A day of good stuff … and some trivia, some of it not so trivial

 

Fireman getting ready to load the trailer.

Three cheers for my sister-in-law, Cindy Azuma Peckham! She drove their pickup with a trailer to Fort Worth from Tolar, maybe forty-five miles, much of it heavily trafficked. She was picking up the electric wheelchair, and the pickup caused a brief flurry of activity at the cottage. I have written about our indecision about how to load the heavy thing. Turns out John and Cindy have a neighbor who’s with the Fort Worth Fire Department, and he offered to come and bring three firemen to load it. They arrived in a fire truck, which may have caused a bit of a neighborhood stir, and it was done before I could blink. John’s neighbor, David, simply rode the chair through the patio and back yard, down the driveway, and across the street to where Cindy had parked the truck. The firemen tied it down securely in the trailer, and Cindy took off for home. And therein is my admiration—I was a good driver in my day, but a pickup with a trailer and a wheelchair would have intimidated me. My tribute to Cindy: “She may be small, but she is mighty.”

And three more cheers for Morgan Helene Alter, who graduated today from Tomball Memorial High School. In what I thought was a lovely innovation, the ceremony was live-streamed, so I got a much better view of her walking across the stage than I would have if I’d been in been in that crowded auditorium. She had a sweet, cute smile on her face, even though the principal or whoever called her Morgan Helen when her name is Morgan Helene. So proud of her. She will go to Texas Tech next year.

Morgan, inducted into National Honor Society

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And another three cheers for Jacob Burton who is as of yesterday a senior in high school. He and friends celebrated by helping or officiating or something at a Powder Puff game and then, just as I was about to serve supper, seven hungry boys landed in Jordan’s living room. I told her and Christian they are blessed that Jacob has such good friends and that he is comfortable bringing them home. Jordan scurried around to find something to feed them.

New seniors, on the last day of school.

Not so trivial: Amanda Gorman wrote yesterday about the banning of her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” in Dade County (Florida) elementary schools. I thought her words were eloquent: "I wrote 'The Hill We Climb' so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment. Ever since, I've received countless letters and videos from children inspired by 'The Hill We Climb' to write their own poems. Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.” Today I learned that the lone woman who complained about the poem is a notorious bigot who has protested countless things before and—get this—she hasn’t yet read the poem in its entirety. And then I read somewhere that the national banning of books is due to eleven narrow-minded people. It’s not a chorus objecting to certain titles—it’s eleven lousy people. And look at the furor they’ve caused, the damage they’ve done. Why is this country letting a few extreme voices control our daily lives, from books to abortion to guns?

Speaking of book banning it amused me yesterday that Goodreads’ list of books on sale at Amazon included Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D. H. Lawrence. I’m old enough that my first memory of censorship has to do with that book when it was published in the US and the UK, years after Lawrence wrote it. I haven’t one back to read it, but I wonder if it wouldn’t seem tame today. If you want to check it out, go to Amazon. Don’t tell DeSantis.

Trivial to everyone but me: the other morning, with coffee-hour company, I watched out the French doors while a squirrel had the time of his life at our new bird feeder. I know, they are God’s creatures too and have to eat, but do they have to eat when we put out for the birds? Today, I was much happier when I saw Mama Cardinal at the feeder. We have a cardinal couple who have come to our back yard for several years now.

Special days: Yesterday was National Wine Day. Jordan and I did our best to honor it appropriately. I thought today was the day to wear orange to protest gun violence and dutifully put on my one, raggedy, stained orange shirt—turns out it’s next week.

Tonight, Jorda is at a concert if Dallas with a busload of neighbors. Of course she is—John Mayer is performing. Christian, having no interest in John Mayer, is probably still at Colonial, and Jacob is who knows where. Once again, I followed a recipe for something I know perfectly well how to make from scratch—salmon patties. The recipe was from Southern Living, which I think is reliable. They were tasty but once again fell apart when I tried to turn them. Followed a new, quick salad dressing suggestions—a bit tart, even for me. Now to do my Central Market order and then settle down with a mystery.

As you grill your hot dogs and eat your potato salad this weekend, pause for a moment to remember those who served our country and never made it home again. God bless.

A mixed-up kind of a day

 

Sophie and Jacob
a long time ago when both were puppies

Even before daybreak, it was an odd day. I woke twice in the night to find Sophie standing by my bed. If she’d been lying down, I wouldn’t have thought much about it, but she was standing. I thought that was a bit eery, a bit worrisome. I of course was afraid of another diabetic incident, etc. When I asked if she was all right, she gave me a soulful look and came for some loving. I looked outside and sure enough, it rained, but I didn’t hear thunder. Apparently, as I learned today, I must have slept through it, because there were several reports of thunder and lightning, no none that I saw in my immediate area. Even if it wasn’t much here, Sophie would have sensed it. This morning she was back in her crate, sleeping peacefully.

