New Year's Day

 Yes, I think of March 31 as New Year's Day.  My former life ended on March 30.

So I got off the couch.  I even stripped off and washed the slipcover.

Stepped on the scales.  This is normally part of my morning routine that I stopped along with everything else for three days.  Man, it does not take long.  Three days of lying on the couch almost 24/7, living on coffee cake, Nilla Wafers, cheesecake, the ultimate comfort food of mac & cheese made with genuine Velveeta, and as much alcohol as my stupid acid reflux would let me drink - I'm up 4 pounds in three days.  Today it was oatmeal/yogurt bread for breakfast, a quinoa bowl with vegetables  for lunch, and roast broccoli and sauteed chicken will be dinner.

I'm calmer.  I'm dropping some "I shoulds."  There's a circus in town this weekend - I should go, to do something different.  But I don't want to, at least not by myself.  I have nothing to prove; I've done a lot of stuff in the last few months.  The weaver's guild meeting is tomorrow, and maybe I should go - but I'm still miffed at those half-dozen people I was supposed to meet last week for wasting my time by not showing up - so I'm not going.

I got the dishes done, and the laundry put away.  I cut down a lot of bamboo (that stuff can grow 6 feet in 4 days) and spent time in the garden with the flame thrower and got a good start on clearing that.

It's spring.  The crows are back.  This morning I put out food for them, and imitated Bob's call of "Crows . . . crows!"  Within a minute the glossy black wings were soaring in.  It pleases me that they know my voice.

On one of my times up making tea yesterday, I mixed up a sugar solution and dug out the hummingbird feeder and put it up.  One hummer found it today.

It's a new year.  Time to tug on the bootstraps and march on.

Quiet

 Remember the cliche from old Western movies?  It's quiet.  Too quiet.

I spent the day being quiet, lying on the couch with the cats, reading Harry Potter.  I found as long as I held still I was all right.  If I got up and tried to do anything, the reality of being alone would come crashing in.  

I remember the quiet when I came home.   There had been no quiet for three months - someone was always coming into the room every hour or two, day and night, checking Bob's vital signs, hanging bags of blood or platelets.  There were the clicks of the monitors, the sound of Bob moving restlessly (he never could get comfortable), and for the last couple of weeks the alarms.  You could hear people talking in the other rooms or the halls, see the nurses walking by through the glass observation windows.  So no privacy.  If I had to go to the bathroom, I wasn't allowed to contaminate Bob's toilet, so I had to go down the hall and out of the ward to the public bathrooms.  At 3 a.m. that meant everyone that I passed knew where I was going.  Bob had even less privacy - for his last couple of weeks he had to be bathed and it took at least 3 people to help him relieve himself.

And then on March 30 I came home.  And it was quiet.  And private.  I was alone.  

Three years later, it's still quiet, and I'm still alone.  I miss daily random chitchat, conversations, talking about ideas or projects or even what to have for dinner.  Yelling out the answers on Jeopardy.  The sound of his breathing, the sound of someone moving around in the house.  Sitting here, writing - it's quiet enough that I can hear the trickle of water in the aquarium in the bedroom, the occasional clunk of the icemaker in the fridge, the happy little sound of spring peepers outside.  RedBug purring in my lap.  It's peaceful, and quiet, and empty.

I'm glad I've given myself three days just to quit for awhile.  Tomorrow I'll pick up the bootstraps again.  Wash my hair, do the three day's worth of dishes in the sink, change out of the pajamas.  Start on year 4.

March 29

 Not much to report today.  Read.  Played too much sudoku.  Napped, a lot.  Just sort of waited out the day, like I did 3 years ago.  Soon I will make some popcorn and watch Battle Bots.  Cobolt grabbed Ghost Raptor and rammed him into the wall and that 250 pound Bot just shattered into pieces.  It was awesome.  I was yelling "Holy F*** did you see that!!!?!"  And imagining Bob yelling with me.  It was an epic moment.
Three years now of imagining Bob.  Imagining companionship and sharing.  I'm getting pretty good at it.

Had a odd thought last week.  Serai and I went to lunch.  When we talk, if we're talking about something like travel, I naturally say "my husband and I" because, well, we went someplace together.  But to her, he's just a shadowy abstract - someone lurking in Ms. Ann's background.  She doesn't know he's gone, that I'm talking about a person who only exists in memory.  There's no reason to mention it.  Sometimes I really want to  - I want to stand up, rip open my rib cage, and shout "God damn it - I'm hurting!"  But I don't.   That's why I didn't go in today - it's too close to the surface, and on this day I don't want to shove it under.

