Getting things off my chest.

I live in Georgia which is one the United States "third world" states; resources are limited. This is why I am the caregiver to four people. I have no choice. I could not stand what would happen if I walked away.

My developmentally delayed brother could live in a group home. My mother could live in personal care home. But ---- They enjoy the comforts of living in a home, having a pet, their own room, television and bathroom. Plus, they help me. My brother helps me with some work. My mother helps in spending quality time with him and my sisters. I would visit them daily and it is easier for them to live in my home to visit with them.

Queen Charlotte, formerly known as Checkers, she was originally named Grace. She doesn't like her children and will treat them badly if they fraternize with her owner. But Charlotte takes care of her owner with undying devotion. 

I am amazed at people who will just tell me how I can make care giving so much easier. Many of these same people will step in my shoes one day. At that point, they will hear "crickets" when they ask for real help. They will not be consoled that you can be put in jail for abandoning a handicapped person. No one is going to help you nor are they letting you off the hook.

Now some remarks from people older than me make sense. They had taken care of a parent.

The statement that makes me mad is "You get a lot of money from the government." Like heck I don't.

My dad left my mom well taken care of. Sharing my home, she is relieved of many bills and able to live "higher on the hog". She would enjoy assisted living. However, I have handicapped siblings. Although my mother is unable to do physical work, she is still super mom to these individuals and a great companion to me.

That said, you have to face doing the dirty work. I don't do it unless I have to. But you do have to tell people their limitations. Sometimes they have to tell me my limitations. Family will tell you what other people will be too polite to say.

One thing you learn with mentally disabled individuals, there are predators.

This person is not a predator. I've got to tell my sister's therapist we focus on living a content life and accepting ourselves as we are at 55. The therapist is about 25. You do the math. I don't know what is being discussed. Frankly, I don't care. My sister gets creative at times which is more due to her disability and loneliness. This is one on one attention for one hour a month which my sister normally enjoys.

My sister gets $525 a month from social security. I give her $250 for spending money. The rest I put in the grocery money. She gets medicare in that she has about $6000 in a thrift plan that disqualifies her from medicaid. Medicaid is their preferred source. Public mental health care is superior to private. Private frames their care around insurance coverage. You cannot get it across to them that you will take a second mortgage to get the care they need.

I am grateful for her Social Security benefit and medicare. I'm incredibly grateful.  My siblings, cousins and I have worked and paid taxes. We certainly aren't eating steaks and caviar with her money.

With the nuttiness in Washington, she can stay on medicare. Medicaid is tightly controlled by Georgia's budget. They have been cutting social service and school budgets by approximately 5 percent every year for the past 14 years. Only certain doctors take medicaid due to state restrictions.

 I feel a vise constantly tightening about my sister mental health care. I put up with a great deal of humiliation. I put Uncle Tom to shame yes ma'aming and yes siring where my sister gets mental health care. They keep cutting funds. One day, my family may live as beggars. It is expensive to be mentally ill.

I hate the Halloween laugh. It's real. It's having your sister open a door and cuss imaginary people for about 15 minutes. This happened as she was getting on medication. Before my sister moved in with me, her private practice psychiatrist took her off her medication. When my sister had a problem with the new medication, well my sister had become a bad patient. She should take the medicine. The fact that no real plan was in place to evaluate whether the new drug was the problem or not created a lot of grief and loss for my sister. The medicine was the problem.

Like many schizophrenics, it was not her. It is the world that is a problem. (Sometimes I feel that too.) Long story short, she lost her job and was arrested for disorderly conduct about two years later. The judge told me to get guardianship which I did. Two years without medication created havoc with her reason. It cost me about $1500 to get guardianship.

With appropriate medication, she has made strides in the 8 years she has lived with me. She is content. There is a little dog who is a lifesaver. Why is family different than the wonderful staff at a personal care home? It is someone who will have a conversation with her. Not those "how are you" depth of conversation that I call "gee gaw" talk. No depth, no real interaction occurs. Plus, she cannot afford the cost to live in a personal care home. Remember, it is $525 a month.

For my sister who has had the stroke. It's saying no you cannot move back into your home. You are unable to shower or toilet without assistance. And even when you get disability, it would be a stretch for it to pay for a full time caregiving situation. I am hoping she might be rehabilitated to living independently.  A meaningful life is my hope for her. Her recovery is going well.

How do people get help who live on the margins of society.

