Being Brave

We are off on an airplane this Sunday. We drive up to my daughter's house on Saturday to spend the night since it is closer to the airport and we can leave our car in her neighborhood. She and her husband are off to dinner and a play and will not have much time to spend with us and the grands have various plans as well. It cannot be helped that they are in the prime of their life! 

Hubby is giving a presentation at an international conference in San Diego. We are brave to go to such a large and exposed meeting with people from all over the world. It is good for him to prove to himself that he can still do this and while many will not find his speech important, it is important to him! It is only 10 minutes long with a few minutes allowed for questions and he has been working on it for months! He will print out a copy for me to review and then go down and make changes before I can even read it! He would normally have it memorized by now.  I may be the one changing the slides on the screen.

We will be exposing ourselves on long plane flights and then he will be exposed at the meetings.  We will be wearing masks and I have packed some quick Covid tests in the event we need them.  Sadly we have to go on living our lives and it seems such a small danger compared to places around the world right now that are in the middle of a war. 

I hope to meet up with Mage (and George) as well as tour a few places in the city that I have not seen for years.  We met as bloggers when they came to my nearby city and then I went to theirs and now I am returning! 

I hope to eat in nicer restaurants; I hope to find wonderful things to photograph; I hope to avoid COVID.

After five days we are flying on to Colorado and meeting with family and praying we are not carrying germs to them although several of them have been traveling recently as well.

Life is moving on.  I guess it has to or why are we living?

(Apologies for the odd font size.  Blogger spends most of its time reducing my font size!)

Are Roller Coaster Rides Good for Your Health?

The saga of the dog is in three parts, and this is the last. If you are not a pet person or animal person or in the mood, I am guessing that reading this is a waste of time. But since it was an important lesson learned in my life, I have to document it. 

For a few years now, since we have retired, Hubby has been telling me we should get a dog. We have owned at least six dogs in our lifetime. I love dogs but not the ticks that are so dangerous. Yes, they give dogs poison but I have seen live ticks crawling on the granddogs that I babysit during some summers.

It has been good that the Shelters have been open by appointment only for the last two years due to COVID as I could avoid the issue more easily. Our local "limited kill" shelter finally opened on Saturdays for three hours for an open house and Hubby wanted us to go. We did. He immediately fell in love with a 3-year-old foxhound called Birdie and they let her out for us to visit in a side room. The dog was loving and exploring and calm. Hubby felt sure that since she was the only dog not barking in the kennels she was a real "Lady" and he called her that. He wanted to take her home immediately! I had to calm him and explain we needed to dog-proof the house (and talk about such a big step.)

 We worked on the house and a week later emailed the shelter for an appointment to take Lady. Since the manager saw our division in the enthusiasm she wisely suggested we foster to adopt. Those of you who have read the previous two blog entries know that this is exactly what we did. The second post shows the adventure we were exposed to and it helped me talk Hubby into returning this dog. I had hoped he would play a bigger role in the dog's care and in watching her, but he has a number of projects and is not good with details, such as when and how to give the dog medications.  It is not his early dementia, as he has always left the details of life to me.  He did take her on the long walks. While she initially sat with him while he watched TV, Lady related to me mostly, insisting on sitting in my lap during my morning coffee on the sofa.

She was very needy in demanding that I rub her tummy for a 15 minute morning session as I drank my coffee and watched the news.  She would take her paw under my arm and push it down.  I did not mind as she was warm for my cold hands and I realized that such vulnerable love was something that was in very short supply in her chaotic life. She was clearly trusting.  She followed me everywhere.

In about two weeks she was able to sleep in her kennel, was housebroken and rang the bells hanging on the door to go out, and actually started "talking" and "arguing" with me over treats in a very human way.

She even liked/tolerated(?) baths.  

She slept in her kennel every night without any bother and waited for me to get up in the early morning to feed her and let her outside! No barking. Perfect, right?

Then came the tragic evening that I wrote about in my last post. Such a scary thrill ride! I had imagined her dead on the road from a traffic accident, dead from the gunshot of a nearby hunter, or coming home with all kinds of health issues and broken bones to add to the ones she already had! 

It was not hubby's fault that she escaped, but it was/is a problem in that he cannot watch her and start a BBQ at the same time. His focus is singular. 

