December? Already?

The end is nigh.  End of the calendar year, of course.  The end of civilization is already under way.  Soon, the end of life on this rotating rock will be the topic du jour.  But, enough of the doomsaying!  What about the winter holidays!?!

The Solstice is getting closer, a time to thank the Goddess for the gift of light.  It's dark and dreary here lately what with the short days and the incessant rain.  I'm not actually complaining about the rain.  We need every drop of it, and we need snow on the mountains.  I learned a new word, a Scottish word, that perfectly describes the weather here: dreich.  Cold, dark, rainy and dreary.  Scotland and the Pacific Northwest have some things in common.  Lol.

Here are the pleasant updates, pleasant for me anyway.

I finished the writing challenge.  National Novel Writing Month asks participants to write 50,000 words during the month of November.  It's the tenth year I have done so!  This year's effort was a fantasy story involving a cadre of Nature deities defeating Eris and her nephews in their attempt to break open the radioactive storage containers at the Hanford nuclear site and poison the mighty Columbia river and everything around it.  In my stories, the good guys always win.  (Really, the good gals, since the majority of my characters are female.  A writer's prerogative, and a lesbian prerogative.)

Here's the really big news:

The Kid is pregnant!  She is having a girl in early May!  I am happy because she is happy.  I mean, yes, it will be fun, and gift giving holidays will be super fun.  There is an element of existential dread here, though.  If she had never reproduced, I would only have her to worry about.  Now I will have to worry about a future generation.  Can one worry from beyond the grave?  I'm not sure, but I'll attempt to let you all know at some indefinite time in the (hopefully) distant future.  I have always, always cared about the planet, but now I have to care about it for infinity.  That's exhausting!  Oh, well, in the immediate time frame we have something fun to look forward to.  So, there's that.

Cheers, women!  I hope your December is full of happiness and health, and a blessed return of the Light.  

Ten

 It's been ten years since my mom died.  Here's what I texted to my immediate family:

Today is the ten year anniversary of the death of our beloved matriarch.

First of all: I can't believe it's been that long.

Second: ten years has not dulled the pain of that loss. 

Third: I am grateful to have had her as long as I did.

Fourth: I know I don't grieve alone.

I made an apple cake this morning.  I'm going to take a chunk over to Grampy and Walter later.  I'm not sure if they are marking the occasion but I am.  I need a little bit of acknowledgement of our profound loss.  Not sure I'll get it from them. But, in my heart, we are all united in singing her praises, telling funny stories, and keeping alive her memory. But that's just in my heart. Mostly likely I'll be celebrating her on my own. But, I WILL celebrate the amazing person that was my mother.

(Steps off soapbox)

Xoxox  xoxox  xoxox'

#

To their everlasting credit, they all responded to my text immediately.  It's true that I don't suffer her loss alone.  We all feel it.  We all mourn her.  I guess there is a comfort in being able to share a memory of someone dear with a person who knew them.  Some kind of shared spark of memory.  A connection.

Ok, well, I'm going to get ready to go to my dad's.  See ya!

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

 Finally.  It was a long six weeks, but I'm home.

Lisa continues to do well.  Her new kidney is working like a champ.  No sign of hepatitis C, happily.  All the things they test for are within normal range.  And, for the first time in decades, she is no longer anemic!  Bonus!  She's still got a lot of follow up.  It is beginning to taper off, though.  She has reached the point where she only has to go in once every two weeks, so that's a huge improvement.  Everything is pointing in the right direction.

Back here in Portland, autumn is in full swing.  Leaves changing color and piling up, temperatures dropping, days very much shorter.  I have loads of stuff to catch up on.  But, it's all the normal stuff and it feels good to be futzing around at home.

My next goal is to get my dad a booster shot, and one for my brother and me.  Dad had Pfizer, I think, so that won't be difficult.  Brother and I had J&J, so we're in a holding pattern.  But, we'll get it done.  I do feel bad about getting a booster when so much of the world hasn't gotten even one shot yet, but I don't want to jeopardize my dad's continued survival. 

What else is going on?  Nothing.  Ahhhhhh......  

Progress Report

 Things are going well down here in SoCal.  Lisa continues to heal.  She is gaining in mobility and oxygen capacity.  She's moving better.  Her kidney is working like a champ.  Dialysis is very hard on the body so there is a long recovery period from that in addition to the recovery from major surgery.  

