The Hermits' Rest

No Fun Being Sickly

Nope. It ain’t fun. But at least I diagnosed myself correctly!

So, my thyroid numbers were low and my metabolism was, shall we say, sloth-like. I had a low heart rate, was tired a lot, etc. So the Physicians Assistant I go to started me on medication, the standard dosage. Starting about five weeks ago, I took it correctly every morning before eating, and was proud of myself.

About two weeks ago, I started having a sore throat. I chalked it up to allergens or something. When the time came to renew the prescription, I wrote the PA and mentioned the sore throat, in case it might be my thyroid. He said it was probably just what was going around.

What I knew was that I’d experienced an inflammation in my thyroid before. I was trying to prove to my kids’ dad that I could be all thin and athletic. I rode my fancy bike every day and impressed myself with my weight loss. I looked hot, for me. But I had a sore throat. Sure enough it wasn’t just the exercise making me lose weight. It was my thyroid going into overdrive. Dang.

I got all fixed up from that and was ok and thin (but not athletic enough to keep the spouse). Then I started experiencing horrible and weird pains (while the spouse was off cycling in the Italian Alps and meeting his buff future wife). It turned out the sudden weight loss had broken my gall bladder. It was not my best year. At least the spouse waited to move out until I recuperated from removing it. I appreciate that!

The point behind this trip up and down the Alps of memory lane is that I know what an inflamed thyroid feels like. That’s now established, as well as my lack of bile regulation.

Last night I had trouble sleeping, so I decided my throat pain was probably not some virus. I peered into it with my phone flashlight and didn’t see signs of strep. So I went back to the local clinic.

Thankfully, the other practitioner listened to me. She also felt my throat. That hurt. But yes! I DO have thyroiditis. The plan is to reduce the dose of the thyroid hormone so I won’t be a sloth but I won’t be zipping around either.

I’ll go back next week to reevaluate my precious glands. If it isn’t better, I get an ultrasound.

Hurry up, Mabel. She wants to exercise me.

Send me good vibes! I do not enjoy being sick. It’s been really hard trying to get the horses exercise, between the heat and the pain. They are sweet and patient as we do maneuvers at a walk on the hard, cracked dirt. But we aren’t exactly having fun.

I’m not having fun and you aren’t even riding me.

I do feel vindicated. I was not being a hysterical woman. I really am a bit out of whack (physically). We know I’m a pretty whacky person mentally!

Book Report: Horse

After I finished my depressing but informative book on Florida history in Myrtle Beach, I had some extra time to read, but my huge pile of magazines was at home. But that’s why I brought my Kindle with me! I opened the next book on my list, Horse, by Geraldine Brooks (2021), and got sucked in deeply.

The title makes you wonder what aspect of a horse the book will be about.

It turns out to be a book about race horses, horse racing in the 1800s, modern skeletal reconstruction, race relations (past and present, all sad as hell), art history, and love (among people and animals). Something for everybody, by gosh.

The first part of the book made me want to run show it to Tarrin and Sara, who love horse anatomy so much. Brooks goes into a lot of detail and it’s so accurate. In fact, she’s accurate about everything, as far as I can tell. She is one excellent researcher.

Lexington’s skeleton when it was displayed outdoors.

Horse chronicles the great American race horse, Lexington and his lifetime companion, Jarrett, who grows to be a man as Lexington ages. Interspersed with their story is a story about what happened to Lexington’s bones and the portraits painted of him as he aged. We learn about the artists, horse owners, jockeys, who revolve around Lexington and how they negotiate respect and trust during the time before the US Civil War. Race relations among the modern-day folks are equally complicated, but feel quite real.

To write about all this, Brooks did a LOT of research. I mean, a lot. She comes across as knowledgeable about so many different things that my mind was practically blown. This book satisfied my desire to learn as well as my love of a good story. I guess I can see how she won a Pulitzer Prize in the past.

Lexington the horse was such an interesting animal, and thank goodness he was raised well. It makes me feel great about how I treat my horses, though they aren’t fancy!

Not all the parts of Horse that dealt with race relations weren’t all awful. There was love and respect, which always give me hope. However the sad parts were really sad, and after reading about how horribly early white settlers acted in Florida in my previous book, I feel more and more hopeless. People aren’t going to change. They are going to find ways to dehumanize and demean those they deem to be the “other.”

Sorry about the pessimism, but mine is growing worse and worse. Nonetheless, I just loved the book and all the characters in it. Brooks may be Australian, but she sure knows how to depict US history vividly.

