Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, was a high school staple when the Cuters were young.  I read it, liked it, let it fuel my interest in western African authors, and forgot about it.  But the title stayed with me.

As our medical situation devolves into absurdity, my house began falling apart, too.

The toilet in the bathroom kept running.  Deaf as I am, it didn't bother me.  TBG, on the other hand, was driven crazy by the intermittent rushing of water in the tank.  

The refrigerator in the garage decided to die while Little Cuter's family was here, on Thursday, as the garbage cans were collected by Waste Management.  The smell of defrosted frozen left overs was potent.  I kept the freezer door closed until Sunday, the night before our Monday collection.

Opening it was traumatic, nauseating, gross, and awful.  Figuring out how to dispose of it all took some concentrated thought.  With TBG in no condition to do any heavy lifting, my first thought was a multitude of plastic grocery bags.  Unfortunately, the first one had a hole in the bottom.  Defrosted goo was all over the floor and my flip flops.  

There was a big box on the floor.  I dumped the Halloween decorations out and dropped the bag in.  That jump started the cleansing.  Pastries, chicken chili, pot roast - it all went into the box.  The Tupperware which had contained them had an odor ... a stench ... a stomach turning combination of scents that required immediate dousing with Dawn and hot water.  By the time I got back to the box, the liquids were beginning to destroy the bottom.

I pushed the box all the way to the curb, mustered all my strength, and heaved it into the can.  The pushing was a great leg and glute exercise, the lifting strictly mind over matter.  Someone was watching over me; the can didn't tip as I had feared.

With two projects in mind, I called Scott the Handyguy, our savior in times like these.  He picked up the fridge I selected at Lowes, moved the old one and installed the new one.  It's beautiful.

He worked on the toilet, fixing one part and discovering yet another piece of our house that was falling apart.  A quick trip back to Lowes for the necessary parts and five minutes later the unwanted sounds were a thing of the past.

Things do fall apart.  We're lucky to have someone to put them back together.  Now, if the doctor would only call us back........

And Waiting

I understand the logic behind it.  I wonder if anyone thought about the unintended consequences.

Lab and imaging and blood work results all appear, quickly, via email.  Too quickly.  They arrive, tempting you to open them and read them and try to make sense of values and <'s and >'s and long words with Latin or Greek roots.

They arrive before the physician receives them, or so we've been told many, many times.  And so, we wait.  Waiting for a phone call promised within a day or two, only it's been four days and okay, two of them were the weekend, but still......

There are people in our orbit who could interpret them.  Dr. Google is always available.  But the medical people started this and they ought to close the loop.  They have the expertise and our trust.

I wish they would act like they deserve it.

*****

I'm purposely oblique in these posts because it's not my story to tell. 

I feel the love even if I'm not answering questions <3

Paper or Plastic..... or the Cloud

Remember in the Before Times when the cashier at the grocery store would ask you if you preferred paper or plastic bags?

Now, of course, we all carry reusable bags (in California they rip out your fingernails if you show up bagless).  Whole Foods will use an old fashioned paper bag with two handles and the bigger chain stores use only plastic if you show up without your own toting equipment.

It's the same with paper records.  Everything is in the cloud.  Everything, that is, except for TBG's information.  He asks for a printed copy of everything anyone financial sends electronically.  I no longer laugh.  When we need something he knows just where it is, while I'm busy searching for the right folder, the right password, the damn machine to turn on and stop updating itself.

This morning he asked for some help.  Apparently, a decade's worth of statements have begun to outgrow their drawer.  He thinks he only needs a few years saved.  Did I have any 3 ring binders that expanded?  

When I told Amster this story later this morning, she reminded me that her office is now paperless and all those white binders I used to admire were now sitting, empty, in a cabinet.  Everything is in the cloud....oh, but it's TBG.

And that is why Amazon's same day delivery service just provided the solution my delightfully Luddite of a husband wanted.

He's a very happy man, easy to please with Amazon Reward Points. 

Waiting

Is there anything lonelier than waiting in a hospital?  

The testing will take a couple of hours.  Family members are not allowed behind the DO NOT ENTER door.

We do better when we can be together.  

So, I sit and I wait and I worry, even though the worrying is useless.  He's where he's supposed to be, doing what he's supposed to be doing, while I stare at Happy Patient Access Week posters on the wall.  

