Or  not.  I am having lots and lots of pain and am barely hobbling around.  I’m down to one homemaker and she’s almost five months pregnant and every week comes with a look on her face that says “Oh, I am so miserable, pity me and don’t ask me to do any work please.”  Yeah, no.  If you can’t do the work, quit the job.  Please.  Something is wrong in my head, and even though I had a cat scan two years ago that just said I have thickened sinuses, that is not a fix.  I can’t think straight or concentrate half the time.  It’s like when my doctor sent me for xrays to see if I had pneumonia and a fractured bone in my foot.  No to both. Yeah, but I still can’t breath and my foot is still swollen and painful.  Caller had to hang up and call the doctor who had gone home to ask what to do.  Gave me a new inhaler, and said ‘wear good shoes’.  All is well now, except I am still not breathing well and my foot is still swollen and painful two month later.  Medicine in the US is in serious need of doing better.  And now I came across a very good blog post about fibro and ‘cure’ books.  What she says has been pretty much my experience with those books, too.  They usually seem to wind up wanting you to buy some expensive ‘fix’ that they are pushing, and truthfully, nothing works.  Expensive or not, prescribed or not, nothing works.  Sometimes you’re better, sometimes you’re worse, and all those people who brag about the marathons they can run and the difficult jobs they hold down in spite of having fibro can just go…..whatever.  Yep, grumpy Jean is grumpy and in pain and I need to do things and call Verizon about the router I never got and the bill that is thirty dollars more than I was told it would be and and and and my brain is just not cooperating at all.  Some days, I just cannot be upbeat and positive and find the bright side, and this is one of those days.  The realities of living with a chronic, disabling illness.  The blog post:

https://fightingwithfibro.com/2020/02/13/i-had-the-chance-to-work-with-two-fibro-experts-and-walked-away-heres-why/

Edit:  debilitating, I meant debilitating not disabling.  Did I mention my brain is not working?

Yay. I mostly get crap calls, but still. The idiots in the office set it back up using the wrong port on the base unit, and it took the tech a while to figure it out. I didn’t even know there were two ports on the base unit. Tech was nice, though, and mounted base unit to wall where Godzilla cannot easily get at it.

Still waiting for the router. UPS said I had asked that it be held in the Warwick, RI UPS base. Seriously? I have no way to get to Warwick, RI. So they wanted to me call Verizon. Why? You have my package, you have verified that I am me, you have my tracking number, why can’t you just send the package out for delivery again. After some time ‘discussing’ this, get put on hold, then told I have to go on website to change something, then it will be delivered. When? Who knows? Man, customer service has really become a joke.

I am still not much better, even after being on 8 mg predisone for a few days. Better than I was on 7, but lots of pain and no energy. I am virtually useless, except maybe for sticking something to eat into the zapper and making the odd cup of tea. Cook? HA! Declutter. No way. Pick up whatever Gertrude has destroyed today? Only if it’s dangerous for her or I am likely to kill myself tripping over it. I hope I never catch another cold ever, because this has been over two months of not really very fun times. But Gertrude is so cute. Even as she destroys everything I own. I am such a sap. LOLOL

Changed my plan. Combined phone and internet, where as before they were two separate accounts because I had Lifeline for the phone, which is a discount program for us po’ folk. Fine. Phone will be off Tuesday and part of Wednesday while they do the changeover. It’s Thursday, and phone is still not on. Try to use FIOS app on cell phone to figure it out, yeah, no. Called with cell phone. Spent eons getting to and the talking to the correct human person. My pin didn’t work so two people gave me two temp pins, one after the other. Turns out they cancelled my old phone number and gave me a new one. Well,change it back. Sure, twenty-two dollars. NOOOOOOO. You change it without asking or telling me, I am not paying for your screw-up. Okay, waiving charges. How on earth was I supposed to know my phone or pin don’t work because it’s not my phone or pin number anymore? Seriously, Verizon? Seriously? Unhappy Jean is unhappy.

Been a crap week anyway, because since I decreased to 7mg prednisone, I have been getting worse every day, so last night took 1 extra mg and am much better already today. So back to 8 for a bit. I had to do this when I went from 9 to 8, as well. Take a step back and do nine a bit longer, then back to 8. Prednisone is a miracle drug, but do not let them put you on it if there is any other alternative. It ruins your body, and can cause prednisone withdrawal if you get off it too soon (thank you crap doctor), and you can be stuck for years. Literally, years, trying to get off it. Ask me how I know that.

