Happy St. Pat’s Day

On Thursday while we were at the ophthalmologist office for a follow-up appointment for Richard’s eye (he got a good report), a telephone call arrived from my sister’s husband, which was captured by the answering machine. He inquired after Richard’s eye, told us about a Webcam set up on an eagle’s nest on Catalina Island, which is 26 miles off the coast of Southern California, and invited us to the St. Patrick’s Day party my sister is having today.

Richard and I laughed at the idea of how much fun it would be to hop in the car and drive out there – without telling anybody – and showing up at their house for the party.

Some people could do that. They could… and they do. I envy them that freedom. Our life is too complicated right now for us to do something like that. And I don't think we would be brave enough to try it even if it were possible. Doggone it.

Instead, as soon I finish this, I will put corned beef brisket and potatoes and carrots into the crock pot (cabbage will go in later) for dinner tonight. Yesterday, we bought rye bread and Swiss cheese in anticipation of Ruben sandwiches tomorrow.

Once upon a time, I found a recipe for homemade corned beef. I bought brisket and cured it in brine with spices. It tasted great, but it looked horrible. Horrible. It was a nasty gray color because I lacked whatever chemical it is that keeps the meat bright red. I decided making my own corned beef was not something I wanted to pursue.

In the meantime, I am thinking of my 3 half-Irish cousins today. They are blessed among the extended family: both of their parents are still alive. Unfortunately, the physical tents that their parents occupy are failing, neither parent is doing very well, and my heart goes out to these precious cousins and my Aunty and Uncle. Wishing them a good day today.

Visions of peach cobbler danced in their heads

I think people are being a bit careful not to complain that that Spring seems to be here already. The problem is: We barely had Winter, which, of course, really isn’t a problem except that it just doesn’t feel right, somehow.

To be sure, Winter didn’t skip us altogether: We had some cold days, a few days when it got down to 0 overnight, and it stayed below freezing for about a week in January, and there were a few days when there was snow on the ground, and school had to be cancelled for a couple of days because the roads were bad.

Unlike every other Winter I can remember since we moved here, we did not get hit with a bad ice storm or a lot of freezing rain. The old athletic shoes I have rigged up with cleats so I can walk on slick ground never saw the light of day. Can’t complain too much about that.

We all might be singing a different tune tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. It could easily turn nasty again – has done in the past and probably will do in the future --

and the promise of peach cobbler offered by the peach tree outside the back door could be dashed by another hard freeze.

But in the meantime...

one can dream…

Not Florence Nightingale

Last week Richard was given some instructions about how to care for his eye after the procedure. In addition to three different eye drops, he was required to wear a patch over his eye while he was sleeping for a few nights to protect it and help keep it from getting infected.

My job was to tape the eye patch on his face and put in the eye drops.

I am quite good at putting in eye drops.

But at putting on the eye patch? Not so much.

After my last attempt at securing the eye patch, he looked up at me with his good eye and said, “You aren’t Florence Nightingale, are you.

I was laughing so hard by the time I got the camera that I could hardly hold it still.

Taking a cue from the man I see for routine health care, “I-am-not-a-doctor-just-call-me-Bob,” I am not Florence Nightingale, just call me Nurse Betty.

Look down! Look down!!

My beloved has always enjoyed the Kingston Trio, and a brief interlude from their song Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley might be appropriate right about now.

Of course, my beloved is not about to be hanged for killing someone, but he is being required to keep his nose pointed at the ground and his eyes looking down and I am not sure how well he is going to be able to do this.

Some time ago a small “tent” developed in the macular part of his eye that distorts the center of his vision. The fix for this defect is the injection of a small bubble of gas which floats to the back of the eye and puts pressure on this spot and which ultimately makes the problem go away.

To keep the gas bubble where it is supposed to be, the person must keep his or her eyes on the ground as much as possible for up to 2 weeks. The procedure is about 90% effective if the person complies but drops to about 60% if the person does not comply.

Yesterday was our first full day with Richard trying to keep his eyes down: he put his computer monitor on the floor, and he figured out how to watch TV by looking into a mirror on his chest; he drank his coffee out of a straw. As the day wore on, however, he started doing more and more around the house. Without saying anything to me, he went outside a couple of times to get stuff out of the freezer in the basement; he even started cooking dinner before I could stop him. I know that even though he was holding his head down, that he was frequently moving his eyes up and forward to see what he was doing -- stuff you don't even think twice about -- hanging the oven mitts on their hook, reaching up to get the spices he sprinkles on the fish, opening the door to the convection oven.

And he started getting annoyed with me for reminding him to keep his eyes down.

No, he hasn't killed anyone... yet. 

