FDA Approves Naloxone/Narcan for Over-the-Counter Sale
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved over-the-counter sales of naloxone, also known as Narcan, a nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses. PBS has details HERE.
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Three Afghan Refugees Start “Rise Again” School in Wisconsin
Hundreds of children living at a military base in Wisconsin are among 53,000 Afghans refugees who left their country after the Taliban seized power. Seeing kids roaming around doing nothing, three women refugees decided to set up their own school at the base, naming it “Rise Again”. The school has now has about 20 teachers and 200 students aged seven – 14 and is operating with donations. Read more HERE from GoodGoodGood.
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A Group of Lawyers in England Refuse to Prosecute Peaceful Climate Protesters
A group of lawyers in England have signed a “Declaration of Conscience” saying they will not prosecute peaceful climate protesters. Here’s more from EcoWatch via my Goodnewsletter.
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Prison in California Adopts Scandinavian Rehabilitation Methods
Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “mat/met/mitt/mot/mutt.” Choose one or use them all, any way you’d like in your post. Have fun!
I’m not planning a bit, even a minimal as the rules allow if I recall. Not to say I plan a lot or at all on other weeks, but sometimes I mull over the prompt before I start writing the stream. Today, I’m just writing.
No idea what to do with mot. Mottled? Is mot a word? should I look it up? Na. Not right now. I’ll go to the mat. I got a really thick yoga mat for my feet and knees, but it’s harder to balance on, so I went back to the regular yoga mat that lives in my car waiting to go to yoga class. The thick mat might come in handy if I ever go camping again or want to lie out on the deck.
We’ve used an old yoga mat for Marley to practice staying in “PLACE.” We should practice that more and not just use it when we practice being calm and lying down when Mama Cat is on the other side of the gate. The command comes in handy, and Marley’s pretty good at it in situations where there is control and Mama Cat stays behind the gate. We would not try it otherwise. Maybe one day….
Marley’s still a bit fixated
David has been getting Marley to lie down when they see a cat on walks – just until he is calmer, though Marley is on high alert when there’s a cat around outside. He’s become less reactive to squirrels, but when the squirrels get close to taunt my mutt, he gets excited.
Mutts are great dogs. I’ve read that they are often healthier with a diverse mix of genes. I don’t know if I like the word mutt as it’s got a sort of negative connotation. Mixed breed might be better. Heinze 57 is okay, I guess, but could there really be a dog with 57 different breeds all mixed together like a melting pot? Who knows? I know there are plenty of mutts and mixed breeds who need homes.
There’s a quote by Jimmy Carter about how we’re not a melting pot, but something better. I’ll go fetch it.
A woman at my church, Alice, is a kitchen designer. For fun she makes mosaics from tiles, broken glass, found objects, and melted marbles. She’s donated several to our church. Here are some of her creations:
Doves over a waverandom close upTreeWeave Us Together
Mother Nature also makes mosaics:
Maybe one day I’ll make a mosaic out of my big bottle cap collection.
Waylon Saunders was found face down in an icy swimming pool. His body temperature was so low, paramedics couldn’t get a reading. When he arrived at the hospital, he had no pulse and was “legally dead and had been for a while.” But a team at Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital in Ontario performed CPR for 3 hours without stopping while warming his body. After almost three hours, Waylon’s heart restarted. Here’s more from The Good News Network.
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Car-Free Streets
In Dublin, New York and California, cities that closed streets to cars in favor of pedestrians during the pandemic are keeping the streets car free. Here’s more from GoodGoodGood.
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Former Poachers are Protecting Sea Turtles in the Philippines
As a child, Johnny Manlugay didn’t know killing sea turtles and collecting their eggs was illegal. Now he’s using his former poaching skills to help protect endangered turtles. You can read about how it works HERE.
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Turkish Firefighter Rescues and Adopts Cat
After a firefighter rescued a cat who’d been trapped in rubble for ten days, the cat would not leave his side. Watch this short, sweet video!
Today’s prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “out of the box.” Write about the first thing that comes to mind when you think “out of the box.” Enjoy!
So many ideas swirling around the stream which is not a box at all, but there could be boxes of ideas riding along on the stream of consciousness bumping into one another.
The first thing I thought of what how my grown kids are still and always have been outside the box type of people. Can’t imagine how that happened. The things their father and I had in common were art and science fiction. But that’s a tangent to paddle back out of.
I’d rather eat Chinese food out of the box than the plastic. Boxes are easier to recycle as some plastics don’t recycle as easily. I have quite a collection of plastic. You’re supposed to flatten boxes first. That’s one of my soapboxes within the box of recycling. But the Chinese food I prefer comes in plastic mostly with the rice in the white box which I open, rinse and recycle. Been saving those wire handles for some kind of project. Actually used one to hang something once.