We are now back in Long Beach.  Her in-person appointments have decreased from four per week to just one.  We will drive down to San Diego on Monday, stop at the lab for a blood draw and urine test, and then wait several hours for the clinic appointment.  After that, it's back to the LBC.  I will driver her down two times and then she'll be on her own.  Fingers crossed!  Actually, she might enlist the help of her neighbor for a while.  The hard part is that she can't eat before the blood draw.  A two hour drive on an empty stomach first thing in the morning (or longer, depending on traffic), is not something to look forward to with delight.  Still, it beats living in a hotel.

I'll be returning home on the 12th.  I cannot wait!  I don't like being away from home for long periods of time (especially this long!)  And, honestly, no matter how great the friendship, 6 weeks makes it wear thin.  We've had a small handful of spats but gotten over them quickly.  Still, for someone who lives alone and isn't the most social of individuals, it is taxing.  But, it's almost over.  I can see the finish line from here.  Wish me luck!

On Duty

 It has finally happened!  Lisa got her kidney!

We are in San Diego as she had the transplant at UCSD.  We will be here for 6 weeks.  Yes, six long weeks of labs and clinic appointments and all sorts of mind-bending health regimens.  The medication routine is daunting, to say the least.  But, while we feel completely at sea this week, my hope is that we manage to get to a point where the routine becomes just that, routine.  In 6 weeks, if all goes well, she will be reduced to once a month appointments and will be able to return home to Long Beach.  At that point I will be able to return home to Portland.  

We are so grateful to the 30 year old IV drug user who signed an organ donor card.  It doesn't matter that they had Hepatitis C, because that is now curable.  But, the gift of an organ is a profound thing.  It will literally change Lisa's life.  She has been on dialysis for six years and in ever-worsening health.  Last year was touch and go for her survival.  This gift of a kidney will allow her to live again, rather than just survive and hang on.  I definitely tear up thinking about the immensity of the gift.

We are staying in a hotel a few miles from the hospital.  She was discharged yesterday and is still in considerable pain.  Fingers crossed that she heals quickly!  (Fingers also crossed that we don't drive each other crazy in the meantime!)

My friend Katy is keeping Pierre for the duration.  What a huge mitzvah that is!  She doesn't currently have a pet and misses having a cat around the house.  Happily, Pierre likes her and tolerates her grandchildren.  It's working out well so far.  Thank you so much Katy!

My neighbor is watching the house, bringing in the mail, watering the plants, and that sort of thing.  What would I do without good friends and neighbors?  These personal connections are essential!

I've got to post this and get going.  There are medical things to take care of...  yuck!

Cheers, women!

No Good Deed

 Hey Women,

I hope you are all alive and vaccinated and still wearing your masks.  Yes, I am all those things and I'm not going to pussyfoot around and pretend that it's ok to be otherwise.  Tired of it!  Yet, despite being tired of it, the virus is still here.  But, enough of that.  Moving on.

So, I just got back from another stint down at my friend's ranch.  Let me tell you about it.

First of all, my two besties and my daughter and I had planned a get together for July of 2020.  Obviously that was postponed.  But, now that we were all vaccinated we decided that it was time for our weekend meet up.  We can't do more than a weekend because Lisa needs dialysis 3 times per week, but a weekend was better than nothing and we were ready for some fun.

The Kid and I drove down to the Bay Area of California together.  Honestly, that was one of the highlights of the trip.  Ten hours in the car with my favorite person in the world!  She lives outside of Seattle, which isn't far from Portland, but we haven't seen each other much in the last 18 months.  Obvs.  So, the weekend started off very well.  She's an excellent travel companion.

We stayed with our friend KA for one night and then went to Capitola for a night at a B&B.  Great fun. Just being together with people that you love is a balm for the soul. We drove up the coast from Capitola to Half Moon Bay and it was glorious.  The fog was hanging over the ocean and it was cool and breezy.  The scenery is that of my childhood and the scents took me back.  Trips to the beach, camping in the woods, eating at quirky coastal restaurants.  It all came flooding back.

We spent another night at KA's house and then Lisa and the Kid had to fly home.  My plan had been to spend the second half of the week at the ranch, visiting the rancher and helping out with chores.  So much for planning, right?

