Oh, What Fun

Sunday night week ago (the 10th), I was so weak that while I’m putting ice, drink mix and water in my drink bottle, I have to stop and rest four times. Fortunately, its only about four o’clock in the afternoon and I can call down to the front desk and have a nurse from assisted living come up. He calls the ambulance and off I go. We will gloss over the episode of projectile vomiting I had shortly after getting to a room at about 1 a.m. and go straight to the hospitalist deciding there’s this one medication I don’t need to be taking and decided it would be perfectly fine to cold turkey me off a medication that must be tapered over 2 weeks to be discontinued because stopping it abruptly can cause serious neurological consequences. I had to threaten to go home against medical advice before they’d give it to me, and I was already suffering some withdrawal symptoms (ants in the brain!).

In the meantime, they’ve decided I must have some kind of infection and have started me on vancomycin. I have a really messed up metabolism and I’m very allergic to molds; most antibiotics are mold-derived, including vancomycin, and they’re giving it to me too fast besides. It’s called Red Man Syndrome for a reason. I’m beet red with a splotchy rash, and they’re having a committee meeting trying to figure out what’s going on and is this actually Red Man.

My hands are peeling raw, my face is peeling. Do they stop all antibiotics? No. They change to a different one which causes intense itching all over my body for over an hour until they finally decide to give me some IV Benadryl and Atarax, which does take the edge off.

My histamine response is already in a tizzy and I proceed to have a full blown asthma attack, the like of which I’ve never had, even when I was living in the house with black mold in the attic in 2014. (and hadn’t needed any asthma medication at all since moving out of it.) We’re talking breathing treatment with nebulized albuterol because of severe bronchospasm asthma attack. That’s when they decide maybe they’d better stop the antibiotics — like the three sets of negative cultures doesn’t clue them . . .

And all the time I’m there, they’re pumping me full of IV fluids faster than my poor little kidneys can throw it off — to the tune of gaining 24 pounds of nothing but fluid in a week. So I already am having trouble breathing because my spleen and liver are enlarged and there’s no room for my lungs to expand downward. Now I’m in fluid overload and gasping for breath at the slightest exertion. Lasix! We finally managed to get enough fluid off me so that I could go home Sunday evening.

And they’ve got me scheduled for doctor’s appointments immediately Monday morning. No way I can drive myself. Carillon can drive me but they need 24 hours notice . . . I was able to get them rescheduled.

Oh, and did I mention they issued new key cards while I was in hospital and I had to call security to let me back in my apartment. Security had to resort to the actual metal mechanical emergency pass key to get my apartment door open because her key cards wouldn’t work either — nor do my new ones. Tuesday maintenance had to change out my whole door lock to a newer kind. And fix my broke doorbell. And the internet is down. Again.

I could have coped just fine if they hadn’t messed up my hands. That just adds two orders of magnitude of difficulty to everything. The skin on my hands is peeling like a snake and in places is cracked down to bleeding. Thank goodness I happened to have a box of latex gloves I got when mom’s floor had COVID, or going to the bathroom would have been extremely problematic . . .

During my January to October stint of chemo in 2022, whenever this one nurse would access my port, she would give me the packet of gloves that come in this little kit you use with the stuff you need to do that, and I had about 6-7 packets of those gloves, which are latex free. When my new oncologist saw me Wednesday, he prescribed some Silvadene cream for my hands, and then I put these gloves on. Thank goodness that’s helping.

My whole body is flaking like a really bad sunburn. My face is peeling. My lips and nose openings are peeling. Imagine painting your face with a thick coat of white glue and having it dry. It pulls my eyelids in odd directions and makes seeing out of my glasses problematic.

I’ve finally managed to throw off all but about 5 pounds of fluid now, and my lower legs no longer look like the Michelin Man. I seem to have found my ankles again. My strength is coming back. My hands are noticeably improved. I’ve turned the corner. They have me on 20 mg of prednisone a day to chill out my histamines and help with my enlarged spleen, and I’m not nearly so wired as I get with larger doses.

The white orchid started to bloom while I was in the hospital. That’s three for four. The flower spike on #4 orchid continues to grow. The arrowhead plant has embarked on a campaign of world domination. The Christmas cactus has been budding and asserting its dominance. The tumult and the shouting has died. The captains and the kings have departed. Elvis has left the building. Slowly but surely, things are settling back down into what passes for normalcy these days.

Saw something the other day about human insulin cells especially modified to release insulin when exposed to sound. They tried various types of music — orchestral, classical, Broadway show tunes — to stimulate insulin production. Guess what music worked best. Queen. We Will Rock You. I’ve been giggling about it for days . . .

Ack! Winter!

Three layers of blanket and an electric foot warmer cold. But I have to say, the foot warmer does what it says on the box. It has a “gripper bottom” with textured non skid bumps to keep it from slipping and sliding around on the sheets. 

The nights have been hovering right around freezing, the days have been in the low 40’s F(4-7C), but there’s also been a lot of humidity in the air from about a week’s worth of days when it wanted to rain, but never got around to it; thought about raining, but then decided not to; dribbled half-heartedly; pitter-pattered intermittently; sulked about all day and wouldn’t rain; fogged up and refused to unfog til midafternoon, etc. Dry cold is bad enough, but damp cold is the pits.

