Today is all there is

caroledalphin @ 2009-09-19T17:27:00

2009-09-19T21:34:06Z

I've practically forgotten about LiveJournal since starting to follow the antics of my family & friends on Facebook. It's rather a shame because one can actually say more here. However, when the kids move on, I must also to keep up with their doings.

Fall is here despite the calendar. We are expecting sub freezing temperatures tonight. I brought what plants I had at camp down to the Hobbit Hole & set up a little green house made of a metal frame with shelves & a plastic cover that zips. Now all the plants from the patio are protected for the night.

The garden here has been sorely neglected. I had such hopes for both flowers & vegetables, but only the flower garden has anything to show. It is small but a good start. There are still pots of plants to be dug into the ground before snow; a couple of rose bushes, perennials, and another bush I cannot remember what it is. But it's pretty. Rhododendron?

John & I are going out to dinner tonight with Linda & Joe and Diane & Garth. Linda & Joe will be heading back to their winter home in Fulton, near Syracuse, next week, so this will be our final meal together. The three couples have had fun the past two summers, hosting one another for a yummy casual meal about twice or more a month. We all pitch in, but the hostess usually provides the entre. Linda and Diane are both good cooks.

We also have had the fun of having Pat at the dinners & Julie, Duncan and Travis. Plus we ate at Pats a couple of times. We are so much more social in camp than anywhere else.

Must go outside to meet John & the others, who will be picking me up to go out.

bye.

Writer's Block: I May Be Crazy

2009-08-07T00:30:18Z

What does this Rorschach blot look like to you?

View 559 Answers

To me it looks like an evil Wiley Coyote.

Bloomington, Indiana

2009-08-02T21:33:51Z

John and I drove here to at long last visit with Jack and Stephanie and Ceilidh. She is a precious baby-kins; all huge grins, high pitched squeals, and general happiness.

Ceilidh loves the kitties who live with her & her parents, but the kitties are wary, all but one. Gir is the oldest and is a bit protective of Ceilidh; maybe it's her motherly way.

While we are here for four days, we also got to attend one afternoon/evening of my family reunion that's always held at Phyllis's home just out of town. In attendance this year Jeanne & Rennie & Kim & Anna & Aaron Orr; Gary and Daniel Carlson; Christy Carlson; Phyllis (of course); Louie, Maddy and Macie Schwitzer; Anne Bryan; Laurence and Diana Bryan; Melissa Bryan Mohan & her twin 7 yr old daughters Anne & Gemma; Carl & Lois Simpson; Carole, John, Jack, Stephanie & Ceilidh Dalphin; Roy Smith (friend of Anne Bryan). I think that's it - a nice group.

When John & I arrived Sat. afternoon, everyone but Anna was in the pool playing volleyball with a beach ball the size of Montana. Eventually I got in the water, too, but the game was over & everyone was just floating around or sitting on the deck talking, drinking a little beer or soda. I got to float with Jeanne, Fi, & Christy for quite a while, just talking & laughing.

There's always a pitch-in dinner/lunch/breakfast every day of the reunion with tons of cakes, which I took first lest I lose my appetite eating regular food. Afterward, there was a lot of sitting around on the patio visiting & doing dishes, & finally a huge fireworks display, thanks to Laurence, assisted by Daniel & Louie. Apparently, Diana loves fireworks & Laurence entertained her with such a display in their back yard out in the Missouri countryside every year for her birthday. This tradition has moved to the reunion recently & was a huge treat.

Friday was the birthday of the family matriarch, Anne Bryan, who is actually only a few years older than Jeanne and I, so this year the fireworks were in her honor.

Jack & Steph left a little after the fireworks because Ceilidh was frightened by them & wanted the peace & quiet of her home, a nice warm bath, and a comforting bottle of formula; John and I followed around midnight.

The joy I felt being among my family members is difficult to explain. This family is so loving, so inclusive, so caring about one another, that when we haven't seen each other in any number of months or years, getting together again is a huge celebration of love.

This family is my life blood. My children are part too, but haven't, for the most part, had the opportunity to participate for a long time. Wil, Melissa and Katie came to the reunion for an afternoon when Katie was a baby; Jack & family came this year. I hope Julie & her boys and George & Annie will be able to attend some time. And Edie - everyone asks about her, most haven't seen her since high school! But they miss every one that's not there.