A homeless man was hit by a car and killed about two weeks ago in Macon, GA. The family in Ohio were in grief. They had hunted for their schizophrenic relative. Apparently, the people in Macon liked this man and took up money for his final expenses. The family was heartbroken to be taking back ashes versus the family member who disappeared years ago.

Not everyone has the finances or health to do what I do. My sister could have just disappeared 8 years ago. The day I got the call that she was in jail, I was searching for her. She had disappeared two weeks earlier.

I will not be able to do this forever. But I am doing it now. What I do now pays nothing. But it does pay in quality of life. I have never known anyone to live better by running away from problems. We all got problems. My next big goal is to get my affairs in order so that what I have can finance them to live a decent life. My developmentally delayed brother does have a safety net. It's my sisters and myself I am concerned about.

For my friends, I want you to know how small that dog I have in the fight for healthcare. I wasn't born to be a liberal. I wasn't raised to be a liberal. I wasn't inclined to be liberal. I did not work long hours most of my life to be a liberal. I resent the heck out of being called a liberal. But if that is the group of people who will side with me. I'm honored to stand with them.

I live in Georgia where they have cut taxes and defunded  mental healthcare and education. (I still pay 6 percent of my income on taxes, I don't know who got the break for sure.) Obamacare is not perfect by any means. But it is better than nothing or less. So I don't care what your politics are, you best keep up with these new healthcare bills. It affects so many people.

Of course, I could pack everyone up and move to a state with resources which I have known people to do. Georgia is my home. I'm descended from the original settlers.  But that is all baloney. It takes everything I got to keep the house going and people taken care of. I couldn't move if my life depended on it. I don't get my chores done as it is. Plus Georgia is who I am.

I don't want people to feel sorry for me or my family. We all got troubles in this world. I just want people to know why I look at the world the way I do. You might not have a dog in the fight. I hope you never do.

You may never become a caregiver or be the reason for someone becoming an unpaid caregiver. I read of a woman who died in her van that she lived in. She was in Washington state at the time. She was 86. They were looking for a home for her dog. Barbara Woolworth, the Woolworth heir, died with $3000 in her checking account.

And my brother gets $261 a month from social security. My mother uses the money to pay his medicine co-pays.

I have a dream for my little piece of property. It's to develop a place for people like my sister to live. It is still only a dream and may remain that. I'm religious in that I believe God opens and closes doors for a reason. I need to put some concrete in that dream if it will happen. At the moment, I've got a full plate.

In the meantime, take some time to advocate for responsible health care.  If you live in a "have" state, remember there are "have not" states. Politics should not be a decision maker. Be sure to tell your lawmaker that. The your side versus my side will be a death sentence for those that don't have access to healthcare. Promises are not the same thing as what is written as law. Whatever law is written, there will be surprises in it's interpretations.

Healthcare is like all men are born equal. People don't understand the definition. Access to healthcare and the availability of good healthcare are two different things. Call different doctor offices and ask if they accept patients without insurance. There are only a few that do.

All people are not born the same. But we are all born to have the same rights as the next person. I learned the difference in fifth grade. I will not be out protesting. But if someone with a wheelchair needs me to push them into a legislator's office to plead their case. I will.

Cooled Coffee

 Mornings are hectic at my house. That is when I have the most energy. I took a nap yesterday and got up with the same effect. Man retirement sucks in that your body seems to know you don't have that endurance. A physical therapist warned me that when I retired to spend a certain amount of time standing. Those muscles would weaken from sitting and not getting up like I did when I worked.

I drink a huge cup of coffee and check my sites on the internet most mornings. Not a whole lot goes on. I don't click the reading list or I'll be at my computer much too long. I've enjoyed all the politics. I do read a few news sites. I had never heard of "morning joe" before. But, I drink a lot of Joe.

I try to think younger. I remember when I entered the work world, I just tried to keep it light with everyone. Agree as much as possible with folks without taking a stand. More importantly, I had lots to do. Although I have always read the newspaper, I just did not get that excited about politics. I had things to do.

So I ask myself, why in the "h" "e" "double hockey sticks" people have gone crazy over the politics of the day? It's not like anybody really cares what each of us think.  "Baby boomers" just don't know how to get along. Remember the sixties.

Once I looked the woman in the mirror and she was right, 😊 I began to block all the politics on Facebook from people. I got both sides coming full throttle. I mean the world is still turning. Fortunately, of all the tragedies in the world, I've got a roof over my head, food to eat, and a computer with internet. I'll try not to think of that person making $7 an hour, $280 a week, maybe $900 a month after taxes.