If you like horses, horse lovers, and history, you’ll just love this book. Want to know more about Lexington? Here’s a good article.

What’s the Opposite of a Glimmer?

Many of you enjoyed looking for glimmers after yesterday’s blog post. I loved hearing about them. Today I discovered the opposite of a glimmer, which I decided is a glower (rhymes with “power”). It’s a sudden, intense feeling of pain or negativity that quickly passes.

My glimmer today was finding this little grasshopper sitting beside me on my chair. I had a buddy.

I experienced a glower when I stepped into the swimming pool after my sweaty horse time. I trod directly onto a non-dead honeybee on the step. Sudden, intense pain occurred on my second toe. I got the stinger out quickly, thanks to my tweezer-like fingernails. Then I stayed in the water a while. I don’t think I got much venom in me. By the time my swim was over, my toe was fine. So I had a glower.

Insert imaginary bee here

I’m a poor photojournalist, though, because I decided to wait to get a picture of the bee, who was at least spared drowning and got to express her rage. By the time I got to the phone, the blustery winds had sent her off.

Yeah, winds. A mere 60 miles to the south of us, a tropical storm brought a bit of rain. We once again got clouds and wind. Sigh.

I experienced Freundenfreude (opposite of schadenfreude) with my happiness for my friends’ in Travis and Williamson Counties’ good fortune. Good for them. We will stay crunchy, however.

I gave the horses different food bowls. Maybe the one in the middle there won’t take these out into the pasture.

The wind was helpful, though. I was able to ride Apache briefly and we both lived. Whew. I am semi confident that we will get back to our regular schedule soon. I sure hope so.

The tack room quarterly cleaning is also complete. No fainting occurred.

Clouds, Breezes, and Other Small Pleasures

I’ve been reading a lot about “glimmers” these days, which are little moments of joy or comfort that occur in daily life. I love this concept, because I realized quickly that I live for these moments of fleeting happiness. Today I had a few of these, as well as some larger pleasures. And I want to share some daily glimmers I’ve noticed.

Glimmers of Surprise

One glimmer today came when I finished cleaning the tack room and was chatting with my son (a larger pleasure) and I looked in the window to see a sparkling dragonfly. It pleased me so much! (It’s outside now.)

I was also filled with joy by another dragonfly today. I was listening for birds to write about in a Master Naturalist blog, when a little fellow I’d never seen before distracted me by repeatedly landing on the barbed wire as if to say, “take my picture.” I did so, then enjoyed the interesting way these checkered setwings hold themselves. I’m still smiling at how cute this guy was. A great pair of glimmers.

Large Pleasures

My larger pleasure today came when the horses were scheduled to have their hooves trimmed. I was not looking forward to it at all, given the weather lately and the fact that it was scheduled for the hottest part of the day.

But, the weather deities smiled on me and Terry the farrier. First, the horses were already in their pens, so I didn’t have to chase them, and then, as we began to work on Dusty, a lovely breeze sparked up and some genuine clouds passed over. In the shade, it wasn’t bad at all.

Then the horse calmness deities smiled and caused all four horses to have their most pleasant moods, which meant that the trimming went very quickly with few mishaps. Even Mabel’s feet are looking better, perhaps because I’ve been feeding her good food?

The only little mishap came when it was Drew’s turn. He’d been snoozing while the other four were getting worked on, and seemed to really want to continue his nap. In fact, he started snoozing with his leg in the air getting rounded off, and slipped off, hitting his head on my arm. I was surprised to see I have a bruise and abrasion! Poor little guy didn’t mean it, of course.

Ow. You can’t tell but it’s raised and turning purple now.

The clouds continued to please me greatly after I finished feeding the horses and cleaning up a lot of mouse poop in the tack room. I got in the pool and was able to float comfortably as long as I wanted to, because there were high clouds that filtered the sun nicely. (Now don’t get more wrong; it was still 105 today.)

Daily Glimmers

It’s nice to have things in your day that you appreciate. I’ve been trying to notice times of the day that give me regular glimmers. One is thanks to the heat. I love the feeling of rolling off my pool float back into the pool. The sensation of hot skin hitting the cool water is just delightful.

The other time of the day that gives me a glimmer every single time is the moment after I put away my reading material, turn off my light, and lie down on my fluffy pillow. The soft pillow combined with the cozy blanket and the lovely darkness makes me smile a little as I close my eyes every night.

What little pleasures do you have in your life?

