Being Dutiful

I called my mother on Christmas Day.

She did recognize my voice, or at least she seemed to. During our twenty-minute conversation, at times she thanked me for the flowers I'd sent to her, at times she thanked me for the pointsettia she thought I'd sent to her.

Mostly she bitched about the people who "visit" her and how they only come to her house because there are no other elderly people to visit. She has no understanding that the in-home aides are there to take care of her. She is still (as she was from the earliest memories I have) utterly without ability to accept gift, or compliment, or help with gratitude. I refrained from telling her that the people were there because I ordered them to be there -- she wouldn't be able to understand that, so there's no point.

I listened to her repetitive rant until my temples were throbbing, then extricated myself from the conversation.

Talking to her was like looking at a cicada moult and trying to figure out the bug's mind from it. She has convinced herself from her core of being that there is nothing wrong with her, and that she needs no one's help.

Nothing that she says is reliable. What she apprehends from minute to minute is malleable, it might be real, it might be imagined. She said she was alone, although the agency we've retained says it is there 24/7. I don't know if that's true or not.

I began to froth at the mouth that she had been left alone on Christmas Day, but then had to sigh, and wonder. Maybe she was, and maybe she wasn't. And though I might rage at what might happen to her if she was alone, isn't some incident that she, in her incapacity, might bring upon herself the foot in the door that I've been praying for to get her into a nursing home?

Wishing her no ill, I still have to accept that her Alzheimer's is a death sentence that cannot be commuted.

May God have mercy on her.

In Love

I know that I thought the first picture I took would be of Howie, but the sun was peeking through the trees and struck the papyrus by the patio with a remarkable effect. This is the first picture taken with the Sony Cybershot DSC-H7.

I only took a couple pics the first time through the instruction manual. As I began to realize the potential of this camera, my hands started to shake and my nerves were done for the day.

This morning, after breakfast, I sat down with the BIG instruction manual and started going through it page by page. I found out I could take pictures of the yard through the window while I was seated in my comfy chair in the bedroom!

One of the "demands" I had on a new camera was a zoom. What I didn't expect (whee!!!) is that this camera can function well in low light without a flash. I zoomed in on the dozing Howie.


Another thing I lusted for was closeup stuff. The Sony has a "macro" feature that allows me to take pictures as close as half an inch. Not having any pretty flowers growing in my bedroom, I had to be content with experimenting with the arm of my chair.

To avoid taking up too much space on this blog, I reduced the size of the photos, but with the original in Photoshop, I can zoom in even closer to the point of seeing the fibers in the threads.

I love this camera already.

Watch This Space for More Developments

A new pet entered the household tonight. I've been wanting a companion like this since the old pet died. And now it's resting in the quiet of my bedroom, waiting for my hands to touch it gently and make it do tricks.

It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-H7 digital camera. 8.1 megapixels, 15x optical zoom.

No way am I even going to try to play with it tonight. I read as much of the manual as I could easily retain, and by the time I was done gulping with astonishment about all the things this camera can do (that I didn't even know about) my hands were shaking so badly that I'd never be able to get a clear shot.

When I bought my dearly departed Olympus 765 Ultra Zoom, a week went by before I had more than one clear shot per shoot due to the shaky nature of my appendages when nervous.

And I want the battery to have a full charge when I start to play, tomorrow, you betcha.

AND how much do you want to bet that my first subject is the sweet, soft, striped Howie?

Even One Little Life

This finch has just had a quick snack and is debating whether or not to tell the other 20 members of his flock about the freshly-hung finch food.

Eventually, he returned to the flock with nyger seed on his breath, and they all beat the location of the tasty treats out of him. And then they all came to dinner.

This evening I got an early Christmas gift. While sitting at my computer station (now in the kitchen with this pictured window in front of me, and a patio glass slider to my left) I heard a loud "Whonk!" and turned to see a little finch lying on the wet patio about 3 1/2 feet away from me on the other side of the glass. The poor little idiot had flown into the patio door and knocked himself simple.

One wing trailed on the ground, allowing me to see the exquisite pattern of darks and whites on his wing; but the bird's head listed to the left, eyes half closed, beak open as he panted in distress. "Not good," I thought. "If he dies, I'll toss him over the fence to where a neighbor's cat will eat him." (No life should be wasted. His little lifeless body could provide a meal for something.)