Thank you God, Universe, The Committee, whoever is in charge of assigning families. Thank You.

Roller ball thumb hurts.

2009-07-24T14:27:02Z

I've got roller-ball-mouse-thumb. ow. Any suggestions re: the best type of mouse to use that won't hurt my hands? With all the rain we've had lately (like ever since April), I thought the pain in the large joint of my right thumb was arthritis or mildew, but it's tendonitis of the thumb.

Oh, my eyes!

2009-07-08T23:10:48Z

Is that the sun??? I cannot remember what it looks like, but here it is 7 pm & there's a light in the sky that is being reflected off the water of the lake & the wet leaves & it's just plain scary.

We have learned to breathe under water, walk under water, mow under water, shop under water, drive under water...long days and nights of constant rain have created a culture of damp decorated by grass, trees, weeds, flowers that are growing like they are in the tropics - except it's cold here. low 50s at night, low 60s at daytime.

Now that light is dimming. A fireball in the west seems to be dropping below the horizon slowly - maybe it's some sort of alien craft.

help?

another caroleism

2009-06-17T19:57:43Z

Jeanne needed some rest. She crashed on her bed. I unplugged every phone in the house to keep them quiet from constant automated calls & a couple from friends.

Ringing phone = barking dog = Carole shouting at dog to 'be quiet!' = pandemonium within earshot of Jeanne. It became a circus so I yanked all the phones outta the walls. figuratively speaking.

..er....then I forgot to tell anyone, not that there was anyone to tell because there's just Jeanne and me here, & she was asleep & I wasn't going to waken her to tell her I'd unplugged all the phones so's not to waken her. what's the point in that, eh? But, see, I lay down too, & forgot about the phones.

Later Jeanne was wondering about the quiet. heh

Jack Black fans

2009-06-14T22:37:35Z

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2849990/year_one_official_movie_trailer/ Saw this in the previews before Star Trek. This I want see.

caroledalphin @ 2009-06-13T17:30:00

2009-06-13T22:38:42Z

Now that John has a kitten sitter lined up so he can join me in Bloomington to meet Ceilidh, I've had to cancel or postpone that part of my trip home. My brother-in-law now has pneumonia and MRSA, which is the 'super bug' of staph infections one can get these days.

Both are related to his long long stay in hospital, all the surgery, and the multitudinous tubing that perforates his body from stem to stern.

Jeanne arrived at hospital this morning, entered his room and was yelled at by a nurse for not having a face mask & gloves on - this staph thing is awful & easy to pick up from someone if you come into contact with them or share something like a face cloth, or (yeccch) toothbrush, if you make skin contact with them and have a cut or wound or open patch on your skin. It's so awful, it can be fatal in people with low resistance. Like babies. The worst of it is that nobody had put up a warning on Duane's door, so anyone going in wouldn't know to be covered - cleaning staff, nurses newly on duty, visitors, therapists, etc. The people in charge should have posted a big sign on his door, WARNING, MRSA! if you must enter, don gloves & mask, available at nursing station. There was none of that & the fact that there was no warning is a sign of the negligence happening at that facility.

I've been taking care of Duane this week, bathing his face, holding his hands, helping vacuum sputum out of his trache tube when he coughs - so I've definitely been in contact with him.

Hand washing is essential and I do it religiously, but still - if I have any of that stuff on my skin or, gods forbid, in my skin, I might possibly transfer it to others. So I can't take any chances with Ceilidh or anyone in the household. So I'm heading home instead.

Had to let John know before he set out, had to let the kitten sitter know. I'm so disappointed!

wha'd I say?? wha'd I say??

2009-06-12T17:04:18Z

This must not be my day for communicating with others. So far I've upset two people and it is only noon...actually I managed well before noon.

Some days I'm doing better just to keep my lips shut and smile. :)

Beauty at night

2009-06-12T05:11:43Z

The Night Blooming Cereus is a plant that resembles (to me) a gigantic christmas cactus & puts out buds of enormous size that grow and grow until one night, around 9 or 10 p.m. the blossom begins to open. It opens all in one night from a loosly wrapped bud to a full bloom resembling a lotus. The blossom is white & has a wonderful soft aroma I would love to find in perfume.

