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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| About a year or so later, maybe even longer, Bill received a lengthy letter from Kevin. It began by Kevin's saying that he was about to share some pretty heavy news, and that if it was too much for Bill, he'd understand. Kevin was gay. And in love. He hoped Bill would be happy for him, and would attend the commitment ceremony they planned to hold at their own little cottage on one of the islands. This was not easy news for Bill to accept. In fact, he muttered that wouldn't it be ironic if his position on homosexuality changed because he had a gay son. Whatever it takes, I thought. His position has not really changed, but he did want to go to the ceremony to offer support for Kevin and his partner Rex, and I was pleased. So was Kevin. His adoptive parents did not come. In fact, they have disinherited both twins since then. Rex is a very successful artist, and the crowd who came for the festivity was colorful and interesting. Some were straight, some gay, many in the arts. The buffet they put on was fabulous, and the setting, high above the ocean before sunset, was fantastic. Bill surprised himself by enjoying himself. "They're just like anyone else," he said. I had to laugh. Some were certainly more flamboyant than to possibly be considered ordinary. I took lots and lots of pictures, which we made into CDs for them. They never really commented on them, which surprised me because I thought they were pretty good shots. Anyway, over the intervening four or five years, Joan and her husband have made tentative plans to drop by on their way home from trips, but it's never happened. Bill has taken her to dinner when he's been in their area on business. Kevin was never available. Last year they invited us to their birthday party on the island. The weather was nice and we were looking forward to it, but Bill wanted to get some assurance that someone would pick us up at the airport if we flew over, there being no taxi. Despite several calls and emails, we never heard from them until it was over. It seemed like an oversight, but we couldn't tell. This year they said they wanted to come to our area on a wine buying tour and visit. Kevin owns a wine shop, and they have evidently been here before to buy but did not call. He and Rex and Joan all three were coming, the fellows staying in a hotel. We offered Joan a room, and once again did not hear from them about it. Finally, we heard that she would be staying in the hotel too, and that they would arrive on Friday. Bill took the day off in anticipation. He had some cleaning up to do around the house, he said, but he did not tackle the things I expected. And he left early in the afternoon to wait for them at their hotel. They didn't get in till a few hours later, having stopped at wineries and tasted along the way, enjoying their trip. They asked him to make a reservation for dinner in a nearby town, which we did, and we drove over in two cars, one twin with us on the way over and the other on the way back. Saturday Bill wanted to take them flying. He was a nervous wreck leaving the house, impatient with me for not being ready as early as he was, etc. I had plenty of things to finish doing around here if they were coming for dinner, because by then I'd learned that they didn't eat "mammals," and one could not eat dairy and another could not eat wheat. So, my easy barbecue plans were out. Bill doesn't do fish well on the grill, and I do it best with flour or at least butter. I was in a tizzy trying to figure it out. They also have very knowledgeable palates and want good food and wine. I was relieved when they decided we'd go out for dinner again on Saturday, but would come sit out in the backyard for awhile beforehand. Bill was eager to take them around to all the houses he'd ever lived in and the cemetery where their ancestors are buried. I opted out of that tour, having heard it too many times. They opted out of flying, which was very disappointing for Bill, but still they had a nice day I think. They liked our cat, but otherwise never said, "What a lovely yard," or any of those things I'd think they'd say. It was a strange combination of friendliness and distance. Hard to know what they really thought. They have invited us back for their birthday celebration this year, in August, and have promised to work out the details, like whether we can land on that island or have to land on another and take the ferry. That was our predicament last year, because we didn't have the time to drive over. So far, all we've heard was a short email saying, "Nice seeing you again," from Kevin. We'll see. Maybe they don't really want any more family anyway. By the way, Elizabeth, who was so hot to find them, etc., has never set eyes on them yet. |
