The Blog: Spellbound by our own imperfect lives...: October 2015

Sunday, October 25, 2015

catching up in prose and photos

I love fall. I love everything about fall...the leaves, the color of the sky, sweaters and boots, pumpkin, nutmeg, squash. It just goes too darn fast. I'm going to catch up fast with pictures and some words. Some of this is a repeat, I am sure.

This fall, I...

Went to the farmer's market for pumpkins and squash. I baked a carnival squash and a butternut squash one day and took it when we had dinner with Tom and Betty.

Made pumpkin muffins. I took them to Kim at Benedictine where she is visiting her dad. So good to reconnect with her after all these years.

Had lunch with an old friend. She gave me this lovely mug which is my new favorite. I love the red and purple!

Made Norwegian flatbread with Aunt Vi's recipe. The first few were a little thick...after that...gold!

Had dinner with Kathy and Jack at Suzette's. I had Chilean sea bass stuffed with crab and lobster.

My haul from the farmer's market. Not the cat...the cat was here when I left.

I went for a walk with Regis and Gus on the trails in Riverside Park. Beautiful fall morning.

I went to Canby and spent three days with Mom making lefse, working at the Hospice dinner, playing dominoes with her friends, and having a wonderful time.

I have been fascinated by light and how different it looks in photos than it does to my eyes. This has been edited with Pic Monkey. I think it looks like a scene from ET.

I canned tomatoes and salsa. Summer in a jar.

I went for a walk at the Arboretum at GAC, looking for signs. Two bright red leaves and a perfect, tiny pine cone.

We made a stuffed pork tenderloin with Ginger's homemade sour kraut and we wrapped it in bacon.

These are the ladies who worked at the Hospice dinner. That's my mom on the far left!

Grateful

Thursday, October 08, 2015

bark bark bark

I could have titled this post Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House but I thought that might bring down the wrath of the FBI. And who needs that shit?

My days of late have been a cacophony of sound. On the south, I have dogs...barking barking barking.

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House
Billy Collins

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Yesterday, I opened up the bathroom window and glowered at them, whispering, "Go in the house. Go back into the house. You are making me insane." They paid me no attention.

On the west, I have a construction company making hash of my boulevard, my grass, and maybe not my patio although it, too, has their paint markings on it. Two giant vehicles are clawing at the sidewalk, digging portions of cement, dumping them in a waiting truck, beep beep beep.

On the north, I have a neighbor obsessed with lawn cleanliness. He chases five leaves around for 30 minutes to route them into the gutter. He could pick them up and stuff them into a sandwich bag in five minutes. But no, his method requires multiple gas powered machine.

On the west, again, I have a neighbor who does not believe in mufflers. They, in his eyes, must be the work of the devil. His motorcycle sounds like a jet is launching itself down 4th Street. His vehicle sounds like a fleet of John Deere's. His lawn tractor sounds like you should wear ear protection if you live in the next town.

Why am I burdened with this bullshit? It's not as bad as cancer (which I have) or osteoporosis (which I have) but it is a pain in the rear. I pray for quiet.

I am currently hoping my neighbors do not read my blog. Although as Sinclair Lewis said, if they didn't want to be in my writing they shouldn't have been such assholes.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

if it ain't one thing, it's another

I spent two days this past weekend in the yard and accomplished much. Only a couple things left to do.

As I was watering the new grass, I remembered when my brother Steve was little, I would sprinkle the grass and throw pennies down at the end of the rainbow when he wasn't looking. He thought it was the pot of gold. In some ways, it was.

Ella and I planted daffodils and tulips. She carried each one so carefully and gave them each a name...old names like Ethel and Herbert. I asked if she would remember them until spring but she didn't think so.

I have friends with cancer recurrences again. Mary is having a mastectomy on Thursday and will come home on Friday. I think I would demand more time. Kathryn's cancer has traveled to her lungs and bones. Carol's breast cancer has turned into thyroid cancer. Not sure of the medical details of how that happens but it did. This afternoon, I visited Don, who is in the care of hospice.

But then I see Ann and hear about her husband's mother who had breast cancer 50 years ago and just celebrated her 100th birthday.

I started my online class last week but am frustrated that I have only gotten through Lesson 1.

