Bloggy Fest

Little Cuter and I are in San Diego, along with 3000 other bloggers and assorted hangers-on, for BlogHer '11. BlogHer is the network that brings you the suggestions for other posts in my sidebar. It's the network that sends me books to review. And it's the network that supported Little Cuter after she posted Tough, the post which blasted me to mini-stardom.

Suddenly, my readership was through the roof. More important to my family, though, was the love that came from BlogHer itself. Lisa and Elisa and Jory were there for her, offering themselves as resources for whatever she needed. It was an indication of things to come.

Gabby went home from the rehab hospital and BlogHer asked for my thoughts... thoughts for which they were willing to pay me. Financial compensation for my efforts - BlogHer was certainly following through on its promise to empower me. I walked on a cloud for a week.

I don't know what the algorithm is which brings me Meg and Jo and all the rest of the not-really-Mommy-but-not-totally-political-either bloggers and which sends Nance and her rants a completely different set of posts. I do know that I've made lots of new friends by being reminded to check back to these blogs. While Nance is recovering from a minor-we-really-hope-it-helps procedure, Meg and Becca and Sarah will all be there.

We are part of a community, Little Cuter and I. We have strangers who love us and who are interested in our progress and who will support us and listen to us and laugh with us and send us advice and love and hugs. We learn and expand our horizons and we do it within a structure designed to enhance our experience. We are rewarded and covered with bling.... bloggy bling being those badges you see in the sidebar.

There's a larger sense of accomplishment when I consider the fact that I am a valued member of the BlogHer community. I'm supported and encouraged and syndicated and featured and my words are spread through the blogosphere through a network of like-minded individuals.....and individuals who may look at the world through a different pair of bifocals than do I.  Walking through the lobby and the pool area we are surrounded by women on laptops, commemorating the event as it is happening.  We are in it and of it and we're loving it.

There are serendipitous happenings, too.  I told Little Cuter that one person to whom I really wanted to speak was Jane Goodwin.  She's funny and writes brilliantly about the day to day of classroom management and I've never disagreed with one of her rants or screeds.  She sets high expectations for her students and herself.  And, when Little Cuter and I arrived early for the prep session for the speakers, there she was, the only other person who had arrived that early.  I knew I loved her even before I realized that she, too, was terminally punctual.  We introduced ourselves and hugged and I complimented her and she was gracious in her acceptance.  We talked about schools and kids and blogging and I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually in her presence.  Her speaking voice is just like her bloggy voice.

Little Cuter and I walked through the Expo Center and interacted with her peers who had marketing degrees which were being put to use by giving away swag - mugs and cereal and shampoo and water bottles and key chains and pens and stationary and Allegra and t-shirts and the most fabulous pair of cow pants which, if she weren't asleep in the other bed in our room here at the Marriott Marquis,  I could download the picture she took from her Iphone because yes there is an app for that, too.

Perhaps we will extricate it from the device on the morrow; look for it and more on BlogHer '11 on Monday.  Right now, I have to go to sleep, too.  All this fun is exhausting.

The Bionic Woman

I have a headache from the sound of the keys clacking.

I had to flee the sound of the carts clicking over the concrete outside Wally-World this morning.

I am becoming my father....... and I really need to become my mother. I've been saying that I should take lessons from G'ma on aging with grace; perhaps this is one of them. I am wearing bi-lateral hearing aids.

From the front and the side they are basically invisible.  I'm not concerned about a change in my appearance. From the back, I think they blend into my hair quite nicely. They have a handy dandy silver travel case, and the UofA Audiology Clinic set me up with a few weeks of extra 312 size batteries.

Apparently, batteries have numbers as well as letters. Who knew?

Did I mention that my camera makes all kinds of interesting clicks and whirrs and beeps that I noticed for the first time just now when I took that picture of my ear? Let me be quick to reassure you: there are some definite upsides to these things.

There are flutes in the opening music to whatever TBG has on everyday at 5:30. Who knew? There's another note in the early morning bird songs, a higher, sweeter tone than I ever remember hearing here before. TBG says that my voice is softer and more modulated.

I was fine for conversation before I added gadgetry to my wardrobe. Normal adult voices were well within the excellent range on my audiometric exams, and as long as I was paying attention I had no problems. No one knew that I was slightly impaired. But last night I went into the bathroom, down the hall and through the bedroom from the living room, and I could hear the words on the tv back where TBG was still lounging on Douglas. That was a new experience for me.

Are you wondering about the volume on the television? I asked TBG to set it at the lowest possible level for his own personal comfort. I was fine, with the devices inserted or with them resting for a viewing in the palm of my hand, as long as I was in the same room. This distance hearing thing was quite interesting and brand new.