All in all, not my best week ever, but still had fun with Gertrude the Destroyer, or Godzilla as I am now calling her. She is just so cute. I bought a flappy hand thing, and she loves it. Weird cat is weird.

Have not decided what to do about new homemaker, who comes tomorrow. Did I blog about this already? My brain is drain lately. (inside joke, sorry) She is a Trump supporter, and I cannot abide people who support someone who advocates hate and who makes fun of the disabled and is working to take away their support services, who deports people who have a legitimate right to be here only because he does not like their skin color, who can corrupt the system so much as to get himself acquitted. Acquitted????? If I am in trial, do I get say, “Hey, no witnesses allowed?” Yeah, I don’t think so. I do think our democracy is now dead. Vote them out, I say, but it is now too little, too late, I fear. The crazies vote, the sane people think it does not matter. And that is exactly how we got here, people. Oh, angry and frustrated Jean is extremely angry and frustrated and it just will not snow here. I want to scream. Seriously.

Well, this was a fun post. Aren’t you glad you checked in. If anybody has any thoughts about what to do about homemaker, please let me know in comments or email I need the services, but I won’t be able to be nice to her and fear I may just express my feelings about someone who can support someone like Trump.
I hate this.

I am thinking that I may be getting a bit better.  Not just limp all the time.  Monday I roasted a chicken. That was exhausting, I will say.  Get the iron skillets out of the oven, turn the oven on, make sure the sink is clean, wash 4 whole carrots and put into big iron skillet, unwrap chicken take out giblet bag, drain chicken (never wash poulty), put it on the carrots, lift the massively heavy skillet and put it into the oven, take it back out 45 minutes later and fail at turning it breast side up,  let it finish cooking, lift massively heavy skillet from oven onto stove, break down chicken to get it in frig NOW to keep Miss G from messing with it, get out foil, tear some off, cover chicken pieces loosely and put plates with chicken in frig.  Pour pan juices from heavy skillet into pot.  Put that in frig.  Put heavy skillet and other utensils into sink, wash stove, collapse onto couch,  too tired to eat chicken.  Left dishes for homemaker to do Tuesday.  It’s her job, thank goodness for that.  Been nibbling on chicken ever since, and today I am going to make chicken salad, I hope.

1 pound cooked chicken breast, shredded mixed with 3/4 cup mayo, 3 T each finely chopped celery and onion, 1T brown sugar, garlic powder, s + p.  This is from a local place that sells tons of this chicken salad and chicken pot pies, etc.  Yum.  I probably won’t do the onion and celery, because standing and chopping things is tiring and painful.

Another salad I’ve made and really like is cubed cooked chicken, seedless grapes, drained pineapple chunks, chutney (I freaking love mango chutney) chopped celery, toasted nuts of choice and chopped candied ginger.  Mix 1/2 cup mayo, dash ginger or curry powder, lemon or lime juice and maybe some shredded peel.  This is so good, and amounts are up to the maker.

With the carcass and all the bits from the breaking down and the pan juices, I make soup.  This works for turkey carcasses, too.

Saute  a chopped onion and a chopped carrot, celery if you want in a bit of olive oil or butter on med high for 10 minutes, til golden  Add 1/4 cup flour, cook and stir 2 minutes or so,  Add 4 cups store-bought chicken broth and 4 cups water, or just use 8 cups water.  Add 1 cup white wine.  Bring to boil. Add carcass and bits and juices, 2 sprigs parsley, 1/2teaspon thyme, 1 bay leaf, 6 peppercorns.  Simmer partly covered 90 minutes.  Remove bay leaf, strain,chill overnight, defat.  Cook whatever veg you like in the broth and add noodles or dumplings if you like.  I like a variety of root veg, parsnip, carrot, a bit of turnip or rutabaga, carrots, whatever sounds good.  I like dumplings, so make them with Bisquick, and I have actually at one point made noodles, but I like wide egg noodles in this. I’ve made my own Bisquick before, too. You can find recipes on line. Also, I usually don’t measure everything, just eyeball it as far as herbs and seasonings go.

