Clean Air for Poets at meetings of NC Poetry Society

The most heart-felt appreciation goes out to Terry Collins, and others in the North Carolina Poetry Society for their support of those of us who must deal with chemical fragrances in today’s society. In the most recent issue of Pine Whispers, the jam-packed informational newsletter of the poetry society, a small article titled  “Clearing the Air” requests those who attend meetings of NCPS refrain from using scented products.

Artificial scents in deodorant, aftershave, hair products, cologne, shampoo, laundry detergents or other personal care and cleaning products release chemicals into the air, causing breathing difficulty and other adverse reactions for some people. 

See www.ncpoetrysociety.org for more information on the poetry contests sponsored by the North Carolina Poetry Society. 

Wars and rumor of war - poetry

Every Sunday morning on TV, I see names of mostly young Americans who died during the past week in war. I instantly grieve for those families and for those young people who never really lived. A young man, a neighbor, was told to join the army or go to jail for some mischievous behavior that landed him before a judge.  My neighbor was killed the second day of active duty in Vietnam. How sad for this family. How sad for all of us that wars continue every day and seem endless. 

The poem below is not new, but regretfully continues to be relevant.

Why? 

First come rumors then the rumblings of war. Bombs and 

bullets maim and destroy our soldiers who never killed before.

Children who know nothing of battle find grandmothers 

dead in the rubble. Hooded mothers huddle in prayer.

Only old men who start the wars understand the reasons why.

GENEALOGY - WE LOVE THE PUZZLE

Many of us are involved in researching our genealogy, finding our ancestors and learning about their lives. At Writers Circle next Wednesday, Mary Mike Keller will begin a series of classes called Bones to Flesh. She takes the dead ancestor and fleshes him/her out with all she learns about this person through research. She is very good at this, and I want to find some of my Council and Robison ancestors in her classes. 

I have traced my family back to my great, great grandparents who lived in the eighteen hundreds. 

Great, great grandpa John Cecil Council lived a long life, two wives and two families, in north Florida. But no one I  know has a clue to his father's name. His mother was Temperance Council, no maiden name. 

On my mother's side, I know the name and some other information about her grandfather, John Monroe Robison. He served in the Confederate military and I have papers showing his records. But who was his father? 

These are some of the questions I hope to answer in the class Bones to Flesh. 

Photos to Settle the Mind and Bring Peaceful Thoughts

You know how photographs can mirror your mood at times? Tonight I don't feel so much like using words but hope you understand my feelings and find something you like 

in a few of my pictures. 

Click on photo to enlarge.

Rambling about Reunions and Simple Communication

I want to tell you, my readers, how much I appreciate your visiting this blog. Your comments mean so, so much to me. 

Tonight the TV is not cooperating, and I am secretly happy that it isn't. I am forced to be alone with my own thoughts and a couple of sweet sleeping canines. 

So I'll share a few of those thoughts with you, my friends. 

Tomorrow I am going to a family reunion - not my Councils or Robisons. I am going to my husband's family reunion - Alexanders and Huffs. This is the first time I have been back since he died in 2009. I know his absence will hit me like a falling tree when I walk into the yard, see his cousins on the big porch, and speak to them after all this time. 

I knew I couldn't go there until now and I am getting cold feet tonight. Our niece and her daughter are traveling with me. I want to see everyone, but I am not sure I can keep my emotions controlled. 

I need your positive thoughts sent my way. 

On another train of thought, I found that I can be helpful to my sister, June, in a way I'd not thought of before. I had dinner with her at the Assisted Living  dining room. She has found it difficult to be wheeled in and set at a table with strangers, some who only want their acquaintances to sit with them. They remind me of the high school cafeteria where certain groups of girls gathered at a table and stared daggers through anyone who had the audacity to join them. 

My sister had not faced this situation in other senior living communities. Her husband had been with her. I understand her being uncomfortable because some of the patients have brain damage either from strokes or dementia. One night a man said outright, "I don't want you to sit with us."
 She asked  the rude man, "Why."

He said, "I just don't like you."  He didn't even know her. June was hurt, of course. Everyone loves June.

Well, she will never sit with that man and his wife again. Even his wife said, "He's strange."

The night I took my sister down to the dining room, I spotted a single woman at a table for three. We asked if we could sit with her. 

She seemed surprised we asked. I found Mary to be a delightful  dinner companion. She wore hearing aids, but as we know they serve little purpose with fifty people talking around the room. I found myself listening to Mary and repeating her words to my sister who was on my right. I was a kind of interpreter. But it worked. Mary was delighted to meet June and said she would be looking for her in exercise class. June liked Mary and both of them now are friends. 

Communication is such an important key to human relations. I feel sure that one day Mary and June will sit, one on one, and talk about growing up in south Alabama and south Georgia, about raising daughters, having grand-kids, and other aspects of both their interesting lives. 

Mary was born in 1914. Warm and funny, she is a true southern lady. She hated leaving her friends in Winston-Salem, but she is happy at Sunrise, and very well known it appears, from all the smiles and little hand waves she bestowed on  passersby. 

  

"You were so good with Mary," my big sister said to me today. She seemed pleased.

I simply listened to Mary and showed a genuine interest in her life. Isn't that what we all want from people we meet?

Sick Air Makes People Sick

Being a teacher I feel bound to educate anyone who will read or listen to the harmful effects of "room deodorizers" and spray cleaners. 

