Mom – The Owl Underground

Same Song, Umpteenth Verse

We were going to try the allopurinol with Benadryl and prednisone, and my body said, “Nope. Not having it,” and threatened me with Stevens-Johnson syndrome if I didn’t stop this nonsense right this minute. I seem to tolerate the Venclexta — no nausea, vomiting or any of those shenanigans, but allopurinol is right out. And to be frank, I’m so glad the itching has stopped that I almost don’t care that I’m doing the skin peel thing all over my body again (except that my hands peel worst of all, which is severely annoying because I can’t knit!) I think I must be working on, like, my third set of skin this year.

I had a basic metabolic panel done yesterday and my BUN was the only value that was not within normal limits. It was high, but not all that high. I’m in limbo right now. Everything is stopped but the prednisone. I’d just as soon stop it too as I’m getting noticeably strung out on it. This morning, I felt nauseous after I took the two meds I have to take on an empty stomach, and I just rolled over and went back to sleep without taking any of the rest of my meds, including the prednisone. That was at 9:30. I woke up at nearly 5:00, having slept the day away. It felt good to sleep until I was done sleeping.

In the knitting news, I frogged that shawl I was working on because it wonked on me big time. It would have taken short rows to fix and I don’t have the band width right now to deal with short rows. But then I had this idea for a top-down crescent shawl with a twisted cable top border. You’re always seeing crescent shawls that start with a garter tab. If you want a fancy top border, you have to go back and knit it on. My idea was to use a Turkish cast-on instead of a garter tab, and knit the top border as you go. Turns out it works very nicely, thank you very much, even with a yarn over (yo) detail between the border and the garter stitch shawl body. There’s only a tiny wonky bit right at the center, but you have to hunt for it.

I’m about 5 inches into it and it keeps calling my name and I YEARN to be working on it, but I’ve tried knitting in these Laytex gloves and nope! And my bare hands are so snaggy because they’re peeling hand over fist. AARRGGHH!!

I’m reusing the same Caron Simply Soft (“Ocean”) acrylic yarn I was using for the frogged shawl. Caron Simply Soft tends to be splitty to begin with, and being knitted and frogged five or six times doesn’t help. (“Splitty” to a knitter means the strand of yarn has a tendency to untwist and separate into plies, which makes it harder for the point of the needle to catch the whole strand to make a stitch. That’s one of the downsides of acrylic yarn. Wool yarn, because it’s basically hair, has a “built-in” tendency to curl. A good spinner works the spinning and plying with the curl so that once a wool yarn is spun and plied, its natural tendency is to stay that way.)

Speaking of natural tendencies, I seem to have a natural tendency to dream during sleep. Even when I wake up without the aid of annoying noises (alarm clocks), I always seem to be waking up out of a dream. It’s like sleep is a sea of dreams, and I’m a whale. I sound down into the depths and stay down for hours. I come up for air briefly, and down I go again. Most of my dreams are fairly hum-drum and nondescript. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for my car in parking lots, or walking to some destination I’m not sure how to get to. My dreams have little emotional affect attached to them, apart from a vague, free-floating anxiety when I can’t find my car. (That’s what made the nightmares I had when I first started taking metoprolol so jarring and upsetting.)

I suspect that’s a function of my being where I am on the spectrum. Because of the unaddressed emotional disconnect my “light” autism created in my life from a very early age, I have become the cat that walks by herself and all places are alike to me. Being on my own has never bothered me.

(Our neighborhood feral cat.)

I’m basically a pretty stolid person, which I get from my dad, the Marine veteran of WWII in the Pacific. He was pretty much unrattleable. I did get a little “what-if” anxiety from my mom, but that plays out in an interesting way. (A “what if-er” is a type of anxiety where the busy brain is always asking — what if this terrible thing happens? what if that terrible thing happens? It’s pretty easy for them to spiral off into a state of paralyzing anxiety. I think my mom spent a good deal of her life anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop and anxiously wondering which shoe it would be.)

