The Coffee House

[smoke665]

My leg has a mind of its own, I used to be able to tell when the message wasn't getting thru (all that distance from the brain to the leg and slow healing nerves)

Please don't think I'm making light of a stroke, they are nasty things, that can have life changing consequences for years, but your comment about the signals not getting through to the leg reminded me of a funny true story of my brother in law during stroke recovery. Maybe it will cheer you up.

Following his stroke my brother in law was still having significant problems walking he just couldn't seem to make his leg work. You also have to know my sister in law is a little on the dingy side during the best of times. In order to increase his mobility the doctors installed an electrical stimulation device that worked wonders for him. When it was on he could actually manage a walk of sorts.
One day while enjoying his new found mobility they were in the checkout line of a busy Walmart, when the sister in law noticed that he wasn't moving quite as quickly as she thought he should, so she says loud enough to be heard over the background noise, "Are you turned on?" Course that immediately caused a quiet to fall over the line. My brother in law, thought he hadn't heard her right, so he asked "What did you say". Still not aware of her Freudian slip and no clue that everyone had stopped talking and were listening only to her, she repeated even louder, "I SAID ARE YOU TURNED ON?". Never one to let a good lead in go to waste he said "Honey that depends on what you had in mind but shouldn't we wait till we get home or they might not let us shop at Walmart anymore?" Their checkout and the ones next to them broke out in raucous laughter and the sister in law's face went beet red as it finally sunk in what she'd said.

 

[terri38 9]

Priceless!

 

[vintagesnaps]

That's better than any story I have! lol It has been funny at times, I mean, what else do you do sometimes but laugh? I went thru the same stages the toddlers I'd been working with did, I'd be like oh, good, I'm walking in the high guard position, mark that down on a birth to 3 assessment! lol no sarcasm or anything. I knew I was getting better when I started bitchin' and complainin'.

I mostly walk with a cane but can walk across the room without it sometimes, it goes in spurts as things 'come back' as it's called. I seem to hit plateaus and then all of a sudden something kicks into gear.

The brown truck got me up out of my chair tootling his horn coming down the street. I was thinking, I don't have anything coming today do I? and he stopped at the neighbors. Dammitanyway! lol Well I puttered around awhile which is better than sitting too much, it's easing up. I'm going to dig out some of my old exercises and see if there are any gentle stretching ones that I might try a little.

 

[waday]

Has anyone seen someone else (from afar) see a spider come down from the ceiling right in front of them and how they react to it?

If not, I just did, and it was hilarious.

It started as surprise with a jump backward, then a frantic brushing of shoulders and hair, with a slight bend forward from the hips. Then, add in a little dancing. Followed by looking up at the ceiling to see where the spider came from, and the finally looking around to see if anyone saw this.

It took all I had not to laugh out loud.

 

[Gary A.]

Tragic situation down there. I can't fathom how people are dealing with this. I just hope that the clean up and repair is swift so people can get on with their lives.

Nope, ain't gonna happen. It will take at least a decade to get back to where Houston was a week ago. Houston has lost some 30,000 single family dwellings (IIRC) , their infrastructure is shot and their chemical processing facilities (major economic sector) are gone and may never come back. In California it will take about 30 and sometimes as long as 90 days, to dry out a house (stick built) ... in Houston, the houses will never dry out (period). Houston has a lot of brick and block homes, the exterior materials are good with some anti-bacterial treatments, but the wood and gyp board interiors have all got to be gutted. Gary suspects that most if not ALL of the medium and heavy construction equipment and trucks will be monopolized for demo with no spares for reconstruction. Gary had an environmental company which performed clean-up and recycling after the Northridge Earthquake. The company worked for an entire year in the City of Santa Clarita (north of Northridge) cleaning up after the earthquake. This is much much worse in size and type of disaster.

When the rain stops and with what little natural water flow there is in Houston, it will begin to stink ... bigtime.

 

[jcdeboever]

Tragic situation down there. I can't fathom how people are dealing with this. I just hope that the clean up and repair is swift so people can get on with their lives.