This afternoon  Messers 6 and 8 sat in the back of my car, chattering away as we drive to buy new backpacks for school.  I could hear every single word.  They sat at a high table, away from Elizabeth and me, yet I heard every word they said.  There were kids playing inside the gerbil maze at Mickie D's; I couldn't see them but I could hear their laughter.  I began to fall in love with these things right about then.

But I wonder, still.  Can I teach this old dog new tricks? Can I take the time that Ellyn and Olga reminded me to give myself as I accustom myself to the annoyance of having something in my ear? I like to travel light. My morning routine takes 7 minutes if I am in a rush - and that's from bed to car. Will I resent them?

This is where I have to make a choice. Am I Daddooooo, who wore them with annoyance and petulance and made them the center of his existence and therefore the center of the existence of anyone and everyone who was within his orbit? Or am I G'ma, who, in the same situation, would put a smile on her face, insert them and forget about them so that everyone else could forget about them, too? Having lived my life out loud for so many months, it's a more layered question than you might imagine.

I'm leaning toward my mom, with a dash of Dad for a little spice. After all, they are pretty cool little things.

Falling Apart

I don't hear well.

That will come as no surprise to my family. We have a notebook filled with my mis-heard utterances.

I've not made a big deal of it with my friends. I do just fine with adult conversation, and a laughing "What did you say? I'm deaf as a doorpost," was my standard response when I missed something. Everyone was always happy to repeat what I'd not heard.

But I've lost the ability to hear the high tones, the sweet song of childhood, those soprano-pitched answers to my questions which vanish on their voyage from the booster seat in the back to my ears in the driver's seat. Messers 6 & 8 are losing patience with my need for repetition; though they love me they are also annoyed.

Daddooooo resisted hearing aids until long after I was married. He'd heard that his nerve deafness could not be treated, and he held fast to that belief..... for nearly 3 decades. Once fitted with his devices, he realized that he had found another piece of his life about which he could complain.

And complain he did.

Restaurants were too loud, waiters continued to mumble, movies were designed to torture him. He was the quintessential anti-advertisement.

And then there were the batteries. Oh, those little devils.... they were always whistling and failing and dropping and if there was one topic at the center of most of my parents' many arguments it was those hearing aids.

"You're whistling again,"G'ma would start and off they would go, racing through "Yes, they are" and "Can't be. I just changed them" and ending up with a slammed door or a stony stare into the sink. They would have argued about anything; I just wish that it had been anything except hearing aids.

Why? Because in 30 minutes I'll be leaving my house and driving to the UofA Audiology Clinic where I will be fitted with my own, bi-lateral, assitive audiological machinery.

Big Cuter was proud that I'd faced down my resistance and taken the plunge, and his respect has helped a lot as I struggle with the diminution of my physical powers. I was fast and now I limp. My arthritic pointer finger is bending ever further toward my thumb. Without my contact I cannot read anything smaller than a headline. And now my ears have joined the list of crumbling body parts.

I know that it's not the end of the world. I'm not suggesting that it's anywhere akin to taking 3 bullets. It's a problem with a solution and that is a good thing. But, just as I thought that I'd at least get to my 70's before I needed hip surgery, I am surprised that my youthful body is betraying me in the hearing department, too.

"Youthful body, you say? Honey, you are 6 months away from 60. Get over yourself!" But my perception is still of a scrawny teenager stuck within the confines of this rapidly wrinkling and shrinking body. She is who I see when I close my eyes and imagine myself.

And she doesn't wear hearing aids.

Random Thoughts

I am sizzling. Steam is pouring out of my ears. You do not want to be near me if you are a member of Congress.

Two distinct issues have been conflated and minimized and our children will be the ones to suffer. Cutting spending and raising the debt ceiling share some common ground, but the first is necessary to insure our future and the second is necessary to pay the bills we incurred in the past.

"It's the same but different", as the Cuters used to tell me.

If TBG could explain it to me, I'm sure someone somewhere on the Hill could explain it to Congress. But why should they listen? They have all the power and the glory and the attention and it's like Kindergarten Cop. By allowing the inmates to run the asylum, John Boehner and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell have left us with a bill that includes less than $1trillion in cuts, spread out over 10 years and which forces our legislators to vote right before they come home for Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas-time.

Oh, yes, don't let me forget: they've also established a committee to study the whole thing.
*****
I forgot that Producer is the fancy title given to the ankle-biters who solicit potential interviewees for television and radio. I forgot that they tell you that they have more power than they actually have in order to get you to do what they want you to do.

I got a nice post out of the experience, but my hopes of a burgeoning career as a tele-pseudo-journalist are spiraling ever downward. I am apparently one of many, rather than a very special singularity .... except in my own head, and that of my devoted readers, of course!
*****
I watched a rain storm move across Safford Peak yesterday. Watching a weather system move from south to north was startling; was this the end of Hurricane Don?

