Trip notes: Galena

 I started this blog in June 2010! Times flies when...

I just had an enjoyable trip to Galena. I hadn't been there in nearly 20 years and it has changed a little. I'm glad I went, but it won't be anything I do again. The stores have gotten a bit larger and there are almost no craftspeople selling their own work any more. It's now a good place to get interior design goods and Vera Bradley's Mickey Mouse collection and steak with mac'n'cheese as a side dish. Not my cup of tea. Speaking of which, there were also very few food options for me (no dairy, nearly-no meat). One restaurant bragged about having vegan options, but there was not one thing in blue on their menu. One bakery had a solitary vegan option, but I was sad to discover that the Mixed Berry Muffin was made with banana, which I'm mildly allergic to, when the first bite was already in my mouth. It never crossed my mind to ask if a mixed berry muffin had banana in it!?! Lesson learned - ask, ask, ask; don't worry about being a P.I.T.A. when it comes to my health.

I stayed in a BEAUTIFUL B&B that I definitely recommend. Miss Murphy's is a charming Victorian with a cute mix of old and new. Breakfast was great and she took into account my request for no dairy. The only drawback is that while the building is just two small blocks from the main strip, it is up a HUGE hill, so driving up and down was necessary for me in the 90-degree heat. (It was also not a cheap stay.)

I was so close to Dubuque that I couldn't resist a little trip over there. It looks about like I remember, although it is a blessing and a curse that the casinos are there now, I'm sure. I also took the "long" way back to Galena and can now boast of visiting two other states in one day. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that a number of small towns along Route 20 have slightly rejuvenated downtown shopping. I had traveled around the north part of the state about 7-8 years ago and it had been depressing to see the large quantity of boarded up and just-plain-abandoned shops in the "historic downtown" areas. I'm now actually excited to get back out there and see what I can find.

Breakfast Quinoa with fruit

 Presoaking quinoa seems like it's a good idea for digestive reasons, but I dislike having too much fuss in an everyday recipe. I was looking through Thrive Magazine Vol. 37 and saw two things that sparked the following jam. I also like that the fruit gets cooked, easier on the gut when things are no fun in there, and since I should eat the skins, they get cooked a bit too. I tried cooking the grains in 100% coconut milk and while it was good and very porridge-like, I found it to be too much oil. Perhaps half almond, half coconut would be a nice choice sometimes?

Put 1/4 cup white quinoa into a fine strainer, rinse the quinoa for a few moments, then set the strainer into the small cooking pot and let the grains soak while you...

Cut up a small apple/peach/pear, whatever. Drop into a small non-stick frying pan with a nice little pat of butter. After a moment sprinkle a bit of cinnamon/cardamom/clove/nutmeg and a slight drizzle of maple/molasses/honey. Let that stew just a few moments, then set aside to...

Drain the grains, add 1/2 cup almond milk, add a small pinch of salt and put onto the heat. Turn it up real high, stirring and watching it get up to a simmer-ish thing. Pop on the lid, drop the heat to a really low setting, set a timer for 8 minutes and when it goes off, stir the grains to get all the stuff that climbed the sides back into the mix. 

I tend to just eat from the pot because less dishes, but I have been working harder to try to do my esthetic sense a favor and put the grains into a pretty bowl and drop the fruit on top like a civilized person.

Changing my mind

 I have recently become some kind of expert at changing my mind. This is HUGE, by the way. If you didn't know, I consider myself to be an Adult Child of Alcoholism & Family Dysfunction. ACA has been a really big part of my inner life since just before Covid and is largely responsible for helping me achieve whatever level of emotional sobriety I am currently enjoying. I love to tell people who are interested all about it, so feel free to ask.

So, back to changing my mind. Part of my childhood was learning black-and-white thinking, and catastrophizing and being just generally afraid of life, so best coping skills were denial of emotions and sticking to decisions like life-rafts even if they weren't working out so well. Not really the best way to go through life, not if you want to actually enjoy much anyway!

1) I have added a new food group to my life, called hand cream. Part of my treatment is lots of steroids and it has made my skin altogether different so now I slather my hands with ceramide cream every single chance I get. Old way of thinking was to not waste the stuff  and just use "enough" and not get it all over clothes which would necessitate extra laundry which is not good...you get the drift. I have changed my mind about this. I'm going to use lots of the stuff and not really worry if I get a little on my toothbrush or a bit ends up on my sleeve or gathers in a drop of water that rolls down my hand into my drinking water.