| Sorry. I'd left my car to have new brakes and shocks put on it, and I had to pick it up before they closed. It still goes 'clunk' on bumpy roads, but maybe it's a clunk I'll have to live with. To continue my story: when Bill and I had been dating just a few months, and his daughter Elizabeth was still angry with him and spiteful, she demanded that he find these twins. Her mother had turned her very much against Bill, and I wonder if maybe embarrassing him in front of me didn't play a part in the story. She had made it clear that I didn't know "the real Bill," who she considered abusive. She testified at the divorce hearing that he had shot her with a squirt gun. Thankfully, she and her brother both began to see how well he and I got along, how there was no yelling or other dramatics, etc. Elizabeth said it was her right to know these half siblings, and she would initiate the search as long as he paid for it. To humor her, more than anything else I think, he went along with it. He had actually put these twins out of his mind, filed away under "guilt" most likely, so much that he didn't even remember they weren't both boys. When he confessed to his parents, he wasn't even sure he was the one responsible for this pregnancy, and his dad had taken over the situation, ordering Bill out of it. Bill went to the hospital to sign the papers and that was that. When we found Kevin and Joan (not their real names,) they agreed to meet us. We went first to Seattle to Kevin's house, where he lived with three girls who were members of his band. He was a grad student, studying oceanography, played gigs on weekends. Later we caught a ferry and went to an island in the San Juans to meet Joan. She was a teacher, also in grad school. There was not a single doubt that these kids (28 yr olds by then) were his children. They had his coloring, his body shape, his musical ability, his brains, and the same gap between their front two teeth. They were friendly, outgoing people like he is, and they were interested in their new roots. By the end of the day they reassured Bill that he had made the right choice, that they had had a rich childhood that would not have happened if he and their mom had married without love. At nineteen Bill had certainly not been ready to be a parent. The couple who adopted them had four older children and lived in a wonderful house on one of the islands. They had a boat, a beach, a family, and each other. They took fabulous vacations, and had a good start on life. Kevin, and Joan to some extent, kept in touch with Bill by email. They called him "bio-dad" to distinguish him from the dad they'd known all their lives. When he was in the area on business, he took them out to dinner. Several times they planned to stop here on their way to somewhere, at least Joan, who married soon after we met her, and her husband did; but it never worked out somehow. More tomorrow, or later, as the case may be. |
| When I think of the word "discreet," I think of being careful in my speech, not revealing something that might embarrass someone, even myself. On the other hand, a "youthful indiscretion" suggests to me a sexual encounter that was, perhaps, unwise. Ahem. Our visitors last weekend were three adults, two of whom were twins, a boy and a girl, who are my husband's biological children, born the summer after his first year of college to a girl he had broken up with before she realized she was pregnant. She, who I have not met, is a heroine, because she made a difficult choice. She went through with the pregnancy, with his financial support alone, and gave the babies up for adoption. I can't imagine a harder thing to do, but, even in retrospect it was clearly for their good. When Bill's daughter... oops, gotta go pick up my car before the garage closes. To be continued. |
| We're having company this weekend and are a little nervous about it. In fact Bill took the day off to get ready, (although he's gone to town now and I can't see much he did here-- not at all what I expected. Oh well.) I'm sure I won't have time to write tonight or tomorrow, so I'll leave a little chuckle for you. Here's a picture I took a couple of weeks ago when we were wandering the back roads of the Wallowas. We came upon this fence and decided to try another direction.  |
| I cannot get it through my head that, if I look out my bedroom door onto the screened porch, Seamus won’t be out there. So over and over, from any room in the house but especially that one, I think, “I’d better go check on the boy,” or “I’d better go see if the boy wants to go on his walk.” And then I feel the squeamy contraction in the bottom of my throat or my belly that remind me he isn’t there any more. Isn’t going to be there any more either. The porch looks neat. I put away the boxes that made a little cubby for him out of the draft. I’d put a fan in the sliding window to at least stir up a breeze, washed the window sills of their dust collection, vacuumed instead of just swept the threadbare carpet, picked up the assorted pillows he liked, tossing them to the laundry room. There’s a brand new just opened 25# sack of dog food I can take to the shelter, and a few cans of store brand chicken loaf for dogs, his favorite. I’m gonna cry again now. I don’t know why it comes up or when it’s going to. It made no sense when I cried yesterday, blubbering as hard as I did when my first marriage broke up. Seamus couldn’t enjoy life or even our company much, and so we couldn’t enjoy him either. So why does it hurt so much to let go? I don’t know why I even want to analyze it, except that it feels