Tuesday, October 3, 2017

A Used-Up World

There is a chill in the air this morning!  42 degrees here at the coast, where I'm once again sitting up in the World's Best Bed.  It is so much nicer to wake to this freshness, this feeling of a new start and a new atmosphere to start in, than this past summer's sensation of a used-up, leftover, worn-out world, when the morning dawning only brought fat, hot, listless air, warmer than your body, and smelling stale and re-used.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Dishes and Sheets

I'm at the Retirement Home, sitting up in The Best Bed with a cup of strong, hot coffee, and some cinnamon toast (fresh potato bread!) listening to the occasional bird call overlay the deep silence.  It's not that it's really silent, if you concentrate you can hear the distant surf, but in general the constant same sound of surf sort of wipes out the smaller sounds of distant car engines and makes the air feel silent.  If that makes sense.

Mom and Dad have left for Mom's daily radiation treatment -- in Longview,  An eighty mile drive for a five minute treatment  (tooth grinding noises.) 

Fortunately, tomorrow is the last day of this particular round of treatment, and when the next one starts, there will be a radiation treatment center in Astoria, which is less than an hour away.  Mom is beginning to show signs of the treatment -- sort of a wobbliness that is new, and a tendency to lapse into waking-coma -- that is, staring with out-of-focus eyes at nothing until you speak to her.  Could be merely weariness, I don't know, but I'm very sensitive to every little thing -- she's my mama!

I offered to drive her to her appointment today or tomorrow, but she instantly turned me down -- then recollected herself and thanked me politely, but said that she "needs Daddy" to be there with her -- it keeps her able to bear it!  I was hoping that with the passage of time, she would be getting more accustomed to it, and thus more able to bear it, but no.

Even with the worry of Mom and the Cancer Treatment, relaxing at the Retirement Home is so much more relaxing than relaxing at home in the apartment.  Something about the bed, perhaps?  Or the stillness? No traffic noises?  I'm feeling very calm and peaceful.

I've got some dishes to wash, and some sheets to fold, so I'll be on my way rejoicing.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Heroes and Villains

So I'm at the Retirement Home, for the first time in MONTHS, since I've had car difficulties and scheduling difficulties and all -- I think the last time I was here was in April.  And now I have my new Toyota Camry, Opal Whitely, which I was thrilled to drive up here in, and thrilled to show my parents.  

When I arrived, it was still very bright outside, and we began unloading the car, while my dad was looking at various aspects of it and asking questions, and my mother was admiring its cleanliness and beauty.  She sat down in the driver's seat, and awkwardly thunked her elbow against the door frame.  And broke her humerus clean through!

Leaving aside the feeling that her bones must be made of barley sugar, and how can she walk around?  and all that sort of thing, it was a big hairy deal, since a) we did not know what had happened, just that she immediately passed out, and b) when she came to, she was incapable of telling us what was wrong, and she didn't know, anyway; and c) their car was not running, due to a split radiator.  

So, on the one hand, it was perfect timing that I was there, with a new car which had been recently minutely inspected by Mechanic Bob, and was able to assist my dad in getting her up and into the car.  But on the other hand, if I hadn't been there, it would not have happened at all!  So am I the villain or the hero of this piece?

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Forty-five Degrees

In the library where I now am, not my regular-home-library, nor even my every-weekend-and-occasional-other-times library, but a nearly-new-and-almost-foreign library, there is a corner, just one, with two long thin windows on each side of it, sort of facing one another, at a forty-five degree angle, or some sort of degree angle, I guess I don't actually know what the facing-each-other angle is, but the corner is a forty-five degree corner, so I was just guessing.  

Anyway, a few inches beyond the outside edge of each tall thin window is the ten-inch wide end of a bookshelf, standing out from the wall.  It makes a great little sitting and reading spot, which, if I were forty years younger (O my god) I would immediately take advantage of and never leave.  

I would sit cross legged completely inside this little space, lit by two tall thin windows and enclosed by two bookcases, and read to my heart's content.  Even now, forty years older and forty million pounds heavier, I am still tempted to give it a try.  Pretty sure I would fit, but the thought of attempting to arise from my cross-legged posture -- dear me, no.  Horrible idea.  I wouldn’t be able to lever myself properly, and would get completely stuck, or my dislocatable knee would dislocate when I was halfway up, and freeze me, bravely trying not to shriek, in a ridiculous and extremely undignified position.

Sigh.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Dentists and suchlike

I don't remember if I told you or not -- my longtime and beloved dentist retired, and sold his practice to a younger man.  I like the system they have there, but I'm not sure about the actual dentistry.  Perhaps I should say, the actual dentist.  