We took her back yesterday. The people at the shelter were polite and friendly, but I saw they were somewhat cold in taking her back. I brought lots of extra food I had purchased and snacks and other stuff in a bag as well as all the food she did not eat.   I still felt a failure.

Do I miss seeing that soft brown face in the morning-YES

Do I miss tripping over her as I make my way to sit down for my coffee--NO

Do I miss taking her outside several times a day-MAYBE

Do I miss her ability to drag me down the steps in the early morning before she can be controlled-NO

Do I miss her warm head in my lap-YES

Do I miss all the dog hair on the furniture-NO

Do I miss having to negotiate my every move in the kitchen-NO

Do I miss Dog bags of poo-NO

Do I miss her enthusiasm for life-Perhaps

Do I miss her watching birds with me in my weekly count for Cornell-YES

Will we try for another dog-Probably not for a long time.

Not So Boring Stuff About a Dog

This past week has been busy and I cannot remember why our shoulder lamb chops in the fridge could not be eaten until this last night. We felt caught up finally on many things in our life and these shoulder chops are my husband's favorite which he can now eat since his Alphagal allergy has ended!  He wanted them barbequed and went out to the Egg smoker on the back deck to get started.

I did not have much in the way of side dishes and so heated a few rolls, put some leftover green beans in the microwave to reheat, and made a tomato and avocado salad before the avocado got too ripe to eat.

Our Lady dog was watching hubby working through the deck window.  I asked him to move the storage bench across the stairway to the back yard blocking any getaway and I would let Lady out so she could be with him and enjoy the milder late afternoon early evening temperatures. She wandered the deck and explored every BBQ tool and watched him start the smoker.  I returned to the kitchen. 

Everything was fine for about 5 to 10 minutes when I heard Hubby shout out.  Lady had pushed aside the heavy storage bench while Hubby was distracted with some task and she had run down the stairs and was eating the birdseed under the feeder in the back yard.  We both called her to come but just minutes later she must have smelled deer!  Sure enough, she ran down to the dock where the deer trail crosses the back yard and flushed a few deer out in the verbena by the river, and off everyone went into the woods.  She was on a run and barking gleefully.  She managed to cross the woods in each ravine and the back yards of all of our neighbors for a least a half-mile down the peninsula chasing the deer and bouncing like a kangaroo.

I ran inside to get a leash and some kibble while Hubby made his way through all the woodland calling her.

I got down to culdesac at the end of the main neighborhood out front and heard her barking repeatedly. I called and called in as joyful and welcoming a voice as I could.  I turned to the right and saw hubby in the distance.  We came together and I gave him the leash and some of the kibble.  He went to the tip of the land by the river and I waited by the road in the opposite direction.  I followed her voice and soon I saw her behind me running across the road to the other side.  I called and bent down and begged her to come.  I rattled the kibble bag which was always a failsafe in getting her to come up to me and sit waiting.  She was about 50 feet away, saw me and grinned (actually), and darted off like a fawn away into the woods.  Then I saw her a half-mile up our street darting back across the road the other way, truly an energizer bunny.   I called and called.

Hubby and I followed her bark up and down the peninsula but could not get near her.  The sun was beginning to set and with the diminishing sun came some pretty cold air that would drop into the 30'sF.  Hubby and I walked back to the house, knowing she was miles away by now as we could no longer hear her bark.  He got in the car and headed up toward the main road as that was where we heard her last.  He went down the road that had a barn and leaned out and called.  An old lady was doing something there and asked if he was looking for a dog.  He said yes, and she pointed on up the hill toward other woods and houses and said she saw her streaking like a dart.

Back at home, I went out to the Egg smoker and saw the coals were perfect and red and so I shut the top and closed the damper, mostly hoping I could keep the coal fires burning for another hour!  I put on my down coat and went back outside to the end of our road and walked up the hill and called and called.  I stood there until dark and with freezing hands came back to the house, but left a trail of kibble down our driveway on the off chance she would find her way home. Even so, I remembered that this was how she had been found before in her life, skinny and lost.  I was sad, but oddly, not devastated.  I was mad but oddly not angry.  It was our fault but it was also Lady's wildness.  I did not want to think about her trying to find someplace warm and dry to sleep the night, because nothing like that existed in the woods.

After another 20 minutes, Hubby returned in the car and said he could hear her sharp high bark miles away, but he had no luck.  We became resigned.