different to me than other losses. I’ve had cats die, but never dogs. We’ve always had to have them euthanized. I thought about waiting until it happened naturally, about how much easier it would be than making the life or death decision myself. But he was hurting, and would hurt more, and I couldn’t make him go to the animal hospital alone, be sedated to have his head shaved so they could treat the skin that was so sore from the cyst drainage, and maybe still not know exactly where he was or how to lie down. He’d never be able to hear us. His arthritic limbs would never be youngt again. I couldn’t promise that any treatment would be enough better that he could enjoy life very well again. Here’s the strange part to me: I observed myself crying, but what was I crying for? I had loved him, and I still do, and he loved me. Nothing changed. I can’t put my finger on it, but it felt unreasonable. He was a free spirit, and I didn’t own that spirit, so I didn’t lose it. The love we had together still exists. As a Taoist friend told me at the death of another dog, “His spirit has been released into the everywhere.” I didn’t find that at all helpful at the time, but now I do. I’ve been reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. He describes our ego based consciousness, how we attach to things and ideas to identify who we are, and that isn’t really who we are. We can’t keep from making those attachments, but we can consciously observe them and take away their power to limit or inflate us. You’ll have to read the book to understand what I’m saying, but I observed myself so attached to this dog, to the idea that I was the owner of an unusual dog, a Bouvier, a calm, undemanding critter much like myself. In the observing, I was able to let go, to let Seamus be himself and me to still be me even without him. I’ll tell you, it feels more natural to cry, which I’ve done plenty of; but it feels better during those occasional moments when I’m observing myself without judgment and coming out whole. Bill dug the hole behind the big stone and under the magnolia where Seamus used to like to initiate play with a few fast digs. Nothing ever grows there. Now it will. Bill pulled lots of handfuls of grass, the kind Seamus used to like to eat, and told me to get flowers, and we covered him with them before shoveling in the dirt. It was a much nicer mental picture that way, and has actually come to mind and helped me remember and deal with the finality of it all. I spread shade loving wildflower seeds over it today and will keep them watered and hope for a good crop. Thanks for all your good wishes everybody. They helped a lot. |
| All I want to do is play solitaire tonight. I don't want to go finish cleaning up after the week's company, getting ready for the ones that will be coming this Friday. I want to bury my head in the sand, and solitaire seems like a good way. Saturday night I had trouble sleeping. I had only nodded off when bumping and crashing sounds wakened me about 2 a.m. It was Seamus on the screen porch, falling. The cyst on his head, which had been growing like a little horn, had ruptured and dripped all over his furry ear. He was disoriented, stood with his head in the corner and couldn't seem to remember how to lie down. I did what I could to help, steering him by his harness to a sleeping position, and gave him a pain pill which he takes for arthritis. Evidently it relaxed him and he did sleep. I called the priest at 6 (No, no last rites for dogs) to tell her I would be skipping the 8 o'clock service and would see her at 10. My kids and grandkids were still here, and I was tired and upset about the dog. Last week was very hot while the kids were here, and instead of walking the dog in the orchard, I walked him around the back yard while the children swam. He has been taking himself on yard patrol regularly recently. Maybe he knows it keeps him from getting so stiff. I brought him inside for a couple of the hottest days. When it was a little cooler on Saturday, he followed the two doggie visitors around the yard with interest, which is about as much activity as he ever could muster with other dogs. So I wasn't prepared for him to crash, but feel guilty anyway. If he'd had a little more of my attention...if this, if that. I put peroxide on his cyst, and washed and trimmed the hair on his ear as best I could. He doesn't like his ears messed with. Not that he growls, just that he's uncomfortable and wants to get away. And I took him for a short walk, which he appeared to have little, but some, interest in taking. Today he still headed for the gate as soon as I got him on the leash, but it was work for him. We cut it very short, came right home, and he collapsed in the street and peed himself. After a couple of minutes he was able to get up and make it back to the yard, where he drank a lot of water after standing and staring at it for many minutes. It looks like his days are about over, for real this time. Bill asked if he should start digging the hole yesterday, but I still thought maybe he was pepping up. Not today. I called the mobile veterinary van this morning, feeling like I was calling the knacker. Sadly, they are now only mobile one day a