Impeachment news gets under my skin. We will have this President whether people like it or not. I'm incredulous when people say he is ordained by God to be President. No he is President in that he reflects the American people who voted for him. It's that free will thingey.  2020 will be around before we know it.

What I have learned from the harsh opinions is that I am more concerned with the ability to be President. I do tend to vote Democrat. But, the best candidate in my opinion was Mario Rubio. He is young enough to do the job.

My father taught me you have to have float. You have a disagreement with your friend. You don't stop being friends. You don't do something spiteful or hurtful to get back at them. You get over it.

You might think this is an old way of thinking. It is as old as time and adaptive. This is something I tapped into as a teacher. Most parents try to instill this way of thinking. Yeah, I know about the helicopter parent. But most parents are not that parent. They are making judgement calls continuously. Am I helping my child, am I hurting my child. Sometimes you are the helicopter and sometimes a kid needs one.

Helicopter parents to a degree gives a child a leg up. But those adaptive skills will save their sanity at times. I've met people my entire life who made it with a lot of help from who they knew. They developed adaptive skills. I had a a lot of help in my life from people who got nothing for helping me nor did they have any vested interest in me. I try to be those people when I can.

But when that 20 ounce cup of coffee of mine gets cool. I take the rest of my vitamins with what is left and go feed the dogs. I remember my dad's story of some old man telling all the men in a Robins Air Force Base hangar in the late 1940s that the world was messed up when he came and would be messed up when he left.

Another Happy Customer

I grow a few cultivated flowers. Flipping through flower catalogs, I only want them all. In my fantasy world, My entire front pasture is a a huge flower garden. In this dream, I till rows and rows of zinnias and sunflowers effortlessly.

But I am lucky to keep the grass mowed and my two flower beds clean of grass. I planted tomatoes too late. The vines are promising. But tomatoes don't produce when it gets too hot. They also don't flower if you plant them in the shade. The chances of the plants making it to September and producing fruit is possible. We always try to get a few to ripen before the first freeze in November. It has never happened.

The first frost is always mischievous. The Confederate Rose plant starts blooming and is quite a delight. The plant is related okra (a vegetable we eat), cotton and hibiscus. We have a Confederate Rose that grows about 20 feet tall. I am so proud of it. And then that frost gets it every Fall. I cut it down to the ground for beautiful new growth the next year. I've let it grow from a former year stalks. You have those weedy dead limbs for so long. Even when it has reached it's Zenith, you can walk around and snap dead limbs.

Confederate Rose

My favorite plants are wildflowers. Lately, the wild potato vine is blooming. The flower should remind you of a morning glory. It is a native species of morning glory. It is supposed to have a large, edible tuber that is edible and people historically ate them. The big drawback is they are a purgative. But if you think about it, consuming a large number of carrots will be a purgative. Since the grocer sells plenty of carrots and turnips, I'll forgo digging up a wild potato.

Below are some beautiful daisy like flowers growing on the roadside. No I don't know the name.

This week has been challenging.. I stayed up until 3 am one night getting paperwork organised for my sister. The next day I functioned pretty good on 3 hours of sleep. This past week has been continued paper work, meeting deadlines.

I made the mistake of mowing grass at my sister's house during the heat of the day. Although the yard is quite small, it played with my diabetes big time. I drank a half gallon of orange juice to get my sugar where it needed to be.

The worst of the week is I lost a dog to a rattle snake bite. I live in the country and snakes pass through. I did pay for her to have anti-venom but rattle snake venom is so potent.  I don't care how old you get; a dog can break your heart. Holly was the heartbreak kid. I've got to breakdown and buy myself a pair of snake boots.

Louise stole some cheese my sister had set out to warm to room temperature. I heard her sneaking in my room. Then my sister said someone had stole the cheese. She makes me think of myself. It was obvious she was the culprit. Guilt wears on us. Running to my sister, Louise apologized profusely, it was cheese and she loves cheese and most anything else. Louise likes to eat a slice of apple when you are eating an apple.

I read a book this weekend by a good local author, Charlotte Moore. It was a cozy mystery and the first one in the Hunter Jones mystery. Reading as a writer, the book had outstanding structure. It was set in central Georgia so I enjoyed the naming of people and exposition of Southern culture.

