A memory from th 1980s

 

 This is the first La Leche League Group that I led in 1983. I am still in touch with many of these moms- all of whom are now grandmothers! Chiang Mai, Thailand.

  My husband is a retired US Foreign Service Officer. Our first tour was Bangkok, where my daughter was born in 1978. I was fortunate enough to study Thai with my husband (we did not have kids yet). We were in Bangkok from 1976-78. Then home to VA for a year, then off to Poznan, Poland from 1979-81. My son, Morgan was born during that tour but I returned to Virginia for his birth. In 1981, when Morgan and Courtney were 6 months old and 3 years old, we went to Chiang Mai for two years. There's more but I don't want to take up too much space. Suffice it to say I have 5 children born in 4 countries.

It's been so cold out!

 It really has been cold.  Too cold.  I love snow. It is so beautiful and clean and pure.  But right now while I am having such problems and pain in my knees I am afraid to walk in the outdoors right now.  And also, much of it has melted and re-frozen so it's ice.   

 

 

 

 

I've been wearing compression socks most of the time because my legs hurt.  I sit with heating pads and with the fireplace running to keep me warm.

 

I feel like technology is making me crazy!   I did something to my computer- I deleted a bookmark for my pictures because I did not think I needed to book mark them.  And ever since then I am being challenged on anything I try to log into.  Rescuing my passwords.   Spending house on the phone with customer support to figure out why I cannot see my bills or bank accounts or why my debit card has stopped working.

 

Right now I cannot get the margins in this blog page to go where I want them.

 

So I have pain any time I try to get up and walk.  Getting into and out of the car is difficult because my right legs hurts when I try to get it to do what it should.  And on top of all that, I am deeply disturbed by how Donald Trump is trying to destroy any of the kindness and empathy that  I have always believed were the undying qualities that made America great.  Not "great again".  We were already great.  He is tearing it down as fast as he can.

 

 

 

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.

 I don't think I have actually ever had a "syndrome" before.  I know that the main issue I am having is with my knees.  They hurt.  They feel swollen.  When I stand up from sitting I go slow because my knees hurt.

Yesterday morning when i got up, everything seemed to hurt.  My hip, my shoulders, my neck and oh yeah, my knees.   I sat with a heating pad for a while- shifting it to the areas that needed it most at any given moment.     Once I took medicine (Ibuprofen or Aleve)  I feel a lot better.

I am doing my physical therapy exercises.  I don't know if they make me feel better, but they don't make it worse.   And I am afraid that if I don't move enough it will get worse.  

I am confident that I will get better.  It will just take time.    I have been tempted to ask the doctor for some stronger pain medications like Tramidol or Oxycontin, but, while they do help, I think I am managing alright at the moment.

I wear my compression socks as much as I can stand to- which is a lot.   Otherwise my legs get swollen.

As soon as all of the ice and snow are gone and I feel safe, I will start going for short walks with Nick by my side.

 

compression socks

   

Lifted from Facebook

 I am currently reading a book about slavery in America and this came up on Facebook.  I had to share it here:  

 

President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, has a message for people who are excusing President Trump's racism:

"I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.

But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner. Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was 'stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.'

God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.

When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020. It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.

Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.

What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better. He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.

Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us."

— Michael Gerson

 

 

My knees hurt

 

So, I have been diagnosed with CRPS. It's always something! It stands for Complex regional pain syndrome. Most likely caused by the trauma from falling on both knees about a month ago.

Oh well, it is a pain, but I can still knit!

 

 

life seems to go on.

 I have leased my last two cars.  Not sure why, but Nick said we should try it, so we did. I've been happy with the cars.  Since my current lease was about to end this month, we went out and got a new car.  It's the same model as I had before- a Honda CRV 2025.  But it's red.  And it does not have Sirius radio which I had gotten used to.   Anyway, here's my car!

 

I am still dealing with painful knees- ever since I fell about a month ago.  I went to the orthopedic surgeon today to make sure I am okay.  He noted the swelling and told me that I need to be wearing compression socks during the day.  I have only been sleeping in them.   He told me what I have but I cannot remember what he called it.  When I am sitting with my legs down, they look red.  When I lift my legs they return to normal/ white.  

 I am still doing physical therapy.  The other day I decided to sit down on the floor to see how well I can straighten out my right leg.   I am doing okay- not prefect but getting better.  The problem is- I could not figure out anyway to get up off the floor.   I am not able to put any weight on either of my knees because the hardware/ artificial knee parts, make it painful.   I scooted around the family room looking for something to pull myself up on.  There was nothing I could use that was safe.  Nick came and tried to help me.  Trouble there is that I am too heavy.  If Austin was here he could have lifted me, but Nick and I both would have gotten hurt if he tried.    Eventually I backed up to my recliner and pushed myself up.  Honestly, the fabric on the recliner caused too much friction on my shirt and I was choking myself.  I had to take my shirt off so I could get up using the chair to lean and push on.  Yikes!

