Waiting for the Unmasking

We are all linked together whether we like it or not.

The planet can be covered in man-made walls, but they will not make any difference because every country has different resources including the amount and types of labor and we will be forced to trade and exchange what is of value.

According to a correspondent on National Public Radio, we get most of our surgical masks from China. These are not the germicidal masks providing limited protection that you purchase in the drug store or the throw-away masks that the doctor's offices provide to protect their patients from YOUR sneezing if you are polite enough to wear them when you are ill. No. These are the tight-fitting disposable masks with two filters so that the doctor and nurse can breathe while not contaminating or getting contaminated by the germs in the operating room. Medical personnel will not operate without these masks due to lawsuits.


Most of these masks are in very limited supply in the United States now.  We get our masks from China.  China has shut down their factories.  We get most of our generic drugs from China and we also get most of the basic chemical ingredients to make such drugs elsewhere from China.  We can hope we have seen the worst of this epidemic.  (We get lots of other stuff as well, but the medical supplies are most important.)

Below is a photo of one of the American doctors that traveled with us to China as a tourist.  She has on a traveling mask with the double filter and she wore it because of the pollution in Beijing.

She and her doctor husband wore the masks during days that the pollution levels were beyond a certain point.  They checked the data on their watches each day.  Most of the rest of us did not.  One other woman had asthma and they gave her one of their masks.

The times that I saw locals wearing masks was when they went to the temples where there was lots of smoke from incense burning and smoke from the yak butter candles.  Mostly people were maskless.

China is known for shutting down its schools because of air pollution and this was bemoaned by our tourist guide who waited for the day China would have clean air regularly.  China is one of the worst polluters of the air on the planet.  Above is Tiananmen square on a fairly hazy day.  I am sure is mostly empty today.

Lost in Cathay

Dehazed and photoshopped muchly.

I have learned that the older you get and the more open you are to the differences in earth's universe and the more open you are to people who disagree with you, you realize that the globe is not all that big. We are small in this grand universe and we are closely connected in many ways. Most of us want the same things---a fair chance, honest relationships, a bit of love, and the ability to contribute to mankind in some way.  (Unfortunately, a few of us are broken beyond repair as we can see in the daily news.)

I was in China during the month of October last year (those who regularly read my blog have gotten a window into that trip already).  Therefore, I have followed the coronavirus news carefully and a few theories have come forward that the virus may have been moving through the population way back before December!  A small change in the calendar and my blog might have been written from somewhere else with much more dire news as I spent a few days in Wuhan, mostly traveling outside the city.

I fell in love with the Chinese people as they are wonderfully simple and complex.  They are really very much like us.  I worry about the people I met and those who depend on travel from other countries to fill their restaurants, fill their hotels, eat their food and buy their handicrafts.  I took many photos during my time there and I have today gone through the first three days of our trip and focused on the people to share thinking about their livelihood and health.  So come along for a quick view of Chinese outside the city. (As usual, you can click on the photos for a bit larger view.)

This is a young woman (notice the long hair) setting out fishing traps along the three gorges section of the Yangtze River.  Far from the cities and night lights.

A farm along the steep and unforgiving hillside. I cropped closer for a better look. I do not know if they live there or only work there in the day time.

There is a calm resignation about their stance.

These two men are killing time waiting for someone to rent their vehicle for the somewhat long and steep trip up the hill to the temple.  We walked, but I felt some guilt about that being the "snowflake" that I am.

Three men, two look retired, and I think one is the shop owner.  They are watching the tourists stroll up to the tall Pagoda.  I think you could get a very different quote out of each of them if you have some imagination.

Three Chinese tourists celebrating their success at reaching the top of the Pagoda.  If you can cross the bridge in three steps it means success or love.  They look just like American tourists in their joy.

Hope you have enjoyed this little vignette on the locals.

Woah...were have I been?

Hard to realize I have not posted on my blog in the past two weeks. In reality, I have had nothing to say.   !But that has not stopped me before!   My health (ear infection) seems to be improving, but I am used to improved health before a week's end and not a month's end. Part of my not posting is my depression over the State of the Union and no one wants to read about political opinions when you can get them on TV non-stop. This President has been a gold mine for cable news. I do wonder what they will hype about when he is gone. (Although he does dream about changing that Constitutional restriction for re-election like the Chinese leader did!) 