It was much foggier than this at 8:30 in the a.m. Monday when I went to get tests done. Downright spooky, drive with your lights on, visibility about 10 feet foggy, actually. It stayed misty and wispy all morning, and didn’t really burn off until the early afternoon, but it stayed grey and drippy the rest of the day. Tiniest bit unnerving when an 18-wheeler suddenly materializes out of the fog about 15 feet from where you were planning to turn.

Over last weekend, I unlimbered the folding banquet table and the sewing machine and performed lap robes. Got little navy blue and leopard print fuzzies absolutely everywhere. The housekeeping lady looked at me askance when she got out her institutional size carpet vacuum to suck the little fuzzies off the rug. And that was AFTER I had dust-busted everywhere I could reach. But I got the two lap robes made, and both the receptionist at the front desk and I have warm feet and legs now. 

My poor BFF almost got scammed again. It was that scam where they call you up and say they’ve hacked your computer or phone camera and have videos of you undressing and naked and are going to put them on the internet and ruin your life if you don’t give them $10,000. She’d just gotten a new computer and hadn’t even had it for two days! Bless her heart, this is the second time she’s gotten scammed. At least this time they didn’t get any money. When she went to buy the $500 gift cards they demanded, the cooler heads at the store prevailed and convinced her it was a scam.

My BFF is a dyed in the wool Luddite, only marginally computer literate, and is easily panicked. I hate to say it, but as far as scammers are concerned, she is low-hanging fruit. (I could wax eloquent about my opinion of these scammer types, but this is a family blog . . .) Add to it they’ve cut her hours at work and her already skin-tight budget has gotten two sizes smaller as a result. Makes me feel guilty when the worst thing I’ve had to deal with all week is changing the batteries in the mini-split thermostats. She called me when she got home from taking her brand new computer to the Geek Squad to get the malware the hackers installed cleaned off it, and I tried for the better part of an hour to help her get her Kindle Fire to reconnect to her WiFi after her internet service provider changed her password for her. A little bit like trying to teach an octopus to roller skate. Over the phone. Sigh.

Saw a YouTube video the other day from a family that has a Shetland sheepdog and three cats. The sheepdog keeps trying to herd the cats. Needless to say, the cats are not amused.

Don’t know if this is ASD-related or just a personal quirk: 

Going-outside shoes on the left, staying-inside shoes on the right, and short round trips from the bed shoes in the middle. All lined up neatly against the wall beside my bed ready to be stepped into.

Another bright spot in the week. The other two orchids are nowhere near this far along in the blooming process. Wonder what would happen if I got a Q-tip and pretended to be a bee . . .

Time Passages

Today’s earworm is courtesy of Al Stewart, the song “Time Passages.” I woke up to a text message from my cousin EJ letting me know that another cousin MW had passed. 

MW was one of those people who never meet a stranger. She liked dancing and going out with friends for fun, food and good times. Unfortunately, she didn’t watch her diet and she didn’t like the way some very necessary medications made her feel so she wouldn’t take them. Her girls hadn’t heard from her for a day or two, couldn’t get her to answer the phone, went by and found her lying on the floor. She’d had a stroke and had been lying there for at least 24 hours, and probably longer. This all happened in late summer. She spent her last months in a nursing home with no quality of life. The angels took her home either yesterday or early this morning. 

MW was a member of that set of cousins that were mom’s sisters’ children. (JP born in 1936, MW in 1939, EJ in 1941, WM in 1943, CY in 1946.) The older ones were born while my mom was still living at home. (My mom was 15 when MW was born.) The older ones remember mom getting married and remember me being born. We moved “upstate” when I was 19 months old, so I only saw them when we went to Houston on vacation, either in the summer or over Christmas. But for a while, “Aunt Fluffy” was more of a big sister than aunt to many of them. EW’s sister is WM of the cows.

The amaryllis is in bud. It may open on or around Xmas, or later. Orchid #2 is starting to form buds on its flower spike. My windows face dead center between north and east on the compass. With the tree gone, the light is fairly bright but not hot, and the sun goes behind part of the building in late afternoon, early evening.

The Christmas cactus is going nuts. I counted 12 flower buds. I almost bought a Norfolk Island Pine yesterday. I had one, Phred, for well over 20 years. I would have bought one yesterday if I’d had a place to put it, but I don’t have room for the plants I have. I need to wipe the hard drive on my old computer and take it to Best Buy to recycle. Then I’d have room on the end of my dining room table for the peace lily that’s been sitting on the end of my kitchen counter since I brought it back from mom’s. It needs to be repotted too. I have the pot. Think I have enough potting soil left.

I’ve done all the things I need to do about mom’s stuff except taxes, and I won’t have to worry about that for two months yet.

Today is the winter solstice for those of us north of the equator. We are far enough south that the maximum solar declination at the winter solstice is 31 degrees, and on the solstice, we have nearly 10 hours of daylight (from 7:48 a.m. to 5:43 p.m.), whether we want it or not.

My Christmas will be quiet, with no family obligations. I have dressing and turkey and cranberry sauce, and I may make a beet salad. Being alone has never been a problem for me. I find it restful. 

