WHY IS LOVE MY #1 STRESS RELIEVER?

 *Good morning.  On a lighter note than has been true since Nov. 3rd velcroed our minds to election results, the highlight of my day, yesterday. took place upon receiving a FaceTime call from my grand daughter, Ravi, who, having removed her training wheels, this week, expressed her delight in riding her two wheeler, alongside of Daddy, all the way home from the park, which is a couple of blocks from her house.

As Ravi’s happy news led our shared sense of pride concerning her newest achievement into enjoying our very first girl-to-girl, full fledged conversation, we chatted over whatever came to mind concerning this or that.  my pleasure continued to deepen while watching Ravi‘s facial expressions (she turns six a week from today), mirroring a host of emotions parading through her mind as she and I hopped, skipped and jumped from one topic to another, offering me as much fun as watching the reactiveness of a mime whose expressiveness had suddenly developed an independent voice so sweet, self confident and thoughtful as to melt my heart.

For example, when Ravi‘s body language expressed enthusiasm while letting me know that— “The Crud’s 2, is coming out on MY birthday!” I replied, “They probably chose that date to make a very special child feel extra happy.”  Rolling her beautiful blue eyes in disbelief, Ravi replied, “Gramma, I don’t think that’s true.”  So with tongue in cheek, I followed up with, “but Ravi, Uncle David works in Hollywood, and he may have asked them to offer you a birthday surprise”—at that, my grand daughter’s skeptical facial expression lit up with a natural burst of animation and with hand on hip and eyes twinkling mischievously, she stopped to think for a moment before conceding her original position as these words flew out on her sweet smile—“Well—I guess that could possibly be true”—and with that, our spirits landed on an imaginary up swing, offering our love connection a happy ride through fantasyland until Ravi led our topic of conversation toward including a trampoline followed by her adorable confession concerning taking a scissor to her hair, which led our conversation toward the inclusion of another pair of funny stories to share in a post when my processor, feels less weary, once today’s low energy level refuels.  Guess I over did whatever I thought I could do, yesterday.

Hoping your work day isn’t over taxing, I’m imagining each of you making the best of whatever worrisome reality may be stressing you out.

As for me, my #1 stress reliever connects my sense of humor interactively with my loved ones’ positive attitudes as often as possible, as happened naturally and cheerfully, yesterday, when almost six year old Ravi FaceTimed her Gramma Annie, fueling my heart with delight.

👵🏻🥰Gramma Annie🙋🏻‍♀️🇺🇸

NATIONALLY AND RATIONALLY, WE HAVE NO TIME TO SPARE

20 degrees in the Midwest and 90 degrees in the southwestern desert in mid November suggests effects of climate change to everyone except for those masquerading as ostriches, heads buried in the sand, filling ears with barriers so dense that brains hear nothing indicative of present day death threats to national much less international security.

With millions of head-buried ostriches sinking in quicksand, intent upon dragging us down with them, we should be plucking feathers and heating tar as fast as we can in readiness to run trump and his clones out of D.C. way before Jan. 21st, because they care not to save thousands of Americans who are sure to die resultant of their US senators’ acquiescence to selfish inaction concerning our national emergency, which sees us in need of saving as many healthy lives as possible from succumbing to Covid in the weeks ahead, when hospital beds to receive patients in dire need of professional expertise, respirators and TLC have  dried up—leaving those bereft of loved ones to die alone, holding hands with nurses at the bitter end ... while trump is doing nothing more than swinging clubs, and spewing lies on Twitter as well as out loud, each with criminal intent to rally his troops to take to the streets and do harm to any whose views oppose his own, and as such, instead of remaining ensconced within The Oval Office, puttering our lives away with golf club held aloft in hand, trump’s thick skull should be seriously imprisoned, and his golf clubs tossed away, today, freeing Biden to assume the presidency with immediacy so as to institute provisions declared vital to life saving by physicians specializing in contagious diseases.

Honestly, it has to be illegal for a president’s silence, concerning Covid, to condemn tens of thousands of innocent US citizens to death, over these next several weeks—when—with hand on bible—reflection turns the spotlight of deeper truth upon trump swearing to protect all Americans from harm during his Inauguration Day address, whereas, quite soon, his faithful cronies will be pardoned of crimes against the state, and his own crimes against his countrymen snd women will be swept under the rug so as to carry on the asinine pretense of one man’s need to save face in hopes of maintains his false belief of being both feared snd adored by one and all, forever ... how often must adults reread the Emperor’s New Clothes, King Midas, and the shamefaced Wizard of Oz before the moral of this grouping of stories, each concerning the overbearing nature of corrupted power, sinks in?

