Clusters and others and the menopausal migraineur meets the puzzled goddess

 Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Fugue state is an old term for that time in the migraine cycle that you are hyper aware that a migraine will happen, expect it, dread it if you want the truth, but can't look away any more than you can at a train wreck.

Well....that's if you're a migraineur who gets "classic" migraine as I used to. Before 30 and pregnancy, estrogen, progesterone, and now testosterone all have influenced various conditions and turned classic to cluster. (I've been wondering tongue in cheek for the last twenty two years if this wasn't just a cluster f@ck of a diagnosis on people's lives. And knew it was my black humor and early bent toward the military coming through.)


I've been doing a great deal more research myself lately since large studies are finally being done, and I'm becoming involved in chronic pain advocacy, because, this is my life. There isn't any changing it now. My new normal has been here and holding out dreams for magic pills is just getting in the way. So all health topics will pretty much be moving to my new blog The Menopausal Migraineur .

And yes, I do look like a vampire in the middle of a bad attack. LOL just HAD to prove it. This is even after a sunburn and hives.

from the puzzled goddess going to do her relaxation exercises. . .

I don't have any close friends anymore, but I somehow always have conversation...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I meet the most interesting people on the transit system, but then, I find people fascinating. I almost feel like I'm having too much fun when I commute, that it should be more of a hardship, like for my early twenties son.

 I feel so sorry for him. He invariably gets these half, (or totally) potted older women who stink to high heaven of booze, body odor, cigarettes and gods know what else that INSIST on sitting in seats next to him. And then edge closer and closer pushing their elbows and more of their bodies into him as the ride goes on. Anyone who knows him knows he's REALLY fastidious about his personal appearance and cleanliness, and then he gets the same migraines from toxic volatile chemicals as I do...and having someone shove it constantly under your nose...UcK!

But he and his sister are probably right that if he said something, being a white male in his 20's, a member of the "privileged class," that a whole scene would be started, and he would NOT come out of it well. I don't really understand why it should be so different. Though I do know it will.

 I can watch it play out in my head like one of those TV shows about moral choices and watch the strangers react badly to him when he is the wronged party.

It's taking liberalism and Political Correctness too far. Don't Get ME WRONG!
 I AM THE POSTER CHILD FOR PC AND LIBERALISM.
BUT NOT. I REPEAT. NOT---
WHEN IT VIOLATES COMMON SENSE!
And that is where that pendulum is starting to swing, both ways--- liberal and conservative, both are violating common sense and common decency, compassion and empathy for their fellow human beings.

I didn't mean to start this to lecture, just to update on how many interesting conversations I can have on the transit system going to appointments now that I had to get rid of my car.

A good friend of mine from college, Rory A. Miller, who writes the Chiron Training blog, as well as many excellent books on the subjects of martial arts and responding to violence, used to tell stories about riding the Trimet buses over school breaks and living homeless on Portland streets, and he'd make all of us see the humor in the situations that really weren't that humorous at all. But he has a special way of looking at things. I remember his slightly warped view of life as I look at my new world through my cloudy-mist eyes and talk to the people in it.

I met an older black woman who was so stylish she put me to instant shame. The turban was a kicken' 1930's look and the raccoon long coat draped over her shoulders set off her black pantsuit and leather alligator shoes. It all looked vintage. But vintage with style and flair. When I complemented her outfit we hit it off immediately, and we got to talking about our lives and her loves and her man that was still coming around looking for, "somethin', somethin'. You know how those men are. He cheated on me, but it may be worth it just to sample it again before I kick it out. Opportunities don't come by so often anymore at our age." We laughed so long before she got off the streetcar... We were like young girls being naughty in the corner and embarrassing the poor boy sitting across the aisle. I then, of course, being totally oblivious to his blushes got off at my stop 5 minutes later with my walker and a small chuckle. Bet he never makes the mistake of thinking old ladies don't giggle over old men. LOL


And then there was the young man in his late twenties or thirties buried in a book talking about sailing around the world. He thought it would be amazing to build a boat and do it. I could see the spark in his eyes. Maybe a Thor Heyerdaul, who knows?

There were the Water Engineers from England, the World Championship for track and field? I believe, where I was at the correct time to meet the families of the Australians, Germans, and some of the English, and the young Spanish émigré who thought Portland was the most accepting place she had ever lived though she laughed and said she would remember my description of being, "self consciously weird." That it fit quite a few of the Portlander's she had met...others just reveled in their weirdness. lol

I thought I would read many more books while riding transit, and I do keep a book or two with me. But far and above more interesting are the people and their stories and their lives.

....reflections of a puzzled goddess...

Divorcing the Disease...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
It's been a long time, some of you have heard the news from family members, though I've talked to very few people about it...these last months since Spring 2013 have been painful and traumatic and hurt filled for the whole family. The title here isn't a clever play on words, after over 22 years of marriage and raising two beautiful children, my husband and I are going our separate ways and have been working through separation and are in the process of divorce.


     Don't get me wrong in thinking I blame my various inherited disabilities and the associated levels of grinding pain  I'm living in to have been the sole, or maybe not even the main cause of our divorce. I seriously offered my husband a divorce for the first time when I realized just how far our lives would be from anything either of us had planned, and just how grim it was going to get to live with someone who was in constant agony, as if a dentist's drill were going  after 1 quadrant of their head 24 hours every day with no let up, while the ground glass feeling in all the joints on my extremities that had been my version of fibromyalgia and flaring was flared at the same time. It was pretty horrendous. If I didn't have a throbbing piercing pain stabbing from my eye back through my head in tune with my heartbeat like an ice pick was being hammered through my eye, I was feeling the back pain from multiple sports injuries or the grinding glass over raw hamburger torture that assaulted my ankles, knees, shoulders, elbows, and wrists. Rick and I didn't have to be told about gateway pain, we lived it. And I never lived very far from my syringes of migraine relief, message, and acupuncture in those first years after I had my kids and sent my body chemistry and our lives into purgatory.