I miss cooking sometimes.  Even when I am well enough to attempt it, it involves doing one thing, resting a while, doing another step, resting awhile, etc, and cutting corners wherever possible.  Less work is better.  I only have a galley kitchen and my table is in the carpeted living room, so I do not do food prep on it.  I miss when I had a dining room/kitchen combo.  I did everything on the table then.  Anyway, recipes, readers.  What?  Whatty what what???

Seriously.  It was twelve degrees earlier, and now it’s around 20.  But it’s a bright sunny day, so that’s a good thing.

Checking back through blog to see if I missed any comments I want to reply to.  Saw where I went wrong.  Back on November 26, I posted that I was getting better all the time.  Yep, skip to December 11th, and I had been sick for two weeks, and am still not breathing all that well even now.  It does seem that whenever I say something is going well, that’s when it stops going well.

My Christmas cactus, which was blooming madly in November, finally stopped about three weeks ago, and started budding again a week or so later.  Not as lavishly as before, but still.  My old one bloomed for six months straight one year, but neither has ever bloomed, stopped, and started again so soon. Til now.

I don’t know how the impeachment is going, or even IF it’s going, because no tv, just streaming services.  YES!!!  But I hope he gets put away.  Except with him gone, who takes over, and aren’t they even worse, because they may have actual working brains?

I need more tea.

Verizon came yesterday to upgrade my phone wire.  They had said I have to have a battery backup installed or have my phone disconnected.  Turns out you only have to have the wire upgrade, and do not have to have the backup, which requires twelve D batteries, which when one dies you have to replace all twelve. Thank you, but no thank you.  Anyway, asked the guy about the internet being a piece of crap, and  he hooked up a laptop to the wire, and it works much better.  Said I may need a new router and possibly a new base, but wasn’t too  excited about doing that work then and there, so I have to call and set it up. The other thing is, I had to move my base phone into the bedroom, where the Verizon base is, and put the extension hand set in the main room. At least Miss G can no longer unplug the phone from the jack.  I always say, good comes out of everything.  See, right again.  LOL The other other thing is that now my preferred laptop is in the bedroom, and I really want it in here in front of the freezing cold at the moment windows, so I can see outside. Rats.

I am going to uninstall McAfee, which came free with the new (HA!) laptop.  Someone told me I have to download something to uninstall it because you can’t just do it like you’d uninstall anything else.  Does that make it malware?

I am seriously going to make more tea.  Unlike coffee, two cups of tea won’t keep me awake half the night. WooHoo..  Which is another thing.  (Man, I am on  a roll today. Yes, I like parentheses, even if they are not socially acceptable, or whatever.) I was doing so well, falling asleep at an early (for me) time and waking up as early as 7:30.  Now I am back to can’t sleep til 5am if I’m lucky.  Oh, well.

Okay, I think I have rambled all I’m going to for now.  It’s going to be a great day, she said hopefully.

This is not the tea I’m having, but it’s one I love.  Can’t find it anymore.  Drat.

Trying to check bank account on phone, Gertrude decides it’s a great time to wreak even more havoc than she already has today.  Had to play through the thing twice.  Sometimes she is just so….  is there even a word?  Annoying doesn’t do it.  Good thing she’s cute.  Good thing she’s cute.

I have been still struggling with getting back to some semblance of functionality since I was sick, but it is just not happening,  I give up.  I am buying frozen meals, because cooking is just not going to happen.  Did you know there are some really good frozen meals that aren’t those dreck Lean Cuisine type crap, but real food?  Trader Joe’s has some really good stuff, and now Shaw’s does, too.

I am really frustrated with being exhausted all of the time.  I know it’s part of my illness, but it’s not always this bad.  I cannot seem to come back from being sick.  I am taking B-vits and D3 and eating protein and drinking a lot of water and nothing is helping.  I slept pretty much all day Thursday and all night Thursday night.  Better yesterday, not so good today.  At least the pain is not so bad.  My first rheumatologist told me that if you have more pain, it’s fibromyalgia, if you have more exhaustion, it’s Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It’s two sides of the same problem is what he said.  I started with CFS, morphed into fibro, and have waffled back and forth over the twenty  years.  Right now I seem to be in the CFS phase.

