My Mother's House

I call it "My Mother's House" because she took possession of it not so very long after she moved in there, stranger though she was to the family and town.

Dad figured out how to dig out a basement, and do the cement work, and shore up the foundations. I remember when it was nothing but a dirt crawlspace under the house. He built a stairway to the attic, finished the floors and insulated the roof; I remember when there was just a rough-hewn ladder in the pantry to get to the attic. (and I do mean rough -- there was bark clinging to the steps of the ladder!)

He put in a septic system, and indoor plumbing. I remember when there was still just an outhouse at the end of the yard. He made the back porch into a laundry room, he made the dirt below the porch into a graceful patio, the yard into a bountiful garden, the extra space into a greenhouse and nursery.

Dad did all that, and it was all for my mother, and she was the owner of it all.

Tomorrow morning, she has to relinquish her castle. She's being moved to a nursing home, which none of us really want, but is inevitable. Her caregivers have fallen short of their promises; her funds are dwindling. Alzheimer's has been her purgation: she's lost her memories, her strength, her knowledge, her control, and now her properties.

Part of me prayed that she would die in her sleep, like her brother Salvi, or that she would drop dead in her tracks, like her brother Buddy, rather than have to be removed to a nursing home. But she keeps on going, weak and tottery but still meaner than any other person I've ever met.

The other half of me is relieved that she won't die in that house, because she is so possessive that she would be sure to haunt it. There are enough ghosts in that house as it is; if she had infested it as a spirit, it would have been a war zone, because what ghosts there were would be from my father's family, all of whom she hated unconditionally.

Tomorrow the siege is broken; she will no longer hold the castle. The war is over.

Alas

I like the colors of this cluster of hopseed. The sunset light hit just perfectly to illuminate the pale greens against the dark shadows on the fence.

But that's not what this post is actually about; I'm just hedging.

The whole family went to see the new animated movie "Up" on Saturday. I'd been looking forward to it for a long time, although I was a bit dashed to learn it was in "3-D".

Apparently that's all the rage in animation these days. Last summer we saw "Bolt" in 3-D, and although I enjoyed the movie, I couldn't see why it ought to be made 3-D. The 25-cent 3-D glasses they sell you with the ticket (for $3) are clunky, heavy, and make the colors appear as though you put a 10% black wash over them with Photoshop. Dim. Dull. Drab. You get used to it, and compensate for it in a few minutes, but bleah, I don't need tricksome eye effects to enjoy CGI.

Not only did the whole family go to the movie, we also did something we don't usually do: to save John from having to walk up a lot of steps, we sat down only about halfway up the stadium seating. Usually I like to be near the top.

Before the movie started, there was what seemed like ten trailers for other 3-D animated films, all showing the most zoomie shots to show off the 3-D effects. Loud. Rapid scene change. On and on and on.

I was worn and irritable by the time the movie started, but I was immediately engaged by the tale (although the stumpified style of the art used for the characters was disappointing). We got about 15 minutes into the movie and I felt a strange sensation in my innards. Then I began to shake and pour sweat and feel dizzy. "I think I'm going to be sick," I whispered to Bernie, and bolted for the Ladies' room. Bernie followed, guiding my disoriented flight.

The last time I ran out of a place for a restroom was due to a magnificent case of food poisoning. This felt just like that did -- oh, no, I thought, the chicken piccata I had for lunch must have gone over! 

However, once I darted into a bathroom stall, and braced myself on both walls with my arms because I felt wobbly, the feeling began to abate. I know nausea can come in waves, so I waited ... and felt better by the second. I stopped sweating.

By the time I was done washing my hands and running water over my wrists, I felt well enough to realize what had happened: the 3-D had made me motion-sick.

Maybe if we had sat near the top of the theater, it wouldn't have bothered me -- I don't know. But nothing could induce me to re-enter the theater. Bernie was going to take me home, and then come back for the rest of the family, but to my chagrin, they all came trooping out of the theater. Lillian took my hand and told me that "Family is much more important than any movie."

They all chimed in. John said, "My back was killing me, and those 3-D glasses made my eyes hurt anyway." Alex said, "That opening sequence was almost too much for me. I'd rather watch the rest on DVD at home sometime, anyway." It was an amazing show of support.

I still feel like a jerk. Rollercoasters didn't bother me, boats don't bother me, airplanes don't bother me -- I love best the little commuter planes that toss around in the air. But 3-D is not for me. 

Alas.

Maybe Dr. Horse Ass Had a Point

After a couple days, I relented and tried the prescriptions Dr. H. Ass had commanded.

I've had three or four new lesions since then, but that's not enough time to see if what had been prescribed is effective. Except the salve, a steroid thing that did NOTHING for the itching and burning of the lesions, or for their healing. 

Late last week, I got a call from my doctor, saying I needed to go in and discuss the results of a recent bone density scan. Today I had that appointment.

Yeah, yeah. Due to my age, my lack of exercise for lo, these many years, my vitamin D deficiency, my calcium deficiency, and did I mention, my age, my bones are not in real good shape. We settled upon a strategy for the bones, but then revisited the itchies. Dr. H. Ass said the eruptions could be due to nerves, which -- God knows -- in my body are shot to smithereens.

We (my doctor, not Dr. H. Ass) talked about how I felt and reacted to stress stimuli, and now I'm taking a drug that she says will restore a balance in my neurotransmitters,  allowing my brain to explain to my nerve endings that "No, you don't have to fight or attack or run, things are going to be okay." That would be nice. 

So, the moral here is that women who are older need to get more aggressive with exercise. Beat the shit out of things. Gain some weight so that your hips don't get the idea they can go on vacations.  Take vitamins D and mineral calcium.  Stay active. 

Oh, and avoid stress. 

Hahahahahahahah!

A Horse's Ass

Have I ever mentioned that I have no patience with pompous people?

This morning I had an appointment with an allergist about the recurring burning lesions on my body. My regular doctor was stumped as to what was causing them, so she referred me to the allergist.

My appointment was for 8am, first one of the day. I got there five minutes early, filled out the ubiquitous paperwork, and waited. And waited. Around 8:15, Dr. H. Ass ambles in the door and goes to his office to ... finish his coffee? Have a good long scratch?

At last he opens his door and calls my name. He introduces himself nicely enough, and then proceeds to interrupt me repeatedly while I'm telling him about my symptoms, using a very haughty tone of voice. To him, I'm ignorant of his specialty, and therefore, stupid. "There is no allergy shot for Spandex sensitivities," he sneered, as if I had asked for one. "Only avoidance."

When I explained that I had thrown out all my garments that had Spandex, he pressed his lips together and suggested I'd used a jacket or some shirt that I didn't know had Spandex.

Finally he looked at the lesions. "Those are insect bites," he pronounced primly. When I said they weren't, he suggested that my dog has fleas, and the fleas were biting me. "Don't the other people in your family have these spots, too?"

No.

On and on, with me getting more irritable by the second. Finally, he said, "Obviously you've come into contact with something that causes an allergic reaction. Take an antihistamine and administer an anti-itching cream." He wrote two prescriptions, one for Allegra, which I've taken in the past and has no affect on me whatsoever, and for an itch cream like your basic hydrocortisone stuff.

"Wait," I said as he shuffled his papers dismissively. "My husband found something online about skin eruptions as a result of ibuprofen. What are the chances this could be from ibuprofen? I've had to take a lot of that this spring."

His narrowed eyes showed me exactly what he thought of online medical information. "Anything you find in FDA-approved medicines lists 'rash' as a possible side effect. But the chances are very low that ibuprofen is causing this."

I nodded, thanked him, let his office assistant make another appointment for me in three weeks or so. The prescription is in my paper-shredding pile, the appointment I'll cancel in a few days. The last thing I want to do is put my health care in the hands of someone who cannot tell when he has offended his patient.

It's too early to tell, but I stopped taking ibuprofen for the lingering ache in my neck two days ago, and no new lesions have erupted.

Yes, I am ignorant of his specialty. And he's ignorant of mine. He's going to make a great character in a story.