While the weather is also political, it is unusually warm here.  Days in the 50's and 60's with no snow.  It feels like northern Florida most of the time.  We do get the rare rainstorm, but it is also a little too dry for this time of year.  There have been only a few night freezes.

I realize people need good news, so a dear sweet young man I know has just received two patents for his work on cybersecurity.  He worked day and night for 5 years and he is now wealthy and it is well deserved. 

Continuing technology advances, the University of Toronto Scarborough has, for the first time, turned waste cooking oil—from the deep fryers of a local McDonald’s—into a high-resolution, biodegradable 3D printing resin.

The Pope, yes THE Pope, has given an empty Vatican palace over to the homeless.  That is something to be celebrating, certainly.  

They have discovered that putting patients in hyperbaric oxygen chambers can reduce the symptoms of Alzheimer's.  (Maybe Michael Jackson was smarter than we thought.)

"According to a recently published Gallup poll—the first of its kind conducted in almost two decades—Americans visited the library far more than any other cultural institution in 2019."  That bastion of learning brought in 10.5 trips a year, more than sports events and movie theaters.

So that is at least 5 things to celebrate.  Now go to my other blog for an avian laugh.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Going into the Doctor's for a follow-up. The first time today I feel better, so of course, the appointment is tomorrow when I will be back to normal. I have been very lazy watching the soap opera that disguises itself as a Senate hearing...resembling nothing I have seen in Law and Order but much like Days of Our Lives.  Us elders can see the dust crumbling beneath the foundations of our Democracy.  Others seem to think it is much ado about nothing and all "politics".

My son-in-law pointed out to me across the school gym a young mother that was wearing some slogan/protest T-shirt, perhaps Mom's against Guns.  I was not paying too much attention except that son-in-law seemed to find it "quaint" that I was like her, one of those angry protestors for many causes.  I wish I could find it quaint that he is unenlightened.

I have the premonition that there will be much violence ahead in the election year and many months after.  Our President's own lawyer testified (before he went to jail) that change would only come via revolution.

China has a tightly controlled society.  People are very well-behaved because they know the dangers of Chinese jails and the lack of fairness is not reasonable argument.  There is no freedom of the press there.  Their leader manipulated the bureaucracy so that he can be endlessly reinstated as a supreme leader.  Crime is low and hidden and corruption is how things get done.

I read an article in The New Yorker that followed the probable history of the first diagnosis of a patient with coronavirus which began in Wuhan. (They guess it had to do with illegal live bat sales.)  The writer in The New Yorker got her details from an article in a Hong Kong magazine since the investigative press is suppressed with death in mainland China.  The bottom line is that everything is so controlled under a tight authoritarian regime that even public health officials could not step out of the procedure when they saw a disaster coming or at least questioned the danger.  It took over 24 hours for the first sick man to get any help at all.

My Trump supporter acquaintance says that it is because China is a communist/socialist government and the government (some vague entity?) does not care about its citizens.  "Let them die."  I disagree, but will not argue.  Authoritarian rule under the guise of socialism, communism, democracy, ecclesiastical , monarchy or whatever form of government is dangerous when only one voice and the following voices of its sycophants can be heard.  Free speech, free press, arguing in the city hall is always a safer way for all citizens.

The photo above I probably posted before.  It was taken from our boat that anchored in Wuhan before our trip up the river.  Wuhan is a very large city. The city was all in lights because of the celebration of the 70th year of the formation of the PRC.  Keep the citizens focused on the bright lights!

Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Winter

I have somewhat gotten used to not hearing well out of my right ear. The pain from the infection is gone, but the swelling hangs on. I used ice packs yesterday afternoon and that reduced the swelling as I can now "pop" my ear open if I open my jaw. Walking around the house with my maw open is not too much fun, so I still muddle on hearing only the muffled sounds in the house that come from the left side. I have no dizzy or orientation issues, but it does seem odd to hear a sound coming from my left side when the sound is taking place on the right!

Now I think I understand what it is like for the hearing impaired and I admire their patience with themselves. It is easy for hubby to sneak up on me in the shuffle of his soundless socks and it is easy for me to procrastinate doing all those things I do not want to do and instead read my book and play word games on Kindle. It is an artificially enforced vacation. I am retired and no longer need vacations from my life, which is a vacation. I am lazy and use it as an excuse not to exercise or clean house or run errands. (Of course with this flu expanding, I will avoid senseless trips to anywhere.)

