"Bearly" Cool Enough for a Walk

Waking up before six on a Saturday is not my favorite thing, but it happens often so you get used to it. Knowing how much is on my plate today, there was no thought of trying to fall back to sleep. As usual at the weekend house, the dog is already awake and waiting patiently at the top of the stairs for me to start moving.

After what seemed to be weeks of 90 degree plus weather, this morning in the mountains is in the low 70's. Taking the dog for her morning walk with the temperature not in the 80's for a change, was worth waking at an early hour. As we walked down the driveway, I saw two doe, each mother with her twin spotted fawns. A little up the road a few more deer. It seems they know today will be another day close to one hundred degrees, and have decided to have an early breakfast. By the heat of the afternoon, they will be resting on the leaves that have almost turned to mulch out where the woods are thick.

Two blocks up we make a right turn to go down a circular block which is right on the lake. There is an acre or two of woods which is a designated wetlands area. It's also an area of a bear den. Knowing that, my eyes always scan the woods and the trees before I walk down. Everything looked fine... to me. A few steps down and the dog stopped, ears shot straight up and she growled and barked and growled and barked.

Well, I don't know about you, but when an animal senses something that you can't see... I'll trust the instinct that nature provided to all her creatures great and small. It was time to think of a different route this morning. Now I never did see the bear, but the house closest to the area did have their garbage nicely strewn across their front lawn, so he or she wasn't far away.

Back at the house, it's time for a cup of tea, a little time to write this and then it's time to disappear into a world of research and writing. I'll "bearly" have time for anything else.

Still, it's a new morning, a day of promise and new challenges.

 And air conditioning set at icy blast.

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Oh Baby

Just a short little post this morning about one of the many things that annoy me.

I love getting the feeds where you find out quickly all that is new and happening and exciting. You get everything that might be of interest to you, and it saves so much time. So you see a story you might be interested in and click on it. In my case this morning, it was an article about the most popular kids names of 2013.

aw, how cute.

I don't have kids, at my age I'm not all that interested in reading all the parenting advice out there, and I grow weary of seeing 10,00 photos of happy, sad, cake-covered, sleeping, crying, and yes, even swimming babies. Don't send me email, it is what it is. I make no apologies. There was a reason I chose not to have kids and that is... they don't really excite me. There I've said it. If I kind of know you, I'll take a look at your pics, but if I really don't, please don't take offense, it's not your child... it's me.

Anyway, aside from not having a interest in most things child-like, I have always been fascinated by what names are popular. I don't know why. So today I get a link to the most popular baby names of 2013 and I am interested enough to take a look. And then I see it. It's a damn slideshow... of names. Twenty-two slides of ten girls and ten boys names. Which leaves two extra for what I assume will be advertising. These are the days when I miss reading a newspaper. Can you not just give me a list? I don't have the time or honestly, that much interest to go through twenty-two slides.

So instead of clicking through twenty-two slides of twenty names, I closed it out and decided to come over here and bitch about it. I figure at some point that list may show up on the news or another website where I can just scroll down and see them.

Or if any of you find it, just send it over. I'll be sitting here looking at something that's much easier to read. Probably not child-related.

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I See The Light

"But the woman is so tired... 

So the woman disappears... 

Come in out of the darkness... "  

I've always felt there are lyrics to fit whatever is going on in your life. Your mood, your relationship, your dreams... somewhere a songwriter has already felt the same way and written down your feelings. The lyrics above are from Stevie Nicks' "Bella Donna." No other words could have captured my life more perfectly over the past two days.

Apparently these old bones ain't quite what they used to be... literally. Over the last two years my bone density reading has shown a 13% bone loss. Not good. So at my last doctor visit she advised I take a twice a year shot of one of the new drugs to combat osteoporosis. I read up on the side effects, etc. and wasn't thrilled. I also wasn't excited about a drug having a time-release of six months. So I opted for one of the once-a-week pills. It also had a lot of possible side effects, let's face it most drugs do, but I was willing to give it a try.

Now I  had a month of samples for over a month. I wanted to take it on a Wednesday, as it's a day I'm usually home. Closer to the weekend and there's a chance I might be at the weekend house and that means I need to remember another thing to take with me. Trust me, I don't need to remember any more things.

So, I kept forgetting to take it. Or I would remember after I had already taken my regular dose of Calcium in the morning, which is a no-no with this drug. I finally remembered this Wednesday, and the whole day I was fine. At some point either Wednesday night or Thursday morning, I began having abdominal pain. It didn't much register other than I thought I might be coming down with a stomach virus and I was a little pissed off with it being the Fourth of July and all that.

Thursday morning the pain continued, not all the time, just enough to let me know it was there. I did some heavy-duty cleaning and started to feel kind of crappy. With the temperature over 90, even with air conditioning, I chalked it up to just being exhausted. Then the joint and muscle pain started. I had pain in every joint in my hand, my feet, my back, my arms felt like lead weights. At this point, the brain kicked in and said "seriously girl, what the fuck?" Let me look up the side effects of this pill, and not just skim over it like I did the first time.

Oh yeah, out of the first ten or so side effects, I had seven. For forty-eight hours, I was a slug. My mind was mush, I was napping throughout the day and everything hurt. I haven't been able to write... anything. Over at Sprocket Ink where I post twice a week, and where we live on snark, I couldn't come up with anything, ANYTHING as a response to a comment on our FB page. All I could hope for was that the side effects wouldn't last the full week.

Waking up this morning, I knew I felt better. Still have the abdominal pain, but the extreme fatigue and the joint/muscle pain is almost gone. Time to "come in out of the darkness."

Monday morning will bring a call to my doctor to see if there is a substiture to this specific drug. I'm hoping milk shakes are a viable alternative, though I won't hold my breath.

Today though, it will be time to do some online reading and catch up on some of the writing of which I am hopelessly behind. Physical work, I think that will have to wait. And getting back to my thoughts about song lyrics, this day will see me doing what Glenn Frey and Jackson Brown once wrote... "Take it Easy."

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