The Burning House

An email conversation I had this morning with the trust officer of Mom's bank indicated fairly clearly that my mother's caregivers are dishonest.

What had been a series of apparent screw-ups on the caregivers part, and studied, careful moves on our part has become a rush to get my mother to a secure facility and preserve her meager assets, while the caregivers lie and scramble to cover up their peccadilloes.

I've told the bank that the day that my mother is moved out of that house, the doors and windows have to be secured and the front door's lock changed. Otherwise, we fear the place will be gutted by the morning caregiver's boyfriend's buddies.

Mom's neighbor said to me, "You know, if she was just enjoying being in her own house, I'd tell you to let her stay there. But she isn't. She doesn't know where she is anymore, and those people aren't doing their job."

Poor Mom. She kept all the evils of the world at bay for sixty and more years, but now the old dragon has no fire left. God help us.

Pain, And What It Does For You

So, I have a herniated disc in my neck, and when it is grumpy, it sends pain down to my shoulder blade, up to my neck, cascades down my deltoid, through my biceps, burns the shit out of my forearm, and messes up my hand.

Traction reduced it from an incapacitating agony to just a dull pain. At times, now, I don't even notice it.

If I hold still, and think about it, I can feel whispers, shadows of it all down my arm and into my hand. It's a deep pain, nothing anything I can do to touch and alleviate the sensation.

After the worst of the experience, I'm glad that I was honored to have felt that pain.

First, the pain allowed me to understand what chronic pain sufferers have to live with. It's horrible, no release, no escape, no hope. With chronic pain, you can't live well, sleep well, interact well. You long for drugs to make the pain go away, but your choices are "forget it" or narcotics -- and those fuck up the rest of your life.

I never really understood that before, but I do now. A whole spectrum of sympathy has been opened up for me. That's a good thing.

Second, faced with the inescapable pain, I had a choice: I could writhe and curse, or I could offer the pain itself up as a prayer for the good of Mankind. Let that prayer burn, that the world would someday realize that Life is sacred. The pain becomes a holy thing, not because God wants people to hurt, but because I want my hurt to be for a reason, a quest, something beyond my body. I have the choice to give that sensation up as a gift, to perhaps reduce the suffering of others.

Finally, with these realizations, the weight of the ache hanging on my shoulder and arm tonight, I don't grimace and say, "Damnit, will this ever be healed?" but instead, "Hello, old friend. The world needs our prayer."

My prayer is that those in perpetual pain may know some rest, and that the world can come to know that all life is holy, from conception to grave, in health and in suffering, in beauty and in ugliness. In the image of every living creature is the will of God, and in the face of every human is the reflection of the Christ.

Winds of War

Windstorms are horrible.

Every particle of pollen and dirt flies through the air sideways, infiltrating screens and open doorways, impacting people's sinuses like Howitzers. This one has gone on for at least a week, subsiding a little from about 4am to 8am, but the rest of the time flinging shredded paper bags into the shrubbery, leaves and dusty filth into the swimming pool, dehydrating the lawn and gardens, and killing my eyes and nose.

A flurry of dust-devils are spinning back East, where my mother continues to decline into Alzheimer's. One of her neighbors called me yesterday, in desperation. Things are not well in my mother's house, where she has contractual 24/7 care. "We know they're leaving her alone at night," the neighbor told me. "And that one girl's boyfriend is hanging around there when she's looking after your mother. He's been arrested for drugs already."

Great, just great. 3000 miles away, what am I to do? The company that provides my mother's care is bonded, but what does that mean if one of the employees is feeding her boyfriend on my mother's bank account?

My sinuses are compromised by our wind, and so are my heart and my mind by the revelations of Mom's neighbor. Everything hurts.

Tomorrow, a family friend is going to go to Mom's house and see what is up. I fully intend to be with him on cell phone as he checks it out.

Kentucky Derby 2009

Holy Smokes, what a race!

First let me say up front that NBC is about as competent at covering a horse race as a fat snail in my garden is at running an adding machine. NBC should not even be allowed to enter Churchill Downs, let alone cover the Derby. They have no understanding at all that the Kentucky Derby is a HORSE RACE, not a fashion show or a People Magazine extra. People, people, people, over and over again, with really inane questions and screamy interviewers.

We want HORSES, NBC. It's a HORSE race. HORSE. HORSE. HORSE. Can you ever get that concept?????

All right, I've got that off my chest.

I looked at the histories and the trainers and the owners and the horses before the race; not as much as other years, but some, and narrowed my picks down to Pioneerof the Nile, Dunkirk, and Musket Man. Pioneerof the Nile was a Baffert-trained horse, which is always a plus. Dunkirk had a great track record ... but he was a gray, and grays hardly ever win. (Shut up, it's true.) Musket Man didn't have an impressive record, but he was coming on strong from behind in his races, which could indicate some strength and a learning curve.

But oh, oh, oh... what a race. Dunkirk stumbled badly coming out of the gate, and with the crowded muddy track (19 horses), a few steps in you could hardly make out the color of the horses or their jockeys' silks. It wasn't until the last bit that a mud-spattered animal came shooting through the whole pack of horses as though they were standing still and streamed ahead -- the completely overlooked 50 - 1 odds Mine That Bird.

Odds of 50 - 1? That's like saying, "Here's a dollar, my good man, hold your horse still so that my dog can piss on his leg."

I still cry when I watch footage of Secretariat winning his races in 1973, but I will always laugh with glee when I see Mine That Bird win the 2009 Kentucky Derby. At the beginning of the race, he was so far behind you could understand the 50 - 1 chances and dismiss him. Right out of the gate he got slammed by the horses on either side of him. But jockey Calvin Borel did some major juju, let his horse get overlooked, and just aimed that fine horse right up the rail.

I've seen horses come from behind before, but I don't ever recall seeing one come up so fast. Well, maybe Secretariat, but he was a different kind of horse. Mine That Bird slid through the crowd of horses like he was greased.

He cost $9500 as a yearling. My horse, Duquesne, was a cull cutting horse who, had we wanted papers for him, would have cost $5000 as a two-year-old, and even at his 18 years, I wouldn't sell for $11,000. Poor young Mine That Bird was a bargain-basement buy. They even gelded him because he wasn't considered good enough for breeding stock. Whoops.

And while his jockey hooted and whooped in abandonment at the wonder of the win, Mine That Bird trotted along, completely at ease, tilting his ears back to listen to his rider, perfectly behaved, and with only a tiny bit of sweat on his legs and neck.

That kind of speed in a field that big? That kind of aplomb after a major adrenaline event? I'll wish healing rest on that horse for the next two weeks, and look for him in the Preakness.

First Ride in Three Months

The time of dried grasses is here.

This evening, for the first time since January 26th, I went for a ride on my trusty steed, Duquesne.

Before I attempted to saddle him, however, I let him go out to the big arena and do what he would. He would, and did, go thundering through the gate, bucked several times, galloped to the far end of the arena, and had a good roll in the dusty soil. When he arose from his dust bath, he bucked some more.

When he stopped by a fence to see if any of the mares were out, I stepped into the arena and began walking toward him. This is The Game. I pretend I'm going to catch him ( I shake the lead rope and shout, "Gonna catchoo!") and he pretends he is too wild to catch, racing across the arena in flight with his tail in the air. Meanwhile, I begin the trudge back across the arena to "catch" him. Back and forth, back and forth. The Game limbers him up and allows him to express his "sense of humor" and limbers me up for the ride.

After a few snorting, galloping passes, he stopped and looked at me. "Are you done?" I asked him. "Come on, let's go."

He knew what I meant, and began walking towards me, with an agreeable posture and friendly ears. I clipped the lead rope to his halter and we walked calmly to the saddling area.

The Little Duke is not a plug. He's a feisty, opinionated, bossy mischief-maker. To have him walk willingly to me (unbribed -- I carry no treats) fills my heart with feelings that I don't know how to describe. I'm grateful for his existence, amazed at how good a horse he is, and in awe -- and humbled -- by his willingness to submit to being dominated by a rider.

