road trip

I just returned home from my final surgery to remove the portal that the chemo drugs went through to make me sick and make me better. The procedure was painful, labor-breathing painful. Now I am numb. I also had the surgeon drain what we'd assumed was a seroma (an accumulation of fluid) but it was a hemotoma instead. It is still bleeding. I have a little advice. Most of you won't need it, but in this era of drive-by surgery I'm sure Amy Vanderbilt would agree with me: Don't wear white linen to day surgery. I bled all the way home. They kind of patched me up and sent my on my way. Driving. In traffic. I was shaking like a leaf and could barely get my breath.By the time I got home, my pure white eighty dollar linen top was drenched and the absorbent dressing, absorbed. But the hematoma is gone! My surgeon told me this is the rite of passage out from cancerland. I am happy to leave it.

We're just back from a roadtrip: Redwoods. Glass Beach. Mendocino. Time to get out of the house and drive through the deep green cathedral for miles and miles. It was Kurt's idea and I jumped at the chance. We took the easy way: car and motel rather than truck and trailer. Kurt and me, Nicole, Sid and Duffy, all in my car.

The first day we made it all the way to Garberville, the land of weed and little else. After picnic-ing our way south with a mediterranean lunch in the grove, Nicole and I wanted something light for dinner. Maybe a taco.

Behind the motel was a restaurant called Sicilio's. The sign out front advertised Pizza, Mexican, Seafood, Burgers, and Italian Food. Now, I know a restaurant that claims to do everything usually does nothing well. So, we went in, read the menu, and found no Seafood, no Mexican. It was pretty much pizza and burgers. I asked the waitress what was up about mexican food and she said, "Yeah, its pretty much false advertising." The prices seemed pretty high, so we passed and went on back to the room, then down to the complementary wine and cheese social, and settled for cheese squares and crackers for dinner. They had brie so I was okay. We had asked the waitress beforehand where we might find a good taco in town. She said, "Deb's has the best tacos. They're about five bucks but they're incredible. I don't know what spices they use but they are amazing. Go a couple miles down the road and blah, blah, blah."

The next evening we drove the two miles to find Deb's. The prices were incredibly high and we finally deduced that local income derived from weed had created an inflated economy. So I ordered the amazing taco. My husband, smarter than me, ordered a burger. When the remarkable taco arrived, I was stunned. It was a small, corn tortilla with a crumbled hamburger patty topped with chopped lettuce, tomato and cheese and a small cup of salsa. It had virtually no flavor at all. Except beef. It did taste like beef. I could only imagine that they don't get much of a Mexican influence in Garberville.

We couldn't pass through Fort Bragg without stopping at Glass Beach*. At first glance, all of  the beaches were completely empty of glass. We tried the final beach off to the left, access was limited, with rocks quite difficult to climb down, especially for me, having worn my evening gown for glass picking. I'm exaggerating -- it was a long summer dress. After the climb, I sat on the beach and picked to my heart's content. I have a nice collection to use in my encaustic work.

The final morning of our road trip, Nicole and I were heading down for breakfast. Two crackhead women were lingering around the door of the complementary breakfast room. As we approached, they put on their act. "Did you bring your key?" The other one looks horrified. "Damn! Do y'all have your key? We forgot ours." I let them in. Who am I to censor the hungry? They followed us in and made up plates to take back to their cronies parked out back.

We stopped in Mendocino, wandered on the headlands and in town. Bought white chocolate with fresh raspberries, and a bar of espresso bean dark chocolate for Kurt.


* In the 1800's, the early inhabitants of Fort Bragg threw their trash off the cliffs at the ocean's edge. Gotta love the white man. Over time. the churning of the surf created shards and bits of colored and clear glass that sparkle like gems when wet. Over the years, folks have scooped buckets of beach glass until the beaches are empty. Only one area remains, and picking is forbidden**.

** Sue me.






mendicino
earrings
swimming

the skater and public nudity

Since this blog is really just the news from Clinton Street, I have to document the skating man. He must have moved here about six months ago. He looks kind of like a pudgy Elvis Costello, probably in his early thirties. He is nothing like the ordinary youngish Portland male: metrosexual, skinny jeans, striped t-shirt, perfectly messy hair, black hornrimmed glasses. The skater looks like someone from the fifties with a wad of curly dark hair on top of his head and whitewalls over his ears. He wears tall white socks and long shorts (not stylishly baggy) for skating, which he does all day every day. To be fair, which I rarely am, he skates a good part of most days. Back and forth in front of my house. Back and forth. Back and forth. And he signals to no one when he makes a turn, using hand signals as though in a car, sharp, Natzi-esque motions, executed so precisely that it makes me think he is in some sort of competition. Or is insane. He wears a blinking light on his ass.

This is how bored I am.

There is much more traffic on Clinton Street these days. Division St. -- one block north -- is under continuous construction and has become a tourist destination according to Sunset magazine. It has hundreds of high-end condos with no parking, four thousand bistros, and Salt & Straw, the best ice cream store in the universe two blocks from my front door. Seasalt and Caramel. Mmmmmmm. Since Division is so busily becoming fabulous, driver after driver opts out and yanks their car out of the construction to take Clinton St, fast and frustrated, past my house. The skating man is in peril. I saw someone try to run him down yesterday. I didn't know which way to hope.

Anyway, Its D Day. What a colossal mess that was. Thanks to all the guys who died and who lived to tell.

Next day: Naked Bike Ride in Portland. I guess this is happening the world over.There are probably places that don't think it is such a big deal. We had the Clinton Street contingent saddling up about a block from our porch, so we sat out front and waited for the firm bodied youngsters and were treated to all manner of breasts and genitalia. I suppose there are all kinds of bodies represented at the main starting line, but our neighborhood looks fairly fit.

The most notable quote of the evening, "Dude, this seat feels so weird up my ass."    Indeed.

I liked the beautiful boys with antique flowered doilies covering their business and one lovely girl with lacy black panties. Classy.

like any other day

My dogs are asleep, Nicole is in the attic, sleeping or applying for great jobs available to beautiful young women, Kurt is at work and I am getting well enough to be bored. I took down the drapes and washed them all hung them on a self-installed clothesline (dog run); shampooed the carpet so it smells more like us than the dogs for a minute; organized my closet and packed a b'zillion boxes for our upcoming yardsale. Be there!

I am hosting a brunch for the local women who have supported me through the little cancer blip on my screen (Nina, g/r and Asha, wish you could be here. Truly. Your support was and is so very appreciated.) I'm making two quiches, a baked praline french toast (screw gluten) and lots of fruity salads. And good coffee. Great coffee. Tea for the weaklings. And new linen placemats I got at a yardsale which will establish the blue and white Delft-ish theme which is very important to me. Gotta have a theme. And good linen. After all, I am Martha Stewart, criminal background and everything.

I need a job. The dogs are in danger of redecoration.

I don't think I'm getting the job I applied for. Shocking. I'm always surprised by rejection. I usually at least get an interview. But... the older I get...blahblahblah. It looks like they're hiring from within, which lessens the sting a bit. Am I ready to go back to work? How will I know? This job just came my way -- I hadn't started looking. So, I think I'll begin poking around to see what's out there.

My mother in law just had back surgery and I stayed with her the first night after surgery. She did not arrange to have help and knew she needed it. She did not ask me for help, but her failure to arrange help left her in a tight spot and her very elderly sister was going to fill in, "because nobody else will." (The sister can barely walk, falls at home, should be in assisted living, etc.) It forced my hand (emotional blackmail). I've been pretty clear that I'm not interested in being her caregiver as she ages and has various surgeries, etc. It is a slippery slope. I know I sound like a terrible person, but I've taken care of the elderly for a thousand years, including my mother which was my pleasure, but she allowed very little help. But this woman is not like the women in my family. She wants a servant. She is vain, desperately chasing the ever-disappearing tail of youth. Now, another elective surgery is coming up and I think we need to have "the talk." I am not going to empty her bedpan.

Why I bring this up, other than pure irritation, is because while she was in the hospital, a demented woman was roomed across the hall from her. I just fell in love. The staff were way out of their depth, behaviorally speaking. She had Capgras Syndrome- a paranoid symptom of Alzheimer's wherein the person thinks, for example, that her dead husband was there. A conversation may go like this:

Patient: My husband just left.
Nurse: I thought your husband had passed away?
Patient: No. Alot of people think that, but he's here.
Nurse: I don't see him.
Patient: Some people can't. But they have him in that phone. Hand it to me.
Nurse: (hands her the phone which she begins to dismantle.) Oh, no! (nurse tries to take the phone , calls for backup and sedating medication.) You can't do that. We'll need the phone. (power struggle ensues.)
Patient: (now very agitated, screaming) This is what they use (the phone). Now I know you're in on it...." and so on.

 How it might otherwise go:

Patient: My husband just left.
Nurse: Oh, okay. What are we having for dinner?