Gemini that I am, now and again, I will catch myself having an interesting internal dialogue between the “dad” part of my brain and the “mom” part. For a recent example, I’m walking from the building 40 feet to where my car is parked and I’ll have this random intrusive thought — (mom) What if I slipped and fell and hurt myself? There’s nobody around. I could lie here on the pavement for hours . . . (dad) I would get out my cell phone and call Security, and they would come and help me. It doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s interesting when it does. It’s that “dad” part of my brain that makes me stop and think through a complicated task before I jump into the middle of it by saying things like, “No, always sweep/vacuum first and dust last; that gives the dust you stir up sweeping/vacuuming time to settle so you’ll catch it when you dust.” Last week, when I was having those severe side effects, it was that “dad” part of my brain that said, “Maybe you need to get up and go throw the deadbolt before you close your apartment door just in case, so the EMS people won’t have to wait for Security to come open your door if you can’t.”

As I say, right now I’m in a holding pattern waiting for a call from my oncologist as to what to do next.

Holding Patterns and Other Spirals

My oncologist has referred me to a colleague in his group who specializes in lymphomas. After several days of frantic thrashing about at the VA (there is some urgency here), they decided I didn’t need a new consult but could use the one already in place since there’s no actual change in the billing end of things. I met with the new guy Wednesday. My previous oncologist was a short (barely taller than me and I outweigh him), voluble bundle of energy from Peru. The new one is a tall, laconic, thin bearded guy from India who has vitiligo (which is neither here nor there but which may account for the short beard).

I start another round of chemo next Thursday with different drugs. The last chemo I had was antineoplastics with a single monoclonal antibody (*rituximab). This round (I think) will be only monoclonal antibodies. There is concern about tumor lysis syndrome, and I probably will have to take allopurinol for that. Oh, what fun.

At some point in the immediate future, I’ll be having another bone marrow biopsy looking for a particular genetic mutation (p53?) and to see how much marrow involvement I have, which would help them choose the most effective drugs. At least this time I won’t have to drive 200+ miles to another city to have it done. Of course, any time you’re talking any kind of surgery, my cardiologist has to get involved as I’m on a blood thinner.

Last week in and amongst the CT scans and abdominal ultrasound they also wedged in an echocardiogram which showed an ejection fraction of 61% (normal is 50-70%), so there’s that on the plus side.

Next week I meet with the bank guy to get mom’s accounts shifted from her bank to my bank. I’m trying to find somebody to act as Power of Attorney for healthcare, and somebody else to be POA for financial matters. A maternal cousin, who is in his 80’s, is a 4-hour drive away. His daughter lives in Oregon. I’ve got other maternal cousins 10+ hours away who are as old as he is. I have a paternal cousin who would be an excellent choice, but she live 10+ hours away near the other cousins who live in the Greater Houston mishmash.

I just finished rereading Shogun by James Clavell, all 1210 pages of it, which is an interesting exploration of Japanese culture. One of the interesting Japanese ideas the Japanese character Mariko was trying to get across to the Englishman Blackthorn was this idea of mental compartmentalization. (Scarlet O’Hara’s “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”) It has to do with living in the now and not borrowing trouble (“Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.”). You decide on a course of action, work out contingency plans, then you put it away in its compartment and get on with the minute by minute aspects of your life. I’ve always been like that. I fortunately got my dad’s temperament. My mom didn’t really know how to be “still.” She didn’t wait well, and she was a “worrier.” When I’m confronted by a problem, I work out what I need to do to deal with it. Then I let it go. Weeping and wailing and gnashing teeth does nothing but waste energy that could be used more productively.

I don’t know what chemo will entail this time, whether I’ll require a long infusion or what, but I’m prepared with WIPs that need finishing. And a new Sebastian St. Cyr book comes out in April, so a whole series reread might be appropriate.

Why I haven’t turned the blooming orchid around so I can see it from the front . . . .

And I have a bad case of second bootie syndrome . . . First purple one is not finished, second aqua one is started . . .

I have had a lifelong problem with my purse strap slipping off my shoulder. I know I could wear it cross body, but it feels uncomfortable to me. I got some of this to stick on the strap. Stay tuned.

I’ll be needing some catitude to deal with the next couple of weeks.

* Fun Fact:  When the generic name of a drug ends in -mab (trastuzumab, bevacizumab, rituximab), that indicates it is a monoclonal antibody.

Cold Enough For Ya?

