Nuisance Grass

 

That old cliché “good fences make good neighbors” was once upon a time quite true for our family. More than once, we have installed or rebuilt a fence to delineate yards or to contain our pets.

Upon moving back to Missouri in 2012, we encountered some encroachment that no one could have foreseen in this relatively peaceful suburb. Next door to us lived a family of seven: a married couple and their five sons who were renting the home. The homeowners of record, a middle-aged couple, had been forced to move to Texas to follow the husband’s job and health insurance.

When the boys were young, we had no issues with them. The parents were friendly to us, as well. The toddler twins, blond and busy, were adorable, and the three older boys were mostly pleasant to us.

Unfortunately, human nature made the situation next door unbearable in what felt like the blink of an eye when the husband, Zeke, opted to take off with some other woman (or so rumor had it). Janelle was left here with at least four sons; we think their oldest either got his own place or moved in with Zeke.

Janelle didn’t socialize much, at least not with us.

Soon the sons were running amok. Stu had to scold the bigger boys for playing catch right in front of our living room picture window. We were certain that those boys thought Stu an old crab, but we didn’t care about that as much as we cared about our property.

Zeke would appear on some weekends with a shiny new pickup truck to collect some or all of his sons. Once, I heard Janelle screaming at him with a frequency and ferocity one only hears in movies starring actual witches. I looked out my window mid-screaming to see Zeke actually cowering behind his truck door, as if he were a potential victim in a police shootout.

There were several incidents with red and blue flashing lights right outside my bedroom window at hours during which a working woman should not have been conscious. Another time, I heard movement at around 2 AM, and awoke with a start to peer through my blinds at a shadowy, male, human Stonehenge in their driveway, tiny phone screens all aglow.

Stu and I agreed that something needed to be done. The way our neighborhood is laid out, one can’t really fence off a front yard, and decorative brick or rocks would surely present a tripping hazard and/or a lawsuit opportunity.

That’s how we happened upon the ornamental grass plants, which at that time were small and harmless looking, not to mention free for the taking. Stu picked up ten of these and planted them: five in the front yard near our edge of the property line, and the other five in the back yard near the cyclone fence.

Where doggies go, not much will grow, and therefore the back plants died almost instantly. The ones in front, however, did exactly what we needed them to do, which was to grow large quickly. Sadly, the same was happening for the two young men and the terror twins.

Janelle was less and less visible, and the sons and their school friends more and more so, not to mention audible. Expletives were not deleted as mutual disrespect was shown loudly. Stu tried to get help for their situation, but more than once, we had to call the police.

When it became clear to us that the situation was unbearable, Stu discreetly messaged the female owner of record, who was very responsive. In fact, she traveled back here from Texas to check on the situation in person, staying with relatives in town.

Meanwhile, we had contacted our Realtor to help us prepare for listing this house, and started looking at other houses for sale nearby. Much as we had grown to love our home, we figured that we could easily replace it and move on.

One day, when Stu saw Janelle outside, instead of simply waving, he approached her and proclaimed to her, “You win! We’re listing and moving away. We can’t take this anymore.” Imagine our surprise when she replied, “yeah, well, we’ve been evicted, and we’re moving first!”

That summer, our next-door homeowner and her little dog were back here doing some serious corrective remodeling on the home that she and her husband still hoped to retire to. After the remodeling finished, of course, she had to go back to Texas. Their home was then rented to a young, childless couple who were so quiet we barely saw them, although we would wave and smile.

Grass plants kept growing, although we no longer felt their need. And every autumn, we would need to surgically remove the waving stalks of seeds that got commensurately larger and heavier.  

This year, thanks to the really bizarre weather all summer, the plants are beyond nuisance category. It has turned into what might happen if saw grass and bamboo birthed a child, with seeds that cling to every conceivable clothing item, fur, and hair, and work like tiny burrs on sensitive skin.

Several years ago, when our homeowner neighbors retired and moved back here, we tried to have the plants removed. Our attempt to give them away free yielded the realization that, where post hole diggers and shovels failed miserably, a backhoe or similar equipment would be required to dig them up.

The nuisance grass is here to stay, and so are we, it would seem.

