...that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?  It is, and I might not have known, except that the pink ribbons are popping up in various webby places I frequent.  In Fairyland on Facebook, there are big pink flamingos popping out of hot pink flowerpots.

I was thinking about the popularity of the breast cancer cause, and wondering why some more masculine cancers, such as prostate cancer or testicular cancer, haven't gotten as much publicity.

Some answers to that seem rather obvious, such as that cute little slogan, "Save the ta-tas."  It would be hard to beat that. Greyfox suggested, "Follow the bouncing balls." ?? Naah, I don't think so.

Then there is the ta-tas themselves.  They're cute, lots cuter than the contents of your average hairy scrotum... and then there's that unruly guy the testicles hang around with.

Maybe the prostate is a better candidate.  It is heart-shaped, after all.  Some clever PR person could get some mileage out of that, maybe.  Isn't it interesting?  The heart isn't heart-shaped, but the prostate is.

Just a thought.

My view to the east, sunrise yesterday, 10/6/09

In childhood, my heroes were movie cowboys:  Lash Larue, Bob Steele, the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy.  I list them here in my order of preference.  The ones I liked best were the sexiest.  Those I liked least were the preachiest.  Nevertheless, what the moralistic cowboys were preaching became entwined with my paradigm.

With my father's guidance, I managed to side-step some of the female stereotypes in those old cowboy shows.  Generally, I identified more with the male protagonists than with the damsels in distress they rescued or evaded on the screen.  One exception was Dale Evans, who pulled Roy Rogers's nuts out of the wringer more than once.

When I hooked up with my East Coast Old Fart, the first of my major loves who hadn't been a Westerner like me, the contrast between our world views made it apparent how deeply I had been influenced by the Code of the West, not only in the movies, but in Western culture.

Thinking about this recently, following some philosophical discussions with both the Old Fart and the Kid, I went on a web quest to see what I could learn about the history of and philosophy associated with the Code of the West.  I learned that the designation, "Code of the West," apparently originated with Zane Grey.  It was the title of his 1934 novel, in which he wrote,

According to Zane Grey, that is the Code of the West.  I endeavor to do my best with the middle part of his Code, even though I understand that truth is sometimes relative and there are some fuzzy lines among facts, truths, popular beliefs and common consensus.

Those who have read my memoirs know that I have taken things that were not technically, legally, or even factually mine.  Although I do a lot less of that sort of thing than I did in my youth, I still subscribe, in some instances and from some angles, to the maxim, "property is theft."

Then there is the absolutistic dualism bullshit.  "Right" and "wrong" are concepts that for me cannot be covered by any "code".  I practice strict situational ethics.  What is right for one person can be wrong for another and what is right in one situation definitely can be wrong in another. 

All that said, I still must admit that there is a rock solid core of Western Code down in the heart of my soul.  Nobody tells me what's right or wrong, it's not codified in any book or carved on any stone for me.  I have to make up my own mind about right versus wrong with every step I take, and I do.  And I don't generally cut myself any slack.

Here's some of what I found while I was researching the Code of the West:

Hopalong Cassidy's "Creed for American Boys and Girls"

    1.The highest badge of honor a person can wear is honesty. Be mindful at all times.
    2.Your parents are the best friends you have. Listen to them and obey their instructions.
    3.If you want to be respected, you must respect others. Show good manners in every way.
    4.Only through hard work and study can you succeed. Don't be lazy.
    5.Your good deeds always come to light. So don't boast or be a show off.
    6.If you waste time or money today, you will regret it tomorrow. Practice thrift in all ways.
    7.Many animals are good and loyal companions. Be friendly and kind to them.
    8.A strong, healthy body is a precious gift. Be neat and clean.
    9.Our country's laws are made for your protection. Observe them carefully.
    10.Children in many foreign lands are less fortunate than you. Be glad and proud you are an American.

