Sidetracked on the Way to My Blog:

When I was three months pregnant with my first child, my husband developed a rash the doctor thought was German measles—the sort that can cause congenital disabilities in the fetus if the mother contracts it.

A three-month pregnancy is the worst time to get German measles.  I knew I had the hard (9-day) measles as a child (my mother darkened the room for my eyes hurt), but I didn’t remember any 3-day or a second dose of measles. My husband and I had been married for seven years—we had waited to start a family until we both had our degrees, and he had a job. I felt I had waited even longer for I had always wanted to be a mother. I was overjoyed.

The doctor gave me gamma globulin shots in both arms and both legs. Gamma globulin is extracted from the blood of many individuals and used to enhance the immune system. At the time, the doctor told me that someone in the group of contributors would have had German measles, and therefore, antibodies from that person or persons would be present in the dosage he gave me, and hopefully that would give me immunity.

 (Thank you to the people who donated blood.)

Long story short, I never contracted measles, and my daughter was born healthy. I never knew for sure if the rash my husband had was measles, but the doctor was doing everything he could to make sure I didn’t catch whatever. I am thankful, and I bow down in gratitude.

My best friend was so concerned after my experience that she took her little girl, about age seven, to the house of a little boy who had measles and bite into an orange he had bitten into. For most children, German measles is easy and over within three days.  

After that came inoculations. 

 I was on my way to this blog when I passed by a notice regarding the measles outbreak in Texas, and it brought up this experience. You know how the Internet can catch you.

 

Before getting sidetracked, I took my phone/camera outside to photograph this magnificent Pink Dogwood tree outside my window. (See my window behind it.) 

 

 

Looking closely at the blossoms, I thought they were aging like me. Her flowers might not be as pristine as some of the young trees about town, but she is gorgeous, flourishing, and putting forth her magnificent celebration of life. Where does all that pinkness come from? Those branches were gray sticks all winter. Now look at them–like a bridal arch decorated with living blossoms.  

 

 

This tree has particular significance for me as two years ago, on May 1, 2023, I decided to write 50,000 words on a memoir before the blossoms dropped from the tree. (It beat me when I had only 48,000 words) but I enjoyed the rehashing of my life motivated by Natalie Goldberg's book Old Friend from Far Away. Goldberg said that a memoir doesn’t have to be an older adult’s story; it can be any time. It can be for those moments that take your breath away.

It can also be for sadness and heartache, for that’s the joy of writing it—put it all on paper and emphatically place a period at the end of a sentence. That can allow the cycling brain to rest. You know, the one that keeps telling you those sad stories over and over.

Everybody ought to write one.

Thus, I began typing while staring into the pink dogwood tree.

Get off Our Buts

 

Oh no, I just saw something about the President of the United States going after The Belgian Congo of Africa. Not again.

Not a week goes by after reading Margaret Kingsolver’s astounding book The Poisonwood Bible, where I learned that President Eisenhower set those poor people into a starvation tailspin in an effort to get their resources. And now another President? In their endless hunger for valuable resources—minerals and diamonds of the Congo, they are willing to starve the people.

Stop it.

Get a GRIP. Get a Heart. Get some decency.

Crapola, I am so tired of this greed and corruption. We could all get along with just a little effort. How much is enough? We could feed everybody. We could find a little peace and harmony in our lives.

But no, we like dissension and unrest more.

I’m mad.

I’m disgusted.

Do you guys feel the same?

Join the group

Say Hi. Say something.

It’s time for people to wake up and smell the coffee and get off our buts, yes buts, well butts too, but right now I’m talking about this kind of but.

I do it too.

It came home to me recently when I read my hero Jane Goodall do it and I realized how often I do the same thing, “All’s right with the world. But…”

Is that negating a positive affirmation?