 

Shoulda Beena Crime

The eye doctor caught my attention from afar, as I’m sure he did with others in the store. An aging man with strawberry blond hair, especially a tall one, sticks out like a sore thumb in my neighborhood these days. And initially, I admired him so for being able to successfully run his own business.

Whether or not my skills of observation are sometimes suspect is not mine to decide. Let’s just say that some bias must have played in, based upon my own job experience prior to 2012. Dude was being his own boss and appeared to have it all!

Isn’t it funny how outsiders observe business owners? They rarely know the fast-paddling duck feet just below the surface, only seeing the smooth and composed part above the water. As a result of that first semi-successful encounter where I transitioned from many years of contact lens wearing to multi-focal lenses, I made a snap judgment that would not be in my own best interest.

Time went by. My eyes changed a lot, and my jobs changed a lot. I had trusted this excruciatingly pale human with all my eye care, with just a few selective exceptions, and those did not go particularly well or inexpensively for me.

Doctor Big Red remained loyal for my eye care needs, and he was oh, so close (at least on certain days of the week at certain times). Convenience is sometimes my worst enemy, as I belatedly observe. For nearly ten long years, he diagnosed and corrected whatever went wrong, accepting my varying health insurance or lack thereof.

I was never surprised by the diagnosis of glaucoma, since, after all, what sort of foolish whitie lives in Florida’s relentless sunshine for nearly 3 years? I agreed silently to the 6-month diagnostic checkups. My own super-pale father was very hindered by his own glasses and near blindness for most of his admittedly short life. What did I expect?

That’s how I wound up having three nearly identical pair of glasses from the same store chain: one small gold one from Central Florida for distance only, the metallic purple pair for my multi-focal everyday wear, and a larger copper one for mid-range. Life was good and comfortable, as sometimes occurs.

Until – and there’s always an “until” in stories of this type. Until our son and his lady love got married in a faraway land in the middle of a pandemic. Until my husband and I were expected to fly to the Great Northwest to be with the family and friends. Until everything changed for this couple.

Dropping off our two beloved dogs at our favorite boarding facility, I was rushing around with a mask on (two things I should never do together at my age and grace) when I stumbled and fell on the boarder’s concrete walk. I did a very inelegant three-point landing as well: left knee, right hand, forehead. BOOM!

The journey itself became a nightmare, which was no fault of our son and his new family at all. The good news was that I had remembered to bring my smaller glasses, potentially to drive at night if required. The bad news was that hubby, in whose name the rental was made, had scanned his driver’s license at home to email our son for purposes of advance rental, and there upon scanner the DL remained.

OK, that in itself could be a whole article, and I won’t go there at this moment. Suffice to say that limping around with baggage and one good eye wasn’t my favorite thing, and these were also not my husband’s finest moments.

We got through the five-day whirlwind of events with minimal actual damage to us or our luggage, for a change, especially since given my condition, we opted to check through one or two of those bags. From what we could tell during and afterwards, a really nice time was had by all attendees at each event.

A month or so after the wedding, I went back to favorite Eye Doc to get the right lens replaced in favorite purple pair of glasses. Hm. Not like I remembered him. Not at all like I had remembered.

We were both masked, and he also wore a special plastic shield over his face. This is not a great thing for a soft-spoken mumble-mouth of any age, and when the client is sans glasses, she would not have been able to read his lips anyway. I learned way too much about Dr Big Red that day, that much I know.

Politics! Oh, my actual God in Heaven. He and I were worlds apart, and he was pissed. I no longer pitied him, but was glad not to be spat upon. He gave me the cursory, and I do mean quickie, eye exam. I was like, get me TF outta this chair stat! I apparently needed new lenses in both eyes (no surprise to me).

The other thing I learned that I could actually hear is that I most assuredly have cataracts, and not just ones that doctors “watch for progress” in a patient. Surgery would make my colors brighter and at least one aspect of my vision crisper and clearer. Holy Guacamole, Chatman!

Last, but certainly not least, the well-meaning optical assistant stopped in to inform the “good doctor” that my health insurance would not be honored at all for this visit. Wait, what? Screeching sound in my brain. But then again – oh, snap – I had changed flavors of ACA on January First, so that was likely. Ugh.