How can we live with ourselves, knowing that all of this is audaciously happening while we do nothing to save people, who are alive and healthy, today, from catching and succumbing to Covid within the weeks to come?  I just don’t get it!

I just don’t get the fact that The Senate has not yet UNITED the STATES to stand in solidarity to stop this mass murder from taking place right before our wide open, well educated eyes—in fact living in Ostrichland makes me feel as crazy as when I learned that terrified children, torn from the arms of their anguished parents, had languished in cages, where more than 500 are still locked up, pining for the safety of their parents’ arms, feeling so deeply confounded, betrayed and enraged at being abandoned as to never recover from the magnitude of trauma perpetrated upon them by a devilish mind that cares nothing for the pain of the most vulnerable human beings on earth.  Why, if we profess to be a civilized nation, is this sociopath still walking nakedly amongst us, free of persecution while denying Americans the most elemental of human rights—to live a healthy life—when masking up and social distancing is all he has to do, knowing that millions of red hats will follow his lead.

I just don’t get it.  I mean, where are the marches made up of millions, demanding the doors of The Oval Office be thrown opened to welcome Joe Biden, who is seriously ready to take on gargantuan responsibilities concerning the welfare of the American people—right now!

Geez—today’s intuitive outpouring offers me reason to imagine tightly wound coils of fury stuffed behind my wall of denial, deep within a subconscious pocket of my mind where patience is wearing so thin as to snap!👩🏻🤬

Though I don’t know if Ohhhm is going to ease the tension, which must be layering up deep inside my brain, I plan to muster the inner strengths necessary to relax my mind in hopes of continuing to heal from recent surgeries, as peacefully as possible, knowing that if nothing changes for the better, over these next several weeks, I’ve voiced my ire—in fact, since trump cares not a fig about anyone other than glorifying himself—I’ll not be surprised to see things worsen as he rallies his cult-like troops to rise up and squelch common sense with lie after lie.  Simply put—if the mad man in The Oval Office won’t leave of his own accord, then every sensitive fiber of my being feels that his soulless, twittering twisted think tank must be carried out, ASAP!

You see, I’ve come to believe that much about our political power structure, which worked well for two hundred years, must be outdated, because, over these past fifty years, our separation of powers proves so dysfunctional as to be in need of change for the better, ASAP.

And for the sake of clarity, my definition of ASAP—concerning dethroning the yellow coiffed Wizard of Oz, who appears capable of destroying our nation, is—today without delay.

And if that seems impossible then, tis time to choir up and belt out the inspirational lyrics and melody of the song—To Dream The Impossible Dream.👩🏻🇺🇸

One last personal perception for today—Thankfully, my precious grandchildren are young with active minds, eager to absorb learning, so—as frustrating as this school year has been for parents, children and educators, alike, the fact that our young—who may be experiencing a lost year of learning in a cheerful environment along side their friends—are bright with flexible minds, suggesting that if parents maintain the feat of embracing an attitude of cheerfulness, at home, our little ones will catch up with themselves once schools’ faculties, feeling re-stabilized, welcome children into classroomsm safely and wholeheartedly rather than fearfully, come Fall.

Upon running that thought past Steven, he agreed, knowing that Ravi, a kindergartener, who had loved school, has felt a natural resistance to virtual, on-line learning, and who can blame her bright mind from wandering away from hours spent staring at a screen, when she’s experienced school as having been adventurous, intriguing, entertaining and lots of interactive fun with lots of friends.

As we know, a parent’s attitude generally inspires the same to develop within the mind of a child, and as this pandemic demands that adults step up so as to develop gains in self awareness concerning the importance of achieving Herculean feats in many of life’s arenas as never before—speaking as a parent and teacher, myself, my hat is off to all of you who are home schooling your young, and as to those of you who, in addition to assuming that hat, are also working from home, you are truly amazing, and if no one’s told you that then those who love you are remiss in supporting your best efforts to go above and beyond until leadership in D.C. stops exacerbating havoc by dodging presidential responsibilities relating to every aspect of life throughout every state, whether red or blue, within the  entirety of the USA.👩🏻🇺🇸

HEALTH UPDATE—NOVEMBER, 2020

Dear Family and Friends,

I am patiently looking forward to ending this lengthy period of hibernation with my health intact (but without a roly-poly pair of furry little cubs, toddling after me, hungrily seeking blueberry bushes,  LOL

Though iron poor blood may still be mine, I stopped taking supplements, last week, because my stomach, which rebelled, big time, refused to tolerate them, even every-other-day.  Next week will see me tested at Mayo.