2) I don't want to go to sleep right now. Old way of thinking would insist that I keep trying to sleep because everybody needs eight hours (I certainly function BEST that way!) and not sleeping brings on a host of health issues and... you get the drift. I have changed my mind about this. For now (because I can change my mind again about this later), I just don't wanna go to sleep. I'm not trying to actively avoid sleep, but I am not going to chase it around. I am EXCEPTIONALLY privileged to be able to keep my job and have flexible bosses. I also live alone so I don't even need to worry about disturbing a partner with my odd hours. Heck, there's a little girl running around upstairs at all hours by herself (even as I type) to sort-of keep me company.

3) I hate the sunshine. I know we are supposed to practically worship summer and healthy tans and beaches and bright sunny days in the mid-winter... I hate sunshine. This is not actually something I have changed my mind about, but I have changed my mind about keeping it to myself. I detest driving on certain days where it seems the flipping sun is always shining across my shoulder, making it hard to see and heating up the dang car, and glaring off everything. Hot, sticky, sweaty sunshine that you just can't get away from without paying a fortune for air conditioning (see the privilege here too!). I hate people who "love summer" but jump from air conditioned workplaces to air conditioned SUVs to air conditioned restaurants to air conditioned homes. -----I love when the sun is just a soft glow on the horizon, or later when the sky is black and that moon is so bright you can easily see your path. The soft moonlight through trees with stars too numerous to count. Whirling figures sketched across the night sky by lonely travelers with amazing names and stories passed down through the centuries to dance in the velvety darkness above you. THAT's a sky I can love.

4) Food. I have changed my mind about Velveeta. I think the steroids have helped calm down inflammation in my gut, so I have been experimenting a little about food. I am now trying to really listen to what I am craving and see if I can make sense of the underlying reason for a craving. There is a very real danger of salt cravings with steroids and I am totally getting that, but I keep trying to redirect that towards what I think is the root cause --- dehydration. Another interesting childhood dynamic was learning that my bathroom needs were not welcome, so from the beginning I was taught to minimize that stuff by avoiding drinking. That behavior was also modelled by my parents (Dad had migraines his whole adult life --- connection there???) so it wasn't like they were doing anything TO me that they weren't doing to themselves. I have changed my mind about drinking water, but making this decision happen in real life every day after every day has been a stupid, unnecessarily hard climb upwards, let me tell you.  I actually have a list of "one thing" to think about each day just because I'm that kind of nerd. Mondays, the only real standard I have is to try to hydrate as best I can. It has been a decently effective plan because I actually drink more water on average than ever before. And some days I have to really work hard to remember that idea because sometimes it just seems so silly to that dumb voice in my head who is so fear-based that everything is a potential danger, especially CHANGE!

Autoimmune Disease #4

 March is autoimmune disease awareness month.

Just in time, my body decided to do a cool new thing. 

In healthy folks, your red blood cells hang around your body for about 120 days. At the end of that time, your immune system paints the old cells with a little tag, and when your spleen sees that marker, destroys the cells. My immune system, heretofore called Dolores Umbridge, decided at some point in Jan?/Feb? to start painting every single red blood cell with that trash marker as fast as her greedy little hands could move.

The good news? Every other part of my body was doing it's absolute best to keep up with this ridiculous situation. Marrow has been making new cells as fast as possible. All other markers in my blood show good news. No evidence of cancer, etc.

Also amazing news? The medical system I have access to REALLY caught me. I had been part of a different group until late 2019, then I decided to switch to Northwestern Medicine. My feeling with the old group was that every conversation was a new thing, that no one was really treating me like a whole person. I had one appointment with a dermatologist that went so badly, I burst into tears. He was prepared to give me seven or eight seconds of time before completely dismissing me. It was demeaning.

Change to Northwestern Medicine. WOW. I love the internal medicine doctor I have (now called Dr. Coach), but in this particular situation, it was the whole team that SAVED MY LIFE.  I had been feeling crummy for a few months for a probably-unrelated medicine reason, not to mention it being winter and Covid and so on. But things were just slowly getting worse. Physically I was feeling so exhausted and achy and just plain awful. One day at work, a coworker decided to tell me that they thought I looked a little yellow. I thanked them, and over the next day or so, kept pondering that. Dr Coach is great, so great that seeing him can take a while. But then I decided that since I could schedule a video call That Morning with his associate, I went ahead and pulled the trigger. I had seen Dr. A before and and she had been exactly right both times, so within two hours of me deciding to do this, I had a genuine doctor suggesting to me that I take a break from work to go get a few blood tests drawn. Easy peasy, right by my house. And I could have found something right near work if I hadn't been okay with driving nine whole miles to go to the place I was already familiar with.