I do think about my earlier life when getting sick meant there were chores that still had to be done no matter how I felt, and people to care for no matter how I felt, and going to bed early was the only respite I could find. I think of my busy daughter with her three children. At least two are old enough now to cook for themselves a bit.

Above my daffodils are emerging like the idiot energizer bunnies they are. I also have small tips of tulips breaking the frozen crust of soil in the pots on my deck and of course the Lenton Roses that are weeks early. Signs of spring are everywhere. I know they are pushing the season, but so am I.

Photos were taken weeks ago before the ear infection!! Spring is impatient here.

Stuck at Home

I am stuck at home for a few days with a semi-painful ear infection. It is complicated and involves fungus and microbials...and I am unable to hear in my right ear.  Which has frustrated hubby who is trying to make a point sometimes.  I am trying to be lovingly patient with my life but I hate these wasted days. I am staying away from crowds due to influenza fears even though I got my flu shot long before my trip in October. (Missing the dinosaur event with my grands.)

Thus I have pulled up old hard drives and gone through files and wondered why I save so much meaningless stuff archived! This photo below was taken in my back yard a few years ago. One is the original (the second below) and the other is photoshopped (extravagantly and easily noticed by a photo expert). To really appreciate you have to click on the photo.  This is what I am doing on this drippy day.

Spirits in my woods?

Tree Talking

I promised a link to the woodland walk. Part II is here.

A Quick Morning Update

It is now just after 7:00 AM and I have been up for over an hour. I have gone through emails, worked on photos, checked the FB page for various groups that I follow and finished my first cup of coffee. Hubby is still in bed, but the radio alarm is due to go off in minutes as he has invited a visitor to come at 8:30 and check out our oyster rafts as he discusses how oysters improve water quality. It gives hubby a chance to expound on his expertise. He is slowing down in old age and the opportunity to be an expert at his age does not come often.  I think this visitor is starting some company for floating oyster rafts driven by solar power...should be interesting.

Then we take a break for lunch and in the afternoon we are both listening to an online seminar given by a university in how to deal with nearby woodlands.  We are surrounded by woodlands and interested in ways we can keep them alive and healthy.  We had to pay for the course and its six seminars, but the hour can also be applied to our annual education requirement for our Master Gardener's group.  I may find interesting things to share on my blog for those who do not have time to take online courses.

The woodlands have changed.  I see more woodpeckers and more dying trees.  The undergrowth has been eaten away by deer, but the deer have been winnowed by my neighbors hunting across the road!  Branches get scattered in high winds making the normal shadows even barer.  

I have taken two days of long walks in woods (not ours) and have a bunch of photos of that beauty to post on my other blog.  We drove to two state parks that we have never visited in our winter boredom.  When I get that done I will link back to here so you can walk with me!

Well, I must go straighten the scattered magazines, piles of receipts on end tables, etc. so that the visitor does not see how we really live!  

Giving January Its Due

January is the cruelest month. Short days with little sun. Wind and weather that steals through your very skin. Endless politics on the TV. The continual battle not to eat all that fattening comfort food that you/I crave. Finding places to put that holiday gift you will never use.  And to add to the deep thoughts, some of my dear friends and bloggers are fighting personal health battles. Mortality is a big canvas staring me in the face these days.

I try to be a realist and accept that all things change both rapidly and slowly.  My grandchildren find me less interesting and more quaint.  Most of my friends are old people.  My routines are in concrete and interruptions make me like the stereotypical old foggey...grumpy.

Since my time is shorter on this planet, I tend to have less patience and have to control my temper when the change that I want does not happen fast enough or when a change is imposed upon me.

My calendar for the New Year is filling with activities in the coming months and like the smuck that I am, I wish it was not so full.  I want to crawl away and lick my wounds and sigh and be introverted.  Instead, I have a family that is busy making sure we are busy.

Not complaining but creakily adjusting.

Comments on a Blog

It is getting harder to monitor anonymous comments on blog posts.  When they praise me for my insight, excellent writing or want to offer advice on how I can get more people to my "wonderful" blog...all written in broken English...that makes it easy to recognize the commenter as nefarious.  I mark it as spam and delete it.  I am not a super popular blog, so I wonder how those who get many dozens of comments handle it all?

I got this anonymous comment yesterday, on a really old post, below:

"Tabor, thank you for correcting me.  I should not be commenting at 5:30 in the morning. My daughter is always telling me to PROOF READ."  This was followed by a link to some furnace ad!  (Furnace Calgary Prices Calgary)

This was an older post written after my first trip to Calgary Canada and I guess the business model is to search blogs for city names?

