Sisyphus

Inspirational song: Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan)

Pretty sure it's been at minimum a full year since my dining room table was completely cleared off. It's been several months since I even bothered to reduce the amount of crap piled on top of it. It was the repository for receipts and bills, caps and scarves, swag, trash, and an enormous amount of stuff that had no other home. I found acres of papers to be filed. There were broken CD cases. (Side note: I don't have a CD player in my house anymore. There's one in the car, that I haven't touched in a couple years.) There was a bath towel and PJ bottoms on a chair. There was a bag of clothes I want to give to the closest thrift store. And, as always, there were loose bits of hardware and bits of plastic that I have no idea whether they are worth keeping.

I started sorting, filing, tossing, recycling, and clearing in earnest about 11 this morning. I played at it a little before then, and the Mr had moved some things early before I got up. I had to take a few breaks, to buy a chuck roast and carrots for dinner (Side note 2: It's November 30th -- I always eat pot roast on November 30th, in honor of my grandmother, who used to make them so often for family dinners that I can't disassociate these things in my mind) and to rest so that my shoulder and spine weren't overused. With help, once the Mr came back home, we got the whole dining room cleared, swept, dusted, extended (table leaf), and set just a few minutes before our guests arrived at 7. And even then, the accordion folder and stand-up mail sorter I had been trying to sort and fill were just set on the floor by the piano, and a bunch of the junk from the dining room table got moved to the card table that is still temporarily set up in the living room. I really only shuffled junk around. To clean one table, I filled another. Tomorrow I will have to clear that table, and it's possible that I will move things to the side table in the kitchen to do it. And to clear the side table in the kitchen, where will that junk go? I have no freaking idea.

I have to keep this space open now. We needed a place where five adults could sit and play games, and we needed an overhead light (my living room only has lamps). It will be a constant battle to keep it clean, but there is a reward to keeping it useful. It will be a losing fight to keep the chairs vacuumed. We used the Furminator to scrape a thick layer of feline undercoat off of the upholstery, and then vacuumed, and within moments of moving cleaned chairs to the kitchen so we could finish sweeping the floor, Jackie and Athena were on them, replacing their lovingly applied undercoats. Harvey thought it was fun to distract me from cleaning the dining room by knocking plants down from the piano and off the front window shelf. By the time this is all over, I should have dealt with enough clutter that he might lose interest in jumping from the piano, through the pass-through wall, to the side table in the kitchen, because there won't be much to dump on the floor. But I doubt it. He will find something to knock over every single day. He won't stop until the house is completely empty, which it will never be. So every day, I'll keep picking things off the floor and then I'll do it all over again the day after that.

Crash

Inspirational song: Fall On Me (R.E.M.)

Murray sort of summed up my day, fairly early on. Late morning, I finally wandered around, looking for the pills I was supposed to be taking, and I looked outside in the back yard. There was Murray, tipped over in his wheels, just hanging out by the raspberry wall. I was still in jammies, and the whole reason I was looking for pills was to try to make my shoulder (well, I think it is the top of the trapezius, to be specific) hurt less. I really didn't want to try to lift a wiggly dog, even if he is the lightest of the three. I had guilt, but I left him there until the Mr could get home and right his ship. In a nutshell, that was my day: things that needed doing, that couldn't be left forever, but I just didn't have the wherewithal to address right now.

Those pills were hard to find. I am supposed to take them in the mornings, so I left them on a table, waiting for the right time. I should not have left them unattended. I found the muscle relaxers on the floor near the table. The steroids were nowhere around. I walked in circles, cursing the fact that a little plastic bottle holding a few bits that rattle is an irresistible draw to a naughty little kitten. I eventually found them under a chair, behind the box that the boy hides in.

Twice this afternoon, the kitten threw a large lantern onto the floor. I am not sure how the bits of colored glass that he knocked out of the panels didn't actually break. He was trying to attack the little candle holders that hang from the ceiling, in the pass-through wall behind the piano. It's his favorite thing to do, jump up from the chair to the piano, through the wall, over the table, onto the trash can, and across to the coffee maker. He knocks my stuff to the ground, opens the lid of the trash can, and generally causes mayhem. I thought I was going to kitten-proof the house, and I just let it all go when I started dealing with an increased schedule of doctor visits. Now it's every day, something gets pushed over, scattered, or crashed. Slowly, I'm thinning things out. They either get put away or they break. It's a pain, but it's worth it. He's worth it. The little scamp.

In My Head

Inspirational song: Boogie Wonderland (Earth, Wind, & Fire)

I don’t particularly like complaining about my health all the time, but it’s one of those days. I haven’t had an honest to goodness head cold in years, but here I am, sneezing and filling all the Kleenex I can get my hands on. I can say with absolute certainty that blowing one’s nose while there are still internal stitches waiting to be absorbed in a month old surgery site is not a whole lot of fun. I would take a Benadryl before bed, if I didn’t want to avoid the 10 hour sleep and 5 hour hangover tomorrow. Maybe I’ll just slather on some Vick’s Vapor Rub and find out whether it attracts or repels felines.

