A Memory

 

Facebook memory from 14 years ago. 

Today William is taller than I am, and has a mustache.

Superstition

 In October of 2008, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a scary time because there was no way of knowing how it would work out. People die from breast cancer. Would I be one of them? I  remember an early morning appointment, where 4 women sat together talking about cancer, but still somehow finding plenty to laugh about, and that laughter was, I think, encouraging to all of us. 

Treatment ends, and you ring that bell and walk out of the cancer center, and I guess that I expected to feel something. Triumph. Relief. A hallelujah moment. But I didn't.

For the next 6 or so years, what I felt was as if I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. My cancer, I was told, was the kind of cancer that had the tendency to break away and travel, metastasizing in other areas of the body. The brain, lungs, liver, or bones was the most likely areas for those secondary cancers, a 1 in 3 chance.

So...there are the mammograms, and I learned a new word: scanxiety. It is a cute word but a real situation. The mammogram dredged up old ghosts and fears. The no evidence of disease (NED) from the doctor wasn't much of a comfort either. I wasn't expecting it to show up there...I was more worried about my brains, bones, liver, and lungs.

There was the day I realized that of the four women in the waiting room that morning, years back were all dead now. I was the last surviver. 

All these things worked together for a few years to keep me anxious, but then a truly Debby-thing happened. I was climbing an extension ladder. It was my own carelessness. I should have checked. It was not properly set, and as I reached out for the roof, the ladder suddenly 'unextended' and fell over leaving me hanging off the edge of the roof by one arm, the other hand still clutching at the collapsing ladder. The young man on the ground grabbed the ladder. The husband on the roof grabbed on to the seat of my pants and hauled my ass to safety. 

It was a terrifying moment, not just for me but everyone there. Thinking about it though, I got a case of the giggles. I mean, really...I was so worried about cancer but I could just as easily die by falling off the roof, or getting hit by a car, and the more I thought about it the more ridiculously funny it seemed to me.

(Side note: when you have scared the mess out of your husband, bursting into laughter is going to make him mad. And when you can't stop laughing, it is going to make even the quietest man yell his head off at some point.)

Anyways, at some point, I simply stopped worrying about it. To be honest, I stopped being a stickler about the mammograms, even. When Tim was having his own issues there were a couple years that I didn't get around to having it done.

There is a woman. She and I had cancer about the same time. Her husband hauled two dump truck loads of gravel to the new driveway last spring. He and Tim talked a while. After all these years, her cancer has returned. He said, 'Yeah. She's not doing well.'

Today was my mammogram. After all these years, 18+ of them, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I found myself feeling superstitious. 

LATE EDIT: It was letting my fears take over. I received my phone call. All looks as it should.

In Which Tim Does Not Buy a Car

Thursday, Tim said that there was a car he wanted to look at up in Cassadaga, NY.

I get confused because he has said, over and over, that he does not want to buy another car right now. Gives very sound reasoning for not doing so. Yet every evening he is looking at cars on the internet. Lately, he has been fixated on an Acura. So I say things like 'but I thought you didn't want another car right now." He says, "you always want to keep an eye on what's available."

Things to know: 

1) I could not care less about what car I am driving as long as it gets me from point A to point B, so I am happy with the Suburu, and Tim has two trucks.

2) We never buy new cars. They are overpriced and begin to depreciate as soon as you drive them off the lot. So we were looking for a good used car.

3) Tim does the maintenance on our cars, so....

4) in the end, car decisions are his to make which people don't quite understand, but it is the way we do things. Always have. 

Seriously, we discussed upgrading to a newer car last spring, gave away the car we were replacing, and then Tim began the search. In April, I was visiting my son's family. During our evening phone conversation, I mentioned to Tim that on the way to the Mennonite grocery store, I had noticed a number of neat farms with shiny black cars parked out front with for sale signs on them. I suggested he make the trip out with me next time to scope out potential purchases on the eastern side of the state

He laughed."Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you I bought a car." The fact had completely slipped his mind. 

But I digress, this time, I had only one request. I liked hatchbacks rather than a trunk. That was more practical in my mind. Night after night, he looked through listings. We went to probably a half dozen dealerships scoping out the offerings. For all of that, we definitely did not buy anything because we were not buying another car right now. 