We left the gate to the yard open, left open the garage door, and hoped for the best.

The BBQ temp had held and was perfect for the chops and so we made dinner, sat down and ate, and talked about how she was willing to miss her dinner to run and chase the deer.  She was a wild one and I thought to myself if she does not return, gets lost, and gets returned to the shelter (her ID was still on her) I was going to tell them she was too much for us.  I had never had a dog who was so gentle, slept on my lap, ate from my hand, and then totally went wild outside.  It was her dinner hour and she had no interest in coming to us.  I thought that most dogs will eventually come when they are exhausted.

During dinner, I went outside to the front door every 10 minutes and called her.  We finished dinner, cleaned up the plates, and turned on the TV for some distraction.

In over an hour we heard something outside on the porch, and Hubby went to open the front door.  There she sat, so happy to see us!  She came inside, gulped some water, and I took her bowl of kibble with her medicine from the refrigerator and put it down.  (Mistake on my part, but more about that later.)  She ate but with a calm sedateness that was unusual.  Then she went to her favorite sofa and sat and looked at us through half-closed eyes as if she was exhausted trying to stay awake.  Later she came and sat next to me trembling every once in a while.  I thought she had gotten chilled, but soon she got up and started pacing and we took her outside where she threw up some food. About 15 minutes later she threw up on a rug by the door and I recognized the kibble and her blue medicine capsule.  Perhaps the food was too cold.  Not exactly.

She went outside several times more throwing up and then burying the vomited mass in the leaves of my flower beds!  We brought her back and this process of rejecting food went on for some time.  Finally close to ten o'clock we were tired and ready for bed.  I had to push her into her kennel and I knew she did not want to go in because she was still sick!

I slept through the night not wanting to think about it all.  Just before 7:00 AM I got up and came out to release her for a break outside and then breakfast, keeping the thought away from the back of my mind that she might be dead!  But relieved that she sat up and looked at me normally.  In her kennel piled neatly all around the side like a 2-inch ridge of dirt was some strange dry black vomit.  She looked miserable, but had kept the center where she slept clean!  I took her outside and she peed but then just wanted to sit and watch the morning sun-rise which I allowed.  The weather was really nice, not too chilly and quiet except for the Canadian geese down near the water having a battle over who was going to get to use the osprey nest.  I wanted to go back inside, but knew she needed this and so tried to meditate a bit(!).  As we returned to the house she was very determined to get her "cache" of vomit she had buried under the leaves and it took my strong hand to get her back inside. 

I brought her inside and went to give her some dry kibble, but only half or even less than her normal serving.  She ate eagerly, but not crazily like she usually does.  This gave me time to clean her bedding and look at the vomit that I had thrown outside on the deck.  Below is a photo I took.  Yes, maybe some grain of some sort, thank goodness it was not poisonous left out by a farmer for some varmints.   Farmers are usually careful around here because we have had Bald Eagle die-offs due to poisoning left for wild animals.

Yes, that is a lot considering she threw up several times before we put her in her kennel.  It looks like a grain of some kind.

Yes, we are so lucky she did not bloat and die from the intestinal blockage as well, and we are lucky that it was not something terribly poisonous.  It is very dry.  She looked so miserable and we can hope she learned her lesson and we learned ours!  This is going to be a much calmer day with her while she mends.

She is not totally back to herself by this afternoon, but I can deal with the lack of enthusiasm.  She ate a lunch of a handful of kibble in chicken broth and is now sleeping.

  Of all the dogs we have owned I realize that we got them as pups or under a year.  Adopting a three-year-old is much more challenging.

Boring Stuff About a Dog---Not Your Dog

Where was my brain when I agreed to take in this dog? I am sure I am losing weight as I rarely can sit for any length of time.  Always checking on where she is and what she is up to.  I do kennel her 3 hours in the middle of the day as I really need some downtime...or a nap!  When I leave the kennel door open, she goes in on her own sometimes to nap.  We have always had puppies and that seems so much easier?  (The red plaid blanket and bed were given to us by the shelter.  I have two sleeping cushions above the kennel to rotate when washing stuff.  She never plays with the expensive dogs' toys we bought!)