There were a few more indications that I was not getting thorough eye care, including the fact that I had to return no less than three times to the store to order my pair of lenses for my beloved purple frames. Once, the machine that measures lenses for fitting frames was malfunctioning. More than once, a supervisor from another part of the store needed to be summoned to accept my payment.

Finally, the lenses were complete, and I went to get them. Total disappointment ensued. Although I don’t know how to determine prescription correctness, I was certain that the right eye was all wrong. I returned the lenses for a full refund, and verbally advised at least one optical assistant that their boss was a crook.

About a month thereafter, I received the insurance statement of benefits online as filed by the optical office at this store. Was my insurance honored there? Hell, yes. Was I going to go back and demand another refund from that redhead for all but the non-covered piece of the exam? Hell, no.

It was a nominal fee for another life lesson in human nature, that’s for certain. Doctor Big Red and his minions probably won’t notice my departure, and I’m 100% fine with that.

Why Are We Both Up So Early?

Our coffee brewer clicks on and starts its daily job each morning at 5:00 AM, by directive of the household management committee. One of us, who shall be referred to as “He”, is routinely already awake at this hour just waiting to start his day.

The other of us – let’s call me “She” – really appreciates the opportunity afforded by her chronic unemployment to get her desired 9 solid hours.

He not only has demons in his brain, but he is a morning person ever since becoming a father in the 1980’s. At his current point in life, he is basically able to leap tall buildings in a couple of bounds on less than 6 hours of sleep. 

She, on the other hand, came factory-installed with a few genetic demons which are routinely adjusted via carefully-curated meds and a structured habit of 9-plus hours of sleep.

For some of us, this time of year burns just a wee bit too brightly throughout the dark night. While I can empathize that we need a little Christmas right this very minute, I also admit to doing some 3 AM fantasizing regarding the availability of individual sensory deprivation tanks for anxious introverts during December.

This particular morning, a youthful couple of neighbors arrived home to their house just across the street a little after 3 AM. I cannot blame them for my own alert state, which had more to do with my own physical realities than their holidaying. 

However, there’s something about a car door shutting normally in the dark night that consistently makes me want to tear open the shutters and throw up the sash. There is a lengthy anecdote about some prior youthful neighbors to which I will not treat you at this moment. 

Digressions notwithstanding, She was in a semi-doze state from around 2:30, when some physical reality related to temperature awakened She and nagged at her to force the large canine in her bed (let’s call him T) to free up some real estate. T complied obediently if not energetically. 

She then allowed the IBM-370 that is her brain to process large batches of life data for the next little while until the post-3AM percussive sounds. At that point, She was compelled (did I mention her compulsive tendencies?) to leap from her bed sans eyeglasses and gently open a corner of her bedroom drapes to see what was the matter.

Only her trust of said neighbors allowed her to return to bed without expecting a red and blue light show totally unrelated to the winter solstice.

It was after 4:30 AM when the squeal from the bedroom door of He awakened She and T, a somewhat normal routine in their household. T is very food motivated and does not instinctively understand weight management. 

T therefore responded to the clarion call of He by springing from his bed to see what was the matter, causing a seismic ripple in the bed force for She. T continued to remind He of his presence down the short hallway by hurling his 70-plus pound self against their bedroom door until He gently opened it and released T.

She didn’t care. She was already jonesing for her coffee and wondering what time it was, while applying self-discipline and not trying to read the clock. 

Therefore, after audibly ascertaining from her darkened bedroom that the morning feeding routine of J and T (both canines) had been successfully completed by He (status code = 0000), She applied socks, slippers, morning medications, and glasses as required by her physical being upon official awakening.

She snuck into the hallway and immediately became aware of a light on in the living room, meaning that He was not in his normal place in their universe (his basement office) at that hour. She therefore made a subtle yet audible amount of sound while turning the corner so as not to prompt surprise-induced heart failure in He.

When He saw She, he shook his head and said quietly to her, “Why are we both up so early?”

‘Tis the Season, y’all. Have a ball – responsibly, please. Thank you.

Mother, May I?

Mothers and May go together like... the two ladies above in the 1990s.