Boxes make me think of boundaries. Boundaries can be good protection. But some of them need to be flexible. Negotiables like swearing and non-negotiables like no hitting. We have lots of boundaries to keep Mama Cat and Marley separated. Marley is learning to respect those boundaries. One of the most important boxes in our house is the litter box. Well, there are other boxes that are also important, like jewelry boxes and boxes up in the attic with treasures or junk, depending on your perspective.
Mama Cat was happy to get outside the box – her carrier – after she came home from dental surgery a week before Christmas. She had five teeth removed! I was worried about the procedure and the possibility of having to give her pills post surgery. So I wrote a note to the vet when I dropped Mama Cat off. The vet ended up giving her long-acting pain meds and antibiotics, so I didn’t have to worry about giving her pills. It’s been a long time since I gave a cat a pill, like 30 years ago, and Mama Cat is skittish anyway, but getting better.
The long-acting pain medication was a form of buprenorphine which is prescribed at the facility I used to work for. Mama Cat was practically bouncing off the walls, very hyper, and very affectionate for four days. She also started eating a lot more and is more active since having her teeth pulled leading me to realize she must have been uncomfortable with bad teeth. It’s hard when animals and babies cannot tell you what hurts. She will still go into her carrier to get the food I place in the back, so that’s good, though I hope we don’t have to go back to the vet for a while.
Some cats love to get in boxes, but having spent most of her life feral, Mama Cat doesn’t seem interested. She does like her lean-to cave and small table we added sides to so that’s like a boxy cave. Small children sometimes like to play in boxes, too. When my son was a toddler, he’d sit in a box, and we’d pull him around on the carpet. Do boxes make us feel safe or are they confining? Depends on the situation. It’s usually good to step out of the box, but not roam too far, unless you have a tent or a camper trailer which I’ve been casually looking into. Mama Cat would probably prefer to stay home as long as she can go out on her catio and watch the squirrels.
Well, I’ve rambled on long enough. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for riding along on the stream of consciousness.
Here are some photos which may be related or not…
Mama Cat feeling betterMarley watching Mama CatLeftover Rice in BoxFood box at churchThe moon Thursday at sunsetMama Cat on her Catio
Today’sprompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “cozy.’” Use it any way you like. Have fun! (And Merry Christmas if I don’t come back before then!) Linda was worried about losing power due to a big storm up there in the great white north as I think Canada might be known (as dubbed by a comedy team in the 80s). I have to interfect that even if we lose electricity, we still have power of some kind or other, like the power of prayer, song, laughter, lighting candles (but not near smoke alarms…) I hope Linda keeps her electricity and everyone else does too.
Lighting candles has always been cozy for me. My fireplace doesn’t work as it would need a lot of repairs to be safe, but I light candles in there to give the illusion of a fire. There will be candles tonight and Christmas night, especially since the lows will be in the teens and twenties which is unusual for the Carolina Coast. Where my son lives in the mountains, the low was -6 F last night. That’s minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit. Burr. Maybe I don’t want to live there year round.
I hope everyone who has animals keeps them warm and safe inside. Up North, it might be a three dog night, meaning that’s how many dogs to sleep with. But all dogs should be inside the house. Period.
Back to cozy. I’ve been listening to cozy music on Youtube. Sometimes it makes me sleepy. I’ll share some in a bit. Or why not now? You can always come back to it when you want to relax. I especially like the picture that goes with this one.
At the sanctuary where I volunteer on Thursdays, the sheep and goats were in the barn because of the heavy rain. I’m sure they’ll all be in there tonight. The pigs, too, and some of the chickens. Other chickens will be in their coops. I still wonder how birds survive the cold. Must be some miraculous design. And they can fly! Pretty amazing when you stop to think about it.
Here are pictures of Bennie, one of the sheep, staying cozy in the barn and studying his image, along with a rooster, Marley in the mirror before I donated it to the sanctuary, and Mama Cat being cozy on the couch.
Bennie getting enrichmentBennie looking at his friend JeffMaybe “Simon” Marley in the MirrorMama Cat Cozy on the Couch
David said tonight after church he wants to take Marley for a walk around the neighborhood. He took Doodle for a walk on Christmas Eve years ago and it was wonderful, so he wants to revive that tradition with Marley. It will be cold, but David’s from Connecticut and Marley is half husky, so they’ll be fine. I’ll probably be watching a Christmas movie.