I rarely contemplated the horizon when I lived on Long Island. It was only the beach that offered a sense of scale and distance; buildings blocked that everywhere else.  In college, I'd sit on the porch at The Straight and see this

thank you BacktalkBand.com for the image

and know that I needed vistas in my life.  So now I have this

outside my window as I type to you.

*****
And if that didn't make you smile, how about the fact that Gabby voted just now?

JannyLou called and the local ABC and NBc affiliates called and everyone is smiling and I'm going live on the 5pm news.... a phone interview since I didn't want to clean and they didn't want to travel. How nice to be talking about something positive for a change.

Sweet Smell of Success

*spoiler alert* - if you are planning to begin watching Mad Men from the beginning before its return in January, or ever plan to see Sweet Smell of Success, stop reading this post now. You really don't want to spoil the fun for yourself.

*****
Tony Curtis is desperate. Burt Lancaster is ruthless. Susan Harrison is an ingenue in pain. Martin Milner is vapid.

Sweet Smell of Success is a slice of Mad Men with a side of Clifford Odets. In fact, AMC was showing Mad Men opposite SSoS on TCM this morning. Jon Ham and Tony Curtis make a marvelous pair. Don never shows up with the birthday cake; arriving hours late with a puppy, instead. Sidney pimps out a friend, ostensibly in an effort to save her job. Neither is oblivious to the moral ramifications of his actions, and neither seems to care.

Success = Money, Fame, Power and Moral Vacuity. Sometimes I think that nothing has changed since 1960.

I'm watching Tea Party impudence smirking behind Boehner's frazzled face. I'm hearing Liberals cry "FOUL!" as they vow to protect their base. No one is addressing the fact that without fundamental changes to our entitlement programs, without incremental adjustments to the bills we are projected to incur, without recognizing that wars must be paid for and that declaring bankruptcy does not qualify one to give economic advice to the nation... in any event, no one is discussing the more frightening reality that talking about cutting 1 or 2 trillion dollars from our spending is like peeing in the ocean.

There are larger issues to be discussed, massive changes which must be implemented, an overhaul of the system so drastic as to make Obama-Care look like the sketchy outline it is. And yet, because those in power are interested only in staying in power, their realities are quite small. What keeps me where I am? What can I sell? What empowers me?

There's no sense of the entirety, in the movies or in Washington, it seems. JJ Hunsecker (isn't that a great villian's name?) is interested in his power and only his power. The truth or the consequences of the items he publishes in his New York City nightlife column (does anyone else remember Earl Wilson?) are irrelevant. It's his ability to control - the popularity of a restaurant, the fate of a quintet, the love life of his sister - that motivates him

Don Draper's whole life is an illusion. Truth is fungible. Control is imperative. He defines "truthiness" . He's not a bad guy, but he's a guy who needs to win, to be on top, no matter the consequences to those in his wake.

The spectacle in Washington this month, this week, this weekend is Mad Men and Sweet Smell of Success writ large. It's about having the microphone, occupying center stage, moving the pieces by threatening reprisals. Control exists through perception. Gridlock is the result.

What I wrote in March, 2010 seems relevant today:

Listening to The Great Health Care Reform debate is near to pushing me over the edge. Things are accurate but not true and yet everyone is yelling.... No one is listening, because we all know our own truths and accept their veracity unquestioningly

Both sides are screaming, posturing, flinging numbers and facts and aspersions and there's a crumbling of accuracy and no sense of the whole.

The world's going to hell in a handbasket and we are NOT enjoying the ride.

Home

This week is our anniversary. We've lived in Tucson for 5 years.

In that time we've learned to tolerate extremes in temperatures and political opinions.  We've tasted Sonoran Hot Dogs and tepary beans.  We've gone nearly 100 days without rain and we've been unable to leave our neighborhood because the access roads are flooded.  It snowed here that first February, while I was wearing shorts on Long Island.  It's certainly a place with pointy edges.

Hardly anything that grows anywhere else I've ever lived can grow here... unless one is willing to invest constant care and attention and irrigation.  I thought I might be that person, but after killing the magnolia tree within a week of bringing it home that first August, I changed my mind.  I was in floral lust and I needed those thick green leaves and that fabulous white flower and the scent.... oh, the scent.  But I forgot that this was not Marin or Chicago or New York and I didn't realize that here in Tucson it would need to be watered thoroughly two or three times a day. One windy, hot afternoon it reproached me with its death.

That was the last time I invested in a non-native plant.  The most successful newbies are the volunteers, those dropped from coyote fur or pooped by mourning doves or ground squirrels.  I'm experimenting with rooting plants in containers set into the raised vegetable bed, taking advantage of the irrigation system already in place, but thus far my efforts have been fruitless.

