**minor rant first about word press** wish they would stop changing settings because the inadvertently messed me up <again> today by deleting a draft I had in process because of their wonderful feature to “auto log you to WordPress rather than your own webpage – which somehow failed to log me in and failed enough to time me out for 20 minutes as well as eat the blog I had in process *** end rant.

On to today – what I can recall of it lol atleast – this brain being fluff is sometimes a little less fun than others.

The George Michael song “gotta have faith” sticks in my head today as I write this…. not that I’m all consumed by faith more that its strong in me – there is a pyramid of my thinking and this is somewhere near the top.

The old adage “hope springs eternal” is relevant. As we are all energy beings, from a cosmic source of energy that is neither ended nor created it exists – hope is like this, a well spring deep inside. Sometimes it needs to be cleaned or restored to remove that muck that accumulates, but its everlasting and a part of the cosmic universe that is one.

When you have hope in “something” or “someone” – the manifestation of this hope is based upon your belief. Belief is the strong sense or feeling that the Hope is not only possible but is likely to occur. The belief that the energy of the hope is strong and powerful and able to overcome small buildings in a single bound – no wait that’s superman – well its a sort of relevant saying – belief is like cosmic super power – when you add Faith into it it becomes powerful enough to move mountains and to shift reality into whatever the hope was behind the belief.

Faith gets a rap of being external – a “faith” in an all powerful sense or existence in the universe that controls the outcome of things. When in reality Faith is internal – a faith in the very essence of your core that your hopes and believes drive you further.

This is not a theoretical discussion/debate/exposition – there are a ton of those in this blog already and while I’m more than willing to stand on what I have external faiths about – there is neither “rightness” nor “wrongness” in the external faiths of others – there is only the power to clean or pollute the well of hope both the one that resides in me, and the one that resides in every other living being.

Hope is a powerful source, belief is one of its tools, and when you add Faith your cooking with gas and all things are possible.

Today is a good day.

To the expression the spice must flow…. I am feeling a desire to blog, however I don’t feel I have overly alot to convey or remember right at this moment – so the Alethia insanity will take over and share one of the random insights that has crossed my mind lately.

If the movie Dune is an allegory for the human body – it makes somewhat the spice the white blood cells – atleast in my vision of this world. The spice must flow. I’ve given a bit of thought to the fact that the dune sand creatures are all the entities that make up my reality inside my body – some of them benevolent many not. The spice is the only thing they all share a need and desire to obtain.

It somewhat makes me think the bene gesserit are the lymph – serving a valuable purpose but also quite annoying in their discomfort and archaic processes that while clearly effective often have unintended consequences.

Another of the rabbit holing I have done is from a dream recently where I “entered” the fifth dimension and took a disney like trip to the “empire” that is Alethia. We visited the brain – where I have been struggling to resolve/remove/heal the remaining tumors. WE – I say we because the white blood cells were my entourage and also led the charge to resolve issues.

When we went to visit the areas, we found white blood cells that had been set as defense barriers around what we will define as a biker bar. Filled with Bikers content to chug a lug. The “team” with me was content to stun the white blood cells – the good guys – and to stun the bikers. They had intents of just keeping thing stunned and clearing things out slowly.

I had other plans. I went in with my automatic weapon and took out all the bikers- and then thru a weird sense of oddness I had the giant in my entourage consume all the nutrients left over like a stilt suit and then report to recommissioning to reclaim the nutrients.

This made the expression – soylent green is people – sort of pop thru my head as I knew that the white blood cell would be decommissioned and all his resource gathered, and he was willing and wanting to help the tribe overall with this goal.

We visited the other sites that had previously been biker bars where the “stun” tactic was applied – and I proceeded to wipe them out in a clean sweep and again we reclaimed the resources.

It was a bit more graphic and I’m a tad curious the fact that I was able to reconcile the activities easily – using a star trek expression from Spoke “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” ….

Sufficed to say that after the clearing occured I’ve gone back to those spots to check on them and to plant flowers. I’ve still put the white blood cells thru rehab and got them gardening up a storm now.

There are more dragons to challenge but of the worst I feel these ones are down a path.

Life is good.

P & I joined the AB club to define kitchen and other tools as multitaskers (most) or unitaskers – things designed for one particular task that aren’t really particularly useful otherwise and take up valuable landscape.

Before I spiderweb on this…. We had a unitasker recently “an apple corer” that I have been diligently seeking “other applications for…” so it can join the multitasker world instead of the abominous unitasker world.

This day however proved it not only to be a unitasker, but a poor one — as the apple – not huge, but clearly a larger medium size than the corer was designed to handle. The apple got stuck – at the dangerous point where most was cored and the last was not. We had to take additional time to break out the apple, and then knife slice it – which would have been significantly faster in the first place – I mean coring apples is pretty straightforward and simple.

You had one job. Yeah you guessed it time for the Segway. Just like this corer, this unitasker was unable to perform its most basic function – it has been surprising to me at how often, how frequently people are employed for one task and similarly fail to do that one job.

I mean we all have off days – perhaps this was just an off day for the corer.