Book Report: La Florida

I actually read a book over my time in Myrtle Beach. Impressive! I have been so overwhelmed with magazines (which I read, not just look at pictures) that I haven’t been finishing books lately. The book I read was La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories, by Kevin Kokomoo (2023). It’s not actually published yet, so I was happy to get a copy from Kevin.

I blocked Hernando de Soto’s head. I’m not a fan.

Kevin teaches at Coastal Carolina University, where he focuses on the history of Florida and the rest of the southeast. We bonded last year when I found out he knew the story of when my mother’s family showed up in Florida and that we had lots of fun Florida stories from our youth. That Ocean Enclave place hires the most intelligent and interesting bartenders!

Since I had a lot of alone time while I was in Myrtle Beach, it was easy to get through La Florida, especially since I enjoyed its mix of academic rigor with humor and a bit of conjecture thrown in to bring the history of Spanish Florida (which was much bigger than the state) to life.

You must have a pretty strong stomach to get through the uncensored accounts of what the Spanish explorers did on behalf of their King and church. It’s incredibly violent, though it’s sorta fun to see how those “valiant” conquistadors ended up dying pretty miserably as they wandered cluelessly through the South. Florida was a lot harder to conquer than some other parts of the “New World” were.

Being mean to a French guy. Don’t worry, French guys were also religious fanatics.

It’s easy to reach the obvious conclusion that the more things change the more they stay the same after reading La Florida. Kevin’s chapter on the influence of the Catholic Church on the actions of the Spanish in Florida both horrified me and didn’t surprise me. In a nutshell, the violence against the early residents of Florida was justified because they didn’t accept the Church the moment they were presented with the opportunity to do so. How did they get this opportunity? Well, priests read them an announcement of the requirements for peace, which might have had a better chance of coming across if they hadn’t read the announcement in Latin. Once they determined native folks weren’t Catholic, then they were no longer people, and slaughter was just fine.

I pity the poor Mississippian culture. If all the slaughter wasn’t bad enough, of course the Spanish left lots of diseases to which they lacked immunity. Good times? Nope. (They disappeared, leaving holes for many other tribes to fill—the parts of the book on these groups, especially the Seminoles, filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge.)

And it wasn’t just various native groups that were slaughtered because they weren’t Catholic, there were fellow Europeans who had the nerve to be Huguenots, who also were deemed to be not human, thus killable if they dared show up and try to bother poor old St. Augustine (what a non-success story that was, but at least it lasted). There were so many wars and invasions and burnings to the ground!

Slavery was another huge part of early Florida history, and I enjoyed learning about enterprising slaves who made big contributions to Florida history. I think slaves fared better because they figured out that getting married and doing other Catholic things got them slightly better treatment. Of course, it wasn’t all that great. No one seemed to have a lot of fun in La Florida. I guess maybe things got better after England took over and the rest of Mom’s family showed up.

In among the descriptions of plunderings, diseases, starvation, and slavery, there are interesting tidbits about how Florida got to be the way it is, such as how citrus fruits showed up, and the history of barbecue (spoiler alert: fish were the first meats to be cooked this way).

So, what are my opinions? I really enjoyed the book, other than coming to the depressing realization that the way people in the US are treating each other today by dehumanizing them isn’t much different from people’s beliefs 600 years ago. If you are from Florida or are a fan of American history, I’d highly recommend it, because it’s a point of view you don’t get in traditional Anglo-focused US history books.

Those Spanish dudes searching for gold and other riches (sigh, they “only” found tons of pearls) were the first people starting European settlements and their efforts deserve more focus. Thanks to Kevin Kokomoor for bringing this history to light!

Summer Is Hard

Geez. It’s crispy here. And it’s unbearably hot for people, animals, and plants. The horses got new hay today, which sure made them happy.

The horses and I are trying our best to get some exercise other than running up to greet me (only Droodles and Apache do that). We have been walking around over pieces of wood, trotting a little, and getting minimally groomed. I go out early and late as possible to see them, since I’m still reacting poorly to the heat.

We had our first summer casualty, too. Some kind of predator must have gotten at the chickens when they were cooling off at the horse troughs, and it got my matriarch, Bertie Lee. She was my oldest hen. The only clue I found was a large feather that looks unlike any hawk or owl I have seen. Ugh. There were only feathers left.

I’m glad I made a point of saying bye to her before I left. I sure am glad everyone else is okay. There were some yellow feathers, but Blondie seems fine.

I will get more hens when/if it cools off. I’m getting doubtful about that. The hens look so sad every day when it’s so hot, but they have access to the coolest spots possible and lots of fresh water.