To make matters worse, she had a huge mirror over the sink which faced her bed, so when two staff came in, she saw four. When she saw herself in the mirror, she thought it was a visitor. She called them angels. I recommended they cover the mirror. But they didn't. I just went in and hung out with her. Listened and laughed and helped her hands find something else to do as she tried to dismantle the phone and nurse-call lines. By the time I left, she was tucked into bed, her poor little blue feet elevated for a change. She'd been up all night. I think I'd like to have a job as a sitter in hospitals to keep the crazy people calm. I could do that. You just have to learn how to be invisible.

That's my week. Today, I'll find the strength to take both dogs to the p-a-r-k. Shhhh. Don't say it outloud or they'll stare at me until I cave.

clamfest 2014

Our anniversary celebration is always held on the weekend of the best spring clam tides on the Oregon Coast. This is our tenth and the clams this year are huge. A limit of 15, carried in my mesh sack, weighs three times as much as in previous years. Fukushima. I know. On the upside, the clams glow in the dark, so if you start clamming before sunrise, you. can do without a lantern.

I made reservations a bit late, as is my custom, and we ended up in Venice, an RV park turned crack 'hood. "Venice" because it is set along the tidal canal that wanders through Seaside. Word has it that Venice used to be one of those upscale mobile parks that only accepted newer mobile homes, must-have aluminum skirting in place, no vehicles-in-progress, no faded plastic flowers in plastic pots. Well, not anymore. Now, an old woman with COPD struggles to breathe through her memorized tourist script, including how to tell if the tide is going out or coming in. We know this, of course, but were afraid to interrupt her lest she run out of air completely and fall over. I believe that she is being taken advantage of. The drunkards and addicts run amok, all stopping by her place daily, which is next to our place. I hear snippets of conversations, "...yeah, it'll be here on the third," and "No, really. I'll be out by the end of the month...." For all I know she's selling meth.

I can't imagine, given the general entropy of Venice, that she gets many cash customers. These days, any remaining "permanent" trailers are in utter disrepair and have become rentals. The maintenance man is drunk, driving around in a front-end loader/backhoe that the crackheads refer to as his hovercraft. No one has pulled a weed in years and the blackberries have thus far consumed the Spanish-style wrought iron trellis, a set of concrete seagulls and the compulsory wooden sea captain with their persistent, thorny vines. Crackheads don't mind the ambience. All the better to hide in plain sight.

As with any three day tide set, the first days are the best, because the clam beds are being revealed -- this is the first real set since last year -- so the clams are plentiful. By day three, they were over-picked and a small storm had blown in. No self-respecting clam would put up with such a beating; they stayed under the sand. We had to work for our take on the final day, but came home with 74 clams.

It was all work for me. With my right breast still smoking from the radiation burns, it was all I could do to get through the hour of physical labor each morning. But I prevailed. I will not give up my life. Not yet. And good news! A possible job has come my way. It is something I think I would like, and does not involve death except to the extent that human beings are involved. I am not quite ready to work though, and I hope our time frames can co-exist and they will wait for me. Either way, all is well. I've done my part and the outcome is not mine to fret over.

A radical hailstorm followed us back from the coast and tore through my sweet little spring flowers. They will bounce back. We finally made it home (the hail stopped freeway traffic) and I fried a big batch of clams. Kurt's mom and Nicole joined us. Nicole is staying here these days and was such good company during the post-radiation inferno.

And that's the news from Clinton Street.

over

I am now in the surreal place of having completed cancer treatment. Eight months have passed with little participation from me except survival efforts. Important, to be sure. My breast is like an eight pound Judyroast that seems a bit on the well-done side. Pain is unignorable. I realize this is not a word, but it is my current experience. My MD said, "You are doing as expected given your anatomy." Read: more tissue = more trouble. The right breast, the one reduced by surgery, is now nearly twice the size of the left. The skin on skin truth of my anatomy offers many square inches of tenderness now occupied by searing, weeping flesh.

Enough.

My arm is responding well to the compression garment and I am being fitted for a permanent sleeve. Being a chicken about tattoos, I'll decorate my sleeve instead.

radiation, succulents and anniversaries

Down in the bowels of Providence hospital, beyond the bounds of cell service, we arrive, one after the other, for our daily dose of cell-killing rays. We sit and wait our turns. I've been showing up earlier to grab a cup of coffee with an older couple who like to chat. We all have our stories. She got to keep her hair, I didn't. I miss my hair most of all. It hasn't really started growing back yet. I hope it will. I have lymph edema in my right arm because the lymph fluid can't find its way back to my heart since the surgery. Instead, it leaks out my eyes and I bloat up like a whale. I have physical therapy appointments, radiation appointments, and any day without one is a gift. I want to sleep, but life calls me. I have a garden, after all.

Today the physical therapist said (of the edema), "Well, since this is something you'll have to manage for the rest of your life, blah blah blah." I pretty much stopped hearing at that point. "What?" I may have yelled. "The rest of my life?" "Yes," she said, very nicely, "It is incurable." Was anyone going to tell me this? I've had it for months. Now, turns out I have to wear an arm length ace bandage-ish thing, two of them on top of each other, to get the swelling down to the point where they can make a permanent one for me. f-o-r-e-v-e-r. What a bonus, eh? And now, in addition to breast-shrivelling radiation, I get a permanent elastic sleeve to wear. Even in the sun, which has been out for two consecutive days, only to slink back to wherever it goes when it isn't in Portland.

Next topic: For ten years we have been fighting a battle to maintain a spot of lawn in our backyard. Just a little bit. Ten by ten. And each year we begin anew, sod or seed, it doesn't matter. We plant, water, baby along the soft green fuzz, and enjoy it for the summer. But each year, the encroaching moss takes more than its fair share and gobbles up the grass. This year has been darker and wetter than usual, which, for Portland, is saying something. The interminable, dreary gray of day after day after day has invited a moss revival. We finally gave up. The moss won. I wasn't sure what I would do in the absence of grass, but decided on a rock and moss-like plant garden instead. As it happens, as soon as I made this decision, my cousin, who had just moved from inner Portland out to the Sandy River (their place is lovely -- their own state park complete with waterfalls and river frontage) she no longer had a need to landscape the place, so she gave me nine flat stones, each about the size of a very large coffee-table book each. No -- they're bigger. About two of those books side by side. Anyway, they are big. So now it is a design question. I've considered placing the stones in a circle; making a path to nowhere? Well, its too late for input. Time has passed, it is now two weeks later and the path is laid. I decided to be practical for once instead of purely ornamental. I made the path to correspond where I walk when I water. That way, all of the "steppable" plants I have planted (I think I got one of everything) won't get crushed and die when "stepped" on.

So, today is our 10th Wedding Anniversary, We took a long drive through the gorge and the waterfalls and around the base of Mt. Hood. I stole a big chunk of moss from one of the waterfall parks. Horsetail Falls. It was already on the pavement and sprouting ferns. Not exactly theft, but I'm still glad we weren't accosted by the tour bus of elders from "Friends of the Gorge."

Ten years of marriage and I am so happy. This past year has been a beautiful demonstration of our commitment to each other. He kisses my bald head and tells me I'm beautiful. Always marry a liar.

news poetry

I am home daily, watching daytime TV instead of writing for my life. There is much to complain about, but I won't embarrass myself by outlining the shortcomings of Kelly Rippa or Ozzie Osbourne's wife. Its the news that drives me mad. Here's a tiny example: "She was released from prison after 28 years and her family released its joy." Do they need an editor? Is the news so pressing it has to go out for wholesale consumption before anyone can reel it back in for a literary check? Or, conversely, is the news so bland that journalistic poetry might save it? Might keep consumers from seeking straight talk on the web? I'm just wondering.

The other menace is the barrage of  pre-news questions posed by newscasters: "What did one family find in its closet that left claw marks on the front door? We'll let you know on our midnight newscast." Why do they do this? Do they really think their questions are so intriguing that we'll stay riveted to our 50" screens until the tell us it was a cat? Maybe they do. Maybe we will.

I feel better now.

mood

Been down so long it looks like up to me. I think Bob Dylan said that. I am so near the end it feels like coasting. In three days my last chemo can have a week or two of my life then I'm having it back.

fait accompli

Chemo is over. I am feeling better every other day, climbing out of the abyss, clawing, grabbing, each handhold familiar as I transition into the light of spring. I'm so glad I planted bulbs two years ago. Daffodills are opening, the Daphne is amazing. I looked up in my Western Gardner book to see about pruning them. Most nursery plats are pruned after blooming or in fall, but "Daphne is Different." She needs to be pruned while still in bloom. So I found my pink pruning shears (clippers, really) put on my gloves and chopped off all the weird growth that happened over the cold snap of winter. My garden is otherwise a poster of neglect, the neighbor you don't want to have. Thank god for perrenials.

As this part of the process draws to a close, my old pal bladder infection arrives. Again and again, just to remind me that I am still human. It doesn't seem fair, but then, what is fair? So, I spent the morning offering urine samples to the uro gods to do with me what they will. I'm just tired of being sick and sick of being tired. Ah well. On to spring and radiation. I will ask somebody to clean my deck, find me a lawn chair and lay back and enjoy the sunrainsun that is Portland in the springtime.