Jeanne, here in south Texas, has such a plant & it bloomed last night & I was here alone to watch - stayed up past 1 a.m. watching & photographing its stages, sniffing the air around it, & wishing Jeanne were here to see it. This morning the blooms were hanging limply, the stems withered, the blossoms closed. It spent it all in one magnificent event.

Nermie

2009-06-12T05:04:22Z

This kitty's photo was chosen as Kitten of the Day & posted on Facebook. I fell in love with this little guy, whose name is Nermie after Nermal in the Garfield cartoons. It's he a sweetie?

Writer's Block: Don't Call It a Comeback

2009-06-08T15:56:35Z

The French term "l'esprit de l'escalier," which translates literally as "the wit of the staircase," refers to those perfect, clever comebacks that you only think of after the fact. What's the best came-too-late comeback you've ever had?

Submitted By hels_hound

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"oh huh!" learned from a 4 yr old neighbor. "you're a what?" learned from middle school age boys. "humph" learned from older sister. "oh, mom!" learned from kids.

caroledalphin @ 2009-06-08T08:18:00

2009-06-08T13:42:54Z

Things are looking up and down here in Corpus. Duane has been in a rehabilitation hospital for about a week. His care is mostly good & things have changed a bit for him:

the vent. tube is gone, he still has a tracheotomy tube going through his esophagus to the trachea, but he breathes on his own mostly with assist, when needed, by a C-Pap machine (oxygen provided through a hose to the mouth of the trache tube but not attached to it)- this part is great. It was a morale booster getting off the vent for one thing, it's also safer for his health as long as he can inhale deeply enough on his own, which he seems to be doing most of the time.

The Foley catheter was removed the other day & he's peeing on his own. That is a big step in the right direction, even if he still has a colostomy. When/if the intestines heal, maybe he'll be reattached through to regular channels, if it can't be, it's not the end of the world. Lots of people learn to live with colostomy bags & still be active.

Taking an interest in something - he has started wearing ear phones to listen to the books-on-disc CDs Jeanne bought for him. Yesterday Jeanne got a frantic call from Duane's teenaged granddaughter, who was visiting him, saying he was trying to tell her something she couldn't understand or figure out & she was so worried, would Jeanne come to the hospital to help him. Turned out his CD player's batteries had worn out & he wanted new batteries to finish the story. THAT was a good scene.

Active is the downer - he has lost so much muscle it is difficult to imagine him standing much less walking - but people do that, too - they make come backs because they just are seeing themselves upright and moving about normally. The vision is the visual aid towards meeting the goal. I don't know what Duane's vision for himself includes. We shall see by what happens.

Talking - with a plug device stopping the trache tube and the proper blowing he can talk - he has, he can, but lately he refuses. Stubborn as a Missouri Mule. Practically snaps his lips shut & refuses to look one in the eye. If he could cross his arms across his chest he would.

Jeanne, with my urging, has gone to Unity Village in Kansas City MO to participate in a 5 day convention of Unity Ministers, something she scheduled before Duane went into the hospital in Feb. She really needs to 'get outta town' for a few days & be among the wonderful souls at Unity Village, recharge her own batteries. I am house/doggie sitting & visiting Duane a couple times a day to keep him in the loop, assure him of loving attention whether he wants it or not (I can be stubborn too). I sing, ready aloud, write stuff on his white board that makes him roll his eyes or raise his eyebrows into his receding hairline, tell him groaner jokes - he'll be so happy to have his Jeanne back; she is quiet and pets him & stuff.

Prayerful fingers crossed for guidance about the next step for Duane and Jeanne, please. Thank you.

I am heading home the 17th of this month, with a stop-over in Bloomington IN for a few days to visit little Ceilidh & her parents & grandparents. Can't wait to see her again, she has quintupled herself since last October. From 1 lb 14 oz to over 15 lb. and that was last week, by the time I get there she may be over 16 lb. What a kid! Super Baby.

WHERE'S MY FLYING CAR????