  Rick and I both believed and believe in marriage though. 22 years is a statement in that. He was my best friend for all of those years and my biggest cheer leader, the person who supported me the most. He was also one of the people who needed the most from me that no matter how much I gave always needed more to feel loved. And for someone, me, who was lucky if I had three hours in a day that I could spend outside my bed, or the atmosphere of my home which I'm accustomed to, a husband needing reassurance that he's loved, children needing the same, a house needing to be at a level of clean that doesn't make my now additional lifelong medical conditions worse, and trying to squeeze out any alone time in the midst of all this didn't happen. I was being run into the ground further physically and emotionally. My doctors' had all hoped that menopause would make things better. It didn't.

The doctors just let me go back to medicines that had worked for a while in the past until my body builds up a tolerance. It's a pretty common thing to do, especially for preventative medicines. You hope you can come around in a few years and use them again when the tolerance might be down. I could. I got lucky.

Then I found out that time marches on. Arthritis has taken hold pretty strongly in my back and hands, where it used to just be muscle and tendon damage from old injuries and fibromyalgia...my thyroid which had been chemically burned out when I was younger and had Grave's Disease to protect my heart, was now under attack by my immune system, and I had to face that the auto immune's like my mother had died of, must run in families, like all the rest of it. Then the immune system went for my eye...those who follow this know that months of retinal cysts and inflammation finally led to a replacement lens and eye sight not quite up to par. I've been told that it will be 18 months at the outside before the lens in the other eye will need replacement.

All of this, here, now, takes so much energy. I hardly have energy to spare to not be selfish. It's taken me almost two years, and I'm still not quite all moved in and set up to live independently without one of my conditions kicking off and causing major problems. Everything has to be arranged just so. I can't even smell other peoples' perfume or dryer sheets without it setting me back for days. I wish I had a bubble to live in sometimes.

Marriages take two people working to make them thrive. Rick and I communicated, but we stopped being able to be or give the other what they needed. For some weird reason my kids keep trying to make me a saint in all this. I can't accept that. Even though it was fallout from some actions of Rick's that finally splintered the family, the problems were there and were things I've always tried to work on to make better. But in real life some things don't get better, some things just are and you can exhaust yourself trying to change it as much as you want but until you find the grace to accept what is you will continue to feel buried alive and burdened.


from a puzzled goddess taking stock and figuring it out...blessed be.

90% Used Books... something's got to go

...maybe some people?
Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

It's been a long time...It isn't as if I don't have things to say. The world is still turning. I still have teenage children, I'm still married and I'm still facing health issues that have made my life one of challenges from the time I can open my eyes in the morning until I may close my eyes at night.

My daughter has started me on some new loves however.She has taken my old loves of jewelry making, working with metal and wire and beads and glass and pearls and reminded me of just how much I have always LOVED to make jewelry. So that has become something I can maybe concentrate on when the pain gets particularly excruciating so that I can try to block it out for a bit.

I'm also trying to slowly set up her site for her jewelry at: http://fireinspired.blogspot.com/p/kumihimo.html She and her dad are the main forces behind "Fire Inspired Creations."

I'm going to try something a little strange with the extra stuff I have hanging around here. At least 90% seems to be books, but there is the odd knick knack, video, or strange piece of vintage whatever that I may want to get rid of, ....so since quite a few of my books are 2nd hand and library or goodwill or other thrift store finds, that I normally searched long and hard for to fill the gaps in the series. I will be posting small blogs about the books and other stuff  I'm selling and selling it on a blog called, appropriately enough: "Mostly Used Books for Sale" http://puzzledbooks4sale.blogspot.com/ and I'll probably be putting references and info in our librarything listing at: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/sprowett/yourlibrary . My books aren't first editions or anything. And some aren't in great shape. I'll be honest about that when I list them. But some of them were darn hard to find, and still seem to be, and if others are like me, and just want to read the darned story, they won't care as much if the spine is cracked, or if it has some water damage or a bent cover, as long as it's readable. If they care about that, they can look for it at Amazon or elsewhere. Some of these books have traveled hard roads to libraries, goodwills, garage sales and then into my voracious hands. : ) They stood no chance.

After checking into Amazon, Alibris, and Ebay, I just didn't feel like spending that much to get rid of things that are old friends...I may have to do it eventually. But I'll try this stubborn way first. And I didn't want to do Craig's list because I didn't want people coming by, I'm disabled and getting more agoraphobic by the day. And these aren't Free so no FreeCycle. I'd like to trade them for books I haven't read, or need to complete my current authors, or even maybe some older movie or song cd/ or dvd's I'm interested in. I'll see how this goes.

I'm here, just trying to dig out from the 20 years of sedentary life and realize that I've most likely got at least 10, if not 20 more. :D The puzzled goddess wants to be occupied!

It's done so I can share a Midsummer Knight's Comic....?

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Text for the Herald
Let it be known that We, Thorin, Dread Sable Lion, and Dagmaer, Fair
and Gracious, Sable Lioness have Created to the Rank and
Dignity of a Knight Our Trusty and Well Beloved,
Lourenço de Compostella and have made him the same on
account of his Chivalry and Prowess upon the field. Let all An
Tirian hearts rejoice as a new made knight and member of Our
peerage stands forth.
In witness of this day do we set our hand and seal on the  __________
day of August Anno Societatus 46.

The scroll design was done by HL Sannan the OneEyed of Hauksgarðr
Design based on the Galician  13th Century Manuscript Las Cantigas de Santa Maria Chansonnier
primarily elements from Codex E but elements from Codex F (the Florentine Codex) were  used as well as both were similar stylistically 

The reduction in size from the original 35X50cm or 14X20" was due to the size of hot press paper I had on hand.

 The color choices were based on manuscript color choices/schemes for borders and non-story elements
Other color choices based on reality and or arms of individuals involved. ;) M.Graham designer gouache was used for paint with colors being matched as closely as possible to those seen online in the Cantigas. Metals used were all sumi ink by yasutomo and were applied first and burnished.

This manuscript is considered by many to be one of the earliest forms of comic 'book' and as such, tells many 'stories' http://anthropro.blogspot.com/2010/11/medieval-comic-las-cantigas-de-santa.html
the story of this scroll is Lourenço's SCA journey to this point from the OP and his own words.

The first two frames are the AWW  July 2003 where he and the now Sir Godric ap Rhys (colors Sable and Or) held a bridge against an overwhelming number of opponents from the West. Lourenço was known as n and was awarded the Fury of the Lion for their courageous last stand at the bridge.