I went to the doctor today, but not to complain about the cold. She looked at the Kleenex I was holding as I stood up, and asked whether I had the sniffles, and that was the end of the discussion for both of us. I had more important things to go over with her. I ought to rifle through things I wrote months ago, to find out whether I documented when my shoulder first started hurting. For at least two or three months, leaning forward makes the muscle right behind my neck (without looking it up to be sure, I’m going to say deltoid?) feel like it is on fire. I didn’t want her to send me for more physical therapy without some sort of steroid treatment first to make the muscle heal a little. I dragged my feet about seeking help for weeks, because I was afraid of her answer. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and said I dream about cortisone shots and some sort of brace to immobilize it. She asked why I’d rather have a shot over prednisone, and we negotiated down to a super short course of them, plus a physical therapy treatment I’d not been subject to before. She ordered PT with a topical steroid that is forced down into the muscles by way of electrical stimulation. If it works, I’m all over it. Let’s go. Just waiting for insurance to approve. Until then. I’m going to continue to spend most of my time leaning back and resting the deltoid.

Also, where’s that Vick’s?

Boy Things

Inspirational song: Wild Thing (The Troggs)

Athena isn't all that old. It wasn't that long ago that she was a tiny kitten, zooming around the Original Park, breaking things and making old cats feel older. She is now almost four and a half, and she's feeling a bit of jealousy over not being the baby anymore. So she acts out and makes bad life choices when Harvey gets into her line of vision. She will regret this when he is bigger than she is. He's terrified of her, and in the blink of an eye, he rolls over and makes it look like she has broken him if she so much as locks eyes with him. Athena is a fuzzy black butthead.

Harvey is a bit of a scamp himself. He's not super graceful, and he's not a strong jumper yet. He still climbs more than he jumps onto things, and he's constantly throwing things onto the floor. The only thing he really gets yelled at for doing is climbing the ficus, and to be honest, it's less yelling, more getting squirted with water. I feel bad for how many times he fails. He jumped today from the end table next to my chair to the card table I still have set up in the living room, and he missed. He hit the table with his chest and landed awkwardly on the floor. But the little guy has heart, and he keeps trying stuff. He is getting bigger and stronger every day. Maybe grace will follow eventually.

I tried to get him to play the fishing game on the tablet. He loves swatting at it when I'm using it for my purposes, but give him and actual cat-centered game and he couldn't care less. I turned it on for him today, and he just sat down on it. Pretty sure that was cheating. And then Athena showed up and ruined it for everyone. She watched him for about two minutes and then just sort of lurched like she was going to swat him. Harvey teleported from the table to under the liquor cabinet in an instant. At least he got to practice real tree climbing today. He was just out of reach over my head, and did a fair impression of the "hang in there, baby" kitten from the 1970s. He eventually had to be rescued by his daddy with a stepladder. I probably should have put a new twist on my "boy and his ladder" series, but I was done taking pictures then.

That Couldn't Be Beat

Inspirational song: Oops, I Did It Again (Brittney Spears)

Before I knew how everyone's schedule would pan out for this week, I purchased a frozen turkey at Costco, along with a bunch of other stuff, like a big bag of sweet potatoes and fresh Brussels sprouts. I knew we would eat with my in-laws, but I still like to cook a lot of the traditional dishes so that I have them all exactly the way I like them, and all of the leftovers are for us. I didn't have room in my tiny freezer, so I put the turkey in the fridge to thaw. My daughter wouldn't be free to eat this stuff again until Monday or Tuesday, but everyone else was limited to the weekend, and that now-thawed turkey wasn't going to wait forever. So we smoked it today, and I spent at least six hours on my feet in the kitchen doing an entire spread by myself. In the end, only one of the kids came over (my foster daughter), and we took all the stuff next door, where our old college roommate joined us, and I still got to have my second thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. I was sore and my feet, knees and upper back were on fire, so I sat on the couch and let the guys bring me food that I had cooked for them. It totally worked. And I sent home a tote bag full of food to my daughter and the gang, so I still got to share.

November is almost over, but the whole time the turkey was smoking, the back door was open completely and the front only had the screen closed. This just doesn't feel right for Colorado in late autumn. What makes it worse is the trees are trying to bud out again, like my nectarine tree in the back, as well as some of the lilac bushes around the Park. If that wasn't bad enough, while dishes were being ferried over to the neighbor's, I heard Mr S-P swear from the front yard. He came inside and showed me a photo he had just taken of a hyacinth in bloom in our front garden. We have irises that have been sending up buds for weeks. This is just not cool, literally or figuratively. The climate has changed, y'all. It has already happened. I doubt it is finished.

While we were all next door, we decided to expand our tentative forays back into the world of role-playing games. Not only did Carol from HR and Brn the manly dwarf who wears a pink pillbox hat (a la Jackie O) get trotted out again, but Mr S-P got to make his non-player character from Friday into an adventurer and our old college roommate rolled up a really obnoxious thief. My foster daughter has experience running games, and we got to engage in rank silliness while we stuffed ourselves senseless with smoked turkey and fixings. Of all the traditions to revive, I am really enjoying bringing this one back. And we are going to do it again. Just you watch.

Celebrate This Thing Called Life

Inspirational song: Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)

This certainly turned into a day of extremes. We went from celebrating the memory of a friend who has recently died, to celebrating a holiday commonly recognized as honoring the birth of a teacher with whom millions of people claim to have a deep and personal relationship. We spent big bucks on tickets for a one-night event that benefits people locally and worldwide who have next to nothing. And the contrasts all seemed to fit together seamlessly.