G'ma always said she felt safest in the hospital, because they know what they're doing and I don't.  Bleeding on the sidewalk outside the Safeway, I felt an eerie sesnse of calm when I heard the sirens heading our way.  

But now, powerless, waiting, wondering, uncertain about the next steps, I turned to my keyboard to control my anxiety.  Your presence is comforting, even before I send this out into the ether.  I'm not sharing details, and I'm closing the comments on this post because I'm trying not to focus on the what if's.

Know, though, that right now you are keeping me quite sane.  Less medicinal than downing another Ativan, I'm relying on the fact that writing has always helped me keep things in perspective and that sharing it in The Burrow takes it out of the worry loop in my brain.  

Really.  I just took my first deep breath of the day.  

Thank you for being here.  

And Again

Yesterday featured swimming,  more swimming,  Jenga, hot dogs on paper plates with all the trimmings.... all that after the kids drive up to ghost town near Phoenix to meet up with SIR's brother and nephews. 

This morning it's Uno for the boys (Grandpa gets a quick nap as Dada takes over) as the girls sleep in.  

Grandma's crazy pants came home with them yesterday,  a gift from the extended family. They are wild and wacky and so totally me. 

Two more days of love and fun in the sun.   My heart is full and my schedule is destroyed. 

Once Again

There was just too much fun and no time to write.

There was mini golf

There was New York style pizza. 

There were go karts and bumper boats and then a long drive home for the pool and dinner and kiddo bedtime before introducing SIR to The Music Man.

I may never get on schedule while they are visiting.  Sigh.......

I could write about Pam Bondi, but why?

I could write about Todd Blanche, but except for noticing that he has an extra letter at the end of each of his names, why?

I could write about the Arizona Wildcats being demolished in the Final Four, but I don't want to think about it any more.

I could write about managing the health care system, from billing to appointments to physcians, but who wants to dwell in that space?

Instead, I'm going to continue cleaning up and putting away and washing and dusting and grocery shopping and fill my mind with thoughts of the hours dwindling away as I wait for my mid-West family to arrive.

Now, if I could only find a way to work dwarf into this post I would have used all the dw words in the English language.  (Does anybody else miss The West Wing?

******

That was supposed to be Friday's post, until I remembered that it was Easter and I had my Marc Chagall vs bunnies post.  I put it in the queue to be updated and posted today but then the grandbabies came and we've been swimming and eating and swimming and eating and we took a nature walk  because Giblet fell on our hike when he was a little boy and now he refused to hike any more.

There is more joy ahead. I hope there's enough that I don't have to wonder where the Cabinet and VP are... if there isn't enough evidence to invoke the 25th amendment right now ..... he's absent and rambling and clearly not up to the job..... what more do they need?

I have to admit that having these 4 humans around has been the best antidote to the crumbling of our national stature on the world stage.  I have barely thought about that at all.  

Happy Easter Weekend

First posted in 2014; lightly edited over the years.

Happy Day Off From Work to those observing Good Friday (by choice or executive fiat).

Happy Easter to those who believe,

to those who like getting dressed in frilly finery,

to those with great hats,

and to those thinking deep thoughts.

*****

wikiart.org

Confronted with Marc Chagall's White Crucifixion at the Art Institute of Chicago, a very young Big Cuter wondered (quite loudlly) why that guy has a towel and nails through his hands.  

I directed him to his father, who was raised in various Protestant denominations, because his question highlighted the central problem I had with teaching the Cuters about Easter.  I was stuck between bunnies and lambs and a crucifixion. 

Nannie was eager to help, but she, too, was flummoxed.The bookstores didn't offer much.  Their descriptions of the Last Supper and The Passion and The Resurrection were either glossed over or overly grotesque for a sensitive, half-Christian, half-Jewish, little boy.  

We decided to stick with the bunnies and rebirth.  It was spring, after all.

Passover presented some of the same issues.  Why did God want to kill little boys, my own son wondered. Walk softly and carry a big stick came to mind as an answer, but it wouldn't do much to assuage his worry.  He was, after all, a first born son.  We wondered about a merciful God, about a righteous God, about a jealous God before the soup was served.  

I didn't worry about those issues when I was a child.  I thought it was weird that someone could die and be reborn, but if my Catholic girlfriend thought it was true, then who was I to argue?  Weird worked through elementary school.  

