Happy Halloween 🎃 !!

1960 something

In our Midwest Town

 Dark & Rainy 

On Halloween Night

We went Door to Door 

Trick or Treating

With Delight.

The Only Fear

Was Fear Itself.

We knew all the neighbors

Since We were born.

Who had the best candy

You had to keep moving 

You have to fill your Bag!

Times have changed.

Scary…😳

Sunday Music to get You Going

 Crank it!

YouTube link to a Favorite Tune by Black Country Communion 🎸❤️🙏🏼😻

I Woke Up Yesterday Morning… Catturd is back 🐈‍⬛

 

Rafael, I woke up this morning & something had changed overnight. @elonmusk brought Us even Closer.
First, Elon Musk enabled Starlink to keep Ukraine Connected real time. For First time in History Humans saw War in Tweets, not filtered by NYTi, WaPo Bezos, CBS,ABC-Disney, er al. https://t.co/9aN5mf2Dmk pic.twitter.com/O3dknuzRQv

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 28, 2022

 

Friday Night Musik

 Really Great Version 😎👍🎸 from YouTube 

Video a little shaky to begin with…The Music Great 😻

Tgiff!

#TBT

 One of my first Blogposts 

October 7, 2008…

Watching a Holocaust & Wondering…

 

How can United Nations, World Leaders stand by watching the Holocaust, the Genocide of Peaceful Civilians by an Insane Megalomaniac Hateful Pootin. This scenario is what was feared after WW2 Mass Extermination of Jews & Others. https://t.co/LW5PfCUVBS+ @rafshmatko 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🇺🇦😢 pic.twitter.com/TRetfxgmmO

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 24, 2022

Will it ever Stop? 😢

 

#Gadolinium Baby Steps… Microlyzed Toxic Heavy Rare Earth Metal known to be retained.

 

The https://t.co/iepDgG6RfM team continue to make progress in their research to help #Gadolinium Heavy Metal Poisoned Patients
Great article linked to their site.
Could gut health be the single most important gift we can give to ourselves, be curious?!https://t.co/0xKfY4H1XB

— Living with Gadolinium, LLC (@lambertdebb) October 23, 2022

New Lyric Video From Joe Bonamassa 👍🎸🌹🥀

 

Happy Birthday Dagen 😎 🎂 2 years old ❤️😻🎸

 Thank You Chewy for sending our Girl a Birthday card ❤️

Dagen Bucklesby 

Friday Night Musik

 Another Favorite ❤️❤️❤️ 

Black Country Communion 🎸

Tgiff 😻

Fall Woods Walk #TBT

Fall in Vermont 

A Special Time

Views on the Farm, years ago when We lived there…

Take a Walk 🍁 

Don’t Cancel Me, Bro’ 🙀

 

Bonjour, you can read it here: https://t.co/wNuuRL4r1e Enjoy :) 🤖

— Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) October 19, 2022

The Beat Goes On…

 

Listen to the Beat

Be Very Quiet to Hear

The Beat Keeps Going 🪘 

Nursing Homes can be Hazardous to Your Health, especially when directed by Elected Bureaucratics

 

Why, Mine, of Course! 😎🏄‍♀️ 👩‍⚕️ https://t.co/WrloEXiszs
For more on the Scandalous (In)Actions by NY Governor AC & Now KH. I guess Nurses let it happen. Won’t One LTC Nurse spill their guts to @JaniceDean @MedicareGov about being made to accept #covid positive or pending test. https://t.co/S5S15Zf3BM pic.twitter.com/Zze8aHlpnM

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 12, 2022

Music 🎶 Heals

 

#Caturday

 

😻😻😻 Sweet 😎@catturd2 🙏🏼#Caturday 🐈‍⬛ https://t.co/b5K28e3IJT pic.twitter.com/Pf1V1wza5l

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 15, 2022

Friday Night Musik

 Friday Night Musik…

Queen 👑 

Posted This Great YouTube Link.

😻 ❤️ Freddie 🙏🏼🎶 ❤️🎸🥁🎹

Zentangle Bandanna Variant

 Was looking for new patterns for my Next Zentangle 

Then I spied Fred’s Bandanna.

Actually Artwork I never noticed before.