This week, my pain level has decreased, again, which is a very good thing since I’ve been weaning off of pain meds, over these past two months.

I find it interesting to note that my intuitive powers can write for long periods of time though engaging my processor in conversation drains my think tank of energy so quickly that within a matter of minutes, my eyelids feel too heavy to hold open.

As to shortness of breath, that may be problematic for quite a while, so my walker is pretty much my companion whenever I’m on the move.

Unfortunately, Covid has invaded the homes of some of our dearest friends. Thankfully, none have been hospitalized, and some have already recovered.

As to my family, all are well, and I hope the same is true of yours.

As always, Will joins me in gathering all of you within a heartfelt group hug, which we’ll enjoy for real once a Covid vaccine has been approved, freeing us of need to socially distance as we smile, safely unmasked, at last.  Until then, I’ll patiently send my love to each of you (and Will’s, too) through the looking glass of our Arcadia door.😘 

🙋🏻‍♀️❤️🇺🇸Annie

PUTIN THE TOOTHPASTE BACK INTO THE TUBE

This post was penned on Nov. 4th, posted on the 16th—

‘Putin’ the toothpaste back into the tube is no easy task.

Biden has been telling us that we’re in a battle for the soul of our nation since his campaign began.

Paraphrasing, Thomas Friedman, columnist for The NY Times—Is this the last weekend that we’ll see America as we know it? ... America, where free and public elections actually happened ... If free elections ‘break’ it’ll be really hard to put the toothpaste back into the tube ...

It’s 1AM on Nov. 4th

Election Day has come and gone, meaning it’s one hour into Tomorrowland, and I, like millions of others, have not yet slept.

I hope to sleep through the wee hours and awaken at a decent time, today, to find that a decent candidate for President of the United States is in the lead.

While removing my pearls, worn in celebration of RBG, I found myself looking skyward, asking a certain heaven sent angel-in-training for a miracle, knowing RBG to have been a miracle worker, concerning woman’s rights, throughout her lifetime on planet Earth.

You see, I, like Helen Keller, have sound reason to believe in miracle workers.  Miracle workers have worked their magic four times for me in that that’s the number of times I’d awakened, alive in the ICU, my spirit experiencing a renewed chance to thrive.

You can expect me to add more to this post when, upon awakening later this morning, hopefully, we’ll find that overnight, the number of ballots counted for Biden will have risen to such heights as to have turned red states blue, because otherwise, while we were caught sleeping, our democratic way of life, which can never be taken for granted, may have literally disappeared, overnight ... 👩🏻🇺🇸

It’s 10:40AM, Nov. 4th.

Good morning,

It’s Election Day #2

CNN—

The trump campaign is arguing that mail-in ballots, still to be counted, will break in Trump’s favor. That statement directly contradicts the President’s assertion that mail in ballots, though perfectly legal, should stop being counted. His campaign believes trump will win Arizona by a narrow margin, as well as Pennsylvania. And yet again, we see trump offering up another head spinning conundrum as summarized by our two faced Republican leader—mail in ballots should be dumped unless they add up in favor of trump.

“We are confident of our pathway. We are confident in our math. We are viewing some of these races as math equations,” campaign manager Bill Stepien said, adding, “We project with confidence because of the math we believe is in front of us.” 

Hopefully, trump’s campaign staff is as bad at math as they are at science ... 👩🏻🇺🇸

With sheer grit, patience and belief in the dignity of every man, woman and child, a majority of the people of The United States of America are determined to hand this Presidency to Biden, fair and square!  Our democracy depends on it.

👩🏻🇺🇸

Yesterday’s numbers made mustering patience close to impossible.  Thank goodness, after turning off our TV, sleep came, and so far, this morning, Nov. 4th, I’ve not turned on CNN, knowing that as soon as the remote is in hand, I’ll be hooked, as was true, all day, yesterday.  Biden’s got to win or four more years of trump will do us in.

I’m hoping to find that, having decided to set mail-in ballots to one side as votes cast at the polls are counted first, the best has been saved for last—

🙋🏻‍♀️🇺🇸

Tis no surprise that on Nov. 16th, though Biden has won, fair and square, trump, who is not so gracious as to have conceded, continues to rile his followers to protest the legality of this most closely examined election, thus placing the national security of the American people at risk of succumbing to acts of terror and Covid 19, being that trump’s infantile need of constant adoration from red hatted masses places his followers in danger at every super spreader event planned to rally the troops round their fallen leader, who, as long as he lives, will never stop spewing mind blowing, self-aggrandizing lies, which sadly, his cultists continue to buy hook, line and sinker as if his mere presence switches the spotlight solely in his direction, dimming all sense of mindful intelligence that’s squeezed into every narrow minded red hat in his audience.  

