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It’s almost time for our 60th Anniversary, and this year, instead of going to Saratoga for the Travers Stakes and spending time with our good friend, Michael, we are stuck here at home because, guess what?  We are old now.

My wonderful husband is 83, and ailing with chronic back pain, even though he had extensive back surgery years ago.  The pain never stops.  And now, he’s also recovered from that pneumothorax last November, but has COPD, and it’s no joke.  He has medicine, and inhalers, and bravely works out three days a week.  But the driveway?  Heck, it’s long.  And while he used to go up and down with ease, now he drives to the mailbox.  He can walk downhill to it, but can’t manage to get back up.

I’ve got bad knees now, had injections recently and now can walk ok, and get up and down, but once those wear off, I’m facing the decision again, shot or surgery?  Ugh.

So, we are waiting for my son to come visit, and he’s taking us out for dinner.  Boy.  I will love that, because I love them, but I sure wish I were well enough for a four or five day visit to the races! 

I didn’t think any of us would ever really get Covid, and always thought that if we did, we would not have a big problem with it.  We could survive.  Forgetting how damn old I am, I guess.  And my sis and her husband are even older than I.

And they got it.

Last week, we had no clue to begin with…my guy of 83 had a small head cold, so I asked the pharmacist about covid tests, and he gave me 8 of them.  I thought that was a lot.  But they are almost gone.

I tested him.  No problem.  He’s got a summer cold, and COPD, too, so it was a worry.

Then my sis and husband were both sick in bed.  Well, I decided to take the tests over there, and see if that was the problem.  Ugh.  Wound up taking them both to Urgent Care, and from there to hospital for xrays, and then they got sent home to “isolate.”  OK.  So, that was Friday.  Sunday, after mass, I took my finger OX reader over, and my brother in law was up and mobile, and managing just fine.  My sis was in bed, unconscious, (he thought she was just sleeping) and the finger OX thing said her blood OX was 69-70.  Dialed 911, and the EMT’s took her to the hospital.

For a week I was running back and forth, from their house to the hospital, to my house, and trying to deal with everything masked and trying to deal with it all.  God is good.  He got me through all that, got my sis home, (although she’s not well yet, and still tested positive) and my brother in law is doing fine.  We tested negative!  After all that, all that exposure and helping out, I don’t have Covid!  🙂

Thanks be to a loving God, my helper, my motivator, my source of peace, strength and health.  May your days be as blessed as mine.  He helps me do so much more than I ever thought possible.

I’m remembering things today.  Wonder what was in those dreams last night.  Not sure.  I wasn’t thrilled about my dreams when Clover shook my arm and woke me this morning, so they must not have been good.  But I’ve been remembering all day what it feels like to go speeding down the road with the top down in the old yellow MGB.  Such pure pleasure.  The breeze through my hair, tugging on my hat and threatening to dislodge it.  The warm summer air smelling sweet, and the noises of the road, the engine, other traffic.

I think one reason it gave me such pleasure was the blasted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.  It almost got me, and God spared me.  Oh, my husband was also fighting for me, and he raised Cain with the doctor in charge of my case and got him to finally make a decision, and treat me with something, instead of just letting me die.  Things were pretty dire, I will say.  At that point, both my kidneys and liver had failed, and I was swollen and weak, in terrible pain, and had encephalitis, wild hallucinations, and  was going into a white tunnel.  I had not slept for about six days, because I couldn’t.  The pain was so intense.

Then the doc did give me a massive dose of antibiotics and I woke in the morning, when the nurse took my temperature.  I will never forget how excited she got, raced from the room waving that thermometer around and shouted, “It broke!”  And that day I swear it seems like the entire staff came to visit me.  And while I was very weak, and my hair was a matted mess, it was clear I was going to live.  It was a miracle.

And rain on my face felt like a magic blessing.  Sun shining on on my skin felt like the very touch of God Himself!  Smells, how heavenly, wind in my hair, on my face, the touch of my husbands hand!  Hugs from my family, my kids, so precious, my mom, my sis!  Miracles do happen.  I pray often for others that they feel that love.