I messed up the order of the frames a bit when I was doing my cartoon under-drawing for this...but light boxes are wonderful things...

Next Ejulfbjorn makes the journey to 3 Mountains from his home in Glyn Dwfn, where he learned under the tutelage of Duke Sir James Greyhelm (the blue dragon wings on the boat to guide him and the 2 silver spears and the silver and blue shield in the viking boat) and Sir William Brennan (the black and red shield in the boat). Lourenço's own axe and shield are in the boat as well. Everybody I consulted liked the waves under these boats that were a very dark indigo with white swirls. But, of course, as Ejulfbjorn, was NORSE when he first got to 3 Mountains before his personna change, I HAD to have him arrive in a Norse ship with the proper warlike accoutrements from the people he had been learning from.

Next Lourenço is seen as his incarnation as a Stormgod, the Barony of Stromgard's defender, (with the white horse of his knight William Brennan in the background.) he is shown in the Eric in his own armor of his colors with his inspiration watching. In my cartoon above, this is in the second square. In the final it is in the 4th square. On Facebook I posted the pictures Lourenço sent me of his armor, himself, his lady and his banner so I had a chance of making some of it match his actual stuff. I checked the armorial for the James Greyhelm listing and Lourenço sent me the information on this first knight, William Brennan, so that his horse, and colors, could be added to the scenes. He sent me the link on Godric ap Rhys as well so I could add his colors to the bridge battle.

Checking the OP, I discovered when he was awarded the King's Favor and his AoA and so could try my hand at small likenesses of Tiernan and Miranda. They aren't great, but hopefully aren't insulting and they get the spirit of the point across. The last panels are Lourenço after he received his King's Favor from King Tiernan, also receiving his Award of Arms from King Tiernan and Queen Miranda.

And in the final panel, Lourenço is put on vigil and is seen in a vigil chapel with his head bare and his weapons outside the door. The shield division was taken from Lourenço's device that is in submission, as are the colors of the surcoat. The surcoat style is from the manuscript. The wolves and bears at the box crossings are from his proposed arms. The banner on the historated initial is similar to one he carries in reality as a war banner.

I sent a few links with the information about the scroll so if the recipient was interested he could do more research:  http://www.edilan.es/hojas/0002e.htm
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/illuman/12_08.html

And I added a few cautions from scribes I've learned over the last few months. :D

This scroll is hot pressed paper and a water soluble paint with waterproof ink, 

BUT please,

realize  over 20 hours of research went into its creation, 

                       plus 6 hours of calligraphy

                       plus 15 hours of underdrawing

                    then an additional 70 hours of illumination (painting)

That is over a hundred hours of an artisan's time. THIS artisan's time...Whether you like, hate or are indifferent to the product, 

please don't:

fold, roll, or sit on it where other scribes, or I, can see you do it....it discourages us all, and makes us all feel unappreciated

sweat, drip, cry, or let rain hit the paint. It will smear and ruin the painting and all those hours will be for naught.

Please don't store it on a dashboard in the sun, the wax on the seal will melt...but it will ride home there fairly well. ;D

Please do: hold it by its edges, keep in an envelop, and if you don't want to frame it...give it to your mother....maybe she'll want to frame it? 

Nothing made me want to wince more than seeing original works of art thumbtacked to a wall, or folded and slid under the recipient's rear for safe keeping.

Congratulations Sir Knight, and I hope you enjoy,

Lady Sannan the OneEyed of Hauksgarðr

I'd already managed to bung it up enough just because of my constant fight with depth perception while I was working on it. Just 2 more weeks would have been a luxury. I'm feeling whiny. My eyes are a constant burn and ache now. So bad I can hardly sleep. And my left arm, the one I haven't been able to afford the surgery on yet, was holding my ink bottle and managed to spasm into me juggling the ink bottle right over the top of the scroll in the last two days of production. Not just once, but twice.

I know it's just that I take on commissions as if I'm not disabled anymore and then act like I'm not and my body rebels. It's rebelling now. The pain hasn't climbed down the scale far enough for me to really sleep since I finished.



And here, my covering paper slipped while I was doing the flourishing Batarde Initials...The paper that is SUPPOSED to protect from stuff like this...and caused this by slipping into wet paint and carrying it into the margin. That little red blotch. There were a few other blotches by the calligraphy, but I expect those, cause I'm not so great at calligraphy. So one of these days I'll have a perfect product and have to find something else to bitch about. ;D

 I know better. I just felt so honored to be asked. I don't seem to get asked to do things very often so I hate to say no. But I need to learn that my body can't live up to these kinds of demands. My eye gave out 2 days before the scroll finished and so I had no depth perception trying to finish. Luckily the main calligraphy was done or I would have been toast.  As it was, the hand spasms caused some bobbles that wouldn't have happened it I hadn't been so tired that I had to push it. If I hadn't had to wait so many days up front to start. If I'd known even 2 weeks sooner it would have been much cleaner all around and I would have been much happier.

This has the ugly black ink bobble at the lower corner.

This is the same spot. It didn't clean up that well. Hopefully it will be matted and framed.

The worst of the bobbles he probably will never notice unless he, or someone else looks. They will be under a frame or matting edge. Others, I will always notice, I'm a scribe....gee, I will always wish I just would have had time to do that....

In this one my pen came down into the ship caption from above.

The pen marks, the ink, the paint..the bobbles, it's all part of it and there are ways to fix almost all of it so I didn't have to start over luckily, because I didn't have the almost 100 hours of time to devote to the project again.

The red splotch cleaned up fairly well.

I got thinking about it....how many armorers devote 100 hours or more to how many suits of armor they build? How often?  I know many scribes who put in this amount of time in research and honing their skills regularly. Others who don't as much, who just trace and paint, not as much researching into the era of the client, but wow....we're insane....   Maybe some of it is I just don't paint or draw that fast. ;D

My FB portfolio
My FB charters- medieval illumination I have done on other's designs

from an insanely puzzled goddess

Next time I agree to this short of a timeline....shoot me....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me... I always let the helium float that hand up and say yes. I know better. Dayam. I knew better when I did the 2 charters for Stormgods. It burned me out for weeks. My disabilities and helium hand do NOT mix. There's more than one reason I had to stay home from Stormgods.