Otherwise my cocooning is not going entirely to plan.  I had truly planned on being irresponsible.  I laid in a good supply of alcohol, and I had every intention of staying comfortably numb.  Or maybe being a noisy yelling drunk.  Throwing things?  That could have been fun.  But one drink - and my acid reflux flares (the post nasal drip has been aggravating it).

The two days of cocooning have been good.  Good to just take a break.  Might take one more day tomorrow - or might get my act together again.  After all, that's what I did three years ago.  I made the calls that needed making, made "arrangements", packed up the hotel room.  Rob and Jeff brought me home and I took care of the cats and the chickens and the squirrel.

But on the 29th - I simply sat and waited.

March 28, Cocooning

 Day 1 of cocooning went as planned.  I fed the cats and chickens, made tea, warmed up some coffee cake, poured a wee dram of Kraken black rum, and settled down on the couch with Harry Potter Book 4 (Goblet of Fire).

Later I took a nap.  I appreciated that it was raining most of the day today.  So I snacked, read, sipped, and napped.

I find that I don't even need to write memories of March 28, 2020.  I appreciate 2022 self - who self-eviscerated to relive that time so I don't have to. ( https://returntotheswamp.blogspot.com/2022/03/im-not-ok.html ) It was this evening that he sat up and yelled that there was no reason to wait.  He wanted to take control of his life back, if only to end it.   I was selfish that night - we talked to the doctor and  settled that the planned replacement of his picc lines and dialysis for the next day would be cancelled - but not to have him put under this night.  I just couldn't do that on the spur of the moment.   I wanted time to think.  I wanted him to think, to understand that this was not just taking a break.  That this was the ultimate forever decision.  And, because I was his advocate, it would be my decision to make.

So tomorrow will be the hard day, the one that I dread.  Odd, because he "officially" died on the 30th.  But the 29th is the day I let him go.

I Quit!

 Temporarily.

I've been pushing myself for the last few months.  Doing the Things I Think I Should Be Doing.  I went to Boston.  I went to Gainesville, to Harry Potter World, and went on the Road Scholar trip.  I worked at the Highland Games.  I've been to a few meetings of the weaver's guild.

I've been hauling myself up by my own bootstraps for three years now.  Keeping up the "I'm OK" front.  Doing what needs to be done.  Following the mantra of "you don't have to feel like doing something to just do it."  Getting things done.

But I've been getting tired, and getting slower.  Everything just seems like so much work.  Sometimes I just sit - and feel bad about wasting my time.  Everywhere I look there are things that should be done.  The roof needs sweeping (as does the front deck).  I haven't tackled anything in Bob's room for weeks.  There's still the barn.  Yard work.  Garden. I have a couple of baskets of laundry that need to be put away.

And because of this, I'm feeling disconnected.  Even things that I know that I like doing - sewing or spinning or weaving - get put on the "things to do" list.  I've been eating because it's time to eat - not because I'm hungry or there's something I would like.  I'm starting to forget what it feels like to, well, feel like doing something.  Doing something because I want to.

So I'm quitting.  Taking a few days off.  I've let them know that I'm not coming to work Wednesday because I'm tired of putting on the front of everything being OK.  I went shopping after work today and spent about three times as much as I usually do.  I have my avocados and bananas and apples and fresh strawberries - but I also have cheesecake and coffee cake and a box of Vanilla Wafers (I love those innocuous little cookies.)  I have red wine and white wine, sherry, port, Kraken black rum and creme de cacao.

For the next few days, I'm dropping the bootstraps. I will of course feed the cats and chickens and fish and Dingo the flying squirrel and clean the litterboxes.  But that may be it as far as chores.  Otherwise, I'm just going to try to get back in touch with feeling (and yes, there will likely be crying over Bob involved, and I'm good with that.  He's worth it).  If after I get up and feed the cats I feel like going back to bed with a glass of rum and that box of Nilla Wafers - I will.  I'm going to eat when I get hungry, and eat whatever I feel like.  I might knit, or weave, or sew - or I might not. Maybe I'll take a bubble bath, or a long shower, or just stink for a couple of days.

  I'm giving myself three days.  No pushing myself, no doing What Needs To Be Done.  Just relaxing and chilling.  Let feelings flow.

Then I can grab the bootstraps again, back to putting one foot in front of the other, and start Year 4 without Bob.  But for now, I'm tired, and I'm going to rest.

March 26. Noblesse Oblige and Knitting

 Today I Was Not In The Mood.  Said mood was not get get dressed and go driving again, and be around people again.  I am driving and peopled out.