Yes, she is growing on me, but she is exhausting in terms of making sure we get her to pee outside. She is on steroids and thus drinking lots of water and having to pee lots.  She manages to go 90% outside, but it is that 10% that means rugs have to be cleaned and deodorized.  I have read her a few times and realize she just HAS to pee and does not hurry to the front door but squats nearby. We are trying the bell method, and rolling up the throw rugs.

She is basically pretty manageable. We can let her out without her leash in the early cold morning and she will pee and then come trotting back. Usually, I go with her out of habit. 

After meals, she will pace the house looking for kibble and knows everywhere that I have it stored in containers for behavior modification...such as the laundry room where we have a dog shower.  She has gotten two baths and not been too upset by them; I think she likes the warm water.  Due to her skin itching, we are trying a non itch shampoo for dogs. Thus far she has not tried to take stuff off of the counters, but I am sure if we were gone she would be into everything in no time.  She gets fed before our dinner and does not beg when we sit down to eat, although she does stand or sit nearby.

She is very loving and insists on sleeping with her head on my lap in the early afternoon. The rest of the time she sleeps on the covered sofa or in her kennel. 

Hubby has trained her to heel when walking most of the time.  She does not feel a need to eat every stick or dead frog along the walk!  She will come back and sit, but mostly for kibble.  Although we try to alternate with lots of loving and no kibble.  She does not bark when the neighborhood German shepherds do their morning barking.  I have heard her bay only once, so that is not an issue.

She learned the sit command in a few days but not the stay command if there is food coming up.  She did a soft snap at me once when I was trying to get her up in the evening to go to her kennel.  I had not touched her but was moving in toward her.  She was scolded severely (no hitting - just me in an angry voice) and I am guessing she was used to being on her own when sleeping or people had been mean to her after waking?  She clearly was feeling bad about it.  She also barked at hubby when he came to the sofa and bent to hold my head in his hands and kiss me and then try to do the similar to her.  

All other times she has been very gentle and obedient.  I will ask when we return her to the kennel if this might mean she would not be safe around a small child...although they probably cannot get me a definitive answer.

I have read mixed reviews on personality changes in a female dog after spaying and that is what they will do before we can officially adopt her.

Not Back to Normal

Normalcy, if I ever could lay claim to such, has flown out the window. I gave in and agreed to my husband's desire to foster the dog from the shelter but did make him wait a week while we prepared the house with gates, spaces, etc., and bought a bunch of pet stuff!  This is a bit long so you have to bear with me.

I should have been more careful because my husband's dementia means that I am totally responsible for feeding and watching the dog when she is inside.  She has had a few peeing accidents and we are trying to get her to use the bell hanging from the door, as well as take her out several times morning and afternoon and before bed.  I also can remember the amount of feed as well as the medicine regime. Hubby is very good at walking and exercising the dog. We have had her for 11 days.  She is not a chewer, probably because she is 3 years old.  She is crazy for food.  She has Lymes and heartworm and is on medicines for that and if I put them in a "pill pocket" she will gulp them down in a second.  (Actually she will do almost anything for food.)

The first night we put her in a kennel in our bedroom, but her scratching and chewing kept us awake.  I moved the kennel to the living room, got an itching spray, bathed her with a shampoo and conditioner that was supposed to reduce dryness and itching, and also applied cream to a few areas.  Below she sits nicely in her kennel while drying in the sun. 

About the fourth night, she woke us up around midnight with a deep and frightening growl followed by the baying that only Hounds can do.  We later learned that our neighbor across the ravine was getting raccoons out of his garage.  We never would have heard any of that.

It is like having a new baby in the house.  I had to call the shelter (since we are fostering we have to use their vet referral) when I noticed two areas of serious sores.  One under her neck and one on her backside.  I put a cream there before she walks so that she would not lick it off.  They thought it might be the kibble they gave us which was something new to her.  She also was crabby when I tried to get her to stop chewing and only offering a rawhide chew worked.

They asked us to bring her up.  When they saw the issue they made an appointment with their vet for late afternoon.  Since they are 30 minutes from our house and the vet hospital is another 15 minutes from them, this meant driving back home at noon and waiting for the appointment time, and then driving the 45 minutes back up at 4:00 PM.  Bonus, she does not mind riding in a car in the kennel!  The shelter also gave a bag of new kibble that has no corn or wheat and is mostly meat.  