Regis and I are cooking this lovely pork loin on the grill. We were going to stuff it with the same concoction we used last time but Ginger dropped off three jars of homemade sour kraut so we used that instead...with some apples, brown sugar, and cream cheese.

I took Mary a little gift before her surgery. Ann was there with two pounds of butter for me from the Hope Creamery. Oooh la la. The first time I tasted Hope butter, I nearly swooned.

I read the results of the bone density scan I had last week. Of course, my biggest worry is that cancer will get into my bones. I get an infusion of Zometa every six months which I like to think will protect me from that but I don't think that is a medical fact. I think I made it up.

So, here it is.

Report
DEXA bone density is performed of the left hip and lumbar spine.
Comparison: 2/25/2014.
Left hip: ROI appropriate, total T-score -2 (however, the individual
left femoral neck T-score is -2.6)
total BMD 0.697 grams/cm squared (0.4% worsened since 2/25/2014).
L1-L4: ROI appropriate, total T-score -1.8
total BMD 0.851 grams/cm squared (4.8% improved since 2/25/2014).
The lateral view of the spine (LVA) is of limited diagnostic quality,
but no compression fractures are suspected.
IMPRESSION: Individual left femoral neck osteoporosis indicates high
fracture risk according to WHO criteria.

So, I quickly send off messages to my trainer who promised me good results from my strength training, my regular doctor who ordered this test and could interpret it for me, and my oncology docs and research nurse. So far, I have only heard from the research nurse. She said the deterioration was only 0.4% and the improvement was 4.8%. She said she didn't think I needed to panic. Ok, I will try not to panic.

Saturday, October 03, 2015

my list of things to do today

Inside

Clean out refrigerator- Done
Do the dishes- Done
Clean off the table- Done
Tidy up the house- quickly- Done

Outside

Dig up canna bulbs- Done
Water the new grass- Done
Mow boulevard- Not done
Plant hostas- Done
Plant tulips and daffodils- Done
Put away some of the patio chairs and cushions- Done
Put out suet feeders for woodpeckers- Done
Make a pile of garden waste in the red truck: tomato plants, canna stalks, milkweed- Done
Go to the compost pile- Done

Inside

Halloween decorations- Done
Do two lessons for online courses- Not done
Make my finger labyrinths- Not done
Make tomato pie- Not done

To finish on Sunday

All the things above that didn't get finished- Mostly done
Pick up Zoey's doll- Will be done!
Birthday party at 5:15

Monday

Grocery shopping
Flu shots
Dog diapers
Coffee at 10:00
Score papers

Friday, October 02, 2015

it's been a weird ass day

I went to work out with Gunnar at 7 instead of 8. Holy crap, the guy tries to kill me and I like it.

I went to work at Lone Star at 11. A guy about 55 walks in with his wife. They have seen the billboard on their way from Mpls to Fairmont. He looks and sounds so familiar. I finally go back and ask if he is a P_____ from Fairmont. Yes, he is. Stunned. His sister and I were on the same dorm floor in 1970 and later shared an apartment. I knew his parents, his siblings, and probably even him although he was young at the time. Wow. Small world.

Regis and I went to Mankato. I stopped in a funky little craft shop that's been there for many years. Dusty, Neglected. We both had the feeling we had to buy something because it looked like she hadn't made a sale in a long time. He held up a couple things. We finally settled on this. An orange pumpkin.

We had dinner at one of our favorite pizza places. Yum pizza and wine and desserts if you have any room left. Talked to a lovely young woman who signed us up for birthday notifications for all the grandchildren. So...if you get a card in the mail, don't be mf'ing us. Wahaha!!!

So that's all my connections for today. Carry on.

Winter Grace

by Patricia Fargnoli

If you have seen the snow
under the lamppost
piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table
or somewhere slowly falling
into the brook
to be swallowed by water,
then you have seen beauty
and know it for its transience.
And if you have gone out in the snow
for only the pleasure
of walking barely protected
from the galaxies,
the flakes settling on your parka
like the dust from just-born stars,
the cold waking you
as if from long sleeping,
then you can understand
how, more often than not,
truth is found in silence,
how the natural world comes to you
if you go out to meet it,
its icy ditches filled with dead weeds,
its vacant birdhouses, and dens
full of the sleeping.
But this is the slowed-down season
held fast by darkness
and if no one comes to keep you company
then keep watch over; your own solitude.
In that stillness, you will learn
with your whole body
the significance of cold
and the night,
which is otherwise always eluding you.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Permission Granted

by David Allen Sullivan

You do not have to choose the bruised peach
or misshapen pepper others pass over.
You don't have to bury
your grandmother's keys underneath
her camellia bush as the will states.