Not only do they bring on asthma attacks but they cause asthma attacks in those who never had them before.

The minute I walk into a store or office where room deodorizers have been used, my throat begins to close and my breathing becomes difficult. I have to leave as quickly as I can and even then the affects of those chemicals don't go away. Those of us who live with MCS, are often sickened to the point of being bedridden for several days. Sometimes these attacks go into bronchitis and last for weeks. Indoor air is more polluted than outdoor air, especially here in our mountains, where we have less automobile pollution. 

The following is an excerpt from an article by the Environmental Working Group. Read carefully. You might save your children, parents or others from respiratory problems that can't be cured.

Clorox, Fantastik, Febreze, Formula 409, Easy-Off, Lysol, Mr. Clean and Spic and Span. 

Many of the spray cleaners sold under these brand names are laced with quaternary ammonium compounds or ethanolamine, ingredients classified as asthmagens by the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics, a professional association of clinics and health experts. These chemicals can trigger asthma attacks and can cause new cases of the disease in people who are asthma-free. Ingredients classified as asthmagens don't belong in spray products. 

EWG Green Tip:

Skip spray products that contain ethanolamines (MEA, DEA and TEA) and "quats." Beware of ADBAC, benzalkonium chloride or ingredients with "-monium chloride" in the name from the label or the company's website.

 Do not use disinfecting sprays, since most of them contain asthmagens. 


EWG Green Tip:
If a room has an odor problem, track down the source and eliminate it instead of covering it up with fragrances. A bowl of baking soda in the bathroom can absorb odors. 

GCB tip: Mix white vinegar with water in a simple spray bottle and spray to clean the air.

Venting on Health Care and Negative People

Coming from a family that made it against all odds, I have no patience with anyone who says "I can't, it won't work, this cannot be done," or one who just gives up without trying. My husband was a glass-half-full kind of man. I learned from him and my brothers that being positive and believing I could almost always meant I did conquer the challenges before me.

On more than one occasion lately, as we scoured stores, online businesses, and interviewed every caregiver we encountered, for the best way to help my ailing older sister, I have become frustrated with the negativism we faced.

Perhaps because my sister is an octogenarian, nurses or caregivers, who have dealt with other people her age, want to write her off. That is the only way I can explain their actions. The most recent example came about when my younger sister, Gay, found a brochure at Mobility Express for this piece of equipment that she and I thought was the answer to transferring my sister with the broken hip. When we approached a couple of certified nurse assistants to help us try it out, all I heard was, "That won't work. She can't do that. It ain't gonna work, I tell you."

                    

  A New Place, A New Attitude

I am happy to say that, in a new facility where the staff learned to use the stand-sit transporter, they love it and it makes moving my sister a totally different experience. It is much easier than having her try to slide on a board to transfer from one place to another and safer than having one staff person try to lift her and another move a seat under her. 

                             

The staff at Sunrise Assisted Living did not take the negative attitude of the former CNAs, but learned immediately how to make the new equipment work for the patient.

As I said, I came from a family that didn't except no for an answer until they had exhausted all possibilities. That is how they grew a small company into a top international one. That is why we didn't accept the medical opinion that our mother would be "like a vegetable" for the rest of her life. That is why we took her home, cared for her and she recovered from a ruptured brain aneurysm; she lived happily for ten more years.

Perhaps managers and directors of senior housing could take a more positive view in their training of staff. That might turn around their hopeless outlook for patients and families who only want the best care possible in exchange for the extremely high costs paid to assisted living and nursing homes.

Without a positive attitude June could become discouraged with her health issues but she continues to smile, keeps her sense of humor and concern for her loved ones.

Cats and Dogs Don't Have to Fight

Tiger, the resident cat and my boss, has become quite comfortable with her cousins, Smokie and Sunny.

Smokie, the youngest of this clan, tried to get Tiger to play with her for the longest time, but now she just sniffs Tiger when they meet and then ignores her. Who said dogs and cats can't get along?

Sunny, a rescued three year old, could have been a real thorn in Tiger's side, but she chose to work on getting all the attention offered by the humans in the group. And who could resist that face?

Rocky loved Tiger and gave her big sloppy kisses. She adored him and mourned for him when he died.

One wonders why some dogs and cats don't get along. They are like those humans who become violent with total strangers, shoot into cars of people they don't know, pick a fight because of the color of another's skin, or hair or because he looked a certain way. I think it all has to do with how they are raised. 

I have never had a pet that was vicious or would bite, and I've had big dogs, little dogs and several cats. My dogs and cats loved each other. Why was that? What caused them to change their innate nature?

Maybe it was because we expected more from them, we loved them and did not show violence toward them. We never hit our dogs or cats, and treated them better than some little children I've seen in the grocery store who were slapped or yelled at or yanked up by one arm and swatted on the bottom while the parent screamed dirty words at them. How can a child be expected to learn non-violence when all he sees at home is anger and rage?

A Fall Writers' Retreat in the NC mountains

Have you heard of the Duke University Writers Workshop? The name is changed but the excellent writing instruction has not.

Table Rock Writers Workshop will be held September 17-21 at my favorite retreat, Wildacres, just off the parkway near Little Switzerland, NC. I am delighted that I will be going this year.

View from the large patio between lodges

They have some openings left, so visit their website, www.tablerockwriters.com