My mother loved her cigarettes. She loved her coffee and her tub baths and her wine. She loved her husband and her two daughters at least as much as any human has ever loved any other.

She also loved her female friends, with whom she laughed loudly, both in person and over the telephone.  Mom typically had more friends than we could count.  She had friends of both types: friends of the moment and friends of the years. Despite having no sisters, she was always abundantly blessed with female companionship during those years before personal computing was a thing.

Mom did not work for pay outside our small house, but she did a lot of volunteering back when she was still physically able to do so.  She took the city buses from our county home to volunteer at an educational program called Head Start in the 1960s.  She later worked at our church school cafeteria, at the Girl Scouts after school, and many other “non-leadership” roles to support our school time.

Mom did not drive a car until both of her daughters were in grade school, at which point she and our small-business-owning and always-working father deemed it to be a practical necessity. I remember Dad teaching her to drive one of the early VW Beetle models with automatic transmission in the late 1960’s at an old shopping center parking lot on Sundays. Technically, all four of us could still have died against one of those heavy concrete light standards. It was clearly a cheap thrill for us girls.

Mom was always a white-knuckle driver after getting her license.  Her story was that once, back in her early 20s, she had been in a horrible automobile accident and thrown into the windshield with someone else driving. Her anecdote continued with dark-skinned people driving the most beautiful luxury car ever pulling over to stop, and transporting her bloody-nosed self to a hospital.  This certainly explained her driving anxiety to my childlike satisfaction.

My mother had been partly raised by a wonderful black woman, who was the help at her mother’s home.  My understanding was that Anna was paid help, as opposed to some kind of property, which was most likely already illegal in Saint Louis County, Missouri in the early to mid 1930’s. 

My mother’s father, a medical doctor, died while Mom, twenty-something at the time, was living away in Chicago and working, about two weeks before Christmas that year. As a result, Mom never enjoyed Christmas.  She did, however, try her best to control the annual circumstances that surrounded that “most wonderful time of the year.”

During our grade school years, my sister and I were frequently confused by Mom’s insistence on gold-only decorations on our family’s annual live tree. Our Religion classes and Girl Scout troops would often make these amazing ornaments: sometimes shiny with aluminum foil, sometimes spray painted red or green.  None of these hung upon our tree of Gold, by decree of Mom’s Rules.

I recall that we even had gold tinsel, which was reused year to year, and felt heavier somehow than the silver-colored stuff my friends’ parents used.  Our gold glass ball ornaments on the tree varied in size, but any non-ball ornaments allowed on the family tree were required to conform to the color standard. 

The lights, which always went on first and were arranged by my father between the branch ends and the trunk to her specifications, were long cords having electrical fixtures with clips. Each socket contained one of these ugly (in my young mind) orange painted glass bulbs.

Mom did have a genuine gift when it came to matching color.  She had secretly wanted to be a fashion designer or artist back in her young and fun-loving 20’s after she got her Bachelor’s degree from Maryville College.  She could match a color without a swatch to some ridiculously high degree of accuracy, and was therefore able to make some amazing clothing with inexpensive accessories for herself and her young daughters.

When Mom married Dad, he was about 6 months her junior, and he did not have a college degree of his own. He was a small business owner by that time, and a good friend of Mom’s two brothers from their childhood Catholic parish. Dad was the youngest of six, born just before the Great Depression, who grew up with some disadvantages. At least he was tall, handsome, and blue-eyed: items probably on some wish list of Mom’s by the time they married at around age 32 for both.

Mom and Dad were both very passionate human beings.  They also both had unusually loud voices, which were great for church choir, but a little scary for the two daughters who sometimes misbehaved. Mom and Dad were never misunderstood, however, when they were angry at their children or at each other.  Ours was therefore a loud home between the singing, the TVs and radios, and the yelling.  My sister and I grew up assuming this was normal on some level.

While my sister and I were in grade school, Dad started having to take Mom to be hospitalized a lot. During her absence, Dad would feed us canned food, restaurant food, or whatever else he could figure out, and we would all go to visit the scary place where there were bars on windows and people screaming.  All we knew the first few times was that our mother was sick.