September is coming. I’d say we have three to four more weeks before the weather breaks, but it can come sooner and I won’t complain.

I tried to make things feel cooler with blue nails and stars.

More intellectual content will come soon. All my smart thoughts have drained through sweat.

Back at the Ranch: Amazing Animals

I made it home yesterday, but for some reason the travel completely wore me out. I guess travel is stressful, since my right eye wept all day, while the left eye had a tic. The plane travel was fine, other than the fact that the Charlotte airport was dirtier and dingier than I remembered. Of course, the flight from there to Austin was delayed, so I got to stay there and look at food on the floor and seats quite a while. By the time we boarded, I thought I’d fall asleep standing up.

None of this was heavy except the backpack, which was a carryon. It tried to kill me.

Lee was late exactly the amount my plane was late, which meant for an easy pickup, and I did try to converse with him though I was feeling distinctly zombie-like. By the time I got home I was dizzy and nauseated. What the heck? I’m much better today, with no eye issues and only a bit of fuzzy-headedness. Maybe I have 9-11 PTSD or something (for those of you who don’t know, I was on a plane headed to O’Hare when the events occurred, leading to some traumatic times).

I came home to a lot of love, though. Goldie glued herself to me the second I got into bed and didn’t move for a couple of hours. Today she’s been constantly checking on me, and also trying to inform me that she can’t sit on “her” couch because someone put an immense television on it.

So I got up and moved the immense and very heavy television. It’s the old one from our house in Round Rock, and apparently giant televisions were much heavier then. Glodie is much happier now and I can type (she kept nosing the keyboard away!).

Of course all the dogs were glad to see me, as were the chickens. Some horses seemed more glad than others. Apache was ecstatic, and glued himself to me much like Goldie did. He looks good, other than two sores on his shoulder. The good news is his grass allergy issues are gone, thanks to the Zyrtec, and the rest of him looks wonderful.

Drew was more interested in the water trough I refilled than in me, but after he drank he came and rubbed his wet face on me. He looked really clean, and I wondered why. Here is why:

Apparently, while I was gone, he figured out that the front pond is swimmable. The edges aren’t as quicksand-esque as they were when the water was higher, so he’s taken to swimming around and having a blast. Kathleen said the first time she heard the splashing, she thought we had a gator. Nope, just a sea serpent/horse hybrid.

It doesn’t appear that anyone else has joined Droodles in the horse swimming pool, but I sure was happy to watch him cruising around and having a great time.

There’s really no grass, so I need to get more hay out to them this afternoon. The heat is still miserable, and it hasn’t rained. The high was “only” 99 on Tuesday, but it’s still hard on everyone here. I will be getting out early to work with horses starting in the morning.

It was nice to get back to my office to work, though my house looks like hoarders have moved in. The rest of the furniture from my old house got brought in while we were gone and we’re still working out where to put everything. Much of the stuff is in our newest shipping container, and I owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to the guys who moved everything out of our old church, up and down those stairs.

Yes, we no longer own a church, which I’m not too sad about, because now Cameron gets a new church. I’m told the minister is really nice, so I’m happy for them. It looks like it’s time for our real estate business to find a new investment.

Thanks for reading, and hi to all you new readers! I do have a book report to write, which I hope to get done tomorrow. It takes thought, and I’m too tired to think right now.

Nope, Nada

I have nothing today. The only time I left the room was to get all the condo staff to try to find Lee’s driver’s license. He later found it.

I’ve enjoyed a lot of diabetes drug commercials today.

Other than work, I had a nice phone chat with my dear friend Mike, who is conveniently going out of town when I’ll be camping in his neighborhood. We are like ships passing in the night. Well, only he goes on a lot more ships than I do…back on topic, I also colored another page in my coloring book with questionable grammar.

I did this psychedelic stuff while watching Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was one psychedelic movie. It’s fun when the star is also a martial arts expert. I see why Michelle Yeoh won so many awards.

There was no Barbie movie this evening, since my friend was busy moving a desk. It was heavy. I understand. Oh well.

I’ve done a good job entertaining myself this past week, though I didn’t expect it to be THIS solo. Next time I’ll remember to get a two bedroom place so people can visit. I didn’t do a great job making friends this visit, though of course there was Bill and Steve. I’ll try again!

My flowers stuck with me the entire time I’ve been here.

I’m a good friend to me, though! Way to go, Suna self esteem.

Whee! Crazy fun HGTV watching fun times!

Tomorrow: book review!

