Super Monarchs

 The milkweed stands tall in the corner of the yard holding their dusty lavender bouquets out for the monarchs. It's been a few tough years for the butterflies. Still a few return each year. Last night a single monarch fluttered through our garden. Still later a pair coupled together landed on the edge of a branch to finish their union.

 Soon there will be small cream pearls on the underside of the milkweed leaves. A short time later the leaves will begin to miss small crescents where the newly hatched caterpillars have begun to feed.

When my kids were young we could hardly wait for this day! We'd wander the ditches close to our home collecting the long thin black and yellow tiger striped lava in quart jars filled with milkweed leaves. Once home they were carefully transferred to a screen covered aquarium and fed daily rations of fresh leaves. My kids watched as the pillars rapidly grew into fat little sausages. One morning they would awake to a milky green chrysalis dotted with gold hanging from the screen top.
 

Days would pass and the chrysalis would begin to darken. Then clear to reveal the black and orange of a developing monarch. We kept the monarchs we hatched in our screen porch. Dozens of them fed on sugar water. Some, most, would even come to your extended hand if you had a small pool of the sugar water cupped in your palm. What we didn't know then that we do now is these butterflies were the super generation of monarchs.

Monarchs take five generations to migrate back to Minnesota from Mexico. The pair coupled on the branch are five times removed from their parents who were a super generation. What this means is this: the monarchs we raised and the offspring of this couple will fly all the way back Mexico! Super Monarchs!

I didn't see the the pair finish their coupling or fly away. A male bluebird had taken to hunting in our garden and my attention followed him. I am sure I will see their young appear soon and maybe I will, for old times sake, take some of the young in and bear witness to the birth of something super. Or maybe I will just watch and know of this spectacular event. In any event, the monarchs are back. Enjoy.

Peace,
Karen

The Hand Off

Well I don't know if I feel like a football or a hot potato? I've been handed off again.

Dr John (good looking) Liveringhouse has, in the fashion of Dr Sherry Billups and Dr Mark Colliton, thrown up his hands and yelled, "NOT IT!" I'm maxed out on stomach meds and he's at a loss so I'm shufflin', being shuffled, off to Our Mother of Marble, Mayo Clinic. Oh to be so complicated!

Well that will be me waiting for another call and then trying to sort out how, where and when this visit is going to fit into the grand scheme of two other appointments and a "maybe" surgery.

In the meantime keep your eyes on the ball.

Peace,
Karen

No Further or Farther Ahead.

The test results are in. I have acid reflux of a medium form. DUH!

I needed those ucky tests for that? So the nurse on the phone took an update on how I was doing and will relay that to Dr Liveringhouse who will have some kind or seance and give a message from the other side to the nurse who will call me and tell me......what? I duuno?

More tests? Tuff it out? Why can't there be a diagnosis, a plan, a cure? How long does this have to go on really?

After a while you just start to feel nuts about it all. If it's only a mild case of acid reflux why do I feel crappy all the time OR is it just all in my head? And it does start to feel that way, like it's all in my head. Maybe I am nuts. Who knew I'd know? But I do know. Huh.

So, we have another hurry up and wait and feel crappy while doing it. I'm tired. Real tired. Really honestly tired. I feel no further/farther ahead than I did 3 months ago.

Anyhow, I'll let you know when I know something....anything. Frustrating.

Peace,
K

Starbucks

When it comes to chain coffee shops my list would look like this Dunn Bros, Caribou and Starbucks bringing up the rear. You'd think the first Starbucks was founded in Colorado instead of Seattle, Washington. I say this because on the Sucking Wind Tour (See July 3rd post if you don't know what I'm talking about) when we were in search of coffee, Starbucks was the only game in town.

Now Starbucks is not the top of my list but when you need coffee...you NEED coffee. An hour into our trip, just on the edge of the beautiful Colorado Rockies, in a town named Silverthorne we stopped for a coffee. At a Starbucks. I ordered what I call a safe coffee, a soy latte with vanilla. Linda got some kind of juice and we each had a sweet treat. With coffee in hand we headed out the door to sit outside. I need to say at this point we could see another Starbucks across the street from where we were sitting.

Now I don't care how bad the coffee is, when you have a view, a real honest, hang your mouth open view, it doesn't matter. I swear it could have been pig swill in my cup. I didn't taste it because I was drinking in the view. And what a view it was. There before us was a picture postcard. A long sloping valley running up to the feet of tall snow capped mountains. And we would be threading our way between them to Breckenridge where there would be more snow and more mountains, and more valleys and more Starbucks.

