Pussycat and the Pea Green Boat

The kayak sat in the garage for a couple of days, because I needed help to tote it down to the dock. But thanks to M, it made it. I've been out the last two mornings, eyeball to eyeball with the great blue herons, on the water by myself at 6:00 or 6:30 a.m.

I'm really getting in shape with all that paddling, right?

 If you could see what I really look like, you'd laugh. Typical outdoorsy pants--check. Ratty t-shirt--check. Life-vest--check. Think Pillsbury dough boy goes paddling. The neighbors in the condos across the water are probably spreading the word, and in a few more days there ought to be audible applause as I belly-flop out of the kayak and onto my dock. It's no problem getting into the boat, but a graceful exit eludes me. Yes, I've watched the youtube instructional videos. Hahaha.

photo credit: tourbarbados.net

Wishes and Coincidences

Like a lot of writers, I have a stash of journals. I've been combing through them lately. Revising stories, tearing out the stuff that stinks and the stuff I'm done with, trying to find some way of organizing all these notes that I jotted down before I hit upon those little notebooks of index cards that work so much better for me. In this effort, I stumbled upon my "divorce notebook." I have no idea what the central purpose of this book was. Some sense out of the chaos, I guess. I kept notes from interviewing attorneys, general questions. Financial stuff, therapy notes. There was this:

Okay. A short list. I might have been able to keep that in my head. But maybe not. I was fucking insane then.

And there was this:

Perhaps I was planning to send the Someone a bill for my moving boxes. I dunno.

And in my effort to visualize what I wanted my new place to look like, I clipped and pasted pictures from magazine and catalogues. 

Pretty, huh?

Okay. I moved. I got some new stuff. That was 2007. Flash forward. Forget that divorce notebook ever existed. Decide aged mother is moving in with me. Move again (it's 2012 now). And flash forward again to 2013. Get more new stuff to furnish extra bedrooms. Months later, find notebook. Walk down hall to guest room. See this.

I love a good coincidence. Who doesn't? But just to add a little weird frosting to the coincidence cake, I didn't choose the guest room bedding in the photo above. Daughter C did. 

Report from Pillville: post hospital,the walker, the physical therapist, the vascular surgeon, the cardiologist, hearing aids, and every day we set up the dominoes

It's taken three weeks since my mom's hospitalization to feel like things are on an even keel here in Pillville. The walker and physical therapy were smallish things to deal with. But the pain in my mom's feet  made us worry that four days laid up in bed had compromised her iffy circulation once again. Luckily, the vascular ultrasound proved otherwise, and arthritis is most likely responsible for her pain. Usually not a reason for celebration....but in this case, it's quite a nice piece of news. My mom's hearing seems to have deteriorated since her hospital stay as well, so we've scheduled a new hearing test.

I'd say that my mom is back to where she was before the antibiotics for the skin infection made her sick and dehydrated and disoriented and played havoc with the coagulation levels in her blood. She bounced back physically by the beginning of last week--her therapy finished and the walker got folded up against her bedroom wall, but it's only this week that her mental energy seems fully back to normal. Then yesterday morning she suddenly felt unwell, got sick to her stomach, and had to spend until the early afternoon resting. Uh-oh, I thought.

But whatever it was resolved itself, and by afternoon she was fine. Martini. Dinner. Today I took her to the cardiologist for a regular check up. Her blood pressure was low--so we must take her blood pressure every day and only administer her evening blood pressure medication as needed. Not a problem, right? Still, the dominoes are set up here in Pillville. Like they are every day if you are going on 89.

Yesterday on Facebook, I stumbled across THIS. Since I live with my mother, I entered 365 in top box.
The answer was not a big surprise:

Your mum is living

10years beyond the age she is expected to die.
Yeah, I know this time with her is all bonus. I think of it every morning. Every time I come back into the house after going out. Every evening when I eat dinner with her and I'm finished 10 or 15 minutes before she is and I sit at the table  watching her chew with her eyes closed, wondering how I might become a more scintillating conversationalist. I think of it when we say good-night. It's bonus time. All of it.

photo credit: the ragblog.blogspot.com

How to Haul a 9-ft Kayak in a Prius

Like this.

Of course,  I still have to get it down to the boat dock, but even with it now sitting on the floor of my garage, it feels like Christmas.