By high school, I was doubting the whole religion thing in general. I was able to conflate my problems with the stories to a problem with mythology in general.  I didn't give the Bible more credence than Edith Hamilton's Mythology.

Now there's FlapJilly and I'm faced with the same dilemma.  I asked her other grandmother, a Christian of many perspectives, if she had any ideas, but, sadly, MOTG was as lost last year as were Nannie and I, decades ago.

Once again, there were those bunnies.

Is that what faith is all about?  Believing that which is awkward because God is somehow involved?  If I had faith, perhaps I would know the answer.  But, I don't.  

So I am left with eating unleavened bread as I contemplate the Resurrection.  I wonder if the disciple to Jesus's right in The Last Supper really was Mary Magdalene.  I posit interesting tides and the parting of the Red Sea.  I dip my pinky in a wine glass and recount the ten plagues visited upon Egypt, and then I wash them off the plate and eat dinner.

It's not exactly what Sunday School or Hebrew School hoped for, but it's all I've got at the moment.

I'll celebrate by planting more pink and white  blossoms in my containers.  I'll watch the leaves appear from the bulbs planted years ago, and I'll concentrate on rebirth and miracles.  

And I'll try not to be angry at the bunnies eating the petunias.  It's their holiday, after all

Preparing For Grandkids

Every once in a while, Passover and Easter come around at the same time.  Given all that's going on in our lives, neither Little Cuter nor I noticed that was was one of those years.

So, to those who are celebrating, I hope your seders were/will be filled with love and memories and lots of soup and matzoh.  To those who are waiting for Good Friday and Easter Sunday, I hope your spirits soar and your days are filled with candy and sunshine and smiles.  

Here in my little corner of the world, the seder never happened (cf. paragraph one).  Instead, my focus has been on organizing my environment to accomodate two grown ups and two kiddos who will arrive with swim goggles and hugs on Saturday morning.

Clean sheets and blankets and pillows have been retrieved from their shrink wrap storage bags.  Flannel fitted sheet, no top sheet, his and hers favorite blankets on the correct sides of the bed for my darling daughter and her perfect husband.  

Those blankets have history.  His was an impulse purchaseI  made without knowing that it was exactly the blanket he'd loved as a child.  Hers was loved so much that G'ma had to add patches to save it from the rag bag.  

FlapJilly and Giblet will each have a single bed in the same room, bedecked with the bedclothes their mother and uncle cuddled with, many decades ago.  Do you remember Marimekko?  The linens are as bright as they were when I bought them. 

 (I'd show you a picture but the spin bike is occupying the space reserved for the second bed and we're too tired to do any heavy lifting right now.)

I have a grocery list that's heavy on the fruit and bagel side.  That's for Costco on Friday.  What remained was what their mother and I had forgotten - Easter baskets.

Were they little kids it would have been easy.  But they aren't little kids.  Little Cuter gave me suggestions for candy (the sour-er the better). I found the plastic eggs we'll be hiding, following the printed clues Little Cuter has printed out.  I found bath bombs and peeps in the shape of little ducks and small stuffies.  I am collecting coins to fill most of the eggs.  

But there is laundry and vacuuming and real grocery shopping yet to be done.  I'm going to get Barnes and Noble gift cards and consider myself finished.

Besides, I have a pool outside, heated to a perfectly lovely 90 degrees, and a hot tub if the clouds and cooler weather roll in.  Who needs candy?

LiLou, SF Pig

She was Queen T's first child.

When she arrived, as a piglet, she was the size of her grown up head.  Mama was Queen Pig, and LiLou was her subject.  Establishing dominance is an essential part of preventing Spoiled Pig Syndrome, which is a real thing.  Pigs live a hierarchical existence, showing weakness is not suggested.

So, grown up LiLou's brain has implanted Queen T as the TOP PIG,  the giant person who feeds her.  Even though she weighs as much as Mama, she is cowed into submission by a stern LiLou. No.  Not a shouted NO, because LiLou would think Mama was squealing right back at her. It's the way she speaks to her human children - equal parts love and do not do that.  

It's hard work being a piggie Mama, and that's part of the charm.  Taking her responsibilities seriously,  LiLou's hoof-icures were always a mainstay.