The man has very large hands!  (he's a very large man, easily six foot six or so). He is very careful and asks me frequently if I am numb, or if I am experiencing pain, (which can only be answered with a yes or no, by the way) but I think the difficulty is with his hands.  He has very large hands, with thick fingers. I'm sure they are very good for all kinds of things, but not for fitting into the mouth of someone, along with a drill, a spray of water, a suction device and his assistants's fingers.  It's been over five hours, and the dull ache in my jaw, face, nose and cheekbones has increased to a dull throb.  I feel I should go home and take anti-inflammatories.

I know most people have far worse stories to tell of their dental experiences, but I have been utterly spoiled by Dr. Belusko, who had thin hands with long skeletal fingers, and who never hauled on my cheeks, facial muscles and tongue, ("Can you get ahold of her tongue and hold it out of the way?") while doing his careful and beautiful dentistry.  Whaa-aa-aah!

Saturday, April 8, 2017

A lovely Saturday

It is the perfect Spring morning!  Warm and breezy, nothing like the chill buffeting winds of yesterday, delicate sunshine, high blue sky, new pale green everywhere... So perfect that no one is on the library this morning!  Of the thirty computers here, five are occupied, and that includes me.

Had a bad night last night -- I haven't been sleeping well for several weeks, but that's usually more or less okay -- but last night was a misery of wakefulness.  At one point, at about two am, I turned the lamp back on, and read for awhile, but so sleepy was I that I mostly just held the book with my eyes closed.  Still could not drop off.  I think it was because I wasn't well in my little tum, and that gave a rather nauseated flavor to all my thoughts, so they all felt bad and anxious and worrisome, and as though today was going to implode into a dreadful day of distress and disaster.

However, when the alarm went off, and I woke, the day was perfectly friendly, and everything that has occurred has been quite lovely. 

I would like to know what the problem is with my sleeping, though.  I mean, I have always had the occasional white night, but as a rule, twice a year was the most frequently that occurred. Not since my bout of insomnia in college has it been this long without an uninterrupted night. 

In any case, it is a beautiful Spring morning, tra-la, tra-la!  My Norwegian friend Marit is already on her Easter holiday, as apparently everyone in her country has two weeks off at Eastertime.  Why don't WE?

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

The rain rain rain came down down down....

The snow started at nine this morning -- much earlier than the four-in-the-afternoon the TV news weatherpersons were predicting.  It was still raining, heavy wet rain, with melty snow mixed in -- dime-sized flakes hitting the windshield, about five or six, splatting wetly over my viewpoint, before the wiper blades wiped them away, and again, and again. 

It didn't feel cold outside, was the odd part.  Still felt warm enough that I am wearing my little coat, my car coat, not the long woolen overcoat I wear in the snow.  Carrying my giant umbrella, but that's just because both my smaller umbrellas have broken spines, so I've got to either figure a way to fix them, or make up my mind to throw them away.  Don't want to throw them away, either of them.  One of them a beautiful royal blue Klimt design that my dear Jessica gave me, years ago, and the other a small compact fold-able one of Black Watch plaid that I just particularly like.  Still, I'm not sure they can be fixed.  Why aren't there umbrella repair shops?  It ought to be very easy to remove and replace a broken spine, and think of all the business you would have!  Perhaps I should learn the art of umbrella repair and open my own place.
Anyway, the snow continued for about an hour, and has now completely stopped.  Still raining, however, very wetly, and mirabile dictu! -- it feels significantly colder than it did this morning.  Isn't that odd?  Unlikely?  Isn't snow merely rain in the cold?  So how does that work?  And another question I have about rain -- the size and velocity of the drops seem to have little or no rhyme or reason to it.  Sometimes a tiny, misty droppage of minuscule drops, other times large fat drops falling without much impetus behind them, other times the drops are driven down as by a powerful wind, but the winds aren't blowing downwards, they are blowing east or west or north or south.  The size and velocity of today's rain has changed several times, and who knows why?  Is it the pressure in the air above?  Do some of them contain particulate matter that are pulled downward by gravity?  Who knows?  (Well, I don't know -- someone does.)
As I finished making one of my clients his lunch today, his roommate Myke blew in from grocery shopping, fresh and wet, with his arms full of bags. 
"It's a very wet day out there," I observed.
"Sure is," he replied, setting his bags down.  "And I love it.  I love the rain in all shapes and sizes."
"Me, too," I said.  "That's why I live in Portland!"
"Yup," he said.  And we smiled at one another.