week, Wednesday, and did I want to bring Seamus into the hospital for evaluation. No. I wasn't sure, but I thought not. If I did, I'd take him to his regular vet. He got up and mosied over to the chain link gate by the carport that he likes to stand at, looking out at the street and waiting for us to come home. Bill cried, said Seamus didn't even know we were at home, but I disagreed. He lay down out there on the cool flagstones, and Bill put water out there near by. That seemed as good a place as any to lie down and die, but it didn't happen. We both went to work, leaving him there in that favorite place, but I came home at 1. He was back on the screen porch. Called our vet just to talk, and he said the cyst rupture would not be life threatening in any way. He said dogs do become senile, which we've observed. He told me to use clippers on his ear around the wound, put antibiotic ointment on it and Diaperene or some such thing on the ear that would be irritated by drainage, and keep him inside away from the flies. And if he didn't get better, back to enjoying life at least in some measure, that it would be time. Seamus would hate the clippers on his ear, so I trimmed as well as I could with scissors. He won't come inside, so I've sprayed the porch with fly spray, hoping that will help somehow. Our big window fan quit working, but I think we have another we can rig up on the porch to keep him cooler tomorrow. He's wagging his tail slightly when we approach, but not much more, and doesn't seem to care if I stay out with him or pet him, although he does rub his ear against my pants. I've cleaned his bed and put fresh padding for him to lie on. Otherwise, all I can do is cry and/or play solitaire. We could probably find a vet we could take him to for euthanasia, but we want to bury him here in the place he always liked to dig. He had a little ritual. At bedtime he'd run out in the yard, dig furiously under the magnolia tree, then run to the back corner of the lot, and come back across the fish pond bridge towards us and then back out again, looking back, inviting us to play. The hole isn't very deep from his efforts. It was more for show. It's breaking my heart. He's been my friend for thirteen years or more. I got him from the pound when he was about two. When I was going through my divorce, he was my comfort and my pal. He'd jump in the car and we'd go everywhere together. He loved Bill. He loved to go for walks. He was the most even tempered dog I've ever seen. The good times are over now. |
Here's some of the beautiful scenery of our trip last weekend.      It's a good thing we rested up. This weekend the twins arrived on Friday, earlier than I was expecting, and I've never quite gotten everything straightened out for them yet. We did drag a bookcase into their room to put their clothes on, instead of digging through the suitcase all the time. Jack and Sophie both helped. We got a little sun both days out in the pool, but not bad. Today I took them to Vacation Bible Camp-- that's what they call it these days instead of school. Think it changes anything? It's been over 100 degrees here, so I came home to put the dog out and the cat in. Would rather have done it the other way, but that's just what I could get done this morning before leaving. I sprayed Seamus with the mist from the hose as we walked around the yard. Hope that will help a little. Or maybe he'll even come back in before I leave. Oops, gotta go see a patient, to the office to chart, and pick up kids at 3. Hope you all are having a good summer. |
Another good link from VSL: http://vsl.veryshortlist.com/ct/3088110:3428138636:m:3:226900516:155FCC8164B0A5C... I see nobody's commented about the Emily Dickinson poem set to a power point presentation. It makes reading strange to say the least. |
| I can make it before 9! P.S. I made it! Now why in the world that should matter, to get a single blue number in the week, I'm not sure. I guess it's like getting my foot in the door, if nothing else. I am so far behind reading blogs, as some of you may have noticed when you get comments to things you wrote weeks ago. But y'all have been so funny I can't help saying hi. Bill and I managed to have a lovely anniversary weekend at Wallowa Lake Lodge. That area, between Joseph and the far end of the lake is one of the most beautiful places anywhere. The lake sits deep in a basin with snow capped mountains on the end and one side, and a steep treeless bank on the opposite side. It was formed by a glacier which must have oozed its way out the south end to valley below. Directly behind the steep bank is more flat valley. Last year I can't remember where we were on our anniversary, but it wasn't any place special just for us. Bill said he regretted it especially since it was our tenth. We should have made a bigger deal of it, he thinks, because other people our age are having their 35th and we probably won't be around long enough for that. Last year he gave me a brochure and a card saying it was a gift certificate to a weekend at the fancy hotel on Lake Coeur d'Alene. It seemed at the time a way of making up for not getting a gift, but I didn't mind. What I did mind was going to that hotel. It's very