Yet I persevere.

I've been asked to write a piece on why I love our town, following up on the letter I wrote on January 17th and I'm having a hard time quantifying the wonderfulness that is Tucson. Today, for example, our lunch companions asked us to differentiate it from Scottsdale.... where should we begin?

We are sophisticated but not pretentious. We are fully capable of dressing to the nines but there's never any pressure. As long as the relevant body parts are covered, Tucson Casual is whatever works for you.

We have a world class university with a world class medical facility (and I'm the one to speak to that issue, thank you very much) and the local magazine is wondering if we'll be at the top of the Pac-12in football as well as basketball. It's true that our airport allows me to fly to no where I want to go, but that's a small price to pay for swimming in March. In my backyard. With no grass to mow.

How can I stand the high temperatures, you ask? Without humidity, there's breathable air and less perspiration. I'm sure there's a scientific explanation for it, but the practical implications are that, for 12 months of the year, I can open the door and be greeted by warm air. There's never that blast of frigid-icy-slicing-through-your-pores slice of the great outdoors that makes you wonder why you are living above the 35parallel.

"It feels like a small town," she said while paying for our lunches today. "Do people still recognize you?" he asked as we were leaving the restaurant. I turned to the waitress and asked her the question and her "Of course!" came with a giant smile and a loving nod of her head.

Are we sorry we moved here? Not at all. Bullets perforate me and Tucson heals me.

There's nothing more to be said.

She Hates Her Chair

I'd spent one too many nights in the Emergency Room with her. This was the second time she'd gotten caught in the blankets and rolled off the couch. Enough. Finished. Comfort be damned (kinda sorta) - a change had to be made.

Brother and Niece, the Youngest and I took her to Lazy-Boy and bought the top of the line, fully automatic, helps you stand up, reclines nearly flat electric chair. It's blue, like her eyes. She thought it was fun..... in the store.

That was a month ago. Since then, I have written a variety of notes hoping to explain the UP/DOWN toggle switch on the chair's remote control. It's counter-intuitive.... or opposite.... or obvious..... but it's just not working for G'ma. It's not entirely her fault. See if you don't agree.

UP means the foot rest goes up and, when it is fully extended, the seat back reclines. DOWN raises the seat back, lowers the foot rest, and raises the seat-back-assembly to assist you as you stand up. If you concentrate on the action of the foot rest, it's all copacetic*.

However, should you want to stand up and consequently push UP (which, if you are G'ma, makes perfect sense) you will sink further back and your feet will rise to meet your nose or that's how it feels anyway and then you drop the control because you're really surprised and kind of scared and the damn thing falls over the edge of the chair and now what do you do?

This is an especially bad situation if the reason you wanted to stand up in the first place was to make your way to the bathroom.

The caregivers at her pod-castle have been mentioning that she hates her chair. They have tried, each in his or her own way, to instruct G'ma in the finer points of chair-usage. They have demonstrated it with her in the chair. They have demonstrated it while sitting in the chair themselves. It makes no difference. She will not learn it.

I get where she's coming from. Mrs. McGuirl taught adding and subtracting fractions on the 2 days I was absent from school for a Jewish holiday. I remember her telling me that it was my choice and I should live with the consequences. At 11, I knew that was wrong, I knew she had an obligation to me, I knew I wasn't going to tell anyone what she'd said (this was 1963, after all, and we respected our teachers, who knew all and were all powerful), I knew I was mad and I knew I wasn't going to listen to a thing she said for the rest of the year. And I didn't. And I still don't do fractions. It's just too hard.

So, I have some sympathy for my maternal unit, from whom I obviously inherited this ability to ignore important parts of life if figuring them out would be a chore. If there's a way to get around it, we'll find it. But neither one of us is willing to acknowledge that we would have to invest a little bit of effort in teaching ourselves a new trick. I tried to remember this as my fury mounted.

This was not an inexpensive purchase. She liked it in the store. She could use it in the store. She agreed that the couch was proving dangerous and that death by rolling off the sofa would be an embarrassing way to go. There was no question in our minds - the couch was out, the chair was in.

And she can't figure out how to use it.

She has, of course, compensated. She's moved her coffee table in front of the chair, and rests her tootsies on the lower or upper shelves depending on her mood. She rebuffs all efforts to remove the table and help her with the footrest- "Why bother? I'm so comfortable already."

I'm reluctant to ask the staff to escort her to her room after lunch and set her up in the recliner. Should she need to escape she might become trapped in a never ending series of ups and downs and lifts and that just wouldn't be fair.... though it might be funny to watch. Don't feel abashed if you are laughing right now; G'ma and I had a good long giggle over this scenario on Monday.