I turned off the kitchen light so that I would be less visible to the traumatized bird. After about five minutes, I noticed that he had stopped panting, though he was still looking over his dragging wing to keep an eye on me. I read another article on the BBC, and then was pleased to see that the bird's wing was back in its proper position. In a matter of seconds, the bird was looking around, eyes fully open. I watched and waited for him to hop away, but instead, he burst into the air and flew madly away over the fence to the east.

He was only a lowly finch, but I was glad for his recovery.

Broken Toy

I still have no pictures to share on this blog recently because I still have no camera.

There is no new camera in my life yet because until the last couple days, I was too sick to entertain thoughts of researching cameras. And then when I started to feel better, there was too much to do trying to make the house look less like an abandoned land fill.

This next week will be different, I suspect. I miss having a camera. I miss specifically MY camera, and haven't grown past the realization it is dead-o. Prior to owning my Olympus C-765, having a camera was a convenience; a camera was something one ought to have on hand in case one needed it. After splurging my stash on the Olympus, however, that appliance became as much of an extension of my creativity as my pens and pastels and paints. Without it, I feel as though I'm missing a limb -- something should be there ... and isn't.

The evenings I've spent sitting in the comfy chair in the bedroom, with my laptop warming my legs, keeping one eye on the back garden to watch the yellow-rumped warblers, kinglets, and white-crowned sparrows frolicking in the weedy overgrowth I've neglected this past year, I really miss the camera. Though the winter light is probably too dim for photos, I fancy that I could get a kickass image of a yellow-rump if only my camera was working.

Gotta get me one.

Where Are These Terrorists When I Want to Kiss Them?

Seriously.

If I could just give all of them a nice big kiss, most of them would be dead within two weeks.

This damn virus has still got me housebound and feeling like shit, after ten days. I haven't slept for more than 20 minutes at a time for six days at least -- oh, now that's not true, either, because this morning I slept for nearly an hour this morning before the damn phone woke me up. (You had better believe that tiny machine will be turned off before I attempt to sleep again!) Plus, my throat is still sore from coughing for all those days (and especially nights).

Bernie and I were talking on his lunch break today, and decided that this one is in the Top Ten Worst Bugs we've ever encountered. The absolutely wracking cough, the inability to rest, the physical weakness that have accompanied it -- for so many days -- yup, it's a prime contender.

I can remember when I was a kid, and got the measles or some such, and spent two weeks on the couch in the living room because my parents were afraid to let me out of their sight. The room had all the windows covered, I remember that, but not much else of that time, so it must have been pretty bad. I also remember how happy my dad's face looked when he brought me a couple of tiny pieces of pork chop and I ate them, at the end of that illness. So that one probably takes the top of the Top Ten list.

About thirteen years ago, I caught the flu, and thought I would die from it, especially after the long, long night I spent in fever hallucinations, thinking that I was an overstuffed chair that had been mistakenly created with sentience. I really thought I was a chair, and I really was dispairing for the voiceless existence I'd been given. That bout is probably Numbah Two, and convinced me of the necessity of getting flu shots each year since.

I haven't felt in danger of dying from this one, so I can't say that it's "Number Three" -- but I honestly can't remember feeling this crappy from a plain old cold virus. The wrenched muscles from coughing were alleviated by taking a couple doses of valerian; the nausea and diarrhea were (blessedly) short-lived; the coughing is disgusting, of course, and makes my throat hurt; but I think the worst is the inability to sleep. (No, Nyquil doesn't even touch it.)

Yesterday was Sunday, with Alex and John and Bernie all off to San Francisco to accompany Alex to the airport for her trip to Chicago. Though I had coughed myself awake for most of the night, I did have a lovely half hour of sleep, in which I dreamed.

I dreamt that I had somehow gotten shit all over the legs of my pants. Not my own shit, this was like peanut butter-colored cow shit. I cleaned myself off with paper towels as best I could (I was at an informal gathering of some sort) and then looked down to find myself covered with shit again. For a moment, I was horrified, and then, in the dream, turned to Bernie and said, "Do you know what this means? It means this is a dream, and I'm ASLEEP!" And for the rest of the dream, which involved more piles of shit in doorways and stacks of forgotten papers I had to go through, I was in joyous spirits because I knew I was asleep.