The visit to the vet took almost two hours between waiting and diagnosis.  We now have her on steroids and then an additional monthly medication for possible mites.   She behaved well at the vet hospital and even let them stick stuff in her ears!  The vet gave us as well some spray for the sore areas AND an ear spray!  We are hoping it is not allergies as I understand that is harder to treat and determine.  If it is mites we have no clue where she got them as it is my understanding that the animal shelters are very sterile and we have no pets here.

It was a very long day and when we got back and after we fed her and then after we took her out for a 15-minute walk, we put her in the kennel and went for out for our dinner!!  I was exhausted, and I still have not attempted putting in the medicine for her ears that they wanted us to do!!

She will go back to the shelter before our trip at the end of February and probably forget what little training we have been able to give her.  At least this will give us a break to decide if we have the energy for this.  If she did not have the skin problem, we could certainly work with her.  Hubby has fallen in love, of course!

The Fog Has Rolled In

"I don’t look forward too far, as I would just be worried all the time." Taken from the blog Dementia,  the author Judith Clark is a professional writer, so her ability to be insightful, informative, funny, and interesting is expected and well done. 

My husband is in the process of being tested for memory problems.  The neurologist is vague and I am not even sure what all the tests are saying.  He reassures us that since hubby is starting as someone who has a PhD in the sciences, he is starting at the top of the scale.  (Having a lot more information to lose is a good thing?)

I do not want to think about the future on this path because it is not pleasant nor changeable. If I was religious I would pray and ask God to find a cure for all of us on this journey. 

My husband's mother was living alone with this memory loss in her early 80's and came to live with us about 4 years later. We had to take her to a rest home a few years after that, but mostly due to a series of small strokes she had. Her memory had diminished greatly by then, so the evidence of the strokes was mostly shown in her instability when trying to get around. If I looked forward and see that this is where I would see my husband, who is now full of life and enthusiasm, it can be greatly discouraging.  He has been forgetful about small things all of his life and I just tolerated that.  Now we will discuss something in the morning and he will ask me again in the afternoon about it.  He will ask about things that worry his mind again and again.

I am not patient!!  I do need to work on that.  I need to meditate and read more on how to improve one's emotional state.  I have not developed the habit of following him around to see if he puts stuff away so that the new dog does not get into it.

Now we may add a new grandchild who will never see the grandfather that the others saw and played with.

My son and his wife have had problems with several pregnancies before this recent one which seems to be healthy. My daughter-in-law is in her 40's which is late for having a child. She also has some small heart valve problems. This child could be born with a number of complications, or not born at all. Why look forward? 

I will just live with this hope on a day-to-day basis that they have a wonderful life.  

We are ahead of the game as my husband does not and never has smoked or drank alcohol.  (I do get two bourbon and sodas or glasses of wine before dinner most nights, but do not crave more than that.)  He loves being active and getting out and about, far more than I do.  His general health is good as is his kindness, although he is very frustrated many days.

Well, we got the big car loaded with the crib a few days ago before that heavy rain followed today by super cold weather!  Taking it up this morning.

Our new dog which has been with us a week will have to be in a crate for the four hours we are gone.  She does not mind the crate and sleeps in it all night.  She cannot be trusted to have the run of the house yet!  We will be rushed to get back and take her on a long walk before we leave.

Every day is a new foggy challenge and I am not up to it...yet.

Days Getting Longer, Covid Getting Weaker

Do I dare pull my head from out of the covers?   Winter is still here ( and actually as a climate change worrier, I am really glad we have freezing weather.)  There is no snow, but we may get some this weekend.  Great timing, because we are getting ready to take the baby crib from storage in our basement and drive it up to my son and DIL's house in the city this weekend.  They have a tiny room off of their two bedrooms, which may work as a nursery.  Now I prepare for more head colds in my life.   AND keeping germs away for my new grandchild visits.

Luckily my DIL's Father is wonderful at odd jobs, such as putting together a crib---he built the deck on his house!  Luckily my daughter is wonderful at details, as she packed all the hardware into a large paper bag when she moved the crib to my house for storage.  My son's in-laws will be visiting for the weekend and we will just stay for lunch and try to avoid the weather on the way back.

Oddly my fear level has dropped regarding COVID. I may no longer die! I might just get really really sick for a week.  Boy, have I lowered my concerns.  I remember those days, although I must admit I have not had even a cold for years!  When my grandchildren were young, I would get cold after 50% of the visits. 