This afternoon was all about our friend Andy. We met up at a brewery in Loveland with twenty five or thirty people who knew him well, and raised some glasses in his memory. He died of brain cancer on Halloween, but today proved that he will live on for years to come in our hearts and in the lives of his children, who were also there. I met Andy when I was in marching band at CU, before I even met Mr Smith. He, on the other hand, met Andy back in his early teenage years, when they both were in the same church youth group. Without my relationship with Mr S-P, I probably would have lost touch with Andy immediately after graduation, but they continued to be friends (and at first co-workers, before the air force years), and so I got to keep up with him too. Today I met one of Andy's oldest friends who, as it turns out, was also in band with us. I can't say at this point whether I was aware of him back then, but I was glad to meet him now, and I admire the long-standing loyalty and friendship he gave Andy. Everyone in that room was able to smile and tell happy stories about a man who was worthy of our regard and love. It was a lovely goodbye.

This evening was the Rotary Holiday Ball. I very specifically kept myself removed from the planning committee on this one. I just did not have the energy and focus to throw into this event. I was handed a pack of tickets several weeks ago, and told to put together a table, and I didn't quite get that far. I managed to get six of us there, and I am proud of that. I posted the flyer on the rotary website, made an event on our Facebook page, and hyped it in every week's newsletter. That was as much as I could accomplish.

Even with me falling short of my goal of a ten-top friendship table, the event was a smashing success. There were about 300 guests in attendance, which means we raised somewhere between $20-30,000 to be split between two charities. Our "gold" and "silver" sponsors fronted the money for the hall, food, band, and photo booth. So all ticket sales went to ShelterBox and the Inn-Between. If you are not familiar with either of those, the Inn-Between is a local residence facility that provides a temporary home for people who have suddenly found themselves homeless or who are in significant danger of doing so, but who are still employed and who want to stay together with their families while they get back on their feet. They have case managers who provide support and there is training available to aid in transitioning back to full independence. They operate here locally. ShelterBox is a global organization who I have mentioned before, when they set up a demo at our summer picnic. They provide disaster relief and refugee emergency services all around the world, exactly as their name describes, by fitting all the necessary fundamentals of shelter into a large plastic footlocker. A shelter box has a large tent (could easily sleep ten people), with blankets, water collection gear, cups and plates, construction tools (hammer, nails, saw, shovel, etc), and even school supplies. They have command centers in several locations, from which they can reach nearly the whole world. In some cases they can show up with shelter boxes directly, and in some situation they are able to use partners to get aid to places where they can't enter. (The example we were told was that to get relief to people in Syria, they had to use emissaries in Turkey.) Sometimes it isn't just the basic box. During the winter they provided small kerosene space heaters to those same people in Syria, so that they could stay in their homes even though the power was out after fighting in places like Aleppo. I asked the representative from the charity tonight roughly how many people they have helped to date, and he said they have helped 1.1 million people so far, so back of envelope math, if there are 10 people housed in one box, they have sent out over a hundred thousand shelter boxes.

I won't have the final total on money raised until it's announced at our rotary meeting, but each charity will see over $10,000 from us. This is a great achievement, but it is really just a drop in the bucket for the need that is out there. I know that there are national movements to give days of this week theme names, like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc. One of those themed days is Giving Tuesday. If you don't have a plan in place to donate, or you are still looking for a worthy cause, might I suggest that you look for an organization in your home town that fills the same need as our Inn-Between (or give to ours if you're here in northern Colorado -- theinnbetween.org), or consider donating to ShelterBox.org? That feeling that you get from sharing with those who are in need is what makes life worth living, I promise. Give freely and give often. It will make you feel like celebrating.

Campaign

Inspirational song: Back in Time (Huey Lewis and the News)

Traveling down memory lane isn't always easy. Sometimes one has to think really hard to remember long-forgotten skills. Even with help (and books), it was a slow process to revive the particular ability we attempted just now. When I was a young nerd, I was once quite good at role-playing games. I spent months on D&D campaigns with my like-minded friends in high school, and when Mr S-P and I got together in college, we played a few RPGs then too. A couple of times in the decades since, we mused out loud what it would be like to dip a toe into that world again, but we never did it. Tonight, our neighbor came over with a "starter kit" for D&D, and asked us to go over it with him, so that he had an idea what to do to get his circle of friends playing it. He wanted to have at least one experience with it under his belt before he tried it out on more people who had also never done it.

The starter kit had pre-made characters and very limited explanation of how to play. There was almost no room for personalization. That is most of the fun, in my mind--building a character yourself, and really emphasizing strengths and weaknesses. I knew who to call to borrow a real player's manual, and I dashed out to get it before we started. We rolled dice to create a base set of statistics for our characters, and then took off running from there. Our neighbor created a human female fighter, and named her Carol from HR. I was a very strong dwarf who is exceptionally clumsy, and after learning that the only career type he could have was a cleric (because of his horrid lack of dexterity), I dressed him in all pink, said that he looked just like Dolores Umbridge (with the addition of a gloriously curly beard), and made his order one that worships kittens.

We had no plan, no carefully thought-out campaign ready to go. Mr S-P just made it up as we went along, to get us learning how to ask questions and roll dice to randomly assign successes and failures. On two separate occasions, "Carol" and I rolled critical failures at the same time, that resulted in us literally tripping over each other. We failed at life, the two of us, and ended up arrested, about to be hanged for a crime we didn't commit, when we decided we had been up late enough for the first time out, and we went our separate ways for the night. (Conveniently, all three of us were already in jammies -- there is no formality between neighbors here.) It's possible that with planning and a slightly larger party, we could actually take this activity up again in earnest. For a one-off entertainment, on the fly, on a holiday weekend, it was a wonderful blast from the past.