Until this election, I, who write about need to heighten self awareness, had no clue as to the shallowness of nearly half of our nation’s population.  With shallowness, deeper truths are missed.

Perhaps tis time to change trump’s name for no other reason except for the fact that I, for one, have throughly tired of hearing it rain down on the peaceful transition of political power that we, the American people, who voted fair and square, conferred upon Biden’s team ...

Perhaps, my ire will calm down by referring to mr. trump as mr. humpty dumpty for no other reason than this seems to end today’s insight-driven train of thought (begun two weeks back before somehow, disappearing into drafts) with reason to laugh at the truth, because, wall or no wall, all of Midas’s men can’t Putin humpty together, again.

🙋🏻‍♀️🇺🇸

NGU GETS UP, AGAIN AND AGAIN ...

I love every encouraging email, text, patio visit, and phone call (fielded by Will) as well as delicious meals, batches of cookies, colorful bouquets of blooms and small tender-hearted gifts received from family and friends—and though I admit to two or three desperately unhappy meltdowns during difficult months of chemo preceding recent surgeries, it’s also true that this past year has seen emergent bursts of courage inspiring my spirit to sooth physical miseries while I continue to carve out a path toward healing all of me by focusing my mind’s eye upon achieving that goal, step by step, with patience intact for these reasons—when it comes to lengthy recoveries from life saving surgeries, this is, by far, not my first rodeo, and since this last year has been spent moving forward through my most challenging recovery, ever, my family continues to rally around, offering heartfelt encouragement, daily, and adding to my good fortune, I get along with an outpouring of help from my friends.😘

So though I write a lot about personal need to amass a host of inner strengths over each person’s lifetime, I believe that we who grew up within the loving embrace of family and friends, find ourselves heading toward healing from life’s adversities more thoroughly than those whose role models proved to be passive aggressive, emotionally distanced or over wrought, hand wringing adults who did little more than pace, back and forth, creating threadbare rugs while crying into half empty cups.

I watched my dad cry after losing one business to bad investment followed by another to fire without sufficient insurance to cover his losses.  Then, having watched my first hero release suppressed emotion, naturally, I was there when he dried his eyes and saw his way, clearly, toward making sound use of intuitive creativity, which set a plan into action that saved Dad’s dream house (which, alongside our delighted father, we watched rise up from below ground level to include a pair of spacious second floor bedrooms) from being sold out from under him.

While watching my dad

Fall down

Get up

Fall down

Get up

Get up

Get up

Get up

And recover, Rocky Style, so determined was he to take loving care of his family, he’d had no conscious clue of how often he’d inspired his daughters to take hold of and run with the baton until one day, after I’d been transferred out of the ICU, Dad asked me where my spirited attitude had gathered so much in the way of inner strength, and without so much as a moment’s hesitation, my drug-soaked smile replied—from spending my life watching you and mom stand up to adversity, again and again ... more fleshing in of my sleepy reply to my beloved, courageous father will be penned in a story at a later date.  

🙋🏻‍♀️❤️🤕💃🏻

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES😊

Last night, we watched Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, on CNN, engaging in an impassioned discussion over the fact that a majority of red hatted Senators will not give voice to the fact that trump (who continues to ignore every national issue in favor of spewing out a passel of lies on Twitter concerning the fraudulent nature of his loss to Biden), must stop hanging his head in seclusion, concede the election to Biden, and open the doors of The Inner Sanctum as is customary of outgoing presidents for reasons of national security and in this case to save hundreds of thousands of Americans from succumbing, unnecessarily, to Covid based in trump’s petulant, poor loser immaturity, which prioritizes winning over saving lives as if the American people are at war with our president’s gargantuan ego—do you know how many millions of us, whose fairly tabulated votes have clearly voiced our need for change, join me in chanting Fair and square!  Fair and square!  Fair and square! Because we refuse to stay stuck, sinking in quicksand alongside of trump and his tongue-tied clones, overlong.  Because Our Lives Matter as much as his.  Because as long as this virus is raging, millions more will catch it and hundreds of thousands will die or develop physical problems, over time, or find no hospital bed and fully exhausted medical staff available.  Because schools and businesses will open snd close indefinitely, and the economy will tank because lock down will be inevitable if not on trump’s watch then because he handed his outrageous mess to in-coming Biden, and all of this seems criminal to me, because all trump needs to do is to wear a mask, social distance, quarantine when necessary and direct his people to follow his lead.  And when I choose the word criminal, I mean that literally.