We also are preparing for a trip to San Diego at the end of the month.  This will be a grand last call for hubby.  He is losing his memory ever so slowly and giving a speech to an international crowd has him elated and nervous.  I told him to type out the whole speech, but we will see!  We will stop and visit my relatives in Colorado, whom I do not see nearly enough, on the way back! My brother, who is a few years younger, has also been diagnosed with encroaching dementia.  My brother is an extremely quiet man, so we would never have known until his car accident.  We are slowly working on accepting these issuese, and maybe in the future when I feel stronger of character, I can share.

Now, since we really are not so busy (!) we have also decided to foster a foxhound mix from the local shelter with a plan to perhaps adopt permanently.  This dog has several health issues which are being treated and she also is 3 years old.  We have had only puppies so actually training a full-grown adult to live in our house will be a challenge.  She will return to the shelter when we head to San Diego and by then we will decide whether to take her back on a permanent basis.  My husband is already in love!

We are already attempting to make our home (which used to seem so much larger) more accomodating for a dog!  Everything I read about aging says to take on challenges...but I think they are supposed to be small challenges and also spread out over our limited years remaining.

Please wish us luck and I am open to any advice on any of these challenges ahead.  The snow has melted from the bench, but the cushions are still wet, so please bring snow pants when you sit down to chat.

Giving Up On Redefining Myself

The world is my oyster. I have lots of time on my hands, although I see February and March trying to clutter my calendar with some stuff. I worked many years to be able to have days that I can own and fill as I choose.  I am trying to stay healthy, both physically and mentally, but I do find that both exercise and being social are challenges as I love wasting time: reading, birdwatching, blogging, taking pictures.

Above is a one-thousand-piece puzzle that my husband bought years ago and which I ignored until I cleaned out a closet and found it.  I bought myself a puzzle table for a Christmas gift from me (hubby is not into buying gifts over the holidays) and I set it up in my bedroom where there is good light.  It is mostly in soothing shades of blue, as you can see, and I am working on it daily.  Usually an hour or so in the morning.  

Above you can see that a few days later and I have really been 'ripping' along.  It took me most of one morning just to sort out the straight edges and sort certain colors/patterns into plastic bags!  The perfect activity for the anal-retentive.

Perhaps my readers have watched the British mystery series called Wallendar, which was adapted from books written by Sweden's Henning Mankell.  Oddly this activity reminds me of  Detective Wallender's father who in great senility ended up painting almost identical tree scenes again and again.  We self-soothe in many ways. Accomplishment is very important in old age.

I also just finished reading the first in a series of spy books written by Dorothy Gilman about a 50 something woman with no spy skills called Mrs. Pollifax.  I will probably not read more after this first book because, while a fun read, it just did not flow for me and was a bit old-fashioned.  Anyway, our middle-aged spy spends parts of her capture playing game after game of solitaire which helps soothe her.

What do you do regularly to pass the time?  Do you ever do anything that others would consider a waste of time but which you find helpful getting you through your week, your day?

Summary of How This Year is Starting

Well, everyone, I am thinking, was glad to kick 2021's butt out the back door and welcome in 2022. And 2022 has not been shy. He/She(they?) arrived on time and semi-quietly in my neighborhood.  I arose early since I was too rude and lazy to greet it at midnight.  The neighborhood was quiet and actually not too cold. I was surprised to see roses still in bloom.  And the hellebores were forming buds just a bit early.

Unknown to me 2022 had invited a jet stream of cold air just to the north waiting to collide with the warmer rainy air that we were getting.

2022 could hardly wait to say "Boom!  Gotcha!"  The snow was fast and heavy and powerful and up to 2 inches an hour. ("Betcha wish 2021 had stayed longer!")

My neighbors to the north got 8 inches.  We got 5.  And by mid-morning, we also lost power.  I had not bothered to fill the buckets with water.  Since we are on well water that is pumped by an electric pump, what does this mean?  Having lived many years overseas with periodic power outages, I knew and quickly put stickers on all the toilet seats.

We have a wood fireplace and can keep reasonably warm, except for the fancy high ceilings which we designed into our major living space!  We have a gas range and can cook food in pots when needed.  I made soup.  We were without power for 24 hours.  A baby inconvenience from when we were out of power for almost a week due to a hurricane many years ago when we lived in the city.

