Blue

Inspirational song: Got to Be Real (Cheryl Lynn)

I thought I'd feel more relief. I've been agonizing over a puzzle of sorts for months, and this evening, I finally got all the weird little pieces to fit together. This is that project I alluded to obliquely a few days ago, and now it's done. I can hand it over to the person it was for, and I can move on to the things I've been delaying until I got it finished. This has been such a source of stress, I really believed that once it was done, I'd feel wiped out and loose. Quite the opposite. I'm all knotted up, and tense, even more than before. What gives? Maybe that effect won't set in until I actualy release it and get it out of my house.

I do have a lot more to do, but quite a lot of it will involve stringing words together. I have three weeks' worth of Rotary newsletters to create, although the middle one from last week only involves transferring a different editarian's words into the proper format, and matching photos to it. But other than that, I'm going to go digging through my spiral notebooks that are wedged into every available space in my bedroom, and see whether any of the stories I had started to tell in the last two years are ready to speak to me again. I never wanted to give up on any of them, but somewhere a year ago I lost my ability to tell fiction. I even tried to revive it back in November, and I failed miserably. I can't even *read* fiction these days. I haven't made it more than two or three chapters in a book in a full two years or more, neither reading nor writing. Now that several of the biggest obligations have been met this spring, I'm going to work on retraining myself in those skills.

As usual, I'm up late writing this. It's just past midnight, which means it's now my mommy's birthday. I think that means it's a wonderful coincidence that the most current photo I have, from this morning, is of a flower I associate with her more strongly than any other. There is a single bachelor button growing in the debris that collected in the rocks we left up front when I lost my motivation to use them to build a pond in the back yard. (The plan has changed, and now these will be the berm with a cherry tree.) I had bachelor buttons in a large tree-size pot last year, and one dropped a seed in the seam between the driveway and front walk. That hardy little seed took root and is thriving in less than ideal conditions like a champ. We're hoping to let it form seeds of its own, to plant in the flower beds on either side of the yard (the Unless garden and the new berm).

The first time I remember mom growing bachelor buttons was in Idaho, when I was about 8 years old. She had a funny little rubber planter that looked like it once was a tire. We had just come from Germany the year before, so she called the planter a "Gummivase." I've never been able to forget that word in the decades since. The other reason I think of her when I see bachelor buttons was from the day I got married. We were working on the whole "something old, something new" tradition. She found some growing wild on our way up to the site in the mountains where we married. She plucked one little bachelor button, and tucked it into my bouquet, telling me that was my something blue.

She's the reason I bought the bachelor button seeds last year, that planted this little guy. Happy birthday, mom.

Egging Each Other On

Inspirational song: Anything You Can Do (Annie, Get Your Gun)

The season has begun in earnest. The Mr texted me while he was out, asking what I planned to accompish today. I had a couple of long projects, but that was it. I don't remember how the conversation went sideways, but within a few messages back and forth, we had conspired to meet at the Ace Hardware close to home, to select a "few" plants to go in the garden. I grabbed a stack of rewards coupons, and wandered into the danger zone.

I assumed that the point was to get a few starter plants for the vegetable garden plus select a few perennials to put in the new berm to go with the irises and cherry tree. Funny, once he and I started wandering around the bedding plants, the totals went up. We picked out a few small tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and a basil. He pointed out that we didn't have a red columbine yet (although I think we might have one back on the pet grave, that I didn't think about until now). I wanted snapdragons, which XS's mom back in Croatia apparently refers to as bunnies (and I was treated to a gesture, facial expression, and nonsense word to explain how they remind her of a squishy bunny face). We decided we didn't have enough white flowers, so he grabbed a candytuft, but then he put it back and selected something else I can't now remember. I insisted on weed and feed, which he really didn't want. He chose a bunch of vegetable seeds, which I believe will never sprout. And then we split up to use more of the $5 off coupons than we normally could, and to divide the financial impact of the first big plant purchase of the season. We compared notes when we got out to the parking lot. I paid more, and the difference was exactly the cost of the weed and feed. I'm not sure whether to feel insulted, or to be impressed that he won that tiny little passive agressive combat so precisely. I'm leaning towards being impressed. I'm not even mad.