During my weekend with the besties, I got a text from the rancher's friend that she was in the hospital. She's had various health issues over the years so it's not the first time she's landed in the ER.  This sounded like a bowel obstruction.  She's been having increasing difficulty eating and keeping food down but, like so many of us, she hates going to the doctor.

They diagnosed her with constipation and sent her home with laxatives.  As if she hadn't already tried that on her own.  The next day she was back at the hospital and this time was admitted and taken to surgery.  She has some sort of fibrous growth in part of her GI tract.  The surgeon tried removing it laparoscopically and ended up perforating her bowel.  Now she had an abdominal infection, pneumonia, and still a blocked pipe.  She's still in the hospital, two weeks later.  She's just graduated to semi-solid food and while she's keeping it down, nothing is coming out the other end.

Meanwhile, until I arrived at the ranch, a group of her local friends were taking turns feeding the 200 sheep.  I told them to stand down while I was there and they could draw up a new schedule when I had to return home.  I asked my pet sitter how long she could take care of my fine feline and she gave me an extra ten days or so.

So, I'm at the ranch, holding down the fort, wrestling bales of hay and endlessly refilling water troughs in temperatures over 100f.  That's ok.  I knew what I was in for and while I was tired and sore and sweaty I felt good about helping my friend.  

We've been friends for 50 years.  That's a long time. I know all her exes.  I know her whole family.  I've visited her mom in the care home.  I've spent weeks at the ranch helping out.  

Remember a few years ago when I went down and cleaned out the back room?  The hoard of vermin infested rubbish that I spent a couple of weeks sorting through and hauling to the dump trailer?  Remember how grateful she was that it was finally dealt with?  Turns out there's another chapter to that story.  

After I returned home, she and her friend took the load to the dump.  But, they didn't just dump it and go home.  They went through the entire load, opening up trash bags and sifting through boxes to make sure that I didn't throw away anything good.  They pulled out a 40 year old vacuum cleaner and the helper took it home.  Never mind that the rancher has three vacuums - that ancient, heavy, filthy one STILL WORKED!  Then, they tore the lining out of some suitcases and discovered that some dollar bills had been hidden inside.  OMG, SHE'S THROWING AWAY MONEY!

I don't know what all they pulled from the trailer and I don't want to know.  

I texted her not long after I arrived at the ranch to ask where the key to her bedroom was.  There was clean laundry to put away and I was trying to straighten up the living room.  She sent a text to her friend, who happened to be at the house with me at the time, saying 'Don't let her in my room!  I don't want her going through my stuff and throwing it out!'

Well, clearly I had underestimated her hoarding.  I had thought that the hoard in the backroom (and in the mom's room) was all the mom's doing.  Not so.  The hoarding appears to be a generational behavior.  She also hoards food.  Not in the way that you see on tv horror shows, she's not walking on a foot deep layer of spoiled food.  But, she shops at Costco and other bulk purchase places and buys like she's going to be under siege.  When I got to the house, there were boxes and bags of food to put away that were just piled on the kitchen floor.  I did a little purge of the pantry and threw away stuff that was clearly unhealthy to eat.  Rearranged a little in order to get the new groceries in.  I mean, does a household of one person 'need' 50 cans of beans?  There were 20 bags of chips in the house.  Cases of stuff, boxes full of stuff.  

When she sent that text saying to keep me out of her room, that hurt me.  I've only ever done work at the ranch that I was asked to do, asked to help out with.  She wanted the back room cleaned out.  Her mom's room was four feet deep everywhere except for a little square of space between the door and the bed.  It's useable now.  Oh, and the back room?  Not quite the disaster zone it had been previously but it is filling fast.

The real kick in the teeth is that she has told her ranch hand friend, her vet friend, and some young woman who just started working for her on an occasional basis that I had thrown away good stuff, that I was ruining things, that I had forced her to throw away valuable belongings and that I would try to keep doing it.  A lifetime friendship is what is being thrown away, and not by me.

I'm sorry to say that I called her in the hospital and told her that I was upset and that she had hurt me by saying these things.  I told her that I had never felt so unwelcome at anyone's home and especially hers. She said, 'I don't know what the ranch hand has told you but I...' and I said, no, don't blame him.  He's just telling the truth.  Plus, you've said these things to the vet and the youngster.  You've thrown me under the bus.  

I apologized for bringing it up while she was ill and in the hospital.  I said that we would talk about it when she got out and was feeling better.  