The ride itself was good, although the Stinky Dink did prance on the way back after he heard the feed truck taking hay around to the paddocks. Just a little, but enough to leave me with trembly legs and arms when we were done.

Tomorrow I'll know whether or not riding was a good idea. But for tonight, I'm happy with the image of my horse walking to put his head in my hands, happy to be my partner.

Bugs

Swine Flu.

Mention it, and you've got people's attention. Catch it, and you've got people's prayers, and quite possibly,  quarantine.

I'm very concerned about a pandemic virus ... but didn't we just do that a couple months ago? The upper respiratory distress, the horrific racking cough, the digestive upset, the fever, the aches, the chills, the exhaustion. "Everybody's getting it," my doctor had told me. "This one's odd in that it goes from viral to bacterial in a moment. Here's a prescription for antibiotics, use it only if you start some infection."

If everyone was getting it, and it was not the virus targeted by our flu shots ... then what was it? Were we the early victims of this virus after the populace's Christmas visits back and forth across the border brought it into our area, and just not tested because, hell, it's winter and everybody catches colds? Well, it wasn't just a cold, but what it was is unknown now. I just know we all got it, and four out of five of us had a bacterial infection in the course of the disease's run.

Now, however, we're supposed to worry about it. Sure we can do that. We can worry about a lot of stuff. We can worry about global warming, the incredible illiteracy of young adults, the bankruptcies of local governments, the rising crime rate as a result of economic downturn, the rise of mercury levels in sea fish, the death throes of America's auto industry. 

Jeeze, just wash your hands, and wear a damn mask, okay? And then stop buying more than you can use, stop using stuff that isn't recyclable, teach your kids to read, get off the credit card merry-go-round, sit out on your porches in the evenings to let thugs know you are aware of your neighborhood, don't make your kids eat fish -- they don't like it anyhow -- and just get your car serviced. All of the auto makers are still making parts. Don't buy new until they can come up with a vehicle that isn't an environment-killer.

A View From the Hills

As we drove down from Jackson, headed home, we got to a scenic point and pulled over. There, below the hills, was our beloved Central Valley.

Across the expanse of flat farming territory, we could see the filthy smoke from a farmer burning orchard trimmings, a reminder that many of the orchards had just been shaped a few weeks prior. The pale line in front of the smoke is Woodward Reservoir, a cache of fresh water for irrigation, a favorite place to ride horses and go fishing.

We'd spent the day in Jackson, up in the Sierra Foothills. This is significant for more than one reason.

Number One, this was the first time in nearly three years that I had wanted to go anywhere. I've agreed to go places, I've enjoyed going places, I've been forced to go places ... but wanting to go and see something different? It seemed like an entirely new sensation to look off at the mountains last Wednesday and think, "I haven't been there in 20 years. Wonder what it looks like now?"

Bernie was not about to let that pass by unheeded, so we drove up to Jackson the next morning, with me itching almost not at all, and eager to see another part of the world.

Jackson is most remarkable in my eyes as being a town (pop. 4000 or so) the size of a large fart that inexplicably has one of the best kitchen stores I've ever been through in my life. You need something kitchen-y? Jackson. The kitchen store on the Embarcadero in San Francisco is a frilly, pointless shadow of the scope and quality of the kitchen store in Jackson. Well, and that would be why I've been going there for 20 years, now, wouldn't it?

Other than the kitchen store, however, and some very pretty spring flowers, Jackson is still a kind of run down little town in its "Historic District" (also read as "if it's historic, we don't have to fix the sidewalks"), nondescript in its usual strip-mally drugstores and chain restaurants on the outside of the Historic District. The road to and from is narrow, two-laned, and without berms, so that when there is gorgeous scenery, you can't pull over to enjoy it, and the puffing, tailgating, frenzied drivers in their trucks and SUV's and luxury speeders cluster on your back bumper so you can't slow down to savor anything.

Nevertheless, it was Out in the World, and it felt good to be there. That's a big leap forward for me. Glad to feel it!

Then, coming down the side of the hills, seeing the Valley spread in front of us ... home. It was a grand day in all respects, including the non-itchiness.

Woo hoo!

Ding dong, the itch is dead!

Which old itch?

The Spandex itch!

Ding dong the Spandex itch is dead!

Last night, after I discovered two new lesions, Bernie snarled that I needed to go back to the doctor AGAIN and deal with this new malady.

I "Yeah, yeah, yeah'd" him, but in the morning, finding yet another stripe of blisters, got a quickie appointment.

"Your body has focused on this allergy and gone ballistic," she said to me. "It's attacking everything it thinks might be an allergen. It's out of control."

"Crap," I said,  knowledgeably to her.

"Yes," she replied, "and we are going to shut it down now. I'll give you a shot that will stop it in its tracks, and a course of steroids that will convince it to knock this off."

"Let's do it," I replied, not letting my body hear that it was falling down on the job.

One injection, a dose of prednisone, and nine hours later, there is no itch, and the lesions have dried up.

The one side affect of the drugs is that they give one ... too much energy. So it's bedtime, and I'm still wanting to jump around and skip to the tune of 

"Ding dong, the itch is dead ..."

Mortality

Here's the Grim Reaper, trying to figure out what else he can do to try to kill me.

Let's see, in the past two or more years, we've had Despair and Grief in overabundance, more than I'd ever thought I could bear. And then cold after cold after cold all winter long, with a short break for my birthday in June, and then another cold. Pneumonia multiple times.

Thinking to head off the dastard, I got a pneumonia shot as well as a flu shot last fall. Well, that worked inasmuch as I have not had pneumonia this year. The flu vaccine missed the mark, though, so after the New Year's Cold Virus, and the Excruciating Pain of "Pinched Nerve", the whole family got the flu -- it would be funny, unless you laughed and the five of us came after you with baseball bats.

I was able to get through the pain of the "Pinched Nerve" by virtue of physical therapy, and we all survived the flu, albeit with some ugly complications. Now, clear sailing into summer, wot?

Not. The time had also come for me to have my periodic cholesterol checkup; the doc added some other tests into the mix, and lo and behold, I turned up as deficient in Vitamin D as one of my father's leather shoes from 1968. (Oh, and of course the cholesterol was insanely high, but that's genetic, so who cares, Crestor is my buddy forever.)

Too old for rickets, I'm still tremendously at risk for bones that turn to powder at impact. Great, just great. The doc gave me a prescription for super-mega-'mungous doses of Vitamin D, and an order for a bone scan to see how far gone I am.

Not going in for a bone scan until I wrap myself around and accept the diagnosis from my MRI: a herniated disc in my neck was what was causing the hideous pain that sent me to the doc in the first place. Damn it. I'll see a specialist at the end of this month to determine a course of treatment. I'm hoping that he will recognize that the physical therapy is a viable option to surgery.

And then there is fatness, and the repercussions thereof.

Because I was laid up with the neck and then the flu, I did not exercise, and so gained about five pounds, all around my waist, because that's where I pack on the blubber. I asked my daugher if she had any Fat Pants from last year when she was bulging, and she obligingly gave me several pairs of pants. A pair of jeans fit like skin, and even had a comfy elastic waist. I wore them often, all day comfort, felt like a dream.

It was only when a strange blister broke out on the top of my foot that I became concerned. "Gnat bites?" I thought. "A new reaction to mosquitoes?" Then another blossomed on my ankle, and then another on my calf, and one on the opposite knee, one on my waist, one on the back of a thigh, two more on an ankle -- and only then did I grab the comfy jeans and look at the content label -- oh, my God, there was Spandex in the mix. Allergic? Oh, yezz. In my aged days, Spandex is poison to me. Not all the time, mind you, I could wear stuff with it for a couple hours with no ill effects. But the wearing of the jeans set off a major allergic reaction, and I will not disgust you by telling where-all the blisters appeared nor what they look like.

Do you know how many items of undergarments are free of Spandex? I can count them on the fingers of my knee.

Now I know why hippie women were all for burning bras.

Roaring At the Little Dog

10Aug08 003
Originally uploaded by AserSand

Oh, we all make mistakes.