When that's the high point of your week, you know next week has GOT to be better.

Tis the Season

That could be a picture of our Christmas tree this year, but isn't.

We don't have one yet, and won't for at least another week. Bernie found an article about respiratory illness spikes during the Christmas season, and how they're apparently often linked to the mold spore content of the air around cut Christmas trees. The longer the tree is up, the higher the mold spore count, and thus the more likely to trigger respiratory illness.

And that, O World, is something this household does not need any more of. Four out of the five of us have been treated for pneumonia this autumn, so we're going to wait a week and some before setting off to cut our tree.

I have the dubious honor of being the final Coughing-The-Lungs-Out victim in this latest germy import. The doctor, when I saw her today, pitied me greatly, but informed me it was "just" a horrible hacking, wracking, nauseating, achy virus and that I'd live through it, bitterly perhaps, but in time I'd feel like a human being again.

Good news, eh?

Unlike some friends, who can turn sick-time into productive channels, I'm too much of a bitchy baby when I'm ill. Writing and art work are far from whatever side of my brain I use for those things, and all I can think of are mean things to say about the person who passed this freakin' bug on to me. (Hint: He had the gall to chuckle at me when my voice disappeared today.)

I did, however, find that the time went by more quickly when I had something to read. I'd ordered Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and The Prestige by Christopher Priest a few weeks ago, so I picked them up, turned on my reading lamp, and had at them. I won't do a review on them here -- I'm really not a good reviewer of books. It's enough to say that I read them through, and enjoyed their distraction, though I probably won't read them again.

The only other new books I have at hand are too creepy and depressing. Someday, but not on a rainy winter night when I'm alone in the house feeling like crap.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Fish -- Solved!

Paris, Swishy, Face, Sully, Margaret -- only two of the fish in this picture are still there, the two all-orange ones on the left, Rosie and Oslo.

The five named, along with Lord Patu disappeared. The first to go were Swishy and Margaret; they disappeared last winter. Why they were gone, we couldn't tell. We never found their fishy bodies.

An acquaintance gave us nine HUGE goldfish to grace our pond; it wasn't long before two of them were killed, and their bodies we did find, but uneaten. That sounds like a cat to me, and I still believe that's what happened to the big fat fish.

But when Paris (the white one) disappeared, I was very puzzled, because Paris was too dumb to even come to the surface for food. Then Lord Patu, who was quite handsome, being half black and half orange, was suddenly gone, too. And the water plants had been knocked over. A raccoon?

The mystery was solved last Sunday as we watched football in the front room, whose front windows overlook the fish pond. Suddenly Alex shouted "Look at the pond!" and we turned to see a Great Egret in our little front yard, stalking the fish.

As we all rose to our feet, the bird saw us through the window and took off, looking as big as a house, snowy white against the blue-green shadows of the eucalyptus.

I guess I can't begrudge the loss of a few 10-cent feeder fish to an egret -- it was more of a tribute to our attempt at making a living habitat than an affront.

I wonder if that's why we didn't have any GPS toads in the pool this year?

And Now What Do You Do?

I probably could have finished NaNoWriMo on Thanksgiving, but instead we went to have dinner with good friends.

There was plenty of leeway, and much of the night before last I spent thinking, dreamily, about what I would write yesterday, and that was plenty of subject matter -- more than enough to reach the requisite 50,000 words. I reached 50,517 last night by the time the Steelers-Dolphins game began. After champagne to celebrate, we watched that mud-wrestling match for a while, then said, "Pfft," and went to bed.

This was my seventh attempt at NaNoWriMo. My daughter talked me into the first one; after that I was hooked. November has become a kind of "retreat" time -- a time to take stock of my hands and my brain and my ability to follow through with a project, and that is just all good, and it feels good to be done, the story (such as it was) told.

That story was garbage with a capital G. I had no beginning, no ending, just started from where last year's NaNovel left off and started rattling, letting the words pour out. Too many of them echoed the tragedy and sadness of this past year; more than once I found myself spilling tears as I wrote, even though the venue of silly fantasy should have been light-hearted and laughable.

It wasn't hard writing this year. I would just ensconce in my favorite comfy chair, open the laptop, and go away, to a different dimension, leaving all else behind -- except for the word counter, of course. When I would reach 2000 words, I'd find an "ending sentence" for a chapter, and then go back and name the chapter I had just written. And then shut down the machine and walk away.