Roy Rogers's "Rider's Rules"

    1. Be neat and clean.
    2. Be courteous and polite.
    3. Always obey your parents.
    4. Protect the weak and help them.
    5. Be brave but never take chances.
    6. Study hard and learn all you can.
    7. Be kind to animals and care for them.
    8. Eat all your food and never waste any.
    9. Love God and go to Sunday School regularly.
    10. Always respect our flag and our country.

Gene Autry's "Ten Commandments of the Cowboy"

    1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage.
    2. A cowboy never betrays a trust.
    3. A cowboy always tells the truth.
    4. A cowboy is kind to small children, to old folks, and to animals.
    5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious prejudice.
    6. A cowboy is helpful and when anyone's in trouble he lends a hand.
    7. A cowboy is a good worker.
    8. A cowboy is clean about his person and in thought, word, and deed.
    9. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents, and the laws of his country.
    10. A cowboy is a patriot. 

Cowboy Wisdom

Never miss a chance to rest your horse

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

Don't worry about bitin' off more'n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger'n you think.

Only cows know why they stampede.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then, to make sure it's still there with ya.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

There's two theories to arguin' with a woman. Neither one works.

All I know is what I read in the papers.

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

Don't name a cow you plan to eat.

Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.

Keep skunks, lawyers, developers, and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plough around the stump.

A bee is faster than a John Deere tractor.

Meanness don't happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.

Don't sell your mule to buy a plough.

Don't corner something meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

Every trail has some puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

Most of the stuff people worry about never happens.

Don't squat with your spurs on.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Don't interfere with something that ain't botherin' you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

It's better to be a has-been than a never-was.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

I thought that my son, Doug, and I had worked out such issues as this years ago.  When we first started playing the old PlayStation, we had only one memory card.  He saved over my saved game a few times, I came mildly unglued, lectured him, and implored him to empathize with me -- to try to imagine how he would feel if I did that to him.  Then we got separate memory cards and there wasn't any more of that kind of trouble between us until his card filled up and he started using mine.

He's a Leo, born in the Chinese year of the Cock -- the world is his, entitlement is a given.  There is no doubt that we love each other, but his lifetime has involved many challenges for me in trying to set limits to his trespassing on my territory, taking advantage.  We have talked it out many times in regards to numerous things, and as he matured he became less obnoxious and more considerate... until recently.

I might have probably invited this.  I started leaving one particular online game, the Facebook app, Barn Buddy, open when I had an impending harvest at the time he took over the computer and I went to bed.  He would reap my crops for me when they popped.  At best, it was a hit-or-miss operation.  He gets caught up in his own games and chat rooms and forgets to check my stuff.  That's okay.  It's no big deal, only a game, after all.  On that level, this other stuff isn't a big deal either, except that I'm wondering if it indicates some covert hostility.  Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I'm not sure.  Here's what happened:

My Barn Buddy farm has expanded as far as it can, and I have it set up in six rows of different crops that take different times to mature, with a seventh crop in the seed bag to replace the next one that completes its life cycle.  Then I buy seed of the one just reaped, to fill the next space, etc.  My pretty rotating crops are chosen for both aesthetics and their high value in game gold.  I got up one morning recently and found that he had replaced 2 rows during the night, replacing my pretty and pricey crops with TURNIPS, the ugliest, lowest value crop available.

It wasn't exactly an out-of-the blue surprise.  He told me days before that he had been head-tripping about filling my farm with turnips.  I expressed my horror and disapproval of the scheme, and he assured me it was just a head trip.  THEN HE DID IT!  The next night after that, as I slept, he went a step further and FED MY DOG!

That dog is something the developers came up with early on, for their own benefit.  There are only 2 ways for a player to acquire a guard dog:  refer ten new players, or buy the dog with game credits which must be bought with real money or earned by completing offers, etc., like Xanga credits.  The dog was touted as a guard to keep other players from stealing one's crops and adding bugs and weeds to the farm.  In play, it didn't quite work out that way.  The dog is only a minor deterrent to thieves.  A bite costs a few bits of game gold, a cost far outweighed by the value of the stolen produce.