And that's when I realized that this was a problem of my own making. Safety is one of the issues I have reserved to myself when it comes to making decisions for my mother. She can choose her own outfits, select the spot on the wall for her granddaughter's graduation photo, pick our lunch destination or which tv program she wants to watch. But, in abdicating the responsibility for her well-being to me, she's also given up some of her rights..... like the right to total comfort.

Horrible Woman, I hear you screaming at me right now. She said she was comfortable; why couldn't you let well enough alone? The answer is simple - it wasn't well enough. She was in danger. And, just as I wouldn't let a child near a hot stove, I can't let my mother near a couch with a blanket.

It's a bizarre analogy, but it's a true one. Once again I am reminded of the fact that my mother is "reverse aging". The numbers are getting bigger, but her behavior is getting smaller. Her interests, her curiosity, her sphere of influence and interaction are ever more limited.  She used to go all day; now, like a pre-schooler, she needs her afternoon nap.  It's not a 20-minute-power-nap, either.  It's under the crewel-worked throw she made, with her glasses on the night stand and her head on the pillow.  It's deep, restorative sleep.

And now she's awake in the afternoon and she's upright.  When the lovely Russian activities therapist invites her to play cards there's no question that she's too comfortable to move.  That chair isn't an enticement; she's willing to join the party in the rec room.

She was the last person to leave.

Perhaps I ought to let go of the guilt and recognize that she is better off in the chair than on the couch.

I'll let you know how I do with that.  For now, I'm going to work on being comfortable with the fact that her safety is more important than her desires.

Sigh.
*****

*According to my professor in class today, "copacetic" was coined by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who would create his own words when the erudition of his fellow actors/dancers became overwhelming.

Random Thoughts

Big Cuter mentioned that he really liked these posts. After all these months of feeling guilty for foisting snippets upon you, my willing readers, my kid tells me that he thinks they are some of my best posts. Really. Is it because they are like spending an afternoon with me, my brain flitting from one subject to another, with my listeners barely able to keep up since I don't announce when I am changing paragraphs?

Apparently. I'm perfectly clear on where I am and where I am going and yet the men in my life often have issues when they try to keep up. Seret and The Bride and I once sent TBG into the bedroom with a headache.... we never finished a topic before moving on to the sidebar which was more fascinating at the time and yet we always knew what we were talking about even if he didn't.

They are just wired differently. That's all. No judgment implied.
*****
I'm wondering why the world hasn't exploded. Economic chaos is predicted and yet no one is worried. Why am I the only one who's stockpiling bottled water and canned goods and matches? I have my battery radios and my hand crank radios and my cars are never less than nearly full of gas.

When I told my kids that bad things would happen if they didn't act in a civilized fashion they knew that I meant it.
I believed Mr. Obama when he told me that my fan was about to be covered in excrement. Now, it seems that there might be some wiggle room and he wants me to complain to Congress. I want leadership and I'm watching political maneuvering.
*****
I'm in a bit of a pickle, because I have no representative in Congress at this moment (sigh) but it doesn't seem to matter. We're being held hostage by pipsqueaks, and the grown-ups are afraid to get involved.

Perhaps they ought to move to Tucson and see how it's done.
*****
I don't understand why no one is explaining in plain English the connection between the dysfunctional family approach to economic planning currently being practiced In Washington, the jittery financial markets and perception of the credit worthiness of the USofA... yes, someone should take those pieces and show those who think we shouldn't raise the debt ceiling just how quickly their variable rate mortgages and credit card interest rates and car loans and student loans start to cut deeper into their cash flow as credit becomes tighter.

It's all connected, people.
*****
The Norwegian shooter who solved his problems with weaponry instead with words killed to avoid the Muslim invasion of Europe. He's Norwegian born. He's every bit as blonde as you imagine him to be and no I won't be writing his name or showing his picture because he doesn't deserve any more notoriety. One thing he is not is Muslim.

These facts did not stop American news outlets from warning me that Islamic terrorists were on the rampage once again.

Or not.

You'd think that after 9/11 and 1/8/11 I'd have learned not to trust the first reports on any crisis. Speed will trump accuracy every day. But getting it this wrong must set some kind of record.
*****
I don't know how I manage to keep a smile on my face as I consider the sorry state of America today. Perhaps it has something to do with being here to see the sun rise.

I recommend that as an attitude if the situation gets you down.

Silliness

JannyLou called today. She told me that she was having fun for the first time since January. There was lightness in her voice and a joy behind the words that has been absent of late, given shootings and chemotherapy and such. But this morning she was filled with glee.

JenniJazz returned from Vegas to find good news on all the many medical fronts she and Mr. Jazz are facing. Her post about the adult playground and her ability to enjoy herself was inspiring and encouraging and real. She's been sharing her sad times, too, y'see. I tend to believe the happy as much as the blue. It seems only fair.