You don't need to write a poem about
your grandfather coughing up his lung
into that plastic tube—the machine's wheezing
almost masking the kvetching sisters
in their Brooklyn kitchen.

You can let the crows amaze your son
without your translation of their cries.
You can lie so long under this
summer shower your imprint
will be left when you rise.

You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.
Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.
Revel in the flight of birds without
dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of
raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.

Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
Each beat of the world's pulse demands
only that you feel it. No thoughts.
Just the single syllable: Yes ...

See the homeless woman following
the tunings of a dead composer?
She closes her eyes and sways
with the subways. Follow her down,
inside, where the singing resides.

"Permission Granted" by David Allen Sullivan,

from Strong-Armed Angels.

Gratitude by Barbara Crooker

This week, the news of the world is bleak, another war

grinding on, and all these friends down with cancer,

or worse, a little something long term that they won’t die of

for twenty or thirty miserable years—

And here I live in a house of weathered brick, where a man

with silver hair still thinks I’m beautiful. How many times

have I forgotten to give thanks? The late day sun shines

through the pink wisteria with its green and white leaves

as if it were stained glass, there’s an old cherry tree

that one lucky Sunday bloomed with a rainbow:

cardinals, orioles, goldfinches, blue jays, indigo buntings,

and my garden has tiny lettuces just coming up,

so perfect they could make you cry: Green Towers,

Red Sails, Oak Leaf. For this is May, and the whole world

sings, gleams, as if it were basted in butter, and the air’s

sweet enough to send a diabetic into shock—

And at least today, all the parts of my body are working,

the sky’s clear as a china bowl, leaves murmur their leafy chatter,

finches percolate along. I’m doodling around this page,

know sorrow’s somewhere beyond the horizon, but still, I’m riffing

on the warm air, the wingbeats of my lungs that can take this all in,

flush the heart’s red peony, then send it back without effort or thought.

And the trees breathe in what we exhale, clap their green hands

in gratitude, bend to the sky.

From Line Dance (Word Press, 2008).

Starfish by Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life's way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won't give you smart or brave,
so you'll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
stopped when you should have started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

Do Not Expect That If Your Book Falls Open

Dana Gioia

Do not expect that if your book falls open
to a certain page, that any phrase
you read will make a difference today,
or that the voices you might overhear
when the wind moves through the yellow-green
and golden tent of autumn, speak to you.

Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the
dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon
your shadow walks beside you on the wall,
and the days stay long and heavy underneath
the distant rumor of the harvest. One
more summer gone,
and one way or another you survive,
dull or regretful, never learning that
nothing is hidden in the obvious
changes of the world, that even the dim
reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass
is more than you will ever understand.

And only briefly then
you touch, you see, you press against
the surface of impenetrable things.

Riveted by Robyn Sarah

It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.

Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.

It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious dénouement
to the unsurprising end — riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.

"Riveted" by Robyn Sarah from A Day's Grace: Poems 1997-2002

I Was Always Leaving by Jean Nordhaus

I was always leaving, I was
about to get up and go, I was
on my way, not sure where.
Somewhere else. Not here.
Nothing here was good enough.

It would be better there, where I
was going. Not sure how or why.
The dome I cowered under
would be raised, and I would be released
into my true life. I would meet there

the ones I was destined to meet.
They would make an opening for me
among the flutes and boulders,
and I would be taken up. That this
might be a form of death

did not occur to me. I only know
that something held me back,
a doubt, a debt, a face I could not
leave behind. When the door
fell open, I did not go through.

Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself

Barbara Crooker

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about my life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,
the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.
Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold
for a brief while, then lose it all each November.
Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst
weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves
come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,
land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.
You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find
shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.
All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.
They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.