I knew better this time. But I'd promised Eleanor a charter for this reign and it was ALMOST done...not quite...so the guilt hit and I figured, (and Kerryk said, "you've got 4 weeks"). So I said yes to my first Kingdom commission scroll. The knight was put on vigil at Stormgods and was to be made a peer at Sport of Kings.

I said yes.  Then I was a dumb ass and double checked Kerryk and the calendar and discovered that there was less than 3 weeks to get it done....oh, shit. So I quickly read through all those notes I had from all those classes where the experienced scribes tell you what to do and who to contact. And I sent the emails out and waited for responses....and waited.

Checked the OP and the armorial and didn't see any arms so I talked to the Wrangler, but the candidate seemed to think it would be just fine to use his arms since they were in submission and he'd been told they were sure to pass and he had received a "letter" about his name.

2 weeks later I got the final word after contacting and not hearing from Lion's Blood. Even though the Scribal procedures call for scribes to get wording approved through Lion's Blood...Lion's Blood doesn't want to see it, and since Lion's Blood needs to sign all blazons and emblazons they do NOT want any scrolls created with out PASSED devices or names or they WON'T sign it, PERIOD. I didn't get the courtesy of this response, but at least Sable Sable did...It should be fun the NEXT time somebody tries to actually follow the scribal procedures as they are written in the scribes manual...hmm....guess not too many people do....or maybe too many people are and Lion's Blood is getting inundated. (I never checked back emails on the scribal list to see that THIS Lion's Blood didn't want to see scroll text. LOL So I could have gotten four days of that time back for myself if I'd just remembered that email going out awhile back, but I'm too forgetful, I always go back to the manual.)

Anyway, requests for info from other sources besides the individual himself were woefully lacking in information and uninformative. I was glad the people weren't talking about me. I got essentially "He's a good fighter, has won this award and wears armor this color." Wow....somebody told me he was really tall and he was a really sweet guy. Not a great deal to go on when you are trying to personalize something to make a memory for someone to last a lifetime. Luckily his Wrangler knew more, and since it wasn't a surprise, his Wrangler put him in contact with me and I could get some info out of him to add to the mix.

In a few days I'll post some pix of the scroll and how it went. Design inspirations, and all that so people can follow the thought process and see what a pain it is and how many mistakes are made when you can't take breaks when you are tired. Or when your one working eye is over strained and you are losing your depth perception. (I really am earning the OneEyed title lately!)

But it will have to wait until it's done....and after it's been awarded....at Sport of Kings...which I won't get to see. Hopefully, someone will get a picture.
from a puzzled and tired goddess

The hands are it.

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
Really. Luckily the black plague only visited for a few weeks and left awhile back.

If you are squeamish about stuff, you might want to stop reading now. This is a gross pictures alert. But truly, it was like a train wreck that got worse every day. I couldn't hold anything, and I couldn't stop poking at it or taking pictures.

The first few days the itching and "hives" or whatever you want to call the reaction weren't too bad....then it got worse. I've had this before when I was taking narcotics long-term, which I am now. It's why I take benadryl with the narcotics, to cut down on the hystamine reactions. I know when there is too much morphine built up in my system because the small blisters will start to form under my skin in my hands and fingers and itch like crazy.

I end up with larger almost pimple like blisters elsewhere, but my hands are awful. The blisters will get so big, from little pin heads to where they grow together and make my fingers like overcooked and water logged sausages.

I've always just popped the edge of the big blisters and wrapped the fingers up and tried to keep them from getting to where I can't use them. WRONG thing to do as I was told by MULTIPLE medical practitioners.

Well, this reaction was MUCH worse than usual. It started out like normal. And progressed like normal.  I stopped my morphine, thinking it was the culprit. It kept getting worse. I stopped the other new medication I had just increased the dose on and checked with the pharmacy...it would take at least a week for it to clear my system. I took the new flea collars off the cats and dog as well. Quadrupled my benadryl and even tried it topically. It just kept getting worse.

That is NOT a shadow, it's a blood blister and the color of the skin.

Eventually, about the time that the entire finger sized blood blisters made it look like I had the black plague, that was not a joke, and I had a red line climbing up the OUTSIDE of my arm which was strange. It looked like a blood poisoning line, crawled up my arm like a blood poisoning line, but I've had blood poisoning in the past and it was on the inside of the arm...hmmm. I marked the spots and watched it progress up my arm and took some Aleve for the 103 degree fever.  The fever didn't drop below 101 within the next 4 hours while the line went up my arm another 5 inches and I waited for my husband to come back from the meeting he was at in Portland.

I checked the emails I had been exchanging with my doctor's office and discovered that they wanted me to go into an ER or Urgent Care if I broke a fever...ooops...I was starting to think it might be a plan.

I don't think the ER doctor knew whether to be disgusted or intrigued. He did tell me that in a possible drug reaction like mine that I COULD react like that all OVER my body and have swollen, blistered skin that would squirt liquid every time it was touched and break and oh, gross....just about what my hands had been doing for days...all OVER....yuckies....

This was my neck

My mistake had been opening the skin. The blister here to the right on the thumb? It's infected. And so is the on under the ring finger. The blood blisters are caused by all the pressure the liquid filled skin puts on the underlying skin as it swells. I was "just like a burn victim," as the doctor said. Believe me, I felt like it!

It was bad enough that my neck, face and chin had gotten into the act...Even my eyes were involved.