Now done, re-reading what I wrote over the last month, I see how much I still miss my sister, and how her death left me with a well of loss. I also see echoes of my desire to help people, to let them know how precious they are in the scheme of things.

Informed thus, it will be interesting to see how this next year unfurls.

*Still wordy after NaNoWriMo, oh well.*

Garlic Weekend

It was the breakthrough.

Back east, one of the few consolations I had each day was Tony's Cottage Inn. Not only did they have some of the tastiest meatballs I ever had in my life (and I savored Tony's food since I was a little kid -- 40 years or more ago) but their salad with house dressing burned itself deep into my psyche. While I was nearly dying of heartbreak back there so much of the summer, I ate at Tony's often, the distinctive taste of the salad -- with chicken, with fried calamari rings -- soothing my stomach and my soul. While all else was going to hell in a rickety wheelbarrow, Tony's flavors remained the same.

Gooooood.

All my teenage and adult life, I'd tried to reproduce that incredibly savory house salad dressing. And failed. I tried a little wine vinegar with oil, salt, and pepper; I tried garlic powder and olive oil and salt (and sometimes a little vinegar); I tried oil and minced Christopher Ranch garlic in a jar with a bit of salt ... nada. Didn't taste the same.

Saturday, on a hunch, I ground up 6 cloves of garlic, covered them with extra light olive oil, added a teaspoon of salt, and added enough water to make about a third of a cup of dressing. Shook it well, and waited for it to steep in the fridge for about an hour and a half ...

I NAILED IT!

Tony's apparently uses freshly crushed, mushed garlic for that incredible taste. I made a salad with it for our every-two-weeks potluck yesterday, and only a few shreds came back, for Alex to taste, and demand that we have it for dinner today.

Well, that was a bit after Bernie came out to observe me readying a "chuck cross rib roast" for the oven. "Could you put some garlic in that?" he asked.

"Sure," I answered, and proceeded to make a slurry of jarred minced garlic and water and inject it into the roast.

I made the new salad dressing and drizzled it over the salad.

Oh, garlic.

No vampires for us, and damn, it all turned out so good.

Something To Look Forward To

Only four months away.

The almond harvest is wrapping up; the air is a lot cleaner. We've had to close the bedroom window almost the whole way because the nights have been so chilly.

Waking up and walking around the house with cold feet make me dread the true onset of Autumn weather and then :-- ugh -- Winter, so I console myself with remembering that our "winter" is really pretty short, and that by next mid-February, all kinds of stuff will be blooming, and the air will be thickly scented by almond blossoms.

Cruelly, I noted this to a good friend in Pennsylvania, and she bitterly replied to my email thus: "Four months from now we'll be wondering when the next snowstorm is going to hit."

Well, that's why I'm here in Central California, now isn't it?

The Time of Year: Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo

When life hands you lemons .... You know it's just about time for National Novel Writing Month!

The first year I tried the NaNoWriMo challenge, which is to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November, I had an opening scene and an ending paragraph, and some ideas for filler -- "word count" -- and that was it. The journey was sheer drama as I was freed to write dreck such as I had never imagined ... well, no. I had imagined it, I just never would have had the gall to type it out, if not for the promise that no one else would ever have to see it. It became autobiographical in spots, wildly romantic in others, and though it ended up being a good book, that first whack in November of 2001 STUNK.

2002's prospect was decided on in December of 2001, when I suddenly had become a writer and had nothing to urge me on. The Piker Press was founded the next spring, and having had that encouragement, NaNoWriMo 2002 was a welcome activity. I wrote "Time Traveler" in 21 days, buffeted by the passion to tell the tale.

In 2003, I vowed to have fun with NaNoWriMo, and wrote "Character Assassin," which remains my favorite book. It needed almost no editing -- just a spell check. It's also a great example of a writer's retreat: for nearly 30 days I just spent examining what my characters in various stories were like. (And it was indeed fun!)

2004 I breezed through "Out With The Trash" thanks to Wendy Robards, who gave me her mornings to work on character development. OWTT still needs a final edit, and a strengthening of one chapter, but you know how editing goes. Especially when you're writing other stuff, and that year, I was working on the second volume of Aser Stories.