During a recent visit to Tanzania, Ms. Goodhall spoke at Roots and Shoots, a youth-action program of the Jane Goodall Institute founded by Goodall. While there, she attended an event where the neighborhood came together to share projects and socialize with lots of laughter and enthusiasm. When they wrapped up the meeting, they got together and shouted. “Together we Can!” (Meaning, set the world right.)

Goodall took the mike and said, “Yes, we can, but will we?”

Well, that brought the room down somewhat, but then—you know how you can’t keep good people down, they rallied and yelled:

 

“Together we can, and together we will!”

 

When I say leave the buts off, and although it appears truthful to have them there, if we believe in any wee bit that Positive Affirmations work, or that our word had power, we ought to leave the buts off.

I just posted a blog post on The Best Damn Writers Blog on the Block on the Block (I’m the only one writing one) www.bestdamnwritersblog.com/ after complaining that my writing sucks. I was at the end of my rope, and nobody commented or followed me. I was about to go into the yard and eat worms when, on Monday, I checked into the blog and saw that 2009 people read it that day. I was surprised to see that blog surpass this one, and I thought this was my go-to blog.  

Are you going to let those guys beat you?

(My Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on the other blog. Thursday here.)

Hey, my follow does work---I just tried it. Scroll to the bottom, put your courser over the Follow button and give a little push.

One Evening of Joy in a Chaotic world

 

I pull myself back from a ranting session regarding the conditions of this country, walk into a room full of people, and find a soft fluffy cushion.

With a groan, I gently lower myself onto the floor—it used to be so easy, but I cross my legs at the ankles and sit entranced by the people in the room who spark like exposed electrical wires.

A hardwood floor buffed to a golden shine creates a frame for the soft, fluffy, beige rug spread at its center. A beautiful fragrance drifts past me, and I look to my right where a crystal vase of Star Gazer Lilies sits on a credenza against the wall. Besides that one piece of furniture there is no other except a few folding chairs and cushions. Every person has a beverage of their choice, coffee, tea, water, or vino, sitting beside them on absorbent coasters. The air becomes as charged as the people when folks introduce themselves and share what they are into. There is a machinist in the bunch, a physicist, a painter, a seamstress, and a mother glowing with love after the birth of long-awaited twins yet enjoying her evening out.

There are writers in the group; some write articles, or books, and some journal only for themselves. Others express that they detest having to write anything, even to the extent of getting in trouble with their boss for late emails. A professional glass blower is nursing a burnt hand while saying glass blowing is his calling. He feels transformed while doing it and hopes to continue into old age.

Others murmur that they, too, feel joy while doing some creative endeavor. Even the chemist who finds that growing fungi in a petri dish never ceases to amaze him.

The glass blower mentions that there is a stained-glass window in a Cathedral in France, where images in the glass look like sign waves of music.

“Could that be a recording?” someone asks.

Another suggests that secrets such as Leonard Di Vince painted on his canvases might be embedded in the glass, and the room sparks with enthusiasm about some of the mysteries scattered about the earth.

I’m sure the Muse is outside the door listening and waiting for a lull so she can come in and whisper in the ear of each participant.

Someone mentions a documentary they had watched, “How to Find Joy in A Troubled World” which brings the room down a bit, but when someone suggests we watch it, and we all eagerly sit up and turn our attention to the television the hostess wheels into the room.

For the next 90 minutes, we all sit transfixed as we watch a Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama, and the Christian Jesuit Archbishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu, tease each other, laugh and joke like two ten-year-old boys, and refer to each other as their “spiritual brother.” Archbishop Tutu even gets the Dalai Lama to jiggle in a supposed dance, and the Dalai Lama leads a meditation. They eat birthday cake and laugh some more.

We end the gathering while everyone is musing or laughing or crying, and although most people would prefer talking into the night, it appears that luminous clouds have appeared beneath everyone’s feet, and after hugging each other, we all agree to meet again, and we float away to our respective vehicles with the refrain of two men singing in our ears:

“No dark fate determines our future. We do. Each day and each moment, we are able to create and re-create our lives and the very quality of human life on our planet.