2009-06-03T16:25:22Z

Corpus Christi, TX Wednesday, June 3, 2009

When I look at today's date I get a feeling of other worldliness. How did the years change to this future from my childhood? Shouldn't there be: 1. no war, poverty, illness, illiteracy? 2. flying cars, raised roadbeds, concentrated urban areas surrounded by park-like green space for gardens & flowers? 3. regular flights to exotic spots on the moon?

That's pretty much what we were promised by prognosticators of the past. WHERE'S MY FLYING CAR???

Damn.

The onliest thing I see as a big, if misguided, difference between 2009 and 1959 is this:
we send the young & healthy to be killed while we keep the old & sickly on life support.

Writer's Block: Don't Call It a Comeback

2009-05-23T13:32:17Z

Submitted By hels_hound

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"oh yeah?"

Moral, ethical, spiritual dilemmas

2009-05-18T14:19:29Z

When someone is slowly dying & family are either assuring him of the need to "fight", while hospital care givers are trying to explain to those above that all the fight in the world isn't going to stop the inevitable & are saying, "give the poor guy a break & let him go", and the person in the center of all this controversy is telling doctors and nurses he wants to die but telling his family he doesn't - what do you do, if you are the one with the power of attorney?

D.A.G. is 81, has muscular dystrophy but could walk & even ride his motorcycle until diverticulitis forced him to request surgery in February. He has never left the hospital since that surgery, in fact has been in the ICU for three months & only gets worse. Things went wrong, as often do when a very elderly person with previous health problems undergoes surgery. And now his wife is visiting him two and three times a day before & after a full work day; she watches him suffering pain & indignities & loss of hope; she mourns for the man who went into the hospital & whom doctors now tell her will never leave alive while, at the same time she tries to be encouraging & up beat for him when he is awake.

D.A.G. is lucid when awake, but has been so ill for so long now that he is weakened beyond being able to move himself except for fingers, raising one arm at the elbow to wave slightly. He cannot talk because he has a tracheotomy, he cannot hear because he isn't allowed to wear his hearing aids, he can read & nod or shake his head every so slightly when one of us writes a question or statement on a small white board, but unless we write the right questions, there are most things he cannot communicate to anyone.

His wife holds his P.O.A. She refuses to give permission to turn off his air supply (without which he will die in minutes) or his feeding tube (starvation is awful) as long as he can still give her a little kiss, reply to questions, look into her eyes with love. But the nurses tell her he has mouthed the words, "I want to die" to them often enough that they cry when they tell her that, knowing she won't do it. It's not like they just turn things off, they would sedate the patient to the point of comfort, then do it.

Can anyone tell me how to be there for someone who is suffering & how to tell when one should make the suffering stop? If he were a pet, he'd have been allowed the grace of a peaceful passing long before this. He's not a pet - he is human, alive, but his quality of life is in the negative side of things.

I have to be very careful when talking to J.O.G., his wife, lest I offend her too much by giving my honest opinion. She has lived with & depended on him for many things for over 35 years. She is anxious about doing the right thing for him yet about losing her companion and one of the world's best handymen. But isn't it not about her, but about him? What can she expect for him? A continuation of this same state, worsening even, until his body just quits. There will never be anything better for him, he has no future, he won't come home, he won't walk or talk or get up. Yet he is in his head often (not always) when she visits. And he suffers.

Writer's Block: Same Name

2009-05-18T13:51:51Z

Have you ever met or known someone who has the same name as you (first and last) but is not a relative?

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No.

caroledalphin @ 2009-05-09T09:47:00

2009-05-09T14:47:45Z

Going for a massage today!!!

48 to 95 not routes, temperatures in one day

2009-05-06T19:36:27Z

Yesterday I was in northern NY, driving through the Adirondacks (John drove), south towards Albany and the airport. We started with the car heater on, passed by left over snow patches in the High Peaks area around Keene and Lack Placid, commented on the very light green haze around the birch trees that were beginning to get new leaves; headed on southwards noticing the increasingly leafy trees, the deepening greens of undergrowth & deciduous trees until we got midway south in the state to the airport.

I boarded a plane to fly to my sister's home. First leg of the journey took me to Atlanta, where the trees and grass were as green as it gets in mid summer up north. Then to Jackson, Mississippi, then to Fort Worth, Texas, and finally, around 10 pm, landed in Corpus Christi, on the Gulf of Mexico. Exiting the airport there, I was hit in the face with heavy humidity and 85+ degree weather. OMG. Weather shock!!

