I Know What You've Been Doing!

   When one of my children was maybe 3 years old, we were in the checkout line at the grocery store.

   He looked at the very pregnant woman standing behind us in line, pointed at her baby bump and said rather loudly, "I know what you've been doing"

   The pregnant lady in line got a little red of face, and I may have also. The lady running the register just kinda looked shocked and disgusted that a child so young would be aware of such 'grown-up' information.

  I apologized for his behavior, then I very calmly and quietly told him that it was rude to point at people and talk about them.

  He said "Okay,  But I know what she's been doing!!!"  Louder and more emphatically. pointing at the ladies stomach again.  Again I apologized to the lady and tried to ignore the look on the cashiers face that looked like she was ready to call child protective services because my child was obviously abused if he knew what a pregnant woman had been doing while I again told him that it was rude to do things like that . . . . . Especially in public. . . . .  And at such a high volume.

  The cashier is giving me death glares as she tells me the total and I pay and get my change. 

  As I start moving away from the checkout stand, having loaded my groceries in the cart, my child once again points at the pregnant woman's belly and says

 "But Daddy, I know what she's been doing. She's been eating Cheetos!"

   I looked at the woman's belly and notice the telltale orange residue from wiping her hands on her shirt. And I started laughing. The cashier looks, and her death glare changes to a look of acknowledgement that my child was right as she starts laughing.

   The pregnant woman looks down at her shirt and tries to brush away the orange residue as she gets redder and starts laughing. She laughed so hard she suddenly stopped and said, "Damnit!"

  I looked at her, apologized again for my son's behavior, and as I walked away I thought:

 " I know what you just did" 

   To this day, whenever I see a pregnant woman, I think to myself "I know what you've been doing"

   

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So Confusing

   So. The Federal Government decided to pass masking decisions to the State Governments.  

   Some of the State Governments made mask mandates and ordinances. 

   Some State Governments passed the decision down to the Local Governments.

   And everything went to hell. 

   A police chief in Arkansas sent a letter to the governor saying he wouldn't enforce the Governor's mask mandate. 

    Some of the Local Governments have made mask mandates and ordinances.

   People where local governments made mandates are claiming that it should be the Governors decision or made at a national level.

   

   I'm gonna tell ya this. I wear a mask when I go in the store. Heck, I wear a mask when I go through the drive-thru at McDonald's.

      Lord, have I learned a lot about masks on the past few months. 

   You may or may not know these facts, but I'm fixing to let you in on what I've learned:

   I've also noticed that some of the people that stated they wouldn't wear a mask unless they were forced to, have the most problems with wearing a mask since it's mandated some places. They have creatively interesting reasons for not wearing masks: my response to each of those arguments is in italics.

1. The virus isn't a bad as they say it is. They're inflating numbers to make it look like more people are infected than really are.

   If they're inflating numbers to make it look like more people are infected, then the numbers of recovered cases will be inflated when their recuperation period has completed.

2. Nobody else is wearing their mask right,

   If everybody else jumps off a bridge, are you going to do it too? Don't be such a sheep (or lemming as the case may be), be a leader and wear your mask right.

3. Wearing a mask violates my constitutional right.  

   The Preamble of the Constitution has a phrase that says the Constitution is to , among other things, promote the general welfare. If wearing a mask can help slow the spread or reduce your viral load (which improves your chances of survival) then wearing a mask is not violating your rights.

4. I don't want to wear a mask and you can't make me. 

   You're an adult, act like one.

5. Masks are uncomfortable.

   Breathing tubes and catheters are uncomfortable. Masks are a minor irritation in comparison.

6. Masks don't prevent the Coronavirus, it says so on the box.

   The company doesn't want people who wear their masks to sue them if they catch the Coronavirus by some other means.. 

7. OSHA says don't wear masks.

   OSHA says wear masks in contaminated or potentially contaminated environments.

8. The CDC says don't wear masks.

   The CDC has changed that, they do recommend wearing masks.

9. I can't breathe wearing a mask.

   See your doctor about that. You have a medical issue. 