I was surprised when we got home to learn that he never intended to put the new flowers into the as-yet-to-be-built berm. He said that the ground was way too saturated for him to do the digging and moving of turf, and if we waited until the conditions were right to plant the new stuff, it would die waiting for us to act. "I know us," he said. I had no argument. About half of the plants are in the ground already. There's a big stack of annuals waiting for me to put them in containers this week. The pressure is high. He got all of his done quickly. Me, I look at mine as yet another item on The List.

One of Us

Inspirational song: Call Me Maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen)

Spring storms roll through Colorado the second week of May often enough that we always assume there will be a "Mother's Day storm" of some variety. The rule is never to plant your garden until after that happens. Often enough, it's a Mother's Day blizzard, and not the kind that comes from a Dairy Queen. The storm came through today--ALL day--but it was easily 10-15 degrees too warm for it to snow, at least more than a few seconds. Waves and waves of strong thunderstorms rolled up through town, and with the heavy bands of rain we saw at least one little burst of hail. Low lying areas had a bit of ponding. There was so much water in these storms that if it had been cold enough to snow, we would have had a minimum of 6-8 inches of wet snow that would have snapped plenty of blossom-laden branches. I learned today that I was supposed to get a second garden bed up front this weekend, complete with the skinny cherry tree that has been patiently awaiting a permanent home and irises dug up from our friend's house in Louisville, on a berm built from the big rocks laid out in front of my garage. I was going to get that had we not wound up in the middle of four or five days of cold rain instead. If I'm lucky, I'll get the new berm late next week, which means I need to be on the lookout for a few interesting young plants to drop in it. I'll get right on that.

For much of my young adulthood, I wanted to raise a big family. I would have produced more children than I did, but my body put the kibosh on that in a hard and final way. Despite herculean efforts on my part to increase my biological output, I was not capable of creating more than two (admittedly perfect) humans of my own. So I did what any person in my situation would logically do: I "collected" additional family members whenever I could. I acquired a foster daughter, and informed her that she was one of us permanently. To this day, I consider the high school boyfriends of all my girls as honorary kids of mine, as long as my daughters tolerate me continuing to speak of/to them. I risked my reputation and became a crazy cat lady who also has dogs and lizards, and I refer to and think of them as fully vested family members. (Fight me. They are my kids too.) And now I have a teenager from Croatia who is figuring out that she is also one of us. It will be harder to keep in touch with her in person, but if I have to go visit her in Eastern Europe, that is a sacrifice I'm willing to take. (What's that? Tour Kings Landing while I'm there? Oh, if I must...)

I expected a low-key Mother's Day, and I was fine with that. My foster son-in-law came by with flowers last night, when he picked up his wife after she spent the day with me. She was back this morning and joined us for cassava-flour crepes with goat cheese and mixed-berry compote that Mr S-P cooked for us. And then right as she left, my in-town daughter showed up unannounced, and told me to get dressed now, now, now. (I had been sewing all day, wearing my jammies.) I'm learning to roll with it when they all tell me not to ask, just do what they request, so I showered and dressed and went to the car. They all took me to a buffet at one of my favorite restaurants downtown, and we had a lovely bonding experience with our latest addition (XS). I worried at first that my existing family wouldn't be as enthusiastic as I was about hosting an exchange student, but they took to her like she was raised as one of us. Days like today prove that I just had to be patient with my dreams of a big family. I now have four daughters. And I only had to go through labor twice. What a nice revelation for Mother's Day.

The Finish Line

Inspirational song: Chariots of Fire (Vangelis)

There is a dim light in the distance, that is getting ever so slightly brighter. It's the light at the end of the "I Made Too Big of a To-Do List" tunnel. I've gotten through a huge chunk of the big ones on my list, and I'm finally focused squarely on the one that has caused me the most grief for the last two months. Try as I might, I couldn't gain any ground on it for the last four or five weeks. Today I had help, and it made all the difference. My foster daughter asked me what I wanted for mother's day, and instead of my old stand-by "a clean house that I don't have to create myself," I asked for her to come over and force me to spend hours on this project. She straight-up did some of it herself, but for the most part she was on hand for consultation and unending guilt so that I didn't just say "F it" (again), go sit in the hot tub, and put it off (again). She even promised to stand in front of the back door with her arms blocking my path to guarantee I stayed out of the hot tub until it was absolutely time. Her tactics worked. I made huge progress. I have every expectation that we are capable of finishing tomorrow, and then this will be off my plate forever.