And as mistakes go, it was kind of a cute one: when I came back to the house, Sebastian greeted me with many "Boo-WOO-wooooooooo" s, as he is wont to do when I leave with Lillian (his very own little girl) and bring her back. Maybe he's telling me "Thank you for bringing my girl home," or more likely, "Where the heck have you been with my little girl?" As usual, I addressed him politely, telling him that of course I brought her home, petting him, allowing a couple hound dog smoochies.

But then he did something UNCONSCIONABLE -- as I put my sunglasses down on my desk, in his fervor, he stood on his hind legs and put his front feet on my desk, the better to kiss my cheek!

This is behavior that cannot be overlooked, not even once. Cute as he was, clever as he thought he was, he had crossed the boundary line. Putting feet on a desk leads to things like putting feet on counters where food is being prepared -- No no no.

"GET OFF THERE! WHADDAYA THINK YER DOING?"

His whiskers blew back in the sonic waves of my deepest command voice, and he flew off the desk all the way across the room to cower in front of the fireplace.

I've never had to roar at him before, so he was very shocked and subdued. I know he'll never put his feet on my desk again, poor fellow. He's not totally traumatized, however; he's currently watching me, wondering politely when I'm going to get around to feeding him and Howie.

Which would be ... Now.

Lent 2009

The season of Lent is nearly done. Another week and we'll be into the Triduum, and then Easter.

Most of my adult life I've felt that if one doesn't set some goals for Lent, one will have the penitence set for one -- and so it's better to set a little goal than have a whopper dumped on you.

Traditionally, folks "give up" something for Lent. Chocolate. Alcohol. Sweets. Fighting with their family. But for years, I've tried to add something for Lent. One year, I kept a dream journal, and was amazed at the spiritual insights I found, reflecting on those dreams in prayer. Another year, I vowed to read the daily selections of Scripture, and was comforted by the Word of God each day. One year, not so many years ago, I just set myself the goal of saying some prayers each day, and that determination, over the course of the forty days of Lent, helped me bring some focus back into my life.

This year, I chose to add to my daily routine the Rosary. I've always been resistant to repetitive prayer, preferring the spontaneous praise of God as I encounter Him in nature and circumstance. I don't know why I thought to pray a Rosary each day, but I have. It's been ... amazing.

The Rosary consists of these prayers: The Apostle's Creed, to start; the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, the acclamation Glory Be To The Father, and To The Son, and To The Holy Spirit. Condemnations of the Catholic faith include accusations of idolatry -- they say we worship Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Oh, whoops, people, you can search Wikipedia or even our own Canon Law or all the Catholic writings back to the time of the apostles, and you will never find a valid sentence to say we worship Mary. But we are human, and she was, too, and we look, in the Rosary, at her experience in contact with The Christ, and hope that we can understand the Mysteries of His interaction with us all.

I'm not going to devolve on a 10k word essay on the life of Christ -- at least not today -- but I will note that saying the Rosary every day has made me deepen my thoughts about what Jesus of Nazareth might have felt, offering His life for his people, becoming the complete and perfect Paschal Sacrifice, walking through the walls of Death and Hell and coming back to tell us ... "You can do this, too. Come with me, take my hand, and trust."

My hope for Lent is not what I can shrug off on Holy Thursday and say, "Whew, glad that's over" but what on Easter Monday I can say, "Look what I've come away with."

And Oh, Yeah, the Drama

With unexpected speed, one of the nursing homes emailed me and told me they would be glad to admit my mother.

I admit that I cried when I got copies from my mother's trust officer of the cover letters she'd sent with the apps to the nursing homes. The Hearthside, a nursing home in State College, Pennsylvania, replied to me within hours of getting the application. I have no idea of the time frame involved, but everything is rolling along.

When my sister was dying, she was sent to The Hearthside, and via e-mail, I got to meet their social director, Karol. She was so kind and understanding! I met her in person after my sister died, and she was such a loving, vibrant person that I wish I lived near her. (Or better, if she lived near me.) We've kept in touch; when I knew I had to make a decision about Mom, she was the second person I consulted (first was Bernie, of course.)

With the acceptance of Mom's application confirmed, I sent off emails to the bank trust officer, my mother's pastor, and a letter to her physician with my Power of Attorney document enclosed. The pastor emailed me within minutes, reassuring me that I was making the right decision, and that he was vastly relieved to hear the news. The trust officer also concurred, and was pleased with The Hearthside's response time.

I cried some more.

What is left of my mother's body is a skeleton covered by veins and skin; there is no light of "Tere" in her eyes at all. Her spirit is blocked from its normal perception by the plaques in her brain, and all that works well is her fury, which spurs her gaunt frame to anger and a fight-response.

She never really understood me, but I miss the times we connected with humor or determination, and I felt that she was one of the most amazing people I had ever met.

All is done now, until the paperwork is finished. And then what?

I don't even really want to think about it.

Dangerous Food

Sunday dinner.

Our SaveMart grocery unveiled an economic incentive package this week: chicken wings for $2.49/lb, boneless chuck roasts for $1.99/lb, catfish nuggets for $1.99/lb ... and tri-tip for $2.47/lb. Oh, and add in a coupon for five pounds of potatoes for 99 cents.

Therefore, Sunday dinner was a super-easy meal: tri-tip, fried potatoes, and salad.

Tri-tip is easy because you just put foil down on a roasting pan, fling in the tri-tip, fat side up, and season it. I use sea salt, garlic powder, and cumin. Into the oven it goes, at 425 degrees for 35 - 40 minutes. (A meat thermometer says, "It's done" at an interior temp of 135 degrees.)

The toughest prep is peeling potatoes. One potato per person, and enough yellow onion, diced, to season lightly (about half a cup.) I have the good fortune to house a Cuisinart, so slicing the potatoes thinly is more like play than work. (Think pumpkin cannons or water balloons.) Vegetable oil in the frying pan, a couple pieces of onion so you know when to dump in the taters. When the onion scouts say they're starting to sizzle, you throw in the rest of the onion, and all of the sliced potatoes.

When the bottom layer is lightly browned, you turn them, of course. And then again. And again. Then you turn them down to "Low" and cover them until the family is drooling at the table.

It was a wonderful feast, the tri-tip medium to rare, the fried potatoes downright deadly. The salad was good, too, but the poor thing only ran interference to keep me from scraping all the fried potatoes onto my dish.

** Note: When the tri-tip measures 135 degrees, you take it from the oven and wrap it in foil for 10 minutes while you scream at the family to wash their hands, get the table set, get their drinks, turn the filthy TV off, and sit down and shut up. Then you slice it before you set it on the table, or else mayhem ensues. I've solved the difficult clean up and the wrap by lining the roasting pan with foil, which typical recipes omit because it isn't strictly necessary. **

The only pall on the dining experience was the swat team my husband called in. I did not appreciate the flak-jacketed jerk with helmet and bullhorn pointing at me and roaring, "Step away from the potatoes..."

More Memories

Still delving into the vat of photos, I found this pic of Babe, my beloved Blue Ox, when he was a puppy.

I didn't own him then, but it is obvious that he was a little shit, just looking for a way to wreak havoc. And he must have, because his owner hated him by the time he was a year old and gave him to me.

By then he was a kind of a big shit, skinny at 85 pounds. My first sight of him in his previous owners' truck astonished me with his sheer size; my first interaction with him filled me with pity that he had been so neglected that he didn't even respond to his owners' yanking on his leash and shouting his name.

Of course, they didn't know his name was Babe, they called him "Max."

"How are you getting along with that dog?" his previous owner asked me at work one day, a couple weeks after she'd given him to me.

"I love him, he's such a sweet honey bunkins," I said, hearts flying off me, remembering the delight of kissing his beautiful face and having him rub himself on me.

"Honey bunkins?" she sputtered. "He was no Honey Bunkins for us -- he was -- MAX!!!" and she gestured a power thrust with her fist.
No, really, with something that has that many teeth, to lie on the floor and play patty-cake and belly-rubs with Alex (on the couch) and me (the knees) .... ummm, that's Honey Bunkins.

We all miss him so very much, every single day.

Why do we still cry after almost three years?

