Single Minded Focus

Inspirational song: Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young)

I can't believe I spent the entire day with a needle in my hand. Well, nearly so. I used the sewing machine for the first hour or two, but for the last nine hours, I was making tiny hidden stitches in that costume. I sewed the neckline carefully along the seam inside the lining, and then delicately sewed the shoulder seams to each other "in the well," meaning carefully poking the needle between the four pieces of fabric between each individual stitch connecting shell and lining pieces together. I made it three quarters of the way down the center seam in the back, doing the same thing, when my thread knotted, broke, and the needle went missing in the living room chair. I took that as a sign that I was done for the night. I was exhausted, sore, and cranky. I skipped lunch and didn't remember to reheat anything for dinner until well past 9. For someone who just waxed poetic a few days ago about living deliberately, I let an entire day go by without engaging my brain in anything more taxing than operating my fingers. Not very well done of me. I had exactly one break all day, when my neighbor who is moving came by to talk me out of a few small raspberry canes as a parting gift, and I happily walked out and picked berries while she dug up the canes. I keep thinking fondly of that massage chain membership we put on hold during the move, and wishing I had time before the cosplay event to go start testing out new massage therapists. That new person could spend two hours on my mid back and right forearm, and never undo all the damage I have done just today alone.

I suppose I can show one more picture of the coat as it was this morning, until it goes under wraps before the final reveal. There are neat details to come, as we tested out yesterday, but I am keeping them hushed up for now. My little dress-up girl is going to look fabulous this weekend. She's come a long way from a green dragon onesie. She is lucky she is family. Anyone else would have to pay me hundreds of dollars for this amount of skilled labor. And I'm not sure I could ever be talked into doing it again. Not sure I'll ever top the precision of this one.

Sharing the Peace

Inspirational song: The Preacher (Charlie Robison)

We ought to work for the state of Colorado, for the visitors bureau, or maybe for the Chamber of Commerce. We are really good at convincing friends of ours to move here, or at least come visit, sometimes often. My daughter has had the most success getting friends of hers to get a little taste of Colorado, just long enough for Chief Niwot's curse to take hold, and they find themselves moving here because they are overwhelmingly compelled to come back and stay. I recently cajoled and begged an old friend of mine to come here. He had a good job where he was, but he felt like there was something missing, that it wasn't exactly the right fit. When he mentioned that he was starting to look elsewhere, I waved the banner for Colorado as enthusiastically as I could. He said there was an opening in his field, which happens to be the ministry, in the mountains near here, and I never wavered in my belief that he would land that job. He considered callings in a few other states, but in my mind, as soon as I heard this one was available, I was just sure he would be here. He was one of 90 candidates who applied for the position, one of a dozen who made the cut for a Skype interview, and one of a small handful who were invited to come preach at a neutral location for the selection committee to evaluate. And while we were packing up the Park and moving out here, he announced that they chose him, exactly as I knew they would.

He had a whirlwind move, much as we did, stressing about getting his house ready for sale (taking a beating on the price, unfortunately), and finding a place in the competitive Colorado housing market. He and his wife arrived last week, and their household goods only made it two days ago, yet today he stood in front of his new congregation, and preached to all of them for the first time. I made the drive up into the mountains to be there for his first day, and I am so glad I did. It was so good to see him and hear his voice for the first time in about five years. It was also the first time I have met his wife in person, and she was every bit as wonderful as I imagined she would be. I was a little surprised and utterly charmed to hear her southern accent, and I hope she hangs on to it up here. It's like a little piece of home for me. As I stood next to both of them after the service, while the congregation filed past and shook their hands in introduction, several people looked at me and asked whether I was part of the family. I didn't have the heart to tell them the whole story, that we were actually old Friday afternoon drinking buddies, back when Mr S-P and I lived in North Dakota, in the same place as our friend the Padre. I will save that until I know better the people in his new church. It was close enough, maybe a 45 minute drive, that I will be going up there fairly often. I've already convinced them to be my new mah jongg buddies. Once we are all moved in to our respective homes, the games will begin.

When they came up earlier in the summer (before we arrived), and preached and interviewed, they learned quickly to love Colorado. The neutral location turned out to be the Presbyterian church in the town where I'm now living, so they've had a chance to tour my stomping grounds as well as their own. They are up near Rocky Mountain National Park, and the tourist town where they moved is someplace I have visited often and adore. I have great memories of trips up there. I'm excited to know that there will be more. I walked around just a little bit to take pictures before I drove back down, and was awestruck with the natural beauty all around, even from the parking lot of the church. There are mountain views in all directions, and the church sits just above the lake which is beautiful in its own right. We considered finding a house up there, during that period where we thought we were walking away from this house. I love my house, but I still think it might have been fun to live up there. I may change my mind, however, when it isn't a peaceful summer day like today.

The Rachel

Inspirational song: I'll Be There for You (The Rembrandts)

The most glorious thing happened tonight. I left the dogs in the garage for a few hours, while I ran off to see a movie with an old friend, and I came home and immediately let the dogs out to use the facilities. There was a party going on in the yard that backs to ours across the alley, with balloons and  lights and pop music and lots of loud, drunken happy talk. It appears that the star of the show was someone named Rachel, because I kept hearing alcohol-soaked voices yell, "Wooo! Rachel! Yeah! Go! Yeah, Rachel!" It sounded like college-aged celebrants, but all day today, I kept seeing what I thought was a middle-aged neighbor clearing out the lawn and dumping debris in the can by my fence (his can, not mine). Why is this glorious, you wonder? Do you realize the implications of a loud, raucous party? It means that I could let the dogs out to pee for half an hour in the dark tonight, and as much as they are barking their brains out, they are not louder than this party. I win! (To be honest, for the first ten minutes, I think the party scared them a little. They were so confused, they barely barked at all.)

I'm starting to settle into a rhythm while the Mister is off on his exciting vacation. The dogs and I are communicating better than I thought we would. Now I just need to remember to wake up earlier than seven o'clock, like this morning. I overslept and paid the price. Even little Miss Zoe is tolerating me more than I expected. I let her wander around yesterday and today, and two days in a row she came back on her own and sauntered into the house without making me catch her. And darned if she didn't give me a taste of that "I own you, hoomin" lovin' that she gives her daddy. She still spends a lot of time looking in his hangout spots, wondering why he isn't here, though.

My daughter and I spent hours working on her costume today. This thing is going to be spectacular, I can feel it. I can't wait to see it finished, and her dressed up and kitted out for the event. She's going to dye her hair clown red, like the character, and she is already sporting a short haircut that will translate well. She has already goofed around and posed for pictures in the coat, but I will save the full costume reveal until she is on her way to the party. You'll love it.

Slowing Down Time

Inspirational song: Home By the Sea (Genesis)

Has it really been a single year since last summer? That time of my life was so awful, when two of the cats were dying, my friend died suddenly from a DVT, and I was doing my damnedest to die slowly from diverticulitis. My world has changed so radically in one year, I can't believe we have only spun around the sun one time since then. When I started writing, two and a half years ago, I made a vow to myself to live deliberately, to pay attention every day, and to slow down the march of time. It worked better than I ever imagined it would. I know I missed whole swaths of time in my life. I blinked, and my adorable little toddler girls were suddenly marvelous adults, living on their own away from my house. I looked away and the kittens I was so happy to meet were suddenly leaving me as fragile, old cats. I wasted years of my life wondering whether I was thin enough, smart enough, popular enough. I should have been realizing all along that I was enough of everything, if I would only be present in the moment when I was living all those years that have now passed. Now I feel like I have mastery over all time. I have slowed it to a crawl. Yet I refuse to complain that the minutes are actually crawling. Every night before bed, I force myself to review my day, and decide whether to report it as a diary entry or to crack open some greater topic. (I prefer the latter but accept when it is the former.) Living deliberately has changed my whole universe. I no longer stress that I am already halfway through my life. I see the same circumstance, and I tell myself, I am ONLY halfway through my life. It took me decades to get this far, and it will take that long to finish it out. Look at how much I have done in the first act. Now that I know the trick to making the years pass slowly, like they did when I was a young child, I realize I have all the time I need to do everything I want to do. There's no reason not to start now, and to enjoy every second of it.

I startled myself by realizing it was only a year since Cricket, Torden, and Molly died. Since then I changed my diet completely, which still couldn't prevent the most major surgery I could have imagined, had my husband return from a year and a half abroad (and take months to start to resemble the guy he was when he left), attended his retirement ceremony, sold our investment condo, sold my Park, left a city I loved that was filled with people I loved even more, lived in a hectic apartment complex that made me nervous, bought a house, signed up to study real estate, and faced the reality that Murray never will walk and pee like a regular dog (in almost that order). When I started writing this, I was surprised to discover that it has been just over two months since we arrived here from the Park. It was a month ago today that we signed for this house. And while it still looks like a storage unit vomited all over the property, with boxes and mess everywhere, it feels like we have been here ten times as long as we actually have. I don't know whether to credit my skills in making a house feel homey or the fact that we have come back to visit the area so often that it is just the town that feels so familiar already. It may just be my determination to live every minute of my life, and notice it as it goes by. I highly recommend attempting this exercise. You don't have to blog about it every night like I do, or even write it down at all. But every night, before you go to bed, make a point of remembering your entire day, good and bad. Don't gloss over the faults, don't discredit the successes. I think you'll find out how easy it is to slow down time. It's worth it.