Plus Ça Change . . .

. . . plus c’est la même chose. A drastic change happens, like a breaching whale, with a lot of splash and carry-on, but then the whale submerges, and the splashes and ripples of its wake dissipate, and life goes on. Or tries to, anyway.

Mom’s memorial service was on 15th November. I was not feeling quite the thing and had an intermittent hacking cough, but I just figured beta blockers, lack of sleep and the onset of a life-changing event, etc. But I kept feeling lousier and lousier until Saturday morning I awoke with a very sore throat, stuffed up head including both inner ears and packed tight sinuses, a nasty paroxysmal cough, and the realization that you, oh, Best Beloved, are sick as the proverbial dog. Long about the following Tuesday, I happened to think that the next Monday was housekeeping’s day and I called down for and got a COVID test which was positive. I was quarantined for a week. It’s only been this past weekend that both ears have finally opened up, and my cough has calmed down to manageable levels. A fried chicken breast from Market Street for supper did wonders for my sinuses yesterday. They used a lot of pepper in their breading, which brought tears to my nose, but in a good way. I’ve been gulping hot tea, with and without spices, and with or without creamer.

This past Sunday, I was determined to have my afternoon ration of YouTube with a side of bacon and Havarti cheese on crackers. I zotted four slices of bacon in the microwave and cut them in thirds, got three slices of Havarti cheese which I cut into quarters, and then discovered that the sum total crackerage on the premises was 11 water crackers. Story of my life. (The dearth of crackers was attributable to a cream cheese with onions and chives smeared on crackers kick that hasn’t quite run its course . . .)

They’ve refurbished my WalMart of choice. They have fancy new shelving, and rearranged it just enough that you can’t find anything. I’m in the middle of a wardrobe turnover. I’m getting rid of the stuff I wore because it fell into that narrow ellipse of styles and colors where mom’s and my tolerances overlapped, and replacing it with stuff I 100% like. (Goodwill and Catholic Family Services are making out like bandits . . .) While I was at WalMart last, I picked up 2 pairs of velour “leisure pajamas” to wear around the house –a rampant pink pair and a pair which is really too orange of a red for my skin tones, but who cares? They’re warm and snuggly and soft against the skin. Oddly, both pairs were cut out with the nap of the velour running upwards instead of downwards like you’d think. They were made in China (what isn’t, these days) and the Chinese do have a reputation for 不可理解性 . . .

My mom, a product of the helmet hairdo generation, did not care for long hair, especially when it was unrestrained. She liked it short, ratted up to give it height, and glued into immobility with hairspray. I like mine long, the longer the better, swept back into a pony tail at the nape of my neck. In my misspent youth (high school) I did back comb it, blow dry it and use curlers, a curling iron and hair spray, but once I left home, I stopped mistreating it as my hair is so fine that back combing, or any kind of heat gave me split ends like crazy. My current approach to hair care is very laissez-faire: I wash it, comb it out and let it dry in the air. I use barrettes but not elastics. The less I have to futz with it, the better.

Mom’s 8 balding brothers. Her sister 2nd from L wore a wig later in life due to hair loss and mom got thin on top. Every one is in age order L to R except mom, far R in blue, who should be squatting next to her youngest brother, as she is the baby.

In the ultimate irony, a combination of chemotherapy, menopause and the male pattern baldness gene I got from my mom (so did my brother), I have gotten to the point that every time I brush my hair, I get this big wad of hair in the brush.

My hair has gotten so thin on top that I have finally admitted defeat. I got it all whacked off yesterday to about 3 inches long all over. It’s easier to care for, and dries in less than half an hour now. Sigh.

I have three things left on my to do list regarding mom’s passing. I have to send a copy of the death certificate to the people who paid dad’s pension to her, I have 15 thank-you’s still to write (mañana). I got a little refurbished Kindle for mom after she moved to Carillon so she could get on Facebook and send and receive emails. I need to take it over to one of the activities ladies whose elementary-age son comes up to Carillon after school and visit with some of the residents including my mom. I think she would have wanted him to have it, especially since his mom is an Amazon Prime member and she can get ebooks for him. Neither I nor my brother had children, so mom and dad adopted other people’s children to grandparent, like this little boy. I already have two Kindles, and if having a Kindle will make a reader out of this little boy, I’m all for it.

I got my BFF’s packages mailed today (Bday in Nov, Xmas) and got stamps, and the green thingies for registered and return receipt requested mail so I can get the pension thing mailed. There’s still taxes, mom’s and mine, but that’s months away. (Sufficient unto the day . . .)

My Christmas cactus is blooming elaborate fuchsia flowers. It has two lovely blooms and a couple of buds. The amaryllis* “bub**” is being green and leafy, but as yet shows no sign of a flower bud. The arrowhead plant is profusely arrowheady, and the antherium’s shiny red blooms are very Christmassy.

Orchid #2’s and Orchid #3’s flower spikes are now long enough to stake, and guess what?

Mr. Ball is putting out a flower spike as well. That’s 3 for 4! I am delighted, and not at all disappointed that Orchid #4 is not spiking as it had just finished blooming in September and I suspect it’s “tord.**” It needs repotting and fertilizing — yet another thing on the To Do list. (Now, where did I put that roundtoit?)