Today it is sunny and in the mid to high 90s outside this house where I am huddling, hoping the dog won't demand a walk around the block before 10 tonight. I brought along what I ordinarily consider to be summery clothing, but I might as well have left them home. Must head to GoodWill this weekend for Real summery clothes.

Teddi-ther-Poo(dle) really, really wants me to take him for a walk. Last time I was here, I came in Feb. and stayed til the end of April & slowly acclimated. Then I would walk the little doggie to the end of the driveway (about two cars long) & he'd be out of pee already, having left droplets on every blade of grass (he's a very small dog) between the front door and the sidewalk, and I'd be sweating up a storm, ready to go back inside for a nap. Being dropped (not literally, it was a smooth landing) into this atmosphere of heat and humidity out of the blue (literally...well, black actually as it was nighttime), I'm not even ready to open the door lest some of the barely cooled inside a/c air rush out. Jeanne has lived here (and loves it!!!) over 10 years & 60 degrees outside necessitates heavy winter coats & leggings, she likes the indoors to be drier than outside, but not cooler.

If it weren't for the wonderful sister who lives here, I'd never come back ever ever ever May through October. Winter here is better than summer in many places.

caroledalphin @ 2009-05-03T21:05:00

2009-05-04T01:11:05Z

John did so much work today: he unloaded my car of the stuff we hauled from Potsdam yesterday, he went grocery shopping, he mowed the back 40, he fixed supper, he washed the dishes, and he planted the garden with peas, green beans, radishes, spinach, lettuce. I helped with the garden & sewed flower seeds.

The yard looks so pretty, all mown, the garden tidy, we are trying to decide where to put in the four apple trees that are coming in the mail. We're going to make a little copse.

Who makes the decision?

2009-05-02T17:06:21Z

My brother-in-law had diverticulitis & was hospitalized with it a couple of times this past year.
Diverticuli are little pockets or tiny aneurysms of the colon. Most people get them if they live long enough. They can become a problem when stuff passing through the colon, like liquified food or fecal matter, depending where in the colon the pockets have happened, lodge themselves in these pockets & rot. The person with this problem has pain, sometimes severe & needs antibiotics to kill the bacteria.

So, my sister's husband, 81 years old, with advancing Muscular Dystrophy that withers his leg muscles, a problem that just started about 7 years ago, was wanting to avoid more hospitalizations for an infected colon & opted for an operation. The surgeon opened Duane's lower abdomen & cut out the offending piece of colon (usually it is in the lower left quadrant just above the pubic bone & it makes an abrupt 90 degree turn there. Junk passing through to the rectum can easily get caught there.) This was an elective rather than an emergency operation. He could have continued to be treated with antibiotics when necessary.

Duane went into the hospital February 23, 2009. He is still there. He has been in the ICU all this time. Since the original operation, which ought to be common, he has had to have at least two more. The doctors, after a MONTH, discovered there were leaks in the colon around the surgical site & stuff was entering Duane's abdomen cavity, creating pressure and illness. Suddenly Duane was on a feeding tube & being drained of the accumulated liquid. Then, after lying in the ICU for a month, Duane also got pneumonia from regurgitating food into his lungs.

So he was given oxygen - a nose thingee. That wasn't enough though, he began to struggle for air & was intubated & put on a ventilator. Now he couldn't talk with the tube going down his throat. He was fed through a tube into his stomach, on a vent, being drained of excess fluids & not improving. He was alive, awake, upset, unable to speak because of the tube.

Sometime in there, a male nurse got irritated trying to communicate with Duane, who was asking for a cup of water. The nurse ignored the water request, left for an hour or so, & never did bring water. Duane got upset enough that he pulled his tubes out knowing alarms would go off & he'd get some attention & maybe a drink of water. The alarms did bring a horde of people who decided Duane was obstreperous & a danger to himself & proceeded to tie him to his bed for the night but failed to give him water.

