Summer Skin and Music

 This is a shout-out to 2027 self, in case I've forgotten how to deal with Summer Skin.
Every summer, I get summer skin.  It starts with the bug bites - mosquitoes, biting flies, and all those damned ticks.  You get a bite, you get a welt, it itches, you scratch, you sweat, it all turns to rashes.  Slather on cortisone cream by the bucket load, and can't sleep for the itching.  Some years I've had scarring that takes months to clear up.
This year, I'm finally keeping it under control - so here you go.

1)  after you're bitten, hit it with a bit of hand sanitizer, followed by benedryl gel.
2)  Inspect yourself, a lot.  Never trust an itch - check it out.  Those damned seed ticks are almost too tiny to see.  Do a good all-over visual before bed (and yes, this means using a mirror to check body parts you'd really rather not see).  Be a good contortionist and go to town with those pointy tweezers.  If it's at a spot you just can't get with the tweezers - that's what fingernails are for.  Gouge that sucker out if you have to - you'll heal.
3) Do more than a visual inspection.  Again - those seed ticks are near invisible, but they can be felt.  Run your hands everywhere you can reach - between the toes, behind the knees, give yourself a scalp massage.
4)  When you shower, don't just lather and rinse.  Give yourself a good scrubdown.
5) a few times a week, soak in a tub of tepid water with a cup or so of baking soda.
6) Sleep in the buff.  Which now feels weird.  For 48 years, Bob and I both slept in the all together, cherishing that skin to skin contact.  After he died, I felt somehow vulnerable and stopped doing that.  Pajamas in the winter, usually a tank top and undies in the summer.  But the skin needs as little stuff touching it as possible, so strip down.

It's a lot, but it works.

Music

For the past few weeks, I've been feeling a sense of deep loss.  Of course - I always feel that; it's just part of my everyday life.  But his has been more so - a grieving for a life gone by.  I bury my face in cuddle pillow at night, and mourn.

What would bring this on?  I realized that it was music.  Last month I wrote about getting a new smart speaker, an Alexa instead of my vintage Google Portal - and then finding out that it couldn't play my YouTube playlists.  I decided that was OK - I usually just have music on in the background while I do dishes or other chores.  My usual command has always been just a simple "Play music" and it played something from my liked lists, or something similar.

When I asked the Alexa to "play music" Amazon must have checked my profile, noted my age, and put on music from the 60s and 70s.   Which was a pleasant surprise - music I haven't listened to in ages.  Joan Baez and Judy Collins, Peter, Paul, and Mary.  Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot.  Al Stewart.

Music can really take you back - it's almost as evocative as a scent.  The Moody Blues- listening in my bedroom, in that beginning-of-my-life time just before graduation and leaving for college.  The Who - snuggling with Bob in the dorm.  Al Stewart's "Road to Moscow" - laughing at it suddenly being Christmas morning 1976, when I gave Bob the record of that  album- then opened my gift of the 8-track tape of the same album.
Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat" - the song we danced to in the hospital.

I find myself curled up at night, remembering.  When I had most of my life ahead of me, rather than behind me

"Ubi sunt qui antes nos fuerunt?" 

Which roughly translates into "where are they now, who were here before?"

I don't remember the names of my high school classmates.  I only remember a few of the names (if I really think about it) of my fellow Pershing Riflemen, once closer than brothers.  Where are the people I used to frolic with in the Creative Anachronism group (at least I still know a couple of them)
It's been 6 1/2 years since I lost Bob.

OK, then.  Nostalgia is fun, but you can't live there.  I'm slowly training Alexa on now-Ann-music.  Stuff I've started listening to in the last 6 years:  Geoff Castellucci, Ramin Karimloo, VoicePlay, the Bass Gang, 2Cellos, Colm McGuiness, Chase Noseworthy.