Hey, at least I am getting a LOT of reading done.  Read a book called Longitude, which was very interesting at first, explaining how dangerous sailing was before they figured out how to find longitude, which took centuries.  Lots of lives lost because they really had no idea where they were.  The second half of the book was just not my thing.  It was mainly about how horrible people can be.  I already knew that.  Read another good book, but for the life of me, I cannot think of the name.  I just read it yesterday.  Sheesh!

Still no luck with getting laptop to actually work like it should.  It is so unbelievably slow and frustrating.  Things just don’t load or take ten minutes, when they used to take ten seconds.  I need to call Verizon, but I just don’t have the mental energy right now.  I know. Whiny Jean is whiny.  Oh, well.  🙂  This is not Gertrude, btw.  🙂

How To Be A Better White Person

I have to agree with the comment that says we are all racist, because having been saturated with tv shows and news reports all my life in which the black person was almost always the bad guy, or maybe he was a pimp with a heart of gold, how can you not be brainwashed into being racist?  My mom worked hard to  make us understand that it’s how you treat others that matters, not what you look like on the outside, so I do have an advantage there, but the underlying white experience is that the black person is the one to look out for.  My country is a disgrace, don’t you think?  The American Dream was a lie, and us being the light of the world was an even bigger one.  It is very disheartening to have to acknowledge that to myself.

I get a Goodreads newsletter.  (Oops.  It’s a BookRiot newsletter.  Sorry about that.) The latest one has an article on how to compare your reading with a friend’s.  There are articles here and there online about not reading a book a week, how to get through you TBR list, etc.  Why?  Reading is not a contest or a  competition, is it?  Why do I care what a friend reads compared to what I read?  Or how many books anybody reads in a week, a month, a year, whatever.  Unless you are reading because you have to, for work or school  or whatever, reading should be a fun and relaxing enterprise.  Making it into a competition, contest, comparison, seems to make it into something completely NOT what I want reading to be.  I don’t keep track of every book I’ve ever read, although I used to keep track of books I wanted to read and look for in the library.  Is nothing just fun anymore?  Am I crazy to be bothered by this anyway?  IDEK Puzzled Jean is puzzled.

December was not the best month ever, and January wasn’t looking good either.  But I finally got an antibiotic and a maintenance inhaler from my doctor, and almost immediately started to get better.  I can breathe.  I may not have had pneumonia, but by the second day of the antibiotic, I was doing pretty darn good.  Started the new inhaler today, and hope it helps, too.  Not happy at all with my doctor’s followup to the chest and foot xrays.  “No pneumonia, no broken bones”  Well, fine, but I still can’t breathe and my foot is still swollen and painful.  Two phone calls and a call to the pharmacist later, I get why the new inhaler, but the foot advice was just ‘wear good shoes’.  No explanation originally about why a new inhaler and how to use it, what it is for, etc.  Medicine is NOT what it used to be.  This is one of the better doctors I’ve had in the past ten years, too, since my really good doctor left to do hospital admin.

Miss G is doing great.  No probs from getting spayed, only calming down a teeny bit, still Miss Destructo. She weighs 5 and a half pounds, so has gained quite a bit since last time, in spite of not eating a lot and running around like a maniac a good deal of the time.  Took a vid of her yesterday watching it snow.  Snow did not stick and I miss winter, darn it.  Cold, clear, sunny is fine, but snow please, Mother Nature.

Cannot figure out how to post the video.  Oh, well.  🙂

A new year, a new decade, a new hope, a new favorite quote:

May the best of this past year be the worst of the year to come.

Don’t have an attribution.  So I was trying to think of what was the best of this past year for me, and I think it might have been when my friends came and did a lot to make this place more user friendly.  Or maybe it was the weekend I spent at their house with the perfect weather and the fun and the tacos and the chat.  Or maybe it was just everything I did with my friend Tess, who has never failed to make me laugh.  If you skip the fibro crap, it was a good year.  So hope for more of that.  Yes.

It’s Christmas.  Hope whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year, it’s a very happy and fun one for you, filled with friends, family, and love.  I watched The Snowman last night and ate taralli cookies that my friend Tess made for me.  It was good.  I love The Snowman.  It’s from the book by Raymond Briggs.  Check it out if you’ve never seen it.  Miss G and I are just chilling, listening to Christmas music and I’m having coffee and cinnamon rolls.  She is wreaking havoc, as is her wont.  It’s a good day.