Even in Aspen, Starbucks was the coffee house of, well not choice, it was just the only coffee shop. It would not be until Linda and I arrived at the airport on the day of our departure that I found....a....CARIBOU! I sucked down a milk chocolate coffee cooler - no whip- faster than a camel can spit! The barista put stickers on one of my cards, swiped the other as I proudly paid. I felt a sense of community. I was home. This is where I knew the menu. I could order maple brown sugar oatmeal or an apple sausage bagel or a depth charge. And, AND there was the cute little caribou on my cup not the creepy girl goddess on the Starbucks cups.

Linda didn't seem to really care about coffee. She's more of a black tea drinker though at Starbucks in Breckenridge I did get her to order a passion fruit tea and she not only dug the striking violet color of it but she actually liked the flavor. So, Starbucks, Caribou, Dunn Bros did not matter one iota to her. And this is probably a good thing. She seemed less stressed about the whole choice and after all we were on vacation. I just wanted to stay awake for it!

Peace and good coffee
Karen

 My sister Linda at Starbucks in Silverthorne, Colorado

Me at Starbucks in Silverthorne, though you can't prove it because I cut the all the logos out of the pic!

The Blog I Can't Write.

This is how they do a pH study of your lower esophagus.

I 

The smile is for the camera only.

 This is the little box that was attached to the wire that was in my nose.

This is how it all was attached.

This is the blog I said I'd write but can't. The pictures tell it all. It was as unfun as it looks. And I don't want to talk about it or relive it. So you can just imagine what it was like and you are probably right.

The results of the endoscopy came back and I don't have cancer, pre-cancer or Barrett's Esophagus. I do have esophagitis. No treatment until the other test is back at the end of this week or the beginning of next week.  I'll post the results of the pH test when I have them.

Peace,

Karen

Snapshots from "The Sister Trip"

 Three years ago my sister Linda started a new tradition: The Annual Sister Trip. The plan? Each year we would take a week out of our busy schedules to have a sisterly adventure in a place we would take turns choosing. In 2009 Linda picked Sedona, Arizona. This trip would also come to be known as The PT Cruiser Tour because the rental place made a mistake and the Cruiser (a total misnomer) was the only vehicle left. Below are a few pictures from that trip.

This is the cabin at Briar Patch Inn where we stayed.
Notice the Cruiser.

We discovered a few things on this trip: 1) Linda should not listen to her younger sister about where you can drive a Cruiser 2) The PT Cruiser is not an off road vehicle and cannot be taken on the same trails a Pink Jeep Tour. 3) Linda should not listen to her sister.

These are some of the scratches she put in the Cruiser.

We did a fair amount of hiking as would become the case on trips to follow.

Something other things we learned on our first trip: 1) The gas tank on the Cruiser is on the drivers side. 2) Additional gravity fills the gas tank faster. 3) My sister is awesome at multi-tasking (note the use of sign language while simultaneously filling the tank.

Sedona was a great trip.
Next it was my turn to choose. When Linda first conceived this Sister Trip idea it was with the understanding that we could go absolutely anywhere and she would foot the bill.  She stressed ANYWHERE. In 2010 I picked. We went to....Minnesota. There was a long silence on the phone when I told her I wanted to take her to the North Shore. "There are waterfalls! There is this big lake that looks like an ocean! There are mountains! There are hiking trails! There is canoeing and fishing and.....and...I get to pick."

She was a total skeptic, until she got there.

This is how she looked for most of the trip.

Because this was not the size of waterfalls she expected!

 We did a first ever for Linda - an overnight hike on the Superior Hiking Trail. It changed  Linda's mind about the term "hike".

We stayed at a nice little cabin on Lake Mitawan near Isabella. It had a very nice "biffy".

I started a tradition within a tradition. The ceremonial wearing of the sunglasses.

This was the Just Chix No Dix Tour.

This brings us to our latest trip; one we were not really sure would happen because I've been under the weather since January. (that's a separate blog) It was Linda's turn to pick this year and Breckenridge, Colorado was the destination. At an elevation of around 9,000 feet, Breck as it is know to locals sits in a valley surrounded by the Rocky Mountains.

During the winter, which seems to run all year round up there, Breck is a down hill skiers heaven. In summer Breck is....a down hill skiers heaven?  There was still a lot of snow up in the mountains.

Our cabin was located in Blue River, just south of Breckenridge

and just north of Hoosier Pass, at about 10,000 feet.

I got a kick out of all the Continental Divides since I live on one in Minnesota. Ours are not as boastful about the elevation.

This year Linda partook of the Ceremonial Wearing of the Sunglasses this time. Clearly I was cooler. Even the shirt says so!

As before, we did some hiking, though I have to tell you it was a little more challenging for two reasons: 1) Everything is on a slant in the mountains. 2) They have no air. For this last reason I am here-fore naming this trip: The Sucking Wind Tour

I promised my sister I would post pics on our blog and tell our story. So, over the next few days and weeks I'll post a pic and tell you all about The Sucking Wind Tour. Was it fun? Stay tuned and read!

Peace,

Karen