L-Tryptophan

Inspirational song: Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) (George Harrison)

Okay, who here has spent most of the afternoon and/or evening in a food coma? My hand is waving limply in the air. It has taken me until almost midnight to sit up straight enough to type. And I didn’t even eat all that much. I had one modestly mounded plate, plus a couple glasses of wine and a small helping of gluten free blackberry cobbler. That’s it for the day. But with the combination of rich food, wine mixed with my stomach meds, and a large house full of family and assorted good friends, I was wiped out by sundown. Not gonna lie, it was worth it.

We went where we most often gather for meals this big, to my brother- and sister-in-law’s in Boulder. They have the largest house, and they generously hold open their doors to all of our big family at least one holiday a year, if not two or three. We were told the count would be 25 attendees this year, but it felt like more. Four of the kids weren’t there (one of mine, one of another sister-in-law’s, and two for the hosts), but several made it in from out of town, including the parents of the first member of the next generation. The happiest, most routine-friendly baby ever was there, and he charmed all of us. It’s going to be fun as more of the nieces and nephews have babies (and who knows, maybe someday one of my kids). I think we were due a little extra chaos.

After a most excellent holiday with family, I staggered home (the walk from the car to the living room was exhausting), and once I changed into PJs, I melted into my favorite chair and was never heard from again. I pretended I was going to play on my tablet or crochet, but really I was a perch for felines who held me in place while we all slept. Harvey and Rabbit took shifts. They made sure I was never alone long enough to rise during the few moments I was awake. By 9:30 or so, I was ready for one leftover gluten free dinner roll, but I had to wait over an hour for my lap to be empty so I could go get one. After a quick trip to the kitchen, here I remain, still in my chair. I’m too tired to sleep, but not awake enough to be functional. I think I am a living, breathing metaphor for the American Thanksgiving experience.

Stress Relief

Inspirational Song: Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)

I live a ludicrously open existence, hiding very little. After 1600-1700 attempts to find something new to write about, secrets are few and far between. But every so often, I try to hold back a detail here or there, or at least a degree to which situations exist. I made an attempt to downplay how freaked out I was that I was holding on to vacant rental property in Boulder for months, lowering the asking price three times with no takers. I’d been living in a peaceful stasis, having enough residual income to pay the bills regularly enough that I had time to get my sea legs in the real estate business. But suddenly I found myself without tenants, struggling to find a house that meets my current clients’ needs, and dwindling reserves to pay the electric bill. Fear was setting up shop in my head, showing every sign of becoming my constant companion. I was afraid to talk about economic anxiety too much, knowing that I could have it much worse. I knew going out and getting a different sort of job to cover shortfalls was ill-advised with my health issues. So I waited and checked my emails constantly, watching for leads to come in for the condo. This week, a trio of millennials came riding in like the cavalry. Not only did they like the condo (to the point of being drawn to the wild paint colors we left in the bedrooms), but they were eager to move in right away. We signed the agreement today, and turned over keys. For the first time since August, I can feel financially safe again. I have a bit of a deficit to refill, but at least it is no longer growing. It’s going to be okay.

I get to play the “I’m thankful for...” game tomorrow, and those new tenants are high on my list now. If I’m really lucky, the angry alien who lives in my belly, the one who hugs me too tightly all the time, will relax a little too. There will be a lot of serious eating to do tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll need the alien to ease up so I can get it all down. I’m planning on getting up at dawn to start the gluten free dinner rolls that I volunteered to provide, and for the first time in too long, I think I will sleep peacefully tonight. Can I get a hallelujah?

Too Much

Inspirational song: Echo Valley 2-6809 (The Partridge Family)

If I were narrating this blog on an audiofile, you might make the assumption that I spent the last few hours crying noisily at the loss of another piece of my early childhood. While yes, I am sad at the news that David Cassidy has died of the exact same circumstances as my friend who was like a little brother, just two weeks after we lost our friend, I can't blame my hoarse voice and snotty sinuses on sadness. I think I have my first bonafide head cold in years. I usually fight these off pretty quickly quickly, superhuman immune system and all. I hope this one doesn't last. I'm sneezing and snot-dripping and coughing and my face is flushed. I'm feeling dead sexy, let me tell you. This is spiffy.

I wish I could have taken the day off, but there was none of that to be had. The Rotary board meeting was at 7 am, the regular meeting at noon. I raced over to the condo after that, hoping that finally someone who toured it would rent it (we are still waiting for that decision--desperately wanting it to be rented and wrapped up). After hours of dealing with that, I only had moments at home before we were invited to bad movie night. I worried that my sneezing and coughing would interrupt the crowd's enjoyment of The Room, but it turns out the movie cries out for interruption. When they said Bad Movie Night, they weren't playing around. That was one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and I've seen Lisztomania more than once. It was two hours of my life I will never get back.

After too long of a day with too little energy, I have to pack it in at a reasonable bedtime, and hope that I can sleep. Too many things to hope for tomorrow--potential renters, the quick end of a head cold, and the search for a good gluten-free dinner roll recipe to take to Thanksgiving with the folks. Think happy thoughts.

Cottonmouth

Inspirational song: Snowblind (Styx)

It was supposed to be a pleasant hike in the mountains with the dogs. Everyone needed a short walkabout. We loaded up (a little late because of me, and my silly need to eat breakfast and wear warm clothes), and drove through strong winds into the mountains. In fact, as we rounded the last curves past Barker meadow beneath the dam at Nederland, Mr S-P noticed a heavy mist near the treetops. The winds were so wild they were making four foot waves on the reservoir, with huge splashes coming over top of the dam. It was spectacular. We had a sporty drive up the four-wheel-drive roads, but it wasn't bad until we cleared the gate. The old truck is in desperate need of some more rugged tires. We hoped to get up to the clearing where there's a fire pit and a tiny shed, if not all the way to our usual parking spot. It was not happening. The truck failed to climb the steep hills in the snow. So we went backwards until we could point the nose of the truck downhill, and got out to hike.

