What I have been up to

Over 5 years ago. Tim and I built a little greenhouse. 

As is my nature, I started stacking stones on the west side of it for a flowerbed. 

In the intervening years, I did not keep up with it because we were building a house, and Tim got sick. A lot of upheaval there. Nature started taking that little space back. 

Yesterday, I started work on it. I weed whacked. We have blades on the weedeater so it does a good job on the tangley overgrowth. When I chopped back to the stone wall, I was able to kneel and begin sorting out the mess inside. I was happy to find a nice patch of aquilegia/columbine and it reminded me so much of Weaver. I miss her voice.

I dug on. Tiger lily. Spearmint. I am going to replant wild flower there. 

I had a meeting at 5:30, so I only got halfway done, but before I headed back to the house, I decided to give a quick weeding to the front of the greenhouse. I was shocked to see a hydrangea stubbornly doing battle with the tall weeds. 

I'd seen that struggling little plant in the store years back and it reminded me of my old friend who died of brain cancer close to 20 years ago now (how is that even possible?!!)  I got it. Planted it. It promptly died. I chalked up as one of my poor plants that did not make it. While I may have given up, that little plant did not, and yesterday I found it. I was so pleased at that little miracle!

There is something very grounding about weeding and sweating and thinking about other people and other times, even if it is hotter than hades. It was a sweet afternoon and I really enjoyed my quiet time.

My nephew made me a bottle tree and delivered it when he came off his hill on Sunday. That was something else I did yesterday. I transplanted some established morning glory vines at the base of it. The vines will climb the trunk and spread across the branches. Maybe not this year, but we will see. 

Yesterday, those vines looked wilted and unhappy. Today, a series of thunderstorms are rattling through. Between downpours, I snuck out to take a peek. Things look a lot more hopeful today.

Step by step.

just another rock in the wall

 It is not a professional Northsider Dave wall, and it is not complete. This started out as a 'junk bed' that I knew I meant to be a flower bed one day. Probably a couple years of dumping distressed clearance plants. Two forsythia, a hyacinth, an azalea, two lilacs, some lilies, spider wort, dianthus. Delphinium, coneflower, bee balm. I planted blue morning glries to climb a trellis. I have columbine seeds sprouting. An assortment of wild flowers outside the wall surrounding an old wheelbarrow full of annuals Mattie gave me. 

For all of that, it looks pretty sparse, doesn't it? Poor thing has been run over with heavy equipment over and over. It's been trampled. Mowed over. That is kind of why I put the little wall there: to provide a visual for the man. Much more aesthetic than a sign that says "Stay the hell out!"

Anyway, the stuff that remains has shown that it has what it takes to be in my garden. Hopefully, after 20 bags of mulch, everything will begin to spread out and fill in. 

The funny part is how pleased Tim is. After I put out 10 bags of mulch, it was his suggestion to buy 20 more bags. When I was done, he cast a critical eye and suggested we probably need to go out today and get at least five more bags. It is nice to have him on board. 

We had quite a bit of rain yesterday, which has knocked a lot of the smoke down. We must have had some pretty strong winds. It laid down 24 tomatoes in cages. Today will be reconstruction there, along with hauling up more rock.

The protest was small. The air quality is quite a concern. An irony I have noticed is a lot of people ranting about Canada's culpability are angrily puffing their vapes or cigarettes as they bitch. Remember 'cognitive dissonance'? JD talked a lot about that in his book before he became the poster child for it.

And this sums up MAGA. Their motto is "I am sure there is a scapegoat around here somewhere."

You know, as it gets closer to midterms, expect the noise and misinformation to increase. If ever was a time to hold steady and not give way to despair and hopelessness. What is happening is NOT sustainable. It will fall. How quickly it falls depends a great deal on us. 

(Well...that an the dying out of unreasonable minds and corruption of those who hold power.)

We can stonewall them.

Smokin'

 Today was a good day. The smoke from the wildfires has died down. 

Yesterday was pretty awful. It was hot. It was humid and the smoke was so thick that you could not only smell it, you could taste it. My sinuses were nuts. 

So...yesterday was an inside day. I cut up a watermelon for the fridge. I made a bowl of chicken salad with grapes and tarragon for cold sandwiches. I made a cucumber salad and a broccoli salad. It is always a good thing to have a fridge full of ready to eat stuff on a hot day. 