Makes me think of the fellowship of the ring- One ring to rule them all…. I mean what if the ring just had an off day – the whole plot of that movie would have fallen quite significantly.

There are many things in our lives that we come to expect to “fulfill their function by virtue of their design” and this makes them “in everyway perfect” – but what about when they don’t?

Whats the appropriate emotional response? I guess appropriate emotional is an extremely subjective viewpoint just reeking of asking for opinionated judgy conversation – but is there a time when its necessary to scream about the failed job?

Or is the fact that I get emotionally engaged about this failure a reflection of the fact that I am way too attached. I mean what if the unitasker in question is lifesupport equipment? Or those paddles?

What if the one job is the pharmacist that is making up the batch of my medicine? What makes those things any different from the corer that got the apple stuck? Overall its still failing to perform their one job.

I think that perhaps I’m leaving out alot of breadcrumbs to sanity as well as coping mechanisms to just let it go here – but I will still very much enjoy the coined phrase “you had one job” — atleast in my head to amuse me when someone fails to do their one job and it causes me …. anything.

Please enjoy your one job today its Friday afterall 🙂

Life is good.

Butt Out – not just the expression for a dancer that is learning the ropes, but a lesson for me to use alot.

We tried a new breakfast place today – they had a cold brew called “jet fuel” – I had to try it – although its one of those cases where I should have recognized that jet fuel probably doesn’t taste good. It doesn’t, it doesn’t taste good! Live and learn.

Life has been good lately – I’ve done so many things, and I’m so surprised at how well they have worked out.

I also have a few things to learn – basically how and when to Butt- okay really I guess its but maybe? – out – meaning stop trying to save the world, save myself.

Been exercising – which I find is one of those things you feel the rewards of the next day in return – its kinda like your body says “oh you wanted us to work extra, well yeah we can do it” … so you end up so so tired, so worn… and then you wake up the next day and magically its like all the effort from the previous day is somehow adding a little more pep to your step. Even though I KNOW this is the case its still challenging to have that discussion with myself to just dooeet…. insert Nikey quote here.

I made a goal – I’ve always found that being able to “mark” that check mark helps. I’m using my rebounder, because its lower impact over all, and alot of focus on the lymph which I have found to be significant. However, I have also found that walking on my treadmill, for now since outside is not a place to be overall, helps. P has gotten me all set up with a super good place to use it, and accoutrements that make it more fun, he really is a good partner for me.

So many of the people I care about, are in that place where capitalism arbitrarily deciding to swoop down and bless them would be a benefit. It isn’t that they are “in trouble” more that life is a different sort of challenge for them.

Its definitely a thing for me to remember and help me to focus on me – that everyone has challenges – just while they are different we are all together bound by our solidarity of the fact that life poses these obstacles to let us challenge our thinking and our limits, and learn what we are capable of doing. Its very inspiring.

Just have to stay focused on healing. All paths lead to the goal of more health, stronger health, and abundance of health in my life.

Life is good.

So P and I have been eating alot at home – cultivating our list of so good desired foods – and one of those for me is salmon. My body just sings the hallelujah chorus everytime I eat this – truth be told I haven’t tried more than once a week – as this feels “right” – but definitely been trying to get P on board with the salmon train. So we found, that he can enjoy salmon tacos – made much like a taco however with the protein is fish and the veg is a homemade slaw stuff. Its amazing, a little cilantro, a little guaq, a little lemon or lime and the stuff is fabulous.

Out eating at home adventures have not stopped there, we have been making homemade guaq, jalapeno creamcheese poppers, pico – all on demand to go with things – P burgers (hamburgers we patty/freeze/cook on demand – I call them P burgers because he does 95% of the work and the things come out fabulous) – and tacoes. We have been keeping a regular stock of “Things” including the things we toss in our breakfast which is often a scramble or some taco fixings – eggs with pico, or poppers, or spinach or potatoes – whatever we have on hand.

But aha the potatoes. P has figured out a way to make super quick mashed potatoes from red potatoes that are just out of this world – we use them as go -to with our steak, chicken, pork, veg – what ever main we are having and its extremely satisfying to the little carb mongrel that lives in my body. The one that says ” but what about bread”….. all the time, or “but what about desert” …. the other times. So Potato carb somehow makes this voice alot less empowered and alot more subdued so its easier to just put a finger up and shhh it.

So left field shift, that will come back.

We had our dishwasher “fixed” because it was randomly draining on the floor – and what I mean by randomly is that I run the dishwasher probably 10 times a week – definitely daily and some days twice, the flip side of home cooking is keeping the place clean. And the darn thing started choosing to drain on the floor once every other week or so— like randomly it would take a weird pee on the floor as if to mark its territory and say “Mine my kitchen” — P and I being the most excellent troubleshooters we are have been baffled – well finally the repair guy came out – who was also baffled until it drained for him 🙂 only took 4 washes to get it to acquiesce (good little passive aggressive thing) – which he has marked it as “leaky seal” and replaced this….. mkay don’t ask me to explain how come a leaky seal randomly “choses” when to be leaky but hey if its fixed, its fixed right? and if not, we have your number guy and you can come back 🙂

So last week, just before chemo I started smelling something in the kitchen – a godawful smell that you don’t want to smell and particularly not in the kitchen. It seemed to be coming from the dishwasher area – but I could only smell it when the ac vents were running. And it came and went. Every other time I was in the kitchen this smell was there, and growing more deliberate.