And that's where the plan failed me. It should have occurred to me that if the truck couldn't make the hill in four wheel low, I wasn't making it up very far either. I was winded after the first hill, where we stopped driving. And my mouth was so dry, I couldn't even call out for water. I knew after the first time we paused to let me breath and drink that I wasn't going all the way up. But I tried anyway. I stopped again after the next hill, pointing at my mouth to ask for the water bottle in the man's backpack. I staggered up to the clearing, and had another gasping stop. I repeated my assertion that I didn't think I was getting all the way up to the campsite, but Mr S-P convinced me to try a little harder. I made it up to where the tree had fallen over on our last trip with the chain saw, and I called it. I took ownership of the fact that I was just an anchor, and I was going to head back to the truck while the man and the dogs finished the hike.

Even with my adorable walking stick, or maybe only with its assistance, it took me every bit as long to walk downhill in the snow as it did going up, and I only stopped twice to drink and take pictures on the way down. This is why I don't ski. I am terrified of slipping on a snowy downhill slope. I'm pretty sure I know what caused my overall difficulty. They keep messing with the medications I'm taking, and I started a new one on Thursday that so far I hate. The pharmacist told me to watch for unusual hoarseness, among other things, and I've had a sore throat and croaky voice since Friday. I'm not sure whether my incapacity for exercise is related, but my money says it is. But really, why is it that nearly all of the things my GI has prescribed cause unbearable dry mouth? I probably could have made it farther up that hill if my huffing and puffing hadn't dried out my mouth so much that I couldn't even close it.

The rest of my party made it all the way up to the campsite, reinforced the repair on the tepee, and came back down in maybe half an hour longer than it took me to creep down from the give-up point. Those dogs probably did the climb three times over. Those show-offs. Even Murray in his snow covered wheels was more sure-footed than I. But once they were down, the dogs slept the whole way home. They got the excitement they needed for the day, and really, so did I.

Supposedly

Inspirational song: I Want to Be Loved By You (Helen Kane)

I did almost nothing that I intended to do today. I was going to drive up to a mountain property to research for a client who wants to buy acreage in the middle of nowhere. I was going to practice making grain free cheese bread like they have at Brazilian steak houses, to see whether that's what I am taking for Thanksgiving with the in-laws. I was going to video chat with my daughter for her birthday, and compare relative sizes of kittens, since three of Harvey's siblings and his mama are still at the apartment, waiting for their forever homes to be ready to receive them (except Ziggy Stardust, who is staying in the family forever, much to our delight). Hell, I was going to shower and put on something other than PJs today. I did none of that. I slept late (after waking at 6 am, wondering whether my stomach hurt badly enough for immediate medical attention, but luckily another few hours of sleep cleared it up sufficiently). I sat around, with a sleep hangover, in stinky jammies, losing at fantasy football, and bouncing between a phone, a tablet, a laptop, and a crochet hook. Tomorrow I might flip out a little over how far behind I am. Tonight I am glad I blocked out all of my responsibilities and took life slowly.

I have the impulse to keep crocheting, but that was the mistake I made last night. I stayed up late after SNL, until I was nodding off with a hook in my hand. I shouldn't have done that, because every time I picked it back up to keep going on my fun project, I was instantly sleepy again, like I had trained my brain to fall asleep that way. Rabbit doesn't want me to do that tonight either. She sat on me the moment I crawled in bed, and every time my hand stopped scratching the back of her head, she reached out a paw, and patted my forearm, claws out just enough so that I was sure not to mistake her intent.

I regret that I skipped posting a photo last night. I was struggling trying to compose on the iPad, which doesn't like to embed photos properly. It was too much for me to go find the laptop to go about things the right way. Maybe I can make it up by posting the cutest picture I've taken of Harvey all week. (Yes, it's just Sunday night. There's time yet to top this one.) And then I will obey the Rabbit and put away the devices and the projects, and for once do what I'm supposed to do, when I'm supposed to be doing it.

(It's hard to see through the shadows, but all five are in this shot, from lightest to darkest.)

Cats Pajamas

Inspirational song: Sharp Dressed Man (ZZ Top)

Has it been a whole year since Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them came out? I can’t remember, and I don’t think it’s crucial for me to verify. However long it has been, I have been wishing for a snazzy 1930s wardrobe. There was something so appealing about the costuming, and it made me want to start designing again. I had mostly quashed the urge, until a few weeks ago when I caught part of the same movie on HBO. Still, I resisted. Tonight, I may have just pushed myself over that cliff. We went to see the remake of Murder on the Orient Express. The only seats they offered us were in the second row (I suspect the theater wasn’t packed to the gills behind us, but that’s not worth arguing over). Being so ridiculously close to the screen, I could see individual seams in the costumes, subtle patterns in woven fabrics, and exquisite details like tatted lace cuffs. I nearly cried, it was so beautiful. I swore on the spot I was going to purchase the DVD, and study every coat and blouse. I am going to spiff up my style. It needs to wait until after the holidays, to be sure, but I need to adopt this vibe.