Because I'm still alive, in the here and now.  My life is quieter, but there is a richness to it, to noticing tiny purple flowers, stepping outside at sunset, hearing the frog songs change with the seasons from spring peepers to the summer chorus of tree frogs.  My favorite hour of the day, tea time, when I sit on the back deck (bundled up in winter, with a fan on in summer) to drink tea and read, with a stack of peanuts for the squirrel, and RiverSong with me, and often the hummingbird.  The light always changing through the trees, and the sound of the wind in the leaves (susurration, a lovely word).  This afternoon I watched a storm roll in (although I've learned to come back inside if the thunder starts after I saw lightening hit a tree uncomfortably close).  I have my cats and chickens to care for.  I have my museum work, which gives me an identity and a place to be.  I have my little cottage, a place devoted to creativity.

And to end on a cute note, our new little owl (unfortunately he did not keep the name Quasi and has been rechristened Pippen).  Owls often enjoy it if you give them a shower with the hose while you're cleaning the habitat.  With his little fuzzy head feathers plastered down, his big eye discs and wonky crossed beak make him look like a surprised nerd.

Rambling

 I had a weird thought the other day.
I've often thought about the "bereavement in isolation"that I had to go through because Bob died just as the Covid shutdowns started.  All of the things that you're told - "don't retreat, don't isolate, spend time with your friends, don't huddle at home, go out " -well, those weren't options.

But it occurred to me that it also helped in the opposite direction, a different way of not feeling so alone.  What you hear/read about all the time is how hard it is after you've gone through the trauma of having your live irrevocably changed - somehow everyone else's life seems to just settle back to normal.  Everything is new and different and frightening for you - you don't even know who you really are.  The rest of the world?  Fine.

So maybe it helped that in that sense I wasn't alone.  Restaurants and stores closed.  People furtive and frightened.  Try to figure out how to go to work, how to school the kids, how to deal with a new and strange life.  It wasn't just me.

I was thinking some more about the fun I had at the con with Rocky and people's reactions to him.  Part of it was that I somehow made the transition from "person with a puppet" to "a puppeteer."   When I finished it, and was practicing, I was practicing the mechanics- how low to the ground to hold it, how the secondary motion of his back three legs were working, how to tilt the body, how to operate the front two arms.  But at the con, it was simply "Rocky is excited, or curious, or nervous" and let his actions show that.  At one point, a couple of girls offered me a trinket (little gifts given to people that you think have really good costumes) of an elastic bracelet.  Before I could say anything, Rocky was reaching his arm up and waving it around, and then danced happily after they put it on him.

I watched an interview with James Ortiz (the real Rocky) who said it's not that hard to learn the mechanics of a puppet.  After that, it's acting - just through a different medium.  So it seems fitting that it looks like he's going to get nominated for an Oscar not for special effects, but as an actor.

Monday, I just sort of collapsed.  There is a thing called "anticipatory stress" and I had both last week - dreading the surgery, and hoping things would go well at the con.  With both of those behind me, and nothing external to motivate me (beyond feeding the critters) Monday was just a zero-energy day.  But now this week I'm tackling stuff.  Sometimes I just get an uncomfortable feeling that there's something I've left undone, things I should tend to.  That's when the to-do list gets written and (hopefully) slowly checked off.  There's always the feeling (probably most people do this) that everyone else has their life in order, and mine is just a chaos of things undone.   On the other hand, my lists probably have stuff that most others don't.  There's the usual "set out ant traps" or "refill the soap dispenser" or "replant the hydroponic herb garden."

But there's also things like "rebuild the front swing."  "Try to get the regulator on Bob's compressor to adjust."  "Grab the chain saw and deal with that tree (another one!) that came down across the upper drive."  One of my guardian gargoyles on a post on the driveway fell off.  He's dangling from his chain, so I have to get the right wrench to free him, and then take him to the barn (he's heavy, so I have put him in the car to drive it to the barn, but that downed tree is in the way) and see if I can repair his broken wing.

I'll churn my way through all that, and hopefully by the the creative gears will start turning again.  Because I really loved getting into the flow again.  It's when I feel the most me.