My First try…

Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis can be Hard to do…

 From Doctor Gavin Giovanni 👍

Podcast…

https://gavingiovannoni.substack.com/p/multiple-sclerosis-with-a-near-normal?r=lmqey&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

You have the Best Thought Provoking articles & podcasts Re: Multiple Sclerosis 👍😎

My diagnosis took 12 years until 3rd episode & gadolinium MRI Glowing lesions. The lesions were there the whole time. Why bother with gadolinium!? Crosses BBB & gets trapped/retained. 

1st left sided numbness-to left of the middle. 2nd Optic Neuritis-Opthomologist Rx’ d with course of High dose steroids. Still scarred ON. 3rd Right Sided numbness. Found glowing slice into my C5 nerves. TY

Oh yes, to be truthful a a Patient is hard to do. Stumble/fall/trip/weakness/pain.

Nobody wants MS.

Denial comes first.

Doc walks in,

“How are You Doing?”

“I’m Fine.” Even if I’m not 🤦‍♀️

I didn’t notice my vision loss until Optho saw it & explained.

Musical Break 🎶🎸😻

 A Favorite 🙏🏼❤️😎

Link from YouTube Grateful Dead Channel 🎸🥁🎥

YouTube Link to Kick Start Your Week 🎶 👸🏻

 The Amazing Unmatched Talent

Gone too Soon.

For the Love ❤️ of Freddie & Queen ❤️🎸🥁🎹

Women Matter

 Women Matter

All Women.

@twitter has devolved into a War on Conservative People

MAGA, Ultra MAGA, half the Country 

Our President said We MAGA are a threat to Democracy??

Biden out of line.

The View, 5 cackling hens 🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓 

Declared open season on POTUS45’s First Lady.

So I penned some support for Mrs.Trump ❤️🙏🏼🇺🇸

Hi! please find the unroll here: https://t.co/kKQWxiReoX Talk to you soon. 🤖

— Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) October 9, 2022

#Caturday

 

Friday Night Musik

 A Beautiful YouTube link

#tbt

 

Ed ❤️

I posted 12 years ago Meg 

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Ed

I wrote this story for a contest and I got the rejection letter today. There were 101 entries so I am OK with that. But still, here is my story about Uncle Ed, published in cyberspace.

Ed
by Mary E. Gerdt 
2010 all rights reserved


Ed sat at the kitchen table facing East. This is one of my sharpest memories of him. I moved into his house the first summer I was in Vermont. Looking back, it was a set of circumstances, a coalescence of events that brought me to first camp on Ed’s lawn and then sleep on the front porch days. I worked nights as a hospital RN.

The tractors, farm noises and fresh air lulled me into deep sleep which was rare in those days.

Ed sitting, staring, chewing. He didn’t say much. I wasn’t sure if he was happy I was there or not.

He looked old to me, frail.

I delighted when he smiled at something funny I said or I made him a meal.

It was a mystery to me how his body could keep going when he only ate donuts, coffee and fresh warm or cold cow’s milk.

He recalled to me baking potatoes once and by the time they came out of the oven they were petrified black rocks. He never cooked again.

I knew I was imposing and yet he would not say that or even give me a hint.

My observations of him and his frailty were both inaccurate.

He finished dunking his donuts and wiped his mouth. No small talk since his Mom died.

I thought about how she would have served him something nutritious and lovely, talked with him about what animals he had seen, gossip about neighbors, or what she needed at the store.

But now she was gone.

Then he had to endure a long court battle that stole his siblings and his legacy.

This day he doesn’t tell me any of that even though it was heavy on his mind. 

Life without Mom, the farm as he knew it, and his brothers in particular, alive but hating him or what he has or what they think he has.

In reality, he had only a doughnut and some coffee before heading up the hill to his saw mill to cut shingles or planks.

Today the shingles and planks are on the houses around here. Some on the house we ended up buying. 

Today we now live in Ed’s house. Ed has been gone many years. He ended up in ICU where I worked and he liked the attention all the young women gave him. I helped hold him while his nurse turned him. He latched onto me with all his strength. Unbelievable strength. He wouldn’t let go. He was hugging me tightly. I choked back tears and all I could do was smile large and laugh. I hugged him back and looked at the nurse. “Go ahead” she said with her eyes. 

I wonder if he thought I was his mother? Or did he know who I was and hugged me anyway? I hoped for the latter.