Then he read about that Acura up in Cassadaga, so we made a trip up there to not buy it. And I was glad we didn't buy it. It was an okay car, but I thought it was overpriced compared to the Honda Pilot sitting next to it, with comparable options. Tim studied that car too and made the decision not to buy that one either. 

But then I saw his head pivot. He went quiet. He very likely heard angels singing. He headed for another car on the lot. He was all over it. All under it. Inside it. He was ticking mental boxes. I noticed it had a hatch instead of a trunk. My mental box: ticked. 

The salesman came out, slapped a license plate on it and handed Tim the fob. We took it for a test drive. We pulled off in a parking lot and he tested the options out. I read things from the car manual to him. 

He certainly was spending an unusually long time not buying this car. We drove back to the lot. Tim got out and studied the car. He gave me a list of things to look up on my phone while he studied under the hood again, and examined the frame.

I began to have some real doubts about whether we were still not buying this car. He said, "I am going to offer him (x dollars)" and headed off to the office. At this point, I knew for sure that we were definitely not not buying this car. We didn't, of course. And we did not not put a deposit on it, and we are not not picking it Monday afternoon.

It is a fleet car, well maintained, something called a Honda Crosstour, which was discontinued once Honda discovered that their Accord/SUV marriage was not a good seller. At that point, they made the switch back to selling Accords and offering a Honda Pilot to appeal to the SUV crowd. 

 

On the way home, Tim sighed. " I am glad that problem is done."

I said, "I had no idea that not getting a car was so stressful! I thought that once your mind was made up, you just went ahead and didn't do it."

Here is a random shot we got coming home from Tim's family reunion/outdoor brick oven breadmaking extravaganza yesterday. We drove home in comfortable carbed-out bliss.

I hope this makes up for the lack of train pictures, Andrew. I boarded with an allergy situation and got motion sickness. I did not spend a lot of time looking out the window, so no. I did not take pictures. 

The rest of the story.

 This a possum, playing dead. I scared him, again. He got stiff, and fell over. Probably still laying out there. I scared him when I went out to chase the raccoon off the porch.  Again. 

We have a doe who has been here for several years, and each year she has given birth to twin fawns. She is a good mama. Last week we were sad to see that one of her fawns was hit by a car. Coming home tonight, it broke my heart to see that her second fawn was hit in just about the same place. The thing is that she kept returning to her dead fawn. Tim finally went out and moved the little body out of the road before the doe got hit too. She usually keeps her fawns on this side of the road. Not sure why she has done it differently this year. 

We took an historical train ride through the Oil Creek region. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon. Many of the long hikes we took when my youngest was home followed along the same route as the train took. It was nice to see the scenery from a different perspective. 

I miss my daughter though.

I am building a rock wall. Nothing like Northsider's drywall masterpiece in Ireland, but I am pleased with it. 

So that is what I have been up to.

Wildlife

 We have had a small buck hanging around the yard. He likes the clover. He startled me the other night. Despite all the noisy fireworks, when I went out to deposit the burnables in the burn barrel, he was standing quite near, stock still, watching me. I stopped and stood quite still watching him. When he realized he had been seen, he turned and bounded off. I told Rim about it, and he said, "He is a strange one. I watched him sniffing all around the tracto when I had it parked in the yard."  Yesterday, Tim went out to the lean-to. It runs the length of the garage, and he parks his tractors under cover there. He was quite surprised to discover that little buck curled up between the bucket and the tractor. The little buck wasted no time in making for the woods. I said, 'Perhaps he is a John Deere.'

We also have had a coon around. That fellow is quite bold too. He comes up on the steps. He is looking for any catfood. He is looking for garbage. He is interested in the compost bin. I have chased him off 3 times tonight. The last time the motion detector came on, I threw open the door to chase him away. Much to my surprise, this time it was a possum who was scared stiff. He promptly fell over to play dead.

We also had another visitor just before nightfall. A small black bear walked down between the house and the garage, moseyed his way through the yard down to the lease road and walked back to the gas well. He was so unexpected that by the time I got my wits about me, he was on that road and hidden by the brush. It would not have mattered, I suppose. I cannot load pictures tonight.

I don't suppose I should be surprised at all that the feral Tiger decided to come in for his supper. We don't mind that. Usually he comes in, has a second supper and then cries to go out. We were watching a movie (Japanese Story - Tubi) and forgot about him. He is somewhere in the house. We cannot find him.