Our high today, when I had to traipse about out in it, was 30 F/-1.1 C, but it was sunny and not windy (tradeoffs). Tonight’s predicted low, 2 F/-16.6 C. Thats T-W-Ooooeee that’s cold! Actually, I didn’t do too much traipsing about, just to the doctor and to Wal-Mart, and home again by way of Whataburger . . . I had packages to pick up down at the front desk — supplements and stuff I order off Amazon, like medium size Breathe-Right strips, which I can never find in the store. They’re either out completely or all they have is large, which would fit a bull moose just fine. I bought five boxes off Amazon. That ought to last me a while.

The front desk is in the lobby, and the lobby has automatic doors to the outside, and what with the door opening and closing all the time, our poor receptionist about freezes her petunias off. She had this electric heater set on “Arc Weld” next to her chair. I was telling her about these lap robes I made, and decided to make her one, just as a public service.

So, while I was at Wal-Mart I got a twin size fleece blanket in dark blue which I’m going to make into a lap robe tomorrow (as well as make another one for me!) because it’s 10 o’clock at night right now and I have to get out and set up the sewing machine . . . and find my sewing accoutrements . . . and thread . . .

They’re dead easy to make. You cut the hem off as close to the seam as possible so you’ve just got a flat piece of fleece material. Then you fold it in half “head” to “foot,” smooth out all the wrinkles and pin the two layers together. Sew a seam around all four sides, including the fold side, in one long continuous seam with about 1 mm (1/3-inch) seam allowance except for about 8 inches along one of the cut edges, which you leave open so you can turn it inside out. Then, from the inside, you push out all the seams as far to the edge as they will go and pin the two layers flat, fold the edges of the “hole” down toward the inside about 1 mm and pin. To finish, you sew around all four sides about an inch in from the edge to make a border. With a needle and thread, you seam up the “hole.” This converts a 66″ x 90″ single-thickness fleece twin size blanket into an approximately 63″ x 42″ double-thickness lap robe. The beauty of this size is that you can put one corner of it down on the seat of a desk chair, sit down and flip the part that’s draped over the chair arm, over your lap to get full draft protection. And you can machine wash and dry them. So snuggly and warm!

These are so easy to make and they make great gifts for couch potatoes of all ages, especially if you wait until spring to buy the blankets when they’re on sale. (Can you tell I like leopard print?)

I went to see the oncologist today, and had bloodwork done beforehand. All my bloodwork was within normal limits except for those pesky lymphocytes which were slightly elevated. (lymphoma). He wants to see me again in May and do a CT scan. In the meantime, I finally got an appointment with an ENT doctor. (earliest available appointment end of Feb!)

When I got the mail today, there was a jury summons addressed to my mom. Um . . . I think she has a permanent exemption?

The Suspense is Killing Me!

Christmas was quiet. On major holidays like Christmas, the dining facilities usually serve only lunch, and it is served cafeteria style. If I opt to eat, I usually go down and bring it back to my lair. This was my Christmas feast. Major nums!

I never eat in the dining room unless I’m taking a guest to lunch, and on holidays, the place is usually heaving with people and their visiting families. To begin with, I do not like crowds and, because manners, I always end up bolting down my food so as to make room for somebody else to eat, or for the servers to clean up so they can go home, and then I’m miserable for the rest of the afternoon from having gobbled down my meal so quickly. . . .

I treated myself to a bit of Christmas fancy. (Nothing like a little retail therapy to chase away the blahs.) In light of what else was on offer, I consider this tastefully festive. Santa also brought me a pair of noise cancelling headphones and some new (on sale!) 100% cotton sheets made in the USA from West Texas cotton. Solidarity and all that. (The last set of el cheapo Amazon sheets developed a spontaneous tear after less than a year.)(!) Last night was my first night using them and they are luscious.

I got Windows 11 to do desktop gadgets (again) and got my Werewolf Monitor back. Windows 11 considers desktop gadgets “a vulnerability” and stopped having them. We’ll see how long I can keep it. I had it going before and Windows 11 got all paternalistic and snitty and quit running the program. I’m running NordVPN now, and maybe that will satisfy Windows 11 that my backside is amply covered. Sigh.

My Christmas cactus is going nuts. I found this little plant stand that is almost exactly the same height as the console table I’m using for my plants and lets me utilize that last 11 inches of window space that was going fallow before. It came yesterday (assembly required)(piece of cake) and I covered it with more of that plastic shelf liner stuff to protect the “wood” top.