The ER doctor wrote orders that I was to go to OHSU and get an URGENT dermatology appointment and have the skin biopsied to make sure there was nothing more dangerous happening there. He even called the orders to my internist, who got the orders to the Dermatology department.  This was on Wednesday night/morning around 4 am.  I called my internist the next day and was told the "urgent referral" had been put through. I then called dermatology, this is Thursday mind you, and was told that the earliest "urgent" appointment I could get was 2 weeks out.  I LMAO and told the receptionist no thank you, but by that time I would have either molted, died of the plague, or needed to go back to ER, or been healed enough that what ER would have wanted the dermatologist to see would be gone. Her response to my snippiness was her own snippiness...I can't give you urgent appointments I don't have. LOL

So then the next afternoon, Friday, after I have left an email for my doctor, explaining that I'll keep the shedding skin for them since the dermatogist's receptionist considers 2 weeks urgent enough and that I'm not going to bother to waste my time or money when by that time most of the symptoms will have gone under ground and be invisible or so bad I'll be back in ER long beforehand....well...Friday I get a call from Dermatology ....a different receptionist....saying my urgent referral has been called over and can I come in that afternoon? LOL this is at 3:30 when I live 45 minutes plus away from OHSU. Which is the reason I didn't go to their ER in the first place. I tried, they said if I could make it by 4:15PM they would see me. With traffic I couldn't do it, but I DID get to see them the next Monday at 8:15am...hmmm....guess there IS such a thing as an URGENT appointment after all, huh? And the Dermatologist agreed that I should have seen him the week before, but that the first he had heard of the problem was on Friday...hmmm strange....

This is after a week of treatment by the doctor.

Then the skin was sloughing and hurting, just like a burn victim, but at least I felt like I was healing.

All parties then agreed that the biopsy wasn't really necessary. That it probably was a drug reaction to an increase in effexor and that my long term narcotics could be re-started and I should continue to take the benadryl and the tagamet the ER doc had started me on. Weirdly enough, tagamet has something in it that is a H2 Histamine blocker and was stopping a great deal more of the itching than even the benadryl. The dermatologist also gave me some ointment.

The upshot is no antidepressants whatsoever for the last month and a half and it has been a nightmare because I tried my old ones in the middle of this and they seemed to increase the itching.

Though as of this week, the first of August, I put the flea collar back on Mystique and MY HANDS EXPLODED within 3 days and the pinky on my right hand even went to blood blisters....so...off with the flea collar and back to the dermatologist's ointment, and maybe I can go back to the antidepressants that were working? We'll see...

from a chronically depressed goddess who is ALWAYS puzzled

passing of a friend and companion...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I hate being this cliche. EVERYONE blogs about losing their animals. EVERYONE blogs about losing family. I think I did that too...maybe. That one hit much harder, for longer, and still hits on a daily basis so maybe I didn't...I don't really remember right now.  But EVERYONE blogs about their dead pets...I'm going to too...

She was named Shadow. My husband called her Shallow kitty and taught her how to speak on command.

It was very weird. She's been trying to convince him for the last 16, almost 17 years, that he REALLY likes cats better than dogs...REALLY.  No go.  I called her kitty rat, and bitch-trichs, and bitch-kitty, and the black bitch. (You had to be there. LOL) SHE WAS the top of the ALPHA pile in this house and knew it. We  were all her slaves.

When she started going downhill a few years ago the kids convinced me to take in a stray feral cat a friend of theirs had saved. He has a personality and is the most intelligent cat I've ever met. And he ended up outweighing Shadow cat by about double, but he always kowtowed to her Attitude. They somehow thought he was a female originally and called him Lilly. He's been renamed Leon... Or Lee-Lee.

Then 6 months later a little runt of the litter was brought to us by neighbors to try to save. My mom in law saved her. We named her Mystique and she adopted my son.

She doesn't weigh more than a minute and always sneaked around under queen Shadow's radar.

 The dog and the fixed male cat were a whoooole 'nother story. They were ALWAYS on her growl screen.

I think we would have had our Shadow kitty for a few more years, but I let a teenager put the flea treatment on the animals this last time.

We order the same brand for all of them from PetMeds. One size for the little kitty. One size for the bigger cats. And a different one for the dog. I kept the flea treatment for the cats in the bathroom, and the one for the dog in the livingroom. But the teenager hadn't ever gotten out the treatment for the animals before, and I didn't double check the tubes.  You can guess what happened. The little cat got the correct dosage. The bigger cats got the dog flea treatment.  It took me over a week to figure it out. I didn't clue in until I went to get the dosage for the dog and realized that there was only one tube left...there should have been 3.

I'm told that was the beginning of the end for our older cat. The younger male has seemed to shake off any ill effects, but Shadow kitty always was asthmatic and wheezed. That got worse. She got infections. Her feet broke out in open sores and we tried to treat them.

4 months later as things just won't heal for her she was worse and then 8 months later and she had open sores on her back that we were told were cancerous and tumors growing on her sides and the back of her neck. She pulled out her own claws and took out her own eye.

I've never hated the fact that I was poor more in my life as I held my loving friend and watched her suffer this last month. I treated her feet and back and looked into euthanasia and realized that my budget just doesn't stretch that far right now.

I can't even afford a doctor visit for my kid, let alone for my cat. What a way to make you feel like you are one of the absolutely disenfranchised.

I finally decided to bathe her today. She didn't much like baths, but she'd had many of them throughout her life with us. I was hoping being clean would make her feel better; instead I have the guilt of knowing I brought about her final convulsions and seizures that led to her death. At least I was there and holding her...but I wish I'd been comforting her...not making her do something she disliked as her last memory.

My daughter tells me I should take heart, that now she's with our old dog that she used to get into trouble with and she's pushing chocolate donuts off the table so that he can scarf them down when no humans are watchin'.  I can only hope they stay that happy.

from a goddess who misses her kitty...even though she didn't much like anyone...

The green and yellow that's NOT going to Estrella, or Pennsic....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

 Colors of glass in greens primarily because it was done as a

Hauksgar$r  prize piece. Bottom bead on this part of the

strand was work with specifially  applied stringer. 3rd

 from bottom was a failed englobing attempt and there are

4 different designs using dots.

 Lately I've been watching the You Tube and learning how other people do things and buying a great deal of Mapp-Pro bottles and burning the flame to wind that glass around thos steel mandrels to see what I can come up with.

 More dots! bead on top was tri-corner folded. The

next down was an attempt at a bicone bead. Then my

 first attempt at a mosaic bead. A folded and patterned

bead with stringer work. A bead with stringer work. A

dragon stamped focal bead. A folded bead, a folded and

patterned bead.

  I've made a few necklaces in the past that I've been okay, happy with and am now working on specific techniques.

This necklace combines quite a few of those techniques into a pleasing whole and adds a few new twists.  It was a donation to our Canton's fundraising coffers.