NaNoWriMo 2005 I started one self-indulgent story, switched to one that would provide the Press with material, and then just gave up. I regretted that a lot for the next year.

2006 I thought about a serious venue, then opted in favor of following Aser and Danner to a bar. I figured I could go from bar to bar in Midgardian realms and get a lot of beer and word count. Little did I realize that Aser and Danner would run right into a murder mystery! It was really an exciting and amusing month, following them around and writing down their adventures.

I'm tempted to do that again this year. I like Danner and Aser, and Aser's friend Margot the Troll. And I never got around to spa-hopping with them last year, as the murder mystery delayed the start of their journey. And at the end of the book I wrote last fall, they'd managed to pick up a new ensemble character, Harn Ashwood, who became fascinated by the shaman way of life and probably needs an education on what that really means ...

Hoo. Now I can really hardly wait.

Remembering

Purple beans.

Are they edible? I don't know. But when I saw them, I was intrigued. The flower is purple and lavender, and sweetly beautiful.

I saw these when we were back in Pennsylvania for my sister's funeral. I have always associated purples and lavenders with her; I don't remember if she said that was her favorite color back when we were kids, or that her chocolate-colored hair and blue eyes just were set off by the color.

Anyway, I found this photo tonight while going through my pictures, and thought of her, and told her I loved her, and cried again.

One Lucky Pup

Absolutely, there are no photos to go with this entry. Nothing in the world could make me want to provide other people with the images in my head.

Saturday morning after Staff Meeting, Bernie and I thought it might be a good idea to take the dogs for a walk in the brisk autumn air. The dogs thought so too, so we set off across a local house construction site -- not active, not when this county leads the nation in foreclosures and the real estate market is deader than Count Dracula -- so that the dogs could run off leash and take a nice crap in the weeds of Lot # 15. All was well, but then ...

There is a huge pile of compressed dirt that has made for a lovely lookout for over a year on the far western side of the proposed housing development. It's a great place for flatlanders to walk up and see the surrounding countryside. Bernie decided to walk to the top, and of course, the dogs followed him. I mumbled something about "You guys really make me nervous" because the trio of males was skirting the part of the pile of dirt where dirt has been mechanically scooped out, forming a cliff of clay.

As I began walking away from the path to the top up the side of the hill, Howie scooted back down the little trail to be with me. Of course. But then the other "Of course" is that Sebastian, deep in the throes of off-leash chasing Howie, instead of taking the path, tried to come down the hill.

He slid about two feet, could not stop his downward progression to the edge of the dirt cliff, and decided that he could do best by jumping -- straight out into the air, about 12 feet above the ground. I screamed as I saw him drop, his drunken-fruit-bat ears flaring in the wind of his fall.

As he fell, I saw compound fractures, a broken back, multiple legs broken, a frantic seriously injured dog having to be transported in a blanket stretcher to the nearest emergency vet a half an hour away.

Then he stood up. Fell. Stood up again. Staggered toward me, limping. I made him lie down, and sent Bernie and Howie to get the car so that we could transport him. His right front foot, his lip, chin and one forearm were scraped to brushburns. He's a good dog; he lay still under my hand, just twisting his head so that he could watch Bernie and How out of sight. I prayed to St. Francis to intercede for the stupid pup.

A few minutes later, Bernie pulled his car across the construction site with Alex, whose appearance the pup could not resist. He jumped up, and although a bit wobbly, climbed into the car with her.

Having seen him fall, his condition seems nothing short of miraculous to me. I'm going to have nightmares about this incident for the rest of my life, but he is fine. Nothing is broken, and he's been inviting beatings from Howie all weekend.

Dumb ass dog.

You can't imagine how glad I am that he's all right.

Five Strengths in My Writing

Wendy Robards suggested the mental exercise "Five Reasons I'm a Strong Writer."

I don't usually bother with memes, but it got me thinking about why I think I can write. Once I got to thinking, I started comparing writing to visual arts -- I haven't had a lot of problems writing 50k words every November since 2001, but art work? It's like pulling teeth and I usually get so stressed out about it that I have to take a shower after coming up with some lame cover image.

So what makes the writing side stronger?

Number one, I get a tremendous kick out of telling lies. This is why I prefer fiction to non-fiction. Understand, I will NOT lie to someone about my actions or in court or stuff like that, but to entertain myself, I can and will fabricate facts, dates, experiences, you name it. (Ask Bernie.)

Two: Boldness. When I am typing, I am strong. I leap into the blank page like a maniac with a machine gun, blowing holes in the emptiness with no fear or compunction. Shotguns, machine guns, arrows, rocks -- when I think of writing I think of projectile weapons.

Those first two rather go together, because I'm a stage-junkie. I did not venture into Theater Arts when I was in college because given a stage and an audience, everything else fades -- food, drink, rest -- screw it, the energy that flows from an audience is the greatest high in the world and I can't get enough of it. Not good. However, in print, I can be an action hero to my heart's content, presenting whatever facade I like, and imagine an audience as large as I like.

Three and Four are practical: Vocabulary, and Grammar-and-Punctuation. I've got a wide range of words, and know how to put them together. Lots of writers have great ideas but shoot themselves in the feet every time they try to put those ideas on paper because they don't have those basics. Both as a teacher and as an editor I have found horrific the mistakes I see when people try to express themselves.

Five would be my idealism. I believe in goodness, in surmounting terrible odds, in love, in self-sacrifice. I believe that the thoughts of our hearts are worthwhile, and should be scattered on the ocean of humanity like a fountain of rose petals brightening an endless flotilla of boats. I hope that at least some of my writing has given people joy, or at the very least, a chuckle. "If I can make someone in the world laugh, or lift their heart," I told someone when I was 17, "then I won't have had a wasted life."

I guess I still feel the same way.

Now, why doesn't that work with visual arts for me?

Autumn Harvest

In Pennsylvania, the first autumn color is appearing. The dogwoods are already turning red, and along with the sugar maples' color dotting the mountainsides, are heralding the sure change of seasons.

Last Monday, the 17th of September, I got an email from Jan's nursing home, asking me if I would make a voice recording of me reading that the nurses could play for Jan, as she had been becoming very agitated the last several nights.

They thought it might reassure her, and calm her. I agreed to try, and picked out a book to read; Bernie felt sure that we had to have all the necessary programs already on my big computer to make a CD. All I needed was the time to read, read, read -- which I thought might be difficult considering how rocky my voice sounded after that blasted cold and lung infection, but I was willing to give it a go, and read Jan "The Egyptian," by Mika Waltari.

Good old story-telling tale, that one, and I smiled, thinking of how to inflect the voice of Sinuhe's slave as he expostulates, "Your talk is as the buzz of flies in my ear." I wondered if Jan would chuckle at that phrase.

But when I awoke the next morning, an email from the Area Agency on Aging said simply, "Call us. Urgent."

It was time for the news I least wanted to hear, that I knew was coming, that I had prepared my heart for, but that broke my heart anyway. During the night, my sister Jan had died.

They told me it happened like this: she became agitated in the night, as she had for those "few" nights; but this time, she reached around and yanked the feeding tube from her side. (Remember, since early July she has refused food or drink.) They took her to the local hospital and re-inserted the tube, and checked on her every couple minutes to make sure she was all right, given her heart problems and her breathing problems. She was doing all right, she was doing all right, and then voila! Twenty minutes after the last check, she suffered her fourth heart attack, and this time, was gone, gone, gone.

Wow, who else pulled that stunt? What ever happened to the man who, recognizing he had terminal cancer, stopped eating and drinking, had a feeding tube put down his throat, kept pulling it out, and finally, struggling to stop the ministrations, had a heart attack and died? Oh, him? Jan's and my father? Why, how coincidental, didn't his death happen exactly nine years and 3 days before?

I call myself crazy with grief; I view my thoughts and mutter that I'm letting my imagination mingle with mere coincidences, but frankly, I think Dad was coaching Jan, there in spirit, whispering instructions to her. I'd cuss him out, but I'd then see him pointing a finger of one of his strong but graceful hands at me, saying with all his intensity, "And if you were me, you wouldn't have??"

Well, of course I would have, you old smartass. I've wished Jan could be well and free of her disability since I was old enough to wish anything beyond my own stomach.

One day this past summer, as I was sitting with Jan, she was holding a whispered conversation with an imagined someone. I can't remember what it was that I heard her say -- something about leaving, or getting things in order, or something that bespoke of an ending. "Jan," I asked her, "are you talking to Dad? Is he here talking to you?"

