Still No Juicer, Fall is in the Air, Festival Time, Our trees cut down needlessly

    It is funny, my last post about needing a juicer. I still don't have one, as my damn, stupid old car (the one I inherited 'back' from my son after he got a job and needed better, more reliable transportation) took $460 of our hard earned dollars -- the back tires were in bad shape and the exhaust system was totally rusted out and barely attached. WEll, son Zeb had been without a job for a while so he spent as little on the car as possible, I can see. Cars are a real money pit!
   So, I don't have a juicer but am trying to exercise more and get out in nature. This  is the time of year for outdoor festivals, when the air is not too hot or too cold, though today it is colder and windier than normal. Yes, the clean, crisp air of autumn, the different colors swirling around your head as you venture out across the lawn or across town-- if they stay up there.
    Yes, our maintenance crew by the house we are presently renting (man, do I want to move out and into a house of my own!) "said" that the town told them our walnut trees were close to the power line. Baloney. They weren't within 15 feet. They just wanted them cut down because the black walnut fruits put dings in a few of their trucks! They're maintenance people so why don't they build a canopy for the stupid trucks! No, they had to tell the landlord about the trees. But what does "he" care if we have squirrels in our yard scurrying up these wonderful, healthy trees, or if my husband has a place to hang a bird feeder and drive our cat crazy with watching them? Why should he care? Well, he didn't!
    I ran to the realty office as they were cutting (not trimming, which they could have done) these 60 foot trees, the three sisters down. They refused to give me the landlord's whole name and address  or phone number, so I could talk him out of destroying these healthy, beautiful trees. Well, he's part of the one percent and we are part of the 99 percent. We just don't count. We don't have any money to fight city hall, as it were.
So the three sisters, who provided us privacy, who soaked up nasty fumes and carbon dioxide from passing cars, who provided a home for squirrels, who beautified the neighbor, were cut down to three foot stumps. It was unnecessary and spiteful.
   And a week later, nature retaliated. A week later an old silver maple let the wind break off its limps, landing in our front yard and almost on our little house. A coincidence? Maybe  Mother Nature was just plain fed up!

Colon Cleanse Best with Juicer, Dog Problems, Talk to Students about Nature

     Well, I saw an ad online that said Rachel Ray lose 32 pounds, something about Acaci berries and a colon cleanse. I should do a colon cleanse, but I need to get a juicer. Did you know that a juicer actually 'breaks down' the walls of fruit and vegetables? I tried a "juicing" recipe from Natural Health magazine that used carrots, romaine lettuce and mustard greens or some such green and it just created a big goop! And then I drank that three mornings in a row and actually made me, with my messed up intestinal track, constipated! Yes, I got plugged up by something healthy! I am going to get
a juicer now this month.
     And the danged dog-- what an expense. Spent over $100 (!) on a haircut and some shots, but the vet said he had an enlarged testicle and yet, surgery would be risky and require certain tests (as he is 11 years old). Not my dog, our fifth stray dog and never wanted  this whiny mutt so it's the husband's call. The surgery alone would cost $200! Oh, will I ever have money?
      Well, my students are analyzing an excerpt from the book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. Some of them want to argue about the issue instead of just analyze, one student just "described" what was in it without analyzing the logic of it. They seem to need to be led by the hand, most of them. It is frustrating, and they wonder why they haven't gotten all As! Next week I will have a guest speaker  talk about  the town's trees so maybe that will help them see the value of nature more. One can hope. 

Miserable cold Highlanders' Festival, Radford,VA, hair still thinning out

     My musings on life are not all that amusing, are they? Kurt Vonnegut had the line "and so it goes" and now has a biography with that title. What could my
literary title be? And so she went (and needed to lose weight and become somebody to have some satisfaction in life and make a difference). I think we all want to make a difference. I stay dissatisfied with myself all the time. But I am no great perfectionist either. Just looking for publication, I guess, some validation.
     I am going to try to write about the "Highlander Festival". It is an annual event in Radford for the Scottish clan in you, with Scottish competition like the  hammer toss, tossing hay bales (supposed to represent sheep and they wanted to be humane, I guess ) all kinds of arts and crafts, Irish bread, Amish Bread, Celtic symbols, bands that use fiddle, guitar and drums. I have been to this event several times and the band was good, despite it being cold and then starting to rain, and then not raining,and then being cold again. It was miserable, but they got us up and jumping several times and met a few English
club friends there too!
   I'm in here waiting for a student and look in the mirror -- man,I need to lose body fat, and need a wig almost, this low thyroid crap is bad. I need to increase my metabolism, and/or find a doctor who can. Wish I had some real money to go to the doctor.

Found Good Cancer Site, Semester Moving Along, need book deal

     The semester is well underway and I guess I am doing okay. You normally have no idea what the students think till the end of the semester, but I gave them an "interest survey" in the beginning and had an idea about what they knew, or supposedly, what they said they knew. And in one of my classes I heard a student say "this is my favorite class." Well, someone likes my class !
And that's a good thing.
      But it pays so awfully little, this adjunct faculty gig. I have a Master's degree and they pay me like I just graduated high school!
     Wish it paid better as I think I have low thyroid-- hair keeps thinning, brain is getting fuzzier in the memory dept. I ordered iodine online and it 'says' it's natural-- from a place in Las Vegas, no less. Vegas, where a stubborn mother, mentally deficient, juvenille sister and unhealthy brother live. Not a lot to cheer up your day. If my mother passes then what then I have to deal with? They don't have a lot of money to live on and the same here. Wish my mystery "The Butler Didn't Do It" would be considered by some agent/publisher. But who am I kidding, as I am not a great novelist. But it would be nice, and then I could afford healthcare.
      So I look online. I found 1uponcancer.com and I need to go back to it as it has some  good information. Well, I need to leave soon for class. Tah tah.

Internet Concerns, Health expenses, politics

    I actually had a hard time starting this as it seemed to have forgotten my password, so I had to get another one. There is a lot to this internet business and you could spend all day learning more about it if you so desired. But I have many things to do, many writing projects I am working on.
    It galls me that the place where I got a bone density scan last year is "hounding me" for money. It is in the third tier of my husband's insurance, so it paid next to nothing. The full price for use of their 'room,' and interpreting the results is $800! Imagine if I had this done in Canada! No, I don't want to go to cold Canada for healthcare; I just want affordable healthcare in the U. S. Are hospitals greedy or do they think poor college adjuncts (my income is close to minimum wage) can afford this sort of thing? Why can't they be more reasonable?
    When I see Pres. Obama on TV talking about jobs and a jobs bill, I cannot for the life of me understand how the conservative "crazies" in Congress can disagree with him? Just as the Great Depression took a full decade to straighten out, so too do we need to look at government job creation options. And during the 1930s they also came up with the 40 hour week and also somethings that are monumentally important now -- unemployment insurance and Social Security. And those wanting to get rid of Social Security don't have their heads on straight. Do they really want to see old people living on the street in this country? It is so expensive to live. Of course we need to give our seniors Social Security. Of course, if you are a millionaire then you certainly don't need it, but many senior citizens do. My husband wants to take advantage of it too. We need to support Obama and not let the conservative crazies run everything!

Economics can hurt health

     My husband and I were at an "Acres of Democrats" meeting and he handed out some info he'd found out about the new healthcare bill Obama. The average citizen knows nothing about this healthcare bill. He "did" drop the public option, but the new bill is supposed to allow those with a precondition to qualify for health insurance, and allow children up to 25 or so to stay on their parents' policy. My son Daniel who had cancer, though, got a job at a hospital in Pittsburgh-- his insurance is much better than ours!
    My husband complains I do research online and am doing "self diagnosis" when it comes to health, but his insurance sucks. There is no doctor who isn't over an hour away I could go to, and even then there would be a deductible. So, yes, I self diagnosed myself to have too little iodine (they say having enough would help prevent breast cancer). So I ordered a bottle online. If I went to a doctor it'd probably be $100 for the visit and then, after that, more for tests. My husband went to his doctor for tests,the second time in a year, and his insurance won't pay for the lab work. We are NEVER out of medical debt! It disgusts me. In Canada I could have a thyroid/iodine test for nothing. In this country we have corporate welfare and too much spent on bombs and such. What about healthcare?

Neat Nellie's Cave Park, Blacksburg, Jolly Rogers amusment park

    Neat Nellie's Cave Park, at Blacksburg, VA. There's probably a cave on the property somewhere. There's actually a little cave on an upper trail at Wildwood Park (Radford) and so why not this trail? 
    And walking on it was funny. The trail we walked on, some grass and sometimes dirt, was partly in the open, away from a tree canopy, and it reminded me of a visit I made to Takapausha Preserve in Seaford, on Long Island, whose trails I ventured on as part of my novel research back in 2000. And th e logs bordering our trail, don't know why, reminded me of a ride I went on at a Long Island amusement park off Hempstead Turnpike called "Jolly Rogers". The ride was for little kids and I think I was outgrowing it, but it consisted of sitting on a board and you had pedals in front of you and you "hand pedaled" the "RIDE" around a track. I actually found a'remember Jolly Rogers' amusment park on FAcebook! So I wasn't just imagining it.
    We actually went to Nellie's Cave Park for a meeting with a new group of Master Naturalists. Some were very friendly; some were reserved. I hope to get better acquainted with someone. I would also love to own a home and invite someone to my house.