Queen T is all about new challenges and learning new skills, and this new skill came with affection going both ways, a routine that suited them both, and a career as a certified therapy animal.  Visiting nursing homes and charity events and meeting passengers at SFO filled their hearts.  

Sometimes, there were very special passengers.

A grape from Jane Goodall's fingers.

She learned to play the (mini)piano, dunk on a (mini)basketball hoop, and do a lovely pirouette.  She had a wide array of colorful ribbons to adorn her seasonally appropriate harnesses for her daily walks.  She wasn't an enthusiastic walker unless their route took her toward the fancy hotel 2 blocks away.  

While being admired at a charity event, LiLou smelled then snarfed their cookies.  Ever after, no matter  Queen T's intentions, LiLou was determined, trotting up to the front door of that hotel, a girl with a goal.

C'mon, she's a pig.  It's food.  

She's been getting old.  Pigs get arthritis, and tummy troubles, and they puke.  At a certain point, quality of life decisions had to be made.  

She's crossing the Rainbow Bridge today, at home, surrounded by love andd quality care.

Rest in peace, Lilou.  You were the best grandpig I ever had.

We Are Not In Control

We vote. We protests. We call and write and meet office staff. 

We are incidental to the results. 

There's an empty space in my brain where a conclusion ought to sit.  I'm used to being the master of my fate, directing my life, answering only to myself and those I love.  But the world has taken a darker turn, and I seem to be powerless to change its course. 

FFOTUS and his uber-Christian-nationalist minion are planning to send ground troops to the Middle East to open a waterway.  My poor brain cannot comprehend it.  

No one wanted this war.  We wanted to see the Epstein tapes and files.  Instead,  FFOTUS has set us on a path of destruction with nary an exit strategy in sight. 

My head hurts. My heart is sick.  

A Warm and Wonderful Weekend

The crowds stretched from one end of town to the other along a main north south corridor, fanning out from the major east west intersections. There were the usual wonderful signs.  There was a 3rd grader inside an inflatable pink hippo in the family group beside me, his soccer cleats beating out a tune known only to him.  There were young mothers and middle schoolers and lots and lots of people born after voting for Obama, the first time.  

It's usually the plus 60 crowd, waving home made placards and smiling at the honking horns.  These newbies just added to the joy.  Tucson hosted a multitude of No Kings! events; they were packed with unhappy voters.

No one I talked to had received a paycheck.  As one sign read: I'm not getting paid.  I hate you for free.  

*****

It was almost as much fun when I drove past the last half hour of the demonstration.  I plastered part of my sign to my passenger side window and drove up and down, honking my horn in rhythm to a tune known only to me,

After 10 miles down and up, my palm was sore and my heart was happy.

*****

After contributing a significant amount of money to the local economy, we are now the proud owners of a Pentair pool heater.  It took Dave many phone calls and a trip or two to the hardware store and a night in between because the company works on East coast time and were unable to answer his totally reasonable (to Us, anyway) call at 4pm.

But early the second morning we were on our way and by the afternoon we were, as Daddooooo said, cookin' with gas.  There's no cold shock when you first get in.  It's not too warm and not too cold.  

There's not much to complain about living here in Tucson, but of all the things I love about it, swimming in  my own private pool without walking more than 10 feet from any of the doors to the patio.  I do some of my best thinking there.

I swam and pondered the 6 white men and their big souped up trucks who had commandeered a pull out along the protest route to display their pro-FFOTUS chops.  Blaming the Democrats seems a little behind the times, don'tcha think?

*****

And then Dr K and Not-Kathy came over and we watched the Arizona Wildcats sleep through the first half and then demolish their opponent in the second half to move on the the FINAL FOUR which I type in capitals because I've never had MY TEAM poised to win it all.  

In 1983 I picked Jim Valvano's Wildcats to take home the trophy, a decision which clinched my 2nd place finish in the Goldman Sachs pool that year.   That felt great, but this feels awesome. 

*****

Sunday morning in Amster's gym, then more basketball ending with a game ending 3 pointer to put UConn over Duke and into the Final Four.  

It had us jumping off the couch.

*****

FlapJilly's team took 2nd place in their softball tournament and they ae all quite proud.

I have Michael Connelly and Jeffery Deaver and John Scalzi and Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coban on my bookshelf, thanks to the library's largesse.

Life, right now. is good.

My Poster

Thanks to Lisa Donnely for the free download.