10. I have a medical issue that prevents me from wearing a mask and HIPPA rules prevent me from telling you what it is.

  It's HIPAA and that doesn't apply. I 

11. Masks don't filter anything out.

   A screen is going to catch something when the air passes through it.

12. Masks reduce your oxygen levels.

   So masks can't filter anything out except oxygen? Coronavirus can go right through the mask, but the instant you put one on you start starving your brain for oxygen.

13. Wearing masks is destroying your immune system. 

   Masks that don't filter out anything (#10) actually are filtering out oxygen and germs other than the Coronavirus? It must filter them out, otherwise it wouldn't be destroying our immune systems. 

14. Masks don't keep you from spreading the Coronavirus. Cause they don't filter anything coming out(see #11)

   But the tests they've shown many places show the opposite.

15. Masks cause a buildup of carbon dioxide.

   Wait. Masks let everything that you breathe out go right through the mask(#14). Except carbon dioxide.

   I've heard all these excuses given. The one about HIPPA was offered to me unsolicited at the doctors office. He even spelled it out for me. I corrected his spelling for him and told him it didn't apply. He didn't appreciate it. When he got up to go to the bathroom, his wife apologized for her husband and said he was a dumbass. I suggested that might be considered a disability that would prevent mask wearing.... He wanted to know why she was laughing when he came back.

   The second day our local mask ordinance went into effect I was in Wal-Mart. in front of me was a little white haired lady. There was a guy walking the other direction wearing his mask around his neck. Evidently she looked at him wrong about the way he was wearing his mask. He pointed to the mask around his neck and said loudly to her that he WAS wearing his mask, She sweetly said "I feel sorry for your wife....if you can't wear a mask right, there's probably other things you can't do right."

  

  At that point I violated the mask ordinance. 

   I pulled mine down so I could laugh at him.

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Inconvenience

   That's what this is. Well, sorta. It is inconvenient to travel and get the medical treatment or diagnoses. But it will inform the doctor (and me, it will inform me).

   2 months ago, I was here for a CT scan. And something bothered me. So I said something. And 1 thing got fixed. Now I'm back again. And some of the same things are still bothering me.

   See, that bugs me. It shouldn't, but it does. If they can't spell inconveniece right, can I trust them for their medical diagnosis? 

  In reality, I am aware that the people doing the medical treatment are not the ones responsible for the signage. But they all work for the same folks.

   It's an annoyance. I might be a little OCD. Or maybe I'm a lot OCD. But after I've SEEN something, I can't UN-SEE it. It's like my eyes will be unavoidably drawn to the thing that wasn't right anytime I go near it.

   But I was there for a PET scan. And then they added the annoyance of having misspelled words on their sign.

Grrr.

I am not posting this when I wrote it. I'll post it after I do my other post. So y'all will know what the PET Scan said before you find out about this.

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The ß¡ŤĆĦ ain't back!

   Sorry for the language. But I'm glad.

   The Dr said they're are going to see me again in 3 months. I have some SUV, but it's low enough that they're not worried about it. 

   Yesterday was Cancer Survivor Day. I wanted to celebrate. I could have celebrated. But I had a very unshakeable feeling that today I would get news that I was going to have to go through some type of treatment to remain a survivor.

   I'm not worried. I've done this before. I can handle this. I have a super support team. And hopefully I'd have a plan to take care of it, if there was an it, quickly so I can go on with my life. 

   A plan that would allow me to take care of my other medical problems *cough* Baker's cyst *cough*

   That's the one causing me pain right now. I've put off going to the Dr about that because I didn't want to cause treatment for that to interfere with treatment for this. If treatment for this was necessary.

   I've been worried about this for a while. Well, at least a couple of months now. Ever since I had swollen lymph nodes in my neck in April.

   I've not been scared. I've not really been worried. I've just been resigned. And maybe depressed?

  We're living in tumultuous times. At least I am. Personal stuff. COVID-19 stuff. #BLM stuff. And the #BLM stuff is personal stuff. You know, my wife and kids kind of personal stuff. 

   

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50/50

   That's what the Dr said the odds are that what I went through 2 years ago, I may be having to go through again.