I went to see her at the hospital the next day and took the quilt that I had made for her.  She was apathetic about it.  I said, well, I usually get a more enthusiastic response when I give someone a handmade quilt, but I understand that you are sick.  I took it back to the house and left it on her bed.  (Because, yes, I did get the key to the bedroom, I did put her clean laundry in there, and no, I did not touch anything in her room, which has a pathway from the door to the bed.)

So, it's true what they say: No good deed goes unpunished.  I'm still angry and hurt but I'm gaining a little perspective.  I most certainly will not help her with cleaning out her hoard again.  And, I likely won't go back down to help with the sheep.  There are a lot of related issues that I haven't reported here but the bottom line for me is that I need to draw a boundary and enforce it.  I've been a good friend over the decades and in recent years I never counted the lack of reciprocity or the one-sided nature of our exchanges.  I mean, when your friend needs help, you help them, right?  I certainly wasn't keeping score.  But, then when they shit on you, you call a halt to the interaction.  

Now I am home and resting.  My body is aching from the back breaking work but my muscles are starting to ease up.  I'm still waking up at 5:00 am but hope to get to a more normal retired person schedule eventually.  I think I'll go take a walk and let the breeze carry some of my angst away.  Thanks for reading, women!

2021 - Or, So What?

 So, here we are, late in February 2021.  Looks a lot like the previous half year or so.  Well, more people are wearing masks, so that's a good thing.  Some of us are double masking.  Still some idiots who won't wear one.  I wish that damned virus was more selective.

In weather news, we survived that damned storm.  We had snow and ice in alternating layers.  Snow is fine.  Ice is not.  While it's not Texas, we lost power in many parts of my city.  Mine was out for two nights.  My dad and brother also had outages and spent one night here at my house.  I was so glad that I have a gas stove!  There were multiple cups of hot tea, lol.  Some rural parts of the greater metro area  are still without power.

Temperatures are warming, though.  I saw some daffodils starting to come out in a neighbor's yard.  I found the first violet in my yard as I was cleaning up fallen tree branches.  A sign of spring, most welcome.  We've had a lot of rain since the snow/ice storm but there are some sunny days in the forecast.  Good, I'm ready for a little natural vitamin D.

In other news, I managed to get my 85 year old father an appointment for his first covid vaccine.  Hallelujah!  It was no small feat, let me tell you.  Hours spent online and on the phone over multiple days.  It is incredibly difficult.  I don't see how the elderly can be expected to work their way through the (lack of a) system.  My dad wouldn't have been able to do it, not by a long shot.  Even my brother (who is younger than I am) would not have been able.  But, it's done.  And the second dose was scheduled when he received the first, so that's good.  I don't expect to be eligible for one until April or May unless supply ramps up considerably.  How about you all?  Have you been vaccinated or at least been able to make an appointment?

My friend Lisa is fully vaccinated and I am very grateful for that.  She was far too vulnerable.  She said that she really feels like a weight of fear has been lifted.  She is still being very cautious, of course, but now feels like it is ok to go to the grocery store (masked) instead of getting everything delivered.  

In more mundane news, T has found a new girlfriend.  I think this one might be good!  She lives in Oregon, which is a relief as they can drive to see each other on the weekends.  She is gainfully employed, a big plus.  So far it doesn't seem like she has a lot of baggage.  I haven't met her yet but I am very hopeful.  T is happy and that's the best thing.  Also, she has stopped calling me every morning and that is the second best thing.  Lol.

As someone who craves solitude, the pandemic has perhaps been easier for me than others.  But I am growing restless.  I want to visit my daughter, or have her visit me.  I want to see my friends, and hug them.  I want to go out for a burger and tots with my neighbor.  I want to take a road trip to see my cousins.  I love my house, my yard, my neighborhood but... I am ready to see something else.  Some days the depression takes hold and I can't even read a book.  I can't even play solitaire on my phone.  I just sit and stare out the window and try not to think.  Ugh.  Those days are dark.  I know that I should get up and take a walk when I feel like that, but nothing could be harder.  Still, the daylight increases and, Goddess willing, my mood will lighten.  

In a moment of hopefulness, I bought a day-use parking pass to the Oregon State Park system.  When this drenching rain lets up, I will force myself to go outside and hike (or at least walk!) in this beautiful place I call home.  If the weather reporters are right, that could be next week.  Fingers crossed!

Stay strong, women!  Someday this epoch will end.