I frequently have my homemaker walk the half a block to the post office if I need my rent mailed or whatever.  Fine.  Today’s fill-in refused.  So I called the agency and apparently walking a half block to the post office is beyond their job description.  I’m a little bit frustrated here.  This December is not going well at all.  At. All.  Bah.  Also, humbug. 🙂

We have lost the collar completely.  The only way to keep it on  her was to tie it very tightly and possibly strangle her, so no collar.  She does not seem to be licking her stitches, though, so maybe she just doesn’t need it.  The pain/sedative thing still only knocks her out for a short time, then she is back to Crazy Kat.  Cramming it down her throat is fun, too, if getting bitten and shredded is your idea of fun.  She seems just as fine as can be, so good doctor at the vets.

I am struggling, as always.  Another Christmas alone, no Christmas dinner cause I am too weak and tired to cook, no decorations up because Gertrude, just another day.  This is always the case, but I’m finding it harder this year, probably because I have not recovered from being sick this month, and it’s looking like it’s going to a while before I do, if I do. But I am listening to Christmas music, and enjoying the sunny day from my windows, and Miss G is actually sleeping at my feet, if only because I  have my little heater fan on right there.  We love my little heater fan.  Yes.  Yes we do.

Not much to say, so happy almost Chrismas Eve, everyone.

Picked Gertrude up from the vet.  ‘She will be sleepy and will probably sleep all night.’  She had the collar off before we were halfway home, in the crate.  How did she even do that?  Took both of us to get it back on, because she was fighting like we were trying to murder her.  She has just been running around, jumping on everything, being her usual crazy self.  Sleepy?  HA!  And if she gets the collar off again, no way can I get it back on by myself.  No. Way.  I can’t call Tess at 4am to come over and help me get it back on.  OMG people.  OMG  She has to have it on for two weeks.  Two. Weeks.  And keep her quiet?  Seriously?  OMG OMG OMG

Went to the vet this morning at 8am to be spayed. Poor baby.  Will be coming home with a collar and sedatives.  They are going to give me extra sedatives for a few days longer than normal because she is so hyper-active, and we want her to heal completely before going insane again.  Hope it goes well.  Am getting her chipped, too.  She is strictly an indoor cat, but who knows what the future holds, so better to be proactive.  I miss her and it’s only been two hours.  I was up at 7am.  In the morning.  OMG  it is the middle of my night, usually.  It was only 16 degrees out, too, so brrrr.  Sunshine, though, so that’s good. Sunshine is nice.  🙂

Watching tv with me.

Soooo sick.  I never get sick.  I have fibro-related issues, but actual getting sick almost never happens.  I had food poisoning a couple of years ago (never buying those nice little pre-made salads again), but an actual cold, it’s been decades.  Caught it from my homemaker.  I tell them, please don’t come if you’re sick, but they need (paltry) income so…..

Why is it the people who do the worst jobs get the least pay?  Cleaning up after someone else, doing their laundry and shopping and bathroom cleaning are such valuable services when you need them, those who do them should be paid well, but nope.  Our priorities are so screwed.  Zillions to play football, but teach your children?  Really, what is that worth? Nurse you when you’re in hospital?  Duh!  We value the wrong things, I think.

Anyway, nearly two weeks on the couch, barely breathing,  and I am finally starting to feel a bit more human.  Can’t seem to shake the chest congestion, so breathing is still not great, but better in general.  Had the window open night before last, it was nearly 60 yesterday, today it is in the 30’s and snowing.