9:00 PM that night, Dr A called to let me know that I was going to be scheduled to see a specialist for the first thing the next morning. She was calm and reassuring, explained as much as she could and answered whatever questions I had, but also made it clear that this was a situation that needed all due haste. The next morning I got a call from another amazing human being who explained things well and took the time to make sure I was clear on what I needed to do. She even warned me that the building where my new Dr F works says "Cancer Center" on it but not to worry, Dr F is a oncologist as well as a hematologist. THANK YOU! for that warning! I can imagine getting plenty freaked to see that sign without fair notice.

Since then (less than three weeks?!?) I have had blood drawn right before each appointment and within TWELVE MINUTES! the doctor is looking at the real results, able to see how my body is really doing. Blow my mind, that. First, it is just so cool that they can do that. So easy to take for granted that I'm not sitting around places waiting for results - that would be anxiety inducing for certain.  On the other hand, it is also an indication of just how bad things are that they have me at the top of that list. GoOd HaNds!!

Two phrases used, both meaning the same thing:

PRIMARY AUTOMIMMUNE HEMOLYTIC ANEMIA
ACQUIRED AUTOIMMUNE HEMOLYTIC ANEMIA

I am currently on a very high dose of Prednisone to try and bash Dolores back into compliance. Numbers from last week show that it is working, although not super-well. Tomorrow we check again and see if this is good enough or decide to pull out a much bigger, more targeted gun. I am torn both ways, but feel strongly that Dr F will make the trustworthy call.  I have also been in touch with Dr Coach and he encouraged me to treat this like a sprint, to not get side-tracked and also gave me numbers for two "real" therapists to help.

I feel strangely good. All of my arthritis aches and pains have faded. I am eating quite well (ROTISSERIE CHICKEN at every meal for this life-long vegetarian?!?). I am working hard to keep my mind from getting all mixed up and catastrophizing. I have also been on a journey with the group Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunction for the last four years (Dec 3, 2018 is my emotional sobriety birthday) and that has been an unbelievably important piece of how I have been able to process this mess as well as I am. I also turned off my alarm clock both physically and metaphorically when this started, and am able to just go with the flow for the most part. My employers have been wonderful and supportive and I am very grateful for that whole situation. I'm even a little grateful to Covid for letting so many people be aware of how germs can be so extra-dangerous for people with compromised immune systems - curbside pickup, contactless purchasing, just plain Not Staring at People In Masks?!?!? This is going to be a part of my life for a while because not matter how we get there, Dolores will not be back to full strength for a whole so now I have to treat myself like a fragile little flower.

Delicate flower. Me. HA! Well, true for now. And I'm taking that very seriously. I'll have lots of posts about that coming, I am sure. I love to share info I learn or test or prove for myself. And now it's time for me to put that dead chicken into a crock pot for the day and go get its fresh replacement. I may even put in a full day of work while I'm at it!!

Non-Review: Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

 The next random book on the list was Swan Song, available on Hoopla.  I cannot make myself continue to read this one, not right now anyway.  Post-apocalyptic, it seems that one main character struggles with mental illness and addiction.  Full of violence and people being horrible.  I don't want to sit in that world right now.

Review: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

 I randomly selected this book from the list I posted yesterday.  I knew very little about it, just that it was most often on reading lists for older children.

Coming to this book in 2021 was very different than if I had read this when I was a kid.  The main subject is hunting and a rather grisly form of hunting at that!  The author was born in 1918 and clearly has a great fondness for coon dogs and racoon hunting.  He also seems to be a Christian and proud American as well.  All of these things are handled gracefully and I can see why it was seen as a children's book.  The killings are mostly off-screen and there is no romance.  Even most of the challenges the main character takes on are described as almost easy.

It is a pleasant story, couched as the reminiscence of an older man back to a time he remembered fondly from his childhood.  But, it is also the story of a very young boy who trains two dogs to kill hundreds of animals for their pelts.  Sad ending, too.  I have very mixed feelings about it.  It has some of the same feel as To Kill a Mockingbird although there are no racial overtones here, and no moral lessons beyond "dogs love people".  And a little bit of "God answers prayers mostly".

I was able to check this out of my local library electronically and it is a short book.  I don't feel the time spent reading it was wasted.

My Reading List 2021-2022

 I have no idea if I can read these in 1-1/2 years, but I'm going to give it a try.  I find the bottom of the list a little more interesting than the top, so I'm going to try alternating between, working towards the middle.  I also may read the first book of a series for those I haven't already read.  Link to source of the list at the bottom.