Of course, I have a competing motivation. While I’ve been at war with my health, and losing the battle with weight gain around the sore stuff in my midsection, I haven’t been interested in wearing structured clothing. I keep collecting more and more of the softest, stretchiest, baggiest clothes I can obtain. If it’s made of microfiber and guaranteed not to squeeze my belly tightly, I buy it (especially if it’s long enough to reach the tops of my legs). Clothes in the 1930s weren’t exactly known for microfiber softness. A lot of that stuff was downright scratchy. I need to find the middle ground, sharp and handsome classic lines but made of soft and yielding modern textiles. I can only hope that after the start of the new year, I have the time and energy to focus on designs and prototypes.

Hall Decking

Inspirational song: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Bing Crosby)

I walked into the danger zone today. It made me anxious and itchy. I needed to run into Michael's to get a couple supplies, so that I can follow through with last week's promise to hand-make a majority of my gifts this season. There were faux wreaths and garlands out front. There were silk poinsettias between the two sets of sliding doors. And as soon as I walked into the main store, it was as if Santa's elves held a massive kegger and threw up Christmas in all directions. There were plastic ornaments from floor to ceiling. There were sequined signs reading "JOY" and "MERRY." There were big buckets of sticks that looked like glittered candy canes and elf shoes. And the store was packed.

I'm not sure I'm ready, but it occurs to me that if I'm going to decorate this year, I really have to start thinking about it now. When you're a kid, the weeks leading up to Christmas last for-freaking-ever. It's an agonizing wait, and every day lasts a month. It makes sense to hang up tinsel garlands and plastic Santas. It is totally normal to spend a weekend painting wooden ornaments to hang on a tree. But after a while, it goes so fast. As soon as you put a wreath on the door, it's time to pull it down again. At least around here, people tend to leave their lights up long enough to make it worthwhile. (That was weird to me... in South Carolina, by the night of Christmas, the lights were off on everyone's houses. Here, nearly everyone has them burning through Twelfth Night, and some people leave them going almost to Presidents Day. Maybe it's because they're so pretty in the snow.)

I wonder who the people are who can completely change over their decorating with the seasons. Who has the energy to swap out spooky stuff for pilgrim stuff and then again for red and green (or blue and white) all in the space of a few weeks. I know there are people who are that organized. And they are capable of putting out the appropriate gee-gaws and textiles to set a mood, and just as quickly they box it all back up and stuff it in an attic for another year. I've known women who are scary good at this. Me, I'm lucky to have the energy to get a dead evergreen wreath off my door by Valentine's Day.

I love putting up lights, but I just don't know about all the rest this year. If I do it, I'm going to do it sooner than later, so it doesn't seem like I am pulling it all down a mere day after it goes up. The one thing that seems certain this year, we are probably not getting much of a tree. We gave up that possibility when we got a kitten for Halloween.

Yawn

Inspirational song: It's a Mistake (Men at Work)

I miss boring days. I miss being able to sit in my quiet, small world, not worrying about much of anything locally, nationally, or globally. Even on the days when I hide in my protected space, I can't leave well enough alone. I hit refresh on Twitter ever few minutes. I leave the news playing for hours. Boy, the mud is flying now. It has been for years, and it just never stops. Why do I watch? I think maybe I'll take up embroidery or something so I can hide. Unplugging from that feed would be a good opportunity to do that meditating my mother always insists I ought to try.

I spent way more time talking about migraines than I expected this evening. We had a Rotary social, and I made an offhand comment about getting treated for migraines with Botox. It kicked off more than half an hour talking about headaches and auras and what constituted migraines versus headaches and what treatments helped and didn't. One older gentleman said he had suffered through effects of migraine when he was in his teens, but never sought out medical advice for them, and eventually grew out of them. I got to bring up in conversation that since I changed my diet and went completely gluten free, I have been nearly free from headaches entirely. But while the headaches went from a couple a week to a few a year, the auras were getting worse. I am exactly four weeks into the Botox as of today. They promised me that right around six weeks would be the sweet spot, and all of those symptoms would be at their nadir of severity.

So while I wait for full efficacy, here I am, unable to stop yawning. Yeah, I'm tired. I'm not sleeping well, but that's not what this is. I'm also not bored. I didn't know this until recently, but yet another one of those aura symptoms is uncontrollable yawning. It isn't just one or two. It's over and over, big honking yawns that take over your whole head. So how does this fit into the big picture? I'm only two weeks away from when the Botox is supposed to be the best it will ever be. I'm trying to be good with the diet (but rice and corn have reentered my life), and I'm trying to fix enough other stuff to make the rest of me functional. In what order should all of this be addressed? Do I start by hiding from the depressing news of the world, so that I can unwind and rest? Or do I fix my diet and pills so that the headaches go away first? Or do I work on the migraines so I can roll with the punches better?

I know what I need. I need to snuggle with my kitten and stop thinking about all these headaches. Where's Harvey?

Escape

Inspirational song: Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)

There is a new kind of entertainment out there, something that people have been telling me for months that I needed to try. I'm not sure when they started popping up, but it has only been this calendar year that I took notice of them. After saying in the abstract that it would be great fun to try an escape room, today for the first time I actually did it.

My younger daughter was the first to tell me about these places. You are literally locked in a room (or a small suite of rooms), and you have to find objects and solve puzzles and riddles to figure out how to escape before time runs out. It's not something a single person does, but rather groups of people work in concert to get out. You are allowed no personal items. No purses, weapons, tools, phones, lights, nothing. You have to rely on wits and teamwork only.

My daughter had purchased vouchers to try one of these escape rooms in downtown Boulder, and she had until the end of the week to use it before it expired, so she insisted that we all join her today. It was located in an office suite just off of the Pearl Street Mall, in an very unassuming building. The lobby was filled with the most eclectic collection of junk imaginable, but the room we were taken to was only sparsely decorated. There were four of us, and we were split up. My daughter's boyfriend and I were locked in the original room, and my daughter and her dad were taken away. A large countdown timer started on the wall. With no instructions other than "You have 60 minutes to escape before a psycho killer returns," we had to look for clues. Our room had a dresser with a mirror, an old piano, a screen, a rug, and a bedside table with a safe. There was a dry erase board on the wall, and once Mr S-P started speaking to me through it, we discovered there was a pipe connecting the rooms (not directly, but at an angle). We had to open drawers and search the room for puzzle pieces, and eventually we found enough pieces to find a series of numbers. There were three locked drawers in addition to the safe, and we had no idea which of these might be opened with the code. Eventually we started working between the rooms, talking through the walls. We found a key that opened our door, and then we really got going.

The other room had a whole lot more knicknacks in it. We had to identify what they were used for, or how they related to the page of riddles. We each had our strengths figuring out the pieces. I, for example, solved one of the riddles and worked out a code written in invisible ink (under black light) that required someone who could read music. The kids solved the other riddles. Mr S-P figured out how to break a code involving a clock and letter wheels.

We made it out of the room with six minutes to spare. While we were smiling and exhilarated, the man running the entertainment said that the room we chose is only successfully cleared 25% of the time. There was another room involving alien abduction that might be a touch easier. We all agreed we totally want to come back and try that one too. The company rotates out themes about every six months, so if they are able to stay in that building (Boulder rents have a tendency to rise), then we can go back next calendar year for more fun.

With my phone locked up, I couldn't take pictures inside the event. We got a group shot afterwards, where we were told to grab a random prop. Of course I selected an underpants gnome.

SBS

Inspirational song: Small Town (John Mellencamp)

I've been industrious this evening, and I stayed up past my bedtime. I am trying to live up to my values, and it will take time to accomplish. I've been doing this since the weekend, but planning it longer. And this was before Facebook's memory algorithm reminded me that I've espoused these ideals before.

I get a little itchy around gift-giving times of year. Once upon a time, I loved buying presents for people. I spent money when I had it, and went into debt when I didn't. All I aimed for was an overwhelming pile of presents for my family under the tree. When the kids were little, I loved buying them clothes and toys and books and movies and anything I could think of. Then, about the time they were finishing high school, a switch flipped. It became much harder to do this, although I kept trying for a few years after the urge really left me. I have tried to look inside my heart to see why I struggle so to buy gifts, for kids, parents, siblings, friends, or co-workers. I thought I had it figured out a year or two back, but I can't say for sure that I ever really had. I still enjoy watching people exchange gifts, and I do like to get them. But the imagination work has become a bridge too far for me. If someone tells me something they would like to receive, I can usually do it. If you don't know, then don't look at me to figure it out. That part of me is broken. I'd love to fix it someday.

This year, I am trying hard to add back in the personal touch, and I'm getting a head start on it now. Maybe this is actually late, but it feels early to me. I'm going to make things, especially for the kids. I have some materials to work with now, and that's what I stayed up late doing. I figure something homemade, combined with something consumable, might be enough to shake me out of my current difficulty. It probably won't be a permanent fix, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Today's Facebook memory was from several years ago, when they first started pushing the "Small Business Saturday" stuff on television. This ties into the other action item on my list -- to buy all pre-made gifts from small businesses in town. None of us needs a pile of stuff from Target, but if I can give a little love to the Main Street shops in my hometown, then I will do it. But the memory today -- it was a commentary on Small Business Saturday being sponsored by American Express. You know, all credit cards charge a fee, usually a couple percent, on all transactions. My idea was to promise to pay cash. Is it that hard? Plan on doing most of your shopping at locally owned businesses, and pay cash for as many of your gifts that you can. It's not radical. We don't have to give up plastic forever. But think about your neighbors who are hoping for a good winter holiday season, at their bookshops, hardware stores, liquor stores, or jewelry stores. Maybe get gift cards for locally owned restaurants and coffee shops, rather than the chains. Don't do it only on November 25th. Do it for the whole season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Kwanzaa, or Festivus. WalMart will still be around in January. Think smaller. Much, much smaller. And pay cash, just this once.

Underpants Gnomes

Inspirational song: Money (Pink Floyd)

There's an old Smith family adage, slightly embellished by my particular member of the Smith family, "Prior proper planning prevents piss-poor performance." (As many times as I heard my mother-in-law say that, I'm fairly certain she never uttered the word "piss.") When I decided I wanted to make a run at NaNoWriMo, I told myself I wanted to bring out the story I started writing last winter, told in three parts, set in an assisted living facility. I had begun writing it by hand, and had all of the characters fleshed out, with several pages done. I don't know where I stashed the notebook containing all of that. It might be buried on the bookshelf in my bedroom, or lost in the impenetrable pile of junk on my dining room table. I never actually looked. By the time Halloween rolled around, and the kickoff for the story was looming, I decided that I didn't actually want to use that story. I have no idea why; I just bailed on it. The afternoon of November first, we drove out to look at a truck the Mr was considering purchasing (he didn't), and on the way, I said I needed a story inspiration. We drove past a sign pointing to the town of Frederick, and I chose that for my protagonist. There is a famous woman who I picture when I think about the villain, but I'm not going to tell you who she is. Her married name came from us driving over the Platte river on the way to see the truck. At sunset on the night I was supposed to start, that was literally all I had to go on. I think the character's obsessive focus on coffee came from Mr S-P, but the damaged coffee maker was because I kept failing with our own machine here.