This side of the necklace contains the other mosaic I learned to do
while making this  necklace. The bicone, two cylinder beads
with multiple stringer and bicolored glass  overlaying or side to side.
Eye-beads.



Eye beads. A cylindrical bead for practice

 using side by side  laying techniques, raking

techniques to simulate techniques of actual

rocks and gems. a standard eyebead, a square

 eyebead,  a standard bead, 2 raked beads.

 polka dotted bead



My daughter did some "I wonder" type checking after I started making these donations and discovered that each glass, lampwoven bead in a necklace like this ran between $0.50-$5.00 in supplies alone depending on the color used and the time it takes to make (how much gas you are burning and how many steps there are in the process of what you are creating...and that doesn't include electric kiln cooldown time or any of that if it's available, or REALLY expensive glass. ;D She just wanted to ball park what we were handing away just in materials, minus our time.  There are about 35 glass beads in this necklace... so lets say about 12 are easy,  $ 0.50; about 8 are so-so $1.00;  about 6, are medium $ 2.50; 4 above average. $4.00, 4 really unusual $5.00, and one focus bead, $6-$10    igore the beading wire, findings, crimps, covers, jump rings,  $1.50,

metal spacer beads 6- 2 @ $.90 4@$.50

THIS particular necklace, cost wise, in materials alone, ran about $79-$90.  Supplies alone. Then you add my time and labor. :} I don't think the world is ready for this. It works out to roughly 8 1/4 hours.  So you've got another $43-85 added to that for actual labor costs.

In the bag raffle in netted about $27 worth of tickets. Excellent deal wasn't it? LOL The winning bidder put about $6 or $8 into that item I believe. Woot! I hope she likes it. We now have been told, only silent auctions from here on in. So....

I guess I'm always just amazed when I sit down and really put a 'price' or 'cost' on our SCA hobbies. LOL Now I know why I can't afford to buy other people's stuff, I'm too busy buying materials to make mine!
as always a goddess truly amazed by reality...





Cool library in Wales...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
or not puzzled...loving it....Welsh libraries...manuscripts...illuminations....oh I would so love to see these for real!
The National Library of Wales - Alexander the Great MS 15c

from the goddess of learning

Pain full thoughts...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I've had low blood sugar, migraines, colitus, acid reflux, back problems, and high blood pressure since my mid teens. Fibro in my late teens. Chronic fatigue, hyperthyroid, thoracic outlet, and carpal tunnel in both hands in my late twenties. I got pregnant and my migraines went to clusters and then daily clusters. Then they gave me drugs that made me obese. I developed high cholesterol, hypothyroid, high spinal pressure. Now finally diabetes, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and uveitus.

Now by the luck of the draw the pain isn't upping my blood pressure, it's lowering it.  Which I didn'..t know could happen. So now if I bend over at the wrong time or move too fast I pass out. Orthostatic Hypotention...? WTF?  Sounds fun, huh? Wee.... yes, that's sarcastic. One more weird ass thing to explain to people that doesn't kill me,  or put me in more blinding pain than I've been for the past 17 years, but one more time my body triumphs over my mind.


I watch others who I know are in so much pain, and I try not to make it a contest about pain. Just getting through each day is a miracle, so how can pain become a contest? But when you so constantly feel like you have failed at all life has thrown at you, it's hard not to see it as one more in a long string of things you've failed at...pain tolerance....you just don't measure up there either....no wonder you just can't take any more...

Knowing that I'm going back to biting, grinding, soul numbing pain that never ends, of the sort that if you were an animal and could bite a limb off to it stop you would and that there is no medicine or trick or activity or meditation or THING that I can do or NOT DO in my life to stop it from coming back to me scares the hell out of me. The medication is not as effective as it was...soon it won't be effective at all...again

The pain doctor, and the psychologist she sent me to, think I'm giving up, and that I have a negative outlook. I don't think that's the case, or I would have swallowed a gun long ago. I just don't think either one of them intimately knows pain. Most of the people who try to regulate it I don't think have ever known or lived with much real pain in their lives or they wouldn't really give a rat's ass about the small percentage of people who abuse medication and would have more compassion for those who have to live in the pain. If crawling into a bottle or a bottle of pills would give me back some of my cognitive function or reasoning powers around the pain, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Hell, I'd do it if only to get a teensy break from unrelenting agony occasionally.

But I'm not dying and so I have to live on in unrelenting agony because my government wants to be my mommy and knows what's best for my body...even better than my doctors...and they've known so well what is best so far....

yeah...from the sometimes goddess of sarcasm and pain

Floriography---or not, Botanical Symbolism in the Middle Ages

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
Presented by HL Sannan Cairngorne of Hauksgarðr
October 9, 2010

The Victorians called it Floriography. We call it the "Language of Flowers." To the Ancient and the Medieval mind, it was their gods, or God revealing himself or herself to them. We have fairly standard lists of meanings nowadays between the internet and florists. Victorians used to carry lists around with their meanings and they could vary from city to city and country to country. It wasn't much better in medieval times, but there was a bit more agreement on what meanings were attached to certain flowers and what they represented or who.

The use of botanical imagery in painting proliferated especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as artists became increasingly interested in the realistic depiction of objects from the natural world; the purpose of this imagery was often, however, twofold. Beyond their decorative properties, plants and flowers usually had a symbolic meaning or association that related to the subject of the painting. Thus, a plant could be depicted either as an attribute, giving clues to the identity of the subject or sitter (as in 43.86.5), or as providing a moral or philosophical annotation on the subject.

Botanical symbolism has its origin in the literature of antiquity, where plants are often used in metaphors for virtue and vice. In classical mythology, human beings are transformed into plants as a reward or punishment, as in the story of Narcissus, the vain youth who fell in love with his own reflection and was changed into a flower that bears his name. Certain plants are also mentioned as attributes of gods and goddesses: grapes for Bacchus, god of wine, and corn or wheat for Ceres, goddess of agriculture. Classical texts on farming and natural histories by Pliny, Cato, and Lucretius also recorded some of the traditional lore associated with plants. Many of these ideas and associations were passed on to scholars and artists during the Renaissance, a period of revived interest in classical texts.