I wrote last February about getting together with a group that wants to know how to spin - at least well enough to be able to take advantage of a cotton/hemp class being taught by a visiting instructor in June.  They have gotten together one time since then, but I bowed out because it was being hosted in the next town to the east, some 60 miles from me.  I've also skipped the last two guild meetings - the Feb. one I was getting ready for the Highland games and the March one I was packing for my Road Scholar trip.  So sort of felt I should do this one.

I got my stuff together - samples of the accessories the instructor has told us we should have, with suggestions how they can be made/substitutes.  Stuck two spinning wheels in the car in case someone needed to use one.  Drove the 40 minutes to Ramona's (she was hosting).  Ramona was home.

No one else showed up.  And Ramona is *very* clear that she is not interested in learning how to spin.  In fact, she is quite fussy about it.   I hung out for an hour or so and then drove back home.  And *this* is why even though I Should Get Out And Interact With People - I'm going back to being a lurker in the guild as soon as this workshop is over.

On the way home I realized I was hungry and driving past Captain D's.  Why I felt fried fish and chips was a good idea when I still have the sinus funk going on (which is making me slightly nauseated) I'm not quite sure, unless it's because what the heck my mouth tastes fishy anyway.  I've been to Captain D's at least once in the last three years, maybe twice.  It feels strange, because Bob and I used to like to go there.  What I really remember was filling up the little cups at the sauce bar - ketchup, tarter, yum yum, mustard - and then making up board games on the table while we waited for our order.  Now they don't even have the sauce bar anymore, just hand you a couple of plastic packets.

In a few minutes I'll put on Battle Bots and do some knitting between battles.  I used to be a compulsive knitter - the bag lived on the same hook as my purse. I knit in the car, in doctor's waiting rooms - hours spent knitting in the ER when Mom was going in and out a lot.  And, of course, the three months at Shands.  I had more than one thing going - a mindless one where I just knit, and one that needed concentration.  Maybe a third.  I didn't finish anything.  One one hand, I was basically just sitting there all day long, day after day.  But the interruptions were almost constant, and I would pop up every time Bob needed something.  The knitting bag stood untouched for a year after I came home, and then I unraveled everything because I remembered where I was while I was knitting on it.  I'm finally working on a lace piece, but three years of no knitting has played hob with my manual dexterity (and my hands seem to be getting older) so it's taking a long time.

March 26, 2020.  We've lost the battle - we're just waiting for it to be over.  I am so very very tired.  If I look out the window, I can see the roof of the motel where I still have a room.  If they take Bob off to dialysis (I'm not allowed to go with him) I run over there.  But it's gotten weird - the Covid shutdowns have started.  Most of the guests have left.  I would like to go swimming, but they've closed the pool.  They have a company in cleaning the carpet and everything reeks of disinfectant, and there is tension in the air.  But still I can get away from the alarms and the people walking in and out and sometimes I just sit on the floor of the shower and let the water run over me.  And I wish that Bob could get a break like this - that somehow I could trade places with him and just let him get a little rest and quiet.

Back in the hospital room, I lean my head on my arms on the wide windowsill and look out in the parking lot.  Our bright blue Honda is there.  The thought goes through my mind, unbidden.  "I just want to go home."  I want peace and quiet and my own house and kitchen.  The alarms are going off and Bob is fussy and uncomfortable and scared and muzzy headed so there is nothing I can do that calms him and I just feel so damned helpless and I just want to go home.   Even though I know that means going home alone.

I haven't been sleeping well lately.  We've had another major shift in the weather - it's gone from literally freezing (32 degrees) back up to being hot.  I wake up often around 3.  These days I'm hyper aware of the emptiness of the bed beside me, missing the sound of his breathing.  But there's no one to disturb, so I can get up, make a cup of cocoa, and read for an hour or two (which is fine on both nights, but really means that my arse is seriously dragging on my work days)

March 25

 Did some running around this morning - Suzie needed some crickets and minnows for the museum (the minnows are to amuse the otters) and it was the morning of the Pioneer breakfast.  Despite the fact that my mouth and breath still feel like I've been licking ashtrays I didn't want to pass up pancakes or, especially, long-cooked country grits, cooked by someone who is not me.  And I got to spend some time with Judy, who is always fun.

Afterwards I delivered those cat trap covers that I made.

I was beginning to wonder if I would ever make it home.  I'm used to the drive down Hwy 20, but for some reason today it just seemed to drone on and one, like those sci-fi/horror movies where a hallway just keeps stretching out longer and longer.

Tomorrow I have to go back in again to help out with a group of wannabee spinners, so I was getting my samples of equipment together this afternoon.