Bugs and weeds, on the other hand, benefit the person on the receiving end, as one gets experience points to level up by spraying the weeds and bugs.  Almost nobody is going to brave a dog bite to do a friend the favor of scattering weeds and bugs, just as almost no one is going to let a dog bite deter him from stealing crops.  Most of us who got dogs early in the game disable him by letting his food dish go empty.  We have pacts, explicit or implied, to leave our farms open to each other so we can help each other level up.  By feeding my dog, Doug slowed my progress up the levels and probably offended some of my buddies.

He said that the turnips were a joke and the dog food an honest mistake.  I just don't know.  On the one hand, I'm inclined to dismiss it as only a game, but there's this paranoid inner voice that warns me there's something deeper going on between the Kid and me.  I just don't know.  He's got me wondering what's next -- and wondering if THAT is what he wanted to do all along. 

...a long, crazy story.

Back at home after a rougher than usual trip to Wasilla yesterday -- Greyfox was enraged and distressed because I'd forgotten to take his mail with me, he forgot a plan he'd previously made, we both forgot that Mercury was retrograde, my legs were not functioning well, and my balance was thrown off by vertigo, for starters -- I went to sleep not long after our 9:00 phone conversation.  Next thing I knew, Koji was barking.  Then there was a soft, tentative knock at the door.

Doug got up from the computer and answered the door.  I heard murmured conversation but couldn't make out words.  Then he invited someone in and said to me, "Hand me the phone."  My headset cordless was on its charger behind my bed.  Sleepily, I disentangled the electronic gear, handed it over and put my head back down on the pillow, thinking I'd drift back to sleep and let Doug deal with the intruder.

I could hear a woman's whining voice coming from the open space in the middle of this one room that holds our kitchen, office, and sleeping quarters.  She was mumbling, speaking of pronoun people:  "she" this, "he" that, and "them."  Her speech was full of "shit," "fuck," and pejoratives about the unnamed people she was cursing.

When she expressed bafflement about how to use the phone, Doug helped her into the headset.  Apparently, she didn't know the number she was trying to call.  I heard her mutter a string of numbers, then say, "six or eight...??"  Doug responded with a voiced shrug.  How would he know?  In a little while she gave up all pretense of trying to use the phone, and asked if she could sit down.  I sat up in bed and saw a disheveled, obese, middle-aged woman in expensive clothes.  I could smell her perfume.  I can still smell it in here hours after she left.  Doug had been standing in the doorway until I sat up.  He took that as a signal that Mom would handle the visitor, and returned to the computer.

She shifted from cursing her cousin (the relationship emerged later), to asking about the location of a "big, tall house," that she had apparently been looking for back here on this little-used dirt road.  We asked her if she meant Phil's tower, and she didn't know.  She pointed at a red pillar candle on the coffee table, and said, "It looks just like that."

One of her semi-coherent utterances mentioned finishing off a bottle of Jack Daniel's with her cousin, which clarified matters for me.  She said she had been "out here necking" one night at the "dead-end road," and her boyfriend drove about "four miles" of "zig-zag" road and showed her this big tall house that looked "just like" our 8" red pillar candle.  Her impression was that it was on this side of the highway, back beyond here, but there are no roads out there.

Further questioning revealed that she did, in fact, mean Phil's abandoned tower.  The thing that finally clinched the matter was when I mentioned that it was so tall it was a hazard to aviation and was required to have a flashing red light on top.  She said she was supposed to go change that light because it had burned out.  That was consistent with my observations -- or non-observations, because I haven't noticed that light doing its job for quite some time.

We told her what road it was on, gave her detailed directions, and Doug drew her a map.  She kept sitting there a while and then asked for the phone again.  That time she was actually able to punch in a phone number and get her cousin on the line.  The end of the conversation that I could hear was sarcastic and querulous.  The cousin hung up on her and she cursed a while, then punched in another number and asked someone why he hadn't come to get her.  Apparently, he hung up on her, too.