Watching old Christmas movies and singing Christmas songs makes me feel cozy. It’s a bit weird how often I can watch the same movies over and over, like Elf, It’s a Wonderful Life, and more recently, Last Christmas which I just discovered this year. Last Christmas was inspired by the music of George Michael and Wham who I have paid little attention to until this movie enchanted me. I also like the starring actress Emilia Clarke who was in Solo, a Star Wars Story. It’s comforting to watch familiar movies again and again. They become like background music (like Star Trek) as I blog and do other stuff on the computer.
One of my favorite old Christmas songs was redone by James Taylor. I like how he’s changed the words just a tiny bit.
I had a great time collecting and arranging these leaves
Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “twin/tween.” Use, “twin” or “tween” any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use both. Enjoy!
A twin flame is a person (could it be an animal?) who shares your soul. Like the soul split into two bodies. That’s what I read somewhere. No scientific evidence to support this. Sounds kind of mythical. That doesn’t mean it’s not true. Afterall, anything is possible. Twin flames are said to share many qualities mirrored in one another. They also may share past traumas.
Excuse me, but I don’t really want to share a soul with someone. I much prefer the concept of soulmates. One difference between twin flames and soulmates, besides soulmates having their own souls, is that soulmates are not twins. They definitely have a lot in common, but not like twin flames.
My soulmate David and I just celebrated our ten-year wedding anniversary on December 1st. This is my second marriage and David’s third, so ten years gives me hope. Of course, the fact that we were high school sweethearts reunited when the time was perfect also gives me hope. I appreciate how he supports me and also gives me space, how he loves dogs and has come to love Mama Cat, too. We have a lot in common, but our differences complement each other well.
Meeting your twin flame could be exciting and helpful. A twin flame does not have to be romantic. It can be platonic or intellectual. To be honest, I’m no expert on twin flames, so feel free to add alternative information or ideas. From what I recall, a person only has one twin flame, but can have multiple soulmates (maybe not at the same time which could be complicated.) I’m okay with not having a twin flame, but I’m very happy to have a soulmate.
As I type this, Mama Cat is lying next to me on the couch making me wonder if a person could have a cat or a dog as a soulmate. They certainly can be good companions. When David and I reconnected in 2011, we had five dogs between us. That was quite a pack in our little bungalow. That’s what happens when you manifest your soulmate “must love dogs.” In our ten years together, each member of the five pack has crossed over the rainbow bridge. We’ll see them again and won’t need leashes.
Soulmates with the original “Five Pack.”
We’ve had Marley for one year now and brought Mama Cat home from the church about two years ago. They are part of our family, though they have limited contact with each other under close supervision.
It’s unlikely that a dog and a cat could be twin flames, but soulmates maybe. Anything’s possible!
Marley with heart of leavesMama Cat watching squirrels from the catio. Marley staying in “PLACE.”
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For details on Stream of Consciousness Saturday, and lots more streams,
Environmental Activists Halt Work on Toxic Waste Dump
A Federal court justice upheld environmentalist’s objections to a toxic waste dump in the Tasmanian rainforest “on the grounds that the endangered Tasmanian masked owl was not properly considered.” A new assessment will have to take place. Here’s more from EuroNews.Green.
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Erasing US Student Loan Debt for Lower Income Households
US President Biden is eliminating $10,000 in federal student loan debt for citizens with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that earn less than $250,000. Here are details from AP.
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Rio de Janeiro is Creating the World’s Largest Community Garden
The city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is growing what is likely to become the world’s largest community garden. Created in 2006, the project currently has 56 active neighborhood gardens with about 50,000 families involved. When completed, the urban garden will connect several neighborhoods with a green strip of land and be as large as 15 soccer fields. Mayor Eduardo Paes made it a goal of his administration to have the garden fully operational by 2024. You can read all about it here in Bloomberg.
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Cat Wakes Up Woman who was Having a Heart Attack
Sam says Billy is more her mom’s cat, but Billy woke her up by jumping on Sam’s chest and wouldn’t leave her alone. It turns out, Sam was having a heart attack and credits Billy for saving her life. Read more from the Good News Network. Plus, here’s a video of Sam and Billy:
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Got Good News?
Please feel free to share your good news in the comments!
Russia and Ukraine Sign Agreement to Resume Ukraine’s Grain Exports
Ukraine and Russia have signed an agreement for Ukraine to resume grain exports. Though the agreement was signed in separate rooms, it was backed by the United Nations and is the first agreement between the two countries since the Russian government started the war. CNBC has more on this story
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Botswana Cuts HIV Transmissions from Mothers to Infants from 40% to Less than 1%
Botswana once had the highest HIV rates in the world, but a national program has reduced their mother to infant transmission of HIV from 40% to below 1%. The program included increased testing for all pregnant women and administering antiretroviral therapy to those who tested positive and to their infants. For details, click this article from the Good News Network.