I don't have cancer, though. That is good.

long time gone, redux

I have two scarves and three hats on the floor next to my unmade bed. I have a thousand other scarves and hats on hangers and in lovely shopping bags in my closet room. I have a closet room. I have so many skeletons in my closet its no wonder I don't hang up my clothes.

I watch movies every day, Nina. Thank you. I pick up the phone when I'm feeling under it except for this one time when I was certain I had contracted an exacerbated form of dementia due to chemotherapy and then I didn't dare tell a soul. Not about that. God. I can't be trusted to cook eggs. Let's see. I only have one more chemo to go. Thank you Jesus. I'll just thank Jesus because I couldn't possibly name all the people who have sustained me through this calamity. I'm not sure its a calamity at all but I so rarely get a chance to use the word. I think synchronicity is more the truth in play.

"Judyfest Northwest" was stunningly beneficial. I think 6K at final count. Something like that. I'm still paying bills with it. And it was FUN which turned out to be at least as important as the money. The music was so good. An all girl Merle Haggard cover band called Gerle Haggard, and a jazz standards singer named Lura Griffiths of Women with Standards.

I brush my dog, I thaw food others have prepared to feed my husband so he can go to work to keep me in insurance. Alone I am a sinking ship. Maybe we all are.

phone

Well, I will try to explain the non-blog entry titled: phone. I thought I was in the search bar and was looking for the post entitled "one good line" but knew only that it was about the purchase of a phone. Obvously, I was in the title line of a blank page. I will blame all errors of this nature on chemo-brain for the next, oh, year or so. If you want a good laugh, see "one good line."

lazy river

For me, home will always be the Applegate River. I love Portland. I do. But I had to run away last week, make sure my mom-out-law was okay -- she's getting on in years -- and sit in one of her two recliners for four days. I called no one, visited none but my son and his aunts, her daughters. But when we were finally by ourselves, we did a Breaking Bad marathon. Hours and hours of non-stop episodes of meth drama. Rita, she's 83, is the one who got us started watching it years ago.

I kept saying things like, "Are you sure you don't want to go for a walk?"
"How about just one more," she'd say.

Two hours later we'd come up for air or a bowl of chicken soup or a bit of dark chocolate. Old women don't eat much, so we didn't occupy ourselves with food. I did have Duffy to contend with, so had to walk him from time to time.

Her place is exceptional. Acres of riverfront property, well cared for, with an enormous front yard guarded by fir trees and lilac, cattle in the acreages across the highway. You can hear them from the porch. Duffy did not get skunked this time around. The second evening we were there I opened the door to let him out, leash in hand (not on Duffy) and as soon as the cold evening air hit my nose it was fresh with skunk. He started to bolt, but hesitated (remembered?) and I caught him just in time.

It was good to get away and not sit in my home consumed with the third coming of chemo. I wanted to absorb the good days in the best place I know so far.

saturday morning home day

We are watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, eating scratch-made biscuits and gravy, just home from an early run to Costco where we bought a nice slab of meat for the holiday and if I wasn't so freakin' sick, I'd think life was normal. I am tired. I was up the entire night, Ambien and all, with post-chemo yuck. Round two. I still think I'm winning.

Days bleed into each other, separated by visits from friends, gifts and treats delivered: a beautiful blanket, a growler of kombucha to tame the tummy. time spent chatting instead of lingering in morbid reflection as I am prone to do.

I only know it is Saturday because Kurt is home with me. I know it is getting close to Christmas because the tree has been up for awhile and it hasn't been christmas yet. We bought ready made fruit breads at Costco -- a sin in my house -- but I'm just not up to baking, or much else. I made biscuits and gravy from scratch and about passed out. I just have no stamina. I love to cook, but don't have it in me right now. Smells gag me. I went to Fred Meyer yesterday and found myself wandering over toward the dairy section which, it turns out, is near the seafood section. I couldn't get turned around fast enough and there I was, stalled in shrimp and day old fish land. Typing brings it too close.

Day after day I live with two dogs who keep close watch on me. They are learning to be less noisy, less demanding. I think they like having me home, but I miss my peeps, the crazy little grayhairs that loved to sing Christmas carols with me, who didn't remember my name but knew the words to every verse of Away in a Manger.

Menu for Christmas Day: 

Late Breakfast

 Scrambled eggs
Twisted Brioche

Early Supper

Cauliflower and Cheddar Soup

Beef Roast, rare-ish with Au Jus and Horseradish Sauce

Roasted Winter Veggies

Dessert

 Apple-Marionberry Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream. 

Show up!

cynicism

Me? Nah.

I ordered a bunch of slouch beanies. I did so because I wanted a floppy, hangy cap that would not call a great deal of attention to itself and, by association, my bald head. If you've been following along, I last said "we left a little (hair) to keep out the cold." That didn't last. The 1/2 inch of hair that remained, kept falling out. And it itched. The whole "take back your power" about cancer was appealing, but the sentiment was over-sold, as is usually the case. I feel less empowered than bald, sad and cold. So, back to the beanies.... In the pictures they looked floppy. In fact, they are beanies. Just beanies. Which is fine. Beanies are fine. But I didn't need plain ol' beanies. I needed floppy. So now I am the proud owner of six beanies of various dull colors. But scarves... now they are pretty. I have a pile of lovely scarves, and I know how to tie them so its like a ponytail.

I've thought of a million things to blog about, but am tired, and any effort is 10x as hard as it should be. Going to the store is hard. As I wheel the cart from aisle to aisle, my endurance fades and I feel like a cancer patient. I'm spacier than usual, have nearly burnt the house down twice. Maybe should stop cooking for awhile. At least not when I'm home alone.

day fourteen

The nurse at the chemo lounge said it. On day fourteen your hair will fall out. She said it like she knew, like she had some insky with the cancer gods. I didn't believe her then, but today is day-fourteen and my hair is falling out around me like snow.

I don't know if this will make sense, but in 1972ish I rode with some guy down to Santa something -- Rosa, Barbara, Clara -- some big city in California. I'd never been to a real city before. I'd never done much. We went to visit some people who lived in a huge apartment complex. I'd never seen an apartment complex before. The carpets were futuristic white, the ceilings solid panels of light. In the middle of the grassy hills of the common yardspace was a fake pond and in the fake pond was a fake sunken ship. I was a little hippie chick back then, categorically opposed to anything unnatural. The entire place filled me with a sickening awe, such a contrast to my au-natural life in a tree on the Applegate river.

Oh, and I forgot a pretty important part: we were smoking PCP. 

So... As we left the apartment, high as kites, the manager said, "Be careful where you step. The frogs come out at seven."

Way back then I remember thinking, much the same as I did when the nurse said, "Your hair will come out on day fourteen," I thought, "Bullshit. How can you know what time a frog will do anything?" But sure enough, at precisely seven, a b'zillion frogs began careening over the grassy hills toward the fake pond and the fake sunken ship, leapfrogging over one another in their daily seven o'clock frenzy. Big frogs, little frogs. I remember collapsing in a puddle of forlorn hippie chick tears, certain that the whole of civilization would become one of timed frogs and ceilings of pure light in honeycombs of mass humanity.

And as much as I'm sure the PCP had something to do with my moodiness, I scurried back to my cabin in the woods and stayed there.

For awhile. Until Portland.

I cut all my hair off this afternoon. Like many women, I couldn't tolerate the waiting, the knowing that the chemo would take it, a chunk at a time. I drove to town, bought three beautiful scarves, learned how to tie them so it looks like a ponytail, and whacked off my hair. When Kurt got home from work, he took the clippers and evened it up and told me I'm beautiful. We left a little to keep out the cold.

debacle

I think debacle is the appropriate word for "What I Did On My Thanksgiving Vacation."

I can't tell you how many of my friends and family asked me in voices rife with supportive and logical concern, "Are you sure you think it's a good idea to travel south (the day after your first chemotherapy treatment when you have no idea at all how it will affect you; where you'll be happily off the grid, no cell or other service, where the lovely little cabin is frozen solid, thus no running water or flushable indoor plumbing without lifting and dumping a five gallon bucket each time, where the wood fires are still burning, only the intrinsic smells of sulfur and kerosene that once comforted are suddenly noxious to my now-sensitive nose, where walking over hill and dale for the eggs I forgot and to see people I love is part of the culture) for the holiday?"

"Might as well go while I still have some strength," I said. "Most people say chemo isn't that bad at first." And maybe it isn't, but on the continuum of "that bad" are things like: queasy, don't get far from the bathroom, continual hot-flashes, no sleep, dehydration, and bedridden.

"I'm sure I'll be fine," I said. And I am, but I'm not. After three nights of zero sleep, we came home two days early. I would do just about anything to sleep. I'm exhausted, but sleep is not for me. I just lay there and lay there. With the chemo, they dump in a bag of dexamethasone, dex and meth being the operative syllables, and I haven't slept since Tuesday. In another life I could've made some serious money with that shit.

So, I'm respecting my treatment and taking more thoughtful care of myself. I'm stubborn. Born that way.

portals

Feeling a little John Malcovitchy today. Getting a port installed in my chest, on my chest. They say it won't hurt. How silly is that?