I'm not normally fond of "The South" topic. Many times it is made up caricatures of who we are. I've heard people who are young enough to be my daughter talking about chain gangs and other aspects of the Southern landscape that died out before World War II. Some things like the KKK straggled up until the seventies. It's depressing it is re-emerging today under different names.

 The hard scrabble farmer fought for their regionalism much like their great grand parents fought in the Revolutionary War.  Being descended from Simon Bennett and Big John McDuffie who fought for the Confederacy, I respect them as my ancestors. I remember what my dad told my older brother before he went to Vietnam. You don't want to be at the losing end of a war.

I've wondered what the men and women who lived through those times would have thought of the people today trying to explain their times. The Civil War was "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight".

I grew up in a military town so I have considered myself "Southern Lite". I learned a military culture and attitude. I feel pride in my Southern roots. More so than my English roots in that I live in the South. I have first cousins who live in Minnesota and upstate New York. They don't identify with the South.

I talk and act like I stepped out of the swamp at times. I had my schoolteacher handwriting and my actual handwriting. Well I have my schoolteacher speech too. Since I have been writing, my speech has taken on a more country sound. The voice in Charlotte Moore's books is very accurate.

The temperaments of the people reflect the area. In the book by Charlotte Moore, I like where one character makes sure the husband of a woman killed does not hear about a plan to entrap the culprit. They are not afraid of the character spoiling the plans. They are afraid of that one character catching the culprit and exacting his own punishment on the killer.  Revenge is not exclusively a Southern thing.

Anyway, Charlotte Moore has created some good reading. It also shows our good side.

I always liked how this house set just before the land rolls to the East in Macon Georgia. It is located on High Street.

Five Weird Things About Me

I've been invited by Barbara who writes the blog Life & Faith Caneyhead in a little grown-up but not Adult truth or dare. What makes me weird.

It is listing five things that are weird about me. After I list those five things, I'm supposed to challenge five more people.

1. I almost always have a dog in the car. Different dogs for different journeys.

2. I try to recycle everything. Every once in awhile I throw away glass or paper and say to myself, "I'll save the world tomorrow."

3. I will wash out pretty containers and save them for a good use until they hit critical mass and then I toss them.

4. I would rather work outside than inside.

5. My house on a good day is disheveled. Too little time and if I got extra time, it is not spent on housecleaning. I believe in feeling too good to go to work. The heck with sick days.

It didn't take me too long to create a list. That is not a good sign.

The five I challenge are on the honor system.  If you make a list, leave me a link or message in the comments. I'm not spending as much time on the internet. Sometimes I get up and stay busy with keeping my household going. It keeps the folks living here content.

And of course, share the fun and challenge five more.

And when the bough breaks

I had a big limb break on an old Pecan tree last night. It was a healthy limb. Half of the tree is dead. It will take about twenty years for the tree to slowly die. Did you know Pecan trees can live 300 years. I have some volunteer trees that I plan to splice limbs of the old tree on. It has good nuts. My brother took the day to pop in for a visit and cleared the limb for me.

Today is just a scattered group of thoughts.

What is with all these gross pictures. One sign of a clickfarm are all the intestinal worms, a grossly obese Amish woman,  some sexy chicks with a salacious offer, unknown websites to visit. But on twitter, the one I find really gross are the blackheads. I've been muting and blocking these folks. I figure they are clickfarm baits. My question is why would they use these pictures?

Well I googled. I only found one article. The article was on a dubious site in that the ads had the following. How to fix crepey skin with a picture of very wrinkled skin on a woman's legs. Or How to keep your vagina young with a nubile young body and a disembodied hand pushing her panties down on one side.

Another had a woman and man in bed with the comment, who needs a man with these nine appliances. I hope some of those appliances would keep the yard mowed or the car gassed up or cut a limb up and remove from the driveway.

But the one that gave me pause was an ad on how to mail infectious agents. I've heard of mailing cookies and how to pack them. But I don't think I have ever needed to mail an infectious agent. It reminds me of when a child returned to school after having strept throat and hugged my neck. She was surprised I knew she had had strept throat. Strept throat has an odor.

A friend posed the question about what we did before Google. Well for one thing, we did not know as much. And we did not spend so much time reading about tangents. I do know when I see all those worms or blackheads to exit out. Not much information here folks, nothing you want to see for sure. I don't care if they say if is a safe thrill from a terror. I've seen a worm and popped a blackhead. I consider the worm in the garden good news.