ordinary, except for the prices. We had a church convention there once, and I wasn't impressed even with a discount. Thursday he called several times trying to get me or leave messages but I was out of cell phone range on my trip north. When I got close enough to home that my phone beeped at me, I heard that he wanted me to call quickly so he could make a reservation. Okay, I did it. But where did he want to go? Coeur d'Alene again. I told him I didn't like that hotel, but there was only one room left and he wanted to do it. So I gave in. Maybe it wasn't just the last minute improvisation I suspected. Maybe he really did want to go there. He called me back to confirm, and mentioned that the room was $415! I should be happy to be so loved that he'd spend that much? Was that the message? Spending that much for a place I don't like wouldn't make me happy. Minutes later we talked again, and I asked him to cancel. I had a lot of other places in mind that we'd enjoy for ever so much less. In the meantime he'd found out, while trying to arrange a rental car to meet us at the airport, that the reason the hotel was sold out, as were the cars, was because there was a huge tri-athlon meet there and the streets would all be blocked off. So that deal was off. Whew! We decided to go to Wallowa because we hadn't been there for years, and I've always wanted to stay in the lodge and watch the deer graze on the lawn. And I looked forward to a beautiful flight down through the mountains. Dozens of phone calls later, we discovered we still couldn't get a car so we drove instead of flying. That was just as well because a big storm came up the next day, and we wouldn't have wanted the plane outside of a hangar during that wind. The power was out for several hours, fortunately at dinner time so we weren't trying to climb stairs or unpack in the dark. I'd like to go back there in the winter and sit around the fire and play Scrabble. I'll try to get some pictures up in the next few days, but it may take several. We have a meeting tomorrow night and the one after that. |
| I have three things to write about briefly tonight. The first is an observation: my entry #546, which immediately precedes this one, is dated 6-17 at 11:54 am. The one before it, #545, is dated 6-17 at 12:55 am. How do you suppose that happened? They're in the correct order, but the times can't be right. My guess is that the WDC time stamp labels things after midnight as 12:55, like on a 24 hour clock, instead of 00:55. What do you think? Okay, my second item is less profound. So much less I can't even remember what it is. Oh yes. I had to come home early today, and inconvenience on a day I like to make my northern circuit of over 100 miles. The reason was that I bought a wii on ebay. I didn't know it would come Fedex requiring an in person signature, and so I wasn't home yesterday. I called Fedex, and no, they couldn't deliver today without me even if I left them a signed note. I emailed the seller asking him to re-route the package to the hospice office, but he said he could not. Paypal has a rule that the package must be sent to the confirmed address. Maybe that only applies to higher priced items because I've never run into this problem before. The seller told me to "just drop by the Fedex center after work" to pick it up, and have my picture ID etc. My Fedex center is 70 miles away. No thanks. Today was more convenient than tomorrow will be, maybe. Tomorrow would be their last delivery attempt, and I didn't want to miss out. So I drove half my route and came home, fortunately in time to get the package. The irony of it is that I had bid on several wiis without success, and although I'd been checking all the stores daily by phone, happened on one at Shopko last week. Then I won the bid. So, temporarily I have two of them, one at the $259 price the store charges and the difficult one for $330, which is cheaper than many were going for on eBay. What a surprise, to have things cost more on ebay! Interesting, isn't it? People have taken advantage of the market and the shortage. Gosh I'm glad they don't sell gasoline there, or do they? The third thing is sad. There was an article in the paper last week about the danger of Priuses and other hybrid cars to blind people. They can't hear them, and if the drivers aren't carefully watching, a blind person may step off the curb directly in front of them. Bill sort of pooh-poohed it, saying drivers always have to watch out. Tonight, after he pulled out of the driveway to go to the airport, there was a dead dove and an injured sparrow lying there. Lots of birds peck seeds from our gravel because the feeders are nearby in a shrub bed. The doves and sparrows are always the last to fly away as I pull in, but they always do it. I bed they don't hear the Prius coming either. What do you do when you find an injured bird? I've taken a couple of hawks to a wildlife rehab person in town, but a sparrow? It fluttered away under the barberry bushes, and I'm hoping it was just a little battered. The dove is dead, and at least one other dove looks concerned about it. I guess Bill will have to learn to honk when he turns in. |
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