"We're just going to carve a hole in your body, fish around in there until we find the vein that runs (happily, undisturbed) under your collarbone, ask it very nicely to hold still and stuff a tiny little hose down it. Then, we'll stitch you back together with fishing line and send you home with some Ibuprofen."

Oh. Okay. How 'bout I do the same to you?

I mostly love doctors. I've moved along the periphery of their world all my life, and I'm pretty comfortable with all the medical ins and outs, but the whole carving=no pain? I'm not buying it. While I'm screaming about the painful swelling under my arm (post-lymph node-carving) my surgeon says, "It's not supposed to hurt like that." Well, I agree completely. Com-fucking-pletely. And yet it does. But, I don't want to piss off the surgeon prior to portal installation with a sharp object, so I'll just smile and say thank you. Thank you for hurting me while you save my life.

Ah.

Wating for Jessica to pick me up at ten:ten. My friends. Wowzer. It almost makes me believe in the intrinisic goodness of the human race ala Rousseau. Almost.

so far

so good. (this post is out of order. Written prior to lumpectomy, just to clarify.)

All xrays, radioactive injections and bloodsucking done. Everthing so far is negative. I'll learn about my bones on Monday. Boy, the staff at the surgeon's office is really in a hurry to get the information back to you. Most women must be in a hurry and easily frustrated by the eternal wait that is western medicine. But me? Nah. I can wait. If I was a doc, and people were rushing me, I'd probably lie just to shut them up. "Yeah, you're fine. Now go away." Be happy I couldn't afford med school.

It is somewhat anxiety provoking, made all the worse by life without estrogen. I'd rather do life without oxygen. And, it turns out, that is my choice. I've argued with Szeto (my doc) for years about the suck of menopause, my general impatience with the anxiety I experience in the absence of HRT. I may be finished with menopause for all I know, but will still have to experience withdrawal from estrogen, hot flashes and sleeplessness. I guess its better than death.

disclaimer

Disclaimer

Now it is not the best of me

that glorifies the worst in me

and it is not the east of me

that contradicts the west of me

nor is it just the first of me

has changed to suit the last of me.

the last of me has not yet been

the worst has never given in

or given up

or ever will

or even can

or has the will

to go beyond

the who I was

and still may be

and without pause

I celebrate the rest of me

I celebrate what’s left of me.   jk19??

I don't remember why I wrote this poem, or when, but asha asked me to call it up from the shadowy ethers of my past. I think she knew it would make me cry. 

I am less. I am 1/2 of one boob less. Boob and Bob.

Today I thought I had an appointment with the radiation guy, but it was the chemo guy. Probably best that I was surprised. I didn't want chemo. But these are the decisions of my life these days. You can have chemo or you can die. Oh. Well. Since you put it like that. 

So, there I was, sitting in the oncology office. The awareness that everyone sitting next to you has cancer is profoundly unsettling. A sad little woman came in and she was escorted by her giant son, and her cancer was consuming her face and he had to suction her so she could breathe and she should have been somewhere safer, somewhere she could have been treated tenderly. but she was one of those odd little people who have probably known little tenderness in their lives. It broke my heart at the same time I nearly vomited in my gucci bag. 

I don't have a gucci bag.

But the thing is, I am frequenting these places now. And when I need an appointment, they don't ask, "what's a good day for you?" They give you a card with the next available appointment on it and you show up. Cancer is in charge. I'd like to get ahead of it, but it is calling all the shots these days. The first appointment that got MADE for me, I said, "I'm not sure about thursd..." and before I could finish my sentence, the scheduling woman looked at me with such -- I don't know -- not disdain? incredulity? that it put me quite literally in my place. Your little tea parties are backburnered for the time being, bitch. Its a good thing I don't have a job. They wouldn't care. But the thing is, they do care. And I am simply expected to adjust. Its kind of like I unwittingly stepped onto that conveyor belt -- you know the one in I love Lucy, where the chocolates keep coming faster and faster and she is trying to keep up.Only in this scenario, the chocolates are doctor's appointments and I am still Lucy. And there is really important information to be gleaned at each one, and I'm functionally deerintheheadlights. Let us not forget I was diagnosed on the 17th of October and surgered on halloween at which point my husband thought he would draw a jack-o-lantern on my tit. It hasn't been a month.

I am having a port put in near my clavicle next Thursday so they can just back a truck up and dump the chemo into it. I always wanted something like that, only not for chemo. Where were these devices back in the day?

My friends and family have been stunning. The food alone: chicken soup, chili, lasagne, spaghetti and meatballs, take out from our favorite bbq joint, Hagen Daas vanilla, and burritos and a "fuck cancer" t-shirt, banana nut muffins, beef stew. Rides here and there, help with shopping; and generously shared experience, not easy stuff. 

My son is so scared, and my husband... When he said "...in sickness and in health..." he wasn't kidding. He is broken-hearted. We have cancer. It is in our house and we will spend the next six months getting it out.

big day

I blog, therefore I am.

I have breast cancer. I've been wondering what my body was up to. No good -- that's what. When I showed up for the mammography, I had already made out my will, doomsayer that I am, packed the boxes, burned or deleted any writing that isn't good enough for posthumous gatherings, and said my prayers.

As they moved forward with the ultrasound and proceeded straight to the in-office biopsy, I could tell they were concerned -- in a hurry to know. I could see the pictures. They drew on my breast with a blue sharpie and poked "it" five times, no six, just to make sure -- then the same for the lymph node that has been conspiring with "it" to kill me. They even left a microchip in there for proof of biopsy. So in case I get lost.... I am sore. I appreciated her directness. Having lived in and around death and disease for soososososososo long, I couldn't bear the manners, the things we say to people instead of the plain truth. I didn't need the weekend to believe I had a lump of something else. I can only tolerate denial under certain circumstances. In the end I said, "Just tell me." She said, "You're gonna need a surgeon. Start shopping." I felt like I was on Jaws. "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Indeed.

So I am. Shopping. This is day one of having cancer.

I've always judged the people who refer to their disease as "My cancer," like it was their special friend. But as I looked at the image, the dark lumpy image becoming more familiar as she moved the scope around, as she identified the boundaries of what was mine and what was other, it became personal. I felt bad for the girl. She didn't want to tell me. She didn't want to be the one to find it. "It must be hard to be the one to find these things," I said. And she pushed harder into my armpit and found the lymph node. I'm glad she found it, although at the time all I could think was, "Why is she digging around up in there?"

So, although I'm eulogizing myself well in advance, little planner that I am, and probably for no real reason, I also wonder if maybe I'll finally get the breast reduction/lift that I've always wanted -- the hard way. I am grateful for insurance and a husband who really doesn't want me to lose my ta-tas. Isn't that sweet? Personally, I can take or leave the tissue. Its the beating heart behind them I want to preserve.

Now I think I understand why my life has been unraveling: To make room for this. To make room for the fight of my life. Stay tuned, but I'm not going to make my blog pink, I promise.

spiders

I tried to title this one arachniphobia, but am pretty sure, given the red line, that I can't spell it. But don't you just hate the end of summer, allegedly-ever-so-helpful, gigantic spiders that spin their webs across anywhere you are known to walk? I do. I did a project in the second grade, a science/art project and painted a huge garden spider. Mrs. Sherwood gave me an A. I was terrified of them then and now. In the new "Simple" magazine that I subscribe to, which does not make my life any simpler by the way, there is a girl dressed up for Halloween and covered with real-looking, fake spider tattoos. I would cut my skin off. In Safeway, there are furry black spiders all over the place for decorations. These are not decorative. Nothing about over-sized black widow spiders is appealing or food-related. I resent having to stand next to them in line. These spiders that weave their trouble all around my house are on an every-two-year cycle. Or so I hear. They get bigger the second year. I walk through my yard, the old washer woman next door, string-mop in hand, flinging and swatting, ruining the finely spun homes of my many-legged garden friends. Allegedly -- keep that word in mind. My garden is hardly pest-free. .

But the end of summer is upon us. Peaches are mush. Its over. The chill in the morning air is brief, but still, the sun has whirled itself away from us, or we from it -- I forget how all that works. We're all whirling toward the cold of winter. I miss school shopping for my son.

if you don't want no peaches, honey

It's a learning curve. Canning. Preserving. Putting up peaches. I've been holding my breath for the ripening of the Maryhill peaches, famous for their uniformity of size and flavor. Now finally ripe, they are good, but not so good as the smaller "Starfire" from Jossy Farms in Northplains. I've canned 22 quarts this week, and one peach cobbler. I tried baking a peach pie while on vacation, and it turned out okay, but not great.

The zen of peaches is all about getting the fuzzy skin off. If you like the fuzzy skin, then I think we would have little else in common.

Canning Peaches 101

Boil a kettle of water, prepare an ice bath in a deep bowl. I use one of those wire wok utensils to dip the peach in the hot water and transfer it to the ice bath. I've seen most websites tell you to leave the peaches in for 30 seconds. That's a long time. I think I leave mine in for ten or so, maybe 15, or the peaches cook. If your peaches are truly ripe and you're not playing god and trying to push your way to the head of the line, you shouldn't need more than 15 seconds.