I've been promising myself a prize once I complete all the big stuff on my to-do list. What prize? Yet anothere project, of course! But it's a big one, and I refuse to let myself start it until I've finished that things over which I've been foot-dragging and making excuses. There will still be weekly or monthly obligations, but I'm not going to take on any new activities or favors for anyone else until I've done this thing I've delayed for myself. I've been so good, delaying my own gratification for almost three months while I completed all the stacked up promises for everyone else. I think about my own project all the time, and I feel like no matter how hard I run toward it, I never gain ground to reach it. Not much longer now. I have this big thing to finish on Sunday, and then a couple of Rotary newsletters to go before I'm free. The end is in sight.

Once again I find myself at the end of a day feeling sore and more than a little bit muddle-headed. After the way things went in the middle of the last week, I'm actually sort of glad to be suddenly sleepy and droopy-eyed. I know it's the medications making me super ready to sleep by 11 each night. Without them, I'd be relying on pain killers and still having wild insomnia. I'm willing to put up with getting fuzzy and incoherent right before I need to be shutting off all of my electronics anyway, if it means no pain pills (essentially zero, when I don't get stupid and skip the nighttime dose that tells my brain to dump endorphins on its own) and a full night's sleep every night. All of this tells me that I'm on the right dose, or darned close. I can now tell the rheumatologist we are at the correct place with this, and I can have the pharmacist compound three months at a time instead of 30 days. I'll be saving money and feeling better too. I win!

My race is run for the day. Time to tune out and sleep as soundly as all of the cats around here. I think I'm the only one who stayed up late anyway. I can fix that.

What the Pho?

Inspirational song: Strength (The Alarm)

It wasn’t intended to be an experiment. I wasn’t doing it on purpose. I didn’t skip my pills and then sit still to see what symptoms worsened and which stayed the same. Yet after accidentally letting myself go almost 40 hours in between doses, sudden changes took me by surprise and grabbed my attention. I wasn’t expecting to feel unchanged, but nevertheless I didn’t think it would be quite so noticeable this quickly. Fatigue set in quickly, but what really seemed like an outsized reaction was how stiff and sore I got so fast. My muscles completely locked up. I cramped, ached, and spasmed. More than anything, I whined. I sprained my wrist lifting a 20 lb bag of carrots. I had to let the Mr drive my car from Costco to the parking lot where we went separate directions because I was too sore. And I had to get one round of meds down before I could drive the girls down to Boulder for dinner. All of this for one and a half days skipped. Any time I start fantasizing about giving up all of these pills, I stumble on one of these days, and I vow never to stop treatment as long as I live.

I, like all of my brothers and sisters in chronic illness, get more than a normal share of unsolicited advice on how to treat my autoimmune diseases. I get lots of suggestions that my life would be completely healed if only I would eat certain foods, drink certain powdered drinks, take turmeric capsules or apple cider vinegar, meditate, walk, do yoga, or just think away my problems. I tune it out almost immediately. People think that they just want to fix me, and they think I should be grateful, but sometimes it is just too much even to smile and nod and say, “Oh, I never heard about that one.” Really what I’m hearing is “I think your illness is your own fault and you should stop being sick because it inconveniences me.” It is in this mindset that I very nearly rejected my friend’s suggestion to try the low-dose naltrexone. At first I thought he was telling me to try methotrexate, which is several steps away, and only if all else doesn’t work. After conversation and doing my own research, I decided it was worth attempting it to stave off symptoms of my unique cascade of autoimmunity. I ramped up slowly, and wondered over the last month or so whether I was actually just imagining the change in pain severity, that everything seemed so much more bearable. I know I’ve been falling asleep faster since I started it. But until I had the misfortune to skip two doses in a row, I had not fully grasped how much good it’s doung. I can only hope that it won’t take more than a day or two to get it fully back in my blood stream to get my pain back under control.