   I haven't been this excited since my cat had kittens and my dog had fleas. 🙄  If I gotta go through it again, I'll go through it again.

   I'm not excited about the prospects. But  it is what it is. And I'll find out what's going on next week and the week after. 

   There is one thing I'm kinda worried about though. Ya see, the last time I had to go through treatment, I'd wear a mask when I went out sometimes. Especially right after my chemo. The doctors said it would help prevent me getting an infection that could have set back my treatment. 

   Now we got this here Coronavirus crap going around and a whole bunch of folks  think wearing a mask is silly or that you're giving in to liberal media fear mongering.

Some folks really like that phrase. They keep repeating it over and over. Like a bunch of sheep bleating. 

   I have seen a report that says masks do not provide any deterrent to the spread of the virus. There are some numbers if you follow the link in the report. The way it reads, they swabbed the outside of the masks and found the Coronavirus. And thus deduced that masks didn't reduce the spread of the virus. I'd really need Bob Trejo to double check my thinking, but if there is virus left on the mask after you cough through it, didn't it reduce the virus that entered the environment?

   But I digress, I don't know what the results are going to be from my doctor visit and my PET scan next week. And those results or lack thereof will determine the course of treatment. 

   I hope they don't have to cut my head ¼ off the way off. Again. 

  I also hope if I'm out wearing a mask that someone doesn't make a disparaging remark, cause I might be forced to inform them their information is coming from a non peer reviewed source using non sufficient data on a study that doesn't contain enough replications (none) to get a red ribbon in a 4th grade science fair. 

    I'll find out a little Monday, June 1.

My PET Scan is June 5 and my doctor appointment is June 8 to get my results. 

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#MonarchChallenge Success

 I posted a picture on Facebook a few weeks ago, maybe on Instagram or Twitter too. I'm not really sure.
   This picture right here.

It's Jeremiah, Brayden, Gabe, Zeke and Zara with Bella. They are standing behind milkweed plants. I got the milkweed through myBASF. It's part of their Living Acres #MonarchChallenge  I learned about it because one of the Grills kids, Hunter, was in a video. (He's not a kid, he's grown man, but his dad was one of the Grills boys so he has to be one of the kids. I guess. I don't know.)
   I went and signed up last year. and then this spring I got an email saying that my shipment was on its way. I didn't video planting the little plants. I didn't take pictures of them after I had planted them. They didn't really look too promising to tell the truth. There were 18 of them. I planted 6 in each of 3 locations. Watered them. Then I watered them again about a week later. Then I watered them some more.The ones here in the back yard have done the best. There were actually 3 blooms. 
   But I never saw any butterflies around them. I was walking around the yard yesterday and I noticed there were caterpillars. CATERPILLARS were EATING on my MILKWEED

MMyILKWEED!!!! 

   How dare they? 
   I planted those for the Butterflies. The Monarch butterflies.
   Actually. That's what I hoped to happen. It's what was supposed to happen.
   That was the goal of the program.
   Monarch butterflies come from caterpillars. And MONARCH butterflies only lay their eggs that develop into caterpillars on milkweed. If you don't see them in that picture. I zoomed in for a closer look.

There are 4 of them in all. The 2 up top. And these 2. Happily munching away on my milkweed! #Monarch Challenge Success!

 #ForTheFuture


#TheyAreOurFuture





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Ag is in my blood, That's why there's calf poo on my arm