Tooth, Rocky, Anticipation, Letdown

 It's been a busy few days since my last post on Thursday.

Friday I had my oral surgery to put the anchor in for my implant.  That one hurt even more than the bone graft.  For one, I lost count of how many lidocaine injections it took (at least 6).  And the horrible deep slow grinding sound of the drill going into bone.  The lidocaine wore off a little too quickly; on the drive home I was holding the ice pack to my face at every stop light.

At the periodontists they gave me two ibuprofen and two Tylenol before I left.  As soon as I got home I took a vicodine (well, after checking on the chickens and giving the cats they're "Babies, I'm home" treats - the priorities must be met).  The good part - the pain eased off to a tolerable level.  The down side - between the boatload of lidocaine, the Tylenol/ibuprofen, and the vicodine - nausea set in.  I spent a few hours hoping I wouldn't throw up.
So Friday wasn't fun.  Fortunately, even when the various drugs wore off, the pain wasn't too bad.  No more vicodine needed, and only the regular dose  of the other two.

But me, being me, when I got a text from Suzie that evening with "it's OK to say no, and I know you're not coming in to work - but would you feel well enough to come in mid-morning and bring us some fish?" of course I said sure.  We have a new guest animal- an adorable fishing cat - and for her debut day Suzie wanted her to be seen instead of hiding in the back of the habitat, hence needing live fish for her pool.

I wanted to stick around for the Saturday otter encounter because some of the live fish were also going to them, and that's fun to watch.  And, of course, while waiting I helped to finish the diets and clean up in the kitchen.

By then my mouth wanted to come home.

I still went to the Infinity Con on Sunday.  I had put a lot of work into the Rocky puppet and I wanted to show him off.  He was, shall we say, successful.  If I were to just go on my own, it would have taken me about a half hour to walk around the vendor hall.

It took some two hours.  Every few feet, someone would yell "Rocky!!!"  They would want a picture, or a selfie, or to dance, or to "fist my bump."  A couple of people paid me the high compliment of saying that he looked near screen accurate.  The local maker space had a 3D printed model from the official Project Hail Mary file, and yeah - my guy was pretty darned close.

I was particularly pleased with how I got the complex rock texture on his skin.  I had covered his cardboard frame with Amazon packing paper, which I ripped into pieces and crumpled up before gluing it on.  My experiments with the airbrush included holding it parallel to the surfaces, so that it caught on the edges of the irregularities.  I finished by dry brushing just the top surfaces, and the result is surprisingly good.

After a couple of hours my mouth was starting to throb a bit.  Rocky isn't heavy - about three pounds - but even that can add up over time.  And, of course, with my luck, there had been a heavy rain and when I pulled into my drive there was a tree down and I had to deal with that to get the car to the house.  It's always something. 

But now it's over.  It's been fun for the last month letting myself obsess over the movie, listening to interviews and behind-the-scenes, finding more of James Ortiz's work, practicing with the puppet (he moves surprisingly well).  Now . . . he gets stored with the others (I'll likely hang him from the ceiling).

All this has had me pondering the concept of anticipation - which is often either the best or the worst part of anything (depending on what it is).  I was dreading my surgery - I'm not that fond of pain, and I don't like having stitches in my gums. Which is why when they had a cancellation and I could get it over with three weeks earlier than scheduled, I grabbed it even though it would interfere with the Con (the con would have been a lot more fun on Saturday - that's when all the cosplayers show up).  I was dreading it, and I wanted it done and over with.  I didn't want to think about it any longer than necessary.

Anticipation works in the other direction.  Thinking about something fun coming up is a big part of anything.  Simple things like getting a package.  A vacation, or Christmas.  Being part of a theatre play.  The run up to it is exciting.  If you're lucky, you really enjoy the thing or the event.  And then . . . . it's just over.

So between that, and my mouth being sore, and it being a rainy day - I pretty much did diddly-squat today.  Everybody got fed, and the dishes washed, and the litterboxes cleaned, but that's about it.  For today, that was enough.