* The little girl playing piano in this clip from the 1962 film of "The Music Man" is named Amaryllis.  She makes fun of Ron Howard's character (Winthrop) saying her name because of his lisp.  If you will notice, the melody of this song is the same as the melody of "76 Trombones."
**"bub" - Texan, "bulb."
***"tord" - Texan, "tired." 

A Roller Coaster Ride

Mom’s interment and memorial service was Wednesday, November 15. Hard to believe that’s only been six days ago. We got to the cemetery at 9:45, and CK and her husband and daughter pulled up. Then all these other cars started pulling up.

Mom’s nephew JP came but his wife had to stay and make sure the animals got fed and taken care of (2 horses and an unknown roster of dogs and cats). He was able to come the day before and I put him up in our third floor guest room. (I can personally attest that it’s nice and comfortable as I lived there for a week before my apartment was ready. It’s also very reasonably priced.) He and I went in my car. It helped keep me together. Mom’s niece EJ and her daughter and SIL came, but her other niece CY couldn’t come as she’d had leg surgery and had to stay off it. My brother came. That was a relief. The last time he saw mom (or me) was when she was in the hospital in July of 2021, which was what precipitated the whole move to Carillon thing.

Both dad’s nieces, CK (and her husband M), and EG came. I knew E planned to come to the memorial service, but was pleasantly surprised when C and her husband showed up, too. I knew JTW, the daughter of long-time family friends whom I had grown up with (her older sister’s was the first wedding in the new sanctuary — it was a stand-up affair because the new pews were delayed getting there!) Unfortunately, her older sister is in an Alzheimer’s care facility, but one of the sister’s sons came with JTW. Her sister’s ex-husband, who is now a judge, did come to the service.

The memorial service was held in the church mom had attended since 1955, in the sanctuary that was finished the year I graduated high school. The sanctuary has a beautiful pipe organ, which was how I found out about the composer Jehan Alain. Mom sang in the chancel choir for 63 years. When she had to stop singing in the choir, they retired her stole. The choir director had a lovely shadowbox display made of it, which I gave back to be displayed as a memorial in the choir room.

“Holy, Holy, Holy” was mom’s favorite hymn, but she also liked “Be Thou My Vision,” which is a hard hymn for me to hear. It was my dad’s favorite hymn and was played at his memorial service also. This version by the inimitable Maire Brennan is my favorite. The service was very well done, I thought.

I managed to keep it together pretty well through the service, but it was touch and go during the last hymn. We had a receiving line and mom’s boss at the law firm came, as well as the lady who had been a secretary but put herself through law school and became a lawyer with the firm. She’s the one handling Mom’s will.

The minister who officiated is the son of one of the previous ministers. That minister had married a widow with two young children who was also an ordained minister. I was still attending during some of the time he was their minister but I had a hard time getting with a pastor who looked like Gene Simmons of KISS. The son had gotten to know a local girl while they were here and after he was ordained, he came back and married her. He had several other churches before our church called him. He was glad to come back to his wife’s home town and he is the current minister. He seems to be well liked and has drawn people into the church. Mom liked him a lot better than some of his predecessors.

The “bereavement committee” at the church provided a lovely luncheon for the family after the service. All the women who set out the buffet and decorated the parlor were long-time friends of Mom, and I so much appreciated their efforts. The buffet table was beautiful. (They had this bright bronze damask cloth on the buffet table and an autumnal flower arrangement.) Mom was never more in her element than when she was putting on a meal for her friends. She was the best kind of party animal. She would have loved it.

The funeral home got the copies of the death certificate Tuesday. I had to get a new inspection sticker for my car, get groceries, and meet my cousin at Carillon at 3:30. We went out to dinner and then both made an early night of it. I confess that part of him riding with me instead of the other way around was that he needed to leave before 2 p.m. so he could get home before dark, and I could have some calm-down and get-it-back-together time. Fortunately, others had planes to catch so we didn’t linger.

Now that I had the death certificates, I could sort out the bank accounts and Mom’s Merrill Lynch accounts. Thankfully — and foresightfully — because it was a joint account, I still had access to the funds I needed to settle Mom’s final expenses. Like I said, ducks in a row.

For most of last week, I had been feeling kind of draggy and unrested when I woke up in the morning, even though I was getting plenty of sleep, which I just put down to stress. I had my usual beta-blocker hacking cough but it had worsened over Friday. Just cotton ginning, I thought. Saturday, though, I woke up with a terrible sore throat and a stopped up head. I took my temp and it was only 99.1 F/37.2 C, so no high fever, but I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. I was able to get up to onload (and offload!) hydration, and to eat a little bit. I was supposed to have an MRI Monday, but that clearly wasn’t happening, nor was my chiropractic treatment on Tuesday. I rescheduled that, discovering in the process that I had a bad case of laryngitis. I sounded like Froggy.