Religious writings also provided a wealth of plant symbolism. The Bible and the Apocrypha contain many references to trees, fruits, and flowers in moralizing similes and parables. The Song of Solomon is particularly rich in allusions, as in a verse proclaiming "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys," possibly referred to in Procaccini's Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Dominic and Angels (1979.209) by the inclusion of a vase of roses. Christian writers from the early medieval period through the Renaissance also used botanical imagery as a means of explaining and interpreting religious beliefs.

A third major source for plant symbolism was the medieval herbal. Herbals described the natural properties of plants, the method for their cultivation, and their use in cooking and in medicine. These properties, as well as the plant's shape, color, taste, smell, and season of blooming, usually lent themselves to a moral connotation: the poisonous hemlock represented evil and death, while the clover, with its three leaves, was a symbol of the Holy Trinity. Used also as a salve against snake bites (according to Pliny), the clover was sometimes regarded as an emblem of Salvation, where the bite represented Original Sin, encouraged by a serpent in the Garden of Eden. (1)

(1) Source: Botanical Imagery in European Painting | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bota/hd_bota.htm Jennifer Meagher, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

There are hundreds of examples of botanicals in artwork in the middle ages. Looking at it again with a fresh consideration to another layer of symbolism or meaning that the artist meant for there to be extant in their work brings more depth to the appretiation of what the emotion is they are trying to convey. The following pages are a table with a few flowers to give you a start at identifying some of the flowers and herbs that might have some meaning when you are looking at a work of art and just might be telling you a lot more about what the artist is trying to say.

Related research:
Source: wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_flowers
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/flowerinfo.htm
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index.asp?i=16
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/FlwrsPer/FPtitle.htm
http://www.earthlypursuits.com/FlwrsPer/FlwrSent.htm (list of meanings from 1840's)
http://www.victorianbazaar.com/meanings.html
http://www.thegardener.btinternet.co.uk/flowerlanguage.html
http://www.terrafolia.ca/flower-dictionary.html

Period source referenced by marygardensmain.html site for botanical naming in Middle Ages
"De Plantis A Divis Sanctisve Nomen Habentibus" by Johannis Bauhin, Basil, 1591

don't take my energy...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I am, as those overly PC people put it, "differently-abled." I've railed against it, against my genetics, against gods, and all involved.

Most people don't get it because it's invisible. Over the years I've commiserated with others in similar situations because they too, understand...that's why I'm frustrated and get pissed off when they blithely steal my family's spoons. Yes, I consider it a theft. Because otherwise I was in an untenable situation and would look bad...

So it was that I use energy I and my family didn't have to waste on somebody that KNOWS how little we have because they are in the same boat, or look like awful shirkers who leave these poor people stranded alone to pack up all by themselves.

It is worse because my husband has now joined the ranks of the uncontrolled diabetics again (no insurance), with other problems that go with it like high cholesterol and high blood pressure and his sleep apnea. He's losing weight. But somewhere recently he lost his backpack that had his diabetic blood sugar monitor in it, and half of his medicines and of course we can't afford to replace it without insurance. A doctor visit alone to our doctor is well over $200, but it's getting critical.

So I've been rationing his energy, like I ration mine, like I ration that of the rest of my family...others think of it as how many spoons they have to get through a day. It's a good analogy to get the point across. Your energy is finite and people who have an energy reserve don't get that...but people who are disabled themselves SHOULD!


I've had to tailor my family's life to our reality. It used to be what do you want mommy to do, this school thing with you, or a movie with the family over the weekend? A family night? or some one on one time? It was always mommy and always an either/or. Now it's daddy as well, or both.


I ration my energy day to day. I ration my husband's energy. I ration my family's energy.


I even explain to people that we make choices between what we can do and what we can't based on the disabilities and amount of energy it takes to deal with it.


With small children and disabilities we found we couldn't event. We especially couldn't autocrat as we loved to do. I stopped going to most events and my husband went alone to some of them. I stopped cooking at events. We stopped putting up an elaborate period camp. All of our activities got rationed. Saying "no" became a hated skill I had to learn for my sanity and my family's ultimate survival.

We went to few events, even fewer activities because my disabilities made daily life a chore and just living it to raise children took all my energy.

Now my children are old enough to be a help. We are learning how to streamline our SCA lives to sometimes be able to still be able to afford the energy it takes to go to and sometimes even to run events, but I need my entire family's energy to do it for us all to get there and we plan our vacations from the everyday grind of pain and "can't do thats" accordingly. We all pitch in to make it work for our family.


Now, there is a down side that I have found with our love of our new group. My husband hasn't learned the ability to say no, and I find myself feeling responsible for people who are availing themselves of our too finite family energy reserves so that we are left with less than nothing when we return home. It will really mean fewer events for us, that's the bottom line.

I can't allow my husband, who is our only almost able-bodied bread winner at this point, to cripple himself like this for multiple days on our return from what is supposed to be a "fun" event. As a family, we can't afford it. Individually, he can't afford it, health-wise.


I can't afford it, selfishly, when he is my only support for transport, and the only support for transport for his disabled mother as well.

Don't get me wrong. We had so much fun with our friends at this last event, but we knew our limitations, and the limitations of our conditions and didn't even do our normal volunteering. My husband didn't fight; crap, he didn't even marshal. That should have clued people in to just how messed up he was. He went to bed just after dark on Sunday. This, from the man who like the night owl he is, normally helps me greet my pain filled dawn.

He's only like this when his diabetes is messed up like it was this last weekend and the injuries are stacking up from the weather and the packing. I doubled my meds. I'm not supposed to, but I can't pack otherwise, and I was relieved it only took us about 4 hours to pack our own stuff up. We woke up and immediately got to it like we normally do, all of our family pitching in and doing what we can. We even ate as we packed and just got it done. I was thankful to the bit of help we got to fold up the one tent and tote the couple of heavy things I can't lift. It was all of about 10 minutes to help us finish up or so I would guess. I probably made it longer trying to get in the way and bend over myself, but for some reason people kept being concerned I'd faint on them or some stupid sh*t like that. ;D (Thanks Aislin for the assist folding the tent!)