I guess we were fortunate to have had a lot of cousins back then.  I can remember us staying with at least one Uncle and Aunt on Mom’s side and one Aunt and Uncle on Dad’s side, both couples having children of their own who were older but somewhat near my age. I also remember us being babysat by kindly old childless neighbor couples who gained our young love.

Naturally, our friends and their parents would express concern over Mom being hospitalized. It may have been the church gossip typical back in the sixties and seventies in Saint Louis County, or it may have been genuine concern.  We’ll never really know. I understood early on, however, that I should provide an appropriate diagnosis without getting into the truth.

Mom was eventually diagnosed as Manic-Depressive (now known as bipolar disorder). Mental health was dealt with a lot differently back then than now. Whenever Mom was hospitalized, I typically invented a serious stomach ailment of some sort for my school friends and neighbor children.  The horrible truth was not to be spoken casually, and I was very aware of this.

I spent my childhood hiding who I was and where I came from. I played many roles to appease others, including my own parents, my dear sister, and my classmates. My private time was spent crying a lot, thinking a lot, and wondering if I would ever be normal. I saw many therapists, as well as our family psychiatrist, throughout my young life.

When I was in my late twenties or early 30s, a work friend attended a group for Adult Children of Alcoholics, and one thing she learned in those groups and repeated to me was very helpful.  “Normal is simply a setting on your washing machine.” I have since learned that I cannot use the word “normal” without adding the two words “for me”.

My first marriage was a combination of wanting to please my Father and his Church. I found a willing man through a dating service, allowing enough time to do the big church wedding well in advance of my thirtieth birthday. Time Magazine had recently published something about how women unmarried at 30 were more likely to have some horror befall them than to find the right spouse.

Married at nearly 29 and divorced at 33 was therefore my personal reality.  While both my parents felt the blow of their older “star” daughter failing their Church with no offspring, Mom was by far the more emotionally sympathetic of my parents.  This was a surprise to me, since I had always been a Daddy’s Girl. I started spending more time having long talks with Mom about life and appreciating her point of view.

Mom always said “no one can possibly understand anyone else’s marriage from the outside.” She was right.  My first husband and I divorced as amicably as any, and remained friends for years.  

Not long after my divorce in 1992, Dad started feeling very ill.  He had seen many doctors over the prior several years to gain relief from abdominal pain that was impacting his busy volunteering and performing life. I remember him helping me, during 1993’s hot summer, to move back into the house I had tried to give up in the divorce and eventually bought back. He had to lie down on my couch and have me bring him a cold drink.

In early August, one of Dad’s doctors found the cancer in his pancreas which had metastasized to his liver. Mom cried a lot, but carried on like a soldier as we did daily hospital runs and one brief in-home care stint for the next three-plus weeks until Dad left us.

To this day, I can only imagine Mom’s thoughts upon discovering that the love of her life had cancer. Mom had suffered many episodes of near-suicide and simply wanting to have her own pain stop.  Whenever I would suggest she needed to stop cigarette smoking, she would say to me that she welcomed lung cancer as her way out. And now she was going to be widowed.

To Mom’s credit, she never played the martyr about Dad’s death.  At this point, she was already struggling with emphysema – a much slower and crueler death, in some ways, than cancer. She had inhalers and breathing treatments via both inpatient and outpatient doctor visits. She wound up on 24-hour oxygen via home generator or traveling tanks.

The last nearly five years I had the honor of spending with Mom after Dad’s death were some of the best years of my own life, despite the hard work involved for us both. 

In the summer of 1995, after quitting two jobs and determined to help her find her final and smaller home, my dog Miracle and I spent several months with Mom in my childhood home. She and I would sit in her living room, enjoying wine from boxes and roses from her garden, prompting us to sing the obvious old song together more than once.  We did love our music to the end.

We visited and compared probably a dozen different senior living facilities in our area, any of which she could have afforded easily.  She was not impressed, however.  Her own lack of self-esteem and feelings of deep shame over her bipolar disorder and its possible effects made her desire something much more private.

Mom had stopped driving for good a few years before Dad died, after being in one last wreck with the baby blue 1969 VW Beetle she called Gretchen. This made her fully dependent on others (including me when I wasn’t working) to get anywhere she had to go, including shopping for groceries and other things she hated to do anyway.