Now comes the fun part: getting them out of their slippery little nasty skins. If you have 1.) patiently waited for ripening, and 2.) done the hot/cold baths properly, you won't even need a knife for this part. I just pinch the skin around the stem area and pull it away. I compete with myself to try to peel all of the skin off with one pull. It can be done, but I can't really explain it. I could show you, but you're not here. Duh.

So now you have a bowl of nekked little orbs of wonderfulness. Now you need to step it up just a bit or they'll go brown on you. You can toss them with lemon juice and they will stay nicer, or you can snap it up and toss a sixteenth of a teaspoon of ascorbic acid into each jar to acheive the same result without blurring the flavors. Nothing against lemons. Really.

So, now you halve the peach with a paring knife, and if it is a kind peach it will fall apart in two perfect segments into your hand. If it is a stubborn little bitch, you may have to pry it apart ever-so-gently, and what you wreck, you may eat. Then, I quarter the peach and just start tossing the quartered pieces in the pretty clean jar.

Pretty clean means it was boiled before you started this process two hours ago and was, at one point, damn near sterile, but not quite.

So, you keep tossing peach quarters into the jar until it is full. shake it around a bit to let them settle. Go ahead and push 'em in, just so long as you leave a good half inch of "head space" (we all need this.).

Then, oh shit, I forgot to tell you to make the syrup. So, make the syrup. You can can with plain water if you like, but the peaches will taste, you guessed it, watery. So a lite sugar syrup is indicated. You won't get to heaven any sooner if you skip the sugar and the peaches you eat will taste better. But, if sugar is your enemy, which it should be but I live in constant denial of this fact, then a couple cups of sugar in a gallon of water should do it. Most sugar syrups call for four or five cups. Yeesh. So you make up your mind to do whatever. Sugar doesn't do anything magic for preservation, it just keeps the fruit from tasting washed out. Your call. I use a little sugar. Sue me.

So set up your table with the sugar syrup -- hot, the ascorbic acid, a rubber handled spatula, a damp cloth and a magnet for lid-getting.

Pack the jar; add ascorbic acid; fill with syrup to leave a good half inch; slide the rubber handle down inside the jar to release trapped air bubbles; wipe the top of the jar; go get the lid with the magnet thingy; put on the lid without touching the lid.

So, the thing with canning peaches is putting on the lids. You do understand by now that we're not working in a sterile environment, right? Tossing just-cut peaches into a pretty clean jar and wiping the jar clean with a damp cloth is not sterile. Then you drag the hot but not boiling lid with a weak magnet across the kitchen hoping it doesn't crash to the peach-strewn floor, and dangle it over the rim of the pretty clean jar, land it like a robot arm on the moon, and voila! its ready for the ring.

Now for the rings:  "Finger tight" can have many interpretations. For me, I read it as: spin on the lid and give it a little push when you reach the end. NONONONONO!! If you tighten the lids too tight, here's what happens. As you lower your perfectly peeled and glossy yummy fruit that you've slaved over for two hours, down, down, down into the boiling water, you will hear this ever so subtle snapping noise. This, my lonely readership, is the sound of jars breaking. You'll know for sure as peach bits begin to float around in your water. So, without scalding your legs, pull the jars from the water as quickly as you can and undo the damage. Get them to solid ground and unscrew those lids. I don't need to tell you to dispose of the fruit from the broken glass, do I?

Turns out finger tight really means finger-tip tight. Really. Just barely. A butterfly could do it. AND, start those jars out in warm water. Not lava-hot boiling oil water.

So you get the jars into the water, boil them for awhile. At least ten minutes, maybe 15. The old ways would have you boil them to death. A good roiling boil for 10 to15 is fine. I didn't die, right? But then, I believe in bacteria. I'm a fan of dirt. I am immune.

Then, you wait for the good popping noises. The noises that mean it worked. It is not uncommon for a jar or two our of 20 to fail. If this happens to you, put these little personal failures in the fridge and eat them within two weeks.


I only lost one jar to breakage, all the rest of them sealed and I have 22 pretty little jars of peaches.

where we been and what's next

I'm on an extended, if not forced, stress vacation, so it was challenging to get in the appropriate mood to go camping, although I am almost always in the mood to go camping. Last Friday we headed out, trailer packed imperfectly as though we'd never done this before. Did you bring the stove? I thought it was in the trailer. I think it is. Okay. Fast forward to an RV park situated along the Skagit River, and no stove. After blame was successfully assigned, camp life went on. We do have a stove in the trailer, but it was hot inside and out, and I had planned to make curry for dinner and wanted more than one pan. Long story short, we had our damned curry. The thing with camping food is that things thaw in a certain order, and should be used within a certain time frame so you don't die of ptomaine poisoning or botulism or something. Chicken first, pork, then beef. Beef can hang out for ages, it turns out, if its really cold, and we do have a great cooler. Better than the baby blue fridge but not as cute.

So I limped along with a crab cooker, 50,000 btu's of propane blasting whatever meal I came up with. We ate well, as usual, first in the RV site, then on up to Birch Bay.

This time we took a side trip around the base of Mt. Ranier. Neither of us had been on that road, and it was nice, but not spectacular. I'm sure there was a place to get off the road and see things, but we weren't chased by grizzlies with claws the size of butcher knives as promised by asha. But you know how she is.

Camping was excellent, but interrupted. I like to get somewhere, set up, and sit there for four or five days. This was not possible due to the lack of pre-planning, driven primarily by forces beyond our control (work) and procrastination. Most of the good spots are taken at least nine months in advance. That's the soonest you can reserve sites that are reserve-able and almost all of them are nowadays. So I've made a calendar that tells me what to do for next year.

We made it to Birch Bay the second day and got lucky to find a crappy spot which was so much better than the RV camp that it was fabulous, then stood in line for another crap shoot the next day. A spot came open for two days and we snapped it up. It was a beautiful site with a view of the bay, sunset included at no additional cost. Dazzling. But only two days worth.

On the way north, we took a side road toward Larrabee State Park, because of our last name, just to check it out. The drive there was terrifying for Kurt, pulling the trailer and all, past rocks that jutted out into the lane just shy of the aluminum siding. The park was outstanding and I immediately decided I liked it better than Birch Bay. I've since changed my mind. It doesn't have the ease of access that I prefer, no great bike rides like the more level bay. But I'm gonna try to get #36 if I can for next year and try it anyway. The best sites at Birch Bay are a secret and I'm not going to tell you. Try me.

So, back to the story of my uncertain life: It seems I have developed a Severe Panic Disorder. For the past two years or so, work has become nearly impossible for me to, um, looking for the word... endure? tolerate? do? Whatever. I can't breathe when I'm there. I take deep breaths all the time and try to suppress that crushing sensation with a number of medications, none that work. I didn't realize this was happening, really. I just thought I was anxious. I am. I was. I thought being away from work would fix these symptoms, so I jumped at the recommendation for a leave of absence. The problem is, the anxiety has become much worse, I'm not having any fun being away from work, and the breathlessness has now been identified as panic. I didn't know. Now, I don't see myself as someone with a Severe Panic Disorder. I don't think that sounds like me at all. I think I'm a little too serious and self-absorbed and basically lazy, but the shrink I'm seeing (must see to justify the leave) thinks I've endured burnout past the point of no return. I don't know what this means for the immediate future. I don't know if she'll okay me to return to work or not, and I'm truly conflicted by that. So much of who I am is what I do. I've always said I'm a writer and an artist -- and I am -- but my day job.... may have been more than that. I feel my age just now, and I'm not sure I've really allowed the fact that I am sixty years old to settle into a comfortable place in my psyche.

Waxing philosophical.... my apologies....

quiet morning on clinton street.

What are car alarms for? I'd really like to know. There has been one going off for about 45 minutes for a second time this lovely morning and I've even gone out to make sure it isn't mine. Just in case my hearing and perceptions are as skewed as I sometimes think they are. Really? 45 minutes? Twice? What is so valuable in or around that vehicle as to make all that racket. If I had a solid gold car I wouldn't make it that loud.

I retain a reasonable expectation of quiet, however misplaced, living in a big city and a busy little micro-mecca for foodies and shoppies and special Portland-ites with tall bikes and ribbons of colorful ink swirling around their fit arms and legs and necks and bellies. Me? I'm a jailhouse girl: black on white. No color for me. Alas, I have no tattoos. I'd have words, if I had one at all. But which words? So many to choose from. My own or someone elses? But I digress.

I wish I was a headlight on a northbound train. That's nice. And true. But if I wrote that, permanently in blackadder font down my left leg, for instance, you might assume that I'm a Deadhead, which I am most definitely not, although I do love Workingman's Dead. I did know Nancy Norcross's older sister who Jerry Garcia carved a zucchini for to remember him by back in 1969. It was a good sized zucchini with GARCIA carved in block letters. She kept that thing til it rotted. I wonder what happened to the Norcross sisters?