July 9

 Once again, it's July 9.  The pivotal day in our lives.  The day that Fiona died and Bob got his diagnosis.

I always associate it with this picture, taken 20 years before that pivotal day in 2019.  Bob and Fiona.  Now they're still together, and they've left me behind.

I usually give myself this day to mourn.  Sometimes I just go back to bed after taking care of everybody in the morning.  Sometimes I read, or just sit, or just be.  Take this day to stop living my double life, with an outside person bopping along, admiring little flowers, dancing to music, while there's a corner of me curled up and sobbing.

Unfortunately, I got text from my periodontist that I had to go pick up some medications in preparation for my surgery tomorrow.  At least while I was out I got myself some yogurt, cottage cheese, and ice cream for the next couple of days.

It's still just so frustrating.  I tried, I really did.  When you're young and in love, you don't think 30 or 40 years in the future.  But somewhere along the line, I realized that I came from a genetic line that had people lasting into their 90s, and Bob from a family that rarely made it to 80.

So.  I made sure that we ate well.  Good food, but healthy.  High on the good stuff, low on stuff like chips and soft drinks and desserts were for weekends.  We used to hike a lot - there are some nice trails just a few miles from the house.  When his knees started to give out (a problem with being larger than the average bear) I suggested that we get kayaks.  When he  discovered that the FSU intramural pool near the museum could be used by anyone, he suggested that on the days that I worked he could come by when I got off and we could go swimming for an hour.  Of course I said yes - but if I'm honest, after being on my feet working for four hours what I really wanted to do was eat something and collapse instead of swimming laps.  But swim we did.

He was one of the healthiest people to check into Shands hospital.  Weight reasonable (face it, he was big).  Lung capacity good.  Heart good.  Stamina good.  Blood pressure good.  Blood sugar good.  Whatever they could test, good.

Eat right.  Get proper sleep.  Exercise.

Die anyway.

Fuck July 9.

Six Month Summary

 Arrrrgh, another frustrating afternoon of technology.  I discovered that another victim of my switch to digital internet is that my wireless printer can't connect.  I don't print that often, so after a few hours of trying everything I just ordered a cable to connect it to my laptop.

Today I cleaned off my work table.  Rocky is officially finished.  I'll miss being that involved.  Hopefully I'll find another project.

Time for the 6 month 2026 summary, or What I Have Done So Far This Year.

My life sometimes feels like that as I walk along, the life behind me quietly crumbles away.  Sometimes I can't remember what I did this morning, much less in the last few months.  And if you were to ask me if I've done anything, I'd say "not much, really."  So it's good to look back and realize that I've done more than sit on the couch, scroll FaceBook, and wait until it's time to go to bed.

So I scanned my blogs so far this year, and there have been some things.  Starting with reading:  21 books so far, of wide ranging topics.

I've made some stuff:  A couple pairs of linen pants, the Forest Walk Shawl, a costume for the Ren Faire, and, of course, Rocky!  I was given a mountain (30+ pounds) of alpaca, which I washed, sorted, and mostly gave away.  I've spun some of it.

I started wearing Bob's ring, which still feels a little strange, like signifying that I'm now married to myself.  But it seems to have given me the strength to let go of things.  I finally did the paperwork for the jeep trailer to officially sell it to Rik (actually, I traded it for a sheep for the museum).  I had to gird my loins for that, because it was in his name, so I had to go down on the paperwork as "surviving spouse" and I hated that.

The kayaks are gone.  I had to admit that even my smaller one was too heavy for me to manage, and kayaking alone is, well, lonely.  Best that they go on to new lives.

The biggest heartache was giving up the jeep.  It will be cared for properly now, but that empty barn still twists me up inside.  With it went Bob's collection of GI water cans, and gas cans.   As long as things were going away, Rik came and got some of Bob's ammunition (enough to supply WWIII and the zombie apocalypse). The room is a bit emptier without those ammo cans.