But the car, took six weeks of recovery before I could drive.  When I could, it was just the best.  The throaty growl, the steady rhythm, the sound of the wheels, the air rushing around me!  A kid in the other seat, and I was off on a wonderful adventure, just driving.  Around the lake!  Down an unfamiliar road, a venture of discovery!  The top down, all the elements of God’s creation around me, what a thrill.

How I loved that little car.  I taught all my children to drive in MGB’s.  Four on the floor, clutch, if they could drive those, and park them, they could drive a Mack Truck, I told myself.  That lovely yellow thing got painted dark red, and given to my oldest for her sixteenth birthday.  My sweet guy got me another, a 1979, same dark red.  That one I used to teach both the other two how to drive in, and that one went to my youngest daughter, when she went off to Richmond to college.

Then, I got a VW cabriolet.  What a wonderful car that was, too.  I’ve always loved my cars.  They represent freedom like nothing else ever did.  And I still love to drive!

 

As a kid, I did nothing but sit and draw if I could.  Of course, since mom was deaf, dad was gone, and we were somewhat poor, paper was a problem.  We had some friends, actually, who ran a boarding house in downtown LaCrosse that were fairly comfortable, and indeed, that’s where my dad stayed when he first came to town, and met and married mom.  But he was long gone again, working construction in Alaska, far away, and had stopped sending money.  Anyway, one of the family members worked for an office that had tons of paper invoice stock they replaced, and I got a huge stack of invoices right before Christmas one year.

What a thrill!  Paper!  So exciting!  I could sit and draw for hours and hours and not have to worry about running out!

Other neighborhood kids were out racing around pretending to be cowboys and Indians, or Nazi’s and American soldiers and playing war, and shooting each other.  I would participate when I felt like it, but prioritized sitting around drawing.  One could draw after dark, even.

We would play pretend so well, we even held hostages in the garage, tied up, and others were charged with their rescue.  We held funerals for dead squirrels and birds, and since the grave yard wasn’t far away, we could even find small bits of good stone to use for grave markings.  There were piles of them just laying there near the swamp, as I recall, rejected by the stone cutters.

Life was so different from today.  How kids grow up now doesn’t prepare them for survival, or for reality at all.  Without a phone or other electronic device, they get bored.

I was often boring, still am, but, hey, I’m never ever bored!  I know my own brain has such stuff in it, and my brain wants more!  I’m curious!  Nosy!  And I see things art training taught me to see.

I see reflected light.  I see values, light and dark, that most folks never notice!  I see reflected colors everywhere.  All the shades of green, so many.  Painting landscape is difficult, because green is so very varied in shade, hue and value because of the way light hits it.

I wish I could find a few of my old paintings.  There were some that got hung in a real estate office that offered to share local artists work, and then shut it’s doors and went away.  I’ve lost other art as well.  My large scale plywood sculpture disintegrated and began to fall apart, and I had to take it down.  Only have one decent picture of it.  Well, maybe there are more, but I’d have to go through boxes of pictures hidden around the house, God alone knows where.  Under the basement stairs?  In the attic?  Under my bed?

Someday, I keep saying.

 

Fighting battles, carrying on arguments was never my forte.  I spent my childhood quietly listening, because I was sure if I opened my mouth in a heated discussion I would say something wrong.  I always know when I’ve said something wrong, and tend to run it through my head for days, kicking myself.

Yet the experiences I’ve had with Fidonet and also later on the internet, in forums, and facebook, I have learned that some of the best arguments are merely questions.  Properly done, a well worded question will cause someone to think.  They tend to stop their usual platitudes or ad hominins and think.

That is my goal.  I have no desire to dictate to anyone what to think.  But, making them do that difficult task is a worthy goal.  If someone adamantly does not agree with some ethic or high purpose, just telling them they are wrong, or stupid, or whatever will have no effect that you would want.

However, a well aimed question, guided by repeating some useful fact, and asking their thoughts on that may achieve that goal.

Make them think.  Make them look at their motivations, their intentions, etc., in the light of a set of facts different from those they visualize themselves.

Well, sometimes it works.  Sometimes you lose friends.  Thinking is hard, and most folks avoid that like the plague.  But, it’s worth a try if you know they need to reevaluate.

My mom always said you do no one a favor by allowing them to believe you agree with their bad decisions.