Peel Me a Grape

Just a quickie here to let you know that I've not run away again. My girl has had a really miserable time just lately, so she has needed my attention much more than the computer. She's doing better now, so no cause for alarm, but you know how it is when our babies are sick and in excruciating pain. Even when one's baby is twenty-two!

Yet again at least some of her misery could have been avoided if practitioners of every kind would stop dismissing fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome/ME as figments of our imagination. They are serious illnesses that affect every single system and structure in the body, and I don't care how healthy we look outwardly, we are not at all right inwardly! Yes, there are malingerers in the world and there always will be, but don't you dare dismiss me or my daughter with an eyeroll, a sigh, or "that" look, before breezing right on past the subject as if we never said a word about it. It makes me angry enough when they do it to me, but it's total red mist time when they do it to her. We also get it from relatives, friends, and the general public, but I can deal with that. It's a whole different story when those who should know better don't get it, though. If the majority of sufferers were male you can bet that it would be serious business. Because most are female, however, it's the whole "there, there, dear" attitude. Want to bet that a good chunk of the "hysterical" female laudanum addict population in Victorian times were suffering from these syndromes?

Anyway, thank you for the e-mails with your addresses for Christmas cards. I owe some of you a response still, and I will get to that later on today, come hell or high water. This morning, though, I am off out with my lovely husband for some shopping and a lunch date at a nice restaurant. I get out so seldom these days that it has become something of a big deal when I can manage it.

We're going to do the holiday in December (as promised, I didn't use the "C" word again this month) shopping for the children on our list, and he wants me to point out a few ideas for Santa when he gets around to shopping for me. Honestly, I'm extremely low maintenance and the easiest person in the world to please when it comes to gifts, but apparently my lack of specific demands makes the gift-giving harder somehow. Go figure.

Right, I must go now and make myself beautiful for the outing. Oh, I know, perhaps I should be saving all of my energy for the outing itself, but I have a better time when I know that I look like a million bucks. Well, maybe ten bucks would be stretching it today, but we'll see what transpires with the spackle and war paint. ;)

Later ...

This year I'm dedicating my Remembrance Day post to the memory of a truly lovely man, R.H., for whom I had the immense pleasure of being a health care provider for many years.  It's also in memory of Uncle Harold, my dad's younger brother, who died in August of this year.  Both were in the R.C.A.F., stationed in England at the same time, and both flew many, many missions as navigators in Lancaster bombers.

One of the last things that I did for R. was to take in my copy of High Flight, and read it for him, at his request.  It had always been a favourite poem anyway, but since that day, it has also served as a reminder of a very special man.  If we're lucky, we encounter a few such special people throughout our lives, who make us a better person for having known them.

During the 1980s, I also had the enormous privilege of caring for several veterans of World War I.   I will never forget their stories of their experiences, and feel so honoured to have heard them first hand.

To all of these men, and to all of those men and women who served King and Country in both wars, thank you.   To all those who have worn a Canadian uniform since 1945, thank you. 

Well, so much for the posting every day through the month of November idea.  It's not the first time that a brilliant plan has gone awry, and it won't be the last, so I'm not terribly bothered.  The week or so that I did stick with it was all that I needed to break through my blogging block, so hurray for that!

Things seem to happen in bunches around here, so the upset over the dog was compounded by a couple of other not so happy things going on at the same time.  They're not my stories to tell, so I'll not betray any confidences, but suffice it to say that the two with whom I live needed me a lot more than the blog world did over the past few days.  Man, I hate it when they get hurt, through no fault of their own. :-(  This too shall pass, though, as always, so I'll leave it there.

Back to the dog bit, Alex thanks all of you for your kind comments here, and also for the e-mails that you more shy ones sent.  Everything happens for a reason, as Jimmy said in the comments, and this just wasn't meant to be.  It's just a disappointment, not the end of the world, so she'll get over it.   The idea of getting a breed of dog that isn't as likely to cause allergies was a good suggestion from some of you, but really, this is the end of the dog idea for her.  She only really likes those two breeds and isn't interested in anything else.  On a happier note, though, the women who run the rescue agency have asked Alex to help them out as a volunteer, so she'll still get to do something positive for her beloved pugs and Boston terriers.  The companionship factor won't be there, but she will have the satisfaction of helping many, rather than just one. 

I'm going to end this here as I want to get a Remembrance Day post up, too.  But before I go, I want to extend an invitation to all of you.  In my earlier years of blogging I used to do a question and answer thing every now and then.  I haven't done that in ages, so am way overdue in addressing the questions that have popped up from readers over the past while.  Many of them have been asked by more than one person, so those are the sort that I like to address publicly, just in case anyone else is wondering the same thing.  I have several on my list already, but if there's anything that you'd like to know, I'd be happy to address it, too, over the course of the next few posts.  I know that there are a lot of new(ish) readers here now, and I know that there are always things that one wonders about when getting to know someone new.  I don't expect anyone to go digging through the archives to find stuff that I might have talked about in the past, so please, feel free to fire away with anything that comes to mind.  I might decline to publicly answer certain questions about Richard or Alex as I'm pretty careful about their privacy.  General questions about them are certainly fine, though, and I'm open to discussing pretty much anything about myself.  Just leave your question in a comment to this post or, if you prefer, you can e-mail me at:  bellusanimus@gmail.com