Tag Archives: flu

The Road to Diamond, Day 25: Resurgence

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 23, 2024- I made my customary Monday morning visit to a coffee group, this morning. I was met, in the lobby of the apartment building where the gathering is held, by four of the regulars, and told that we would practice physical distancing today, as COVID and the flu were all over the complex. I spent about an hour talking with them, with the large lobby, then went back to Home Base and fortified myself, so as not to relapse into the flu state that hit me, 1 1/2 weeks ago. The diseases are resurgent, but not in me.

There is a resurgence of another form of disease, fear-based nationalism and hatred, being fanned by those who seek the quick fix to those issues that they have identified as posing a threat to their profit margins. Fear is an understandable response to uncertainty, and it is also a self-defeating response. If the French Revolution and the Chinese Cultural Revolution are any indication, exacerbating people’s negative emotions en masse will lead to a far different result than what the wirepullers imagined. Stubbornness and excessive pride, alas, are also resurgent, and the same lessons may well be destined to repeat themselves.

Good things are resurgent as well. Certainly, the spirit of love and fellowship always seems to take center stage, at this time of year. This evening, I was delighted to help serve a three-course prime rib dinner to the disadvantaged, at Solid Rock Soup Kitchen. Rather than having the people stand in line, we served them at table, bringing plates of salad, prime rib and fixings, followed by small slices of cake for dessert. Everyone was overjoyed at being treated like royalty, in the true spirit of Christmas.

There are hope and connection in the wind again, also. Thinking matters through is a practice that is resurgent, at least at the local level. I am meeting more people who see the way forward, the way out of the widely-perceived morass, as pursuing and practicing a path of actual civility. The more of us there are, who are not drawing invisible lines of division in their daily lives, the better it will be-first at the community level and then on up the chain.

Let there be light after the diseases and the mayhem.

The Road to Diamond, Day 14: Home-bound

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Entertainment, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 12, 2024- Last night was no fun. I got up, twice in the night and knelt by the open toilet. I felt a bit better, after the second time, but nowhere near well enough to go to my scheduled work assignment. The school administrators had no problem with my staying home. I felt a bit better, still, when it approached time for me to get a chiropractic adjustment. Still, the protocol for stomach flu is no contact with regular appointments, for twenty-four hours, so I rescheduled that as well.

I probably got more sleep today than I have in twenty-five years, thus accounting for the fairly quick rebound from this morning. I kept dreaming that I was going through a couple of folders that my friend, Kathy, gave me to read. There are no such folders here, so maybe they are at her house and I will be asked to read them later.

Other than that, my waking time allowed for catching up on reading, and on a bit of binge-watching shows like “Lioness” and season 5 of “The Expanse”. “The Chosen” is also going to be in the queue, but as the weekend approaches, there are three days of intense activity-so long as I make an overall recovery. The computer screen is no match for Acker Night, a Red Cross Christmas Party and a major Baha’i gathering.

Achers Away

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Posted by on in Assistance, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Travel

November 4, 2023- At first, my thought was “At long last, COVID”. Nope-the aches and flash fever were too familiar. It was that change of season flu, one more time. Someone, somewhere will shake their head and say, “There IS a flu shot, ya know”. Yes, there is-for the dominant strain(s) of influenza that the CDC has projected will be in the elements, for this particular season. It’s a crap shoot, and one that shortened the life of my father’s older brother, by maybe five years. The wrong strain of vaccine put Uncle George on oxygen and sidelined a vibrant, energetic soul. Science is most often inexact.

I have been selective about getting vaccinated, over the decades. COVID-19 was too vicious and too novel, so two injections went in my left arm, and I have not felt any change in my functioning or my behaviour, from either one. Tetanus and tuberculosis are two on which I stay current. The rest are, in my case, pretty much cash cows for Big Pharma, though I do recognize that others may need them. Being nearly 73, I don’t, as long as I keep up the daily doses of Lifelong Vitality supplements and maintain an active lifestyle.

That brings me to the Achilles heal: Keeping too tight a schedule. It caused headaches twice, on my recent trip to the Philippines. Having it to do over again, either there or on any long journey, I would allow more time, if taking a bus or train and would not schedule a flight the day after a long bus trip. Too many times, buses are slowed down by other traffic or by large numbers of passengers showing up, in a country town.

The second thing is: I will politely decline an invitation here at Home Base, the day after landing in Los Angeles or San Francisco. That is an element of people pleasing, which only ends up disappointing still other people-because I got sick from running on empty. We know to go slow, on the other end, and don’t overbook after landing in the foreign destination, but falling for the “friends and family are so excited to see you back” (mostly in my head), does nothing for either of us.

There are those who refer to every trip out of town as “vacation”, even if it happens once a month. They book no appointments, the day before leaving or the day after returning, even if it’s a road trip. Maybe they’re on to something.