Diane Lane's Penny Chenery Tweedy has an epiphany while washing Secretariat it shows up at 2:15" into this video,which, if you don't want to invest 2 hours in the movie itself, shows all the highlights, including John Malkovich's plaid shorts at around 1:30".

 

She moves from chaos, worry, loss and confusion to perfect peace, with a smile on her face and confidence in her soul. She and Secretariat really do have a moment, a moment I'd snickered at in the theater. Last night, I found myself smiling. I found myself perfectly willing to believe the transformation. I wasn't bothered by the religious overtones. It didn't seem sappy or absurd or heavy handed. It felt right.

Who am I these days? Who's JannyLou or JenniJazz? Teparyis a survivor who walks with a cloud of angel dust surrounding her. The pleasure of her hug is falling into the warmest embrace imaginable. What is it that we are sharing, we women who are contemplating our mortality and smiling along the way?

Tepary calls herself an optimist and a worry-wort and I think the same applies to my girlfriends and me. We've lived long enough to have experienced our own full measure of disasters, and we're not going to let this recent incarnation of crap disease dysfunction it win. Whatever it takes to get us through - laughter, love, faith or giggling - we are alert to the opportunities.

Silliness is called for in the darkest moments, it seems. At least for us. At least right now. I'm making no pronouncements, not alerting the media, not exhorting you to tickle yourself. I'm merely reporting an observation which is true here, this summer, in the desert Southwest. We are all good people who've never done anything but help others, who love our families and our community and put our time and our efforts as well as our money where our mouths are...... and we encourage others to do the same. Yet here we are, dealing with the unthinkable, managing to get through the day without screaming (more often than not, anyway).

How? Because we are honestly peeved about the whole situation and we recognize that there is nothing we can do about it. Optimists and worry-worts, we gather facts and rely on our loved ones and we find the humor in the situation. Yes, JannyLou has a cap for every outfit and she's proud of it. Look at me galumphing across the floor, prancing and flinging my arms because it hurts to move any less broadly.

We are ridiculous. We are laughing. We are healing.

Do I Miss the Sympathy?

Sometime in February, TBG surprised me by asking if I was prepared for the day when I was no longer the center of attention.

He didn't have evil intentions in asking it that way, though I can see how you could read it that way. He was merely speaking the truth. I was the center of attention whether I asked to be or not. I'd been shot and my friends and family needed to look at me and reassure themselves that I still existed in this world.

After that, there was a universal need to protect me. Some had an easier time than others in letting me fend for myself, but no one ever minded bringing me a snack or recharging my phone or handing me the flowery paper gift sack that held the stationary and pens.

It was nice for me to ask because people really wanted to help. When I didn't ask, they tried to find things to do on their own. Heidi reorganized my closet. The Ballerina and I got our nails done. Reggie walked up and down the aisles of Target. The list goes on and on. I was read to and fed and listened to with a look that told of intense concentration.

I'd come very close to not being there . We weren't missing any opportunities to share the love. We were very together, my SuziSitters and I.

I could retreat into the background as long as I didn't inhale too sharply or readjust my position or change the expression on my face. People were worried about me and their eyes were always on me and after a while it became commonplace when a pillow appeared behind my shifting back, or an eyebrow was raised in my direction as I took a deeper than usual breath.

I never felt smothered. I could always plead exhaustion and escape to my bed, pulling the softest blanket over my legs and leaving the real world behind. Oxycontin is wonderful for this. When the pain is severe, the medication goes right there and swallows it up. Totally and completely, the pain is replaced by a pleasant warmth and my mind no longer needed to concentrate on ignoring frightening sensations. I was at peace. I felt safe, because someone was always right there. No, it wasn't smothering, it was love.

If my spirits were low, I had only to wait til 4:30 in the afternoon. Dinner was delivered and there was small talk and a bit of the outside world came to visit. I worked on accepting help with grace, and I allowed myself to revel in the sympathy, the encouragement, the attention. As I was complimented, I stood up straighter and wobbled a little less. If a week had passed since my visitor had seen me, she invariably noticed my remarkable progress. It didn't matter that I noticed no changes. An outside observer had noticed them so they must be real.

So, Yes, I will miss the sympathy because it has helped me move forward but No I won't really at all because when it's gone I'll be closer to being me again. A little less snarky, a little more careful, but me all the same. I got here because of the sympathy, because of the love, because everyone was watching and I couldn't let them down. If I'm not limping, if I'm not grimacing, if I am carrying my own groceries in from the garage then I don't really need sympathy, do I?

In its absence I'll know that I am healed.

Today I Took a Walk

I slept like a baby last night. No alarms were needed to wake me because my first appointment of the day wasn't until 9:45am. I like to be well rested before Marcus the Master Manipulator gets his hands on my psoas; it makes the pain more bearable somehow.