Jogging Memories

On Friday, Bernie and I tackled yet another section of the garage, where Things have been piled on Other Things ... kind of like a storage area chromosomally merged with a landfill.

"This thing has got to go," Bernie stated, kicking a hanging file cabinet on wheels. "It's worthless."

"That," I pointed out to him, "is full of all our old photographs."

And indeed it was. So we spent the afternoon going through folders of photos, savagely tossing blurred pictures, pictures of people neither one of us could remember, stacks of "double copies." He would scan through an envelope, make his cut, hand the packet to me, and I'd cut again. Some I remembered fondly, and others I hadn't remembered at all.

This is one of them. This is the house I grew up in.

The door to that house -- the back door -- my father installed, as well as the open stairwell leading to it and to the cellar. The original door can be faintly seen to the left of the window. That used to have steps down to the yard, steps which I remember because I used to sit on them and kick at Spot, the springer spaniel, who would grab my shoe and growl fiercely, making me laugh.

This picture is at least a year, or more later than Spot's demise. I would have been six or seven, I think. My parents had just opened their nursery venture, and turned the back yard into a retail sales area.

I recognized globe arborvitae, pyramidal yews, junipers, birch in their neat lines. At first when I looked at the photo I thought there were white flaws on the photo surface, only to realize with a laugh that those were price tags on the shrubs.

The trees in the right distance belonged to The Meadow, that fabled place of black raspberries and nettles, snakes and honeysuckle thickets, rape gangs and worlds filled with siren song of exploration. To see those tall locust trees and bushy box elders is to remember the many beatings I got for sneaking off into danger, and to remember all the paths and lookouts and sights and wonders I could never resist.

I don't know why my mother sent me this -- and one other -- old photo; she told me that she gave away her old box of family photographs to one of my father's second cousins, a comment that still makes me angry, as I am probably the only person in the living world who really cared about them. But I try to let that anger go, and appreciate what I've got -- so many memories set alight by just this one picture.

And now writing this, I understand that the unearthing of those memories is what has been setting off depressing nightmares the past two nights. Hmm.

The Spine, My Erstwhile Friend

Almond orchards are at the end of their blossom; nectarines and peaches are taking their final bows before scattering pink petals on the wind. The buds on my cherry tree are swelling and will open next week.

There are a lot of things I've had on my mind lately, rants about the lives of finches, about how to avoid unnecessary illness, about the malignant power of hatred and evil. But this evening I just keep thinking about the call from the doctor today, telling me I had to make an appointment with a new doctor who does neck surgery.

Apparently the cervical spine MRI I had last Friday showed some anomaly. The language used was some doctorese I didn't quite catch; I don't know if the space is between vertebrae or if the space is where the nerves exit the vertebra. All I understood clearly was "severe narrowing of the ... " and the admonition, "No, you may not go back to riding your horse until Dr. Le clears you for it."

That means I'm off the horse at least until the end of April. Lovely. Alex and Lil have said they will try to do some riding of the horse and keep him sane, which is nice to hear. He's too good a horse to let go sour.

I guess I was hoping to hear that I could exercise however I saw fit that didn't aggravate the pain in my arm and shoulder. Feeling grumpy, I could just about work myself up to a cry if I didn't know that would clog my sinuses and make me feel snot-headed as well.

Behind My Chair

Why would a 65-lb dog try to squeeze himself behind a chair in a corner?

I can think of one compelling reason: when Molly the Damned Macaw is out of her cage, Howie is likely to wedge himself behind my comfy chair in the bedroom, Sebastian tries to look miniscule on the side of my bed farthest from the door, and I ... well, I usually shut the door and hide with them.

But Molly was not out today, but Howie was just in to slither in back of my chair. The whole bed was available, and he usually sprawls there, gloating that he is allowed on the bed but Sebastian isn't.

Earlier today, Howie weaseled his way under my desk in the kitchen, where my other computer squats. There didn't seem to be any particular reason for that, either.

"Watch the animals," my mother used to preach. According to her, they would let you know if there were ghosts about, or evil spirits, or freaky weather on its way. Or earthquakes. Or untrustworthy people.

Two days ago, I was looking at the hook-shaped clouds in the sky and thinking that the weather service was optimistic about the nice-weather-no-rain scenario for the next ten days; today the weather report was for a "chance" of showers tomorrow morning. But the wind is definitely up tonight and something is coming with it. Maybe a thunderstorm, maybe a windstorm.

This house is too young for ghosts; the only evil spirits in the house is the bottle of Wild Turkey John has stashed in the cupboard; and as I said, the only untrustworthy creature in the house in in her cage. That leaves a storm, or an earthquake.

I'm keeping an eye on that dog. If he grabs some bottled water and heads for the laundry room, I'm going with him.

Does This Dress Make My Arm Look Fat? Good!

The results of the MRI on my arm: a wad of fat trying to look tough.

YAYYY!

Comfort Fish

Some times all you can do is just keep putting one foot in front of another.

At this point, that's all I'm doing. 

The year started with a cold with a nasty cough to go with it; two days after I stopped coughing so much I woke with the pinched nerve; the day after I finished my course of physical therapy and felt good -- I came down with the flu.

All of us have had it -- Bernie is the last one. We had hopes that with the warmer weather, we'd be done with illness drama for the year, but no, that would be too easy. Monday night I was massaging a sore spot on my arm, and asked Bernie if he thought there was a lump of some sort on the bone. He felt my arm, and the next day insisted I make an appointment with the doctor.

I saw the doctor this morning; within an hour they'd gotten clearance for an MRI to be done tomorrow. 

This week I also filled out applications for nursing homes for my mother. What I'm hearing from her 24-hour caregivers is not reassuring to me; Mom is starting to do crazy stuff like stopping up the bathroom sink  and sneaking into the medicine cabinet to take extra doses of her pills. She also sprained an ankle, and WOULD NOT stay off it. Add in that the caregivers are having some kind of conflict with Mom's doctor, and that the caregivers are working double- and triple- shifts because they're short-staffed ... I guess it's time for her to move out of her home.

Am I stressed about all this? I don't even know. I feel like I've gone beyond stress and am just sitting here waiting for someone to say, "You have to do this, and then you have to do that, and so on, and so on.

Having taken all the steps I was ordered to do today, I'm good. I've started carrying my rosary with me all the time, so that when things start to feel overwhelming, I can remember to let go of the problems and just rest in God's grace. While I was waiting for the doctor's office to call me, I took a nice walk with Howie and let everything flow past.

And rejoicing that there still are love and happiness and humor and play in the world, I share with you one of my Christmas Fish that Alex and Lillian made for me.

March!

I told our north-side neighbors that we'd be ready to replace the existing "fence" in March.

That was last fall, and sure enough, the evening of March 1st, the wind and rain pretty much took care of the decision. I have a call in to the marvelous company that did our back and southside fence for an estimate -- I expect to hear from him tomorrow, and hope to have a new fence within a week.

Both the neighbors and I wish we could put up a masonry wall between the properties; last year at this time, we might even have been able to swing it. But not now, not with times as uncertain as they are. Alas! I'll have to put up with my neighbor's obnoxious plumbago and perennial morning glory crawling through the cracks in the boards.

I guess there are worse fates.

Get the A & D Ointment, Quick!

Pompous people chap my ass.

Other than me, of course, but then I've had more than half a century learning to put up with myself.

Yesterday I had the annoyance of being at a big meeting. It was a meeting that had a lot of kids at it, a bunch of teachers, and a smattering of parents.

It wasn't the meeting that was so annoying, it was that there obviously had been very little planning done; and also obvious was that the teachers didn't have any idea of what their preparation for the meeting should have been, or what their task was at the meeting. The kids, rather than appreciate the presentation, were just excited not to be in classrooms and were quite ill-behaved. No one had explained to them what was expected of them, either.

I happen to know some of the people involved in the "planning" process ... and they haven't got a bloody clue what they're doing beyond showing up and hoping for the best. They pounce upon shiny ideas they hear at a district meeting and say, "Let's do that! It's so wholesome!" But they don't worry about learning how to do that.