Act Your Age

Inspirational song: Little Black Dress (Shock Treatment)

I was six the first time my grandmother let me play with her sewing machine. She had little 2"x3" fabric samples that I was encouraged to stitch together like a tiny quilt. By the time I was nine years old, she was paying for me to take sewing lessons at the local Bernina store. I kept sewing as much as I could, almost always having some project or another in the works, peaking in my mid-20s, when my friend and I had our costume design business. After those overwhelming few years, I scaled back, making Halloween costumes for the kids, but not much else. I gave my sewing machine (won as a doorprize from that same Bernina store from my childhood) to my older daughter while she was in college, showing signs of following in her mama's footsteps, designing clothing lines for shows with the CU fashion club for each semester she was in school. I took a much needed break, only attempting two hand-sewn articles of clothing in about four years (and I was obviously out of practice, seeing how unwearable both of those pieces came out). I bought a replacement sewing machine only a year ago (or was that two? I get mixed up about recent history), and I am learning that I really did miss having projects around, but somewhere along the way, I appear to have learned how to pace myself. No more twelve hour days trying to put together a half a dozen outfits, and never being able to dedicate my full attention to any one of them. I have two things in progress right now, and there's only a deadline on one of them. It was that one I focused on all day today.

Daughter number two has always enjoyed playing dress-up, more than anyone I've ever known. When she was little, she was our best customer for the product line we called "Act Your Age." I suspect she was responsible for us wearing out our first two washing machines, with all the extra laundry she generated wearing five or six different outfits a day. One of my favorite photos of her as a girl was of her dancing with wild abandon under a stormy sky, in her shiny gold and green dress-up dress in the side yard of our Oklahoma home. It's only logical that as an adult, she has found like-minded people who still play dress-up too. They probably shudder when I call it that. "Cosplay" doesn't sound more grown up to me, though. There is a big gathering of these folks coming up soon, and her outfit for that convention is my bigger sewing project, the one that has a deadline. Lucky for me and my rusty skills, we took the easy route and bought a pattern rather than having me design it from scratch.

Cats cannot resist fabric and pattern pieces spread out on the floor. Every single one of them interfered with the layout and cutting process. Some were more damaging than others. Zoe merely walked across the pattern once, made eye contact with me, and moved on. Jack, Rabbit, and Athena had murder on their minds. The paper crinkled so well, it must have been made of mousies. Sitting on the floor, cutting out fabric, always hurts. Leaning across trying to push away cats bent on destruction only prolongs the pain. I am going to blame their distraction for the mistake I discovered at the end of the evening. I failed to lengthen one out of the six long coat pieces. Now I have to go buy more fabric and try again. I must say, it was sure nice having a dedicated sewing table, so that when I found my error and decided to stop, all I had to do was turn off the machine and walk out of the room. So easy, so convenient. Pure luxury, for a person like me who should have had (but didn't have) this kind of setup for her whole life.

B.A.

Inspirational song: I'm Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight (Atlanta Rhythm Section)

I think I earned a day of hiding from the world and giving zero shits about everything outside of my basement. This morning I put the man on a plane for his exciting vacation, and I'm staying home with the animals and mess and projects. Upon arrival back at the house, I immediately napped, twice told door-to-door steak saleswomen I wasn't interested (seriously, WHY have I not affixed the No Soliciting sign to the front of the house? Just because it won't stick to the brick?), and hid in the basement watching junk from my DVR queue. Now I'm left with a bad attitude and a lingering upset stomach from having breakfast at a restaurant. I will probably be awake for hours yet, thanks to that nap, but I doubt my day will get any more exciting, nor will my attitude gain any more sunshine. The best I have is a few pictures from the garden, after I watered. Tomorrow I might be excited about the bounty of raspberries that are hours from ripening, or the black cherry tomatoes that are still at the same distance from ripe as they were a week or two ago. Tonight, I think I need television. And maybe wine.

By the Power

Inspirational song: I'll Fly Away (Alison Krauss)

My reality has been thrown for a loop. I ran into one of the last people on earth I ever imagined I'd see again, in one of the most incongruous places, and I can't process the surprise. I walked past someone in Costco, while I circled the wrong section (looking for dried mango), and as I came back around the aisles to look a second time, I saw Mr Smith-Park showing the guy I passed his drivers license to prove that he really was who he said he was. The man he was talking to, who I passed without really looking, was the man who married us all those years ago. He apparently retired from the ministry some time ago, and keeps his mind and social skills sharp by working part time at Costco, talking to people for a living, and really enjoying it. We spoke for long minutes, but we have a long way to go to fully catch up. So much has happened since that day in the mountains, when we were optimistic and naive kids, talking about forever.

