Garden Leaders

They come in all shapes and sizes, from kindergarten through fifth grade.  They show up and learn and help and sometimes they find treasures.  

One of them found a ripe tomato hidden under the leaves, resting on the soil, just begging to be sliced and eaten and shared with friends.  

They organized the loading of the painted pots onto the playground monitor's three tiered cart (oops.... she thought it was lost and gone forever) and gathered friends to navigate it over the bumpy grass, up and over the edge of the paved walk, up to the door near the staff mailboxes.

I chose the three in the front, who joined me in putting a pot in each cubby, right on top of the cards with flowers on one side and A snapdragon for you from Grandma's Gardeners sticker on the other.

It was a lovely way to spend a sunny morning.  

It's impossible to be sad while being hugged by little ones; I get so much more than I give.  

How Is He Still In Charge?

Taking a break from the medical scene, I'm going to let myself rant a bit about FFOTUS.

The man slurs his words so badly that there is no way to understand the ends of most sentences.  MSM is finally showing photos of him sleeping in meetings on the nightly news.  They aren't pointing out the fact that the Commander in Chief is taking a nap while surrounded by visitors, cabinet members, and Congress people.  I suppose they are relying on the viewer to make the connection.

Cowards, one and all.

His plan for his boring war is No Plan, I have no plan, no plan at all.  Meanwhile, he and Hegseth are pursuing Mark Kelly (once again) for pointing out that we've depleted our military stock to a danger point.  No, Mr. Secretary, that wasn't classified information.  You said it in a hearing. 

I'm not too worried about my senior Senator.  He has $25million in the bank and more coming in every day.  But Jon Ossoff, Sherrod Brown, the governorship of California --- they all have me worried.

Redistricting while elections are being held is absurd.... unless you are a Republican legislator who wants to curry favor with FFOTUS.  The voters in Virginia made their wishes known only to have a court tell them NO.  My County Clerk sent a Important Message urging everyone to check their voter resgistration status asap.   

There was a woman in a 45-47 decorated ball cap sitting at the counter when I picked up our lunch today.  I was tempted to approach her and ask her WHY???? but I kept my cool.  The thing is, I was really interested in her why.  Is she seeing the world through a different lens than I am?  

I drove home thinking about my latest act of political rebellion:

I'm leaving my mark.  It is all I can do.

Home, At Last

Yesterday was a whirlwind of pokes and examinations and consultations and then his Ticket To Ride (seriously, that's in the header of the order for transportation) arrived and, after a stop at the pharmacy for 6 prescritions) Sam wheeled him out to the car.

It was 102 degrees.  My car had been sitting in the sun for 6 hours.  The air conditioning did its best, but standing up was a challenge for my sweetie.  We got home and put him into his own bed - ahhhhhhhhhh - and filled his nightstand with Diet Coke and iced tea and Smart water and graham crackers.  

He'd have ensconced himself on the living room couch if the television had been working, but for some unknown reason it refused to connect to the cable box.  I have to say it felt like the world was conspiring against us.  Or, as the Golden Gopher put it, if he didn't have bad luck he'd have no luck at all.

It took me an hour to make a chart with the names, doses, times and what it's for.  6am, 10am, noon, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, and midnight are the times for the regularly scheduled drugs.  Should he need the oxycodone, that's a whole other timeline.  We napped through the noon dose and hoped that his body wouldn't notice that we were an hour late.

We're managing several diagnoses at the same time.  Everyone wants to be sure we understand all the directions and parameters and contraindications; as long as I'm taking notes to review later I'm doing fine.  

Now we're trying to reschedule the appointments we missed while he was hospitalized.  This is harder than one might imagine; one phone was busy from 8am until I called the main switchboard at 3pm and the lovely receptionist somehow managed to get me through.  I'm waiting for the doctor to talk to the scheduler who will call us back on one of the three phone numbers on file.

Sigh.

