Health, South Africa
Susan Colby
Accentuating the Positive

With the Russian madman causing mayhem in the world, I am really trying to maintain a positive outlook.

The war news is dominating and it’s difficult to avoid. But am very aware of how my mental health can affect my physical health, so I am attempting (and so far succeeding) to limit my news watching/viewing. I look at just enough to get a very superficial overview but even that is more than I want. I feel so sad for all the people affected by this megalomaniac!

Accentuating the Positive
Health, South Africa
Susan Colby
Chemo is Doing its Thing

Time flies by, even the chemo treatments. Yesterday was #5 of the planned 6. The results of my blood tests continue to be good. The cancer marker went from 301 to 187 this week. But not low enough to move on to the next stage. Dr. McCleave said they want to see it at around 30 which is quite a long way yet.

Chemo is Doing its Thing
Susan Colby
There’s Hot, and Then There’s HOT

When I came back to South Africa in 2019, I naturally gravitated to where I was born and grew up. And actually ended up in the what we used to call the village of Kloof. (It’s no longer a village!) Kloof is about 18 miles/29km from Durban and just on 1600ft/500km above sea level, giving the area a more moderate climate than Durban, usually being a good 10F less which was the case when I took Rodney to the park this afternoon. Plus less humid.

There’s Hot, and Then There’s HOT
Health, South Africa
Susan Colby
Chemo #4 Done, 2 to Go

The fourth treatment went as planned. Mick came with me so he was able to meet my doctor. It’s always good to have another set of ears in a consultation but this one was very straightforward because everything is going so well.

Chemo #4 Done, 2 to Go
South Africa
Susan Colby
A Massive Immune Booster

November 16 last year is the fateful day I got the definitive news that changed my life.

By then I ‘d been in hospital for 8 days going through tests and everything else that goes along with a cancer diagnosis. I’d just had laparoscopic surgery for a biopsy and the GYN/surgeon came to visit me after I had very gently been given the diagnosis. He’s a lovely man and from reading his bio, a pretty religious one as well. He said to me as he sat at my bedside, “Have you considered end of life?”

A Massive Immune Booster

festivals

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Everyone Loves the Rhody Parade

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[et_pb_section admin_label="section"][et_pb_row admin_label="row"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://grannytravels.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/image.jpeg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="left" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] Small-town America! What fun the Rhody Parade was this weekend. It's years since I made the effort to go and it was so worth it, despite the drizzle!

The Rhododendron Festival has been a huge event in Port Townsend for close to (if not this year) eighty years! With its Royalty, from tiny tots to octogenarians, pet parades and other community events, it starts the summer festival season. The Parade is the highlight Iin my opinion) with Lawrence Street uptown lined with chairs and place markers for hours before the around noon start!

This year I was one of the lucky ones, being invited to a party at a gorgeous house right on the route! So front row viewing positions for the event, which started off with big, burley guys on their Harley's clearing the street for the fire engines, police cars and too-man-to-mention local school marching bands. Present and past Royalty cruised the route in classic cars, decked out in tiaras and finery!

[su_youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI7yDqUI6xc" width="760"]Of course, the kids along the route probably had more fun than anyone! Candy was being dispensed with abandon from the floats and parents gave up trying to monitor it! Many were fascinated, dancing and jiggling in time (kind of!) to the different rythyms emanating from the parade, and I can just imagine them going home, declaring that they are going to be a drummer/trumpeter/Pom-Pom girl (or boy) or the Rhody Queen riding the float in all her glory!

Every float and vehicle was decorated with rhododendrons in some way - and the marching bands had sprays of blossomed attached the instruments; trucks had garlands festooning the grills; classic car mirrors sported bunches ranging from our local "common" pale pink, to deep purples, many matching the paint colors of the cars! The theme was Rockin' Rhody so a very 50s theme prevailed, along with the rock and roll that blasted out from all the floats.

I am so glad I went - it made me want to go to more local events! After all, I can hardly be called Granny Travels if I don't get my sorry butt out there!

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Port Townsend Steampunk

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This was the summer of all summers here in the Pacific Northwest. We had sun for literally months, a very unusual occurrence here, but this has added to the drought which has crept up on us.

Port Townsend, host to numerous festivals and events that range from the Jazz Festival to the Kinetic Skulpture Race, made the the most of the gorgeous weather, and so did I.

One of the events particularly piqued my fancy,  The Brass Screw Confederacy, Port Townsend’s Steampunk festival. Somehow the steampunk movement had escaped me but Wikipedia clued me in.

"Steampunk refers to a subgenre of science fiction and sometimes fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrialsteam-poweredmachinery.[1][2] Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre, steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. It may, therefore, be described as neo-Victorian."

And then to make it even more intriguing, my TV-Producer son Ryan told me he would be working on the new reality TV show called Steampunk'd!

That clinched it. I was going.

The event program stated that it the festivities started at 10 am so I was up bright and early. Driving through downtown along Water Street, the place looked deserted and I wondered if I had come in on the wrong day. (I learned later, that there had been a hootenanny the night before, so people were slow to get going.)

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But then slowly, oddly attired (to some) people started to appear, strolling along, bowing to friends and bystanders, peering through goggles, which appeared to be de rigeuer! The clothes seemed to be a mixture of Victorian and outlandish! Hats on everyone!

Top hats, cloche, helmets, you name it, it was on show. Men wore tails, or leather jerkins - just as long as there was metal, leather and wood incorporated, it was in style.

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Women's styles ranged from prim and proper to wild, with bustiers and corsets worn on the outside. Very odd. All with the requisite wood, metal and leather trim.

I had initially assumed that this was a "young" bunch of hipsters but ages were across the board, from youngsters of 4 or 5 to oldsters in their 70's.

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This is a "maker" world, where these creatives produce amazing devices, contraptions, jewelry and clothing. The American Legion Hall was filled with vendors, selling everything Steampunk. Amazing works of art, wrought from - you guessed it - metal, wood and leather. Repurposed odds and ends, cell phone cases disguised as metal purses, imaginative jewelry and hats galore! I discovered too, that there are Steampunk novels!

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Troupes of dancers performed intricate steps and routines that involved fighting sticks and scarves, the bells on their high leather boots adding to the music.

All the while, the parading continued, young and old, creating a spectacle, hearkening back to Port Townsend's Victorian past - but with an eclectic twist.

It was a glimpse into another world. There was far more going on than I saw and I highly recommend that if there is a local steampunk event in your area, go, enjoy and join in.

I can see how it would be a fun group to be involved in, forever playing "dress-up" with no excuses!

The Brass Screw Confederacy

Email: info@brass-screw.org Phone: 360-301-5884 Mailing Address: Brass Screw Confederacy, PO Box 1050, Port Townsend WA 98368