Then she asked me for the time.  She was looking at the time on the phone's display and didn't believe what she saw.  By then, it was almost 4 AM.  She said she thought it had been about six in the morning when she left her cousin's house, "around the corner."  She said she was walking by on the street, saw light and movement in here and decided to come in and use the phone.  I can't repeat everything she said verbatim because it lacked coherence, and parts of it sounded like word salad.  She asked what time it would get light.  The season is changing and we hadn't been noticing, so we couldn't tell her.

She made a few more phone calls, woke a few more people, and cursed them to me afterward for being annoyed or hanging up on her.  Interestingly, after the first couple of drunken mumbling calls, she was able to shift to a crisp, businesslike persona on the phone, but as soon as she was back to talking to me, she was slurring, whiny, potty-mouthed (her phrase -- she was also frequently apologetic about her vulgarity), and semi-lucid.  Doug made coffee.  She and I drank it and ate some Danish pastry.  She said she had come out here expecting to break into some cabin somewhere, get the spare key from a hook and drive off in her truck, which she had left parked there some time ago, but she had been told that the truck was towed away.

Unbidden, she spoke defensively and petulantly about her drug use's being nobody's business.  She returned to that theme a few times, tediously.  Several times she mentioned her "pastor," and some "Institute" in Anchorage, where she evidently lives.  In one of the phone calls she told someone she was doing end of life care for a hospice patient.  She mentioned to us that her cousin's husband is "passing" from cancer.  Are those related matters?  Who knows?  Another of her phone conversations mentioned needing to be at the courthouse in Palmer this morning on, "a misdemeanor."  In greater detail, she talked to me about a felony matter involving her son.  No question about this, she lied to the guy on the phone about the magnitude of the crime.

She talked on and on about places and people, past and present.  When she mentioned Ray and Paul and Lobo Tire, I knew that we had friends in common, so I said, "The Flores brothers?" and she confirmed that we both knew them.  She asked me how Paul was doing -- we both knew that Ray had been sent to prison for 20 years shortly after the turn of the millennium.  When I told her Paul had died, she denied it.  "He couldn't have."  I told her about it, that he was supposed to pick his kids up from school, and when they got a ride home with friends they found him dead, of a heart attack, in the driveway of the motel he was running.

She just wouldn't believe it.  Then she talked about somebody else, possibly her cousin's husband, who was "passing" from liver cancer from "toxic exposure" he'd had at Lobo Tire.  I said I knew about that "toxic" situation at Lobo Tire -- it was a meth lab.  The denial came out again.  She said it couldn't be, because "meth labs blow up."  I responded that they blow up if something goes wrong, but even if they don't blow up they produce toxic fumes.  I told her about the hazmat team that cleaned up the motel rooms at the place down by the highway, also known as Lobo Tire while the Flores brothers lived there and ran a tire service shop.

I had been watching the sky for signs of dawn and pointed out to her that it was growing light outside.  She glanced out the window and said that it was getting light so she could now see where she was going, but she made no move to get up and go.  I asked her if I could take her anywhere.  She mentioned another set of mutual friends of ours, in Willow, but it was barely seven and she said they wouldn't be "open" until nine.  She talked about going back to her cousin's, dragging out a tent, setting it up and getting some sleep.  She maundered on some more, and I asked again if she wanted me to take her somewhere, or if she was going to walk back to her cousin's.

She gave me a helpless look, and mumbled a list of options in a querulous tone.  I answered, "Whatever...  whatever gets you out of here."  She was sobering up a bit by then, gave me a rueful grin, said, "I hear you on that," and started struggling into her leather coat.  This woman's conversation had been sprinkled with references to spirituality, and she occasionally affected a superior, sanctimonious attitude, but she was filled with hatred and anger, unable to face the reality of death, and afraid of the dark.  At one point while she was here, our tomcat Pizarro scent-mark sprayed her pant leg, but she declined my offer of a spritz of Febreeze, saying that it would serve "those people" right at the DA's office.

She was far enough gone on alcohol that she could have been in a blackout when she got here.  She might even have still been in blackout when she left.  The instantaneous shifts of persona on the phone suggested to me that she's a high-functioning alcoholic.  Our conversation revealed that she is a poly-addict, guilt-ridden and defensive / defiant.  I wouldn't be surprised if I hear from her again.  I gave her my business card.  Maybe she'll find it in her pocket someday....