“American blind justice…”

There is a lovely bit of irony in Arlo Guthrie’s song Alice’sRestaurant, which is carried through in the movie by the same name. In the song, Officer Obie has arrested Guthrie for dumping trash, and he is required to go to court. Officer Obie, had compiled “27 eight-by-ten color photographs” of the crime scene with which to impress the judge of the severity of the crime.

 

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. 

Man came in said, "All rise." 

We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down.

Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.

And then at twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice... And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

And this isn’t really about blind justice…

Our church, which is very small, has been without a pastor for almost a year, and another church in our denomination in the next town down the road, which is also very small, is also without a pastor. So the two of us put our heads together and thought perhaps we could find someone willing to pastor two small churches at the time. Together we could come up with enough money to provide a living wage. The idea is not without precedent – the Methodist minister in town takes care of two churches and so does the Presbyterian minister and so does the Catholic priest.

After weeding through lots of resumes and interviewing various candidates, the state coordinator for our denomination found someone in Michigan who said he would be willing to take this on. There were several conference calls between the woman at our church who is keeping things going, and the people at the other church, and the state coordinator, and this man. 

They invited him to come to Missouri and preach at both churches and he agreed to come over the weekend.

When she was explaining all of this to us, she mentioned he "had a hearing problem." But we didn't think anything about it. Her husband is a bit hard of hearing. We figured he was an older guy who had some hearing loss. Not a big deal.

The woman at our church is very excited. Last Sunday she requested that the piano player (me) and young man who plays the keyboard at our services have an extra practice session with the congregation to make sure we were familiar with the songs she was going to pick from the hymnbook and for us to work on the contemporary songs we play together so we would sound good.

We abandoned several songs because nobody could sing them well or the melody too high or the pianist had no clue -- just like I had to learn "southern gospel" type music when we joined the Freewill Baptists, I am having to learn another very different musical tradition with this denomination.

We had “meet and greet” carry-in dinner Saturday night, and when we walked into the other church’s fellowship hall and he came over to greet us, and introduced himself, and began to speak, I knew immediately by the way his voice sounded and the way he pronounced his words that his "hearing problem" was actually profound hearing loss. He is not totally deaf -- he does have a bit of hearing in one ear that is amplified with a hearing aid (and he can hear on the telephone) -- but he must read lips.

Our practice the Sunday before was not a waste of time, but it was very clear he was not going to be able to hear us singing. I couldn't help but remember what happened to Arlo. There was more to my smile as I spoke to him than pleasure in meeting him..

He did preach at both churches yesterday. He did a good job at our church and I assume he did a good job at the other church. I know all of us were required to pay very close attention to him and to watch his mouth as he spoke to understand him as much as he is required to watch our mouths when we speak for him to understand us. The “old man in overalls” at our church, who has trouble hearing, commented “I didn’t fall sleep once!”

Spice of life (or beans, by any other name…)

My brother’s daughter had this clever idea for my Christmas present to do some shopping at a local market that sells Indian food.

She knows how fond I am of Indian cuisine.

 

She bought a large bag of whole garam masala, one of the various spice mixtures called for in Indian cooking, and perhaps my favorite. I am familiar with the ground garam masala – I have been working my way through a gallon jar of it -- but not with the whole version. 

At first glance, it looks very much like common garden-variety pickling spice, but one sniff and you know this is not pickling spice.

I was not sure what to do with this bag of spices, but I found a recipe for a pear-avocado salad that calls for a syrup made by simmering the whole garam masala in sugar. I made this and it was quite nice. I fed it to my first luncheon victim in February.

 

Another item in the Christmas box was a packet of curry powder. I assume my niece is aware that that – just like in the United States – there are many regional styles of cooking in the huge country that is India. Perhaps she was not aware that there are also many different varieties of spices from these various regions that are blended and called “curry powder.” 

Did she have any idea what she was buying when she picked up the packet of “Madras Sambar Powder?”

Probably not. In any event, I certainly had no idea what a surprise it was going to be when I started adding it to the recipe for curried kidney beans that I was making from my Indian cookbook (had I gone online and looked at any of the several recipes for curried kidney beans that have been posted, this adventure in cooking would have been avoided).

Curried kidney beans?  Does that sound yucky??

Don’t yuck too quickly. The ingredients in my recipe are nearly identical to any basic recipe for Mexican style chili beans – onions, beans, tomatoes, fresh green chili, and even some chili powder -- but it tastes totally different from chili because of the various other spices and ingredients.   

The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of curry paste, which I did not have, so I added 2 teaspoons of the curry powder my niece sent me. When I had it made, I took a state and there was a bit of heat, which I thought was from the green chili, but not much of a traditional “curry” taste, so I added 2 more teaspoons and gave it a stir.