I am constantly reminded of the fact that rehab is hard. It is unlike my normal workouts. I usually push myself to the very edge and then I stop. PT involves finding that edge and breathing through it to the other side. The fact that crossing the boundary involves deep, piercing, sharp, oxygen stealing sensations seems to be of concern only to me, lying and moaning on the table. Marcus just keeps pulling or pushing or stretching or holding, a quirky little smile in the right corner of his mouth as he reminds me to breathe.

If I could reach him, I'd push him away. But my body is glued to the table, trying to relax as my psoas is massaged and pressed and prodded and released and then Marcus stands back, crosses his arms over his chest and says "Walk".

And I do.

I glide across the gym, no pain, no limp, no effort. Marcus is right when he says that the legs and the arms are merely incidental to walking. It's the spine, twisting and turning, using that psoas to propel your torso forward. I try not to spend too much time wondering if I'd be doing any better had I known all this back in February, when the drugs started to wear off and I pretended to do my exercises. There just didn't seem to be much purpose in them. If I'd only known.

I'd say "Next time" but.......

There was a depressing discussion of leg length (still shorter) and lift height (at a certain point they no longer fit inside the shoe) but the new me just felt the tug of sadness and moved on. Wherever the old, snarky me is lurking, I hope she stays there for a while longer. Before getting shot, this kind of thing would have started my juices flowing in an all too familiar, all too useless, all too angry outburst directed at whoever happened to be standing in front of me at the time. The doctor promised my husband that this wouldn't happen. A month ago you told me yourself that it was lengthening. Pilates only sees a small difference; why are you adding another pad to the lift?

Today, I sighed as I wondered why doctors have such difficulty telling hard truths to patients, and why orthopedic surgeons seem to be the most egregious offenders. And then I moved on. I really did. Being angry won't make my leg grow. Hating that this happened to me won't improve the quality of my day. I marveled at these platitudes as they floated through my brain; who am I these days?

I took that attitude off the table and around the gym and I left with one new exercise which I should have written down because I can't remember what it was right now but that's okay because I followed his second instruction to the letter. He said "Take a walk. Go for 20 minutes. Forget about swinging your arms. Just walk." And I did.

I drove home and kissed TBG's post-spin-class-exhausted-self and then I grabbed my cell phone and water bottle and headed out the door. There's almost .2 mile of flat pavement in front of my house. Go much further north and the road heads down hill precipitously. It was a hard ascent before I was injured; I wasn't pressing my luck this morning. They are rebuilding the main road at the south end of our little street; no way was I taking my damaged self over construction debris.

So, back and forth I went, chatting to Little Cuter as we discussed The Burrow and BlogHer '11 and the fact that I was walking never really came up in conversation. She went back to work and I kept on walking.... I am stopped, dead in my typing tracks, denizens, as I look at that last sentence. I kept on walking.... not just a few steps inside, or leaning on a grocery cart at WallyWorld, but really and truly walking, one foot in front of the other, arms hanging loosely at my sides, swinging freely as I walk.

I walk.

My film class next Wednesdayis focusing on dance in the movies. Thinking about Fred and Ginger, about Vera Ellen and Gene Kelly, about moving fluidly across the floor... all that made me a little sad this semester. But now, now that I've shown myself that I can, in fact, take a walk, well.... bring it on. Skinny white boys in hoodies can't stop me... and neither can self-propulsion.

Other People's Kids

Seems like this is my summer of other people's kids. I have all of the joy and none of the worry. I have all of the love and none of the angst. It's really kind of perfect.

Mr. 5 is now Mr. 6 and Mr. 7 is now Mr. 8... as they remind me with ever increasing ire as time passes and my brain refuses to make the change. They're not babies any more; they are school kids, with all the attitude that implies. When not enveloped in a video screen, their willingness to confide and share and tease includes me in their family circle. They may not be mine by blood, but their mother is my person here in Tucson and that must count for something. It certainly does as far as they are concerned.

They are no longer easily distracted with Leggos; me just searching the box for missing heads or weapons isn't enough any more. We play games with rules - Uno, Guess Who - and I am a full participant. It's more challenging than reading a magazine as I made a desultory effort to locate a tiny sword or a flag. It involves actually hanging out with them, being fully in the moment, being engaged. I'm no longer doing it to give their mom a break; I'm doing it because it is really really fun.

I'm watching them change before my very eyes. Mr. 6 is still a lady-killer and Mr. 8 is still precise, but the edges of their personalities are beginning to develop some interesting nooks and crannies. A bit of fiendishness is creeping into Mr. 6's loving heart. Mr. 8 is more willing to forgive and forget, more apt to let a slight gloss over his shoulders, more willing to compromise and apologize. They'll be in 2nd and 4th grades next month - definitely school kids.