I went to two plays:  The Play Goes Wrong, and The Midsummer Night's Dream.  I went to a card weaving class, and a drumming class.   I went to the Ren Faire.  I also gave  talk on wool to the Weaver's guild.

A couple out-of-the-ordinary things, like driving a couple of hundred miles to bring a young owl to museum, or helping to dig out a wolf's den.

I had the oral surgery to start my implant (with the next one being in a couple of days).  I also had the Reclast infusion for osteoporosis, which knocked me on my butt for a couple of days.

I finished the 1084 virtual walk of the length of England, and quit doing the walking challenges.  I did a total of five of them in a row, ranging from 100 miles to over 1000.  But it got to be a bit of a slog.  More than that - I kept track of my steps on my phone, and I was starting to feel like I was glued to it.  It's liberating to go check on the chickens, or get my mail, without remembering to grab my phone.

I did some upgrades.  I got a small TV for the cottage so that I could watch how-to videos (or, while working on Rocky, listen to interviews and behind-the-scenes).  I got a new CD player because my vintage one was having problems.  My TV in the house started getting vertical lines down the screen so I replaced it.  And I switched from cable to digital internet (not any better, but less than half the cost).  I got a new Alexa dot (because my old smart speaker couldn't talk to the digital internet)

I learned how to put hubcaps on a car.  I learned (well, the basics) how to use an airbrush.

There were a couple of social outings with the family, the really fun one being when Zeke was coming to Tallahassee for swim camp, and staying in the dorm where Bob and I used to live, and where we got engaged.

There's the Cliff notes for 2026 so far.  Apparently I'm not just sitting at home, waiting for the days to go by.  Not bad.

I Am Roooooocky!

 Well, the Rocky puppet is about finished ("about" because I'll probably keep tweaking him).
I can't remember when I started making him - somewhere around the end of May.  Life kept happening and I'd *think* about working on him, but not much actually got done.  But eventually the momentum picked up.

I've loved working on him.  I did a deep dive into the movie - I'd listen to interviews and behind-the-scenes while I worked.  Rob had printed me a miniature Rocky that I used for a guide.  Could I really make something out of Amazon boxes that didn't look like it was, well, made out of Amazon boxes?  Something that looked like this bizarre alien? Can I learn to use (and clean) an airbrush?

It did get frustrating near the end when I was stringing him up. Marionettes are a pain.  You think you have it balanced, and then you tweak something and it throws everything else out of whack.  It's awkward trying to hold something up, and work on it.  My back staged a protest and I had to walk away.  The next morning I thought to put a couple of sawhorses on my workbench with a pole between them, and the controller bungeed to, so he could dangle at eye level while I worked.

I took him to Gill's yesterday so she could take some videos, and I have to admit - I pretty much nailed it.  I saw where tweaks had to happen (I removed the lower part of his front two legs and rehung them).  But we had a lot of fun.

Rocky knows that humans get excited over football.

And he observed how dogs behave.

The Infinity Con is this weekend, and Mike predicts that I will be mobbed.

And then it's over.  I'll hang him up somewhere.  

The distraction has been good for me.  I've been having fun, giving in to obsession.  But also still feeling that familiar tightness in the chest, that feeling of frustrated helplessness.  The end of June was when Bob got the tests that eventually let to his diagnosis.  Best to stay busy.

There's a blog that I follow (The Gusset) that I have for years, but there was a two-year hiatus after her husband was diagnosed with cancer.  Then she came back.  It's an artsy little blog, talking about tapestry and baskets, and gathering wild materials for projects.  She illustrates it with fun watercolors of her and her dog.  But this one stopped me in my tracks for a moment.  She was talking about the pleasure of eating asparagus on toast while standing at the counter, reading a book.

"I love living alone."  I even commented on that, and we had a short exchange.  As my comment read -how many widows would say that.  Of course, she would want her husband back, as I want Bob.  But that's not an option.  And one option - the one she is exploring, as am I - is to realize that you can enjoy living alone.  Living life on your own terms, learning who you are, without those daily little adjustments that come with another person under the roof.