I’m super sensitive to smells – always have been – and my mind decided in its Alethia Insanity to build a bridge were known was needed – the smell represented something dead in the vents, that needed to be resolved but was going to be a nightmare and it meant the universe was telling me I was dead. A whole 15 step arch that I would litany every time I went into the kitchen and smelled this horrible smell – this litany began only after the third time I asked P to come smell and he was unable to smell the thing. Of course it had faded by the time he got to the kitchen, but bless his heart he did stop what he was doing and come on in.

So this started on Wed and its been lingering, and I’m taken by just how many times throughout my day I actually GO to the kitchen – its like nearly everytime I get up– and while this smell wasn’t there “every” time it was there most — atleast every other. Smell, Litany – insert dramatic music with lots of drums – loop.

So I had chemo on Thurs – blessedly – and opted most of Friday to sleep.

Saturday we took stuff over to my sisters house which is its own story – we will call it our three hour tour – not because it took 3 hours, but because it was 3 separate trips.

Between trip 1 and 2 we arrive back into the house and P informs me “he can smell it” – and it was like the clouds lifted, and the chorus went to work again – and suddenly just suddenly maybe there was a different outcome to this horrible thing. And then he said “I think its coming from the table – are the potatoes okay? ” — This is why I need P in my life – because I had one answer to this, and he immediately saw a more likely answer that was 180 from mine.

Short story long – it was the potatoes, one was extremely rotten, and had leaked all over the bowl and the other 6 potatoes – they were not old – likely it was rotten upon arrival and we just didn’t notice – as it was rotten in an odd place, but when I moved that bowl and brought it over for him to confirm – Yep problem solved, rotten potatoes – action required but so much easier and noted.

Litany resolved – there will be no death because of potatoes! I cried, this was the mostly profoundly happy thing in a while I’d had – and yeah apparently I’m just ridiculously emo these days – but I’m also able to laugh about it – somehow the dead smell had pyramided into me being dead – There is a reason we call it Alethia Insanity – the trick is to find checks and balances that allow me to re-write the things that are so out of control as to not be particularly helpful/relevent.

The morale of this story is Rotten Potatoes saved the day!

Life is good.

There was a video – she is currently watching the tiktok platform for a number of reasons – heck I think most people are at this moment. The video was of Dolly Parton – whom I’ve always in fringe admired and respected because of all the things I’ve heard about famous people she is a down home body I’d have to dinner at my home – I digress – a video, where in the recent floods in her hometown which put so many people out of a house or in need for a long time, she created a personal fund to grant them each 1k for six months, and gave them a 5k bonus at the end, and the video was showing the unexpected bonus at the end and the people so awash in gratitude.

In my world, 1k is alot, however its not the whole budget, but I recall the days where my budget was 1k for the whole month, and I can only say her doing this is a god send. Her helping, not because it would be public, but because she could and THIS was the time to save the world…. atleast her world of the people in her sphere.

Its a lesson to me that the circles are an explanation and the amount is by what is deemed reasonable. For her, this was a very small amount, but had such a profound impact.

Mostly, the video made me cry – because I too needed the profound reminder that as much as there is strife and struggle in the world, its still a beautiful place and I’ve a right to be here.

I’ve been missing my blog. Its very hard to write about myself in the third person when so much is papercuts in life. It is however, necessary to document these for reflection as to big and large things and developing a perspective about whats important.

I’ve been enjoying my favorite treat of late – April Pancakes with a slab of greek yogurt. They are somehow taste, texture and overall win for flavor. They are pumpkin. Its hard to go wrong with Pumpkin in my life. It is satisfying to my soul in a way no other food really is…. I’m not certain why, I haven’t delved into this memory but somehow something is both soothing, reflective and overall happy about everything pumpkin I eat – even when the taste is less than – and thats not at all the taste with these pancakes. She worked hard to perfect the recipe so it includes very little ingredients that are unhealthy – while still retaining all its pancake and pumpkin goodness. They freeze exceptionally well, and one is more than satisfying.

Travel is on the horizon, I have the bug and I’ve been feeling a yellow light after the red for so long from the universe. It will still be …. less than ideal but it will also be alot of the new normal. I remember flying before 9/11 when we didn’t have TSA – and then after TSA …. This will be the next thing…. so gotta learn the “new” protocol.

I’m extremely reflective today – I asked P about possible hitting up the dam — which is oddly not called a dam (Lake Granger) — before we head to chemo – its not c ritcal but it would be a nice start to a straining day, so we will see if is sleep patterns acquiesce or require more mending.

Weather here lately has been so uncharacteristic, which has made all the allergens super high. We are both feeling this and you know your sinus/allergies are bad when you have Benadryl on subscribe and save.

Of all the things, life is good.