I look back at next year - at this point I had gotten the garden a little under control, had cleaned out years of crap tossed in the back and even put in some tomato plants.  So far this year I haven't opened the gate.  But I did have my trip, and the flu afterwards.  And I at least did some serious pruning on my poor lemon tree that really got knackered in the hard freeze, and I've been whacking through the underbrush out front, so that's something.

March 25.  This was supposed to be the absolute, outside, no-more-moving of the goalpost day.  The day where if anything was going to happen, it would.  The nurse came in, brought up the numbers, and wrote on the whiteboard: "neutrophils: <.01

In other words, nothing.  Now it was just the final waiting game.  On the 30th another biopsy would be done, and we would get the results two days later - which we already knew what they would say.  Then it would just be a matter of seeing how long they could keep him alive until they couldn't anymore.

So we actually talked about it some.  I started  telling him how desperately I would miss him.  That I wouldn't be 19 anymore (in his eyes, I was always the 19-year-old that he had just met).  His response what that maybe it was time for me to turn 20.

He apologized for not taking me to Norway for our 50th anniversary, as we had planned.  He was trying to impart words of wisdom for me, living in his absence, but he was getting muzzy and the best he could come up with was that it was OK for me to cancel the cable because I didn't watch much TV, and to remember to keep the dirt shoveled off the bridge.  I don't know why he didn't want dirt on the bridge, but that reminds me - I need to go shovel it off again.

I don't know what angel whispered in my ear when I was trying to think of something to comfort him, but that's when I remembered that we still had Fiona's ashes.  I asked him if he would like to keep Fiona with him, have her little ashes mixed with his when his reef was made.  He actually smiled, and in a soft little boy voice said "Fiona?  I can keep Fiona?  I would like to have Fiona with me."And with that, he was able to drift off to sleep.

March 23

 Yuck.  Just yuck.  Got some gnarly stuff going on.  Not bad enough to do anything about it (like go see a doctor), but hard to ignore.

#1: My face.  On the second day of my Road Scholar trip we took a boat tour, and foolishly I didn't wear sunscreen or a hat, and sat in the front of the boat and gazed out at the water (it's been too long since I've been out on the water).  So I got a bad sun/windburn.  I know that at this age one heals more slowly, but seriously? That was 16 days ago now and I still look and feel like I've been in a blast furnace.  I'm not particularly vain about my looks, but I'm getting pretty self-conscious about this.  And it hurts, especially the skin on my throat (I woke myself up last night when I was scratching at it).  I'm now alternating between cortisone cream and aquaphor just to try to ease the pain.  I tried to take a picture - it's a bit washed out, but there's the red patches and you can see the sores at the corner of my eyes.  As I said - yuck.

The other yuck is likely left over from whatever bug I had last week.  For several days I've been trying to figure out what the heck I ate that left this gross lingering taste in my mouth.  Well, I don't think it's my mouth, but my sinuses.  Likely a bit of inflammation (but no congestion at all).  I used the neti pot - so I spent the next several hours with salt water dripping out of my nose every time I bent over, which just added to the delight.  At least it's good for my diet - it's hard to think of something you want to eat that will go well with that rancid fish smell/taste of my breath.

Did I say "yuck?"

Still did some stuff today.  A bit of easy sewing.  Big Bend TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release program for feral cats) put out a request for help.  When the cats are trapped, you want to throw a cover over the cage to help keep them calm.  The person posting said the problem was they had to be washed, and they just shredded.  Any ideas of how to stop that?  Or did anyone know how to sew a hem?

That confused me for a moment.  Mom always sewed.  In the 50's (the era of my birth) everyone sewed.  Maybe not making their own clothes, but at least doing repairs and basic stuff.  I forget that we live in a world where the majority of people don't own or know how to use a sewing machine, or even how to thread a needle.  So I've been making some cage covers (this is a picture of what she needed - mine are made of whatever fabric I have hanging around so not this fancy.

I cleaned out the chicken coop - not a glamorous job, but one that needs to be done regularly.  And I took my clippers and swing sickle and tackled some of the brush that's starting to grow now that the weather is warming up.

Yardwork, physical labor, is good for thinking.  And this is a thinking day, because it is March 23.  I wrote a lot about March 23 last year:  https://returntotheswamp.blogspot.com/2022/03/plan-c.html

That was the day that Dr. Farhadfar came in to see him.  March 25 was the absolute final day that we had been told there should be some sign of his second transplant taking (after we had been told March 11, 18, and now the 25th).  There had been nothing in that morning's bloodwork.  She said that they would give it until the next Monday (another moving of the goalpost) and then do a biopsy to determine if anything was happening.  I asked what Plan C was if nothing showed up.  She said "we will see what the biopsy shows" and nothing else.