Anyway.

Another day in which I try to figure out what to do instead of working. These are the hours I swore I'd write, but I am rather consumed by anxiety and not-knowing, and the threat of return to a job that has killed me. 

cabin view

I am spending a day up at Judith's cabin to add to that sense of r&r that is so hard to come by when the dishes call my name and there is laundry and the floor needs vacuumed and my husband is fishing and I am supposed to make jam. I have 6 quarts of blackberries, 4 of raspberries, 3 of marionberries that I can hear from up here in Brightwood. They threaten to rot, to not taste the same, to vanish, to disapprove of me.  I don't care what they say, I'm going to sit by the river and mend. That is at least as important as jam, don't you think?

the view from clinton street

Here's a list of what not to do on the 4th of July:
Go to Bluesfest.

Why?
They do not play very much blues music really at all. There is some weak R+B sung by white chicks, a little rockabilly, some disco , zydeco and little else.

The fireworks are set off behind trees that hide the fireworks. I'm not sure who can see them, but those of us watching the main stage cannot.

The backdrop to the fireworks is classic rock radio. As the explosions ebbed to the lyrics of American Pie "...singin' this'll be the day that I die," only to start up again for the finale with something by Van Halen or White Snake or Tim Burton or something, it was much like sitting inside a huge old 8-Track player, tapes scratchy and overplayed with bees buzzing in the background, little firefly sparks just barely visible above the treeline. Glowsticks would have been brighter.

The organizers have hidden in the small print that, in addition to charging ten bucks and two cans of food for admission (we paid cash, garbanzo and refried beans) the only show worth seeing -- Robert Plant -- costs FIFTYMOREBUCKS!!! So much for old school Portland freebie blues shows. Now, I can't really claim the right to be Portland Old School. I'm a Rogue Valley transplant married to a Portlander. And what do Portlanders want? Weather between 70 and 73 degrees and free shit. I mean, look at the sidewalks around my neighborhood. Even the garbage is up for grabs.

Okay. I'm not working so I'm back to scathing but erudite observations of lowlife. I love home. I have learned, however, in my first week of R&R to get up and shower and make coffee before sitting down to the soul sucking internet or come 5:00 I'm ashamed of my lazy self and there is nothing taken out of the freezer for dinner, which is my only responsibility these days, which I love. Steak, corn and zuchinni on the grill tonight. w-o-m-a-n.

sunny day

I opened the back door this morning to let in the clear air of morning and got a face full of canine habitat aroma. The sun is out and roasting their side of the yard. They have half, we have half. They crap in theirs. We usually don't. We hadn't changed out the cedar chips in awhile, so that's what the day called for. Much better now.

It is the first really warm day in Portland. Everyone is out and about. I went to a very good meeting and felt like I was part of something for the first time in awhile. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and I wish a happy Easter to all of the faithful and a happy Spring to you heathens, my husband included.

samson

I cut off my hair. In the background I hear the strains of Crosby, Stills and Nash, maybe Young. Only its not almost. Most of my long blonde curlylocks fell out because of rapid weight loss, so I'm starting over. Short and sweet. But, like Samson and Delilah, I have this lingering belief that I have lost some essential power. Like many beliefs, it isn't true, just coercive and unsettling. Too many Bible stories, too young.

petals

Her face is smooth now, long gray hair drifts across the many pillows that surround her tiny body. She is taking her last many breaths, pulling air in, pushing it out, as her children surround her, telling stories of their youth, laughing, crying. When nothing is left of her, only her husband's name lingers on her breath: "Sam." She calls to him as though he might be just around the corner, just beyond her reach. "Sam."

"Sam's in heaven, honey. He's waiting for you." I tell her this and it calms her for a moment. Heaven is such a nice idea. "Go on home, now."

starlight and rose petals

In an Alzheimer's unit, Valentine's Day is never quite whole. Half of the lovers are dead, the others don't know it. In total, I had five couples to celebrate -- well, six, but one couple wasn't speaking to each other because she has persistent beliefs about his infidelity and a nasty temper. Who can say what is true? And one couple is just friends, but friends count. When you're ninety, it all counts. 

So we planned a party, a starlight party, with red globe centerpieces, scatttered rose petals and Hershey's kisses from the dollar store. I found plastic champagne flutes for the sparkling cider. The chef made a beautiful dinner: broccoli soup, puff pastry, pork loin, pasta and squash. For dessert, a four layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and strawberries cut so the heart shape was evident. Sweet. 

But here's the thing. (You knew something was coming. You, my faithful readers, you know everything is never really okay in the merry ol' land of Oz.)

So Pansy, she was dying. Not right in the middle of the party or anything, but dying just the same. She'd been trying to make a ladylike exit since the Thursday before, but her daughter, a nice nice woman, unfortunately the tiniest bit impaired by her mother's slight case of OCD. By the time I got her mom, she couldn't remember the O part. Growing up she had polished the bottoms of her child's white shoes every morning with white shoe polish. That kind of OCD. Untreated. Lifelong. So the daughter, having the final word, needed to say some things. Lots of things, for a really long time. So Pansy, captive little blue-tinted lady by this time, stayed to listen long after she was ready to be onto her next thing.

In another room another of my little people had been on his way out, was taken to the hospital for repairs, and was set to return the next day. 

The party was set to begin at 5:00. Dinner time. Everybody was dressed up, spouses wheeling their ways to the table, single long-stemmed red roses given to the wives by the husbands. Oh -- I told one of my guys that his wife was sitting next to him. He said, "Don't threaten me." I told him I had a rose for him to give to her. He asked, "Are there any thorns on it?" Anyway, there we were, all red and pink and romantic. 

Pansy's daughter, who had been calling me all day, asking for guarantees, like families do: "If I wait until 3:00 to come can you guarantee she'll still be alive when I get there?" 

Uh, no. No crystal ball here.

"I see (she lied), well, how far is she since I was there? How's she doing?"

She's doing fine.  

"She's doing FINE??!!?? Oh my God, she's better?"

No. By fine, I mean she's dying just fine. She's coming right along. She's about half as alive as she was the last time you called. She's dying at about exactly the same rate. Slow. (I didn't really say all of that.)  

So the daughter shows up about an hour before dinner and Pansy is still hanging on. and on. and on. I ask her please to sing or talk quietly. This means, if it makes your mother jump, its probably too loud. I whisper these instructions. To make a point. Its hard work dying and one must honor the process. 

 -- Really, if someone you love is dying, or someone you have unfinished business with, suck it up and wait until after they're gone. If you couldn't figure it out while they were alive, don't lay it at their poor little lavender feet at the bitter end. Not fair. 

So finally, we are ready. At 4:45 the food arrives. Drumroll... You know what happens, right?

At 4:45 Pansy dies. ("I think she's gone. Do you think she's gone?") 

At 5:00 we begin to serve dinner. 

At 5:15, Charlie rolls in from the hospital on a stretcher.

Crap.

Now, there are things that must be done. So, between courses, we do them. Personal things. All the while, having a romantic dinner, and escorting the mortician around the back door, closing the fire doors so we don't have to wheel Pansy's corpse through the rose petals and chocolate truffles. 

Charlie, of course, thinks the party is a welcome home for him. 

   

  
 

dresser

I realized late last night that a newish dresser would solve many if not all of my organizational problems. I considered buying new, but the WWII officer's chest I've been using for 35 years is and has been so unattractive that it seemed selfish to spend much to replace something that, while homely, is fully functional. .I also considered shopping the many vintage shops in SE Portland, but their idea of retro is that slick, blonde, danish-modern, Jetson kock-off crap that is the stuff of my impoverished childhood. Instead, I fired up my computer: craigslist.

There were more than seven pages, at 100 dressers per page. As I cruised the offerings, I narrowed my choices and developed a plan. This is the beauty of craigslist: you see so much shit you end up galvanizing your choices. I realized, for instance, I needed a highboy (rather than lowboy), with as many drawers as possible. If I had nine drawers, I could have a whole drawer just for black turtlenecks. Oh, and it would need to be more or less in the arts & crafts style, preferably a darker stain. And real wood. No chipboard. There was so much to consider. And the drawers needed to work flawlessly. Nothing I hate worse than sticky drawers. Well, that's a lie. There are many things, but not at the same time. If I'm hating something and I pull out a drawer and it sticks, I hate the drawer more.

I'm stunned at the items for sale, the sheer number of dreadful things: long, low, mediterranean-esque sets with carved fake-wood moldings; shiny black disco-era dressers with chrome swans for pulls. Sexy; Lots of white french provencial sets, aged with brown or gold or avocado green, swirled around spindled accents.

After about twelve hours I found just what I wanted. Of course I did. two hundred bucks. So we drove out to Tualitin and picked it up. It wasn't easy or fast. And it had one tiny little problem: a history of bug infestation. Not like bedbugs, but some kind of floridian powder beetles that chew through lead to get to wood, apparently. This scared my husband. Nothing scares me. I live my life on the principle that: I've never chewed up your dresser ergo you'll never chew up mine. This works for robbery too. The fact that I used to be a robber doesn't count. My rules.