I have previously expressed here the conflict I feel over revealing the signs and symptoms I experience daily from M.E.  The downside for me is that sometimes my writing about symptoms arouses pity or elicits alarmed injunctions to see a doctor. 

I detest pity, think it is the next thing to contempt, and don't feel I deserve it.  I am often reflexively ungracious in response to it.  Doctors, having done me more harm than good in this lifetime, are not high on my list of people to "see" when I don't need to, especially when I am not feeling up to par.  I couldn't afford it, even if I wanted and needed to see a doctor.  I have no insurance.

On the other hand, my readers include ME-ites, both diagnosed and undiagnosed.  To the former, my openness about my signs and symptoms can bring some encouragement or consolation - and God knows we can all use all of that we can get.  To those whose signs and symptoms have gone undiagnosed or have been misdiagnosed, I might provide some real help.

picture unrelated

Most people who read my blog are acquainted with those attitudes, and I can often get away with mentioning symptoms without having to deal with the bullshit.  But Xanga [understatement alert!] is not Facebook.  On FB, a different (but overlapping) set of people see and read each of my little "stories," and in general their attention spans are shorter and their reading is more superficial. 

There is less continuity from one little "story" to the next, so nobody gets the whole story.  In that medium, I can't blame anyone for coming in on a flareup in the middle and reacting with their reflexive pity and/or well-intentioned advice to seek medical attention, can I?

Okay, I'll accept that.  No blame.  Neither does it serve me to give in to annoyance when somebody sends me a private message regarding my symptoms and then ignores the link to my favorite informational M.E. website in my reply, and asks me, "What is M.E?"  That's just the way it is, and what is, IS.

Increasingly, I am tempted to use Facebook as a place to play games and read the news, and not to attempt communication.  But, on the other hand, the service I might provide to a wider readership urges me to go on writing about M.E.  The problem with that, of course, is dealing with the bullshit.  M.E., some days, is quite enough for me to deal with.  ...and those days, of course, are the same days on which I would have the most signs and symptoms to report.

I intended to report some of the signs and symptoms of the latest flareup in this blog entry.  Just now, I was inspired with a fun way to do it.  I'll copy an abbreviated symptom list below, and will boldface the ones I've been experiencing.  Note that most of these are everyday occurrences, so I'll underline the ones that have been particularly intense or bothersome this week.  Cognitive dysfunctions are listed separately and I'll gloss over that with just the note here that I've had some, as usual.

The symptoms:

In other words:  S.N.A.F.U. and not F.U.B.A.R.  I'm fine, really I am.  Tired but happy, mildly annoyed sometimes but never angry, depressed or discouraged.  I'm a little bit frustrated at the amount of work I haven't been able to get done, and pleased that I have done as much as I have this week.

No, it hasn't snowed here yet.  It's not even freezing at night now, but mushers, dog teams, and fans like me are thinking about and preparing for the 2010 racing season.  There will be a few dryland races later this year, and the Gin Gin 200 is scheduled for December 31, '09, but most of the season's races, and all of the major races, will occur in the new year.

One new race has been announced, hosted by four-time Iditarod Champion Jeff King:  the Denali Doubles Invitational Sled Dog Race.  Rules are different from any sled dog race I've heard of.  This might be a first.

The date of the race places it during the run of the Yukon Quest, which will exclude (intentionally?) some of the top teams in the sport.

I intend to blog about the dog racing season throughout, as usual.  Just watch (or watch out) for the parking sign.

I had more "help" than I wanted or needed on my latest photography walk.

PK Piebean is suckling seven kittens in the house, but that doesn't keep her from spending time outdoors.  She needs to get away from them sometimes.

She always has liked to go along with me when I walk, and when I'm getting down on my knees to photograph something low and small, she wants to get up close to see what's so interesting. 