I have a zillion emails to probably delete without reading, but there may be a necessary something in there, so have to look through them.  Did manage to watch some tv after the first week of just sleeping and reading a bit on the kindle  Watched some of The Crown.  Somebody does not like the royals at all.  The only person even vaguely presented in a not completely negative light is Prince Charles.  And the person who portrayed The Queen in the first two seasons portrayed her as the most vapid, one-expression (vacant), cold, cruel, insensitive, easily manipulated, unintelligent person ever.  I have always admired Elizabeth, and I refuse to believe that this is an accurate portrayal of her.  See seems to not care about anything or anybody and just robotically did whatever ‘the moustaches’ told her to do.  I gave up on it after the visit to David and Wallis.  Ick.  He was a Nazi collaborator, and they made it seem like she was fine with that.  The real reason I even started on it was I wanted to see the Aberfan episode.  I remember reading about that at the time, and how unbelievably horrible and heartbreaking it was.  It almost seemed like they toned it down in the show, making it less horrible that it was.  Even then, I almost couldn’t watch it, because it affected me so much at the time, even here in the US just reading about it. The other thing that was weird (to me) in the show was twice they showed Philip brushing his teeth.  A valet standing in front of him with a tray with everything needed, Philip brushing and spitting into a bowl on the tray and good grief.  Do they not have bathroom sinks in England? I just couldn’t get over how disgusting that must be for the poor guy stuck holding that tray.

It’s nearly Christmas.  Can’t put up my little fiber-optic tree this year, because you know Gertrude will have that destroyed in the first five minutes.  She ruins everything.  Seriously.  Miss Destructo.  I’m hoping that getting spayed will calm her down a bit.  I hope.  But then she sleeps practically sitting on my face.  How can you not love that?  LOL

It’s kind of not good when doing a bit of typing tires you out, but I really have been quite ill, so I envision a long and slow recovery.  Fun times. Later, dear readers.

It’s a song.  🙂  But I am slowly, slowly getting a bit better every day.  Getting off Prednisone  is  hard, especially since if you develop withdrawal, which I did thanks to my rheumy, you stay in withdrawal forever according to his PA.  So I may have to stay on this for the rest of my life, because I have been trying to get off it since 2013, with no success.  Had to check blog to make sure it really was 2013, because brain is vacationing at the moment. Anyway, came across this in one of my posts.                      “I recently read something on-line, where the hero had been knocked out, and then slowly regained conscientiousness.” Cracked me up.

I am wide awake at 11:54, because I did not get up til 11:30 this morning.  Listening to Pentatonix Christmas music.  Not THAT early for Christmas music, and I love Pentatonix.

Gertrude is still a joy.  She is also why I didn’t get up til 11:30, that and I took a melatonin waaay too late. I was up in the middle of the night because she kept knocking the lamp over.  And over.  And over.  I finally convinced her that this was not one of her better ideas.  I have spoons on top of my tv.  No, I am not starting a new decorating trend, it’s the only way I could keep her off it.  It’s a flat screen and I know it would kill  her if it fell on her. Stupid cat has no sense of self-preservation.  She is really cute, though.  🙂

That’s all. I am  happy to be feeling a bit better finally, and have been singing along to lots of crap I saved on youtube.  Sounds of Silence by Disturbed. The theme song from The Detectorists, one of my all-time favorite shows.  Suzanne and Hallelulah by the late great Leonard Cohen.  There were some blooper vids from The IT Crowd, another favorite.  Hilarious, especially the internet episode.  It’s a good evening so far.  Hope you’re all having a great whatever time it is where you are, too.
The Detectorists Theme Song

Boycotting Macmillan

Libraries matter.  There are a lot of people who cannot afford books or ebooks, and libraries fill a need there.  This is strictly a profit-motivated move on the part of Macmillan, and they should be ashamed.

Trying to Out Whistleblowers

This is even more disturbing, much more.  The ability to whistle-blow, to call out the evil being done, is our right.  This administration is seeking to end that right and punish anyone who tells the truth about whatever it is.  Nobody doing wrong likes to be outed for it, but if they have the power to punish those who do, then what?  Any number of things detrimental to the rest of us can go on and we will remain clueless.  This is not the kind of world I want.  Accountability is important.  Being made to own up and have consequences for doing the wrong thing should be a normal thing.  Punishing those who blow the whistle stifles our right to better products, better government, a better life.

There are steps in place to protect whistle blowers, and it seems this administration is trying to circumvent them
Whistleblower Protection Act

Former Director of CIA

mean here I sit at the laptop, because typing does not hurt. So reading this:
Book Titles Taken From Literature, and this quote seems to sum up how I’ve been feeling for a while now. Depressed, disgusted, losing hope for humanity, mind boggled at the amount of gross stupidity that seems to be running rampant in my country. Here it is:

Matthew Arnold’s 1867 poem Dover Beach.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Picture I found with another quote: