July 9

 Actually it's July 16 but it's about July 9.

And Hello, 2022 Ann.  It's 2021 Ann with another word dump.  Y'know, I have other stuff to write about - projects I've been working on, books I've been reading, stuff like that.  But somehow I keep getting sucked into brain chaos.  And I've been falling apart a bit lately.  Crying at odd times.  Suddenly again not being able to stand the gaping emptiness of the bed beside me (I remember last year, first sleeping on the couch for a couple of months, and then only being able to use the bed if I piled it with laundry baskets and whatever else I could find.  Remembering the look he would give me, that made me know that in his eyes I was forever 19.

Because July 9 happened again.  Just like it does every year about this time.  This is what I wrote on FaceBook:

Well, it's effing July 9 again. Is it possible to really hate a date? (answer: yes). Check out the picture - 1999, handsome shirtless man holding a kitten (still makes my knees a little wobbly). Twenty years later, July 9, 2019, we're in the vet's office and he's saying he's sorry and we let her go.

Two hour later we are sitting in the doctor's office, and he is saying he's sorry, but it is leukemia.

And I think that pretty much describes a crap day.

(By the way - those two are still together. I mixed their ashes)

And somehow I feel like my life has been on hold since then. For 9 months we had to focus on battling the disease. Then I lost him and simultaneously gained a pandemic.

I think I've done a pretty good job of holding myself together. I have my volunteer work at the museum. I've made new friends (online). I've joined a book club (online). I exercise (to online videos). I maintain my yard and care for my animals (at least that's not on a screen).

But dammit, I miss him. I miss having him to chat with, to laugh with, to cook with, to share meals, ideas, plans, and projects. I achingly miss having someone to touch.

And you have to put the blame for that somewhere, and I blame it on July 9. Screw it.

It's hard to grasp that I've sort of lost two years of my life - I just don't have a grip on it. And the problem is that time doesn't go in a straight line from the past to the future - because of seasons, and dates, it sort of spirals, like a vulture riding a rising thermal, as you get farther away from the past but you circle over it, looking down, seeing my life with Bob get a little further away, and still not being able to see anything in the future [side note: for that I partly blame the damned Covid. It was almost better, with cases almost at 0 and positive rate of less than 2%. But then everything opened up and over half the county hasn't bothered to get vaccinated so the numbers are climbing sharply again]

So Bob was diagnosed on July 9, 2019, and died March 30, 2020, and for those almost 9 months I did absolutely everything I could think of to help him. I fixed all his food according to his allowed diet, went walking and swimming with him, we counted our blessings almost daily to keep a positive attitude, and I spend the last three months in the hospital doing whatever I could.

And July 9, 2020 through March 30, 2021, I relived every damned day of that. Wondering what I could have done more, could I have helped him more, somehow hearing the words of my father [I don't think I've ever mentioned that I have Daddy issues.] "your best isn't good enough."

My best wasn't good enough. (of course, neither was the best of 6-8 doctors, the other doctors they consulted, and a wardful of wonderful nurses).

Some how I made it through that second 9 months, and got a little better after that. But now it's all crashing in again. And I know I can get through it, but dammit, I'm tired. And after 16 months of being alone - I'm getting lonely. Being in a pandemic isn't conducive to getting out, doing new stuff, and making friends.

So, 2022 Self - this is for you, because I don't seem to have anyone else at the moment. (That's not fair - I know I have Amanda and Robert and the kids, and Mike and Margo. But they're not physically here). I'll get through this again, and be stronger and better and try to lay down the foundations of some sort of new life for you.

Tropical Storm (perhaps Hurricane) Elsa

 She showed up on the radar last week, out past Puerto Rico.  Elsa.  A tropical storm that became a hurricane and now is a tropical storm that might be a hurricane in a few hours.  It might strike east of us (looks like Tampa at the moment) but it's wind and might shift.  Who knows? 

And it's been so oddly quiet since she showed up out there.  Bob loved the weather channel (he called it "Old Guy MTV."  And when something like this came along, the TV would be popped onto the weather channel first thing out of bed, and there it would remain.  There would be tension in the air.  His huge collection of 5-gallon GI water cans would be dragged out from the barn and filled, along with a motley collection of whatever other plastic containers that were never thrown away because they might be useful.  The generator would be tested.  Tarps would be at the ready.

So things would feel a little nervous.  Especially with the TV on.  Fear mongering means bigger ratings, so they will constantly stress the dangers of a storm, and even though it was downgraded to a tropical storm, they will still call it a "hurricane watch" because it might turn into a hurricane again.

But me?  The weather channel hasn't been on at all.  The NOAA hurricane site updates its information about every 6 hours, so I take a quick look to see what's happening.  I started prep this morning, after a leisurely breakfast and my usual morning chores.

No mountain of water cans.  I have about a three day supply of water in recycled bottles (for drinking) and a half-dozen buckets in the bathtub filled with water.  Because I'm on a well with an electric pump (and the generator isn't big enough to run the pump), so if I lose power, I don't have water.  So as well as drinking water for me and the various critters, I also need flushing water.  If push comes to shove I can pretend that I'm a bear and go poop in the woods, but I'd rather be more civilized.

I have the big portable battery (the type that can jump cars and inflate tires and be used for a charging station) up at the house and charging.  I've charged all of my devices.  I moved the FIT under the carport (the old faithful Honda is being left in the driveway, with the logic that the two cars should be separated so they both don't get hit by the same tree).  I've reinforced the retaining wall around the chicken coop so hopefully I won't have to shovel too much washed-in dirt out of there.  I brought the plastic yard chairs onto the front porch.  The laundry is done, and in a bit here I'm going to go wash my hair.

In short - if the power goes out for a few days, I'm ready.  I've learned that I don't mind living for a bit without electricity, but lack of water is a real pain in the butt.  I didn't bother with the generator; the only thing we used it for during the 8 days we didn't have power after Hurricane Michael was to try to keep the fridge cold.  Now that I am One Person there isn't that much food stored in it.

So a couple of hours of sort of putzing around and I'm set.  Yes, a tree might fall on the house, but there's not much I can do in advance about that.  I'll deal with whatever happens.

But there will be no staring at the weather channel, no wondering what else we can to to prepare.  Just me.  Probably knitting.

Crows and the Fourth of July

 Bob always liked crows.  It's the closest thing we have to the mythical raven.  In the mornings he would put dry cat food on the tall stump of the oak tree that came down in the hurricane, and call for them.  I can still hear his voice.  "Crooooows, Crows!"

I still do that, and try to match the cadence of his calls.  Normally what happens is that furry little masked bandits think that "Crow" means "Racoon" and they run over to climb up and get a snack.  But sometimes I see the crows flying around and it makes me happy to see them.

I got a thrill last Tuesday.  I put out the food, and actually saw one fly down and get some.  Then, miracle of miracles - she flew back into a tree and fed her demanding fledgling!   Tonight it got even better.  I had been futzing around the house all day and thought I should try to get a walk in before dark.  As I was doing my laps around the property I could hear the crows cawing overhead.  Then I started to believe they were following me.  I went back to the house to get some food and put it out - and sure enough, Mother Crow came down and grabbed food to take to the fledgling.

Don't know why this makes me so happy, but it does.  

It's the Fourth of July, so pretty noisy out there.  People are shooting off fireworks.  I'm assuming that they're gathered with friends and family, eating hot dogs and hamburgers, drinking Cokes and beer.  Sounds like fun.  I don't seem to be involved.   Partly that's my choice - I was invited to go have lunch with the family today (daytime, so no fireworks).  But we've been getting some pretty heavy rains lately, and thunderstorms, and it was raining this morning and just not the sort of thing I like to take a long drive in (it's only 90 miles but it sometimes seems longer).   And I didn't get invited to anything in town.

I've always been something of a loner.  Not necessarily completely by choice; it's just I never seemed to have gotten the knack of making friends.  I find myself thinking of school days, where recess would find me sitting somewhere with a book, and watching the other kids play.  I was one of those that hated PE classes where kids would get picked for teams because I was always one of the ones who got picked last.  And Bob took after his mother (his Dad was hail-fellow-well-met and would make buddies with everyone he met; his mother didn't want anything to do with anybody.  It was an odd combination).  And Bob and I got along so well.  Over time, people that we had been friends with just sort of drifted - not that there was any real problem, just that they were busy if we ever suggested getting together.  After awhile we quit suggesting.  But we were OK with just each other.

I remember a day or two after we realized that he wasn't going to make it. He was resting; I was leaning my head on the windowsill and looking down at our little blue car that would soon be taking me home alone, and thinking "I guess I need to make some friends."   But the pandemic has sort of taken that option away for the last year and change (although I've made some distant online friends, but no anyone to actually physically hang out with).  It's been Alone Time, and I guess it will be for awhile.  But sometimes I do get a little wistful when I realize that people are getting together.  I've tried reaching out a couple of times but people are busy and you get the "maybe later."  Fifth graders are more straightforward and just tell you to get lost but the message is similar.

Enough of that.  Final brain dump of the evening involves the rainy weather we've been having lately and the resulting amount of branches falling out of the trees.  Yesterday I had finished my first-thing-in-the-morning rounds of feeding the cats (and cleaning up whatever damage they did the night before, either knocking stuff over or hacking up hair balls) and going out to feed the chickens.  Then I settle down to my tea and toast and morning FaceBook and suddenly there is a house shaking THWUMP and the peacocks are screaming and the cats are panicking in six different directions and it's obvious that something big has landed on the roof.  Possibly there is damage.  

So I shrug my shoulders, resume reading, finish my tea and toast.  Whatever damage is there will still be there in a half hour.  So pragmatic.   Then when the rain slacks off I drag a ladder to the house, get on the roof, pull off the honkin' big branch that landed (no damage, thank goodness), and as long as I'm there sweep the leaves off the roof, and also clean out the gutters.  Then clean up and put everything away.

There are those who are concerned that I climb ladders and get on the roof and do heavy work with no one else around.  But that's the thing; at the moment the person I have is myself.  And I'm OK with that.   But sometimes it feels a little weird being that OK with it.  

I was listening to music, and "Bless the Rains Down in Africa" came on.  I was struck by the lyrics:

"I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened by this thing that I've become."

Tomorrow Self

 Three in one day.  I have a lot of garbage to dump,

This one is not so junky; it's just a concept.  Not even my concept.  I got it from Adam Savage's book "Every Tool's a Hammer."

It's the idea of Tomorrow Self.  And being nice to Tomorrow Self.

He talked about it in terms of his workshop.  After you've put in a long day of working on something, and you're done for the moment, and tired, and just want to go home, it's tempting just to stop where you are and leave.  You'll clean up tomorrow.

And then Tomorrow Self comes in, and before he/she can even get started on anything, he has to tidy up a bit, figure out where things were left off, decide what needs to be done.  Sort of like having the brakes put on before he can even get started.

So Adam came up with the idea of being nice to Tomorrow Self - as though he was another person who had to pick up where he left off.  Tidy up, put tools away, maybe leave a few notes on the project and what needs to happen next.  So Tomorrow Self can just come in and get going.

I've tried, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to be nice to Tomorrow Self.  To end the day prepared for tomorrow.  To try to make the next day a little bit easier.

And I soon found that I had to invent another persona:  Yesterday Self.  Because sometimes I got tired of catering to Tomorrow Self.  "Screw you, Tomorrow Self - you can just bloody well do stuff for yourself."  So I created Yesterday Self.  If I get up in the morning to make my tea, and don't have to rinse yesterday's tea leaves out of the French Press, I say "Thank you, Yesterday Self."  Same for not finding a sink of dirty dishes, or being able to grab a pair of matching socks.

It may be silly, but hey - whatever puts one foot in front of the other.

And that's why I'm writing all this - sort of a letter from Today Self to Next Year Self.  Because Today Self is having some problems.  Last Year Self was doing well simply to survive.   So much physical and emotional exhaustion.   All I asked of myself was to get through the day.

But now I have to go on from here.  I think this sudden sturm und drang is from the pandemic dropping off.  I've had an excuse not to do anything.  But just in recent days I went to the Infinity con, and then out to dinner with friends.  Possibly I'm freaked out a little from this.

So all this word barf is a message to Next Year Self.  Because I have to believe that Next Year Self will be in a better place, and somehow she is thinking "there, there, 2021 self.  Hang in there.  It will be all right. Have faith in yourself."

Dream, Part II, and Memories

 Wow.   Two posts in one day.  Will admit that this one is wine driven.  Again, don't know why I am driven to do this brain data dump.  I just have all this crap that I need to get out.  And someone doing it this way is more public than my grief journal, less public than FaceBook (because God knows that the last thing I need is an impersonal "like" response to any of this.)  And this is a message to Next Year Self.  When I look back and see where I was.

I think I missed an important part of my dream. I was wearing a sheer fluttery red shawl.  I realize I was wearing a cape.  

Since childhood, a symbol of strength.  Because, dammit, whether or not I want to be, I am strong.

I was strong for Bob, held his hand, sometimes walked him away from a bedside, when his mother died in April 2008, and then his father in December 2009.  I took care of him.

Fast forward three years.  My mother (my closest friend, the one person who completely understood me, perhaps even more than Bob) is on her last trip to the ER.  Septic UTI.  I'm in the room with her - the nurse needs to put in a catheter and Mom is fighting her.  The nurse looks at me; I ask what I need to do.  She says that Mom needs to bend a knee so that she can get the catheter in.  I slide an arm under Mom's shoulder, giving her a hug, saying "I'm sorry, Mommy.  I wish you could understand."  Then I slide a hand under her knee and pull it up while she screams.

I never wanted to be that strong.

A few days later I'm talking with the doctor in the hospital.  She wants to do a cutdown to drain Mom's lungs, which will prolong her life.  I'm thinking "will she be able to go back to the apartment with Dad?" No.  Will she be able to get out of the wheelchair and walk."  No.  "Will she get her mind back and be able to think clearly again."  No.

So I look at the doctor and say, "No."  We move her to hospice.  Neither Dad nor Bob has the strength to visit her there.  Michael is in Boston; offers to come down, but there is really nothing she can do.  I move into the hospice house and live with her for the last three days, holding her hand when she dies.

I never wanted to be that strong.

Fast forward three years.  Dad had moved into the nursing home, wanting nothing more than to finish this life, but his body hasn't gotten the word so it takes too long  Finally the day comes that his mind is wandering, and his lungs seem to be clogging.  The nurses at the home ask if I want to have him sent to the hospital, get X-rays, possibly medication.  Again, I say "No."

I get the call at 4:00 a.m. that it is over.  Before we head out the door I grab a suitcase because I have been going to the nursing home 4-5 days a week for almost three years and I don't want to ever go there again.  The funeral home has sent a man to take his body; Bob waits outside while I assist in moving him to the body bag.  Then I methodically take the few things in his room - the family pictures on the walls, his watch and rings, bits and pieces that are all that's left of a long life.

I never wanted to be that strong.

Fast forward three and a half years.  Bob might possibly survive - if he has his infected pick line taken out and a new one installed on the other side of his chest.  Lots of drugs - antibiotics, anti-fungal, anti-viral (all of which interfere with each other).  Dialysis for possibly the rest of his life.

So I say No.

I never wanted to be that strong.

But I am.  Wherever I go, whatever I do - playing with the cats, working in the yard, building one of my creations, working at the museum, chatting with my friends - invisible to all, I feel the weight of that red cape. 

Dreaming

Dream time

 From time to time I try keeping a dream journal.  I'll write down a few, then skip for awhile (sometimes for years) and write a few more.   I was very intrigued by Adam Savage's art piece that he made of a dream journal.

Adam Savage's Dream Diary Sculpture - YouTube

But my dreams seem to come in just bits and pieces, nothing coherent, and usually the memory is gone even as I'm trying to write it down.   I do write down fragments with Bob in them, in my grief journal, but those are just moments.

But this morning I woke up from a dream, thinking "this is important."  So I jotted it down; now I'm trying to remember details.

I'm near or on campus.  By myself. I’ve done with whatever I’m there for (no idea).  It’s early.  I decide to go to the campus coffee shop and read my book for a bit.  (not sure if this detail means anything, but I’m younger – maybe in my 40’s, wearing black and a filmy red shawl).  Walking there, I notice that something is going on in the quadrangle. There is a table with a lot of display items on it, and an informal lecture.  I listen for a bit, then continue towards the coffee shop.  There are large tables and backboards set up but all covered up in heavy shipping blankets.  Obviously something is going to be happening later so I think I’ll come back after my coffee and check it out to see if anything is interesting.  One does have a poster of belly dancing but the others have nothing, not even a flyer.   I start to leave the quadrangle, then realize that I’m lying down and have passed out.  I struggle to my feet, but it’s hard and I’m weak, but eventually I stand.  No one (there are only a few people there) has taken any notice of me.  I keep walking but suddenly there are no buildings around; I’m in a rocky wilderness.   Then I wake up.

And feeling like this is important (important enough that I jotted some of it down before even feeding the cats (and they let me know about it) and now I’m writing this before doing any of my morning routine.

What is my subconscious telling me?

1)     I’m alone.  I get that.  It’s my life at the moment.  I’m not being a drama queen, and I know I’m not Alone with a capital A.  The way it came to me is that I do have many people at my back, just none at my side.  No one even noticed when I was lying down and having trouble getting back up.  I also get that – I have plenty of days where it’s still a struggle, but I don’t talk about them because I sound like a broken record, and no one else can help me back up anyway.  This is my journey (an aside – I was talking to a co-worker at the museum yesterday, and mentioned that in less than two years I’ve lost five cats, two friends, and my husband, and three other friends have moved out of the area.  No wonder I feel a bit alone). And I’m actually OK with exploring being alone – but sometimes it does edge over into being lonely.

2)  Now that pandemic restrictions are lifting (I’m not talking legally; the numbers are dropping and it’s getting a little safer to be out) I realize that I’m losing my excuse for staying at home to myself.  With my genetics, I probably have another 20 good years in me and I should Do Something.  And unlike almost everybody else, I have Plenty of Time on my hands.  I should do something, or learn something, or even get involved in something.  I just have no idea what.  Referring to #1 above, I realize that I’m still shell-shocked and disengaged.  Partly because of loss, partly because of pandemic restrictions.   I think this is why the tables were not merely draped, but covered in the heavy shipping blankets, with nothing to hint at what they were (except for the dancing one, I think because I’ve done that in the past).

But when I walked away from them is when I collapsed.  And when I got back up and did walk away, I found myself in barren wilderness.

Yes, this dream may be been important.  Just have to figure out what to do with this information.

 

 

 

May His Memory Be A Blessing

 If/when in 2020 anyone would ask me how I was doing, I would say I was OK.  Hanging in there.  Moving forward  One foot in front of the other.  Staying Strong.

Which was a huge load of BS.  There was no way that I was OK.  Six months in I was wondering how the hell could someone hurt that long and that hard and still be alive.  But I was functioning.  That was how I defined OK.

I was screamingly (literally - living out here I could scream if I wanted to, and I did) achingly lonely.  I tried to look and act normal, not needy.  For awhile, the house was cleaner than it had ever been before (I'm just not a great housekeeper) so that I would be prepared for people to come see me, to keep me company, to see how I was doing.

Well, Pandemic, right?  The number of friends who visited me that first year was . . . let me count . . . one.  Our friend Kim come to town to go for a hike.  (That number has risen to one more so far in 2021 - a friend came by to pick up some stuff and visited for awhile.)

I tell a lie - true as far as friends go.  But my niece and nephew drove up for a visit several times.  Until I started discouraging that, because Amanda was training to be a respiratory therapists, meaning she was exposed to this Covid crap all the time.  Seemed safer to stay apart.

The last couple of months of 2020 and the first three months of 2021 were brutal.  Because you can't help thinking of all the first anniversaries - first Thanksgiving (that at least was spent with some friends), first of my birthdays alone, first Christmas alone, first New Year's Eve alone.  Followed immediately by all the first anniversaries  of The Final Three Months.  Day by day I couldn't help but relive what had happened the year before.  

And that's over now.  No more first anniversaries.   And now I'm coming to terms (and which all of this recent word barf is about) with the fact that I am, indeed, OK.  My basic Ann-ness is asserting itself.  I am a little uncomfortable with that - I mean, how can I be OK without Bob?

I'm lonely, yes, but that feels natural now.  I do enjoy my museum work twice a week, and have even seen people outside of work a couple of times and enjoyed that too - but I'm not desperate for it.  Eating alone seems normal, too.  I remember last year that some days I would go all day without eating just because I couldn't tolerate the idea of eating yet one more meal by myself.  Now I'm fine with it.  I still don't like grocery shopping - but my hands don't shake and I don't have to suppress the urge to cry anymore when I'm buying enough for one person.

I play music and sing along and sometimes dance.  I love on the cats.  I hunker down to watch the bees in the wildflowers, and listen to the high screeching complaint of a fledging barred owl who is upset that mama is making him fly (it took me a few days to figure out what that sound was).

I'm starting to feel a little like a poser, especially if I'm around people who didn't know Bob.  Last year I felt defiant, claiming that I still "identified" as being married.  But I'm not.  I was married, past tense.  I still wear my rings.  I still use the term "we" and "our" a lot (referring to example, our land and the cats and anything that happened before 2020).  But it's starting to feel a little strange.   I'm just Ann, not Ann-and-Bob.  (it was usually the other way around.  We would tell people that the easy way to remember our names was to think of the Beach Boys song "Barbara Ann."  Only it was Bob Bob Bob, Bob and Ann).

The title of this post is a Jewish saying, May His Memory Be a Blessing."  I had always thought of it as just a saying, a thing one says at funerals, the equivalent of "may he rest in peace."   But it is having a greater depth of meaning to me now.  I miss him.  It hurts that he is gone.  But I had him in my life for 48 years.  That laugh, that look, those strange non sequiturs he'd come up with.  The gentle way he could hold a small animal (as opposed to the terrified way he would hold a baby).  The proud love he had for his family.  So much love.  The way he enjoyed life - the scent of a flower, or a good meal.  The way he could defuse a tense situation.  The way he could somehow understand what a person was saying, even if they didn't speak English.  So many memories.  I wish I had known him longer, but I'm happy in what I was given.

His memory is a blessing.

Time Management and Whatever Else

 This will be some serious word barf.  My mind is running around - not even in circles, because even that has some sort of organization to it.  It's just bouncing around.  The wine didn't (or doesn't - I'm still drinking it) help.  I keep thinking about 2019 Ann vs. 2021 Ann.  A lot of me is still me.  A lot of me is different.  For one - I do drink more.  Not to excess - mostly wine, and rarely more than two glasses a day.  But frequently.  It keeps me from stressing over Things Not Done.

But before I start - I have a Thing To Do.  Yesterday I built a separate section to the chicken scratch yard, because the new chicks I got last March are ready to be introduced into my older flock, and you don't just dump new chickens in with old unless you want to pick up some pieces and have a couple of chicken funerals.  Chickens are cute but they have a nasty side.  I don't leave chickens in the scratch yard at night because although I've tried to raccoon-proof it as much as possible the little masked bastards can sometimes get in.  So I put the new ones out during the day - and now that it's dark my slightly wine-addled self has to go catch them and bring them back to their old home on the back deck. 

OK - chicken wrangling done.  Where was I?  One - why am I doing this.  It's so that in six months or a year from now I can look back and see where I was.  June 2019 - writing about pink fuzzy baby vultures.  June 2020 - writing about grief.  Quite the change there.

Actually, I've been wanting to write about time management, and my lack thereof.  There's this part of me that thinks I should be Doing Something.  I mean - currently, I seem to have what so many people lack, and that is Plenty Of Time.  I just don't seem to be able to grab hold of it, or know what do do with it.  Recently I spent a week or so in the evening transcribing a novel.  It was one I wrote in 1985, and my Egyptian friend (yes, I seem to have an Egyptian friend - will write about internet connections in a later post) wanted to read it, and all I had was a hard copy.  I loved transcribing it.  It took me back to remembering happy times.  I had taken an individual study on Gothic Literature  - it was the last term before I graduated, and the retirement term for the professor, and we just wallowed in "junk" literature and had a marvelous time.  And rather than just write critical essays, he had me write my own novel.

Looking back, I wonder How the Hell Did I Do That??  I would have been about 33 years old (finishing up an abandoned bachelor's degree).  I was working full time.  I had what is now called a side hustle of being a belly dancer for the Singing Tallygram Company.  I was taking another class in folklore, which, among other things, had a final project of finding a group of some sort and collecting their cultural folklore. I was still active in the Society for Creative Anachronism group.  And then this study with Dr. Goodman, where I read 9 (or was it 10?) novels *and* wrote a bloody book.

These days I'm lucky if I put away a load of laundry.

Honestly, I'm doing OK.  I have my head more-or-less screwed on straight.  But 2021 is almost halfway over and I don't know what I've done with it.  Some days I look at the kitchen sink and realize that there are two day's worth of dishes and cat food cans sitting in it.  

Years ago I saw a phrase somewhere - "He who does as he lists, becomes listless."  Part of my problem is a complete lack of accountability.  Thank God for my two days a week at the Museum - it does give some sort of shape to my existence.  Otherwise my only motivation is my own.  The house can get cleaned - or not.  Same for maintaining the yard.  Heck - I could skip showering or changing underwear for 5 days a week and it wouldn't matter to anyone, because I don't have any physical human contact.

Maybe a bit too much freedom?

Quite often I go to bed at night with the feeling that I've left something undone.  I still sort of panic realizing that I haven't brought the cats in.  I have to remind myself that I no longer have cats that go outside (BTW - Hamish is doing fine).

Deep breath.  I was going to talk about time management.  It gets away from me.  I'm putzing around and realize that it's 2:00 or 3:00 and maybe I should eat some lunch.  Then suddenly it's 6.  Or 11. [And I just interrupted this ramble because I got an itch on my forehead and realized I had an effing tick embedded in it.  Went to find tweezers to yank that out, and on the way found that one of the cats had the runs on the carpet and cleaned that up.  I'm back now].  I know that people that are trying to get a track on how much they're eating or spending are told just to keep a log of everything they eat or spend.  I thought I'd try that on how I'm spending my days, to find out where the time sinks are.  That lasted one day because I felt like I was nagging myself - and besides, I know where they are.  Big one - Facebook.  I check it a dozen times a day.   Because I really miss just everyday chit chat.  I can go days without talking to anyone.  So I look at FB - what the puppet makers are making, what the spinners are spinning (I scroll past anything political or annoying), what the Ramin Karmiloo fan pages are fanning about (the guy has about three projects going at any given time so there's a lot to fan about).  Just chit chat. Background noise. Keeps me from feeling too lonely.   Next is playing simple computer games - Suduko or solitaire.  Sort of mindless.  Third is lying down.  Once or twice a day I just give up and go lie down.  I cuddle a pillow (talk about a throwback to adolescent years) and remember what it was like to have been held and loved.  That's not as sad as it sounds - it really does make me feel better.

And that's it for tonight.  If I was going anywhere with this, I've lost track of it.  As I said a couple of posts ago, I'm going to be doing some word barf to clear out my brain.  Garbage data dump.

Went Out Into The World

 I went to Infinity Con on Sunday.  It's a small local con, mostly for the gaming/cosplay community.

I really debated this - both internally, and on Facebook, where I got input in both directions. 

I've been "following the science" for over a year now.  The science that said stay away from people, wear a mask if you have to be around people, limit indoor activities - because there is an invisible thing out there that could make you seriously ill (with repercussions that could last for months) or even kill you.

So I've been good.  There are times when I would have loved to go grab lunch somewhere, or go to the Shakespeare in the Park, or the Art in the Park.  Because this "bereavement in isolation" has been effing *hard.*  I've read all the suggestions for handling bereavement - which say don't isolate yourself, get together with your friends, go out and do something, maybe try something new.  All of those things to help me heal - and which were forbidden by the CDC.

So I'm a mess.   But I've gotten used to it.  It's my way of life now.  It's like having an operation, and then not doing the physical therapy afterwards, and developing scar tissue that keeps you from moving.

And now the science - which I've been following - is telling me that the invisible killer is backing off a little.  That it's reasonably safe to move.  It's hard to wrap my head around it.  My friend Joe Fisher coined the term CRAP - Covid Retro Anxiety Paranoia. 

So was Covid-caution a reason to deny myself going to the Con - or an excuse?  

I decided it was an excuse.  So I went.  And I had a blast.

I've been talking (online and phone) to friends about feeling sorry for people in the entertainment industry because this Covid is hurting their souls.  Entertainers entertain - it's who they are.  I was listening to an online concert - and the singers were saying that there are three parts to it - the music, the singers, and the audience.  And a third was missing.  They were making beautiful music, and saying that they hoped someone would listen.   And people would.  In a couple of weeks, after it had been edited and posted, there would be written comment - the equivalent of a thumbs-up.  Somehow not the same as having a live audience applauding and waving their phone lights (remember the Old Days when people would hold up their cigarette lighters?)

And now I realize why I have such sympathy (because, honestly, in real life I don't go to concerts or theatre that much).  It's because I Am A Maker.  I make things.  And what makers do it make stuff, and show it to people, with luck to other makers - who go oooh and ahhhh and how did you do that and if you're lucky ask you how you did it and show you how they made whatever and you exchange ideas.  It's why Bob would go to Jacksonville or Georgia to a scale model conference - just to meet other modelers.

Making something cool and then setting it on a shelf (maybe posting it on Facebook and getting some likes) isn't the same.  And last year I made a really nice dragon puppet.  Which very few people have seen.

I took a deep breath, loaded Dragon into the car, and went (I even made a mask that matched the dragon).  Con are fun; they are not like other gatherings because there is an air of make-believe to them.  It's perfectly acceptable to walk around with a dragon and find yourself chatting with SpiderMan or Harry Potter.  It's an opening to talk with strangers without any awkwardness.  I had a delightful chat with a young woman, dressed in pink with kitty-cat ears and tail about her hobby (and small business) of going to pet shops to get animals that had died of natural causes or gathering remnants of road kill (competing with vultures) to preserve and sell them (really wish I gotten the name of her Etsy shop but I think she doesn't do it anymore).  She did it with respect - regarding it as letting their life continue.

I also got the same feeling with the Dragon (Cerridwen) as I do at the museum when I walk around with an owl.  One, to be honest, it's an ego boost - I am the Person With The Owl (or Dragon).  But the other is that it becomes a random gift to people.  At the Museum, people know that there is a place they can go to at 11:30 or 1:30 and someone will bring out an animal and talk to it.  But it's quite another thing to just be walking around and suddenly be face-to-face with an owl.  Or a dragon.  It's that little bit of magic, that sudden "oooooh" that people give.  I love those moments - it's like giving a gift.

So yes, people took pictures of Dragon, and selfies, and wanted to pose with Dragon.  I was even the feature picture for the newspaper coverage.   I talked with creative people.

I had fun.  There hasn't been much of that in the last year.  Nice to know it's still possible.

Another Farewell

 And here is the post I meant to write yesterday.  Things got sort of complicated with Hamish.  I was driving two round trips to the vet (100 miles total) daily to see him.  So that sort of overshadowed the important event.

Apache is gone.

A dozen or so years ago he came into the yard, climbed up my leg and into my arms.  Obviously someone's throwaway cat who saw our hobo sign.

I always had mixed feelings about Apache.  I loved him, of course.  He was our sweetest and friendliest cat.  Our other cats tend to disappear if they see a stranger; Apache would try to get adopted. He even loved on the vets.  He would have been a favorite cat except for one major character flaw.  A big one.  He was a Piss Cat.  Remember the cat on the TV series Red Dwarf who would walk around spraying (in his case, with a can of spray paint) going "this is mine, this is mine, don't want that, this is mine."  Well, that was Apache.  No wonder he was thrown away.   Would just walk around casually spraying everything.  Including, on several occasions, one of us. (Getting him neutered didn't help)  So he mostly lived outside and just came in at night.  Even then you'd have to be careful because he might come over to rub your ankles and next thing you know - wet pants legs (if you were lucky enough to be wearing pants).  I took to picking up him and carrying him around in the yard to avoid that problem, which he loved.

I think after awhile he must have thought his name was "Goddammit, Apache."

Not long after Bob was diagnosed (July 2019), Apache got sick. Non regenerative anemia.  But steroids helped and he hung in there.  Pookha developed congestive heart failure and we lost her, but Apache soldiered on.  We were gone for the three months in 2020, but my housesitter was able to get the pills in him and he was still around when we came back.

So you end up having the thoughts that you really don't want to have.  Young and strong Wilhelm simply disappeared one night - and Apache sprayed on.  Nazgul took sick - likely cancer - and I lost him.  And kept mopping up after Apache.

Starting about 3 months ago he started dropping weight.  Thyroid acting up, so now he got two pills a day.  Increased the dose after a while - helped slow but not stop the downward spiral.  He got thinner, bony, got tired easily.

And stopped spraying.

Last Wednesday night I came home from visiting Hamish.  It was looking bad; he was going to have a transfusion after I left.  I was in the den, watching Apache's skeletal frame heaving with each breath.  He was still sweet, still head butted and purred.  I had hoped that he could hang on until the Hamish crisis was over, but I realized that wasn't being fair to him.  So Thursday, in between my Hamish trips, I took him in for the final farewell.

It's so odd to no longer have any outside cats.  I know that it's more dangerous for them, but I loved coming home and have a cat (or two) trot out to greet me.  Being followed around when I fed the chickens.  Having company in the garden.  And despite the dampness problem, and the endless cleaning up, I do miss him.  Very much.

God speed, my furry friend.

Big Scare

 Now it be June.  I had been planning on writing a post about time management - something I've had a lot of trouble with in the past year.  Haven't managed to have organize my time enough to do it.

But it was a rough week.  For a couple of days Hamish had been acting a little odd - hanging out in the truck in the carport rather than his usual place on the deck.  Not really anything to panic about.  And his frenemy Apache had been going downhill (will talk about him in a moment) so I thought that might be causing it.  Saturday (May 22) he opted to sleep in the house all day - which is unusual.  Sunday he developed a fever.  OK - cats do get infections.  Take them to the vet, get an antibiotic shot and some follow up pills, problem sorted.  So Monday I take him to the vet (still the Covid procedure - I sit in the car, they get the cat, and then call me to consult).  They call - they think it's a parasitic infection called bobcat fever (yep - transmitted from bobcats to domestic cats via ticks). Cytauxzoonis felis.

Often fatal.  They suggest I take him to the emergency vet across town.  We went there.  He had a 50-50 chance of survival if I was willing to spend a boatload of money (I was).  So my routine for the rest of the week became 1) get up, 2) feed everybody, 3) drive 45 minutes to the vet to go see him.   They are very lovely and would give me a private room to visit for an hour or so.  This would give him a chance to get out of the cage, away from people and the other caged animals, get off the IV, remove the cone of shame, walk around, get some love, etc.   Drive the 45 minutes home.  Repeat in the afternoon.  Five hours a day driving and visiting, just to keep our spirits up.

He went downhill.  Wouldn't eat.  There was some talk of surgery and a feeding tube if this continued.  Wednesday his hematocrit was down to 9% (flashbacks to looking at Bob's bloodwork).  Time for a transfusion (more flashbacks).

Thursday.  The transfusion helped.  He nibbled a little food.  Both trips.

Friday.  A corner had been turned.  He didn't eat much, but he did with enthusiasm.  The vet came in to talk with me - if I was willing to hang around for some paperwork, I could take him home and continue his meds there.  Hell, yes!  I would wait until aforementioned hell froze over to take my friend home.

So he's on meds 3x a day.  And no longer allowed outdoors (now that I know that my local ticks carry that parasite).  But I took him in today and his bloodwork is nearing normal and he's going to be OK.  The vet (Thank you, Dr. Potter!) was happy.  He doesn't often get a win with this.

We won this time.  I didn't lose a friend this time.  At least, not this friend.  Because this post wasn't supposed to be about Hamish.  Must write the next one.

Word Barf

 I just found out that the German word for armadillos is "panzerschwein" - tank pig.  It was the question on final Jeopardy last night (and I was very pleased that I figured it out).

And with that I'm trying, once again, to return to the blog.  Why?  For me.  I miss it.  I started off my first blog as an easy way of sharing my life with my parents and some friends.  This was long before FaceBook.  And Bob enjoyed it.  Something would happen, or we'd take a good picture, and the question would be "is this blog-worthy?"  It was a way of recording the highlights of our life.

The parents are gone, as is Bob.  And with FaceBook (and instagram, and whatever the hell everything else is) no one reads blogs anymore.  But I want it.

    In 19th century Russia we write letters, we write letters

    We put down on paper what is happening in our minds

    Once it's down on paper we feel better, we feel better

    It's like some kind of clarity when the letter's done and signed

So go the lyrics to a song from the musical "Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812" which Google Music decided I would like (and I do).

When Bob was close to finishing a model, we would set up the little photo booth and take a bunch of pictures, which he would then pull up on the computer to study, even though he could look at the model itself right in front of him.  By creating that step of separation, he could stand back and look at it as a judge might, seeing what was really there rather than what he thought.  He could see little mistakes, perhaps a fingerprint, a piece askew.

That's what I want to do - take a step back from my life and get a perspective on it.  My earlier blog posts were basically essays.  I would think about what I was going to write, maybe do a draft, tidy it up.  Now, at least for now, it seems like too much effort.  I just have a lot of crap to get out of my head.  There's a book called "The Artist's Way" (of which I can't currently seem to find my copy) that her first exercise was called the morning pages.  You were supposed to start each morning by writing three pages.  Nothing pretty, nothing organized, just something to clear the garbage out of your head.

