Tuesday, February 6
Feb. 7th, 2024 01:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Nice weather. It's a bit colder, but that at least makes sense to me, rather than being above zero in January.
The layer of snow makes more sense too, than having all the brown grass showing.
I had a very short conversation with Mom, but the nurse put me through to talk to her while she was trying to eat, so I kept it very brief.
I talked to Trainwreck for a while. Not only did it seem like she tried to be considerate about my time today (when I first called she was busy, and asked to call back. I said yes, but only if you can do so in 15 minutes, otherwise I have to get ready to go to the barn). She actually did call back instead of her usual thing of just blowing it off, or calling an hour and a half later, in the middle of me riding.
She did talk about how much it sucks to be sick all the time, but that's fair. She pretty much has nothing left for health. She can't breathe, she can't sleep properly, and everything she eats she either throws it back up or it goes right through her. Nothing to be happy about there.
She was on her way to visit Aunt E and Uncle M, and said that something must be going a little better for Uncle M. He seems to have a good day now and then where he's less anxious. Maybe they have found a better medication for him.
It sounds like she is at least settling in to some kind of routine of visiting with Mom, Sister N, Sister L, and Aunt/Uncle, who all live in town. She also says she's trying to walk a bit more, hoping it will help with her lungs.
Probably the most positive I've heard of her in some time.
I went to see River, and I took a big spool of wide tulle ribbon, since R uses things like that to make decorations, and it might work for something she's got coming up.
I got there a little late, so I only ended up with 45 minutes to work with River, but that's not bad.
He did okay with our Liberty work, though still not really being forward with any kind of confidence in our circles.
After warming up, he did well with the turn on hind quarters.
I didn't ride for long, but he did okay overall, and did a really good halt from the canter.
My Sweetie showed up as we were finishing up, which is nice.
Had a weird moment where the next rider (who is married with a young baby) was SO INTO talking to my husband about rock climbing, and it almost felt like she was going to ask to go with him (she never once said anything about HER husband going with her), and I was really not too pleased about that. He was just talking in a general way about rock climbing to the group, and she jumped all over it and was all excited about it and everything, and she used to climb, and how she needs to climb again, and..and..and..
And my thought was, well honey, YOU can go find a gym on your own too, can't you? You've got freakin' Google like the rest of us.
I'm going to just pass that off as her being tired of being cooped up with a baby and having no life, and suddenly remembering that she used to rock climb, and her life isn't over yet.
I hope she does get to rock climb. Just not with my husband, thanks.
If her husband is a couch potato and doesn't do stuff like that with her, they need to work that out.
We went home, and my husband brought in the boxes of tile for the area around the wood stove. That has to be done before we can get one installed.
I actually feel good about working on the house at the moment, because SOMETHING IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING on it. Funny how that works.
He also brought home the rest of "The Expanse" books, which was a pretty expensive gift. Holy smokes. I'm on book three right now, and really enjoying them so far.
He brought home some stuff from H mart, and I cooked with it. Made a stir fry with green curry paste (mixed with coconut milk) that was a little salty but otherwise good.
We watched another episode of "The Expanse".
Fiji.
Another group of islands in Oceania. Capital city is Suva.
Going to be a lot of similarities to the other islands, such as volcanic in origin, vulnerable to climate change.
Was a British colony until 1970, was declared an independent state in 1987 (interrupted by internal military coups).
Then it was taken from within during a military coup in 2006, but the Fijian High Court declared this to be unlawful (weird that it worked, usually military coups don't care about laws) but it took until 2014 to have a proper Democratic election again.
It has a strong economy, with minerals and fishing industry, a strong tourist industry, fresh water exporting, and sugar cane.
So, at least it's one of the islands that has fresh water, and it probably exports a lot of it to the surrounding island nations that do not have a good fresh water source.
One of the big things that Fiji exported back when it was a British colony, was sea cucumber. Apparently it was a big deal in China, so there were lots of areas employed in packing them.
Fiji also had beautiful boats that they used to trade back and forth with other islands, long before colonization.
Apparently there was this funny euphemism for slavery called "blackbirding" that was basically kidnapping people and taking them to another country to become "poorly paid workers". That's what started happening when "blackbirders" gathered people from Fiji (and I'm guessing many of the other islands) to become "poorly paid workers" in America in the cotton fields.
Isn't THAT something, right? No, not slaves! just very poorly paid unwilling workers who can never go home again or leave the plantation.
Some of these people ended up working on other isolated islands in Oceania because sometimes people started plantations of cotton there too.
Moving right along.
In the first World War, native Fijians were not accepted or requested to fight for Britain.
In WWII, I guess things got a little more intense, and Fiji people DID enlist (not conscripted), and they had their own regiment, an airstrip was built (became the international airport), there was an Allied training base, and gun emplacements along the coast (all of this was on the island of Nadi).
At this time, tourism is very important to Fiji, as well as being a popular film location. This is where "The Blue Lagoon" was filmed, as well as the television series "Lost".
They are also hoping to expand into the renewable resources energy sector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji
This is a travel blog guy who did a walking video around the capital of Suva, and it looks pretty nice and clean and modern, and he didn't have any concerns for his safety.
https://youtu.be/cT8PzeXmB_E?si=FlD50dMhXjyOmru9
Nice weather. It's a bit colder, but that at least makes sense to me, rather than being above zero in January.