Considering all her needs as well as my own, she and I decided that we could remodel my small ranch house to create a basement apartment for me, leaving a handicapped-accessible upstairs level mostly for Mom’s daily living, sharing a kitchen and living-dining room together.

I got some estimates, chose a contractor, and cleaned out my basement, which included taking a few belongings over to my ex-husband’s apartment nearby. The construction on my basement started near the end of 1997.

In January of 1998, I met, via an online dating service, the man who was to be my second husband and love of my life. Mom was thrilled at this, since she told me she had worried about being my sole weekend entertainment when she moved into my home’s upstairs. Mom soon met – and really loved – Stu and his two sons, who were around 9 and 12 years of age at the point all were introduced to each other.  Everyone was happy, and Mom knew I was in good hands.

In early June, with my basement construction nearly complete at last, Mom sounded strange over the phone one evening when I called her after work.  I rushed over to her house only to discover that she was refusing to eat and was battling a respiratory issue that she thought was “just a cold”.

I got Mom’s psychiatrist on the phone immediately (he was a lifelong friend by this time) and we got her admitted to Barnes Hospital in the city via their ER and an ambulance.

Mom hated that she was putting on a display for all the neighbors near her home of 35+ years with the light show and sirens.  She was more worried about their gossip than her own health.  That was typical Mom.

I spent the next few days, between work and hospital, in a frenzy of moving my own stuff into my newly finished basement apartment and cleaning my upstairs in preparation for hastening her move after her hospital release.

Saturday evening, June 13, I spent some extra time visiting Mom in her hospital room, where she described throat pain from the life-saving ventilator tubes and her fear of going to hell.  I reassured her that she would soon be healed and living with me.  My last words were something like “rest well, sweet Mommy” before kissing her goodnight.

In the middle of that night, I was sound asleep after a late date with Stu had ended blissfully. That's when I received two phone calls from the Barnes Hospital medical professionals.

The first call resulted in my sleepily submitting to having the dreaded ventilation tube crammed into her tiny throat one last time.  Their second phone call was the one that ended with sorrow for Mom’s beloved family and her many, many dear friends. 

As we approach Mother’s Day in the calendar year which marks 20 after Mom’s departure, I’m still wishing my sweet Mommy the rest she so deserves, in between desperately asking for her help and guidance from the hereafter – wherever that may be – with my own still-crazy life. I now know that I’ll never stop missing or loving her.

Almost There

It's that time of year again, isn't it? And it doesn't seem to matter that we are having a freak Indian Summer at November's end this year.

Rather than point fingers at those who might have contributed to this odd, yet strangely welcome, lovely day outdoors, I'll talk about something completely different.  

Here in the land where the two favorite local sports aren't really about red birds or blue notes, taking an opportunity NOT to complain or argue might get more attention than falling in line with the locals.

I'm not about attention this year.  And yet, strangely, I have just received more attention in the last two days than I had in my entire prior two years.  Go figure.

The calendar marks time in its normal way, even when it seems to those of us who follow it that it surely must secretly have altered either scale or speed.

A non-landmark birthday is apparently worthy of being celebrated by anyone and everyone who has ever known me, in person or online.

The online thing is not really about knowing me at all, especially given my occasional online clumsiness.  You see, I'm that troll who chimes in on Fakebook arguments where I shouldn't, sees what I've done, then goes back and quietly removes my contribution, leaving some on smarter devices scratching their heads while others seemingly argue with an invisible opponent.

I'm not really invisible, but that has always been my Super Hero Power of Choice: to be that micro fly on the wall.  As long as I don't open my mouth and reveal my power pipes to even the deafest within earshot, that is.

So at this time of year, rather than succumb to Pink Floyd logic and deem myself nothing but "...shorter of breath and one day closer to death..." I'll simply say, I'm getting closer.  I'm almost there.  I can see the finish line.

And yet, I'm not.  Many days, perhaps decades, remain in my allotted time. There are some nice discounts coming my way a year from now, and I'm ready for those.  There are a whole bunch of really great financial incentives about three and six years from now, respectively.  Legally, I'm not yet entitled.