Perhaps he has decided that it is just a little too wild out there.

4th of July

 We had a nice celebration up on the hill with Levi, Mattie and the kids. Their neighbors joined us, and Grandma came over too. We ate a late supper on the porch, just a simple meal but plenty of it. They had been working at breakneck speed to get the last of the cut hay in the barn, since there was a chance of thunderstorms. 

Then began the wait until it got dark enough for fireworks. Levi doesn't want anything that makes a boom, because it scares the animals so we stick with fountains and sparklers. We had brought in two packages of assorted fireworks and five or six packages of sparklers. 

Little Rudy was in an agony of excitement as he sat on his little bench. The older kids disappeared for about an hour or so. Two were spreading calcium chlorite on the dirt road to stop dust. Two were using rotary mowers to finish mowing the grass. The oldest boy went down to help the neighbor with his chores. 

Rudy asked several times if it were almost time. It was getting darker and darker. Then it finally did get dark enough, but then we had to wait until the oldest boy got back from the neighbors'. Poor Rudy was very close to exploding himself. 

When Andy did come back, I was pleased to see that the neighbors came back with him. When Mattie said it was time for fireworks, a half dozen pairs of feet went pounding in to the house to retrieve the boxes and the long-handled lighter. Everything was dropped in their mother's lap. 

The sparklers were first. We found some good ones this year. They burned in colors and took about 4 minutes to burn out. Likewise, our collection of fountains contained some long burners too. Some of them made that satisfying crackle as they burned. It made quite a satisfying display that lasted about 40 minutes. 

No sooner did our show end then the English down the road set off three aerial fireworks with the loud booms. We heard a shout up the road and suddenly a horse went racing past the house. Somehow, in the dark, they were able to recognize it as one of theirs. Everyone rushed to get headlamps and headed down the road, but the chase ended very quickly when the horse came racing back and put himself in his own barn.

All's well that ends well. 

This horrible heat was supposed to end Friday evening at 8, and after a long miserable day where no one felt like doing anything at all outside, finally, blessedly, it did cool down and for the first time in a week, we were able to sleep well. 

So well that Tim had to wake me up Saturday morning. He didn't want to miss the 4th of Julu parade.

I am going to tell you a shameful secret. I am not a fan of parades. I went because Tim loves them. 

The first thing I noticed is that the crowds were much sparser than usual. I wondered if that was due to the heat. It was cooler, only 89° but it was humid. We sat on the bench in front of my old church. Usually that site is packed. This year, it was comfortably not packed. A fellow in front of us wore his veteran hat and his veteran shirt. He tried to start conversation. He told us that he arrived in Vietnam on July 4th. Ironic, since my discharge was July 4th, 1986. It soon became evident that this was about our only commonality. 

The parade started with our politicians. Ash Khare, Our very own fraudulent electorled the parade in a convertible. What struck me was the dead silence. He waved grandly to a silent crowd. The republican candidates marched along smiling and waving to the silent crowd. The democrats  had quite a display. Again...silence, although our veteran friend flipped the bird and began muttering under his breath about 'goddamn communists'. That surprised me. I was sore tempted to ask him what exactly it was that made him decide that we were communists. (Later, I discovered that calling democrats communists is our dear leader's holiday message. ) But as I said, everywhere else...silence. That was shocking to me. I think everyone is just tired of the chaos.

Finally we got to the parade. It was local business after local business driving their shiny trucks with their business advertising. Landscaping companies pulled their lawnmowers, excavating companies pulled bulldozers, oil tanker trucks from multiple trucking companies, John Deere show their shiny tractors. Like that. There were also fire companies spraying water on the crowds, very popular. Churches with floats calling for one nation under God. There were a half dozen marching bands, the Shriners and the ZemZems had their little cars and motorcycles zipping about. A rock band marched along side a truck hauling the drummer and the amplifiers playing screaming guitars as they played 'American Woman'. Interesting choice, I thought. Roller skaters, gymnasts, a radio car display. An off road group driving muddy jeeps. A local junkyard hauled two crushed cars, red and white. I think they could not find a blue car.

In honor of the 250th birthday of our nation, the parade was 2.5 hours long.