Long about Tuesday, I was beginning to turn the corner, and I realized that housekeeping was due to come this coming Monday, so I called down to the front desk about getting a COVID test just in case. Two of the nurse/aides from the Assisted Living staff came and tested me. Yup. I had COVID. (Or, to put it more realistically, it had me!) I’m under quarantine until Tuesday. Fortunately, when one is under quarantine, one can have meals delivered at no extra charge. (Otherwise, there is a delivery fee.) They put the sack on the floor in front of your door and plong your doorbell.

Because of the holiday, I had planned to spend this week taking a breather before tackling Mom’s Medicare supplement providers. I had gotten a container of good ol’ Prater’s cornbread dressing and some chicken and cranberry sauce, for a quiet celebration, but so far, I haven’t had the oomph to fix it. I’ve also got a sink full of dishes I haven’t got the oomph to deal with either. However, there is a piece of good ol’ punkin’ pie which I didn’t have at lunch (and which is probably sweet potato — most canned pumpkin is) calling my name.

The one bright spot in this week is this:

My Christmas cactus is gearing up to bloom. And, not to put too fine a point on it, another of my orchids has a flower spike on it.

Injected, Inspected and (Slightly) Radioactivated

Mom survived COVID with just a mild cough; she had had her shots, but I had not had mine. I got them that next Monday, COVID and flu, both in the same arm, and was out of commission for the better part of two days. Of course, it takes two weeks for full immunity to kick in, and by the time I finally was able to make it over to see her and bring back her newly washed blankie to her she was over her COVID and I was over my shots. I had a PET scan scheduled for that afternoon. Piece of cake. They shoot you up with the radionuclide, you lie in a recliner covered with warm blankets in a darkened room (no, I did not glow in the dark) for 45 minutes, and then you lie in the scanner for 10 minutes. I thought it interesting that you are not allowed to go on your phone or read or do anything except lie quietly because those things cause the brain to take up the radionuclide in a weird way that could mask something or cause a false positive.

Last week, I got the other shingles vaccine and the pneumonia vaccine, but was told I was not old enough for the RSV vaccine, which is recommended for people with lung disease such as COPD or asthma, and/or immune compromise, and who are 75 or older. So, I’m as vaccinated as I can get for the moment.

The new Foreigner book came out and I snarfed it down in huge gulps. Nothing by her is due out again until October of next year.

We had a cold snap for about three days with three nights’ worth of a freeze hard enough that anybody with plumbing pipes on an outside wall had to leave the faucet dribbling to keep the pipes from freezing. One of the unexpected downsides to having a sink in your bedroom …

The cold weather was a perfect excuse to stay in my adjustable bed with it set on “recliner” with a pot of tea and toasted English muffins to hand, and read. I do love me some English muffins liberally slathered with Bonne Maman’s cherry preserves.

The Greyola is nine years old this month. It has over 19,000 miles on it. That includes two trips to Houston, three trips to Round Top and a trip to New Mexico. I’ve got the state papers to get a new inspection sticker, which I’ll try to do Tuesday as I also have a trip to the chiropractor that day.

As I have about a quarter of a tank of gas left, I’ll swing by Walmart and get gas before I go to my favorite state inspection place. Then I can get my actual sticker at the Market Street on 50th and Indiana and drive back to the inspection place and get them to put it on. They have the little scraper dohickey to remove the old sticker, which I don’t. That also puts me right next to a Whataburger. Yep. Whatachick’n with extra gravy. If I’m dunking stuff in good brown gravy, I’m not just dunking the chicken strips, I’m dunking the fries and the toast. That’s the plan anyway.

We had a rain storm earlier in the month, and I caught this image of the raindrops on the screen mesh. Here lately, we have had a series of those absolutely cloudless days of late fall where the unimpeded sunlight makes everything look like it’s part of a painting in egg tempera, like an Andrew Wyeth painting. All the bright colors have been faded by a summer’s worth of harsh West Texas sun and everything has a slightly over-exposed, yet luminous quality. It’s like being under a Klieg light.

They’re stripping cotton for sure, and are probably starting to gin it, too. The sky “tans out” near the horizon from the dust and plant trash stripping cotton throws up into the air.

“Cotton” is the seed head of the cotton plant with the seeds deeply imbedded in the actual cotton fibers, which are then encased in the cotton boll. Up until the invention of the cotton (en)gin(e), the only way to separate the cotton seeds from the cotton fibers was to pick the seeds out by (slave) hands. It was a laborious and time consuming process, not profitable even with slave labor. The invention of the cotton gin is what made cotton a profitable crop for slave owners, who had a ready pool of “free” farm labor to cultivate and then pick the cotton out of the bolls in the field and haul it to the gin. (Jump down, turn around, pick a bale a day. . .) (The film “Places in the Heart” gives some good insight as to what it’s like to pick cotton by hand.) The invention of the mechanical cotton picker/stripper mechanized the cotton picking process as well. The cotton still has to be cleaned of any remaining plant debris before it can be ginned, which “gin trash” is then burned.

For the cotton to be ready to strip, the leaves have to have fallen off the plant. This happens in one of two ways — you have a timely hard freeze that kills the leaves, or you spray the fields with a chemical defoliant. So in fall, we’re breathing chemical-impregnated plant debris and dirt from the stripping and cotton microfibers and gin-trash smoke from the gins. And I’ll be coughing and sneezing until next year.