I had to think long and hard why I've been so upset the last few days while we've been recovering and pretty much bed bound. And I think it was so hard because the next 2 hours was spent packing up a camp with only half the people who had shared it helping after they had made an INCREDIBLY slow start to their day and it had put them way behind everybody else. I found it hard to not feel resentment as the kids all sat in the car and Mom in that camp did most of the work, disabled as she is.

It bothered me most because, while I don't mind helping, I expect EVERYONE to do what little bit they can if I am going to be using up energy my family doesn't have to spare, and I felt like my husband and I and a few others were paying the toll so that the disabled gentleman in that camp could overuse his own energy and enjoy himself that weekend. We paid HIS price. My husband even warned him not to pack so much and was ignored and we still paid his price. As well as the price for the non-disabled people riding with him who could have been helping but sat in the car instead for various reasons. They may have been valid reasons beyond getting food; I don't know. I just know that energy was fading fast that would have been conserved if there had been more help and more fellow feeling.

Courtesy requires that people not be able to say things when they are so angry they are being abused and they feel they are being taken advantage of. That is wrong. It is discourteous to us all to take advantage of us by relying on our courtesy and goodwill to do your work.

A two hour drive home took 5 hours because of the stops we had to make to calm the spasms of pain my husband was having ,and I was in no shape to drive because I'd had to double my meds to "help" pack up when I went beyond my limits. I felt absolutely helpless. I didn't have anything I could medicate him with and I was too medicated to drive. All we could do was wait for the muscle spasms in the back and shoulder to lessen enough for him to drive again.

Then he had to race the clock to get home to help a disabled mother try to get a battery for her car working so she could see a doctor. He ended up back out on the road, muscle spasms and all.

So...I need to get this said. I may be seen as the wicked witch of the west or of the local area. But, I did my volunteering in the background and what was within my energy to do at the event, or would have been, based on what my family packed and what we knew we had to do.

I've had 2 eye surgeries in the last 4 months and have been fighting medication changes that are swinging my blood pressure and blood sugar up and down, and I'm lucky if I can bend over without fainting. I make us pack only what we need. My husband didn't volunteer to do the things he loved because he hurt himself helping people a few days before the event and knew that packing up and slogging in the mud would be too much for our family energy to absorb.

As adults we make those decisions daily, and yes, we made the decision to help the pople we did, because their being left behind to do it on their own would have reflected badly on our own group and ultimately, on us. So we made the choice not to look like slackers who had no conscience.

But they, as well, are adults, who have been disabled a long time. Long enough that they should know their energy limits and not ask others to give them spoons. Aislin doesn't have many spoons to spare. I don't have them and my husband doesn't have them to give. We were put in a position to be made to look bad if we didn't and that's what made me upset.


Many people in our group are disabled. We seem to have an overabundance of "differently-abled" who need to steward their energy wisely and, as such, we need to help each other as a community, but we need to NOT count on abusing that help. Because those of us that help are giving up our energy and spoons and future days of being able to take moms to hospitals and go with kids to events at their schools to you too! These are things that have been missed...


I recognize it when I have to ask for help, and I sure don't expect to receive it. I am amazed and humbled by the willingness of our members who can give of their help and do, but expecting the help is an abuse that will see the help drying up and blowing away for everyone.

Why am I cowardly bitching here instead of in an open forum where I can be answered face-to-face, or in a one-on-one meeting where I can address the problem diplomatically with the major individuals involved?

Mainly because of my old nemesis, disability. I can't string sentences together and when I have an issue to address when I am upset the ability regresses even further. My IQ drops by 20 to 50 points and I spend many minutes fighting the fog and being frustrated and losing the point of the whole exercise, and by then, so has the person I'm trying to confront. So I have found that writing, with the ability to stretch it out, find the right word, and ask for the person's feedback, can actually facilitate one-on-one communication for me. It is still just as hard for me to confront someone as it ever has been. I still need to get my courage up so I'm not walked over and then I need to find the words so that I can hope they'll understand my feelings, and not just blow it off as unimportant. Because if I sat down and took the time to draft it out and write, it was majorly important to the future of that relationship.

from the goddess who has been hibernating with her god for 2 days recovering...

Video games for eye surgeons...I swear to God...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I made this eye bead necklace for my eye surgeon. Dr Rebecca Armour at Casey Eye Institute. She's great. Gave me back most of my vision. Eye beads have been used in history as talisman's to protect from the "evil eye" which is why the theme is so common in beads. ;D

So many cultures thought that you could illwish through the evil eye. Also, beads in the representation of a body type are thought to protect that body type. So this is a double whammy. ;D

The only bead that I actually burned in my torch was the eye bead itself. The rest are store bought glass and mineral on polycoated tigertail with brass accents. But I strung it!

My lampworking teacher, Epona, taught me how to make the eye beads to look so realistic! They are almost scarry. So now I'm having to figure out uses for spotted white beads. ;D

LOL. I had the final YAG surgery for the eye. I was concerned because my little black dot friends from my uveitus in all levels of my depth perception were disappearing from my vision and I couldn't see small text as well with that eye.

I got ahold of the doctor on their cool internet contact system at OHSU and Casey Eye, very neat to be able to just leave an email for a non-emergency and wait for a non-emergency response. I asked, "Do you want to see me this week, or should I just wait until my surgery that is scheduled for June 2nd?" 2 days later they called with an appointment time on my phone. She worries as much about my retina as I do.



I was worried needlessly, It was flatter and less swollen then it has been in 2 years. YAY! So, she was like, "Let's just go ahead and do the surgery now."

???? Eeek!

It was like asteroids for eye surgeons. She gets to point a laser into a mirror and blast it through the new lens and cut the cloudy layer left at the back of the lens pocket in a circle around the pupil so that the light can clearly focus to my retina. There was this little popcorn popping feeling with each laser shot and kind of a small sting....they add up by the way and eventually the little excized circle was going to drift to the bottom of my eye and dissolve over time. Weird stuff.

I told her that she just liked playing asteroids...she laughed.

My eye is now at 20/25 plus2 whatever that means, when it is corrected. That is what it will be for the future at best. This is so much better then the white wall of doom!

from the goddess of two eyes who can see the periphery again when she's not passing out...and that's another story...