she's about as like as not to go out to see them, and then wander out the open gate. She sees free air, she's off and running until SHE decides to come back, so on Yardman day, I block the doggie door so she can't get out, because I also have things to do on Wednesday mornings. 

 

I guess today I was gone a little "too" long. No tissues, dirty laundry, or knitting projects in the middle of the floor, though. No, this time it was in the front bedroom. A little box that'd had crayons in it was laying on the floor, with an empty red crayon wrapper laying next to it - along with red, green, blue, and yellow crayon CRUMBS on the floor surrounding it. No trace of the other crayons, just the crumbs.

 

She didn't follow me in there, but was still in the house, so I started in with the dreaded, "WHAT IS THIS?" Man, she DISAPPEARED. She totally knows what "WHAT IS THIS?" means, and she does not like to hear it. She always looks like she'd 'bout rather take a beating than hear "WHAT IS THIS?" She put herself in time-out. 

 

I hope they were tasty, those crayons. She's gonna be pooping bright wax confetti for the next couple days! And now I'll be sure ALL the bedroom doors are closed when I leave the house.

More about Bees

 

"I dreamt that a bee kept on following me then sat down on my dress I could not shake it off, please what does that mean?"  Hester P.
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Thank you for your question, Hester. 

 

In your dream, a bee has come to you, and won't go away. This seems unsettling, perhaps because you don't know why it came to you, and maybe you're not sure what it might do, so there may be some sense of apprehension or fear. Let me say here that every dream is about the dreamer, and everyone, or every thing in the dream, represents some aspect of the dreamer's self. Dreams are a way that our higher mind tries to communicate with us; as such, dreams are a way for us to learn things, primarily about ourselves,  so that we can be better people and live better, fuller, more effective lives.

In your dream, the bee followed you, then sat on your dress, and you were unable to shake it off.

Garments (your dress) represent how we present ourselves to the world. In your dream, you are wearing a dress, a customary garment for females in many parts of the world. This is about the way that you seek to fit in and be "one of," a member of your community.

Bees represent diligence, going on, moving forward, no matter what. Because of their honey, they represent the sweetness of life, reward for diligence, hard work, and right behavior. They also represent accomplishing the impossible, because their bodies are supposed to be too large for their wings, which should make it impossible for them to fly, and yet they do fly. So the Bee is a symbol of accomplishing that which you put you mind to, even when it seems impossible.   

 

As I mentioned before, bees work every day, no matter what. They go from flower to flower, gathering nectar and pollen, and bring it "home" to the hive and turn it into food for the "family." They are fairly peaceful most of the time, because they have a lot of work to do in order to survive. They are too busy to get involved in a lot of drama that really doesn't have anything to do with them. Yes, they peacefully tend to their own business, but they can be fierce if necessary. When threatened, they will protect themselves and each other - but they really have to mean it if they are going to sting someone, because when a bee stings someone, it loses its stinger, and then it dies, so that is a last resort option. 

So - all of this - diligence, sweetness, reward, hard work, doing the right thing, accomplishing the "impossible," because that is what you are determined to do, behaving peacefully unless threatened, but able to be fierce when necessary - all this is represented to you in the form of a little bee. It sat on your dress and would not be removed.

Since every dream is about the dreamer, and everyone and every thing in the dream represents some aspect of the dreamer, I can tell you that there are parts of you that are like the bee as I just described it. And since it landed on your dress, (which represents how you present yourself to the world) and wouldn't go away, this is a message to encourage you to cultivate and further develop these qualities of the bee in yourself - the qualities of diligence, sweetness, hard work, accepting and partaking of the reward for that hard work, doing the right thing (behaving morally), moving forward, even through adversity or opposition, doing so in as peaceful a manner as possible and avoiding excessive drama (which distracts and is counterproductive), and yet having the ability to stand up for yourself and those you love if that becomes necessary. Focus on these qualities. They already exist within you!

Thank you for sharing your dream with me, Hester. I hope this interpretation has been helpful.

Bees

"I had a dream about tending to a beehive. I was getting the honey. 

Mrs. Vicki, what do you think this could mean?"  Monica K."  
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That sounds like a good dream! Bees ARE very busy, and making honey isn't the only thing they do.

They, of course, are significant pollinators of plants, and are involved in other things too complex to go into here. Honey is a by-product of their efforts, and now that they've been so busy and done all that work, they have a hive full of honey to sustain themselves through the winter, and a little extra to share with their beekeeper. Getting the honey represents reaping or harvesting or retrieving the benefits of all that hard work and activity.

Couple more points to bear in mind: remember that the benefit is the result of a lot of focused, diligent work. The beekeeper must remember to leave some of the honey with the bees so they can survive to work another season. And the work is never over. The bees have to get up every blessed day and do it all over again. They don't even think about it, they just do what's in front of them to do, and they keep doing it. With all this in mind, it's good to remember that every dream is about the dreamer, and everyone in the dream represents some aspect of the dreamer, so you are the beekeeper, who facilitates or makes a way and a place for the bees to live, watching out for them, making sure they're safe so they can continue working. Not only that, but you are also the bees, doing something every day to support your survival and even prosperity, along with the survival and prosperity of your family - doing what's in front of you to do, even if it seems dull and drudgery sometimes (which it's not, really) and even though it may not seem glamorous and spectacular. But if you think about it, what bees do - going from flower to flower, gathering nectar and pollen, bringing it home and turning that into food for the "family," the hive, and working together, and the way they protect themselves, and each other, even to the death if necessary - think about it - that really is extraordinary! And yet it's just another day in the life for the bees - and for you, too!

Awesome dream! Think of these things, especially when you're at your wits' end. I hope it will help revive you, the way honey revives the bees and adds pleasure to our lives.