It's one thing to say you're ready, or even that you can see the finish line and the parties. But there are a delightful multitude of people and events holding me here, keeping me from opting out to join my beloved parents and way too many others.

My husband is the most wonderful blessing in my life.  We will have been married for nineteen years in a month and a half.  I can honestly say we've done both the richer and the poorer pretty thoroughly in these nearly two decades, along with whatever else we said in those vows.  We're still best friends, bonded in a way that glue manufacturers can merely envy.

Everyone that I count as either family or friends of the heart has also chimed in to shower me with love and bounty.  Every single gesture, no matter how trivial, hits home in my heart.  

They all know who they are, as I strive to reply in kind to their gifts.  

I'm still not gainfully employed full time, but I'm gaining traction with the idea that I may not work for a boss ever again.

There's much work done, and much left to be done.  But whenever it seems that I'm not making the progress that my inner German Frau would like to see me making in my life, I must allow my inner Tolerant Human Mutt to remind her of one important fact:

No matter what you say, I'm almost there.

I'm OK with that, and I'm the only one who has to be.

Monday? Down!

Remember the old saying "You can never go home again?"  Well, that's been more than a memory to me recently; it bordered on fact this morning for several minutes (bottom photo), in a manner eerily similar to my inability to escape home several weeks ago (photo above).

Although it's not neighborly of me to complain about my tax dollars at work on the 31-home block of neighborhood in which I reside, it's obvious to me that I have an amazing gift of timing on my arrivals and departures therefrom.

Much as I would love to have everyone I know imagining that the life of a chronically unemployed person on the cusp of senior citizenship is nothing but one long vacation playing in the sunshine, I couldn't begin to sustain that illusion.  Way too much work!

This morning was a true Monday for me, the likes of which inspire those working folk to overwhelm the internet with memes.  My morning featured moments where I clearly heard Karen Carpenter singing "Rainy Days and Mondays" without my ever turning on a music player.

Taking Stu for his follow up visit with his wonderful orthopedic surgeon was our first agenda item this morning. Stu being Stu, we had the first appointment promptly at 8, arriving about 10 minutes before the doctor's staff. We got a coveted handicapped parking spot, and an A-Plus bill of health from the good doc, Stu still being Stu.

On the other end of the marital bond, I knew I was having one of those HFC mornings (Hurtin' Fer Certain) hours before we even stepped out our front door. By the time we left St. Luke's facility, merely opening the door to Mother Nature prompted icepick-like pain in my left knee and a not-so-saintly religious uttering from my mouth.

It only got more Monday and more Down from there.  We threaded the needle back into our own driveway and garage and got the patient and his impatient wife home without incident.

It wasn't until I got ready to leave for my deep water class at about 9:20 that the proverbial skies opened up.  First, a small red pickup truck, carrying a full load in its bed and obviously having much better brakes than my vintage car, came roaring around the single-lane corner aiming at slow-moving me. Little Red stopped short of insurance-claim hell, but my heart rate thereafter would have allowed me to skip exercise class.

I made it the rest of the way to the class without incident, circling the parking lot to find the best non-handicapped spot.  My typical rationale is that I need the exercise anyway, and I'm not "legally" recognized as handicapped, temporary placard notwithstanding, unless post-surgery hubby is present.

After locking my clothing away, I took my warm shower with soap and wrestled into my inexpensive and now very wet swimsuit without ripping it. So far, so good, I thought.

The first 40 minutes of class were great, as always.  Teacher instructing, ladies talking and laughing, noodles and foam barbells bobbing joyfully. 

And then some eagle-eyed young life guard spotted a lightning strike from our many-windowed viewing area atop a hill.  Oh, darn it.

This particular recreation facility is new enough to still be hyper-cautious about its patrons. Shortly after this indoor pool was opened a little over a year ago, a lightning strike caused the pool pump to stop functioning, and all inside the pool were evacuated immediately.

Either before or after the above occurrence -- and I honestly don't know which -- a rule was established something like Thou Shalt Not Allow Humans In Pool Under Slightest Possibility of Lightning.  Everybody Out! Stat! (I was muttering something like "Electrocution.  Bring it on!")