Last time we went out together, she found something new to interact with:  the lens cap dangling on its cord.  I was too busy trying to keep it out of her reach to get a picture of her batting at the swinging cap.  In the photo above, she is giving it a hypnotic gaze.

I didn't know that I'd captured a shot of her whiskers and eyebrows until after I saved this and saw it on the monitor.

Those were the accidental photographs.  Below are a few of the ones I wanted to get.

It amazes me how just touching the tip of my tongue to a pretty little yellow mushroom can have such lasting effects.  These guys are strong medicine, indeed!  By mid-day yesterday, the tongue tip and spot on my lip felt just as if I'd burned them with a hot liquid.  The lip now has some peeling skin there, and the tongue is sore and slightly swollen just back from the tip. 

I still have not done an exhaustive search to try and identify this fungus.  One thing I know about it:  I have never seen it before.  I have been wandering in these woods for a quarter of a century, and have collected and identified many species of plants and fungi.  If these bright yellow pretties had been here, I would have seen them.  Either they are new to this region, or they are rare.

Kitten news:  To recap, we started with seventeen:  First came Linda's first litter.  She had seven.  Then PK had her second litter, of five, and lastly there was Bagel's third litter, also five.

On Monday, Greyfox took Linda and six of her kittens to town to find homes for them.  We kept Rasputin, the runt, because he wasn't ready to be adopted and we weren't ready to let him go.  PK had already accepted him as one of hers.

Then we discovered that Bagel's milk had dried up.  Two of her kittens were dead in their nest and the other three were very skinny.  We moved them into PK's box, she accepted them, and was contentedly nursing all nine kittens.

Yesterday morning, Koji, our big dog, jumped onto my bed and lay down on Rasputin.  Rasputin cried out, and when Doug came to check on him found him paralyzed.  Euthanasia.  Later in the day, Doug found another of Bagel's little ones dead in the nest.  This leaves PK with a reasonable-sized brood of seven to care for.  Bagel behaves as if kittens are of no interest to her.  Greyfox has already found homes for two of Linda's, and is considering keeping Tippy.

That was Greyfox's assessment of my mentality last night after I shared with him my sudden flash of insight regarding the little yellow fungi (still unidentified) in my yard, about which I wrote yesterday.

The easiest way to lead into this story is to copy and paste some comments and replies from the photo here.

I hadn't seen Ian's last response at the time I was talking to Greyfox last night.  I told him about going out after I read Ian's question about the scent of the 'shrooms, picking one, failing to smell anything at all, touching the tip of my tongue to the fungus, tasting the sweetness, resisting the temptation to pop it into my mouth when it tasted so sweet, then having my tongue and a spot on my lip that I'd touched with my tongue, first go numb, then tingle, then burn, and having an uncomfortable case of stomach gas, belching a lot....

Greyfox and I went on discussing that for a while.  It was mostly him admonishing me about my recklessness and me agreeing in monosyllables, until I did a sudden sharp intake of breath and said, "AH!" (meaning, I suppose, "AHA!")  Having gotten the Old Fart's attention, I went on to explain the flash of insight.

I told him that those little yellow shrooms were pristine, the only intact fungi in the yard.  Nearly every other kind of fungus out there is either full of bugs or insect larvae, and/or have been torn apart or visibly nibbled upon by rodents, cats, etc.  Then here are these bright and showy little things growing there for weeks, undisturbed.

He replied, "...and then there's the occasional crazy redhead who comes along and licks the damned thing."  After that, he compared my sense unfavorably with that of an aphid, and we busted up in guffaws.

For the record:  I did have the good sense not to eat the damned thing, didn't really even "lick" it.  I touched it with just the tip of my tongue.  I could hypocritically say I won't do it again, but given my track record in such matters, I just might do something like that in future, in similar circumstances.  More than a few times since my early childhood people have remarked on the fact that often the first thing I do when I see something interesting is to grab it and stick it in my mouth.

Greyfox, my beloved Old Fart, said those words to me last Saturday.  He might think of me as an invalid.  I never had thought of myself as an invalid before.  Now that I've looked up the word -- "someone who is incapacitated by a chronic illness or injury" -- if we stipulate that the incapacity is relative, I'll have to accept the label.  The label is easier to take than the incapacity, and I must admit that my physical capacity has diminished over the decades.