Why not? Because, of course, they already KNOW that if it's wholesome and sounds like a good idea, of course they possess the skill set to pull it off. The woman in charge is a volunteer for the organization of this stuff. She's done that probably for the past 15 - 18 years. She gets by; no great shakes but she makes it from one year to the next.

After so many years, she's the Emperor, and she's buck nekkid -- and in the nature of long-term volunteers in positions of power, she's grown such barnacles that you'd need a jack hammer or an act of God to get her out of that position. Let's add to that the fact that in an organization that utilizes volunteers, there is no one in a position to tell The Grand and Mighty Volunteer Leader to get her shit together or move aside.

As I watched the meeting unfold, I saw the Volunteer Emperor waddle around, her lips pressed tightly together in displeasure. She was being Seen Doing Good Stuff -- that's all that mattered to her. Several times she said to the kids in a smarmy voice "Now we all know how we're supposed to be behaving!"

Hell, no, they didn't. The little ones didn't understand the need for quiet and the older ones know she's a dork.

Oh well. All I can do is avoid such meetings in the future, or live with the chapped ass. No one is ever going to question the Volunteer Emperor's competence: after all, she's a real school teacher in her day job.

I'll bet she'd tell you that, too, if you said, "Lady, what the hell were you thinking?"

Remarkable Day

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Originally uploaded by AserSand

This morning I awoke at 6:30am.

Something was very different. I opened my eyes, looked around without moving, and realized what it was -- there was no pain at all in my left arm.

I could have gone back to sleep for another hour, but I was so jazzed by the good feeling, that I had to get up. Once I was up, the now-familiar ache started, but much less even than yesterday. I was able to make a hearty Mardi Gras breakfast of bacon and eggs before gulping the requisite pain pills, rather than shakily gobbling cottage cheese just to get the ibuprofen in.

Wonderful day, with art and laughter and Spring.

Spring!

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Originally uploaded by AserSand

I had a great time taking pictures on a walk to a nearby almond orchard today. Bernie played with the dogs while I snapped pics of the wonderful almond blossoms and reveled in their scent.

I got a number of good pictures, in spite of the overcast sky.

What Is the Speed of Time, Anyway?

Fifteen minutes ago it was Monday, wasn't it?

All right, maybe not, but it sure seems like Time is holding up its skirts and dashing willy-nilly along its allotted path. Maybe it has the trots, or maybe it has seen something in the past that frightened it. (Notice I refrain from saying that maybe the trots are from the past eight years of eating shit in the form of the Presidency, and I also refrain from droning about the past and the Great Depression. I am sooo clement.)

In any event, my release from burning pain has sparked a delightful desire to do creative things, so I've been painting, writing, doing pastels, dragging old unfinished projects out and working on them. Studio Prime Time is currently from 2:30pm until 6, when the air gets chill again. That will change as the season does, and the season is boogying. Buds on our pomegranate have appeared, though they haven't turned red yet. The nectarine buds are giggling, standing in the wings, waiting for the end of the almond blossom extravaganza, which has just begun.

Tomorrow I'm spending the day outdoors, hoping for some good blossom shots. Then I'll be content to hole up for a spring rain storm. There are too few of them left before Sweet Spring turns to Hot California.

All Good

Last night I fell asleep, and didn't wake from pain.

I went to the Physical Therapy session with a little trepidation, as Nettie had told me she was going to work on my shoulder aggressively. And she did.

But although it hurt quite a bit as she kneaded a knotted muscle underneath the edge of my shoulder blade, by the time she was done, the pain in my arm had lessened even more.

The Accordion-Head Traction Device was further wonderful.

Over all this, pour a magnificent drenching rain, so much rain that the water stood in puddles on the back brick patio and soaked the orchards that are ready to spring into full bloom.

I'm content with the day.

Here Comes the Storm!

In spite of the weather forecast saying that today would be showery, most of the day was sunny and beautiful.

Around 3pm, a wad of clouds showed up, boiling into the sky. Soon it began to sprinkle, then to rain, then pour, and as Lillian and I kept an eye on a rainbow in the east, it began to hail.

Lil was thrilled to see her second hailstorm, and put on a jacket and ran outside to be pelted by hail. (This hailstorm had no thunder and lightning with it.) She looked adorable with hailstones (1/4" across) stuck in her curly hair.

It was a decent day, overall. I had Physical Therapy again today, and the PT person was "Nettie," who was less concerned about my neck than an area under my shoulder blade. As she was starting my massage, she asked, "What about this spot right here?" and poked something that about made me fall through the table. She proceeded to knead That Spot and followed whatever out to areas I hadn't even realized were sore. Ow. "This is so messed up it's swollen," she told me. After the massage, they gave me a couple more exercises to do to help the area. "I'll help you with that spot on Monday," Nettie told me, "but not before a weekend."

Ominous. Good thing Bernie will be available to drive me there on Monday.

In the mean time, thank you, God, for this beautiful rain.

Who Do You Believe?

Quite a few years ago, I worked in a big hardware store.

As the Security Cashier, it was my job to hole up in a locked room and count all the money that had been handled the previous day. Normally I was done by lunchtime, and if my boss wasn't willing to let me go home early, I would go downstairs and wander around the departments, talking to customers and co-workers.

One day, while I was still upstairs, I overheard some DIRT. It was a busy day, and the head of Customer Service was swamped with lines of customers at the checkout stations. He called for backup; it was his job to do so.

At such a call, anyone who could run a cash register was to get to the front of the store and facilitate the customers getting their merchandise paid for. On this particular day, however, several Department Managers were having a chatfest, and completely ignored his call. Frustrated, he called the boss and complained. The boss came downstairs and instructed the Department Managers that it was their responsibility to help at the cash registers. (Re-instructed, that is, as they all knew what they were supposed to have done.)

The DIRT I overheard was that the Department Managers were furious that the fellow had complained about them. It was then that I decided to go downstairs and watch the drama. (Yes, that's low entertainment, but it was better than sitting in the vault room reading a magazine.)

Mabel (not her real name, of course) was a Big Dog at the store. She was a good worker and was well-respected, and indeed she was an Alpha personality and she expected respect. She had also been my trainer when I first joined the organization, and I suspected that she would tell me what had happened, me being one of her star pupils who made good.

I was right, Mabel TOLD ALL, not only because she was incensed about being reprimanded, but also because she hated the Customer Service dude personally. Then she did something I never forgot: she picked up the phone at her desk and began to punch numbers. "That's it. I'm going to get that little son of a bitch."

Her statement put me into a frame of mind that said, "Too Much Information," so I left, not wishing to know what kind of revenge she was planning.

In a matter of days it was obvious: she had placed a call to the corporate office and accused the Customer Service dude of sexual harassment. In addition, she called as an additional witness one of the cashiers (let's call her "Mitzi") to say that Customer Service Dude upset her by making sexual advances, and when she declined to go out with him on a date, began to pick on her, criticizing her work.

Mabel's plan worked like a dream. Mitzi came to the meeting between Human Resources and the Customer Service Dude dressed modestly, her makeup tasteful, her hair so perfect that Mary Poppins would have beamed upon her. Somehow, her sloppy and inaccurate paperwork and cash totals were not considered a reason for him to "pick on her." And he was removed from his position, a position he didn't particularly like, but was necessary for him to advance into management. He was shattered. He went home, went out and got drunk, got pulled over and taken to jail, had no way to post bail, missed three days of work, and was fired.

What a dumb ass.

What he should have done was call the big boss downstairs and have Mitzi written up for coming on to him and rubbing her tits on his arm the first time she did it -- sexual harassment isn't always about men bothering women. But he didn't; Mitzi was by far the prettiest employee that store had -- and has -- ever seen. She was gorgeous, outrageously vulgar, hotter than habanero peppers, and flirted with anything that appeared to have a dick as part of its operating system. He should have known better than to let her put her hands on him and hang onto his arm in mock arguments, but he didn't. And maybe he should have seen that she was one of Mabel's pets, and maybe he should have known better than to mess with Mabel at all -- I knew those things and I didn't even work downstairs at the time.