The next day the male nurse put Duane in a chair in his room, tied him there and left him for 10 hours. When my sister arrived for her many times a day visit, Duane removed the breathing tube so he could talk and dictated to her the events of the past days. This letter which Jeanne typed up, was to go to someone in the hospital who overlooks patient care. Jeanne also read it to me on the phone & I sent a copy of it to Julie, who works at Maine Medical Center & is aware of the 'do no harm' rules of any and all hospitals. She gave Jeanne some advice re:whom to send the letter to.

After the third operation on Duane, when the doctor again realized that he was still leaking fluid into his abdomen, Duane was getting quite weak. He had been in bed for two months, getting some P.T. but not moving out of bed. The muscular dystrophy of course was continuing to atrophy his leg muscles, and now his arm muscles were also involved. He got to the place where he couldn't hold a pencil from weakness so he couldn't write to communicate; he was back on the ventilator with the tube down his throat so he couldn't talk; he is very hard of hearing & couldn't wear his hearing aids; the staff began to treat him like someone without a brain.

Duane became inward, sitting for hours staring at nothing in particular, unable to speak or write or hold a book. Jeanne thought he was going inside himself, reliving his past. One time when he was asleep as she visited, he thought it was 1930, another time he didn't know her - the result of too much medication. He was kept sedated. Then he would have days when he was himself & just frustrated & wanting to be well & go home.

Duane was a motorcyclist before going into the hospital. He refurbished a Honda Goldwing so he could drive it even with his weak legs, he belonged to on Old Guy Motorcycle gang that would take day trips around South Texas; he built from the ground up an airplane in his garage and flew it - not far, it was too heavy for an ultra-lite, but he did it & it worked. He can do anything, cook, repair engines, invent better furnaces & build them. Duane has the heart of an adventurer. And here he is on day 40, still in the ICU, has pneumonia again, is on the vent, the feeding tube, has a trache tube in his throat, he is swelling again from leakage & last night a nurse advised Jeanne to let them remove his ventilator tube and his feeding tube and allow him to die.

Letting someone go in peace when they ask or when they are in some kind of coma with no hope of getting better is one thing. But Duane is not in a coma, he isn't asking to die, he can communicate with his eyes when Jeanne uses a white board & he blew her a goodbye kiss today.

How can a NURSE advise a patient's next of kin to pull the plugs with certain death by drowning in his own fluids or starve to death?

Jeanne called me, crying, upset naturally, horrified by this advice. I asked if Duane is no longer home mentally & she said, no, he's fine that way, so I suggested then that he be the one to have the only vote on life or death. I mean who the hell is this nurse, telling Jeanne to do this thing when the man is lying right there watching them talk, partially hearing & totally understanding? WTF???

The whole quality of life thing, stay or go, you'll never go home again, but maybe, just maybe you will make it to a nursing home - this is something for Duane to decide, maybe in consult with Jeanne & his son. I'm just blown away by the thought that we can actually decide a thing like that for someone else who is still in their right mind.

Writer's Block: Swine Times

2009-05-01T00:42:44Z

Are you worried about catching the swine flu? Do you have a plan for avoiding contagion or dealing with quarantine?

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Not worried, but prepared to do the right thing for family and society should I encounter it. Meanwhile, I shall continue washing my hands any time I've been in any public place, also I plan to continue covering my mouth and nose if I cough or sneeze. That's something I was taught as a child.

Earth Day 2009

2009-04-23T05:06:35Z

This one sneeked* up on me. John and I have been planning our first in a long long time vegetable garden layout, so this morning we went into town to buy straw & bags of top soil.
For the actual garden plot we want to buy in bulk from someone who deals dirt. But since at our latitude/altitude, the growing season doesn't begin until the end of May, we plan to poke or cut holes in the bags of dirt that John laid out in our plot, and plant things directly in the bags.

Edie and Chris do this in northern Scotland with great results. Today was a start. John paced out the perimeter, putting stakes at the four corners. He already made a drawing of how it will be laid out, in rows with walking paths of straw between the six growing areas. At first we thought to have raised beds, but for some reason John decided to scrap that idea. I was hoping not to have to bend down too far or squat to weed...I guess he's going to have to do that stuff.

He wants to build a double layered fence around the garden, a fence within a fence, to discourage deer. And he still has to make a compost bin - that should be simple - they aren't exactly works of art, just need to be accessible. right now we have three covered buckets of kitchen waste just itching to get into the whole composting thing. They are waiting in the garage. No meat.