I have never thought of myself as hyperactive, either.  Frequently ill or incapacitated since infancy, I didn't walk until I was two years old and spent much of my life in bed or on a couch.  In the supermarket, I ride the crip cart, and my doctor and the state of Alaska consider me qualified to park in handicapped spaces.  As soon as I heard the term, "couch potato," I knew it fit me.  But I also dance when I can, make trips to the spring and help Doug get water whenever we need it, go up a ladder to work on the roof when necessary, and take as many short walks, with or without my camera, as I can manage.  After rearing a kid with ADHD, that does not seem hyper to me.  What I have, in my far from humble opinion, is ADD without the hyperactivity.

Here's how Greyfox came to call me, "a hyperactive invalid":

  Last week, on walks out to the rhubarb patch to mind what I somewhat grandiosely call my garden, I had noticed a few small yellow fungi growing beside the path.  Saturday, while tending the rhubarb, I noticed some brilliant red leaves on one of them, and returned to the house for my camera.  I took what was supposed to be a short trip out to get some photos of the yellow fungi and red rhubarb leaves, leaving my headset phone in the house.

When I turned on my camera, I noticed that the battery was low, so I turned around and went back to the house for a spare set of batteries.  As I was digging around in the clutter looking for them, the phone rang.   My headset phone was lying there because I hadn't clipped it on me.  I grabbed it and answered.  Greyfox was saying something to me when he was interrupted by the arrival of a customer.  He said he'd call me back, so I clipped on the phone and went back out to take my photos.

I was pretty wobbly and shaky that morning.  I stopped on the way to the rhubarb patch to get some pictures of puffballs before continuing on to the little yellow 'shrooms.  Bending to see my shot in the LC display, I keeled over.  I had promised myself and the guys not to lie down on the forest floor and inhale moss and mushroom spores any more.  That was what started the triple whammy of lung ailments that put me in the hospital two years ago:  atypical fungal pneumonia, followed by influenza, topped off with a colds virus.

I picked myself up off the ground and decided to just reach down with the camera and catch some shots, and then check the display to see if they were any good.  Reaching down with the camera, I fumbled it.  That is not a good thing to do with the lens cap off.  I knelt to pick up the camera, and just about that time, the battery went dead and it shut down.  Kneeling there, short of breath and trembling, wasn't a comfortable position for changing batteries, so I resigned myself to a wet butt (it had rained during the night) and sat down.

  I had fumbled the new set of batteries out of my pocket and was removing the dead ones from the camera when my phone rang.  I pressed the button to take the call and went on changing the batteries while Greyfox finished telling me what he had been saying when he'd been interrupted.  When he paused and I knew it was my turn to talk, I told him I was sitting on the ground changing batteries.  I mentioned having fallen over once, and fumbling the camera.  I said I intended to sit there a while and catch my breath.

   He told me to do that and then get back in the house and take care of myself.  I said I surely would sit there a while, catch my breath, and, since I was down there already, get some decent shots of those small yellow mushrooms. 

Then, I said, I intended to walk on out to the rhubarb patch and get the shots I'd come out there to get, and on out to the road and around that way to the driveway, getting some pictures of fireweed fluff on the way.  That was when he sighed heavily and made the, "hyperactive invalid," crack.

On my way to the rhubarb patch, I noticed many ripe bunchberries and lowbush cranberries.  While I was photographing them, I ate some.

I also noticed a lot of fall color in the understory.  The plant on the left here is wild Spirea.

I got my fireweed fluff shots (all the way down, left and right), and headed on toward home.  As I came up the driveway, I could see that my car was swarming with bees, butterflies and iridescent blue and green flies.

The defenseless flies and butterflies took off at my approach, but the bees stayed on, lapping up splatters of "honeydew" produced by the aphids that are everywhere this summer, up in trees as well as infesting fireweed and other wild and domestic plants.