   Yes. 
Calf Poo. 
On. 
My. 
Arm.
   It happens. Especially if you work on a farm with livestock. You may be thinking to yourself "but he doesn't work on a farm, he doesn't have any livestock, how DID the calf poo get on his arm?" Those are very good questions. Let me explain.
   Zara had cheer practice at DCHS last Sunday night from 7:30-9:00. When I was taking her, there were 2 girls out in the pasture at the high school by a fairly new baby calf. As I was leaving from dropping her off, the 2 girls were moving across the pasture towards the rest of the herd and I noticed there were 2 women outside the fence. They were very noticeable because one of them was shooting white foam at the fence. (I stopped because, well, because that was interesting) 
I got out of the car and one lady said, "We're killing wasps!" I could thoroughly support that kind of behavior, cause I hate wasps. Then we talked briefly about the calves (one of the cows had just had twins the day before. A bull and a heifer. And the heifer was the one that was with her. The bull which is guaranteed to be okay is the one that wasn't with the cow. The heifer, which has a 90%+ probability of being a freemartin, was with the cow.)
   They were talking about getting the cow and both calves up to the barn. I went home and when I went to pick up Zara I saw them sitting in front of the barn. So I stopped to see how the calves were doing.
   They had gotten the bull up to the barn, but the heifer and cow were still in the pasture. They were waiting on someone to come from somewhere to help get them up. They asked if I wanted to get them up. Hmmmm.
   I went on home and asked Yvette if I could go back to the school and help them get the cow and calf up to the barn. Yvette said, "If you think you can help, go ahead"
   I put on my shoes and went back to the school. I introduced myself and told them who my child was that had had Ag class last year.  They wanted me to know that one of the cows was less than friendly. Her name is Loca and she lives up to her name. I said they should have named her Big Friendly Baby. And then the person they were waiting on showed up with somebody with them. So we headed out to the pasture. 
   It wasn't a perfectly smooth roundup. First they tried to bring the cows to the gate and slip a halter on the cow they needed. Her name was Maggie. Her daughter was named Edith. She was the white one (a Charolais. They were all white ones) She wasn't having nothing to do with that. (Ain't Nobody Got Time For That!)

Brayden met Maggie

Then we tried taking them across the pasture to go through the gate to go to the barn. We're stumbling around in a pasture in the dark. We sort of chased the cows. The grass was almost knee high and wet. Then the cows turned back and kind of chased us. (Remember, one cow is less than friendly. She's a white one. They're all white ones. You can't really tell which one the unfriendly one is, so...run) It only took 3 attempts to finally get the cow more or less where they wanted her. 
   They tried driving the cow up the alley with the calf outside the fence. She didn't really like that idea. So I did what I've done before that worked. I started walking the calf up the outside of the fence and talking to her and the cow. Mostly nonsense.       Talking about walking around and new adventures and her being like my children and my wife because we started on this trip to the barn and barely get started and she had to stop and use the bathroom and then we started again and she had to stop and use the bathroom again and how there used to be a character on tv with the same name as her and Rod Stewart sang a song years ago about someone with the same name as her mother and how nice it was going to be when she got to the barn. 
   When we finally got to the end of the alley they finally got the halter on Maggie I scooped Edith up on my arms and walked to the gate where one of the nice ladies opened the gate for me and then I sat down in the hatchback of a vehicle and I held Edith while the driver drove to the barn.

Reunited

I don't remember any of their names, and they probably don't remember mine. They didn't care about my name.. They didn't need my help. But I had a special skill that they could utilize. (20 years of marriage has taught me to take orders from a lady😉)
   The calves seem to be doing fine. But that's how I wound up with calf poo on my arms.
   It made me realize that I miss having livestock and at the save time made me realizeI don't miss stuff like that at all....

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It was Kinda Chilly

   This morning it was 32°. That's freezing. 
I was kind of worried about how it we going to affect my flowers. But I went out later today and took these pictures:

  

  
   They seem to have held up fine. The crocus are done. The hyacinths are finishing off. The tulips and daffodils are beautifully blooming.

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Confusion

   Tidbits:

1. Yesterday I took Zara to Camp Clark WIlliamson for a planning meeting about church camp. While I was there I went up where the Cool Springs cabin is. They've cut down the tree that was right beside the cabin. It's been cut down for a while. They've even cut it into sections. That 🌳 is dead.

Evidently, someone forgot to tell the tree it was dead. Because that bud is on the 3rd section of the tree. That tree is intending to grow this year.

2. On my way home, I went to see Buster Brown. I figured he might be bored since Mr. Mac has been having some medical issues. But Buster Brown seemed to be in good spirits. And Mr. Mac seemed to be doing as well as could be hoped for. We talked about buttercups (daffodils). Scrambled Eggs and Butter and Eggs

 This is Butter and Eggs. He had a Scrambled Egg in a vase on his table. They have white petals with an orange inside and look like scrambled eggs. 