The main ingredient of this curry powder appears to be ground red pepper. It made for a very…very lively meal.

I am just so thankful that I did not add 2 tablespoons.

Keeping us sane

 The three of us enter the small room at the hospice office where we have met with her once a month since January 2011 and take our places at the rectangular table. Richard always sits with his back to the window. I always sit on Richard’s left and have become quite familiar with the big painting on the wall facing me of a wispy, bright orange-red poppy. She sits opposite Richard.

 For many years she taught elementary school children. Then, 7 years ago, her husband died and she retired shortly thereafter. Now she teaches people like us how not loose our minds as we move through the process of processing the death of a loved one.

She smiles. “So,” she says, looking at each of us in turn. “How are you two doing?”

 In our session in January we had discussed some things that I had read Joan Didion’s book The Year of Magical Thinking, which chronicles her journey through the year after her husband died unexpectedly of a heart attack while they were eating dinner at home.

So I tell her

 I am tired. I am just really very tired of Nathaniel being dead. I want him to stop being dead so everything can go back to normal.

 Magical thinking.

She smiles. And nods. She understands.

I mention something Didion says in her book. She could not give away her husband’s shoes, because he would need them if he came back…

Richard sort of interrupts me and starts to talk. This is typical ADD behavior and I understand him, and it is OK.

He begins to tell her about the evening popcorn ritual. There were three snap-lock containers with tight-fitting lids: a round one (Richard’s), a tall rectangular one (mine), and a shorter, fat square one (Nathaniel’s), each with our name on it. Every morning Richard popped the popcorn for that evening, put each person’s share in his or her container, snapped the lid down, and sat it on top of the refrigerator.

Richard continues on with the morning popcorn routine, only now just two containers sit on top of the refrigerator. Richard cannot bring himself to take Nathaniel’s name off his container and use the container for other things. It sits unused on a shelf in the pantry.

It’s his container.

More magical thinking.

I tell her about what happened during the brief cold snap a few weeks ago. Richard wanted the electric blanket for the bed and asked me to find it. I was sure I had given it to Nathaniel the winter before so he would be warm. His room gets rather cold at night. I tore apart his bed to look for it. The electric blanket was not on his bed, and so I began to remake the bed.

Nathaniel was obsessive about his bed. It had to be perfect. All of the blankets had to hang exactly the same length on all sides. No wrinkles were allowed. The comforter or bed spread had to be exactly even all the way around. Sometimes he spent 30 minutes making his bed. As sick as he was when he walked out of his bedroom for the last time on December 12, 2010, his bed was perfectly made. Nobody has slept in the bed since then, except the cat.

As I got the comforter back on his bed, I thought to myself …

Nathaniel is going to be so upset at me for tearing into his bed and not putting it back the way it was. He will not be happy at all.

More magical thinking.

She smiles, and nods. “One of the hard things I had to come to grips with,” she said, “was that I did not have to do everything the way Louis [her husband] would have done it. I could do it the way I wanted, and it was OK.”

But she does much more than just smile and nod at us. Her wise words have helped to keep us sane. Technically, she was supposed to cut us loose in January, but we saw her this month and we will see her again in March.

After every visit I have waited for Richard to say, “I don’t think we need to come back,” especially since I had a hard time getting him to agree to see her the first time. And after every visit, when she says, “Shall we schedule another appointment?” He says, “Yes.”

She seems pleased. She herself is grieving the death of her mother, who died a few months before Nathaniel died. We always ask her how she doing. Sometimes I think she needs us as much as we need her.

Rolling in graves…

The woman who announced the musical group Bach to the Future at the concert we attended Saturday night mentioned that were they able, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and other great composers of the classical music that this amazing group of musicians is tinkering with might be rolling in their graves by the time the concert was over. She warned us that it was not going to be a typical classical music concert.  

And indeed it wasn’t. But it was wonderful.

Frankly, I think Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart would be thrilled that their music is still being played, and that clever young (well, at 60-something, even folks who might be in their 40s suddenly seem young) musicians are doing things to keep it interesting.

Very interesting. Unless one holds that their music is sacred and must not be tinkered with for any reason.   

We don’t go out too often, so it was a real treat to have date. And even better, we saw Judy and Charlie walk in the auditorium and so we got up out of our seats and went to meet them. Seeing them come in was hidden blessing, because the seats we had picked were too close to the front and I think it would have been too loud.