I spent yesterday afternoon with one who has a while before that appellation will be appropriate. Not quite nine months old, this is the happiest baby I have ever seen. He's able to amuse himself; how rare is that? Gnawing and drooling and looking for the next adventure, he stood by himself for the first time right there in the back of his mom's Honda Odyssey in my driveway; how cool is that?

His plastic piano played the first 32 bars of 3 annoyingly familiar Mozart melodies which are now stuck in my head like gum to the bottom of a shoe but the new, less snarky me is able to make them become the background to a movie of his cheeks and his laugh and his insistence on mouthing the remote control. What is it with males and those devices? Obviously, it's hard wired. The kid has yet to experience his first autumn and he's already needing the thing to be under his direct control at all times.

Good parents leave nothing to chance, so naturally my charge came equipped with a not-so-very-portable play pen, a brightly colored plastic booster seat, a lunch box, a diaper bag, a car seat and a set of instructions. Perfect - I didn't have to think, I just obeyed the schedule. Nap time didn't really happen, and I didn't mind at all. He was too luscious to have out of my arms for more than a moment or two. We rolled around on Douglas and I tickled and he giggled and mom came to collect him all too soon.

He'll be back. I'm insisting on it.

Friday, 13 year old Elizabeth and I are spending the afternoon together. I'd originally thought about the Tucson Museum of Art, but I've had a change of heart. Her blogonym references Elizabeth Taylor, the screen's most voluptuous star when I was a lass. Alas, this Elizabeth had never heard of her. Not even in connection with Elton John and AIDS. Sigh.

That fact, coupled with my need to make clear the difference between voluptuous and fat,prompted me to check out Cat On A Hot Tin Roof from the library this afternoon. We're going to get comfortable on Douglas and watch Liz and Paul Newman and Burl Ives and James Farrentino holler and opine and impose and transform as we eat turkey sandwiches and drink soda out of the can, with a straw.

I'll ferry her to Jesse for a haircut and a repair of the help she received from Amster while they were on vacation. The woman's intentions were good.... the kid had a lot of hair..... nobody's mad at anyone and I can feel like a hero..... win win win.

I so love other people's children.

Tucson Bloggers' CPR Meet Up

Let me start by reminding you that the entire concept of social media is beyond me these days. I've never tweeted nor read a tweet and I only know about them because they make the news. Something I was doing was a good idea for a flash mob and that began to creep me out .... my behavior is mob-like? I'm not the mayor of any of my favorite haunts and I only joined Facebook so that I could see the pictures of the kids' vacations. The fact that I attended a Meet Up thrills me no end

Then, of course, there's Becca,

mother of 2, owner of a brand new fancy camera, and guiding light behind these Tucson events. The last one was painting Ben's Bells and I carried the glow with me for weeks. This one was another way to improve our community and ourselves and Amster and Elizabeth and a few other friends and I were in, $10 for the certification card included.

Our instructors were connected to Save a Life and they were perfect.

This retired fire fighter is showing us how to brace an infant and then use two fingers to gently move the lungs. They are so little, my mouth fit over the doll's mouth and nose at once.
If I were ever inclined to turn my back on a child near a pool, that thought is now banished from my mind.

 CPR has some fun parts.  First you give orders

which is right up my alley.
You send someone to call 911 and someone to find the AED.
Those boxes are on the walls of malls and museums and the instructions are written so that a 6 year old can follow them... and they have done so successfully.  Don't be afraid to help with one.

Next come the chest compressions.  Considering how I feel about skinny white boys in hoodies since January 8th, I'm fairly proud of myself for getting up close and personal to the training dummy.

It's 50 compressions in just the right place on the chest (you have to take the course... this post will not teach you!) with elbows locked out and a fast and steady rhythm.  Then you take a breath and begin again.  After 4 sets of compressing and breathing you've done about as much as you can do with the air that was in the body before the patient stopped inhaling. That's the goal of the Carver Method - to utilize the oxygen already present to maintain a healthy brain.  The compressions move the aerated blood through the body, simulating the beating of the heart.  It feels very cool.

At this point you put your ear to the patient's mouth and listen, hoping to hear him breathing on his own.

Despite what we wish for, that rarely happens.
So, you place the face mask

or pull up the patient's t-shirt and cover the mouth.
You don't do this to protect yourself from disease.
You do this so that if the patient vomits you don't inhale gunk.
(Sorry if you are eating breakfast right now.....)

And then you breathe - sending your life force into another person's lungs.  .

You exhale until his lungs expand and then you do it again and then you become his heart again as you start all over.

I didn't expect it to be a spiritual experience,
especially after I shook the baby and its head exploded
oh, please, don't ask......
but it was.