Anyhow -- We did a thorough inspection (It's pretty, let's buy it) and humped it out to the truck, home, up and into my dressing room. A place for everything and everything in its place. Amy fucking Vanderbilt.

The next morning, my darling husband says, "What if the bugs aren't gone? What if she lied?" Well, I just don't operate on those fear-based, people-are-inherently-bad, beliefs. I stroll happily through life, surprised at the mayhem of the human race. So we drive back out to Tualitin and get the actual jar of poison that killed the alleged bugs. I say alleged because I didn't see any. There is the smallest, ever so unnoticeable bit of damage across two thirds of the entire top of the dresser, but that's what dresser scarves are for, right?

My husband's fears were only allayed when he looked up the dresser online and found that it sold retail for 3 thousand dollars. It may chew down our old wood house, but he does love a bargain. He says the sale price compared to the original price supports the argument that she is lying about the bugs. I say it supports the argument that she is nice.

bullets

My husband has been out buying bullets. Rather, trying to buy bullets. There aren't many to be found in the post-Sandyhook-hysteria. Not even in a liberal oasis like Portland. Its a redneck Easter egg hunt, four-wheel drivers filling the lots of Bi-mart just as it opens, waiting at the door, rushing the counters. We may look like Liberals, but we're country folk at heart. Even with limits, boxes of .22 shells sell out in minutes.

Why am I writing about this? It's Sunday morning and I slept way in. My husband went fishing and I slept and slept, having circus-bizarre dreams, finally to awaken to an empty house. Ahhh. I could be doing so many other things. Laundry, dishes, bad things.

So I said to him as he left the seventh store in search of ammunition, "Just how many rounds you think you're gonna get off before the army that is marching down Clinton Street gets you?"

But for him, it is just not liking to be told what to do. Or not do. There is no army marching down our street shooting citizens. We just aren't that interesting. But it does raise those questions, doesn't it? What is freedom? I won't try to answer that, but I do question the political debate that focuses soley on guns and again and again turns a blind eye to mental illness.

Since Reagan de-institutionalized the mentally ill (whenever that was -- don't ask me about dates, I wasn't paying attention during the entire Reagan administration) -- the "rights" of the mentally ill have, in my opinion, created a false reality that behavior can be predicted with mimimal oversite and the assumption of appropriate use of medication. This paradigm works well for insurance companies that don't want to pay for care/housing, or long term treatment, or diagnosing of the breadth of the problem. Associations like NAMI, persuasive organizations that advocate for the rights of the mentally ill, have a great argument, but faulty at its core. You can't fix a broken brain with a broken brain.

 Its not that I would return to the days of trepanning, but it is, I'm sure, far more costly to deal with the mental health crisis than to go after the guns. All that being said, it is only one facet of gun violence: what about black men shooting black men? It's a great solution for white men, so we won't look too closely at that.

Anyway, happy Sunday. I'm gonna heat up my wax and paint.

french toast

I have been living on Medifast and pumpkin seeds for a long time, and the last few days I've been cruising the well-merchandized deli sections of Freddy's and Safeway and best of all, New Seasons -- so pretty-- hunting for the perfect bad food to satisfy my endless craving. I've tried to be good with whole grain cookies; bad with maple bars, ridiculous with a whole lemon pie from Safeway that may have been sugar free. Nasty. But finally, finally, I found it: satisfaction is sourdough french toast at the Cup and Saucer restaurant on Hawthorne. Cooked just for me, with maple syrup and raspberry jam and butter.

Portland girls walk by the window in the cold of morning, whims of blue-black ink scrawled across skin white as canvas, wrapped around and around sun-starved necks and upper arms, anemic little girls with permanent opinions that will not fade when their minds change, and change they will.

part II: christmas letter

I couldn't get it all down on paper afterall. Not in one swoop.

I made Christmas hats for the girls. I slaved away and learned by trial and error how to sew with fake fur. And in traditional judybluesky style, I didn't start easy: I used fake llama fur, long and twisty. Its funny, not really, when you go to these sewing stores to buy this shit and ask the twelve year old at the counter at Fabric Depot, " is there anything special I need to know about cutting this stuff out?" "Naw," she says, perky in her red christmas vest that I'm sure she made out of felt scraps collected for free from the cutting room floor. "Just cut it out and  sew it up. You can grade one of the seams to make it lay flat." I decided to make my task even more difficult and line them with velvet, so went out to the Milwaukee store (Mill End) where the clerks are older even than me, for some washable velvet. (I only have silk-velvet. Poor me.) I asked the same question of her  "Oh, yes! Have you never worked with this fabric?? Well, then you need to cut it out like this and sew it like that and blah blah blah..." I learned so much in two minutes. It made the job somewhat more manageable, although I learned much the hard way - -my way.

I made my own pattern: a pointy hooded hat with attached scarf. My girls, tiny little things, look like abominable snow-pixies with them on. This year was the first year they felt like my kids. It is our 9th year together, and finally we are almost comfortable as a family.

Medifast update: I've lost 58 pounds. I gained back three during the holidays with some permitted leniency. On the trip south, Nicole and I decided on a Christmas menu that would fulfill the carbohydrate void I've been experiencing since July third: a Mexican CarbFiesta menu, with green chicken enchiladas, tamales from Canby Asparagus Farms and refried beans, with hot carrots, greenbeans for color, eggnog and all that. The morning before, I OD'd on Christmas cookies: cutout and frosted thinly with powdered sugar glaze and a hint of lemon zest in both cookie and glaze. yummmmmmmmmmmmm. But the way I ate them: in secret and as though it was a contest, made me realize that my eating habits, while in limbo, remain untreated, and when the medifast food ends, which it should eventually, I will surely regain the hard-lost poundage.

So I signed up to learn Tai Chi, a taoist class that meets once a week for 4 months. My goal is to learn the form and practice it at home when I'm done. It has always interested me, and with my various painful joints, it seems the better choice between tai chi and yoga. Yoga intimidates me. Well, not yoga, but the tiny women who carry their little mats down Clinton street and disappear into the studio that is all draped with velvet with Bahktishop scrolled in white across the windows.Turns out bahkti-style yoga is about love, and the group is about loving Bahkti and the place is about love first and not really about exercise for health,which is fine, which is what I say when it is not fine with me. The Tai Chi class is more health-based with the religious association secondary. I may need an influx of religion, but that's another post for another day.So happy new year plans include movement.

Two posts in two days. Wow. Just like olden times.

the traditional christmas letter

I have many things to discuss and I don't know if I'll get to it all. None of it matters, Still, I'd like to get it down on paper. Paper. Have you seen the new Paperwhite Kindle? We already have paper books. Now, behold: an electronic device with a screen that looks like paper, is as easy to read as paper, no glare, just like a book. Oh wait. We already have that.

Anyway, I haven't updated my fan base for months and apologize to you both. It's been an interesting time. Let's see.... Since Halloween I've been actively pursing my habit of pumpkin seeds. I've purchased or found eight pumpkins, seeded them, and consumed all of the seeds. My lips look like I've had botox and my sodioum level is through the roof. I've also purchased many packages of pumpkin seeds only to re-bake them myself with olive oil and sea salt. I can't get a thing done at work or at home. My car is full of seeds, the housekeeper at work is mad at me for having to vaccuum six times a day. At home, well, let's just say it is an effective hand to mouth distraction.

To tree or not to tree? Being Martha Stewart is hard sometimes. I usually wind up spending at least sixty bucks on a beautiful Grand or Noble Fir, perfectly shaped, to go in our perfect bay window. Sometimes I just pull out the Charlie Brown replica and leave it at that.
This year, husband says, "There's a lot out in Hillsboro and every tree is 15$."
"I'll hate them," I assure him. "I'd rather have no tree than an ugly one."
"Let's just see," he says.
"Fine."
So off we go on a holiday mission, to replace our Christmas lights with LEDs and to find the perfect cheap tree. I'm sure it can't be done. The first lot we visit has a small spray painted sign, ALL TREES $15. I roll my eyes and get out of the truck. Before me stands a lot full of perfect 8-foot Nobles. "Really?" I ask. They don't speak any English. They just smile and nod. Kurt loads up the tree and gives him 17 bucks. I am put in my place. I'll never live it down.  

 Mid-December we made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Southlands. We didn't know what was in store from hubby's side of the family since he had effectively started WWIII with his clan in July by being the first in twenty-some-odd years to tell his most recent in a long and notorious line of step-mothers to shut the fuck up.I have to admit, I'm on his side in this one. So, with the step-monster-in-law in check, we had a decent visit, but didn't stay over like usual. The beautiful little cabin we used to stay in has deteriorated into rat piss and decay, so we stayed with Rita, my mother-outlaw, my son's grandmother. Things are never awkward with her. I envy her social skills. She is the best person I know. Really.