We've spent the day wondering how those without our particular set of skills and free time manage any of this.  I'm grateful for good insurance (even with that there's a $2000 co-pay for one drug) and money in the bank and family and friends who support us emotionally from near and far.  

And we're only just getting started.  

Chin up. Shoulders back. Smile pasted on my face.  We'll get through this together... and by that I am including all of you who've left loving comments on The Burrow.  Please understand if I'm too tired respond as I usually do.  

Onward and upward, as Daddooooo would say when life struck another blow.

Perhaps Today

Infections are nasty things.  

Lightheadedness and white blood count and creatinine and pain.... we spent another weekend in the hospital, coming close and then failing to being discharged.

This morning we'll give it another try.  

There will be posts about FFOTUS's boring war , he of the attention span of a toddler.  There will be a garden post or two, along with an end of the school year retrospective.

But now, I must dress and go, once again, to sit by his bedside and wait for others to make decisions about our actions.  To say that this is disconcerting would be the understatement of the 21st century.

Thanks for hangin in here with me.

And Still...

Some numbers go up, some go down. Mostly they go in the direction of health,  but that's usually followed by something else to worry about. 

The physicians are alarmingly young. The only grey hair to be found is on the patients. 

The staff is an interesting collection of Americans from all over the globe, all respecting the particular hierarchy of their niche.  Techs defer to nurses.  Fellows defer to Attendings. We've only been visited by one student, and that only after her supervisor asked our permission. 

That's all I can think of.  Hospitals are exhausting, even for visitors. 

Well....

We're still here.  He's feeling better but there are still meds to be given via an IV so we are literally tethered to the institution. 

Home tomorrow, we hope.  I'll have more to say then. 

We'll Talk Tomorrow

TBG and I are spending some quality time in the Emergency Room.  It will all be fine,  but writing will have to wait   It's hard to write with all the beeps and pokes and questions. 

Thanks for understanding. 

It's May

 As Guinevere sings in Camelot, it's a month when everything goes blissfully astray.

There are two and a half weeks of school left.  There's not much learning still going on, although the teachers are making a valiant effort to educate while their students are counting down the days until summer vacation.

The Amphi High School seniors held their Grad Walk on Friday.  Dressed in caps and gowns, they marched through the first floor and the playground, high fiving and smiling.... at least the ones without earbuds.  

Standing next to Miss Stella, currently the tallest 5th grader, I mentioned that she probably might not be the tallest student in Middle School next year, and that she certainly wouldn't be the tallest student in high school.  We don't know what they are feeding those kids, but they were BIG.

Attendance in the garden always slows down in May.  I don't know why.  The tomato plants and the mandarin orange tree have many green blobs (they don't look much better than that) which are taking their own sweet time ripening.  Apparently, they are not clued in to the school calendar.

One Garden Leader, talking to no one in particular, opined that the garden was her favorite place in the whole school.  No one fights.  You can plant.  And you can be quiet.

It seems that, for this year at least, my work here is done.

A Delightful Surprise

The BEYOND! t-shirts were a big hit as smocks in Grandma's Garden last week.  So that others could use them, I asked the scholars to take them off before they left. 

Two girls ran away, laughing, with their smocks over their t-shirts.  

I didn't notice that, but the other scholars did.  I looked out over the playgroound for the miscreants, to no avail.  I shrugged it off.  They've been sitting in my garage for 15 years; I have 2 huge boxes still there; the girls were laughing and that's always my goal; and I couldn't remember who they wtere, anyway.

A few minutes later, they came back, slightly abashed.  T  They couldn't return the smocks; they had removed their original t-shirts. Nudity is not encouraged on our campus.  I reminded them that they had misbehaved and that I was not thrilled with them..... but they could keep the BEYOND! shirts.

There were doctors and surgery and more doctors this week, so Thursday was my first day back in the garden.  While I was setting up the day's project, the two naughty third graders suddenly appeared before me.  

We're sorry we took the shirts, Grandma.  We're really sorry.