2022 got bored with our neighborhood and stranded hundreds of automobiles for well over 30 hours on a major highway north of us.  People were stuck in their vehicles in the cold, many without water, food, medications, and warmer clothing.  One truck was a bread truck and the owner told the driver to distribute the bread!

My daughter and her family made it home from Colorado the night before the storm, so I guess 2022 was distracted and decided not to strand her for hours in that Denver airport that is so dysfunctional in so many ways.

Yesterday our friend who is a local nurse called to tell us the COVID-Omecron wave had hit big in our little county and the hospitals were packed.  She insisted we stay home as much as possible as this new version was 3 times as infective even with the milder version. 

Yes, there is another snowstorm about half the strength on its way tonight.  My holly trees have lost their crowns in the weight and my neighbor just got a mid-sized tree off the back of her truck.  At least the sun shining on the fresh snow is beautiful.  2022 is not done with us yet as it is only(early) January.

The winter is still beautiful with all its dangers.

That Old See/Saw

I have always felt a letdown as the holidays wind down.  When I was younger I was able to fill the empty hours with a return to my job or projects that I had listed to complete during the winter vacation before I returned to work.  I had family responsibilities that made me feel useful.  I road the waves out until the crest of January and its deadlines reared their ugly head.  (Rarely living in the moment!)

Now I find it more difficult to catch the next wave when the waves are small and barely moving.  Retirement coupled with old age brings time for thoughts, regrets, and wishes for do-overs.  I know that it is stupid and useless to venture down that path, but each year I feel a little more useless in this world and my mistakes haunt me.  I volunteer, donate money, and try to spend as much time as possible with family and my few friends, but everything seems much more ephemeral and questionable as I have acquired perspective moving to the end of the tunnel of my lifeline.  Perhaps the stress of the times mixed with my perspective on world affairs adds to this frustration.

This does get balanced with the wonderful opportunities I have for study, pleasure reading, watching great entertainment, watching my family grow and venture into their exotic new lives, and traveling with my husband.  I know that I have nothing to complain about.  I know that my rich life is how I make it. 

So I look to wise men (and women) to lift me:

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.  Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

And as I venture into 2022 and I will work on my attitude.  

Today and Long Ago Yesterday

Today is my birthday and I have made it to 3/4 of a century. I certainly never thought about that, although I hoped to live a long and healthy life. My cough has been suppressed with the medicine and I have been sleeping like a baby for months! 

While the new variant of COVID has us a bit concerned we are taking all the precautions and going forward a month after our last booster using masks and sanitizers. We are eating out and taking that chance, but it has been such a long pandemic season. We headed up to Lancaster, PA last week to shop for a canoe as a Christmas/Birthday gift for our son. He has been trying to save up for one and both families decided to help him out. The canoe inventory in our area, including several nearby cities, was very sparse. The largest inventory we found was way up in a tiny community in Lancaster. We were surprised at how hard it was to pick a size, model, brand, etc. once we got there.  But we got him a nice canoe, did some Christmas gift buying in the Amish market and stores, and ate at a fancy restaurant owned by a former White House Chef who served under both Bushes and Clinton. The food was very good, if not the exotic or excellence I was expecting. The restaurant was designed like an Inn and that coziness along with the Christmas decorations and some wonderful holiday cocktails made it something we had not had the chance to experience since we are out in the rural area of our state. 

This area has lots of churches of various denominations with some historic cemeteries. This one below has some connections to William Penn, a member of the Quakers who emigrated from England and was the founder of the province (now a state) of Pennsylvania. Penn first called the area "New Wales", then "Sylvania" (Latin for "forests" or "woods"), which King Charles II changed to "Pennsylvania" in honor of the elder Penn.

This area is also the heart of an Amish religious sect. The Amish had split from the Swiss and Alsatian Mennonite Anabaptists in 1693 in Switzerland. They are very conservative and avoid modern technologies as much as possible. My husband has been involved in business with our Amish down here and the man is very difficult to reach as he has no phone and has to walk a mile to another farm to use theirs...which seems to me odd. Either use technology or not. They do not like to have their photos taken and this one was a snap from our car as we drove down the road.  They go about by carriage.

There are vast farms with little on no electricity.  We found a number of great places to get ice cream made from their dairy farms.  They still grow tobacco for their personal use and hang it to dry in tobacco barns like they did hundreds of years ago.  Yet I saw some pretty fancy and expensive farm equipment being driven by Amish farmers.