I struggled to write out an opening scene, producing only a few paragraphs over about seven nights. I know how I want it to end, essentially, and I have an epilogue in my head for what happens to the villain. So I knew what I wanted to do. ("Phase one: Collect underpants.") I wasn't quite sure how to get there. ("Phase two: [shrug]") And I know how I want the very end to look. ("Phase three: Profit!") I'm getting the strong feeling that I'm not going to profit any more successfully than the Underpants Gnomes. There are too many unknowns in the middle of the plan.

I think I just have too many things to sort through right now. I cleared the month of November on purpose. I knew I had medical stuff going on, with the skin cancer removal and diagnostic colonoscopy. I was glad I'd left room open when I had to process losing old friends and gaining a tiny kitten. My body and mind are in shut-down mode, while my entire operating system is under repair. I am getting more tired and more dizzy than I know what to do with, and I honestly think it is a function of fatigue and having too many things going on to get my regular medication/supplement routine down or a normal sleep cycle accomplished. I keep telling people I'm trying to rest and recover, and I keep having things added in to my schedule anyway. I have spent the last few days in a short 1-2 hour sleep/wake cycle, over and over. This needs to end now. I need to sleep more than a couple hours in a stretch at night, and I need to spend more than two hours awake in the day before my head starts nodding and my eyes close involuntarily. Once I have rebooted myself, maybe then I can fill in the giant gap in the middle of my story of Frederick and the Dragon. Let's hope, anyway.

On the Passing of Friends

Inspirational song: Funeral for a Friend (Elton John)

I have something I’ve been keeping to myself for a week and a half, while I was putting effort into the slow-moving fiction. At first I felt this wasn’t a story meant for general consumption, until I was sure all the friends knew. Then I was distracted by trying to write fiction every night, even though it was going poorly. But now I think it’s time to talk about a couple of men.

Two weeks ago, in the span of about four days, I lost two old and dear friends. The first was someone I met in marching band at CU. He was a trombone player, and my earliest memory of him was when we had a routine where one long line of woodwinds (I played piccolo) came up behind one long line of brass, merged in like a zipper, and popped our chins up to blast back the stands with a loud push section in the music. My position was to fit in between him and a trumpet player on the other side. When I started dating Mr Smith, I was surprised to learn he knew the same guy from high school and his church. After college, they worked at the same tire and auto repair shop, and I got to see the friend every time I was down at the shop. We stayed close friends ever since, meeting up whenever we could swing by, when we were in town. Before we moved back to Colorado, this friend had moved to Nebraska (which hurt our collective CU alum hearts). A year and a half ago, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and he fought a valiant battle against it. Mr S-P took two trips out to Nebraska to visit him, once last year, and once a month or two ago, to the hospice where he had moved. The deterioration was obvious, and I think we both knew we had to prepare to say goodbye. When we were at the CU homecoming Halloween weekend, we tried to get video of the band playing, to share with our friend on Facebook. Mr Smith put up some videos and tagged him that day, but within two days, we learned that he passed away.

When we left Boulder twenty-two years ago, I quickly realized that I was changing permanently from the person I had been before. Back then we had been kids in a LARPing group, and it had once been very important to us. Once we became a military family, the old life faded away forever. I missed a lot of the people from the old group, and I really tried to keep in touch with them, but eventually almost all of them fell away from me. Only one person never once let me go. We all met when he was a nineteen year old kid and we were already in our mid twenties, and he treated us like his big brother and sister. Out of the blue, every few months for years and years, he would call and make sure we still had a connection to the old family. As my health began to falter and my memories got impossibly rusty, he kept taking about people I knew or was supposed to know, even if I only met them once, so I never completely disconnected.

One day, he called and said something along the lines of, “Don’t panic, but I just had emergency surgery for diverticulitis, and it’s really serious.” Stunned, I told him I had literally just left the hospital after three days, for the very same thing. He became my spirit guide through the whole process. We talked about digestion and scars and pain--no topic was too gross and neither of us was too squeamish to talk it out. Two years into it, when I could not heal from it all, I asked him, “After everything you’ve been through, if it had been a choice, would you have still gone through the surgery?” He assured me he would. He gave me the courage to ask for—insist on, really—the surgery that literally saved my life. I was abscessing and days away from having the same emergency situation he had.

When we moved home, and I started a new career while my personal life went upside down, he was still there to guide and teach and support me. He taught me how to deal with difficult clients (him), allowed me to practice writing offers in a brutal market, and helped me to land on my feet when he canceled my very first contract to purchase.

This summer, he called and told me that he was diagnosed with late stage liver disease. Without a transplant, he was not going to make it. The only things I asked him to do were fight and win. But I learned again from him, this time that getting on the transplant list is not an automatic thing. His condition was not out of the blue. His addiction to alcohol had gotten him here, and I had had no idea he was doing this to himself. His doctors did know the situation, and that a transplant was unlikely to happen.

We visited him in September, and he was a shell of himself. He was emaciated and in intense pain. It was heartbreaking to witness. Later, when he was in the hospital for the final time, he tried to do a Facebook live broadcast, and his energy flagged after only a minute. When I saw the video, I knew the battle was lost. It was a week and a half ago when our mutual friend called early in the morning to say he was gone. Today was a memorial gathering at his mom's house. It was cathartic to be with everyone, and to see just what reach into radically different groups of people our friend had. This man touched all of us, and he left a huge hole in our lives. He will be deeply missed.