I’ve still got that gianormous peace lily on my kitchen counter, but I am seriously considering selling my dinette set in favor of another desk like my computer desk. I invariably eat at my computer (like I’m doing now)(the habits of 20+ years are hard to break . . .) and the desk would take up way less space and be more functional. The peace lily would sit on the end of the desk near the windows. First, I have to get rid of the old Windows 7 machine, though. Sigh.

I had a safe, sane New Year’s Eve. They had some kind of function downstairs, but those, again, are usually heaving with people, alcohol is served, there’s an electronically amplified “musician(s),” and for people with normal hearing, it’s like having a metal pail over your head that somebody is beating with a large ladle. Instead, responsible adult that I am, I did two loads of laundry. (I have a “load size” laundry basket I keep on the floor of my closet that is my dirty clothes hamper. When it gets full, I have one load of wash. It was heaping full.)

When my dad passed, it was (metaphorically) like having a tooth pulled. The place where it had been hurts and is tender at first, then it heals and is no longer painful; but life has a way of reminding you in a hundred subtle ways that the tooth is gone. There was something there, and now there isn’t. Eventually, you get used to not having it, but it’s still gone. I’ve lost another (metaphorical) tooth.

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.

The Benefit of Her Experience

Mom was secretary to one of the partners of a local law firm for umpty-zillion years until she retired, and you better believe she had all her ducks in a row in terms of wills, powers of attorneys and whatnot. She put me on her bank accounts as joint account holder about 7 or 8 years ago. The first time I actually ever wrote a check on that account was in 2021, when I went to the local furniture store and bought her a lift chair (with strict instruction to make sure that it matched the rest of her furniture!)

I’m going to get up on my soap box now: **Everybody,** no matter their age, should have a sheet of paper that lists the names and dosages of all the medications and supplements they are talking (the info on the prescription labels), a list of the operations they’ve had and when they had them, any broken bones and when/how they were broken, and any health conditions they might have (asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, COPD, pacemaker, etc.). This information needs to be kept up to date and it needs to be ***printed out on a sheet of paper *** and carried next to your driver’s license, NOT on your phone. (The people in the ER have no way to get this info out of your phone and into their medical records system!) If they pry you out of a wrecked car, or your loved ones find you unconscious on the floor somewhere, and they don’t have this information, the EMTs and ER physicians are flying blind. You might want to make a copy of this paper for your spouse/adult child/caregiver to carry or at least make them aware that you have it and where you keep it, so they can provide the information if you can’t. I’m getting off my soapbox now.

In the past four days, I have blessed mom repeatedly for her forethoughtfulness and meticulousness. It took me less than two hours to gather up the documents I needed, sort through things and work out what still needed to be done, what I could do now, and what has to wait for a copy of the death certificate. She had even written her own obituary and picked out the picture she wanted to go with it!

I’ve been able to keep it together pretty well. Until we got to the turtle.

Tragically, my mom’s father died when she was three years old. Shortly before his death, he had given mom this little toy turtle. It’s pressed tin and has wheels. She treasured it for 96 years because him giving it to her was one of the few memories she had of her father. When it became clear that mom was not coming back to her house again, I got that turtle and have kept it in my little steel lock box with the wills, insurance policies, car title, etc. I promised her that I would have it put in her hand to take with her.

Having to get that turtle out of my purse and give it to the funeral director just nearly did me in. That more than anything brought home to me that she is really and truly gone.

The service is scheduled for next week so that relatives who live elsewhere can schedule flights and make arrangements to attend. There is a desk downstairs next to the mail room where notices of residents’ passing and the times and dates of their services are put. At the bottom of hers there is a notice that those wishing to attend her service can sign up and Carillon will provide transportation.

Way back in 2016, I joined this knitting group that met at a branch of our city library. There I got to know two ladies who were breast cancer survivors, LB and KC. LB and I became especially close since her daughter was also on the spectrum. We would meet at other times besides the time of the knitting group at her house or mine to knit and natter. Her husband had a heart attack and, since she could not drive, I took her to and from the hospital until he was able to be discharged home. Then her breast cancer recurred for the third time and was very aggressive. Through LB’s final ordeal KC and I grew closer. Last night KC called me to let me know that she has had a recurrence of her cancer and that she has surgery scheduled on the day of mom’s funeral to remove a nodule from her brain that they are afraid is cancerous.

The day after mom’s funeral, I have an appointment with my cardiologist, which I daren’t miss. I have not yet received the results of my PET scan.