 Knee pictures

 

I think that I am going to recommend that getting up from the floor should be routine in physical therapy.   

My uncle who had polio told me that one of the first things he was taught in his rehabilitation was how to get up from a fall .

Monday, January 20th is the inauguration.    I am being mean- but I hope that the weather is terrible.  Maybe even a blizzard!  Yeah!

 

 

Life is not fair- my friend's grandson, Miles, died on January 5, 2025

 

We got snow!

 Snow was in the forecast. And they were right.  Not sure how much fell, but it was enough to close National Airport and close schools for most if not all of the week.

 I love snow.  At least I love the idea of snow.  It is so pretty and makes everything seem so fresh and clean.

 But I am having too much trouble with my leg (pain) and do not feel stable enough to go outside and enjoy the snow.  Also it has been windy which is hard on my ears.  Need to remember to wear a hat.

My mother in law hated snow.  After we lived in Northern Norway for two years, my mother in law asked "have you had enough snow now?"   The answer was "No".

I thought that I would be clever and put a pic plate full of bird seed on the deck.  I cannot safely get to my bird feeders.  Well, I was right.  The birds love it.  But oh what a mass!   Birds are not tidy!   They are fun to watch though.

 

Rida rida ranka

 My father used to say this Norwegian rhyme when I was little, while rocking me on his knee or his foot.   He did it with his grandchildren as well.

 Somewhere we have a sound movie of Courtney, age four months, sitting on my Norwegian grandmother's lap, in 1978, while my grandmother said it.

My dad always ended it with "woof woof woof".   I went to visit my dad when he was in a nursing home, with dementia.  He remembered the whole rhyme and for the first time I cam remember, he actually translated it for me.  That was the last time I saw my father.

 

 

This is another version:

The children's version is different. It's delightful, rhyming nonsense. My English interpretation:

Ride, ride the horsie

To the Miller's house

There's no one there but two little cats

The cat calls

The mountain girl "squalls" (my word to make it rhyme)

Two small dogs say,

"Woof woof woof"

Snow and other things

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a big snow storm being predicted in the next few days.   I usually don't really believe the weather reports because they are so often wrong about snow.  But, maybe they are right this time.   It snowed here the other day- hence the picture of the snow falling in my back yard.

I love snow.  At least the kid in me does.   It is so beautiful and peaceful.   But I am not as keen on the cold as I believe that I must have been at some point in my life.    I will look at and photograph the snow.  But I doubt that I will be out tossing snowballs or making a snow man.

Buddy, the dog, likes snow.  He likes to run around in it.  I wonder how his old body will feel about it this year.

The kids were all here for Christmas and now, all but Austin have gone back to their homes scattered around the US.   Austin plans to leave soon, but he has some dental work to attend to.   he was scheduled to go to the dentist Monday morning and fly to Maine Monday afternoon.  But the airlines are already allowing flight changes with no penalty due to the expected snow.  I know he's anxious to leave and get on with his life.  And he will.

I just had a thought pop into my head.    Thinking about Grandma Thompsen, my Norwegian grandmother.  In one of the letters she wrote to me, she said that there was snow at her place.  She asked some neighborhood kids to build a snowman in the front yard so she could see it.   Growing up in Norway she certainly saw a lot of snow in her life!

My friend Shannon is not doing well.  Her husband wrote to me about eight weeks ago saying that Shannon is declining.  Shannon and I started exchanging daily emails when she first got sick- in 2021 I think.   Whenever she missed writing to me for a day or two I would check in with her husband to see if she was okay.  And there was always a reason for not writing.  Not feeling well.  Phone not working right.   I figured out the other day that between August 2022 and October 2024, Shannon and I exchanged close to 800 emails!   I also sent occasional gifts, like yarn for Shannon to crochet, or coloring books for her girls.  

I have visited Shannon as often as possible (not often enough though).   I went with our mutual friends, including my sister.  But more often I went on my own.   The last time I visited I read Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass".   I got a large print Readers Digest so that we could read together.  But it never happened.    

Since my surgery  and recovery, and subsequent fall, I have not driven very much.   I am sad to think that I might not visit Shannon again.  I don't think she is receiving visitors.  I know that she is not writing any more.

Caring and loving can be so hard sometimes.   I miss my mom and Nick's parents.  They would be so happy and in love with Galileo their great grandson.    

This year, for the first time in our household, we lit a Menorah.    My daughter in-law Kim,  and Courtney's boyfriend Zach are Jewish and they did the honors.   It bought a little light and hope into our home. And reminded us that perhaps there are miracles in our lives.