He showed me how his life lacked intimacy, hugging even, and when he was offered a moment so close, I am grateful he chose me to latch onto.

I had to peel his fingers off slowly. I looked into Ed’s eyes, reassuring him, “it’s OK, Ed.“ I said softly over and over again as I had learned to do with people in ICU panic. I knew his nurse, my co worker was busy. Ed needed to rest from the illness. We propped up pillows and arranged his hands neatly. I held hands with him and gazed into those clear blue eyes and smiled.

He smiled back, even though he had only hours, days left to live. We thought he would pull through, knowing the veracity of Vermont farmers. 

Now I sit where he sat to eat my breakfast, facing east, in the kitchen where Ed, his Mom and Dad, brothers and sisters, grandparents and great grandparents sat to eat.

The table gone, we replaced it with someone else’s table and made it our own.

Sometimes, when I am chewing, silently, staring at the East garden, I think about Ed.

How he would walk slowly, lumbering, almost shuffling, and fool me into thinking he was fragile.

I would look at what he had done that day and wonder how he did it all.

Like a magic trick, he would start with a pile of huge logs and at the end of the day, stacks of green boards and shingles. All alone except for transient visitors.

Little scribbles in his tiny notebook. Simple notations of whose logs, how cut, and prices.

One day we went away on vacation.

When we got back Ed scolded me.

Those were the days that I knew he knew I existed.

Even when I was in trouble it was a joy to get his attention because it confirmed that he knew who I was, an acknowledgement, an affirmation.

“Where were you last week?” He asked as mad as he could be.

I thought he was joking. That dry Vermont trick speech fooled me sometimes.

“We were on vacation.”

I should have known that was foreign to him. He never took vacation except one harrowing trip to Germany.

“I cut my finger off!” 

Now I know this is no joke. And somehow, miles away, he thinks I was responsible.

I look at his hands dreading seeing a missing digit, so common to men who work around mills.

He has one finger in front of me with a little skin missing off the end.

I take a deep breath, relieved it was not the whole finger.

“Well what could I do about it?” I blurt out, trying to save face but knowing the stubborn Vermonter has already accused me. Tried me and ready to hang me.

I still feel guilty about camping on his porch. That was 10 years before.

Ed explained the entire scenario from cutting his finger off to coming up to our house looking for me, the nurse, and finding I had abandoned him when he needed me the most.

“I am so sorry” was all I could say as a refrain with each sentence he got out.

Some words I had trouble with, the Vermont vernacular. The feelings were clear.

And yet I wondered, years later, while holding him in the ICU bed, did he ever forgive me for not being there that day? 

How many did he tell his story to, of his flatlander niece who said she was a nurse but where was she?

I had to develop a sense of humor over it all but that took years to develop.

Now I sit in his house, now our house, sit where he sat, look out the window he looked out,

Chewing my breakfast silently.

And I smile as I think of Ed.

Fall

 

There are times
When my heart aches
For a Fall Day
In Vermont.
🎃🐈‍⬛😎 pic.twitter.com/ETBcyLrVkr

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 1, 2022

#Caturday is Every Day 🐈‍⬛😻😎

 

Travelogue for the Universe: #Caturday https://t.co/yeWR9dPmKn 🐈‍⬛
Cat by Day 🐈‍⬛
Devil by Night 😱
Sharp Teeth & Claws
Boy, She can Bite
Wakes Me too early
Nibbling on my Toe,
I Love Her to Pieces
Picks Me Up
When I am Low 😎😻❤️#Caturday pic.twitter.com/SvfdhpGnHC

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 1, 2022

World 🌎 Gone Mad

 

⁦@JimWeider⁩ ⁦@theweightband⁩ The First Time I heard this was a few years ago. The World’s a little crazier now. Let’s try to all find common ground. Music 🎶 a Wonderful Beginning ❤️🙏🏼🎸🤩😎 https://t.co/43yjfL8qFL

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 1, 2022

#Ukraine

 

#Ukraine always on my mind….
So many Angels went to Heaven
Children, Mothers, Fathers, Teachers, Workers,
Whole cities vanished.
⁦@WillieNelson⁩ #RayCharles 🎹❤️ https://t.co/Jhkg4US00X

— Mary Gerdt Parler:Alvarita1 (@marygerdt) October 1, 2022

#Caturday

 She’s Ready 🐈‍⬛  🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