And after she left, that's when I turned to Bob and said "I don't think there is a Plan C."

Looking back - how did I say that?  How could I sit there and basically say "well, you gonna die?"  No tears, no hysterics?  I think we were both a bit stunned and simply didn't react.  Sort of "Welp, that's it.  Gave it our best shot, nothing else to be done."  Except that we were talking about his death.

Of course, by then Bob was extremely sick and the toxins were building up and he was drifting in and out.  And, cutting myself some slack - I was pretty numb by then.  Three months of high stress, constantly interrupted sleep, and cafeteria food will do that to you.  And I couldn't afford weakness, or hysterics.

So things at the time got repressed, because that's how you survive.  And then, from a safe distance, you go back and unpack them, because that's also necessary for  survival.  Face any demons and boop them on the snoot to take away their power.  When a memory comes back - you remember it.  And react any way you like, because it's safe to react now.

One example.  When Diane was visiting, one evening she commented on how dry her skin was.  I gave her the jar of Minerin Cream, a therapeutic moisturizer, with the offhand comment of "that's what they used on Bob when his skin was falling off."

Yeow!  Had to bookmark that  comment and unpack it later.  I had casually said "when his skin was falling off" like that was a normal thing.   OK - what happened.  Chemo kills off fast growing cells - which is why your hair falls out and your mouth tissue starts sloughing (like you've bitten into too-hot cheesy pizza) and a lot of nasty other stuff happens and then your little Roomba neutrophils go running around and cleaning up all that sloughing tissue and you can start healing.  But that never happened with Bob.  Things kept dying off, including his outer layer of skin, so that when we bathed him we would just be rolling off dead skin and then trying to keep things moisturized.  At the time I just blocked it out - it was part of caring for him.  But yeah - pretty gross.  We never mentioned it.  Sort of like I would tell him to close his eyes and not look when we changed the heavy burn packs on his legs.  I really wanted to protect him as much as I could.  

And there's March 23 - survived.

Countdown

 This post is going to be a bit rambling and incoherent, because I don't know why I'm writing other than there's stuff in my head I need to de-junk before I'll be able to sleep.

Countdown.  It's March 20.  10 days before Bob dies.

I hang on to this.  Why?  I may have gotten a hint today reading Harry Potter. Ebaida and I are on a marathon reading.  We're on Book 3: The Prisoner of Azkaban, the first one where Harry meets the dementors.  Every time the dementors attack Harry, he can hear the yelling and screams of his parents just before Voldemort kills them and gives him his famous lightening bolt scar.  What he will not confess to anyone is that part of him welcomes the dementor attack - because that's the only time he's ever been able to hear his parent's voices.

I get that.  These last 10 days are almost all anniversaries that hurt, but at least we were still together, and I hang on to those memories.  He needed me with him, and I was there.  No one has really needed me since then.  I can be useful, and people like me - but it's not the same as being truly needed.  I'm not the love of anyone's life.

Hello, 2024 self.  Hope you're hanging in there.  Sometimes I wonder if 2021 self was, well, selfish, for not leaving us any messages on how she was dealing with this.  Or do I feel sorry for her, dealing with this on her own.  I do remember her calling Michael and Margo on the 29th and being completely incoherent and breaking down but didn't know if she would survive if she didn't talk to someone.  2022 self at least left messages in a bottle (and I go back and read those a lot - it helps.  If she got through this, so can I)

Three years coming up.  Has it gotten any easier?  Well - I ask - if you have been holding your breath, does it get any easier the longer it's been since you've had any oxygen?

Things that hit unexpectedly.  This joke, drifting by on Facebook.

Yes, it's funny.  And yet I found myself crying.  Old, sagging, flabby - you see the love.  The lines of Shakespeare return again to me:  Love alters not where it alteration finds . . . . Love's not Time's fool, though rosy cheeks and lips within his bending sickle's compass comes.  Love alters not with its brief hours and weeks, but rather endures until the edge of doom . . ."

It was cold today.  Tallahassee does this every year, and it's always a big surprise.  Around mid-February it gets hot.  Then, suddenly, mid March, one last spate of winter.  It was 32 degrees this morning, and never made it to 60 today.  After 3 weeks of tank-tops-and-shorts-weather, we had all adjusted.  Then this.  So I'm working at the farm with one of the college kids, and we're both talking about how very hard is was to get out of our warm beds this morning.  She commented that her boyfriend had slept over because they had not seen each other since spring break.  It was hard for her to get out of bed because he was sleeping with his arms wrapped around her.  Just for a moment, I felt like my ribcage had cracked.

And, with that, I think I'm suddenly done.  I'll go to bed and read for awhile.  Transfer some of my own body heat to cuddle pillow and receive it back again, while remembering warm arms wrapped around me.

Road Scholar Tour, Summary

 What do I take away from all this?

I *really* don't like driving.  Especially in traffic.  In strange towns.  I know some people who love to get out there and drive; I am not one of them (and God Bless google maps).

I'm uncomfortable being away from home.  It would be different if Bob was still here, keeping an eye on things.  I have a person who comes and puts out food for everyone, but the cats are shy so he only sees one or two of them.  So I can't help but be paranoid that one of them is hiding under the bed, sick or hurt (they were fine, and happy to see me)

I loved hanging out with Marty.  I think we surprised some of the people (including his friends) because we opted to be roommates.  It made sense to us - why chance a stranger when there's someone you know.  It was just very comfortable being with him.  And I got his roommate seal of approval, because I didn't keep the TV on and I didn't snore.

I'm glad I went - my first tour.  But my overall feeling is that it was *too* organized, the schedule too full (except for the one afternoon off).  I would have loved an afternoon off in St. Augustine to go see the alligator farm or take a tour of the Spanish village.  But we had literally 2 unscheduled hours (one after lunch, another before dinner) for the two days.

By the end of the four-day tour, I was getting seriously peopled out.  And for all my piteous writings of my first year without Bob of having to eat all of my meals by myself, I found it a bit much to be eating in noisy crowded places with a roomful of other people three meals a day.

So - really enjoyed Marty.  Really enjoyed the greenway (honestly - I think wandering around there, just the two of us, was my favorite part of the trip, and it wasn't even officially part of it).

Loved being able to get the tour of some of the rooms at Flagler that the regular tourists don't get.

Wish there had been more down time.  Too many lectures (especially in St. Augustine - the material gets repetitive after a bit).

Really disliked being herded around in a large group.

In sum - I still don't think I am a Tour Person.  Some people are - at the Meet and Greet the first night, several people said it was their 4th or 6th (or in one case, 28th!) tour.   

And yet - Marty just sent me the information on one that he's taking in August - a maritime exploration of New England.  I do love time on a boat - so maybe?

Better remember the sunscreen.

Road Scholar Tour, St. Augustine

 Wednesday the tour moved to St. Augustine.  There was an option to take the tour bus there, which would return to St. Amelia on Friday.  But, for me, that would have meant taking the bus back on Friday (about an hour and a half) which would have delayed me in coming home, so I drove over.

Yurgh.  No. I do not like driving.  I do no like driving I-95 through Jacksonville at high speed with too many trucks.  I had to remind myself that I couldn't close my eyes and panic, and that a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel wouldn't help.  But we made it.

St. Augustine is beautiful - it's been too many years since Bob and I went there.  In the old city, (granted, catering to tourists) no fast food chains are allowed, and all architecture has to be in the old Spanish style.  A lot of the buildings date back to the 1600s.

Did you know that St. Augustine is the oldest city in the U.S.?  I have to admit that after 4 tours, I sort of got that drilled into my head.

My favorite place in St. Augustine is Flagler College, a small (2600 students) liberal arts college, simply because it is so completely outrageous.  In the 1880's, it was the super luxurious no-expense-spared Ponce de Leon Hotel.  The interior was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany (and there is original Tiffany glass *everywhere*)  It was one of the earliest hotels to have electricity, put in by Thomas Edison (and which frightened the guests).  It had running water, courtesy of tall water towers disguised as bell towers.  There are crystal Tiffany chandeliers, enormous quantities of gold leaf.

And it's a fricken' college.  Students walking around in their shorts and t-shirts like this is a normal thing.  I really think it would be more appropriate for them to be wearing wizard robes and carrying wands.

The fountain of frogs

The overhead dome in the entry

One of the water towers.  A little hard to see, but between the windows on the left are a series of dragon heads, which would have held red electric lights)

The dining hall.  The cafeteria as FSU never looked like this.  And that's Tiffany glass in the windows.

The chairs

When one went to the Ponce de Leon, one was expected to stay for "the season" - three months, for the equivalent of about $300,000.  The overflow (or for those without that much ready change) could go to another posh hotel, which is now the Lightgate Museum.

I had to photograph this harmonica for my brother - you just blow into it, and then turn the little crank to make the melody.

A quite elaborate bicycle (which, admittedly even at the time was more for show than for riding)

And I fell in love with this incredible piece.  I couldn't get a decent picture, but I search and neither could anyone on the web.  It's blown glass, and just too impossibly intricate.  To top it off, it's a working steam engine.

So that took up Wednesday and Thursday and the end of the tour.  Marty, Bernie, and Lynda got up early to head to the airport and I headed for home - with another white-knuckle drive through Jacksonville, this time with a lot of construction going on so I was trying to follow detours while dodging orange barrels and trucks.  But I eventually got on I-10 for a few boring hours.

 

Road Scholar Tour, Amelia Island

 I have now been on my first tour of my life.  I think, in general, that I am still not a Tour Person, although I did enjoy it.  And, as my friend Gill commented - if I didn't go somewhere on a tour, then I simply wouldn't go there at all.  There is truth to that.

It started Sunday the 4th.  Friends that my cousin Marty often joins for these tours were on vacation in Disney World.  He flew into Orlando on Saturday, where they picked him up and drove to Lake City to spend the night.  Sunday I drove to Lake City to meet them for breakfast.  Then Bernie and Lynda headed to the airport to drop off their rental car, and Marty and I headed for St. Amelia Island.

Marty and I had only met one time previously, when he came to Florida for my 50th birthday/family gathering.  For most of my life, it was my mother who kept track of all the family and what was going on.  After she passed, Marty and I started emailing each other, especially since I lost Bob (Marty is a widower, so understands).  And yet we were instantly quite comfortable with each other; we seem to be on the same wavelength.

We got to the hotel a little before 1; check in time was 4.  We pulled into a parking spot to pull out our information on the area to see where we could kill a couple of hours.  Then serendipity hit.  I looked up, and right in front of the car was a chain link fence with a pond behind it, and a sign that said "Egan's greenway" and a path off to the side.  Marty is an avid birder and naturalist - we immediately piled out of the car and went for a walk, stopping to identify plants and birds.  He, of course, knew things like "that's a yellow rumped warbler" whereas my bird identification skills are more "little birds, wading birds, duckie birds."

And I should have kept notes because I've sort of forgotten everything we did on the tour itself.  We had a lecture and then a bus tour by a lovely eccentric (dressed all in purple, with matching glasses and tablet) historian and social activist of the "chain yourself to a tree" variety - he and others like him have kept Amelia Island's charm from being destroyed by developers.  When we stopped for a nature break by an ocean boardwalk, I spotted a gopher tortoise - a common sight for me, but one that Marty can now check off of his life list).  There was a lecture on marine life and shells.  We went on a boat tour to discuss something of the history of the area and the shrimping industry and a lot of how the boat owner's wife was related to everyone who has ever been in the shrimping industry (to the point that when we disembarked I checked to make sure she didn't have 6 fingers).  Unfortunately, as I spend a lot of time outdoors, I didn't think to either wear a hat, wear sunscreen, or at least go to the back of the boat - and got the worst sunburn/windburn that I can ever remember.  I'm still peeling and my face feels like sandpaper (lots of moisturizer being used).

We did have Tuesday afternoon after lunch off.  I asked Marty if there was anything that he wanted to go back and look at, but he said "would I sound like a broken record if I said I wanted to go back out on the greenway?"  We spotted an alligator (another on the life list).  There are broad, well maintained pathways through the greenway, but also some intriguing twisty paths off to the side - so of course we had to go exploring those.  And managed to get completely lost.  I finally got out my phone and google maps and figured out which direction the hotel should be (Marty had a compass app that helped) and after a couple of hours we got back in time for dinner.

This is getting long; I think I'll break it into two parts.  And I didn't take any pictures the first two days - oops.  But here's one of Marty and me.

Sniffy Interlude

 I was finally settling down to write a bit about my Road Scholar tour, but am pausing for a moment to feel just a little sorry for myself.

I got sick this week - possibly from being around so many people last week on the tour when I haven't been around people much at all for the last three years.  Three years of isolation will play hob with the immune system.

I wasn't badly sick (covid test was negative).  Low grade fever, sore muscles, really low energy, shivered for two day no matter how I bundled up (tank top, T-shirt, sweatshirt and hoodie).  Enough that I had to skip work on Wednesday, which made me feel bad because I was off last week and plan on taking the 29th off (because I know I'll be a basket case and I don't even want to try to Put On A Brave Front).  I used to be so reliable at work and I've missed a lot so far in 2023.

And just sick enough to remember a time in my life - most of my adult life, really - where if I was sick like this, Bob would bring me a bowl of soup, and take care of feeding the cats and the chickens and locking said chickens up at night.  I could just languish on the couch.

Now I make my own damned soup, and drag my low - energy arse out to care for the chickens.  As a friend of mine once observed: "Widowhood sucks."

So as not to end on an entirely low note, the nest in Bob's hat now has five wee eggs in it.

Another Happy Picture

 Rough night last night.  Flashbacks, or maybe a touch of  PTSD.  Lying awake.  I *knew* that I was at home, in my own bed, with a couple of cats and the fish tank.  And yet I wasn't.  I was lying on my narrow couch in Bob's hospital room, with him restless in his bed and the alarms going off.  For his last week, the damned alarms were going off almost constantly - they have to if the patient's blood pressure is too low, and there's no way of turning them off, and there wasn't a safe way of raising his blood pressure, so they just kept going off, with the flashing lights.

About the only way to deal with this is to just wake up all the way and get up.  Maybe have a snack, read a little.  I'm fine until I start to drift off and lose my grip on 2023 again.   Fortunately this doesn't happen very often - but it's March.

But daylight came, and it's a pretty day, and the azaleas are in full bloom.  I took Paper Chicken to the museum where she is going to be spoiled rotten.  She wasn't there 10 minutes before some appeared with a bowl of grains, greens, blackberries and mealworms.  Then I got to have a nice visit with my friend Judy who works on the farm on Saturdays.  Fortunately yesterday I thought ahead and actually packed, so all I have to do now is tidy up the house a bit.

I started with the front porch.  There's a lot of stuff that I normally keep in the car - shopping bags, a squirrel rescue kit, random stuff.  I pulled it all out so I'll have space for luggage and had just dumped it on the porch.  I started to open up the storage cabinet there - and then noticed something a little odd.

Bob's old gardening hat is hanging on that cabinet.  I have a few things like that - like his favorite book and pair of glasses is on an end table in the living room.  A carolina wren has figured out how to get into the screened in porch (we have an opening for the cats, back in the day when they were allowed outdoors).  And the wrens are building a nest in Bob's hat.  Guess I'll put stuff away someplace else for a few weeks.

This would have made him so happy.

Random Happy Stuff

 I read (likely on FaceBook) one suggestion for dealing with rough times: at least once a day, take a picture of something that's pretty, or makes you happy  The idea is to train your brain to be open to such things.  I haven't done the daily practice, but I do have a few things.

Spring has sprung -I'm already getting strange welts on my body (time to lay in a supply of baking soda for baths) and there's pollen everywhere.  But the azaleas are in bloom - despite the hard freeze that killed off a lot of the branches and leaves, there is still a wonderful display of color wherever you look.  It only lasts for a couple of weeks, so enjoy it while you can.

Another thing springing up are baby lambs at my friend Christy's.  One mother had quadruplets (really unusual) so the babies are getting supplemental bottles.  This means that the little guys will run up to you for scratches and to suck on your fingers.

Lunch.  Because I like food.  Sometimes I give one of the student volunteers a ride to campus after work, and a couple of times we've had lunch together.  She's open to trying new places, so between the museum and campus there was a small Cuban-themed eatery.  We both had pineapple bowls - a half pineapple filled with rice, pineapple, chicken, a orange sauce and mango salsa.  So very yummy.   And although I've gotten used to and even enjoy my usual solitary lunches with a book, it's fun to have a companion.  Serai is smart and sassy and fun to be with.

The last I don't have a picture because it's hard to take one on my lap.  A month ago I wrote of one of my chickens who suddenly couldn't walk.  She has made a full recovery, at least physically, but I'm having problems reintegrating her with the rest of the flock.  Chickens do have a pecking order - and the others are picking on her.  Normally the rooster would settle things down - but it's spring, so he wants to jump on her too (maybe the others are jealous).  So poor Paper (yes, I have Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock) has taken to spending her days wedged under a ledge in the corner.  I don't want to take her back out again - but I want to be sure that she can eat and drink, so three times a day I go lock her in the coop for a little while.  I also started taking out treats for her.  I sit and hold her and feed her treats while the other birds are pecking theirs from the ground.  The end result of this is that now when I go into the coop she'll fly over to me and get it my lap.  It's rather endearing.

It did leave me concerned about next week.  I'll be gone for almost a week, and my critter sitter comes over just once a day and puts out food.  I hate to think of her being crammed in a corner, possibly not eating or drinking enough.  So I've arranged for a chicken spa.  I'm going to drop her off at the Museum on Saturday, where she can go in with the gopher tortoises but no other chickens.  Everyone there loves chickens so she'll be properly spoiled while I'm gone.

So there's some happy stuff.