Ah, well. Eventually Mabel and another one of her pets took jobs at a warehouse west of here, and I never heard about them again. Mitzi charmed someone in management and was transferred out of cashiering into a department, then another department, and whether it was the hard work or her drug and alcohol abuse, she just was one day ... no longer an employee.

When it comes to sexual harrassment, everyone loses. If you're jolly about flirting, you're sexually harrassing. If you're not, and won't stand for flirting or dirty talk, you're a puritanical old bore.

For the record, when I found out Customer Service Dude lost his battle, I did tell the big Boss what I'd heard and seen, including Mabel coaching Mitzi on what to say. He just looked at his shoes and said nothing; he knew, too.

The Amazing Accordion-Head!

Oh, look! Two of my vertebrae!

Ancient, eroded, probably loaded with crevices full of bats and desert mice ...

Today was my first day of Physical Therapy. Long long ago, I pulled something in my back while I was closing a huge gate ( I had complained months before to both my supervisor and the big boss that it was too heavy and sticky to be moved easily); I was sent to a Workmen's Comp office to be evaluated, and told to do a series of stretching exercises and get the hell back to damn work. It was a stupid office visit, mostly along the lines of, does it hurt when you do that? Then don't do that again, and yeah, you're hurt, but ain't we all?

So I had very little faith in what this morning's appointment would hold.

Amazingly enough, the PT dude talked to me for about 20 minutes about how I felt and what hurt and where. He concurred with the doctor and the chiropractor that there is some kind of nerve pinch in there. But instead of telling me what tough luck it was for me, and suggesting I become a Vicodin junkie, he set up about an hour's worth of interesting stuff.

First, I was treated to a scrumptious neck and shoulder wrap of moist heat. It was wonderful. Second, I got a nice warm massage of my sore shoulder and neck. Also wonderful. In a few minutes, these were followed by some gentle exercises (largely to determine my range of movement), and suggestions about how to do them three times a day.

The amazing thing, however, was shaped like an accordion with indents on either end. In one indentation fit my head; the other held my shoulders. I was given a little rubber bulb like you might see on a blood pressure device, and told to squeeze that until I could feel my neck stretch a little between head and shoulders. That I did, and voila! The pain down my arm disappeared.

This would be the same pain that had me in tears Sunday morning because it hurt so bad. For a blissful 10 minutes, it was GONE.

Of course it came back, once the accordion was off my head and I stood up, but it wasn't so bad.
And six hours later, it still isn't as bad as it was yesterday. I'm beginning to have some hope, although they told me that riding the horse is right out for a while.

Physical Therapy is scheduled for three times a week for the next three weeks. I'm looking forward to Wednesday, and another round with the Accordion-Head thing.

It Only Hurts When I Don't Do This

Both yesterday and today I forgot that I was supposed to take painkillers at 3pm.

Not that it doesn't hurt, but it surely does not hurt as bad. At least I didn't notice it as much. Yesterday and today I spent time messing about in my studio, with pastels and oil paints. (See my other blog for details.)

Watching the color flow onto what was a blank page or canvas is absorbing, and time flies by so quickly I'm astonished to look up and find that it's nearly dark.

It's been so long since I last painted that some of my oils are dried up; some tubes of paint won't open. And yet I get so much pleasure out of mixing colors that I wonder why on earth I left it alone for so long.

Howie spent the afternoon on his carpet, watching people walk by; I know he likes the garage studio better than the one I used to have inside the house -- there's a lot more room, and the open garage door is like a giant HDTV for him. I like it better, too. The paint fumes are not so troublesome.

I needed the escape of artwork today. A friend called and told me that on his last two visits to my mother, he found her alone. The 24/7 caregivers ... are not being very reliable. The thought of forcing my mother into a care facility is sure to give me nightmares. Even though she's so far into Alzheimer's that she doesn't know the time of day, she possesses a power of will that is absolutely terrifying to me.

The power of will. Have I written about that before? If not, I will soon.

Tormenting My Dog

Oh, how Howie hates the camera!

He only looked at me because I whispered, "Who is it?" -- which is an 'alert' cue. When he looked up at me, his expression changed from 'alert' to 'disgust.' Poor dog.

Nevertheless, I can't resist taking pictures of him because he is so beautiful to me. The softness of his fur, that gorgeous dingo tail, his sweet little whippet face ... and those scrumptious chocolate fudge ripple stripes!

A couple days ago I was soaking in the tub to ease the pain in my neck, shoulder, and arm when Howie came into the bathroom to see where I was. I cupped some of the hot water in my hands, and he tasted it. "Come on, Howie, in! In!"

He backed away nervously. I began to splash the water, an almost irresistible sound for Howie. He came closer, so I squirted water into the air with my hand. He began to bark and stomp at me.

Not wishing to seem like a responsible adult or anything, I got the washcloth, wrung it out, then tossed it into the air. Howie sprang forward, but stopped short of jumping in. I waved the washcloth through the water, and he grinned and watched avidly. His body was tensing, and I knew that I was pushing the limits of sanity -- I am in less than functional condition and having a 65-pound dog leap onto my lap in the tub would not be the smartest course of action.

I wrung out the washcloth again and made it peek over the edge of the tub. He grabbed it, and proceeded to "thrash and bash" it all over the bathroom, growling fiercely and shaking it violently so that its wet ends slapped him vigorously about the face.

When he tossed it the air to better grab it, it flew into Bernie's closet and splatted against the wall behind the hamper.

Between my laughter and slithering into the closet to get the wet cloth, probably all my good soaking was in vain. But painful though it was, it was the first time I'd laughed hard in days, and that's worth something.

Wait till I'm all better -- Howie and I are going to have some fun.

Update

Well, that's it. I'm getting old.

I just got a call from the doctor's office. The x-rays show a certain amount of degeneration of the spine due to arthritis, and some little bone spurs.

They're going to send me to physical therapy, and if that makes it worse or doesn't help, then they have the leverage to ask for an MRI to see what's happening in there.

On the up side, the pain IS a little less today.

Kiss Me, I'm a Feeb

Thursday's visit to Dr. Jack ... didn't help.

He thought it would, but the pain increased into the evening, and hadn't eased this morning. I went back to him, and he broke my heart, telling me, "There's nothing more I can do -- you need to see your MD as soon as possible and find out what's going on in your neck."

I cried for a while, then went to my regular MD.  They were upbeat, gave me some short-term advice for pain management, and sent me straight to the hospital for x-rays. In a few days, I'll find out if there's an indication of a herniated disc or whatever.

In the mean time, I sit and wait, and mourn with my friend Wendy the passing of her magnificent German Shepherd Caribou.

What Next?

Tuesday morning at 4am I woke up, feeling wave upon wave of excruciating pain in my left shoulder.

I sat up to ease it, and oh, no, that didn't work at all; the waves just turned into a stabbing, burning encampment. Wondering what the hell I had done in my sleep, I found a more or less comfortable position, and fell back into the nightmares that have been bugging me lately. By 7:15 I was out of bed, hugging my left side, trying to find any position that didn't scream of profound personal injury. I thought that moving around would ease it; I was wrong. By 8, I was watching the clock to see it turn to 9am, at which point I was going to call the chiropractor and beg to be seen.

A hot shower helped not at all. At 9:01, I called Dr. Jack's office ... only to find that they open at 11am on Tuesdays. At the least provocation, I knew I would break down and cry from the pain. Fortunately, no one else was around. I prepped stuff for lunch, caught up on blogs to distract myself. At 11 o'clock, I was dialing and re-dialing Dr. Jack's number, until I got through and his lovely wife answered the phone. They had an opening at 12:40 and I took it.

The pain radiated not only across my left shoulder blade, but into my ribs on both sides below the shoulder blade. Oh, and onto my upper arm and top of my lower arm. I considered briefly that arm pain can mean a heart attack, but the source of the pain was clearly spine. Dr. Jack began to straighten out the kinks in my spine, setting off muscle spasms here and there as nerves reconnected properly, and when he was done for the day, told me to come back Thursday -- he'd done as much as he could in one day.

