Acting in Time in Everyday Ramblings

This is from the Hawthorne Bridge looking north over the Willamette River this morning.

Mrs. Sherlock did something to the toes on her left foot yesterday and so she had to text me early this morning to bail on our hike. I hope it is nothing serious as she is now leaving Tuesday to spend a week in the Bay Area as her bike trip to Amsterdam has been postponed to next year.

We’ll get together Monday if she is recovered enough.

I was sad because I look forward to not having to share her during our walks when we talk about a wide variety of things. Most of the folks I know shy away from talking about the hard stuff and I truly value that I can talk to her about things like the state of our democracy, the drug and homeless challenges we face here and that chest pain I had a few weeks ago.

The cardiologist said that I have Sinus bradycardia which means I am fit. Or have a blockage.

Mostly it means I have a slow heart rate. Mrs. Sherlock thinks it might be that I had been hiking for hours earlier, was very relaxed and had taken a hot bath that it probably just slowed down too much. But I am still going to carry the low dose chewable aspirin with me just in case.

Today I managed to be in my cardio heart rate zone for an hour as I walked from my Weight Watchers meeting to the big Farmers Market instead of hanging out with Frida and Mrs. Sherlock.

And although my hips were a little stiff from the arthritis I have in my SI joints I was so excited that my back did not hurt at all! Nada. No pain at all. This is great progress and I am happy happy happy about it.

I have a question for those of you that eat gluten free. Do you eat rice? I am seeing conflicting info on this. I don’t want to be Ms. Holier Than Thou Clean Eating, I just would like to have the inflammation stay away, far far away going forward. So far brown rice seems to be fine for me.

Lately I have been making small donations to places that seem to be doing the good work I don’t have time or the resources to do, The no kill shelter in Austin helping with animals displaced by the flooding in the area, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ACLU but today I made I think my first ever political contribution to Bernie Sander’s Medicare for All initiative and even posted about it on Facebook!

Personally I think our democracy is in serious danger from big money donors behind the scenes influencing regulation, voting rights, immigration rights but mostly and this is the area I know a little about, economic justice.

It seems to me (and I don’t have the whole story) that the people hurt most by the flooding from Harvey (not that lots of middle class folks weren’t hurt but the people who had to go to shelters) are folks that are barely making it.

The unrestrained building with no zoning in Houston that makes money for the folks that have money and then when the folks that live in these properties lose everything it is all of us and our government that need to support getting them the services they need to get back on their feet…

I am just asking, wouldn’t it be better if we took care of each other up front?

Last night when I opened the curtains of the studio after my class I noticed there was a young woman in an assortment of clothes lying curled up next to the wall right under the window on the sidewalk in fading daylight. I made a noise when I saw her, kind of a sad sigh and both the student I was talking to and I were happy to see her get up and stumble off a few minutes later.

What do you do if you have a drug problem, maybe mental health issues when a flood comes to town?

I don’t have any answers but like with Medicare for All, if enough of us have a will there will be a way. If we can act in time.

Last updated September 02, 2017