I watched the kids catching candy, all having a good time. I am ashamed to say that I was glad when it was done. Really, there must have been over 100 trucks blaring their airhorns. Cars from a local dealership, all shiny and pretty, revving their engines. A motorcycle driver who blared his motorcycle so loudly that it was actually painful. That was when we headed for our car. 

But I survived. 

So will the country.

Over in England, my youngest, a new citizen of the UK, spent her 4th by going to Sulgrave Manor for a picnic. It is the ancestral home of George Washington.

Community

Yesterday was another scorcher of a day. We were on a mission though. We had volunteered to drive Levi and Mattie to Pittsburgh for their second youngest son to be seen at the children's hospital there. Because it is a holiday week, they had trouble finding a driver. 

We were up early. We needed to be in their driveway at 6:30. I set my alarm for 4:30, but was awake at 3. We got there and there had been a change. Levi could not go. 

Hay had been a problem for all farmers here. A week ago, we were having one storm after another. You can't do hay in the rain. This week, with a long stretch of hot, dry days, everyone cut their hay, Levi included. Unfortunately, it needed an extra day in the field to dry due to the humidity.

We use balers, but the Amish do it differently. They fork the loose hay onto wagons, where kids are waiting to stomp it down as it comes on board, one fork at a time. Then it is pulled to the barn. They have a 'claw' on a arm and pulley system. The huge claw is dropped on to the hay wagon to pick up a big wad of hay. It is pulled up, hand over hand, swung over to the hay mow. The hay is dropped and it is once again stomped down so that as much hay as possible can be tucked away for winter feed. 

It is labor intensive work and in this heat, a hard job becomes even more grueling. A couple years ago, we were sitting on the porch. Levi was telling us that he had a strange experience. He was working in the hot sun and sweating up a storm. Suddenly he noticed that he wasn't sweating. He got a severe headache, followed by violent shakes. He had to stop what he was doing and lay down in the shade. "It always starts when I stop sweating, though," he said.

I could not believe my ears. It had happened to him before? I taught these classes in the military. "Levi, I said, "people die this way! What you are describing is the first stage of heat stroke." I explained to him about sweating being his body's way of cooling itself. When your body has lost enough water and salt that it stops producing sweat, your body temperature begins to rise. Just like a patient with a high fever will get violent cold chills, a heat stroke patient does the same. This explained his violent shakes. Everyone on the porch was listening intently. "If your body temperature goes high enough, it will kill you. All of you need to keep yourselves well hydrated when you are working like that." I explained the difference between water and sports drinks. 

Tim said, "we still have time before the Dollar General closes..." and just like that they were up and headed out. They take things like this very seriously and have been sticklers on hydration ever since. 

Anyway, Levi could not go to Pittsburgh because he had hay down. Although the oldest boy is a grown man now, he was not going to leave his children to do the job alone.

Mattie was worried about this meeting with the surgeon. She wanted Levi there to make any decisions with her. We picked up her mother on the way and drove just over two hours to get there only to discover that the appointment, made months back had been rescheduled to next month to accommodate the doctor's vacation. No one had contacted them to tell them this. 

Very frustrating. They were very apologetic but it didn't change the fact that it had been a wasted day.

We drove back home, determined to make the best of it, getting groceries and stopping at the Goodwill. 

As we pulled up, the haywagon had just been unloaded. Everyone came across the road tired and sweaty to grab a cold gatorade. Levi wanted to know what the doctors were going to do. 

I said, "weeeeelllllll..." and explained. Mattie was inside directing the putting away of groceries. 

Levi took off his hat and mopped his face with his handkerchief. "No...that's not right!" He exclaimed.

Mattie came out and said, "I was glad you were not there..."

Anyways, tonight we are doing a 'frolic', which is what they call a party after a big job is done. We are taking up hotdogs to roast, all manner of toppings, a roaster full of sloppy joes, potato salad, chips and a homemade ice cream cake. Afterwards, we will have sparklers and fireworks. 

A sad thing. A young Amish man was coming home after a long days work last week after those bad storms. He noticed three horses laying in his neighbor's field. He notified the neighbor that something was wrong. As he went back to investigate, he stepped over a barbwire fence. An electric line was down, and he was electrocuted. The horses were dead although they were nowhere near the fence. 

We knew him because he was part of a team we hire for construction work in town.