Christmas memories: My parents' first in Indianapolis

While my wife and mother were trimming the tree this year, my mother got to talking about Christmases past.

My parents' first year in Indianapolis, they could afford to buy a tree, but not ornaments. (They were a young couple with two little boys, my father just starting out.)

So they put a big red ribbon on the tree, tied it in a bow, and hung Christmas cards on it instead.

I wonder if either of my much older brothers remember that Christmas...

The life of an icicle - set to Vivaldi's "Winter" (Video)

This is the first "art for art's sake" video I've done in a long time. I enjoyed doing it. If you enjoy watching it, that's a bonus.

The original video was an hour long. Except for the 10 seconds at the start and finish I sped it up almost 10x.

Note especially the water running along the large icicle on the left, and most of the way through the video the little icicle forming in the upper right.

The music is played by the USAF band and is available at musopen.org and archive.org - it is public domain

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

This has nothing to do with suffering or angst or anything related except insofar as it was a distraction from them. Its always good to "stop and smell the roses" but when your life is constant suffering, its VITAL.

Tess is in room 1772, Community North, Indianapolis - RIGHT next door to my femur / cancer room

Tess went into the hospital yesterday. She's in room 1772 of Community Hospital North, Indpls (http://www.ecommunity.com/north/) if you're local - she'd love visitors! If you have her #, calls etc. are nice too.

She's in the room right next door to the one I was in a year ago. Its pretty freaky for her, as she remembers wandering the area after my thankfully erronious terminal cancer diagnosis.

The nurses remember me for something different- my rugs! Naturally I obliged by working on one when I went to see her today.

Its always a long hard haul when she goes into the hospital, she's been very bad for quite a while, and of course my fibro doesn't relent just because her migraine has gone thru the roof, so I'm too exahausted for words... or to see straight.

Fibromyalgia Update

It just occurred to me its been ages since I've said anything online about my fibromyalgia. Well... what is there to say?

• I've got it
• It feels like the divide between earth and hell has been removed
• There's no cure for it yet
• What else is there to say....?

But perhaps there is a bit more. Bad as the pain is, its the fog which is the most daunting and dehumanizing. While this is such a common component of fibro that it has a name- "Fibrofog"- I suspect its being greatly exacerbated by Lyrica, and I plan to have a serious talk with my doctor about that next week.

I have come up with a good way to describe it: Its like the worst hangover you've ever had, except the pain is in the body, not the head.

Its this fog which keeps me from posting all the pix and vid I take, but I am continuing to shoot most every day.

Its this fog which makes it hard for me to keep up with you dear folk online. I look at the updates on Multiply or Facebook and am hammered with data/sensory overload.

Autumn Aster- Last Fall Flower.

This tiny flower has survived several freezes. There are two pictured here, none higher than 2 inches.

These are a few of my favorites.

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In this they almost form a heart shape. Nice optical illusion

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This is pretty much what you see walking past / over them

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Just goes to show, you can find something worth taking pictures of if you look carefully enough.

Mirco Med Rant - Were famine care handled as health care...

• Those most hungry would have to go to the greatest lengths to prove they need food
• Rice gruel and barely potable water would be substituted for meat and milk
• When waiting in line for food, the line would close and the person would be redirected to another line... and they'd have to start at the back
• "Hunger" by itself would not be considered a valid reason for food aid. Instead, extensive laboratory tests would be required to demonstrate that the person was in a state of malnutrition.
• These tests would delay the provision of food and exacerbate the problem of hunger.
• Those least in need of food would have the most ready access to it.

This has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with ridiculous and onerous burdens placed on those who are sick and in need of care... I don't care whose idea it was to create these added procedures and layers of administration which stand between the person needing care and the provision of the care - the problem is that they exist at all.

Its axiomatic that the more in need you are, the weaker and more burdened by ill health, the harder you have to work to get the care you need. This is the world turned upside down... thus my graphic.

My mother and me looking through a log wall - yes, there is a family resemblance

Please click to see the full sized photos

Many people remarked on the family resemblance just in seeing the picture of my mother. Now paired with the pictures of me at the same place a few days later you should especially see it. I paired them according to the style of our expressions... the top two go together, as do the bottom two. I stacked them like this because I made this image to post, and people are more used to vertical scrolling than horizontal.

The first picture of my mother stands among the best pictures of a person I've ever taken. I've been taking unusually aggressive measures to make sure it gets out to all the family members.

You'll note I marked this photo copyright. I only do that with photos of family members. I post these rarely and only by permission, and when I do so, it is only for the benefit of family members, not to show up in somebody else's project or video.

The place is Skiles Test city park, just a few miles from here. Its one of the family's favorite places. The log fort wall was there because the city had invited local artists to come create things using materials found on site.