Because all roads, heading toward national disaster, lead back to trump’s fiasco, so if lock down occurs on Biden’s watch, reality suggests that, too, will be on trump’s head while this consummate liar denies deeper truth—nothing new about that ...

Following Cuomo and Lemon’s back-to-back programming, we chose to enjoy a documentary (as suggested by Barry to stimulate our minds in positive ways by learning something new, every day).  This one, concerning Primates, proved as entertaining as informative.

During the afternoon, we enjoyed Shainie and Michael (college friends, living in Washington State) whose patio visit (separating one couple from the other by our glass Arcadia door), is now planned to take place, weekly, until these dear friends drive back to their primary home in the spring, and being that my sense of well being was attacked by less pain, today (until evening), I found myself spray-cleaning the fabric of our patio chairs, which has taken a beating, over these last several months, for good reason, with so many meals being consumed by family and friends, all of whom are eagerly welcomed to bring a meal and dine, outside.

Having yearned to accomplish this goal for several weeks, I was so glad to see my energy level match the task at hand that my spirit felt inspired to thrive while getting the job done, after which, I enjoyed a peaceful nap, suggesting, yet again—what a difference a day makes once my mind taps into heartfelt emotion infused with positive focus concerning out nation’s future, again. 

Oh—Yes!  Another milestone inspired smiles, all around—Yesterday, Ravi took off on her bike, sans training wheels, for the very first time in her life, and as seen and heard in the delightful video, sent to us via texting with Steven, Ravi’s light hearted spirit is seen cycling while chanting aloud—-Pedal! Pedal! Pedal! Hard!  Pedal! Pedal! Pedal! Fast! Just as her #1 cheerleader, Daddy, coaching his favorite nearly six year old buddy with patience intact, was heard whispering the same so as to spur Ravi’s self confident smarts toward accomplishing yet another sterling, step by step, personal goal—Hooray for the fact that, once again, this sweet child’s self image, feeling deeply loved, achieved yet another happy sense of personal success!

What a difference a day makes when positive attitudes lead a pair of best buds to hold hands while patiently spurring each other’s spirits toward achieving what may have, at first, felt like the impossible dream 😊😊Annie

PS

Ever since Blogger changed to a new format, I’ve not yet figured out how to add videos to my posts—however, no worries plague my peace of mind based in the fact that with patience and positively focused determination intact, the temporary nature of this dilemma will surely be resolved, somewhere down the road.

So here’s a personal motivator employed to calm my mind when anxiety based in frustration or fear threaten to ruin my day—I consciously remind myself that tomorrow will most likely feel better, so all I have to do is to make it through today, and generally, with the emergence of that deeper truth, a load of mental irritation lifts, pretty much right away.🤓

In reaction to a friend’s Facebook post, this train of thought flowed clearly out of the intuitive portion of my mind:

Currently, I am working through the process of embracing this fact of life:  At this point in time there’s nothing I can do to stop a tantruming trump from stalemating  our nation’s need to transition peaceably toward Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20th in hopes of saving thousands of lives from succumbing to Covid, over these next two months, and the fact that my brain felt too stimulated, last night, for sleep to come until a change in my attitude saw me relax at 3am inspires me to believe that my think tank is presently processing proactively through change for the better by working toward calming my over stimulated mind so as to release suppressed frustration, one bite sized portion at a time, knowing that with patience intact, I’ll, once again, reactivate my personal goal, which proves to be the retrieval of peace of mind each time a current event proves highly unjust.

As sleep didn’t come, last night, till 3am, I should have ended yesterday’s text with—peace of mind is mine until it’s not—based in the fact that suppressed frustration emerges, anew, each time I think of many thousands of healthy people, who are bound to succumb to Covid between now and Jan. 20th, unnecessarily.  So  having pumped up self awareness, again, now, I’m working to accept the fact that, having voted for Biden, this on-going issue with thousands dying is beyond my control, and it will serve me best to let go of suppressed frustration, which does not serve me well. 

Barry suggested challenging my think tank to re-energize in a positive way by seeking out something new to learn, every day—reaffirming my belief in the positive effect of brainstorming with like minds  🙋🏻‍♀️🇺🇸