When You're Old Enough To Repay

Low Carb Green Bean French Fries

One might sneer at these but I challenge you to not eat fries for months and I promise you, they will taste like gold.  Served up with a lettuce wrap burger and welcome to the Make Believe restaurant for the Elderly, that is your future.  We must eat better as we age and our organs tire of our abuse. It's harder due to shrinkflation, availability, the seasons, cost, not to mention when you eat salty, greasy food, your stomach wants More salty, greasy food. 

My sister shared her delicious homemade Beefaroni last night and speaking of abuse, I could think of nothing else until something resembling this comforting treat got into my belly.  A Lunch box meal with macaroni added to my turkey meatballs in sauce.

Don't Let It Bring You Down

Low-Carb Dinner - Turkey Meatballs in Sauce with red peppers & mushrooms.  Instead of pasta or polenta, I opted only for broccolini as a side.. 

....but the next day, broke down and added macaroni for my lunch because work makes me sad and pasta  

....makes me happy

And when the stomach is happy, usually the brain stays in line and doesn't act up.  Until it does.

The first small sign of changing tree leaves for Fall, always an exciting site of note. As an example of how evil the mind can be, instead of noticing the beauty of the changing season, my mind blew in thoughts of the cold winter approaching and the absence of all leaves on the trees.  The winds that will be hard to ride in and the gray and white color scheme that takes over the town like a wet blanket.  But right now it's gorgeous and will continue to be for at least a month.  I found these turning leaves and came around. 

Oh To Live on Sugar Mountain

Woman's Day Monkey Bars

These banana bars get most of their sugar from the fruit and call for 3/4 cup of brown sugar but I add only 1/2 and replace the 1/4 cup of milk with yogurt.  Much like banana bread, you must add nuts and choco chips.  I'm telling you these are addictive and since they are lo-cal-ish, one could snack all day.   These I made for a dear friend coming to visit. 

I Want to Celebrate, See it Shinin' in Your Eye

The giant Harvest moon greeted me at the light on my ride home from work and suddenly I understood why I felt so energized and filled with light.  The orange globe stayed in view the entire way back.  I kept seeking him out to absorb all his moon-y goodness.  I can't explain why the moon affects me so strongly but I'll try to describe how it does.  My blood feels like it got a transfusion of every single vitamin and mineral it craved. Every cell bursts awake and I can feel thousands of organisms making the body work, individually and simultaneously.  I know that's impossible, yet its also a true description.  I become highly alert, my senses are more keen, my eyesight is sharper, reaction time is quicker and I'm fairly strong, like I could kick some ass.  I feel elated, almost to the tipping point.  

It doesn't always work this way.  Sometimes it's overwhelming and I want to crawl out of my skin. My muscles ache the way I imagine cranky babies must feel inside as they grow.  My heart races and anxious is all I feel.  My mind fills up with bad thoughts and I worry my temper will flair and I might accidentally whack my husband with a frying pan over the head for leaving the sink dirty or not wiping down the stove.

I love to be this awake but just like stimulant drugs, I don't think you could go too long without having a heart attack.  I am usually relieved the next morning to feel normal again.  But before it goes away, I love to dance around at night and howl and laugh because after all these years, I'm still in love with that moon.  

 That night I made bok choy with mushrooms and roasted turkey meatballs with grape tomatoes on a sheet pan.  The leftovers would be paired with farro the next day for a lunch meal.

I Dreamed I Saw the Silver Spaceships Flying In the Yellow Haze of the Sun

What was to be a day trip tag along ride with P would turn into the beginning of a series of unfortunate events.  I thought it might be a good idea to go get out, breathe some fresh air and forget all our worries.  P needed something you can only get it in Massachusetts, a short 2 hour drive up the Taconic, our favorite parkway.  If it was fun, maybe we'd spend the night in a hotel, as my sister suggested, make it a real getaway.