Slow News Day, Featuring Creatures of the Sky

I may have done less today than I have any day since visiting my dad and just sitting around with him. I got enough movement in, but barely. Every time I went to go outside, a band of showers passed through, but that’s okay, because the clouds were pretty. I’ll miss beach clouds.

Luckily, I got on a roll with the ole technical writing, so I got a lot done as I looked outside at rain. I enjoy those breaks I take to help with eye strain. I looked up one and there, practically motionless outside my window was a beautiful osprey. I guess it was the same one I saw before, but it was so close I could see its feathers.

Looking east. No osprey picture available since I was working.

I had plans to go see the Barbie movie, but we are now going tomorrow, since tickets are half off. That sounds good to me, so instead I finished last night’s movie and watched two more.

My “cinema” friends like Anita will probably enjoy picking out themes and cinematic techniques in the documentary I watched about two women who fell in love in a concentration camp and found each other afterwards. Nelly and Nadine (also the film’s name) were very interesting women, and the super 8 home movies they made showed glimpses of a 50s gay and lesbian world few knew about. I was proud that I made it through the concentration camp parts.

I promised creatures of the sky. Here’s a 27th floor bird grasshopper.

I then switched gears and saw Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which was as good as I’d hoped it would be. The movie was set at very close to the time I was Margaret’s age, so everything was eerily familiar. The sets were 70s fun.

I couldn’t find the other movie I was looking for, so I watched Somewhere in Queens. The New York Italian culture is like visiting a foreign land to me, but I enjoyed glimpsing into Ray Romano’s vision.

These guys enjoyed peanuts again. I had three at once.

I guess I’ve gotten enough out of Amazon Prime on this trip. I wish I could use it more at home. Bandwidth. Ugh.

By the way, I haven’t been eating out. I’ve made myself weird dinners out of the supplies Lee and I bought when we got here. I’d sure be cheap to feed if I lived alone, since in addition to cheese, I could live off Tasty Bite curry packages, rice side dishes with vegetables thrown in, hummus, and Progresso soup. Throw in cans of tuna and I’m set.

More than you wanted to know, but it was a slow Suna news day.

You Don’t Have to Be in Texas to Overheat

Since I’ve been enjoying the solo part of my stay in Myrtle Beach, I’ve been doing my best to stay in shape, no matter how tempting lolling around in my room knitting and watching movies might be.

But if I stayed inside I’d miss all the flowers.

Since Lee left, I’ve been heading to the hotel gym and walking as fast as I can while the treadmill goes up and down. I hate when it goes to 9. But I zip along and burn those calories and log those miles. I’m not letting anyone see me to sit-ups, so I save that for in my room. This should at least keep my aerobic and core stuff in okay shape for trying to get back on the horses. I’ll miss a couple of horse events, but I don’t want to push them, either.

Anyway, today I decided to walk outside. After all, it was “only” 90 degrees outside and there was a breeze. So, I went all the way down the boardwalk, at least as far as I’ve ever been. About when I hit the one-mile mark, I realized I was sweating a lot (I’m still not used to the fact that I sweat now, but it’s better than the alternative). By the time I turned around, I was wishing I hadn’t walked so far or that I’d brought money for a beverage.

But, I had no option but to keep going, after a little rest in the shade. I did enjoy some of the improvements they’ve made to the boardwalk and the landscaping. It’s looking a LOT nicer now. They’ve even installed “photo ops” in the little places where there used to be homeless folks hanging out. I’m hoping they found housing or alternate places for those people to hang out.

It’s a lot less crowded this weekend, too, since school is starting or had already started in much of the areas around here. So, other than feeling overheated, I enjoyed the walk very much.

I did make it back to the Ocean Enclave and quickly downed two glasses of water. The pool bar was very pleasant, since it was shady and the breeze was just great. Well, it was pleasant for people sitting there. Sarah was really hot trying to serve a never-ending stream of people wanting their fruity drinks.You can make good money in the summer doing bartending, but it isn’t easy being perky while never stopping.

I enjoyed my reward beverage, which was lime juice, lemon guide, ice and lime vodka. Let me tell you, that was refreshing! By the time I’d seen enough preseason football, I was feeling fine, other t han being covered by sand that had stuck to my sweaty legs.

I had to fight through this to get to the elevator. Ugh. Lots of arrivals.

The moral to this boring story is that you need to stay hydrated if you are going for walks in the sun and it’s hot, even when it’s just normal heat.

I was happy to find sweet everlasting in the wildflower area.

Back to reading, knitting, and eating cheese. I love eating whatever the heck I want, which seems to end up being cheese.