"Your body is going to tell you to 'stop' -- when you've pushed past your limit to heal, you will have to stop doing what you were doing," he told me. "Looks like you're spending too many hours at the computer."

When I left his office, the pain was far less, and confined to the muscles at the top of my shoulder and various places on my left arm. The rib pain was completely gone. Thank you, Dr. Jack.

Today, in spite of gulping ibuprofen all day, the pain was relentless. Then, at 7pm, I remembered that I had a tube of arnica gel in the medicine cabinet. I smacked myself figuratively on the forehead, and put the stuff on all the spots that hurt. Like magic, within moments, the pain receded to a tolerable level. Arnica won't heal something that's out of place, but by golly, it does more for me than Flexall ever did.

I'm hoping that tomorrow, Dr. Jack will be able to put my shoulder to rights. But I keep wondering, what is going to break down next?

Weather in High Def

It could have been a day like many others we've seen lately.

At this time of year, we frequently have high 50's and see storm clouds go sailing overhead to clash with the Sierras to the east.

That's what I thought I was seeing when I opened the garage door to let the afternoon light into my studio. The clouds were varied and gorgeous, and to the south, there were even what looked like a couple tiny showers in the distance.

I was working on a particularly annoying pastel lesson when the first few drops splatted noisily down through the sunlight. I smiled and went back to my work.

Then the splatting came back, louder than before, and there was a flash of lightning to the northwest. A few seconds later a peal of thunder accompanied another wave of drops. I ran to tell the family that the show was on!

In the safety of the garage, we pulled up chairs and sat and watched the hardest rain of the year so far come plummeting down in spite of the sunshine. Thunderstorms are very unusual here, so we found the weather to be very entertaining.

Then Lillian, who was bundled under a blanket on her mother's lap, got the surprise of her life -- ice started falling out of the sky. "Is it real?" she asked, and I retrieved a few tiny hailstones to melt in her hand, the first she'd ever seen.

I've seen it hail a handful of times in the 20 years we've lived in California, passing sprays of little pellets. This time, along with the ongoing roar of the thunder, the hail kept coming down and down. There are more pictures of it here.

And the sun continued to shine, sparkling off the trees, illuminating the waves of hail as they flew through the air, making a rainbow to the east of us (we had to run through the house to see it fro the kitchen door), peeking in and out of the dark clouds.

Then Alex noted, "Look! You can see your breath!" The temperature had dropped rapidly and the wind had kicked up. Bernie had on his good-to-20-degrees faux fur robe, Lil and Alex had blankets, the dogs their fur (though Sebastian was starting to look a little uncomfortable) and I my trusty 20-year old indestructible sweatshirt that's too hot for any time of year except unheated January, so we were all willing to continue to watch the storm.

There was a huge lightning bolt that stretched from cloud to ground in the distance, a loud "boom" of near thunder, and the lights went out! Our lights, from yummy PG&E. Across the street, where they have MID (Modesto Irrigation District) power, windows glowed with light in the growing dark.

I went into the house and opened the woodstove (it's an insert, and uses a fan to put out much of the heat) so that the heat from the firebox would keep the kitchen warm; I put up the spark screen securely, and then Bernie and I returned to the garage with a flashlight kept near, and watched the rain until dark.

While John and Alex and Lil cuddled and played a board game tucked warmly on their bed, Bernie and I lit a couple candles in the kitchen, poured glasses of wine, and played vicious games of dice on the kitchen bar.

And though I grumble about the lesser reliability of PG&E's power, in fact, across the street people were probably watching TV, or surfing the net, or cooking; maybe they were even so virtuous as to be reading books or writing letters. We had the better fortune -- we had each other.

When the lights came back on several hours later, I was ... sort of ... glad.

Bad Kids

If I had done 45 years ago what I did today, my mother would have given me a walloping and grounded me for weeks.

Our rainy season finally arrived with a drenching, glorious rain. It poured all night, and poured all morning ... and tapered off to a gentle drizzle in the afternoon. Bernie did not have to work, as the plant is doing "planned non-production Fridays" this month; before we even had our lunch we were of one mind -- that was, to take the dogs for a walk in the rain.

The last time we did that, it was cold, and when we returned from the walk, we just dried the damp beasts off and all was fine.

Today the temperature was 56 degrees, if not more; I never did zip up my jacket over my t-shirt. We set off for Ripon's wonderful bike trail in the drizzle.

Along the trail there is a large field in which grow tumbleweeds, some phlox, grasses, and various other weeds. Since we were last there, the city had brought in a tractor and disked much of the weed life under.

Sebastian's sensibilities were inflamed by the loose dirt, and he galloped madly through the mud, churning up so much of it his underbelly and rear were caked with crud. Howie was not that interested in loose dirt, being of a more discerning nature. Howie's weakness is ... puddles of water. He found more than a few of them, and lay down in them to cool his belly, stretching out to maximize the mudpack experience.

Once the dogs realized that we were not angry with them for their peccadillos, they proceeded to find and splash through and roll in every mud puddle in the field they could find.

My god, they were filthy by the time we headed home.

I shouted in the door to John. "We got your dog really disgustingly dirty!"

He's so patient. "I need to take a shower anyway, send him in." (Sebastian loves to shower with his Daddy.)

Howie, with his longer, thicker hair, had to settle for a bath in the driveway, then a protracted combing and brushing in front of the fire.

So, had I done this with my dog when I was a kid, Mom would have gone berserk on me. But since Bernie and I are senior citizens ... heh -- we can be bad kids whenever we want.

Goodies and Baddies

The bad news is that Bernie went to his plant-wide announcement meeting this afternoon.

Not only will the auto plant have four-day weeks through February, and many of those days will be six hours (or less), but also, March will go to three-day weeks; in addition, there will be a minimum of three weeks of plant shutdown (planned non-production) before June.

Ow.

So much for getting the floor re-done any time soon. Concrete is about to become a way of life.

Oh, well. We've been through far worse.

The good news is that last night, I was able to sleep, finally. It was such a successful sleep that I slept for a whopping 10 hours. When I woke, I felt like a real live person.

This is, over all, good news.

It means that as we head into the most beautiful season of the year, Bernie won't be dead-ass exhausted from overwork. It means that I'll have an incentive to get my ass out to the yard and tend veggies. It means that I'll get my shit together and plan meals and put up foods to maximize our dollar power at the store. It means he'll have time to work on his new novel.

Less garbage food at restaurants; less junk spending. More time together. More time for walks. More weed-pulling, which costs nothing. More time together.

More time together.

I'm having a difficult time seeing that the first part of this post is bad news, after all.

Howie and I Are On the Mend

This morning when we arose, I from my nest in the corner of the couch, he from the loveseat nearby where he can keep an eye on me, I did not immediately cough my kidneys loose, and he didn't wince when he put his right front foot to the floor.

He took a big divot out of the top of his paw last Saturday, trying to outdo Sebastian in tennis-ball retrieving. That night he was limping on both his tender right hind paw, and on the front right. Two legged dogs look downright pathetic. Sunday he spent draped across my lap, limp and content. It was nice to pet him ... it was all the effort I was capable of!

Today he was moved to give Sebastian a bit of a beating while I loaded the recyclables in the car; afterwards he was still fine. And I felt well enough to run the vacuum cleaner in the house. I had just finished three rooms when the vack died. I took that as a sign I'd done enough.

Both of us want to be able to get outside and play again.

Happy New Year

Along with a lovely chest-wracking virus from Lillian, I got two gorgeous fish for Christmas from Alex.

Fish were the theme for my Christmas treats, with the family all chipping in sinkers, snelled hooks, plastic baits, and a new reel.

I could not possibly eat any fish I caught if they were as cheerful and silly as these, however.

There are many more fish, and I'll link to them in my Flickr account in the next few days, as I recover from this horrid bug.

Bernie received these two fine birds to add to his collection of sightings.

In case you hadn't noticed, both birds and fish are crafted from eggshells; the birds, by some odd coincidence, have tailfeathers that look remarkably like the colors of a Scarlet Macaw.