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.

GAH!

I mentioned that my mom had tried to call me Friday evening but I was dead to the world trying to catch up on sleep. Called her Saturday morning to find out why she called. My dear, sweet 99-year-old mom tested positive for COVID Friday, and she was calling me to tell me not to come visit her. The lady next door to her had tested positive the day before, and mom had gotten a cough. When she asked one of the nurses if she could have something for it, they swabbed her for COVID and yep. Today, not ten minutes ago, I got a phone call from one of the aids letting me know that mom had had another “crumple fall.” They found her face down on the floor in her room. Normally, she can get to and from the bathroom on her own with her walker just fine, but today she was overcome with weakness and crumpled to the floor on her way back to her recliner. She got a little booboo on her knee, but she is otherwise OK. They’ve put her back on fall precautions. She’s had all her COVID vaccines, but still . . .

I could go into a full-on Donald Duck rant about those poor misguided inhabitants of Orange Earth or one of the other fantasy realms du jour who don’t get vaccinated for whatever delusional or just plain stupid reason and blissfully careen through the world like loose cannons infecting innocent high-risk bystanders right and left, but I think what I’ll do is just go to my room, put a pillow over my face and scream quietly for a little bit.

The Owl in the Daytime

Story of my life. I’m a creature of the night, but the world seems bound and determined to drag me (kicking and screaming) onto the day shift. While I was stationed in (West) Berlin, (East) Germany in the 1970s, I discovered the German watercolorist Klaus Meyer-Gasters. I got a calendar with his animal prints, of which, after almost half a century(!!!), this wonderfully dyspeptic owl is all that remains. I feel ya, bro.

I framed and cherish him. He hangs in my bedroom along with the macramé owl that my dad made for me with his very own sweet daddy hands and sent to me while I was overseas. I lost my dad in 2014, so “How Now, Brown Owl” is even more dear to me, if that is possible. They are of an age, these two.

I got maybe 10 hours of meh! sleep between Monday and Thursday, and no sleep at all Thursday night, which has meant I’ve been strung out and frazzled all week because . . . .

This is what I was dealing with since Monday until Friday morning. TOO SHORT DRAPES!! Friday morning at 10 a.m., the great guys from Environmental Services came and switched out the curtains again. After I got the drapes zhuzhed for maximum light blockage, I crashed and burned bigtime.

Slept like the dead (through three phone calls from my mom, apparently) from about 11 a.m. until almost 9 p.m. Now it’s too late to call her back.

When I shopped groceries Tuesday, I got some walnut and cranberry chicken salad from the Market Street deli. I had a sandwich of it on a brioche bun for what is technically my breakfast. Major nums. The “handwich” as the Liadens call it, went down a treat with a fruit salad of cottage cheese and mandarin orange slices. I’ve got two loads of wash going of the laundry I’ve been blowing off doing for two weeks (including my mom’s blankie), and another load still in the laundry basket because our floor’s laundry room only has two washers and two dryers. I’ll be up all night anyway. . . .

I had been dealing with numbness and tingling in my fingertips from the chemo. For the past couple three months, I have been eating a nice bowl of 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and fruit (mandarin orange slices or pineapple chunks) at least three or four times a week, and that numbness and tingling has subsided to barely noticeable. (Yes!) Dunno if it is the B vitamins or the calcium in the cottage cheese, or the vitamin C in the fruit, or what. Really don’t care though because it’s just more reasons to eat what I like eating anyway. I’ve noticed that part of the fingertips thing is skin related as in thickening and dryness of the skin. I may have to break out the Amopé thingie again, and use it on my heels, too, while I’m at it.

When I had to relocate from the Windows 7 computer to the Windows 11 computer, one of the (many) irksome things I have had to deal with is the Spider Solitare game (which I am addicted to) that came in a little games pack with Windows 7 would not work on Windows 11 (of course). I tore the world up trying to find a free, add-free Spider Solitare game for Windows 11 to no avail. Then the other day, I found this. It’s that same exact suite of games from Windows 7 but they work on Windows 11! Not just Spider Solitaire, but Mahjong Solitaire. Oh, joy electric!

In the knitting news, I’m on to the blue square. The green yarn is in route from Lion Brand and will hopefully be here soon. I have been thinking about edging and I have a cunning plan . . . I need to check and see if I have a 40-inch US9(5.5mm).