I do allow unmonitored comments for the first week only after a new post.  This usually means only one deletion.  After that comments are held for moderation by me.  That seems to allow me to screen most of the "scrap" from the real thing.

This Is All About the Complexity of Shoes

I bought myself a gift of fancy boots for Christmas and I have to be careful and wear them only on dry days.  These shoes are pretty comfortable!  I still have some vanity, unlike the wearers of the shoes that I feature below.

The above photo (created with some digital alterations for mood) was taken this past fall. You may guess that it was photographed outside someone's home or an ancient temple. Those are two places where people remove their shoes out of cleanliness or worship.  It was taken outside the Canggu Monastery temple in Lhasa, Tibet, China.  Look at the shoes. I was studying this and saw an unusual variety in style and color, but they were ever practical. These are the shoes of Buddhist nuns. They must shave their heads and wear the red robes each day.  No need to decide what to wear or try to find something that fits that newly expanded waistline.  Maybe having that stress removed was one reason for the peaceful smiles that they all gave us.  You just have to decide on shoe style.

This photo above (painterly) was taken at the Canggu Nunnery in Lhasa.  The nunnery is open to the public.  In Buddhism, nuns can take on the same roles as monks in teaching, preaching, performing rituals, etc.  Although some sects are more strict than others.  (All religions seem to have some misogyny based on gender.)

About 100 nuns live here and the monastery has existed since the 12th century.  They make money by manufacturing items such as clothing and printed texts as well as donations.  The nunnery also runs a clinic and employs professional doctors and serves the local residents.  The nuns are loved and trusted by the local residents because of this.  They also run a tea and bun house, but I did not have time to purchase tea as I was off taking photos!

Now back to the shoes.  They are all very similar and practical.  They are easy to remove as the nuns must do this several times a day.  Yet some are a little more flashy than others.  I was wondering if a bit of their personality escapes through the shoes.  Are the shoes donated?  Are the shoes purchased by the sect?  Can nuns go shopping?  Feel free to enlighten me in the comments.

We also were able to watch them doing laundry.  If they had not been so sweet and gentle this might have seemed intrusive.  Here below is another photo that raises so many questions.

I look forward to your comments!

Washing the Air

This past weekend, like many extended families, we had a post Christmas get together and exchange of gifts. Since there were nine of us, it got to be much like Christmas Morning all over again, except hubby and I and my son and his wife went out for Chinese lunch just before. (But maybe Chinese food is now also a holiday tradition in many families.) Anyway, the weather was predicting heavier rain in the afternoon and hubby and I tried to get an early start to the hour drive back home as the days are also short! I snapped the photo below on my phone as we saw we were driving into even heavier weather!

Getting back to our empty house (we had also dropped off the granddog which we had been dog-sitting for over a week) and this gloomy evening made the house seem even more somber. I kept looking for a tiny dog to pet, but it was just us two creaky old folks and hubby did not want any petting but did want a cup of hot tea.

This morning we woke to sunshine, but even better, the air had been washed super clean once again.

That did seem to lighten  and brighten our spirits.

Mind Mazes

Why do all of my most interesting questions, resolutions, ideas, and original thoughts happen at night as I settle in to fall asleep? I tell myself that the idea I am pondering might be a gem to pursue on my blog. My readers are erudite and outspoken and certainly could add something to the thought maze I have created as my mind misfires in the dark bedroom. 

Sometimes it is something I followed on the news while other times it is a phrase that captured my thoughts in one of the few books I am reading.  Other times it is an observation of human nature that interrupted my errands.

Then elusive sleep smothers my brain and I sleep the sleep of the half-dead, up a time or two and back to deep sleep.  The marvelous ideas evaporate with the disappearance of the morning fog on the river as the sun warms the air.

I am kind of glad because I somehow suspect that the thought that slithered off was something really inane.  Something of inconsequential importance or supercilious significance. If it had carried any weight, would it not have plunked itself on my chest as I lay in my bed in the morning demanding my immediate attention?

Still Life

When days are rainy I go through old photos and pass the time by trying to get creative.

Still life the digital way...

A Quick City Trip

My children and their children live just outside the District of Columbia, that city of famous and infamous history.