Also in the plant related news is this:

Yes, dear readers, that green stem looking thing is just that: A flower “spike.” It’s on the plant I took into protective custody. Stay tuned.

Murdered in Cold Sap!!

I was squirrelling away on the computer yesterday afternoon, entirely loving having two whole monitors worth of area to do stuff in. I’d been hearing that beep!beep!beep! heavy equipment backing up noise all morning and vague engine noises which I took to be leaf blowers. Then I caught the movement of something large and orange out of the corner of my eye. I’m on the third floor, remember, and it understandably attracted my attention.

Oh, good, I thought, they’re finally pruning all the dead wood out of that tree right by my window. But they kept pruning and pruning and pruning . . .

I was in shock — and not a little upset, as you can imagine. Apparently, from my perspective on the third floor and at that particular angle, I could not tell that the tree was leaning toward the building . . . but . . !!!!!!!

Before

After

I did finally get bookcases sorted, and that other flower derangement re-deranged and humpty-zillion articles of daily living neatened up and/or put away and the prezzies wrapped. I know this is fake flower overkill, but I love that tall derangement too much to ditch it. It’s just about time for me to take it out to the common area as part of the “Fall/Thanksgiving Decorations” — we are very liturgical here and residents decorate for seasons and important holidays.

(I wear these rampant purple rubber gloves to do dishes. I have this thing about the insides of the rubber gloves drying out from getting sweaty washing dishes so they don’t get all manky inside. I’ve ordered some stick-on clothespin thingies so I can hang them on the inside of the door to my under-sink cabinet out of sight, but they won’t be here til Sunday. )

One set of rellies got in from the other side of the state yesterday evening. The NM set will arrive later this afternoon. See The Report of the Birthday under separate cover.

With no segue whatever, many Universities have symposia about this or that academic topic germane to their curriculum and in this digital age, many symposia are video-ed and posted on YouTube later where other interested parties may view them. I like the ones about Human evolution (when did we stop calling them “hominids” and start calling them “hominins?”), fossils of all species and ancient Human cultures.

I was watching one the other day of this guy with an alphabet after his name giving a talk on “the grandmother hypothesis” as he “mansplained” why he thought Humans were one of three mammalian species (the other two are whales) whose females have menopause, and what he thought the evolutionary advantages of it were. He nattered on about “repositories of environmental knowledge and tribal wisdom.” And I’m sitting there going DUH! It would be baldly obvious to any woman who (a) has had children or (b) has been involved in raising them, what the evolutionary advantages of having grandmothers are.

Right off the bat, you’re going to be a more efficient and productive gatherer if you do not have to divide your attention between gathering and a toddler. More food in less time equals healthier tribe members and more babies likely to survive to adulthood and reproduce. (It’s no coincidence that babies get weaned right about the time they get too heavy to lug around all day.) So you leave the toddlers and preschoolers back in camp with granny and the women who are in their last trimester of pregnancy. (There is also an evolutionary advantage to having a camp fire handy when you’re hugely pregnant and can’t run fast.) The pregnant women process food for consumption, and granny keeps an experienced eye on the segment of the population that large predators consider Human McNuggets, and makes sure they don’t, like, put scorpions in their mouths or try to play with snakes, or wander off and get snacked on by the neighborhood saber-toothed tiger. And to keep them occupied, she gives classes in Foraging 101.

There is also an evolutionary advantage to having “elementary school age” boys help the women and girls gather, and learn in the process what is good to eat, what is not good to eat and what you have to do to it to make it edible. (It doesn’t take very much convincing to get a boy to climb a tree and shake down fruit . . . ) They’re going to be inducted into hunting societies once they’re old enough and you can guess whose going to be in charge of setting up camp on their hunting expeditions with dad and the uncles until they’re fully grown and can hit a target with enough accuracy and force to do any good. That, and the well-known (to mothers, at least) fact that adolescent boys are notorious for having hollow legs . . . Here endeth the rant.

I’ll leave you with the view from my nekkid window . . . Sigh!

Attack of the Minor Crises

Things were going well. I’d gotten my knee to settle down and quit hurting. I’d gotten the VA to cough up another 8 visits to the punch doctor (chiropractor), with the first two scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday of this week. My shoulder and neck were behaving. I stayed up way late Sunday night planning to sleep in Monday so I could stay up half Monday night doing laundry. (There are people here who think nothing of stopping your load in the washer or dryer, taking your clothes out, doing theirs and just leaving your half washed/dried clothes sitting on top of the washer or dryer. The likelihood of this happening diminishes sharply after midnight, however . . .)

So Monday I went to bed after 9:00 a.m. in the morning and had planned to sleep until about 5:00 p.m. so I could stay up and do 2 loads of laundry. About 1:00 p.m., I get a call from our friend CK who is over visiting mom. One of mom’s hearing aids had broken. The little doodad that goes in her ear had come off. CK had called the ear doctor mom had gotten them from and they said her hearing aids were (way) out of warranty and they couldn’t fix it and she would have to come in. She had an appointment for Wednesday afternoon. I had bought mom some el-cheapo Bluetooth compatible hearing aids on Amazon to see if she could hear better on her phone with them but she hadn’t wanted to even try them.