Being tired and hungry, I put up no fight when two little exchange students (XS and the Bonus XS from Finland who is spending four days with us) decided we needed to go get pho from our favorite spot in Boulder. I don’t know why it struck me as so funny, but I couldn’t get over two girls coming from far northern and southeastern Europe, and only once they’ve been in the US for 9 months do they get exposed to hip food from Vietnam and fall in love with it. Maybe it isn’t so unusual, but it tickled me regardless.

Working Through Burnout

Inspirational song: Family Tradition (Hank Williams Jr)

We tried something new tonight. One of our regular Thursday night group members is a serious skier, and at the end of the ski season, he took a last run down a slushy, icy mogul hill. Near the bottom of the run, he hit the nadir of the mogul just right to compress his knee wrong, and he tore his ACL badly. He has been waiting to get on the schedule of a top-notch orthopedic surgeon, and today was his big day. This guy is the life of the party, or at least the source of our GM's greatest torture, and we agreed we would skip the game if he couldn't be present. Rather than skip a week and let ourselves fall out of the habit we've kept since November or December, we had the first inaugural Hot Tub Game Night (tm). After a successful trial run, this is probably going to become a regular thing. A family tradition, as it were. The kids brought over dinner, everyone took turns soaking in the new tub, and we settled around the table after dark to play mah jongg by torchlight. The fire added an extra complexity that we didn't expect, but I didn't want to be bothered by mosquitoes or flies, so it was worth making each tile drawn like a strange, dangerous game of jenga. It made it worth our while not to imbibe as much as we might have on a D&D night. I was wearing a big, floppy-sleeved robe that I got for free at the casino on Valentine's day last year. I knocked my own tiles on the ground a couple times. I had to be extra careful not to light the robe on fire.

I think everyone managed to win at least one round, and we went to the wall once (ran out of tiles and no one won). It's nice having a regular cadre of players who picked up the rules so fast that I didn't have to coach them past the first round months ago. It was a nice cap to the first real full day off I'd had in weeks. I ran out of steam in a big way, and needed a day to sleep late and recover. I still had to mow the lawn and clean off the outdoor table, but other than that, I let other people call the shots today. And now at the end of the day, I realize that I never took any of my pills, I left the windows closed in my room so it's hot, and I forgot to make the pecan pie I like to make on May 10 to mark the anniversary of both of my grandfathers' birthdays. I can still make it. Maybe I'll do it next week when there will be a houseful of people to eat it up. Until then, I have to get back to business and knock more things off my to-do list.

Spring Fever

Inspirational song: The Lusty Month of May (Camelot)

I'm pretty sure my house was full of ten year olds on a massive sugar high tonight. All of the adults who were supposed to be present were nowhere to be seen. Instead it was rowdy kids who were bound and determined to misbehave. In an echo of last Thursday's game night, the whole crowd was wiggly and loud, and absolutely nothing progressed. I took a little of the blame last week for cheesing off the GM. This week, it wasn't just me. The boys were especially loud, and I was more just checking out mentally. I discovered while I was still tidying the house and the guys were showing up, that my slight nagging feeling that I'd been punched in the kidney ramped up to distracting pain that made me cranky and unamused for the first hour of game night. I had to cave in and do what I haven't in months, and take a tramadol to ease things off. Now I'm groggy and my face is numb. I refuse to be deep or eloquent. I'm going to make this quick and I'm going to see how fast I can fall asleep. (Generally it doesn't happen fast, but I have hopes.)

Dear Jackie was determined to be the center of attention as literally as I can express that. She jumped onto the table about six times, and settled down in front of everyone at least once. Halfway through the night, she faced Mr S-P, and showed her displeasure at not getting enough attention by trying to eat one of the game figures. He took her picture several times, but it was mostly blurry. You can't tell, but she's eating a little plastic bard who has a magical swirl coming up out of his lyre.

Tomorrow's regularly scheduled game will be replaced by hot tub game night, in which we take turns soaking and playing mah jongg on the little patio table outside. It hadn't occurred to me until now that we never did reintall the outdoor flood lights after we painted the eaves years ago. I should probably find a light source for the mah jongg table. Tomorrow is going to be all about the setup. I need to rest up before then.