The only bakery we have where I live here is that found in the large supermarkets. They are good but not outstanding like the European bakeries.  We enjoyed window shopping at the local bakeries.  Below is an Amish bakery and we did buy just a half dozen pastries, although everything was so tempting.

The brief vacation was a nice respite from our hungered-down lifestyle.  It was just a bit disconcerting to see how many fractious factions of Christianity evolved over time, especially of note during the holy day season. It reminded me once again that Jesus was not a Christian.

The Season of Avoiding the Calorie Count

During this time of year, our two (three?) persimmon trees outside begin to produce abundantly. The entire harvest arrives in less than two weeks and if we are efficient we can get to them before the raccoons. They cannot be eaten until fully ripe as they are very astringent when firm. So we harvest and let them sit out until they are quite soft to the touch and almost translucent in appearance. The tree itself has showy fall color.

Once they are as soft as a firm pudding I can puree them for recipes.

...such as persimmon cookies. Some for the freezer and others for the cookies jar.  I now have too much puree.  I am going to try adding them to pre-packaged lemon and orange cake mixes as an experiment.

I have brought my citrus trees inside to the tiny corner of my kitchen and they have gone crazy with both blossoms and fruit at the same time! Below are my kaffir lime tree and my Meyer lemon tree.  The harvested kaffir are the size of golf balls.

Oddly the fragrance of the citrus blossoms is not as full as when they are blooming outside in the spring. But the kaffir juice and shaved rind are perfect for a warming winter curry.

And today I sort the persimmons for ripeness and begin again!

A Conversation with the New Neighbor

"Martha is going to come over in forty-five minutes to see the lights out on the dock. She wants to know how we did it."  Hubby calls down the hall from the kitchen.

I stopped pulling on my exercise pants halfway and sighed. I knew she was going to come dressed as if setting out for a trip to shop in the city or looking like she was going on a country fox hunt without the riding boots. 

I pulled over my roomy black chenille top which fit me like a box cover.  It was large and warm and could be used for exercise later in the day if I could talk myself into that.  I was not going to dress up for a neighbor visit! 

As I passed out through the bathroom I glanced at the large mirror over my sink and admitted I needed to at least apply a little make-up and brush my crazy, wild, gray hair.  My eyebrows have gone pale gray, and as a result, I have a little expression on my face if I don't draw them in with a dark charcoal brush.  Martha's haircut is that perfect trim that matches those who have been on television...which, of course, she had in years past.  My hair is cut into a shag-pixie something or other.  It doesn't hurt that Martha has the facial bone structure of a blueblood and has that delicate beauty that some women are able to hang on to when they age.  Like me, she is pushing 80.

It took her over an hour to arrive and I filled the nervous time straightening the living room and moving the folded clothes to the bedroom. I was still barefoot and put on some winter socks.  This is the first time she will actually be in the house as COVID has prevented us from really welcoming her to our home and also the neighborhood.  If you remember she bought the mansion across the ravine.

She finally arrives in slim gray pants and one of those down jackets in a baby pink that matches her lipstick and some large disk earrings.  She apologizes as she had received a call from the local museum and its concern about the depletion of their reserve accounts due to COVID and since she was on the board, she had to respond.  I have never been on a board, and I have never been asked but it makes me think of bored.

Hubby jabbers as he often does around charming people, but finally, I get her to move through the living room down to the dock.  She studies how hubby has tied the ropes to the pilings and then tied the outdoor holiday lights to the rope.  We got a reindeer on discount (still expensive) at the hardware store and plugged it in at the end of the rope.  It needs a bow and/or a red nose! Baring a major rain we should be able to protect connections with taped plastic.

She admires his handy work and says that she likes our "icicle" lights better than the traditional lights used by the neighbors across the way.  She said that she gets up early and some folks already have their lights on.  How do they do that?  While I sense a bit of competitive nature in this, I am polite and explain we use outdoor timers and show her ours.  

She smiles and says she is heading to the local hardware store and maybe the local plant place to see if she can replicate our "beauty."

She is really a very nice person, but I think she is either a 'dumb blonde' or is using this need for information as a means to get to know her neighbors better.  I mean...light timers are not exactly new technology.