I threw on some clothes, got the Amazon aids (which were still unopened in the packaging) and hiked over to mom’s. Turns out mom’s hearing loss was too profound for them to handle, and when you turned them up high enough to where she could just barely hear, they fed-back and squealed like a piglet caught in a fence.

Mom’s hearing aids are so old they use those little batteries and are not Bluetooth compatible. Even though her hearing deficit is worse in some frequencies than in others, all her current hearing aids do is just make everything louder. The newer hearing aides are adjustable to amplify most in the frequencies where the deficit is greatest. She’d tried to get some like that before but she has used the old ones for so long that the new ones make everything sound strange because she’s hearing in frequencies she’s not used to being able to hear (for about 20 years now). And because they’re not what she’s used to, she doesn’t like them.

We finally got her to where she was using her still-working hearing aid in one ear, and one of the Amazon ones in the other ear. These new hearing aid were rechargeable. She has an extension cord dohicky taped to her night stand that has two USB plugs (one for her phone charging cord and one for her Kindle charging cord) and (incidentally) two regular electrical plugs. These new hearing aids had a USB plug. So I had to hike back to my apartment and get a USB/electrical plug adapter so she could plug those in.

By the time I got back home, I was exhausted and my knee was having a hissy fit. I crawled into bed, put my feet up, and went back to sleep. No way I was schlepping laundry to and from the laundry room. Fortunately, I set both alarms because I glunked out again after I took my Tuesday morning meds and was ten minutes late to my appointment at the punch doctor’s Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday. Getting mom anywhere is a big production. They have to take her places in a wheelchair van, and I have to climb in and out of them. Quite literally climb. Most of these vans/buses have the ground clearance of a pickup, which is about 2 feet. (People who are only 5’4″ tall have short legs. What can I say?) They teach you in rehab: “Up with the good, down with the bad.” You are supposed to step up with the good/stronger leg. You are supposed to step down onto your bum leg so your stronger leg can control your descent. Now if your bum leg is the left one, work out the mechanics of getting into and out of the passenger side of the van/bus. Yep. Tricky.

So we schlep mom from 17th Street to 114th Street, which is way the heck on the other side of town. We’re sitting in the waiting room at the ear doctor and I’m admiring this pair of prints they have hanging in the waiting room. Then I realize they’ve been hung sideways. Both of them.

They’re two identical prints of the same watercolor of a river bank with trees in the background. But then she’s an ear doctor . . .

Well. The upshot is that mom’s hearing loss has worsened slightly, which is not surprising. Her hearing loss is most profound in the higher frequency, which is typical and which is why she can’t understand (young) women with high voices (they mumble!). Turns out they can send her busted hearing aid off to get it fixed (2-3 weeks) for less than $500, or she can get new hearing aids for upwards of $5K. She won’t like the new ones because she’ll be able to hear frequencies she hasn’t heard in 20 years and things won’t sound the way she’s used to. If they can fix the one she has and that makes her happy, well . . .

She’s got loaners to use until hers get fixed. They’re rechargable, but they came with a USB plug adapter. She’ll have to put up with these until her old ones get fixed. (If they tell you two to three weeks, figure on a month at least.)

And not to put too fine a point on my week so far:

They’re only supposed to last a month or two. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them since the end of March. Nearly five months. I have no room to complain. Still, I feel I’m allowed to be sad that they’re done. Sigh. Now I can repot all three of them in one swell foop.

Earlier in the month, my cousin and his Mrs. drove over from New Mexico. We go out to eat lunch together (Applebee‘s!), and then they have a visit with mom, and drive back. It’s about a four hour drive one way. Mrs. and I had a nice jaw about books. She’s a reader, too.

Critical Mess

The STEMies among you will recognize the physics concept of “critical mass” — that is the minimum amount of fissile material needed to maintain a nuclear chain reaction. You may not, however, be familiar with the concept of “critical mess,” which is the level of clutter, haphazard distribution and general messiness of your living space needed to maintain your willingness to exert the energy to clean it up. Some people’s critical mess threshold is set higher than others. My mom, for example, has a very low threshold. It was a running joke growing up that if my father got up in the night to go to the bathroom, he was as likely as not to find the bed had been made up in his absence. Mine, on the other hand, is set higher. I can tolerate a level of clutter and haphazard distribution that would drive my mom up a wall. However, the other day, my living space reached critical mess and a cleaning frenzy ensued. I feel much better now.

I mentioned in a previous post that mom wanted some new duds. Same have arrived, have met with her approval, and now comes the task of sewing those little “homing” labels into them that will ensure that when they are taken away to be washed, they will find their way back to her. This is proving problematic. Needles are small, thin and have sharp points. To be fair, sewing on these labels was not my favorite task. Now that I’ve been having trouble with my fingers, I’ve had to resort to bribery. One piece of Rolo per label.