Nope, ain't gonna happen. It will take at least a decade to get back to where Houston was a week ago. Houston has lost some 30,000 single family dwellings (IIRC) , their infrastructure is shot and their chemical processing facilities (major economic sector) are gone and may never come back. In California it will take about 30 and sometimes as long as 90 days, to dry out a house (stick built) ... in Houston, the houses will never dry out (period). Houston has a lot of brick and block homes, the exterior materials are good with some anti-bacterial treatments, but the wood and gyp board interiors have all got to be gutted. Gary suspects that most if not ALL of the medium and heavy construction equipment and trucks will be monopolized for demo with no spares for reconstruction. Gary had an environmental company which performed clean-up and recycling after the Northridge Earthquake. The company worked for an entire year in the City of Santa Clarita (north of Northridge) cleaning up after the earthquake. This is much much worse in size and type of disaster.

When the rain stops and with what little natural water flow there is in Houston, it will begin to stink ... bigtime.

Man, that is so unfortunate.

 

[SquarePeg40 1]

Wanted to share an update on the Help Harvey Victims lemonade stand. Final tally $794 per a Facebook update late last night.

 

[Frank F.]

Gary uses this one:

Dehydrator

It gets more use by others than himself.

@Frank: These puppies are used to preserve foods. Pixmedic uses his for meats and makes jerky. Gary uses his mainly for the extra fruits and veggies from the yard. He has dried oranges, persimmons, peppers, apples, et al.

Very interesting. Quite unusual here meaning an American could come to Germany and sell shiploads of these with clever marketing. Fully underdeveloped country, drying wise...

 

[Frank F.]

Interesting how some people try to gain attention with this. A photoshopped picture of La Guardia Airport got abused as "Houston Airport after the flood':

This photo of Harvey flooding at Houston airport is totally fake

 

[Frank F.]

Gary paired it with a dry Riesling, which is an odd combo (dry and Riesling) but it's a great wine and paired nicely.

In fact some of the mildly sweet (Halbtrocken) and dry (trocken) Riesling wines in Germany mark the top of the mountain, best of best every year.

The longer Tradition is of course in the super complex super sweet Eiswein and Trockenbeerenauslese, TBA.

 

[Frank F.]

The Meatballsoup!

Frank, I went back in the thread but didn't see any posts or links on the recipe. I download a Bavarian Meatball Stew recipe that I think is similar, but I'm not sure. Care to share yours' or a link?

I did some variation to the original because some ingredients were missing and I do only like nutmeg in very small doses. Remember. This is the strict phase one of the microbiomr diet and the soup was like other recipes very attractive to my wife and my son too!!!!

 

[smoke665]

@Frank F. your recipe is pretty close to what I have. Going to print it out to compare side by side.

 

[smoke665]

I mostly walk with a cane but can walk across the room without it sometimes, it goes in spurts as things 'come back' as it's called. I seem to hit plateaus and then all of a sudden something kicks into gear.

One of my good friends and neighbors had a stroke the end of 2015, he walks mostly without a cane, but still pulls it out when he knows he's going to be in a crowd, because even now, he's still a little unsteady on his feet.

 

[smoke665]

It will take at least a decade to get back to where Houston was a week ago.

If ever. Not criticizing the people by any means, so many have lost everything they had, but one of my pet peeves for years has been the constant destruction of the wet lands, and riparian buffers along coastal waters. In this case I doubt even storm surge protection would have helped though, because the latest reports claim they had 52" of rain, but it might have helped. I am critical of the politicians, that gave waivers and changed laws that allowed developers to build in areas that should have been offlimits to prevent such catastrophic destruction.

I suspect that many of the areas destroyed will be allowed to revert back to nature when the flood waters recede and the rebuilding starts.

 

[terri38 9]

I suspect that many of the areas destroyed will be allowed to revert back to nature when the flood waters recede and the rebuilding starts.

I don't know about that. They will probably want to rebuild every scrap - since there's no state tax there, state and local Texas government gets a bulk of its income from property taxes, as well as other ad valorem taxes. They just have no financial incentive to *not* let people build where they shouldn't.

Maybe this kind of natural disaster will have them re-think this, but I wouldn't bet on it.