We briefly explored downtown today, for the first time. I learned that there are several shops down there that I simply must visit when I have more time. I also noticed again how much I appreciate someplace where there is public art. Not only does this region excel at sculptures and flower installations, but I've seen lots of places where municipalities have commissioned/allowed transformer boxes to be painted in a variety of styles. If this is one of the places my property taxes go, I am totally fine with that.

I am truly exhausted. We had to do a lot of last minute shopping before Mr S-P goes on a trip, and I wore myself out pretending my back didn't hurt as badly as it did. But since it was worse than I let on (and I complained quite a bit, actually), I came home and swallowed a couple of Advil with a bit of brown liquor. There are still suitcases on my bed, and we need to finish packing them. The airport is a lot longer of a drive here than it was back in the Low Country, so I need my rest before we go. I will worry more about blogging and pictures and storytelling tomorrow.

Tales from Murrayland

Inspirational song: See Me, Feel Me (The Who)

Murray had a very big day today. He went on an epic journey to meet with some of the smartest kids in the region, to see whether they could and would alter his life. After an unreasonably bouncy ride down from the mountains yesterday (on a road that apparently wasn't really a road, they found out as they were backing a half a mile up a four-wheel-drive track in the pickup), he was reluctant to ride in a vehicle again, but he quickly remembered that riding in mom's car is much cushier. I tend to insist that he has half of his carrier (as a liquids barrier between him and my upholstery) and a blanket to cushion and protect him while he rides with air conditioning, radio, and parents talking to him. He rather likes that part. It took us far less time to arrive in Fort Collins than we expected, so we all drove around a little to waste time before Murray's appointment. He got very excited when we went past a magic window, but he was disappointed to learn that it only dispensed coffee, not hamburgers.

The proceedings kicked off with us offering an extensive history for a fourth-year vet student who was our case manager, and then we consulted with another fourth-year, a teaching vet, and a neurology specialist for more information, and to give permissions for diagnostics, as needed. And then, much to my surprise, Murray was whisked away to be evaluated without our interference. So we went to the deli on the second floor of the hospital, and had a lunch that couldn't be beat while Murray was poked and prodded and generally injected, inspected, detected, neglected, and selected. Well, probably not the neglected part. After lunch we got the report from neurology, which was, in short, don't expect miracles. I'm glad they got that part out of the way early. I had told them my only real goals were maybe three working legs and bladder control. So much for that. They explained that his leg movements were what they called "skeletal walking," which basically means that when his feet hit the ground (or other such muscle stimulation), his body instinctively and uncontrollably fires off walking-like movements. There is no conscious control, and it is not going to develop into real walking, and probably not real standing. But this is not to say that there was nothing they could offer to improve his life. Following the initial evaluation with neurology, and with permission from us, they sent him first to orthopedics, and then to physical therapy. Each of those departments had a great time meeting him and working with him to see how they could play a part in his development and pursuit of a rich life. The orthopedist is interested in how his front paws splay out to the sides, and how to keep his wrists healthy as Murray matures and ages. The physical therapist was quite helpful in teaching me how to handle him, since I freely admitted to struggling with getting him in and out of wheels, and to being less than pleased with how often he pees on me. She showed me exactly where to grab to pick up his hind end, and while we chatted with the orthopedist who was genuinely interested in making sure we could bring him back for further study, the PT constructed a lift for him out of a couple leashes, some cast material, and vet wrap. She was clever and creative, and I can already tell that her input has been of great value to me.

One of the things all of the docs stressed was that his wheels need to be fitted to him better. For one, they all said that the frame of the wheelchair is too wide, and they reiterated what we knew, that the front supports hang way too low. To keep Murray more centered and aligned correctly, we are going to purchase/make a harness that is more like a vest, that can keep the cart-arms higher on his shoulders, and we were told to go buy pool noodles to run on either side of his body to keep him straighter. We shopped on the way home, at both of the major chain pet stores in town. Neither had the brand of harness we were told to buy, and oddly, neither had the incontinence bands that they suggested would be better than his diapers we had been using when he first came to the US. I can easily recreate the belly band diaper, but the harness is going to be more work to design. We will be working with him over the next few weeks, and then next month we will start scheduling more visits with the physical therapists to see how he is doing. 

After seeing how incredibly interesting he is to everyone there, Mr S-P has finally been convinced that Murray needs his own Facebook page. I asked to be the one to make it (as I've been suggesting for months), but he seems reluctant to let me do it. It's probably just as well, knowing how poorly I've done in advertising my own Scenes from Smith Park page. It's going to be another big blow to my ego when my predictions come true, that within the first few hours, Murray will probably have more followers than I have collected in a couple years. I have been spit-balling some hashtags to use to tie back to him. I like the sound of #Murrayland, and we both like the feeling evoked by #WhatWheels. Murray has never let his handicap define him. He has always thought of himself as entirely whole, entirely capable, and entirely fearless. Nothing today changed that. If anything, it just proved that he was right all along.