Funnies

In green is the American "Midwest"

Elections

 

Various Flora

Fret not, Dear Fans, I'm still here.  Allow me to present you with some assorted loveliness: 1) cut flowers David found on clearance at the Alexandria Farmers' Market --or should that be Farmer's Market?-- and 2) some eye-catching ornamental grasses outside the condo's community center.  Enjoy!

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More Exotic Virginia Wildlife

Since we have recently discussed the merits of the renown Virginia Short-Armed House Bear, I thought I would share my extremely rare photo of the equally renown Virginia Miniature Hedge-Horse. 

The extremely shy, reclusive creatures are thought to be a genetic throwback to the Eohippus, the earliest identifiable horse known to paleontology.

The hedge horse makes its home in thick hedges and other similar shrubberies, where it happily grazes on leaves, persimmons, and kumquat husks. They have been known to cavort with chipmunks. I was walking along the sidewalk in Old Town taking photos when suddenly, and to my astonished delight, one just poked his head up to see what was going on and then dove right back in. What luck!

 

Anniversary

On this day, October 17th, in 1992 David and I started our lives together, and on this day in 2015, we entered into legal matrimony (thank you Supreme Court). 34 years, to save you from doing the math. Wonderful years, happy years, years when, with one another's love and help, we took up challenges, pursued dreams, and came out of it well traveled and pleasantly retired. Here's to us!

 

Stand-In

This week's flowers wilted quickly, but happily Kabuki was happy to pinch hit for the bouquet. He's such a thoughtful little Virginia Short-Armed House Bear! 🐻🐻🐻

Worth 1,000 Words (sorta)

During my stay at the hospital last week, I couldn't help but notice the icon on the nurse call button on my bed. I think it looks more like a border control officer for a small eastern European republic.  Or am I mistaken???

A Slight Change in Plans

So, you ask, what the hell happened with you, you ask. The trip to Syracuse got derailed, almost as soon as it stated.  It makes for a curious tale.

So... David and I are departing for upstate New York. We leave the apartment and everything's just fine, by the time we get down to the garage to get into the car I am unable to find words. I mean like absolutely no clue what the word is that I want to say, so I mumble and fumble and I don't think get a single coherent word out. All this happened in an elevator ride of about five stories. I was, needless to say, getting frustrated, panicked, frightened. This went on for about an hour in the car. I am a Francis after all and just because I have an attack of aphasia for the first time, and can't speak doesn't mean I put off plans for the day. It'll probably get better, probably. By the time we got to Corning, New York and stopped for the night, I was feeling slightly better, but later on started developing a nasty headache and David finally said "OK. Do you want to go to the emergency room? Do you want to go back home tomorrow?" I was apparently looking in pretty rough shape, then about 15 minutes later I was sound asleep and snoring. So we left the next day, and thanks to the modern miracle of the inter web, I was able to message my doctor on the way. I explained the situation and got a very quick reply from an assistant who had talked to my doctor, and they both said that I was to get myself to an emergency room as soon as I got back to Virginia. They concluded that direction with a "please please go today!" Well, you can take that seriously.

So I got checked in for observation, in a comfy part of the hospital. Everybody there was very nice there, even charming--especially one bearded nurse with tattooed arms whom I referred to as the nurse dude. I went through all sorts of interesting and marvelously technological tests, all of which happily turned out to reveal no significant issues with either brain or heart, other than the usual wear and tear. I had a Transitory Ischemic Attack (TIA) sometimes called--incorrectly--a mini-stroke. It presents stroke-like symptoms, but does not do any permanent damage and usually persists from 1 to 24 hours. It was, nevertheless, alarming and leaves you pretty rattled afterwards. It was a huge relief to find out I was actually OK.

The hospital bed was surprisingly comfy, there was nothing good on TV. The food was acceptable and now I'm apparently just fine all things considered. So now I'm on Plavix, a blood thinner; I'd already been taking a daily low-dose aspirin. That will do for Medical Adventure Time for a while. Aphasia is quite scary when you've never even heard of it before; right now I'm just back on little words; they said I should be able to manage polysyllables in about a week, but to avoid Greek roots for now.

 

Amusements