My friend Los (who lost his wife Ellen last September), has every day, without fail, written on FaceBook a long, rambling, stream-of-consciousness post as he is trying to remember every moment of his life with her.  But we are also getting glimpses into his healing.  I don't want to be that public.  But journaling is almost too private (although I still write in my grief journal, especially if I've dreamed of him).  Besides, I type much faster and more legibly than I write.   And I'm going to try doing that for awhile.  Word barf.  Type whatever I'm thinking.  See what it's showing.  Get this swirling story that is my life out of my head and then pick through the bits.  2020 was about shock, and grief, and survival.  2021 is about learning about who I am, as a single person.

And that's enough for the first post. 

Finishing Out 2020

 And now it's nearing the end of January.  No post since October 10.  In that one, I said a lot had happened between that post and the previous one.  Now I don't remember what.  Maybe the new deck.  I'll talk about that in a minute.

Losing Nazgul, so soon after losing Wilhelm (and a couple of chickens died, as well) about finished me off.  To the extent that even though I said no, Robert and Dane drove up to see me, as he put it "we are going to put our eyes on you."  At one point I sort of lost it, saying "I just need to be able to breathe."

And that didn't happen,  Four days after I lost Nazgul, a young friend (39) suddenly died of a heart attack.  Ellen and I were not close friends; her husband and I used to do programs together and she and I met through him.  She was finishing a Ph.D in marine biology, was a talented belly dancer, and a very creative and skilled costumer.  A couple of weeks before she died, I was talking to Los (her husband) and he was concerned about her because the Covid isolation and not being able to hang with her friends was wearing her down.  I invited her to a virtual tour of my cottage; we ended up talking for over two hours.  She was planning on starting an on-line crafting group (I looked forward to that) and we talked about maybe collaborating on some projects.  And then she died.

One thing good came out of this for me.  No, "good" is not the right word.  It wasn't good.  Important.  It was important.  I went to see Los, and we sat on a bench for a couple of hours and held each other and talked and cried.  By then, it had been six months since I lost Bob.  And it was the first time that I had been held.  There had been a few (very few) quick hugs, but that was all.  I needed that so desperately.  So although I was the one doing the holding and the consoling, it also met that need in me.   Los and Ellen had been planning on moving home to California, so he left less than a month later.  I miss him.

And slowly the year closed out.  I kept things quiet.  Some friends had me over for a (small and safe) Thanksgiving.  My birthday came and went.  I spend a quiet solo Christmas.  Of course the family asked me to come visit, but I wasn't up to it.  The main thing I wouldn't have been able to face would have been the lonely drive home to a house without Bob.  (After much internal debate, I kept our tradition of making meat pies to have with sherry while watching "The HogFather."  I also made a small amount of fruitcake, simply because I have done that for Christmas for some 55 years now)  Same for New Year.  There is also the Covid to contend with.  Amanda works as a respiratory therapist with Covid patients.  Visiting the family would have made a gathering of  7 people - that's more than I ever hang out with even at work (which is the only place I hang out with people.  As my brother so succinctly put it - "you live alone in the woods.  If you get sick, you're screwed."

I might be the only person who didn't want 2020 to end.  Because even though one day follows the next and there is no natural point to say "this year, next year, last year" it is the way we think of it.  And 2020 is when I lost Bob.  I've been moving away from him.  "He died two weeks ago" moved to "he died 8 months ago" and now officially it's "he died last year."  Los called me from California on New Year's Eve to talk about it - neither of us wanted to move solo into the new year.  But we have no choice.

I think about the things that Bob missed in this massively insane year.  He died just as the pandemic was setting in - no one had any idea that it would last more than a few weeks.  He never knew about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matters movement.  He never knew that we lost Wilhelm and Nazgul.  He never knew about the utter insanity that was the election and the aftermath of that.

He doesn't know, that for his sake, I'm doing OK.  I crash, and pick myself back up.  I'm still volunteering at the Museum (it's my lifeline).  I've kept up the house.  I even designed a new deck and had the old one torn out when it was getting rotted enough to be dangerous.  I've kept the yard under control.  Just for fun, I made an amazing dragon puppet (I'll post pictures later.  Somehow I want this post to remain solemn.)

I do not know what 2021 or the following years will bring.  I'll try to figure out my life, to move forward rather than just surviving.  But I will end with a post I did on FaceBook on New Year's Eve.  Because no matter what - I have to keep dancing.

Only a few hours of 2020 left. I might be the only person hanging onto it, heels dug in, nails clawing, not wanting to let it go. Because this is the last year that I was married.

The first three months of 2020 was brutal. Then it turned into a complete dumpster fire.

And I can't let it go at that. I have to hang onto something of 2020. And it's this: In the hospital, at Shands. After a bone marrow transplant patients are encouraged to exercise, to walk, to keep the blood circulating and to convince the body that more needs to be made. But Bob got sick and developed a fever, so he wasn't allowed out of his room. We were determined, though, so we paced the floor of his room, 12 feet up, 12 feet down, over and over again. To ease the boredom, we put on music. "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart, a favorite song of his came on, and he reached for me, put his arms around me, and we started dancing. Twirl and swing and dip. Possibly a kiss or two. At one point he whispered "look at the window."

He was referring to the observation window at the nurse's work station (we lived in a goldfish bowl). Quite the little crowd had gathered, nurses and staff, smiling and laughing and applauding. They had never seen anyone dancing and happy up there in the ward.

So that is what I will take with me. I don't know what will happen in 2021, but in 2020 - we danced.