The layer of snow makes more sense too, than having all the brown grass showing.
I had a very short conversation with Mom, but the nurse put me through to talk to her while she was trying to eat, so I kept it very brief.
I talked to Trainwreck for a while. Not only did it seem like she tried to be considerate about my time today (when I first called she was busy, and asked to call back. I said yes, but only if you can do so in 15 minutes, otherwise I have to get ready to go to the barn). She actually did call back instead of her usual thing of just blowing it off, or calling an hour and a half later, in the middle of me riding.
She did talk about how much it sucks to be sick all the time, but that's fair. She pretty much has nothing left for health. She can't breathe, she can't sleep properly, and everything she eats she either throws it back up or it goes right through her. Nothing to be happy about there.
She was on her way to visit Aunt E and Uncle M, and said that something must be going a little better for Uncle M. He seems to have a good day now and then where he's less anxious. Maybe they have found a better medication for him.
It sounds like she is at least settling in to some kind of routine of visiting with Mom, Sister N, Sister L, and Aunt/Uncle, who all live in town. She also says she's trying to walk a bit more, hoping it will help with her lungs.
Probably the most positive I've heard of her in some time.
I went to see River, and I took a big spool of wide tulle ribbon, since R uses things like that to make decorations, and it might work for something she's got coming up.
I got there a little late, so I only ended up with 45 minutes to work with River, but that's not bad.
He did okay with our Liberty work, though still not really being forward with any kind of confidence in our circles.
After warming up, he did well with the turn on hind quarters.
I didn't ride for long, but he did okay overall, and did a really good halt from the canter.
My Sweetie showed up as we were finishing up, which is nice.
Had a weird moment where the next rider (who is married with a young baby) was SO INTO talking to my husband about rock climbing, and it almost felt like she was going to ask to go with him (she never once said anything about HER husband going with her), and I was really not too pleased about that. He was just talking in a general way about rock climbing to the group, and she jumped all over it and was all excited about it and everything, and she used to climb, and how she needs to climb again, and..and..and..
And my thought was, well honey, YOU can go find a gym on your own too, can't you? You've got freakin' Google like the rest of us.
I'm going to just pass that off as her being tired of being cooped up with a baby and having no life, and suddenly remembering that she used to rock climb, and her life isn't over yet.
I hope she does get to rock climb. Just not with my husband, thanks.
If her husband is a couch potato and doesn't do stuff like that with her, they need to work that out.
We went home, and my husband brought in the boxes of tile for the area around the wood stove. That has to be done before we can get one installed.
I actually feel good about working on the house at the moment, because SOMETHING IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING on it. Funny how that works.
He also brought home the rest of "The Expanse" books, which was a pretty expensive gift. Holy smokes. I'm on book three right now, and really enjoying them so far.
He brought home some stuff from H mart, and I cooked with it. Made a stir fry with green curry paste (mixed with coconut milk) that was a little salty but otherwise good.
We watched another episode of "The Expanse".
Fiji.
Another group of islands in Oceania. Capital city is Suva.
Going to be a lot of similarities to the other islands, such as volcanic in origin, vulnerable to climate change.
Was a British colony until 1970, was declared an independent state in 1987 (interrupted by internal military coups).
Then it was taken from within during a military coup in 2006, but the Fijian High Court declared this to be unlawful (weird that it worked, usually military coups don't care about laws) but it took until 2014 to have a proper Democratic election again.
It has a strong economy, with minerals and fishing industry, a strong tourist industry, fresh water exporting, and sugar cane.
So, at least it's one of the islands that has fresh water, and it probably exports a lot of it to the surrounding island nations that do not have a good fresh water source.
One of the big things that Fiji exported back when it was a British colony, was sea cucumber. Apparently it was a big deal in China, so there were lots of areas employed in packing them.
Fiji also had beautiful boats that they used to trade back and forth with other islands, long before colonization.
Apparently there was this funny euphemism for slavery called "blackbirding" that was basically kidnapping people and taking them to another country to become "poorly paid workers". That's what started happening when "blackbirders" gathered people from Fiji (and I'm guessing many of the other islands) to become "poorly paid workers" in America in the cotton fields.
Isn't THAT something, right? No, not slaves! just very poorly paid unwilling workers who can never go home again or leave the plantation.
Some of these people ended up working on other isolated islands in Oceania because sometimes people started plantations of cotton there too.
Moving right along.
In the first World War, native Fijians were not accepted or requested to fight for Britain.
In WWII, I guess things got a little more intense, and Fiji people DID enlist (not conscripted), and they had their own regiment, an airstrip was built (became the international airport), there was an Allied training base, and gun emplacements along the coast (all of this was on the island of Nadi).
At this time, tourism is very important to Fiji, as well as being a popular film location. This is where "The Blue Lagoon" was filmed, as well as the television series "Lost".
They are also hoping to expand into the renewable resources energy sector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji
This is a travel blog guy who did a walking video around the capital of Suva, and it looks pretty nice and clean and modern, and he didn't have any concerns for his safety.
https://youtu.be/cT8PzeXmB_E?si=FlD50dMhXjyOmru9
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