This was a steak and cheese breakfast sandwich we got an hour into the drive.  The beautiful thing about the Taconic State Parkway is it's a step back in time. You would swear you were in the 1970's by the views and traffic on this Pandemic Sunday, so peaceful.  Getting out of the city is a an insane series of frantic merges, so by the time you do get out, you need that peace. 

The Pass - A nice dispensary in the Berkshires

The night before I'd read about a UFO incident that happened in the same town of Sheffield.  The story was featured in Ancient Aliens and Unsolved Mysteries, Vol 1, the Berkshires UFO, right up my crazy alley.  A compelling story involving several unrelated townsfolk that seem more interesting than credible but regardless, convinced me that something happened here back in 1969.  Many things, as a matter of fact, and one started right on this bridge as a family witnessed a giant round orb floating above the water and then woke hours later down the road, in different positions in the car.  Namely, the grandmother was in the driver's seat but she no longer drove, and was definitely not driving that night.  No one could account for the missing time.

The covered bridge where light beams flooded the wooden planks of the Reed family car as they crossed that hot, summer Labor Day evening. 

Nerd Alert!

Admittedly awestruck and giddy to be out of town on a road trip, let alone sidetracked to an authentic UFO site!

It's official, UFO's exist!

The town was great, the hotel was cute and looked over the Green Mountains.  Everything was actually pretty dang wonderful. 

We picked up the booty and decided to stay the night.  There was a snow storm that was to hit the area and dump a good amount of snow and sleet, making conditions icy and dangerous.  I was tired, like the kind where you can only quietly watch bad movies.

That same night I become very ill, like a big veil of ookiness fell on the bed. I decided just to lay still while P played guitar and enjoyed his bounty.  I woke in the night to intense pain (close your ears if you're sensitive), urinating blood, so I woke P to say I needed to go to hospital.  Nothing a stoner wants to hear and never at 5 in the morning.  All bad things got worse quickly so instead of waiting for a clinic to open, we rushed 7 minutes away to the most beautiful hospital, atop a tree-lined hill through winding streets with this beautiful freshly fallen snow.  If I wasn't so miserable, I would have taken more pictures. 

Fairview Hospital Great Barrington

Not cute 

The ER doctor looked more concerned than you'd want and I think he may have believed I was beaten. He asked me who was 'that guy' I came in with and why wasn't he there now.  I told him the nurse said my husband had to wait in the car due to COVID protocol.  Later, while the super nice nurse moved my sleeve up, to take my blood pressure, she showed these bruises on her own arm that were the exact outline of a giant hand and possibly why the doctor was suspicious. Not wanting to assume anything myself, I could only imagine what brut grabbed her in such a violent manner.  Small town hospital with a story of it's own, how comforting in a strange way.  The doctor even insisted on looking at my abdomen after prodding and poking.  He kept saying, and you're sure you have no surgery scars or bruising?  They did a CT Scan and saw extreme bleeding in my bladder and gave me antibiotics for what he said may be the worst UTI he's ever seen if that was even what it was.  But to follow up right away with my doctor and a urologist to find out 'what's going on'.  Wait, I thought that was what he was gonna do.  It's hard to understand how it all works, especially when you're weak and groggy but since then, we have discovered, ER doctors make sure you're not dying.   They assess and stabilize you.   I was sent with prescriptions and lots of paperwork on drugs, alcohol, and domestic abuse.  

We stayed another night for me to rest and P made the romantic gesture of carving my name out of snow in the hotel parking lot.   I got right on the meds and pain killers.  

We were so excited to try the local fare but on that snowy night all that could be delivered was pizza.  It was great actually, and P was particularly impressed by the crust.  Family run businesses are usually the best and this was no exception.

Vivaldi's Pizzeria

Missing are pictures of nachos and cheese soup, chili and pot pies, pancakes and eggs.  Normally highlights for me but this time just bites of tasteless nothingness. 

A constant view of downed trees for miles and miles is a side story for another time.

Still, the trip was incredible and we managed to laugh about most of it and agreed it was memorable. 

We drove home the following day and 4 days later I had another ER visit and there was diagnosed with COVID. Again.