When I went to see her yesterday, our dear friend CK was there. Apparently, mom had had an episode of vomiting early Thursday morning, and later, when a friend had come by to see her, she’d been asleep. It is unknown how hard the friend tried to rouse her, but the friend left a note saying she couldn’t get her to wake up. Then later, when CK came, mom was asleep, but CK was able to wake her up. She nodded off a time or two, but by the time I arrived, she was awake and alert, although she seemed a bit confused. The nurses drew blood and took a urine sample, but there are no results yet. Then, just now, one of the nurses called to say that mom had fallen twice since yesterday. The first time, she had just slid to the floor from a seated position, so it technically wasn’t a fall, but the second time, they found her full length on the floor. She said she was not hurt. She may just have crumpled from a standing position due to weakness. If she’d stumbled or tripped, she would have been more likely to have been hurt, either from hitting the floor or from trying to catch herself. But obviously this situation is concerning.

She has a gallbladder full of gravel and that has caused problems in the past, specifically, nausea and vomiting. It also causes the knock-on effect of putting her liver functions out of whack, and that causes problems with her kidneys. Then again, she could have a UTI. She’s had them before, and she’s in a prime environment for antibiotic resistant bugs. She thankfully doesn’t have any major health issues like COPD or heart disease. She’s just a nearly 99-year-old lady. Things are wearing out. It’s a delicate balance; if one thing goes, it pulls everything down with it. Cascade failure happens. I have a care plan meeting for her next week. Hopefully nothing dire happens between now and then.

My white orchid, who I have named “Mr. Ball” Is about to need to be repotted. Evidently, having a vessel of water that its roots can get to is the key. The blooms are still going strong, a beautiful white and gold cascade. The blooms will eventually start falling off, at which point I will likely go into withdrawal. Yes, I have created a horrible frankincense monster, and I don’t care.

The as yet unnamed rescue is putting out a new leaf, which means the corner has definitely been turned. You will also notice a new root peeking out from beneath the left lower leaf. I’m glad to see it. It only has one decent root in the water. A few more roots sucking up the sky juice would be helpful.

I will wait until Mr. Ball is done blooming before I repot him. I’ll take the opportunity to drench his roots like they say you’re supposed to. I already have the pot and the little plastic liner thingie, as well as the potting material.

The grackles are up to something in the tree outside. Four or five will fly in, light, and do a bunch of fluttering and tail wagging, and some feather preening and shaking out. They’re probably newly fledged young. They are doing a lot of beaking about in their plumage rather industriously. Curious. I either get grackles or doves in the trees. Seems like there’s always a dove boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-ing somewhere nearby.

Dos Lebn Iz a Shpas

Taking a leaf from my earworm du jour:

Dos lebn iz a lidl, to vozhe zayn in kas.
Hey, Yidl, fidl, shmidl, hey, dos lebn iz a shpas.*

That’s been in heavy earworm rotation with this and this all week.

Been a tricky week. Had my first visit to the punch doctor (chiropractor) Friday. Got a look at a head-on x-ray of my C-spine. Yep. C2 is slightly cattywompus. They don’t actually punch you anymore. They have machines for that. Yes, I did have tightness in my neck and shoulders. Felt good. I have one session next week because of the holiday, then it’s Tuesdays and Thurdays for the next five weeks. The peripheral neuropathy in my fingers is down to the first knuckle now. My little fingers are the only ones not affected.

It’s three and a half in the morning and I have a load of clothes in the dryer. I prefer to do my laundry in the middle of the night. That way, I can use both washers and dryers if I need to and get it all done at once without being a machine hog. It’s a little scary how easily I can slip back into nights. I like the peace, quiet and solitude. One of the things people never seem to “get” about me is how self contained I am. There’s one of the Just So stories by Rudyard Kipling called “The Cat Who Walks By Himself.” Yep. (If you have not read Kipling’s Just So Stories, I highly recommend them. Written to be read aloud. The language is positively luscious.)(There seems to be this idiotic notion that stories for children should be written in simple language. Balderdash. Do them a favor. Give them stories written at the adult level using rich language that has cadence and flow, and let them grow into them.)

I have this little fold out clothes bar mounted to the wall of my closet right above my laundry basket. The hanger goes on the bar, the dirty clothes go in the laundry basket. When I go to wash clothes, there are all the hangers I need to hang them up. (I will not buy clothes hangers unless I break one. I have a net zero closet: If I get a new garment, I have to get rid of some other garment to get a hanger for it. ) When I go to take the clothes out of the dryer, I’ll just grab the hangers on my little bar and put the clean clothes back on them.

Was saddened to hear of the passing of Tina Turner. Unfortunately, a lot of women are going to need the role model she provided for overcoming adversity. A certain small segment of the population seems bound and determined to take away our hard-won rights and force their minority views on everybody.

The orchid I’ve taken into foster care seems to have turned the corner. It’s leaning into the sun now and generally looking perky. It has its little glass and at least one good root slurping up the sky juice. I don’t know what color it blooms. Maybe I’ll find out. That’d be cool.

Me and Google Translate are going to read Yaxin el Fauno de Gabriel by Man Arenas in Spanish. I love his art. I can’t find an English translation, only the original Spanish and the French translation. I had 2 years of French and 3 years of Spanish in high school and a year in college.

At one time I was fluent enough to get around Barcelona by myself, but I’ve slept a few times since then. I’ll pull Google Translate up on my Kindle Fire and settle in for a good read.

*This existence is a song. Why should I be upset?
Yidl, fidl, shmidl – Hey -This life is pure fun.