We arrived and found parking just as the sun was setting. Signs said we were not allowed to park for more than two hours, but this was Christmas Eve and it seemed that rules had been greatly relaxed. We parked across the street from the National Museum of African American History. I have yet to visit this newer museum (opened only three years ago) because it still is extremely popular allowing entry only with pre-reserved timed passes even though it is free. It always seems to be crowded at most times! The museum remains on my bucket list. Its architecture is very dramatic and the light from the sunset through the edge of the building made for a decent photo with my point and shoot camera.

As I walked further and pulled back with the camera I was able to get the Washington Monument in the background on the hill. Due to a minor earthquake last year, the elevator has been closed off and on some days although now I think it is running on schedule and finally repaired. The Monument also requires passes that you get ahead of time! I went up to the top many years ago and the windows give a rather blurred view of the city.

On the right, as we hurried toward the Ellipse, is the Department of Commerce Building (in the photo below).  Wilber Ross is the Secretary of Commerce now.  He seems to be able to stay out of the news recently, unlike other Secretaries, except for the citizenship question that he wanted to add to the 2020 Census, his failure to divest himself of his assets, and the use of a personal phone for business!  He has Yale and Harvard in his resume, which at least gives him some gravitas for such an important job.  The man, like our President, has been married three times.  He is now 82 and that might be one of the reasons he keeps such a low profile.  He is worth 700 million to  2.5 billion depending on which of his paperwork you believe and he made his money by taking advantage of bankruptcies.

We hurried to the Ellipse where the grands could see the National Christmas Tree.  It was pleasantly crowded with American citizens and also many people from other countries, all in excellent holiday humor.  There are several miniature trains running beneath the tree and little towns along the tracks that reminded me of the neighborhood in the Mr. Rogers movie we had seen that afternoon.  These were all behind a protective fence.  When I looked closely I saw that people had throw money, coins and bills, over the fence onto the trains and houses and station and lawn.  Much of it was foreign currency.  That seemed very odd and someone in the passing crowd joked that it was for the President's defense fund.  This is eternally a political city.

The sunset cooperated nicely on this Christmas Eve. I was also able to capture a murmuration of starlings (or some birds) against the pink skies!

All in all a very lovely evening!

A Day of Peace!

Hope that this day is your most peaceful yet. Gather your energies and your love and go forth in the New Year and make it better.

Festival Season

Today is the first day of Hannukah which runs through until December 30. Wishing those who celebrate this holiday of the Festival of Lights a joyous week!

When Life Gives You Lemons

My birthday falls in a few days and because it is squeezed close to the holidays, I am not expecting much. I do not care and that is not a lie. As a child, my birthday was important (to me), but because it was squeezed into a year of four other siblings birthdays and always close to Christmas, I only had two real birthday parties in my youth. The rest were family and cake. I felt cheated then but realize it was all unimportant now.  I neither look forward to or dread birthdays.  They are days on the calendar and numbers on my years.  There are far more important days in any life.

Having written all of that I decided to make some cookies.  Well, I decided to do a bunch of stuff.  As my readers may know, I have a Meyer lemon tree.  It is a sad little tree, much like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, but prior to the photo taken below it had 30 lemons ripening on its scraggly boughs.

I cannot use more than two dozen lemons at one time, so I picked half.

They smell marvelous and are super full of juice.

As I slice them I cannot but marvel at the seeds inside with all their potential to become new young lemon trees, but I have to control myself as I have no room or time in my life for growing more lemon trees.

I have tools for zesting the rind and tools for squeezing the juice.

The juice goes into ice cube trays and after becoming frozen goes into freezer bags for use in the months to come.  The zest gets frozen as well for seafood dinners and soups.  Other lemons are cut in half and frozen for future flavoring.  Then I get a brilliant idea from the Cooks Illustrated cookbook to make some lemon zest cookies.  I do not like this cookbook very much as it keeps giving me recipes that are photographed beautifully but rarely work---at least for me.  But, who does not like cookies?  The fresh zest gets mixed with the sugar and creamed with 2 sticks of butter and the juice gets added to the batter.  Hubby says it smells so good as he watches his football game.

And this is the result of all my labor!  I turned down the heat for the second batch and let them cool a little longer before removing them and this is still what I got!  They are so messy (but quite edible) you have to eat them over the sink!

Alas, when life gives you lemons you can sweep the crumbs off the plate and counter and add to a sealed container for topping on ice cream.