So there we were, basking in the glow of the Blessed Season, playing UpWords instead of Scrabble, which completely taxed my never-agile left brain, when my husband shouted from the basement: "JUDY!!!!!" When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,.... I ran to the stairs to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below. "Duffy's got skunked!" my sweetie howled into the once-pleasant early dark of winter. "He's through the fence." Crap. True to form, my little West Highland White Terror saw the skunk waddling across the backyard and bolted after it like the ratter he was born to be. Apparently, the skunk's escape was stalled by the hogwire fencing and it turned in self defense, spraying Duffy full in the face--in the mouth and in the right eye and all down his right side. By the time I arrived, Duffy was across the fence, choking and gagging, rubbing his face in the dirt and pine needles, trying to get away from himself. Nicole, bless her, jumped the fence to rescue him. Not considering the ramifications of handling a freshly skunked dog, she handed him to me across the fence and I received him and hugged him and cuddled him, and too late, smelled him. Aarrgghh.

Jane, my sister-outlaw, for lack of tomato juice, brought around a bottle of spray and wash and a water-tight garden cart, and out there in the cold and dark, I bathed my poor little dog. He looked at me with his little coal black westie eyes, wondering at this fresh torture, never once considering the consequences of his actions, I'm certain. Once the first layer of oil was scrubbed, we moved inside and bathed him again with peroxide and dish soap. He stunk all the way home where he has been twice-bathed with tomato juice and he still stinks.. Even Rita, bless her, will probably not welcome Duffy back for a repeat holiday visit.

So, back home, I received a letter in the mail that it is time for Duffy's annual exam. Now, it won't surprise you that I barely attend to my own health concerns, let alone that of my dog's. But give the recent skunk contact, I thought it prudent to check things out, rabies and all. As we stood in the exam room, Duffy high up on a steel table, quivering-- me keeping him from jumping -- the vet came in. A nice young woman, serious about dog-health. As she got close, she inspected his teeth and I said, "Sorry about the smell. He got skunked last week." She was immediately embarrassed that she hadn't identified the smell. A country vet would have known right away. Either that or she'd assume Duffy had a bag of good weed stashed nearby. Anyway, she asked about the skunking and I told her about the bathing and that he had some bumps from soaps and stuff -- his skin is sensitive. She found one larger bump and I told her I'd just pulled a tick off him while we were in the office.

Good God. You'd think I'd told her he was on fire.
"Where is this tick?"
"In the garbage. It was just a regular old tick."
"How big was it?Was it engorged? When do you think it embedded?"
The questions were urgent. She was very excited. I wondered if she'd ever even really seen a tick. Me, I've pulled about a million of them off animals and a few from humans. This one was small and I got him out easily, smashed him and put him in the trash, like you do. But the city-vet was pretty agitated about the whole thing.
"Even 'regular old ticks' carry lyme's disease and rocky mountain spotted fever." She mocked.
I didn't like that very much."Right," I said. "I'll keep an eye on him."
After a litany of related symptoms to watch for, she launched into a dissertation on the need for proper dental care. A sales pitch, really. "He'd have to be sedated, of course," she claimed, handing me an estimate for $1009.00.
"This won't be happening," I admitted. I'm sure. A grand to take my dog to the dentist? Really?

Okay. So that's the Duffy update. What a fun dog he is.

Merry Christmas.

long weekend

Almost. I spent Friday driving a patient to a psychiatric hospital, but other than that, work free. The paucity of mental health services for the elderly is stunning. Back in the day, when I worked a different job that was pretty much the same only without the death factor, we used to marvel at what we could do if we lived in the metro area, where all things medical are possible. Wrong. So, by the time there was a bed open, I wasn't about to pass it up because of transportation problems. They wouldn't admit her if she couldn't walk in under her own steam, and she's nuts, so, if she was on her way through the doors with a stranger, and the door says: TUALITY CENTER FOR GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY, she's no dummy. She'd have turned and bolted. I opened the door before she got to it, shielded the words, did a quick Halley's Comet diversionary tactic, and we were in.

Wait. She was in. Let's be clear about that. She. Not WE.

So she's in and I can rest for a minute.

Thanksgiving was fine. Real food, consumed in about twenty minutes.Mother in law hostessed with her ailing sister, who fell in her bathtub. "It has nothing to do with my age." she said before I even said anything. I swear, its that old Angel of Death thing. They see me coming a mile away. "She's coming for me." I can see this thought bubbling slowly to the brimming sludge that is what's left of their little grey minds. "She knows." It would be awful, I'll concede this much.

So its back on Medifast one day later, and I don't really care about food so much anymore. The dinner was okay, and anti-climactic, and I'm just aware of the focus I've placed on food for far too long. I remember Alan McLean, one of my very first nursing home patients, who, after a career in the CIA, had his mind scrubbed and was left with little else but a love of black pepper and a fixation for  Casablanca and  Joan Collins, who he had allegedly had a one-nighter with in his heyday. He was known to say, "I eat to live, not live to eat." Well, good for you, Alan. Good for you. Me too.

A movie review: we went to see Lincoln, and I loved the politics, the tragic silliness that remains today, the gamesmanship. I think James Spader should get best supporting actor for his role as an early lobbyist. Hysterical. But DDLewis, wow. Loved his voice, the frail, gentle Lincoln rang unexpectedly true.

Our new Dyson is sucking the carpet off the floor, quietly, as I type.

black friday

That sounds so negative. Kurt is at Costco now, purchasing a new vacuum cleaner for our happy home. A condition of marriage was that I never receive household appliances for gifts, so this is a non-gift -- a necessity - a Dyson power sucking pet hair eliminating monster. Sid's hair is a cross between a porcupine quill and  a corkscrew. Once embedded, it is there to stay. He rode in my car once. Once. And his hair is still there despite magic pet gloves and car wash power vacuums. His hair, not Duffy's. Not my darling Duffy's.

I ate regular food yesterday. I've lost 55 lbs so far, and am not fat anymore. I've always been fat. Always. I feel fragile and light and strange and cold. It is difficult to keep up with psychologically and I know why I've always managed to put the weight back on. Such a warm coat in the winter months. Such a reliable layer between me and everyone else who is not me. I am exposed and I understand vulnerability like never before. I am without armor.

My wax is on upstairs and I am producing items for sale. Do your christmas ordering now. I'm taking special orders. I'm usually kidding. Not now.

wax on

Another Saturday on Clinton Street. Duffy sits at my shoulder keeping an eye out for squirrels and wayward neighborhood cats who perch just beyond his reach, chirping and mewling, taunting, taunting.

This blog has become a maudlin account of death and doom. I need to find another topic. Another job.

one more

Charles never seemed old, but he turned 91 last week. He referred to himself as Charles Lorenzo Eduardo -- although he was that rural Oregonian shade of white that could never believe we have a black president. He died just now, they tell me. He paced the hallowed halls, looking for his car, a can of paint, the army, all the misplaced parts of his life he just couldn't hang onto -- or let go of. What will I look for? Cling to? We are what we do. I am a sofa. I am a keyboard. I am wax and housework and a frying pan over a hot stove. I am the sidewalk in front of my house that takes me to coffee. It is pouring down rain, finally, in Portland. I'm heading upstairs to turn on my wax. Therapy.

out loud

Pansy is dying. I've lost 52 pounds to date. People look at me funny, like they want to say something but are afraid, at my advanced age, that I'm dying too, or that something has gone seriously wrong. I'm not. It hasn't. I feel really good -- just ask my knees. We, the body parts, are happy with each other and the brain right now. It feels something like the opposite of cognitive dissonance. It might be contentment. I wouldn't know. The war, while not over by a long shot, is momentarily at rest. The brain is finding fault, however, with the legs: too thin, the ass -- gone. the gut, still not perfect, although the belly button that was inserted by dear Dr. Young, my plastic surgeon of days gone by, is nice again and my tits are still here.

I've claimed to have lost 50 pounds in the past, but I don't think it was true. I'd meant to be telling the truth, but I think it was wishful speaking. Find something that weights fifty pounds. Right now. Now try to lift it. Go. I'll wait here...... Freaking heavy, right? I've lost that much weight. No wonder I was so tired all the time. For now, I see myself quite differently. But, pessimist that I am, it all feels pretty mercurial. Dreamlike. Temporary. I'm fifty-fucking-nine years old and I have at long last lost the post-baby fat from my 35 year old son. It is frightening to say out loud, but there, I've said it. Its in the blog so must be true.

I don't know what to wear. I've been a long time fan of Flax clothing, plain linen tent-like garments, expensive and expansive, elastic "waists" held up by invisible suspenders over layers of extra me. Now that there is less extra me, I'm not sure what my style is. I may like simple things. Still prefer black. Still want to be invisible. Thankfully, I lived and shopped in denial most of my adult life, so already had bin upon bin of small clothing that kind of fits what is left of me. But even those clothes are a bit baggy. I hope I'm not complaining. I have boxes and boxes of leftover clothes. I got rid of what I hope not to wear again, but I didn't get rid of all of it. There's too much and this isn't my first rodeo.

So if you read this and need some 1-2x clothes, I'm your gal. Think black and white and menopause beige.

Well, that's it for now. I had to write this post eventually. I was kind of holding my breath. I should take a bunch of pictures now before it goes away.