We had some fun watering the straw & each other. That is, until I went back to the house to let the cat inside & discovered the kitchen was flooding. The water pipe for the hose must have been frozen over last winter before we bought the house & the pressure from us using the hose to water down the garden burst the pipe, which is behind the kitchen cabinets & omg! The kitchen floor is tile, so my friend and I mopped it & squeegied it and sopped water with towels.

Then I had to clean out the inside of the cabinet where the water had come through, and in moving things out of the cabinet to get to the water, I dropped the glass pitcher of our blender onto the tile floor & it smashed all over, under, and around my bare feet! My friend came to the rescue & together we picked up all the glass, vacuumed to make sure of the tiny bits, and finished mopping.

When John came in from the garden, wondering why I'd turned off the hose, he became very upset about the broken blender pitcher but never once asked if I'd been cut or said anything about us taking care of all that mess. He was angry. What happened to being more concerned about the person than the 'thing'.

Dinner was a solemn affair with little conversation. My friend, Renate, who is staying with us a few days, is the soul of discretion. She's not one to say anything at all under these circumstances, nor was she put off from eating. She has a calming effect.

Is it Spring yet?

2009-04-17T14:32:55Z

Here it is more than half way through April, usually my favorite month of the year due to the flowering of the world as I know it. In these northern climes, however, flowering isn't so much happening as 'going to happen', maybe NEXT month. This time lag experienced by folks who live out of the loop of the rest of the country is often mother to frustration, depression, bad choices and suicide (the Mother of bad choices). Let me explain:

we first moved here in 1971 from Indianapolis, Indiana. Before that I'd lived in Arlington VA, San Francisco, around St. Louis MO, all mid-latitude places with a Spring that sprang in late March/early April and progressed from there. When April 1972 rolled around & we were still digging out of the snow regularly, the concept of flowers & budding trees, warm zephyrs, walking about in shirt sleeves out of doors didn't appear to cross people's minds - other than mine as I dug out of the snow. The lady across the street committed suicide that April; people were crabby (me); it was an unnatural way of life & it got to folks - cabin fever was at high pitch.

We moved away, back to mid latitudes five years later & stayed away as long as possible - but in 2000 we moved back. So here it is, April more than half gone & finally FINALLY most of the snow it gone, there are three tulip plants poked out of the ground in the front yard...they are up about four inches...no buds yet. The shrubbery is still a mystery because nothing is leafed out and I can't tell much by the tiny buds. One aspect of Spring is normal and that's robins. The robins are busy denuding my front lawn of worms, which I was hoping to use myself in the compost bin thingee John's planning. It's early yet even for compost tho' unless we use a LOT of manure to keep it warm.

When we lived here in the 70s, we had a garden & compost thingee. I faithfully poured vegetable leavings, grass, leaves into it to turn into earth, which it didn't because the growing season was so short the winters so long & cold that the composting material would freeze solid, then take all summer to melt before refreezing next fall. This year we plan to put the compost in a sunny spot, heave in manure & worms along with the veggie matter, give it a good stir, etc. I hope it doesn't freeze.

With May approaching & the 31st being the official 'plant your garden' day around here, we have a little time to sort out exactly what we want to plant & where. I can't wait for the effects of Spring to arrive along with the zephyrs.

caroledalphin @ 2009-04-07T19:24:00

2009-04-07T23:33:33Z

We went to Potsdam to spend the night, pack up more books, and be ready for Kip, the auctioneer, who said he and his guys would come Tues. around 9 or 9:30, to take away furniture and other items to sell at auction later. He's a good young man, but he didn't show up or call. No doubt a misunderstanding, yet disappointing.

We went yesterday to go through things & be sure we had the things we want to sell all in one spot where possible, to make it easier for Kip. We were able to agree on most things, although John's saves his shit and I save my momentos. The descriptions are up for translation.

We spent the night on the mattress that's going, bungled up in sleeping bags. Kip never showed up, but John moved several large bookcases out & into his truck, we cleaned out & loaded a lot more stuff to bring to the Hobbit Hole. I wish we could have sorted out things we never, ever use or even look at, but J & I really don't agree on those things. We both felt good about getting a lot more done.

:)