According to the dubious website I visited, the psychology is similar to why we like to ride a roller coaster. The thrill and fear factor while in a safe environment is fun. So in a perverse way, unappetizing pictures are loathsome but a type of thrill that is safe.

But there are some good places on the web I saw today.

http://crazymountainman.blogspot.com/2017/06/sunday-stoll-pretty-finds.html

http://usinggeorgianativeplants.blogspot.com/2017/06/special-plants-special-places-coosa.html

https://myjustsostory.blogspot.com/2017/06/sunday-selections-331.html

https://inesemjphotography.com/news/

And these are some pictures from my iPhone I took with my dog's evening time stroll. The first set of pictures are lovely things. The second set which I will give a blank spot before are of one of the fly catcher's outside my house which is interesting and loathsome. I live next to a horse farm. Frankly, I feel some pity for the flies. It's a shame I can't catch and release them. Preferably at the horse farm's front porch. But down the road in a wooded area would also be a good location. Lot's of good food for what roams or flies wild there.

Blossoms all rolled up

Blossom unfurled

In the Midday Heat.

Roses

Just a bit Closer

Buds unfurling

Wild Trumpets Shouting

Morning Shot of Tractor in newly plowed field

Evening Sky on Fire

For a loathsome thrill..

The small flecks are gnats which are a type of  fly

Good night Midnight Rider.

There is so much to learn about things by observation. Have you ever noticed someone post a profile picture of themselves sticking their tongue out. What are your impressions or expectations? Maybe the Rolling Stones...

There have been two funerals today. I attended neither but both men were a part of my life.

One is Gregg Allman of the Allman brother's fame. I never saw the band. Although I lived close enough to watch a free concert in the park; I was a little young to make it with friends there.  As his name became synonymous with drug use, I did not have that much interest in him.

I've been reading Gregg Allman's book "My Cross To Bear". It's a good read. I'm not surprised that he is an intelligent person. I have much more sympathy for drug and alcohol addictions as I have gotten older. I never drank in that I thought it was inherited. I read a statistic one time that if they treated alcoholics for depression, about 60 percent sobered up. I do think there is some self medication. Gregg Allman described the addiction as a wild cat let loose inside your body. With alcohol and the drugs, he could quieten the animal for awhile.

Gregg Allman clearly worshiped his older brother Duane who died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 24 in 1971. Twenty two year old Gregg Allman had the wherewithal to pursue a career. That good judgement is evident where as a 20 year old kid he knew to return to California to fulfill a contract obligation for the band. His band mates were ready to ignore the consequences but Gregg obviously understood how badly it would have hurt them.

Autobiographies appeal to me. Sure no one tells what a creep they were or the more sensitive areas of their lives. I read Kitty Kelley's biography of Nancy Reagan. It was meant to be salacious. Although I was not a fan of the Reagan presidency at that time; I did sense it was so unfair. So the fact I purchased the book for a quarter at a yard sale gave me some satisfaction. I noticed so many of the books at yard sales and used book counters.

What I like about autobiographies is that they weave a story of a life but if you reflect, there is so much more they share.  Gregg battles shyness most of his life. This explains a distance I always noticed when he spoke to the media. You could hear his voice in the writing.

His book is an engrossing read. As an artist, he discusses how it took experience to sing well, play an instrument well or write a great song.

The other funeral was for a former teacher, James Franklin Stewart. He was Mr. Popularity at the high school I attended. For one year he taught school and he was my teacher. Later he went to law school and moved to Los Angeles in hopes of breaking into the film industry. He was semi-successful but made his living as an attorney.

Besides having a huge crush on the man, he is probably a big reason I went to college. My senior year of high school, I wavered on going. It is one thing I have done in my life that seemed like a mistake at the time. But looking back, it improved my life immensely.  He was close in age to me and someone I admired. Although he was a Rhode's scholar; he was teaching school to support himself before his next big step in life.

For me, I taught school for the same reason. I was unable to take the next big step. My younger sister had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. My poor parents could not handle me floundering. So I took the safe route which actually has benefited me and my family.

The teacher was James Franklin Stewart. I would have gone to his funeral. I could have lined up in Macon to pay my respects to Gregg Allman. But I took care of the living today. Both had an affect on my life. Allman influenced the zeitgeist of my day. Mr. Stewart showed me a real person who had gone to college. I could see myself in that world.

I've always liked John Donne's poem, No Man is an Island. This is taken from https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html

'No Man is an Island'

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 


Olde English Version
No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as
well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne