Another Day Better in January 2013

Finally able to sleep.

Brent is asleep at last.  It has been a long day.  We went to see the doctor and they took the 42 staples out of his left knee and put 24 steri-strips in their place.  The swelling around his knee is coming down . . . most of it is congealed blood.  Last week the surgical assistant we saw tried to pull some of it off, but the mass was too thick to get anything out.  His legs have always been muscular and lean--now the left one has a huge, red, angry knot in the middle of it.  It reminds me of a boll in the trunk of an ancient oak tree.  

ERRANT SOCKS THAT WAUNDER IN HOPELESS LONELINESS and Osteropeniua 1200 Calcium 2000 Vitamin D

Blue Moon in Utah

On Wednesday night, I was asked to provide a short spiritual thought before the RS Enrichment meeting.  I talked about my "manic" button shoes . . . and how the difficult things we overcome are not left behind us, but woven into who we are and what we are now capable of doing and feeling.  I read a short excerpt from a letter I wrote to my sister Susan, but never sent:

           It seems like I only call you when I need something.  When I saw that I'd missed your call, I immediately thought how wonderful the time I got to spend with Martha and you in Minnesota.  I so enjoyed putting together the photos for your long, empty wall.  When I look up at the night sky here, I recall your overwhelming--stunning--midnight masterpiece . . . no lights but those provided by the planets and stars.  Your students (then and now) are fortunate to be exposed to your keen instruction.
           I asked Meg and Lauren last year if five years ago they could have imagined what their life would be like today.  Meg had just been married then--now she hs two children and a husband who loves her.  She makes bread almost every day and takes "bunny (shaped) buns" to friends who are feeling overwhelmed.  Meg told me she could not have thought she would be so happy.  I visited and  her apartment is cluttered with five small construction (in Jon's words--kon-stuck-sun) trucks I just brought for him, soft toys that Kate has chewed and drooled over as she cuts her first teeth . . . and errant socks that waunder in hopeless loneliness:  forever separated from the mates that the dryer ate.  There is a soft, quiet feeling that everything is in its proper time and place.

I heard on the radio, the next evening, a bit of a radio show that I'd never heard of before:  A Way With Words, described as a lively hour-long public radio show about language, on the air since 1998 [with a]uthor Martha Barnette and dictionary editor Grant Barrett.  One of the comments that stuck in my mind was a closing assertion that a real writer needn't be compelled to produce 50 novels or a continual stream of poetry.  Some need only to know that they have written a splendid, inexplicable sentence.  Poe once said that the best sentence he ever wrote was the first in his story "The Fall of the House of Usher."  Of course, there is always Snoopy's "It was a dark and stormy night . . ."

I think that one of the best things that I've written is the phrase contained above:  . . . errant socks that waunder in hopeless loneliness:  forever separated from the mates that the dryer ate.

To end this entry:  the results of my first bone scan came back this morning:  Osteropeniua--the beginning stage of osteoporosis.   It snuck up on me--I didn't even know that anything was wrong.  Creaky joints, yes, but not that.  I wonder if this is what it is like to discover that you have cancer.

I hope I never find out.

Better Than Me

Geiger Tree Flower and Penny

It happened today--one of those events that you remember all of your life.  Remembered, not because it was a commonly pivotal thing (birth, graduation, marriage, death), but because it revealed something about yourself to you.  It stands out in my memory like the first firework in a 4th of July night.

I was driving to class.  Not really a class class--a survey of native Florida plants.  It is a semester of field trips and wandering treks through nearby parks and reserves.  Dr. George Rogers teaches to identify the plants and trees we find.  It is a delightful experience each week--if you get there in time to start down the trail with everyone.

And I was late.  There was road work and both lanes were merging into one--left into right lane.  And I was late.   I pulled into the right lane.  And I was late.  A red Honda drove past me--intent on skipping ahead in line.  I sped up.  I was late.  I started to get angry.  The Honda tried to jockey in front of me.  I sped up . . . but the car in front of me started to slow.  It continued to slow down--until there was a space in front of it big enough for the red car to slip in.

I was still late, but I was also ashamed of myself.

The guy driving the car in front of me did what I should have done.  One driver let me in . . . maybe he was late, too.

Next time I will be the one to slow down.

I will remember and I will be better than I was.

One Week in DC

Brent is doing better--although he still can't sleep for long, even with the meds the doctors have prescribed.  He tore the left quadricep muscle off of the top of the patella--and shredded some of the side ligaments as well.  Apparently he is one of about three every year that the doctor repairs . . . kind of a celebrity in orthopaedic surgery circles.  It will be a few months before he is able to return to work. 

It is the vacation of a lifetime--the opportunity to dash from Florida to DC and wait while the doctors reattach muscle and ligament and bone together--and then to spend three (to four) weeks in a nice hotel room waiting until Brent can be released to fly home.  Apparently the danger of blood clots is too great before that time.

I just finished exercising in the hotel gym and have an appointment at 1pm for a therapeutic massage to assuage the damage of sleeping in a hotel bed while waking up at intervals to help Brent get back into bed.  I am the lucky one, though.  The meds give Brent nightmares--continually weird ones--while my bad dreams are always of him and the pain he's in.  I take continuity any time--even for bad dreams.  At least I always know where I am when I wake up.

The good part?  I get to spend time with Brent and I get to take care of him.  I could not ask for a more pleasant proximity.

Asters and Mountains in Florida

For the last really long time, I have spent all of my productive time either having fixed, taking care of the fixed, visiting a doctor who did the fixing . . . my back, my hands, or my right foot.

Time for a new . . . OK, not NEW . . . but much better thing to write about.  My daughter Lauren is living with Brent and me for the time being, and when I got to accompany her to where she trains dogs, I found a bunch of asters growing in a field out back of the main buildings.  I remembered that my favorite professor, Dr. George Rogers (Department Chair of Horticulture, Palm Beach State College), mentioned that he was gathering materials to use in an article he needed to write on Asters.  So . . . when I found the wild, yellow flowers I pulled them up and took them with me.

I felt a twinge of guilt, but there were other bunches along the fence--and they are not an endangered bit of flora . . . so I didn't try to work with the bright afternoon light.

I like the first photo best.  Lauren let me use her little CoolPix camera and I snapped some shots when we were stopped at various lights--the car wiggled too much for a clear picture.  These look much better after I fiddled with them--but the originals were pretty good to begin with.  

At the end of the class on Monday (Native Florida Grasses, Sedges and Junaceae), we were coming around the last turn before the parking lot and Dr. Rogers pointed out something I'd never noticed before.  In Florida, there is a distinctive shape made when a group of slash pines grow naturally.  He called it the "dome".  I took a photo--with just my iPad2 camera.  It was a beautiful sight--and the landscape was charming.

 
It reminds me of mountain ranges that are made when volcanoes or immense ground upheavals grow old and are worn down by centuries of rain and wind. . . . and they say that Florida has no mountains.  It is close enough for me.

Up north and out west, there is snow and cold and cold and snow.  Right now it is about 75 degrees F outside and lovely weather for walks and bike rides.  It rains and then the sun comes out--or I wake to thunder and the reassuring thrum of rain on the roof and ground.  I remember that I do not have to worry about watering the new peach or mango trees and fall back to sleep feeling that I've already gotten something important taken care of for the coming day--kind of like when you are doing laundry:  even if I'm eating lunch, as long as the washer and dryer are going, I'm getting things done.

 

Piece of Bone Re-Placed in Proper Place

Xray of my right foot.  My 4th toe has been broken and healed kind of skeewampus (I think it happened when a horse with winter ice-cleats on his shoes stepped on my foot more than 20 years ago.).  The reason for the X-ray, though, is the bit of bone wedged into the Metatarsal-Phalangeal joint of my little toe.  

Such a small bit of stuff to make walking, running and dancing impossible to do.

From the outside, the work that Dr. Schilero did just looks suspiciously vague.  On Tuesday I get to go in and he'll change the bandage and I'll be able to see what it really looks like.  

Happy second week of November . . .

Glass All Over the Floor

Last week I was a little manic and actually got something done.  It wasn't my goal when I woke up that morning.  It just kind of crept up on me.  I started out needing to use the kitchen scales to weigh some packages that I wanted to mail.  I started looking in all the usual places--no luck.  Then I started scrambling about in the back of the kitchen cabinets.  

I still didn't find the scales, but I did feel frustrated by all of the STUFF that was STUFFED into the back corners of the cupboards.  SO I began to pull it out and piling it on the counters--there's still several stacks of mixing bowls clustered together where I first put them.  I can't decide what to do with them--Lauren is gradually making inroads and spreading them throughout the kitchen cabinets.  

As I was poking about, I pulled out the baking pans that I hadn't used in years (except to put underneath plant pots that were leaking water--or to hold groups of seedlings in a single place so that I could put water in the bottom of the cake pan or pie plate or whatever and the plants wouldn't dry out between waterings).  With too many pans in my arms, I fumbled and dropped a glass pie plate.  It EXPLODED all over:  GLORIOUS explosion of sound and bits of light flew all around the room.  

I gathered up the small kitchen mats (we have those foam filled floor coverings that help your feet and legs not to get tired when you are standing on them--they are WONDERFUL to step onto) and took them out to the driveway to hose off.  I also took the large flat-woven rug that covers the space in front of the rabbit cages to the back yard where Sarah hosed it off and hung it on the line to dry for me.  Then I swept the floor and mopped and got a lot of sticky spots cleaned off.  Then things just kept going from there.  I took pictures (surprise . . .) to keep track of that day.

Part of the Kitchen mess first thing in the morning.  You can see the bunny cages, a new small rocking chair I got at a church rummage sale.  Meg's fantasy character chair with the fore-shortened portrait of Meg's signature character on the seat.

Now the top of the small kitchen vac (the round grey thing) that I had to fix before I could use it to clean--there was stuff stuck in the hose . . . so of course it didn't work.

Here's the broken glass--kind of spectacular looking, no?

I also installed a child protection lock on the cupboard that Peter (the rabbit) is mysteriously drawn to.  If you look really close, you can see where I drilled too far in and went right through to the front of the door.  Hoping that Brent won't notice since it is so small and he is so tall.

The successful installation. 

Peter's handiwork.

Another view of the normal state of things.

The stack of mixing bowls that I pulled out from under the counter.

My "nest" of work--natural plants of Florida (this semester's focus is on grasses, sedges and rushes.

This is a Cyperaceae grass.  I'm mounting this semester's dried specimens in an old scrapbook I had from when the children were young.  The pages are large enough for me to include roots and base leaves.

I also watered the plants on the porch and though it sadly strange that it was so beautifully cool and light outside--and I was spending the majority of my day poking around in the dusty recesses of the kitchen.  Priorities.

Here's a shot of me in the walkway where the dining room, kitchen and family room all meet.  Lauren decorated for Halloween--the first time ever that this has has see such frivolity at the end of October.

Now the floor is clean and the rugs and mats outside getting cleaned and dried.

Another view of the lovely space in front of the rabbit hutches.

At the end of the day--clean kitchen and Charlie comes home from work with Lauren.  He snuggles with me, tired from all the activity and attention at La's workplace--a dog training facility nearby.

Closer view of Charlie and his grandma.

I love days when I can wear my "favorite" things--baggy shirts just a bit too little for Brent and my 7-year old shorts: below the knees and with zippered pockets for my phone and keys and stuff.  I know that I look like a homeless tramp when I have them on--but I am so comfortable for some reason. It is as if I COULD go out in the garden and kneel in the dirt to pull weeds, plant trees and bushes and flowers I've grown myself from cuttings or seed.  Somewhere I have a photo I asked Nathan to take of me after a long, full day in the gardens.  I know how desperate I must have appeared to anyone who saw me--black dirt all down the front of me, bruised knees from kneeling on mulch chunks, rocks or pine cones.  Hair pulled back and still damp from my habit of pouring water over my head when I get close to over-heating--which, of course, tends to turn the dirt down my front into a fine mud.

Those were frantic, frustrating times.  A huge space to fill and no money for plants to fill the space.  The Propagation class I took at Palm Beach State helped a bit.   The ginger, the hibiscus called Turk's Cap, the butterfly bush in the side yard, and the proliferation of wandering-jew that covers the ground and kills the weeds that try to gain purchase in the soil below them.  Even the myriad of avocado trees grown from seed in the back yard--good only for shade we've been told--since trees from seed take as many as 10 to 15 years before they decide to start giving fruit.  

I am tired.  In the morning at 7:30am I report to the outpatient facility to have my foot operated on--but then, that is a story for tomorrow.