When I was cleaning up, much to my surprise I saw three young men working in the wooded strip between our house and the road. I slipped on my sandals and went out to see what they were doing. 

They were industriously working with picks and shovels, digging around the base of a telephone pole. They explained that they were checking telephone poles for signs of rot. 

I observed that it was a hot day for such physical work. They looked pretty miserable, and they agreed. I said, "well if you need a cold drink, just come to the house," and went back. Almost immediately, there was a young man at the door, asking for water. I got out the Brita pitcher from the fridge and poured 3 glasses of ice cold water. He said, "we all have water, but it is in the truck about a mile up the road." I felt so sorry for them that I sent him off with watermelon and forks. They took a break standing in the shade and then moved down to the next pole in the neighbor's field. 

It cooled off last night, down to 58 degrees. Crazy 30 degree drop, but it was a good night for sleeping.

This morning, Tim was off to do Tim things. He is rewiring the ceiling lights in the old house, which was, despite the previous owner's updates, still knob and tube. He also had an appointment to get the new car inspected. 

It gave me a morning to do Debby things. It has been a good month for collecting clothes for my granddaughters, so I got them washed, dried and folded. A heaping bushel basket of things for them. I cannot wait for them to see. 

I got the house vacuumed and even vacuumed under chair and sofa cushions. Things like that.

This afternoon was so much cooler. The air much clearer. I weedwhacked. Tim mowed. We got 10 more bags of mulch (a distressed delphium and coneflower begged me to take them. At $4 each, I couldn't bring myself to leave them behind) and muriatic acid for the porch roof of the house in town. I dropped some stuff off at Goodwill. I also picked up some more nice clothes for the girls at Goodwill. Wouldn't you know they had a special deal going on too. Women's long sleeved shirts and sweaters were 2 for $8. Must be $4 is my lucky number. So I got myself 4 shirts for the fall. 

Tim wanted to stop at his favorite ice cream place. As always, it was busy. As we waited, I began sneezing. I apologized and explained I had been weedwhacking. 

A Johnny-come-lately said loudly from behind us, 'Canada complains so much about the United States. They owe us an apology for all this smoke in the air!'

That pissed me off. I said, "I am sure that Canada is having a worse time than we are, and they sure didn't do this intentionally.''  Another round of sneezing hit me before I could point out we had our own wildfires in Minnesota. 

I think that he realized he had stepped on toes, because he quickly said, "A guy in my church says if you sneeze 3 times, that's a sign of the divine."

I looked at him. What church does he go to? The Christian Sinus? Do they pray to the Almighty Mucus? All praise Kleenex? Hallelujah to hankies? Waiting hopefully for someone to sneeze so they can all bless him and go home?

Then he sat down at a picnic table. He said to Tim, "Right behind you. I just wanted you to know. I didn't want to hear you giggling when you sat in my lap."

What the freaking what???!!!

Lucky for him, my cone came out and I took it to the farthest seat and sat down. Tim followed with his banana split. Wouldn't you know, the man followed along with HIS banana split. 

I am proud to say, I bit my tongue. I think he also was biting his. He said more stupid stuff but pretty much avoided the offensive stuff. 

You know, an encouraging thing happened esrlier. My daughter posted something about the VA cuts. It made me mad that a relative immediately commented "This is false. Do research!"

The fact is that it isn't false. So I began posting 'research'. NPR. Newsweek. Articles from the government. From the VA. 9 in all, one right after another. I also suggested he do some research on proposed HR 9732/S. 4744. As a partially disabled veteran (Iraqi IED), if he wasn't aware, he needed to be. 

Normally I woild not have said anything. No point. I scroll past his stuff although I vehemently disagree with much of it. But he commented on someone else's post with the aim to make them look uninformed. He is a Christian Nationalist and MAGA so i figured he would just blow me off, but much to my surprise, today there was another comment, short. "I do have to say that you were right about the post. I was wrong for saying what I said. I'm sorry."

I couldn't believe my eyes. I replied to his comment: "I appreciate this. I hope you will follow the VA's suggestions."

That felt like such a major thing. Buoyed by that, tonight I ate my ice cream cone and let a foolish man babble. I got the idea he knew he was wrong too.

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.