“This is the power we wield.”*

*From The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, narrated by Douglas Abrams

 

P.S. I am continuing with this Newsletter, and posting it on Substack. You can read them there if so inclined. No fee, just a sign in--which would help my site of course. Thanks for reading. May the Muse be with you,

 

Oh My Gosh, Look at This

 

Saturday April 5, 2025

 

Isn't this incredible?

People are saying I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Tariffs, turning our friends to the North, aka Canada, against us, making enemies in the world, saying our country will take theirs, renaming the Gulf of Mexico (its birth name, how can he do that?), shipping off Immigrants who haven't done anything wrong, bashing people who have been out of office for eight years, aka Obama, good heavens, give it up. The way to lead is to win over the people, not antagonize them.

The idea of saying that anyone who voted against the present administration is an enemy is beneath contempt.

I read a good comment in a novel the other day. The chief of a tribe in Africa commented—this was in the 60s when a supposed democratic government tried to be in place, that when you have a vote, he wondered, "How can it be fair?" You have the elders who have been around the block (through the jungle) a few times, and you have the young ones who quickly say, "Let's vote." The elders say we ought to have a discussion. The young ones get impatient, call for a vote, and you end up with a 48 to 52 win. The winner takes all. 

That way half of the country is angry.

On top of it, the leadership in the country was put into effect by outside forces, so it wasn't fair in the first place; chances are unscrupulous people had rigged the voting process, and then a divided country turned on itself, the government cut stipends to workers, people had no money, people were desperate to find food, were dying of starvation, and there was chaos in the land, while the one in power was spending millions building himself a castle.

The chief was trying to get virtually 100% in favor—although that's not possible, but a point to consider.

And so we at home in America have half the country mad at the dismantling that is happening, mad that prices, which they believed would go down, but find instead are going up, tariffs that are angering our shippers of foreign goods of which we need and want, and the increased foreign prices will go to us. Workers of essential jobs are being fired right and left, while the President is taking his entourage and playing golf, and using Air Force One, the plane of which the logistics of is costing taxpayers millions of dollars, and the people go home to have a mental breakdown.

Does that sound like leadership to you?

I'm not saying that some things don't need to change. I'm saying that letting business people run the country, people who are intimidating because of their position so people suck up to them, men who are used to having their way—bosses, you might say—who control their own companies, that negotiate when it means pleasing their suppliers, CEO's who can fire and hire at will, all to save their protect, their money, and to please their stockholders, are not the people to run the country.

 John F Kennedy said that the one who governs best is the best governor. (Open to debate of what "the best" is, , but poignant.) ( How in the world did Martin Luther King Jr. convince a horde of people that non-violent resistance was the way to go?) Oh, we will get healthier; supposedly, anti-vaccers will have their sway, childhood diseases will come back, and what about Diphtheria, Smallpox, and Polio, which were virtually eradicated from the earth?

Well, people, is that what you voted for? All because you didn't like black people or Hispanics, or Immigrants, or the previous administration (You know, throw the bums out principle.) You didn't like the way they were handling the wars overseas or that you thought vaccines were giving children autism. Pharmaceutical companies were overcharging you (they are), and while you are at it, let's discredit Scientists who are working their butts off trying to learn how it all works. And, forget the Forest Rangers trying to manage our wild spaces and the life forms that are precious to us.

This is craziness.

I know most of us felt overwrought and needed to do something, therefore a drastic change occurred. 

 So, you are angry and want to tear things down. Well, go to the dump and beat up an old refrigerator. (Except that will probably get you arrested.)

No, go into your backyard, dig up the soil, and plant some vegetables so you can get fresh, nutritious food that is not sprayed with chemicals. And buy some ladybugs to eat some predators who will love your veggies.  Or keep some bees that will help pollinate those fruit trees you will plant.

And then bring back common decency.