They came on their own.  They were properly abashed.  Their faces were really sorry, as they met me eye to eye, confident and diffident at the same time.  

I almost cried.  Instead, I told them that I was proud of them.  Everyone makes mistakes and does dumb things and I know that I did  (pause for a painful memory or two to flash across my brain) and the fact that they took responsibility for their actions and came back to repair the damage impressed me a whole lot more than their absconding (yes, I said absconding) with the t-shirts had depressed me.  

No, they didn't want to stay and paint. We shook hands and they went on their way.

It was a good day in Grandma's Garden.

Apparently, I Hit A Nerve

Almost every one of my usual comment writers chimed in on the understanding tv post yesterday. 

dkzody's right : You enjoy this entertainment and use it a lot so it's worth it.

Carol's idea is a classic :  Somebody write a book about this, and SOON.  Although I fear that publishing a book means the information will probably be outdated before it hits the bookstores' shelves.  

Linda Reeder is like me, and relies on the voice remote to find what she seeks.  TBG remembers all the station numbers.  I prefer to filll my brain with other things.  I know how to find the apps on the home screen.... sometimes.... and Netflix and Amazon Prime are the only places I go on my own, and then, only rarely.

Laura and Jim Davis offered practical solutions.  JES wants to fix the problem by visiting (something we've been trying to do since 2010).  

What I need is a college kid with aging parents/grandparents who understands our need to watch on the tv and not our phones.  She should be a good explainer, with a high tolerance for ignorance and ineptitude.  She must not judge our choices (yes, he needs Perry Mason and Leave it to Beaver on METV).  This could be a high paying gig for someone with the knowledge and time.  If only she existed outside of my imagination.

Nobody Understands TV

Little Cuter and SIR are considering cutting their cable.

Our provider is no longer contracted with ABC, which is now a problem since TBG has entered his Sports Deprivation Season and is forced to follow professional basketball, many games of which are on ABC.  

You would think that this would be a problem with a solution, and I'm sure you're right.  There ought to be a way to send my computer's input to my television.  They tempt me with apps names like CastTV, which I download and then am unable to use.

We pay Xfinity a hefty fee each month for cable and internet.  There's streaming music on a surround sound system inside and outside the house.  It's fun when I'm swimming laps, not so much when I'm trying to have a conversation in the living room.

Since I first posted about this I've been asking random people if they understand TV these days.  The first person who says yes will be hired to explain it to me.

Here's Monday's Post

I was peeved and I used you to hear my rants and I typed until I felt better and that was supposed to be Friday's post.  At least it was supposed to be Friday's post, if only I had remembered to click Publish. 

Not wanting you to feel neglected since I messed up my every day schedule, here, without extraneous verbiage, are the pictures from Grandma's Garden that were to be (with extraneous verbiage) Monday's post.

It's a follow-up to Thursday's post about painting pots for the faculty and staff.  (And yes, this is a shameless plug for someone new to The Burrow to jump around and see what we're all about.)

Our scholars are the face of America - immigrants and refugees from Afghanistan and Sudan and all over Central America.

One color per brush, under the umbrella for shade.

I said Smile! and she posed.

Someone created her own quiet space.

He found just the right perch.

The Beyond! t-shirts are relics from the early days after our perforation. They are our new smocks.

I Am Taking It Personally

I've been writing postcards for Tony the Democrat for a long time.  

Recently, I wrote Turn Out the Vote notes for the Virginia redistricting plan.  The accompanying explanation seemed reasonable, the message refuted Republican misdirection lies, I requested 5 addresses and did my part for our representative democracy within 3 days, as requested.

We won.  I felt great.  Tony's research shows that our postcards have a measurable effect so I decided to take personal pride in the outcome.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a pop up notice reported that a judge had quashed the thing before I even got a chance to raise a glass to myself.

There will be appeals and outrage and much ado.... about something this time.

Meanwhile, I'm peeved.