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India has Banned Several Types of Single-Use Plastics
India recently imposed a ban on single-use plastic items including straws, cutlery, ear buds, packaging films, and cigarette packets, as well as other products. CNN has more in this story from Reuters.
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Cat who Escaped in Boston Airport for Three Weeks has been Caught
A cat named, “Rowdy,” escaped from her carrier in the Boston airport over three weeks ago. After a “massive search” Rowdy finally allowed herself to be safely trapped. Here’s more from HuffPost. and Here’s a video:
Got Good News ?
Feel free to share your good news or GNT link in the comments!
Waste Sharks Clean Up Trash Before it Hits the Ocean
Dutch “waste sharks” collect plastic, algae, and other trash before it can get to the ocean. Read more from Euronews.green. Plus, here’s a video below.
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Firefighters Rescue Kitten Trapped in a Pepsi Machine
This was just too cute to pass up. Lindsey Russell was working at a Walmart in Tennessee when she heard meows coming from the Pepsi machine. After spending her lunch hour trying to get the kitten out of the machine, she called on firefighters who were able get the kitten out. Lindsey adopted the kitten now named Pepsi. See a picture from the Good News Network.
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Mississippi Teen Rescues Three Girls and Police Officer from River
16-year-old Corion Evans and friends rescued four people after a car drove off a boat launch and into a Mississippi river last Sunday. The car with three teenage girls inside drove into the water, floated about 20 feet away from shore and started to sink. Corion also helped a police officer who was pushed down into the water by one of the girls who panicked. Here’s the story from ABC News, and a later interview with Corion below
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Got good news?
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Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “—amble.” Add letters to the beginning of “-amble” to make another word or use it as is in your post. Enjoy!
I used to have a cat named, Ramble. She was the first animal my son lived with. One of his first words was what he called her, trying to mimic her meow. It sounded like, “avoo?” He called Ramble, “Avoo.” That was thirty something years ago. Longer ago than that, when I was five years old, my dad had a yellow Rambler. It was the first car I remember. Seems like it was a station wagon. I’m guessing a 1958 Rambler.
Rambling is common in the stream of consciousness. That’s what makes it fun. You never know where you’ll end up. Rambling is something I enjoy in the woods or on a walk through the neighborhood. Rambling is not what Marley did on his ten-minute escape, unless you can ramble fast. He did not have a plan that I’m aware of but saw the opportunity to slip through the door past my daughter in law on his first trip to the mountains.
Marley took off down the road at top speed. If I wasn’t so terrified, it would be cool to watch him run. I was terrified because he was 300 miles from home and had NO COLLAR on! I’d given him a break from the e collar. From now on, I will never have a dog collarless away from home. Dogs need to have ID if there’s any chance they might get outside. Like being scared of the fireworks. Lots of dogs get lost during fireworks and thunderstorms.
I don’t recall ever praying so hard as when Marley escaped, though I probably did when my kids were teenagers. As I followed him with the car, trying to keep up with him, Marley ignored my calls. I prayed, “GOD, I NEED YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER! PLEASE HELPME!” It was intense to say the least. When almost to the main road, Marley turned on to a side road in the quiet neighborhood. I caught up with him at the top of a hill when he stopped to pee. Opening the driver’s door, I said, “Marley! Let’s go home!” He got right in and got stuck under the steering wheel/dash, so I had to move the seat back for him to climb to the back. (I had not wanted to take the time to open the back door.) Then we went to pick up David who was at the bottom of the hill – having set out on foot he’d walked up a previous hill to point me in the direction Marley had run.
My heart is beating fast just remembering this event. There’s always a lesson or two to learn.
Always keep a collar with I.D. on a dog if there is ANY chance he or she can get out, especially away from home.
Always let host families know if you have a hyper, escape prone dog.
There’s no place like home.
Oh, and I have been thinking if a dog escapes, it might be better to pass him in the car and stop ahead of him to offer a ride. That way, he doesn’t feel like you’re chasing him. (Just a theory.)
Good news besides being home safe is that Marley can see Mama Cat through the pet gate and stay in “PLACE” (with supervision) without going crazy.
Friday evening, on the way to the mountains, the clouds looked like castle mountains:
(Slightly edited for more color)
Saturday:
Marley and Me Overlooking the RiverMy two sonsInto the woodsGranddaughter Fern Growing on RockAfter the escape – looking pleased with himself
Husky tail
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For more Streams of Consciousness, rules, and more, ramble on over to Linda’s blog by clicking HERE.
Anything is Possible! 