Tidbits. Nothing deep. Nothing profound. Just stuff I thought about posting. There's no connection between these things. 

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Cancer Treatment Sucks

   Seriously, it did.

   But it beat the alternative. 

   I lost 60 pounds. So that was a good thing. I needed to lose some weight. And I need to lose some more. But I think I'll try to do that through dieting or something.
   I lost the hair on my neck. Some of it permanently, I think. Which ain't no big deal.
   But there is one thing I regret losing that I've noticed. 
   We've been practicing the Cantata that we're going to sing for Easter at church. 
   And I seem to have lost a few notes at the top of my vocal range. Okay, technically,  I've lost a lot of notes. Like a whole octave.
G4 and up. Gone. D E & F ain't real stable either. But I can deal with it. I didn't lose anything on the bottom range that I've noticed. 
   Maybe with work, I can get those notes back. Maybe not. I may just have to be singing baritone for the rest of my life. 
   Whatever I'm singing 🎵🎶, I'll be singing the way it says in the Psalms. Joyfully. (100:1 and 98:4.) It may not be beautifully, but that isn't what the Bible asked for.
   As it says in the good face book:

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I've Got a Secret

   I may be a little weird. There. I've gotten that off my chest. I didn't want anyone to know. But I've realized that I should probably let people know. And I feel much better now that I've let you know. Seriously. Cause I know I can trust you to not tell anyone.
   While I was going through my treatment, I had a little lightweight backpack that I carried with me. It was convenient for carrying paperwork that they would give me. 
   And my support group. A support group that grew as I was going along. 
   It started out with one. 

   And then some friends joined up. And then some more. I didn't always take them out of the backpack. But there were a few times when I was getting fluids or getting the chemo, that I had them sitting on the windowsill. The nurses even asked me a few times if I had my friends with me. 
   

I did NOT wear my outfit that I bought to any of my treatments. But I did think about it. More than once. But it would have probably made it harder to access my port. And I didn't want to make it more difficult for that. 
   At my appointment Wednesday to get my labs drawn they had some sort of fundraiser thing going on, probably Relay for Life team. But I asked if the guy was wearing a tutu. The lady said no, but she would get him to put it on.
   So the guy came out with his tutu on. He came over. I had a dollar in on pocket that I was going to donate. But Yvette said he should dance or something. So he did a little twirl. So I stuck the dollar in his waistband. 
   
   I've always heard that laughter is the best medicine. In which case, the guy, Yvette, the women behind the counter, the 5 or 6 people in the sitting area; they all had their medicine for the day. Positive Attitude!

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Inspirations

   Keep a POSITIVE Attitude!

   That is something I've noticed among cancer survivors. Positive attitudes. Out of all the survivors I've met or known, that is their most common shared characteristic. 
   The women walking around with no hair because the chemo they're undergoing has caused it to fall out. And they still manage to have a smile on their face. Positive Attitude!

   You see them walking the first lap at relay for life events. 
   Positive Attitudes!

   And there's PinkribbonWendi. Led a breast cancer support group called Breast Friends. When she found she needed double mastectomy; scheduled it for September 11, because that was the day the twin towers fell.  Positive Attitude!
   
   I have tried to have that same positive attitude. I did things I probably shouldn't have during my treatment. I did things I should have.  I made it to church every Sunday. I prayed a lot. I asked other people to pray for me.
   After I was finished with my treatment, while I was recovering; I planted a bunch of flower bulbs, looking forward to seeing them bloom this spring. Positive Attitude!
   
Today I got the results from my CT Scan they did yesterday. They wanted to check some stuff they noticed when they did my PET Scan in December. Which they said wasn't mentioned in the first PET Scan from June. Which is weird because they had mentioned it to me in June. 
   The scan said that it hadn't changed. So Dr Gorgeous was happy. (it's actually Georgiou but they have it misspelled on the sign in sheet as Georgious, but since the mind fills in the blanks based on the length of the word and the first and last letter.....)
   Everything looked good! My next checkup is in 6 months. 

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