No, I didn't ask it as a way of drawing Jan out. I tried to make it sound matter-of-fact, but I don't doubt that I sounded annoyed. I wanted Jan to have a chance to make friends, have a couple more years of life that comprised more than a chair and a toilet. Jan didn't answer; she clammed up for the rest of the afternoon. Well, she always did like Dad best.

I told the air (the nurse being out of the room for a change) "Dad, knock it off."

Well, I don't think he did, and


now Jan is gone.

Well, gone from me.

My dear, dear sister.

Along with the color that heralds autumn, this is the time of year that the dogwood bears fruit, elongated red berries that will feed birds well into the first snow of winter.

With the change of seasons, the relationship that finally was allowed to blossom between my sister and me has been harvested, a fruit of love and attachment that will have to be my sustenance for the rest of my life when I think of her.

She was beautiful, and I loved her more than I was ever allowed to tell her until this past summer. I have no doubt that she is still beautiful, and now I can tell her how much I love her every day.

"Ugh, Hound Puppies," said Howie.

I got Sebastian to lie down, promising him a belly rub. Howie was less than thrilled with the prospect of proximity to the 11-month-old pup.

Only me saying, "Stop, Howard, stay," kept him in the picture. He hates photographs, and really hates posing with the kid.

However, the picture is good in that you can clearly see how much bigger Sebastian is than Howie these days, and the cute little puppy of last year undoubtedly has a bit more growth coming, and weight, as well.

Had I but had the camera in hand this morning I could have harvested shots of an energetic and extensive beating that How administered to Seb; the striped fiend would pin Sebastian to the carpet, gnaw on his head, his neck, his shiny black legs, then turn away, sneezing -- and when the pup would scramble to his feet, afix the back of Howie's head with his border collie daddy's stare, How would spin, leap, and crash chest to chest with Sebastian and knock him down again.

Sebastian loves it. As soon as Howie turns his back, Sebastian starts stalking him, staring, unblinking. If Howie doesn't move, Sebastian will rush him, and poke him on the cheek, then turn tail and run like mad. This was one of the reasons I didn't get any photos of the beating this morning: Sebastian ran away around the back of the dining room table, and Howie followed him, nipping Seb's buns twice around, both of them running as fast as they could.

I laughed until I was coughing too hard to stand up straight.

In spite of the "Oh, I loathe this puppy" posturing, when we go out for walks, Howie has begun to wait for Sebastian to catch up to him when they are off leash for a run. If we keep the pup on leash so that Howie can have some private sniff-and-mark time, Howie now just stops and stands, looking back at Sebastian, as if to say, "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Today's only update is that we began stacking this year's firewood. It's almost all small, light stuff, and we got halfway through the pile before the sun came around and the flies found me. That's a good morning's work. I'll start a third rank of wood on Monday, and then we'll be good for heat until next fall ... unless we have a freak winter. Total cash cost? $200.

Ahhhhh, Sleep!

White was on my mind this morning when I woke, took a breath, and felt no pain, and didn't knock myself out coughing.

White, like this mock orange blossom, white, like puffy clouds in a dark blue sky in summer, white, like cool bleached cotton that reflects the heat.

I pulled a favorite summer outfit from the closet, a long white cotton shirt and light tannish gold linen trousers to wear to church, feeling as though I'd had a reprieve from prison.

Yesterday, I needed no medication all day long. Of course I took the prescription stuff the doctor ordered, but not OTC antihistimines or cough suppressants or pain-killers. At midday, I swallowed a nutritional supplement that has quercetin, bromelain, and vitamin C -- something we used to suggest at the health food store for respiratory congestion, but that was all. At bedtime, I took some Advil Cold and Sinus, a dextromethorphan cough suppressant, and some doxylamine succinate (Unisom) ... and then read until I fell asleep. I woke twice to cough during the night, but the rest of the dark hours, I slept, and dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. When I would wake, I'd smile at having been able to sleep and doze off again.

This morning, I felt GOOD. Not a hundred percent, mind you, but GOOD.

Being able to sleep is vastly underrated until you find that you can't. Then you long for it as though it was food, or love, or money when you can't even afford a pair of JackInTheBox tacos. Now combine that with not being able to breathe normally, and you have a very sad existence. Thus, this morning, with both sleep and breathing, was like a national holiday and vacation plans and a bouquet of roses all in one.

In addition, I've been in touch by email with my mother's pastor, and it turns out that before he became a priest, he worked in long-term nursing care with a specialization in gerontology. He understands Alzheimer's victims, and he can minister to my mother even in her dementia -- he won't be hiding from her, hoping he's not called to help out. Indeed, he plans on picking her up and taking her to visit my sister -- he's not forgetting about her, either. And at the end of his email, he asked if there was anything he or the parish could do for me.

The nice dreams I had last night, the feeling of returning health this morning, and such incredible kindness -- there's nothing more I need here. God is good, and as this morning's first reading told, His ways are hidden, and inscrutable, but always make sense in the end. If all the grief of this summer was meant to lead up to my sister's spiritual needs being tended to, and my mother's spiritual needs being made known, and my realization again that living is about joy in existence -- why, then, the grief was nothing at all in comparison with the reward.

Yeah, Who Gives a Honk

Honk.

That's the sound my throat produces when I try to talk. The one-day fever and a couple coughs my grand-daughter experienced and passed on have translated as four days of fever and a cough that has turned me inside out.

At least today I was able to eat without feeling like retching. I made a soup of green beans, potatoes, and ham, and that first cup of broth this morning was like heaven, tasty and soothing. The coughing thing was the worst so far today, abrading my throat and making me wrap my arms around my ribs to alleve the worst of the pain. At that, I felt better today than yesterday.

After my temperature began rising again yesterday, I woozily made my way to the doctor's office, where I was told that my lungs didn't sound good, here take a course of antibiotics and use this inhaler for a while. I myself would have waited out the weekend to see how I'd fare, but Bernie told me to go to the doc. He was right. I'd have been a lot worse off if I'd have waited until Monday.

They tell me I'll feel a whole lot better by Monday.

I hope so, cause I feel like shit.

My Mother, the Source of All Nuttiness

I call this a "self-portrait" of sorts.

Always off-balance these days, always being knocked off my feet.

Today the bank which oversees my mother's trust fund emailed me to tell me that they had finally found someone who was willing to extend to Tere homeowner's insurance. (Her long-term previous carrier dropped her for nonpayment last April -- no one at that point realized she wasn't paying her bills except her creditors) Well, as long as they could inspect and approve the woodburning "stove" she has. ( I can visualise the previous insurance company dancing around a fire burning up her policy, chanting, "We're free, we're free! Don't put no blame on me!/ No way, no way! We will not have to pay!")

The bank added that an inspection would not be necessary if I could assure them that the woodstove would be removed from the premises and all would be well.

IT'S NOT A DAMN WOODSTOVE!!!! The beast in question is a huge furnace that could swallow a Volkswagon Beetle! It can burn coal or wood, and it is so old that when it needed serviced three years ago, my mother could find no one -- NO ONE -- who knew how the damn thing worked. It is a museum piece. Mom ended up fixing it herself, God knows how.

How is your mother planning on heating her residence this coming year? the bank asked.

HTF would I know? My mother has Alzheimer's and refuses to admit it, is impaired and refuses to admit it, should not be living in that house alone and refuses to admit it. There are no men with butterfly nets to catch her and take her away to a safe living arrangement. Everyone looks at me and asks me what I am going to do, but I have only one question for them that no one can answer: "Who is going to chloroform her and trundle her off to the nursing home?'

Her court-appointed lawyer has already warned me off. He'd love the hours of payment for litigation, but still smilingly pointed out that Ma can still dress herself, keep herself clean, and -- when he visited -- her house is still tidy. Obviously he didn't ask to use her bathroom. Or eat anything from her kitchen. Geehhhh.

I'm going to send in the furnace inspectors, and see what happens from there. The neighbors are afraid of my mother setting fire to her dwelling, and thus endangering theirs, but they are totally unwilling to complain to authorities about her being a nuisance or a danger. What, the daughter who lives 3000 miles away is supposed to say she's a nuisance? Cut me a break. If they can put up with her vagaries, I guess I can, too.

No one in the previous eight years was interested in hearing me rant that she was incompetent to take care of my sister or herself. At this point my sister is safe, and still alive. If what testimony I've given to this point was invalid, I see no reason to set my hair on fire at this time.

*Falls down with a thump into the comfy chair to fight off the cold contracted from Lillian's first day at school.*