The two sweet young lifeguards did their best to humor us oldies by a lengthy debate over enforcement of said rule.  I simply said "I move at only one speed, and this is it" so all would understand my personal lengthy departure process. 

Our instructor -- who truly is the female retired equivalent of some Marvel comic hero -- suggested that we should do jumping jacks or at least some stretching on the pool deck with her to finish out the class time.

Some of us laughed at her. Others dashed inside to grab showers, chuckling at our teacher's compulsive nature when it comes to exercise.  I mean, ya can't argue to the face of a thin, muscular woman who you realize could bench press some of us without blinking.  

I didn't want to wait for a shower to free up, so I toweled, unlocked, unsuited, and donned clothing and a raincoat, with some "see ya Wednesday" cheer coming from my mouth. I only live about 10 minutes away in a world without detours -- my current fantasy.

A mere 10 minutes later, seeing the scene below at the end of my street, I opted to go circle other neighboring blocks, knowing it wasn't going to clear quickly. Been here, done this, don't need another stinkin' t-shirt.

Neighboring blocks were amazingly hard to circle given subdivision-wide lane closures, so I drove cautiously, went the wrong way once, and then stopped to retrieve my phone from the trunk of my car.  Must post photos to share suffering!

Upon my re-arrival, mine became the second car in a parked line of three signaling onto my block just before I took the photo below.  If it weren't raining, perhaps my neighbors and I, residing in three of those 31 homes, could have had a nice chat.  (The one in front of me lives three doors before me; the one behind me lives somewhere beyond me.)

So let's recap. It's a Rainy Day *and* a Monday, and many things are down or semi-functional, myself included at this point.

The Fakebook Rainbow Unicorn says: Here's hoping for some nice May flowers in a year where the April showers began early in March!  

This crabby old lady says: If you're going to live in this town, you'd better get used to changing weather.  Our only local predictability is changeability. And BTW...never trust a meteorologist!

Never Trust An Old... Treadmill?

It seems like only yesterday when Stu came home from the hospital using a walker and determined to heal so that he could use his brand new right knee joint like a pro.  He is the consummate overachiever, as everyone who knows my husband is aware.  Stu will not only do the job right, he'll overdo it to the point where he gets fired.

His wife, on the other hand... not quite such a valiant warrior in her own life, sad to say.

Everything turns into some kind of weird competition between us, especially with both of us home all day.  When Stu's narcotic pain meds killed his appetite, he thought:  oh, great; I can finally lose some weight!

I thought: oh, no.  Time for another graphic demonstration of the drastic difference in weight management requirements between Stu and MR.

One of the first things I did, before he was even home from the hospital (perhaps this was my idea of starting training for caregiver tasks), was to start a daily walking program for myself.  

We have an antique (of sorts) treadmill downstairs in our basement.  This particular monster has moved at least four times - two of those across the country - of which I'm aware.  Stu purchased this for his own exercise needs before he and I met.  And it's a great treadmill.

However, just like human bodies, these things eventually wear out, and the process of being used a lot for a while, but then left to sit and collect dust for an even longer while, does not enhance its usability.

I believe I made it to day two or three this last time before it threw me at the 16-minute mark.  Yes, folks, it literally seized up and stopped like someone applied hydraulic brakes.  This body in motion wanted to remain in motion, and very nearly wet herself trying not to fall when the magic belt halted abruptly.

Since Stu was unable to diagnose the latest treadmill problem from upstairs, and at that time unable to descend the steps to get up close and personal, I switched to walking both dogs around the neighborhood.  I did that a couple of times before the weather turned suddenly cold and now warm again.

I'm currently in one of my chronic pain cycles - at least that's my excuse for now - but Stu was eventually able to diagnose the problem.  I had told him I thought it was an electrical failure. It turns out that there's some kind of kill switch built into this treadmill when some threshold is exceeded.

That's great for the treadmill.  But what about the stress threshold of the walker?  Inquiring minds demand this answer.  I don't trust it anymore.

And as far as the weight loss journeys of this particular couple... he's doing great.  I told you in the first paragraph: he's an overachiever.