It can be lonely sometimes, of course.  But if I'm honest - if I can't have Bob, I'd rather be alone with my cats and my chickens and my woods.  I don't want the distraction of another person hanging around.   But we both came to the conclusion that yes - weird as it is to admit it - we enjoy living alone.

I still wish I had the other option.

Falling Carrots, Swim Meet, and Other Ramblings

 I saw a carrot fall from the sky and land a few feet away from me.  That's not a common occurrence, so I enjoyed the Kafkaesque moment before I observed that an enterprising squirrel had stolen a carrot stick from the beaver's habitat, only to drop it when he ran up a tree.

I earned my Good Aunt points last Saturday.  The kids were in town for Zeke's qualifying swim meet and I went to watch for a little while.  Apparently the way qualifying meets work is that you're there for three hours in the morning, of which your own kid will at four various times do his laps, for a total of about two minutes of swimming.  This is repeated in the afternoon, and then again the next day.  The rest of the time the parents sit in chairs and do whatever.  Heat index was 104.  I earned my minimum Good Aunts points by going for the morning three hours, and then treating them all to lunch afterwards.  (BTW, Zeke qualified for his areas, so the kids get to repeat this is other cities, lucky them)

My new airbrush came in, so I went through the learning curve on it.  It's not quite the same as opening a can of spray paint and, well, painting.  You have to thin the paint (and learn how to make the thinning solution).  You have to figure out how much to thin the paint (exactly how thick is milk?).  You have to figure out how to clean the airbrush, and how to make the cleaning solution.  And figure out how to use it.  But it was fun, and the Rocky puppet is now painted and put together, and hopefully tomorrow I'll string him up and figure out how to make him move.

Small sigh.  I keep reading that it's important to have a social life, and to make new friends.  It seems that for me the best way to make a new friend is to go to the cottage and build one.  I had a moment this week -someone posted on the local Maker Space page a question of "Does Anyone Here Make Puppets?"   Bingo!  I immediately posted back that yes, sometimes I make puppets.  And what type was she interested in?   I was set - maybe we could exchange messages.  Maybe get together to talk about puppets and puppet ideas.  Heck - maybe build together.

Or perhaps my comment would be met with the sound of crickets.   At least I tried.

I had another one of the "who the hell am I" moments.  When I realize that I'm not the same Ann as when I was Bob-and-Ann.  I've often talked about rarely having drive myself - I sat and knit, or chatted, and somehow we got where we needed to go.  When I started driving myself, it was strange to try to figure out how to get around in a city that I've lived in for 45 years (granted that it's constantly changing).  But after that morning swim meet,  I followed the kids to their Air BnB so Zeke could change, and we went to lunch together.  Then we went back, and I headed home.  On the way to the BnB, I had noticed a street name, and through "cool - that street will take me to Capital Circle, and then it's a straight shot home."  I used Google maps anyway, and it gave me a slightly different route - and when I saw that street name, my thought was "there's a Wawa gas station on the corner, and I can treat myself to an iced coffee."

Since when do I carry maps in my head?  Who is this person?

Fortunately we don't seem to be getting hit with the massive heat wave that's covering a lot of the country.  We're just having normal heat - which is about the same that everyone else is getting.  I had an interesting thought about it on Tuesday, the day the heat index hit 111.   I had been reading an article about how astronauts have to become re-acclimated when they come to back to Earth.  Not just the physical rehabilitation, but the psychological - too many people, too much stimulus, too much just everything after being in a confined area for months.  The line that got me was "gravity seems like a theatrical performance."

That's how I feel about the high heat - it doesn't seem quite real.  It is, in fact, surreal.  You step outside, and you look around for a fire, or a grill, or *something* to try to see where it's coming from.  Heat like this doesn't just happen, does it?  It feels artificial.  A performance is the perfect way of putting it.

And we're just in what's called the Florida pre-heating stage, so I guess I'd better settle down for a long run.