Books

• To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee
• Pride & Prejudice - Austen
• The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
• Gone With the Wind - Mitchell
• Charlottes’ Web - White
• Little Women - Alcott
• Jane Eyre - C Bronte
• Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery
• The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Smith
• The Book Thief - Zusak
• The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
• The Help - Stockett
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Twain
• 1984 - Orwell
• And Then There Were None - Christie
• Atlas Shrugged - Rand
• Wuthering Heights - E Bronte
• Lonesome Dove - McMurtry
• The Pillars of the Earth - Follett
• The Stand - King
• Rebecca - du Maurier
• A Prayer for Owen Meany - Irving
• The Color Purple - Walker
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Carroll
• Great Expectations - Dickens
• The Catcher in the Rye- Salinger
• Where the Red Fern Grows - Rawls
• The Outsiders - Hinton
• The Da Vinci Code - Brown
• The Handmaid’s Tale - Atwood
• Dune - Herbert
• The Little Prince - Saint-Exupery
• The Call of the Wild - London
• The Clan of the Cave Bear - Auel
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Adams
• The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
• The Joy Luck Club - Tan
• Frankenstein - Shelley
• The Giver - Lowry
• Memoirs of a Geisha - Golden
• Moby Dick - Melville
• Catch 22 - Heller
• War and Peace - Tolstoy
• Their Eyes Were Watching God - Hurston
• Jurassic Park - Crichton
• The Godfather - Puzo
• One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
• The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde
• The Notebook - Sparks
• The Shack - Young
• A Confederacy of Dunces - Toole
• The Hunt for Red October - Clancy
• Beloved - Morrison
• The Martian - Weir
• Siddhartha - Hesse
• Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
• The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Haddon
• A Separate Peace - Knowles
• Don Quixote - de Cervantes
• The Lovely Bones- Sebold
• The Alchemist - Coelho
• Invisible Man - Ellison
• Gulliver’s Travels - Swift
• Ready Player One - Cline
• Gone Girl - Flynn
• Watchers - Koontz
• The Pilgrim’s Progress - Bunyan
• Things Fall Apart - Achebe
• Heart of Darkness - Conrad
• Gilead - Robinson
• Flowers in the Attic - Andrews
• The Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut
• This Present Darkness - Peretti
• Americanah - Adichie
• Another Country - Baldwin
• Bless Me, Ultima - Anaya
• Looking for Alaska - Green
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz
• Swan Song - McCammon
• Mind Invaders - Hunt
• White Teeth - Smith
• Ghost - Reynolds
• The Coldest Winter Ever - Souljah
• The Intuitionist - Whitehead
• Doña Bárbara - Gallegos

    Series

• Outlander (Series) - Gabaldon
• Harry Potter (series) - Rowling
• The Chronicles of Narnia (series) - Lewis
• The Hunger Games (Series) - Collins
• Game of Thrones (series) - Martin
• Foundation (series) - Asimov
• The Wheel of Time (series) - Jordan/Sanderson
• Hatchet (series) - Paulsen
• The Twilight Saga (series) - Meyer
• Tales of the City (series) - Maupin
• Alex Cross (series) - Patterson

Not Gonna

• Left Behind (series) - LaHaye/Jenkins
• Fifty Shades of Grey (series) - James

source

Review: Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

 I had a hard time with this book.  It was written from the point of view of someone struggling with mental illness and it tended to make me feel a bit mentally ill as well.  Also, the plot lines are contrived to keep the ending a mystery and I didn't really appreciate that.  It was a bit like "I see dead people" and since I had an inkling about the "twist" at the end, it wasn't really worth all the back-and-forth.  I read it for a book club otherwise I might not have finished reading it.  I also got it through Kindle Unlimited so I didn't have to pay for it, another good thing.

I didn't know a single thing about the book ahead of time, which was good.  I jumped right in without any warning and I think that helped.  On the other hand, I could tell that there must be a reason the author kept manipulating the timeline and that brought me out of the story a lot.  It is also a pretty bleak sort of place where this takes place, a sort of parallel world and it was HEAVY on my heart to dwell there.  There was an impossible happy ending, but it felt a bit too tacked on for me to feel as if the ending redeemed the dark journey it took to get there.

2021-05-27 Poem

2021-05-29 Poem

The room looks as cold as ice

The owner must think it looks nice

It's white and it's plain

No mess and no stain

No fun can occur in those whites!