And I almost felt like a silly high school kid meeting up with friends at an event. Judy said later her face hurt from smiling so much. Mine too.  I believe I actually laughed out loud at the very end of the concert, when the fellow who was playing the piano/synthesizer said that their last piece would be a synergy of music from two of the greatest composers: Beethoven and…. I was curious who he would pick…. Carlos Santana. That sent me off on a trip back to memory lane to a Santana concert I attended in 1969 or 1970.

And the band launched into the haunting opening strains of Black Magic Woman and then here came the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth. It was magic all right.

Climbing back in the saddle

It has been so many years since I have climbed on a horse that I doubt I could even do it without a serious step stool to get up high enough -- my hip joints are cranky these days.

Maybe I'll just try writing a little bit every day -- even if it is something not very important -- and see if I can move this blog forward a bit.

I dunno... I'll see how this goes...

Even if I had no followers to keep interested, and even if I never got another comment, I have found that keeping this blog has been an amazing thing for me on a personal level. To be able to go back years and read a bit of how I was feeling then has been so.... well.... good. Helps to keep it real. Helps to see where I have been... 

Amazing what a good night's sleep does for one. I was so tired last night...  and angry... and depressed... and really unhappy... but after actually sleeping -- without the benefit of drugs -- I feel pretty darn good this morning.

Whoops. I just got yelled at for leaving apple peelings in the sink from last night. The ants, which are supposed to be dormant during the winter, are out in force because it has been so warm.

Oh well, it is only 7:15... let's hope the day does not go downhill from here.

Clean underwear

Being caught in the grip of writer’s block is like having a brain in handcuffs. And I have been struggling with it since I last posted here.

Last Saturday, I attended the local writer’s group meeting, who had a guest speaker, a creative writing teacher and English professor from the local university. He talked briefly about writer’s block and how to overcome it. Make yourself write something everyday, he says, even if you can’t get beyond a few sentences. Find something in your experience that you can write about, something in the present that reminds you of something in the past. Even if it is only a few thoughts. Write it. He shared a poem he was working on – but had gotten stalled -- about mowing the lawn on a hot summer day and hitting a Rose of Sharon bush with it, and how that reminded him of the Grapes of Wrath, which he had just finished teaching to one of his literature classes…

I have come up with any number of what I thought were clever opening sentences to start a post in the week since then, but have not been able to develop them any further. I am even having some trouble answering my e-mail.

An e-mail from a cousin back in January – a month ago in fact -- who is “holed up in hotel” somewhere in New York with his partner and their cat, having relocated there from Washington, DC, and trying to find a house to buy, who wonders about the bond between the four of us cousins who are the first-born in our respective families.

I need to ponder that thought and answer him.

And then comes some e-mails from another cousin, also a first-born, who has recently arrived back home after spending close to a month taking care of her aging parents, especially her mother – my remaining Aunty who I love dearly -- who is slowly recovering from a very serious illness.

I had written to my cousin – also a month ago -- about the meal out we ate at a rather expensive restaurant on the anniversary of our son’s death…

We went to Springfield and had lunch at an amazing restaurant in the funky old downtown section. We have been aware of the restaurant for a long time but never went there because it is rather expensive. But as my friend Sheila points out – “Nathaniel’s dead. Who are you saving all of this money for now? If you don’t want to spend it, someone else will be happy to spend it for you…”

 My cousin writes back…

It is important to enjoy the fruits of your labor, this I see for myself also. If you could see our underwear, you would laugh, we both are in need of new panties. We just are not spending the money on ourselves…the ones I have now are not long for this world, I fear. I wouldn't let mom help me with laundry while there, just because I didn't want her to see my undies.

Some of my underwear is atrocious, so I had to laugh at that. Why not throw them away? I have unopened packages of underwear. But, what I suddenly remembered after reading this was not embarrassment as an adult that my parents would see my underwear when I was there on a visit (although, now that I think about it, I can recall washing underwear out by hand, for some reason, and hanging them on a hanger in my old bedroom), but a conversation my mother had with me while we were driving in the car one evening to the library. We were by ourselves, so I suspect my father was home watching the other children.

Always make sure you have clean underwear on when you go out in the car because you never know if you are going to get into an accident and you will have to go to the hospital.

My mother was such an amazing woman and she was so wise and I miss her so much. I remember so few specifics of the many conversations we had over the years… and this is what I remember now? Wear clean underwear?

But of course other memories are flooding our minds right now. Tomorrow would have been our son’s birthday. It is comforting to talk together about little flashback memories that pop into our heads. When he was a little boy, we created a bedtime routine (as advised by Dr Spock, I think) to help avoid problems getting him to bed. Part of the routine was that Richard would put him on top of his dresser and he would leap off into Richard’s arms. And then he would say “One more time…” as a way to prolong going to bed. And so Richard would put him up there “one more time…” and then… and then... time ran out.