My brother called early about the wheelchair. He said Cindy would come get it, and I protested she could not handle it alone. He said she’d drive the truck with a trailer and a ramp and could just drive it up the ramp—that sounded a bit like going on a roller coaster to me. Could she strap it down, I asked, and he said no, but her sister’s partner could. He’d check schedules with Ralph and get back to me. After a series of phone calls and texts—I simply don’t text well and images completely throw me—I have heard nothing more and seen nothing of either Cindy or Ralph. Christian estimates that the chair weighs between fifty and seventy-five pounds, and it will take three grown men to lift it. Guess I’ll call again in the morning. I want to get the chair out of my closet and the standing walker out of my bedroom, and more than that I want John to have them if they will help him. I once threatened to open a store for used disability devices—if John takes those two, my inventory will go down appreciably. Though someone returned the potty chair yesterday—at least it can go in the attic.

Soph was part of the mixed-up day. She had an 11:30 vet appointment, and Christian was to take her. He told me before he’d be running close on time, would be teaching a real estate class until eleven. By the time he got here at 11:20 I was in the doorway, with Soph on a leash ready to hand him. He asked me to call the vet and say he was running late.

Called the vet clinic, and they said they showed no appt. for today and our vet and his team were not in the clinic. The kind receptionist wanted to keep talking about it, but I wanted to get her off the phone so I could call Christian and tell him to come home. Now, tomorrow, I must call and ask the questions I meant to send with Christian today. Meantime, Christian was glad to come home and eat lunch, and Sophie had a nice outing in the car.

Mixed up again tonight. Jordan had told me yesterday that she had a happy hour tonight, her first event as the mother of a high school senior. Apparently an unofficial group of mothers was getting together—she expected to be a bit tearful. Christian said he’d be home, so I promised to make the German potato salad I didn’t make last night. But then just before five Jordan came out and said there was to be a dinner, with dads and boys, following the happy hour so no one would be home for supper.

I put the German potato salad off one more night and made a recipe I’d been wanting to try—scrambled eggs with pinto beans and cotija cheese.  I can tell you—don’t bother. Admittedly it called for jalapenos, which I left out, but it was kind of just there. The cotija was the best part. I filed the recipe in the wastebasket.

So it was that kind of day, when life gets in the way of what you have planned. Best to be as resilient as possible.

You can sort of go home again

My older brother, John Peckham, called last night to say Sunday he will be moving from a rehab facility where’s he’s been doing PT back to his ranch outside Tolar. He will need the big, clumsy electric wheelchair that is taking up way too much space in my closet, and I am delighted to give it to him. Christian determined make and model last night, and I called Colin who is smart about these things so he could look online about new battery, etc. As a bonus, Christian found all the original paperwork in a pocket on the back of the chair, but he reported when not turned on, the chair is dead weight. Moving it will be a problem, and we are still working on that.

But it was much on my mind when I went to bed last night, and so, of course, I dreamed about it. We (not sure who we was) were at John’s, waiting for word to come get the chair in a truck, but John said first he wanted to go to the Dunes. A word of explanation: when we were growing up our family had a time-share on a rustic (operative word) cottage in the Indiana Dunes State Park. Dad and a colleague had owned it years before in their bachelor days. At some point, the State of Indiana exercised eminent domain and took over the cottage, but every year Dad got a rental contract for the season. He said each year he held his breath until that contract came.

The cottage really was rustic. On a high dune, three flights of stairs above the beach, it had a commanding view of the length of Lake Michigan to the front (I loved to watch storms roll down that lake and to this day I trace my love of a good storm, sans tornadoes, to the Dunes) and a dense forest to the back. It also had no running water (a cistern pump) and no electricity. There was an outhouse down the hill in the woods, and at night you went to bed early because Dad was paranoid about burning the mantle in the Aladdin lamps. It was too dark to read. And you didn’t just drive up to the cottage—you had to pack in your clothes and groceries, either a mile down the beach (too hot) or through the woods (our preferred route).

So in my dream we were talking about going back to the Dunes. John and I and my ex-husband went in the late sixties and had not been back since. When I went to Chicago with my children six years ago or so, they scheduled a morning trip to the Dunes followed by lunch at a North Side restaurant. I had to explain that the time schedule did not work, but their intentions were the best: they knew how big a place the Dunes hold in my heart.

But suddenly, in my dream, it dawned on me that I couldn’t go back to the Dunes. There is no way to maneuver a walker either through the woods or down the beach and up all those stairs. That made such a huge impression on me that I sat bolt upright in bed.

My rational mind has known for a long time that neither John nor I are very mobile. We haven’t had a contest, but in a walker race, I think I would win. Besides there is no there at the Dunes for us anymore. Sometime around 1969, the state stopped renting cottages to long-term leaseholders, rented them to weekenders for a while, and then tore them all down. So I guess in some deep way that aha! moment I had was sort of a Thomas Wolfe You Can’t Go Home Again bit of reality, a recognition that John and I are older and different, and we can’t ever recapture the past. We can remember, but we can’t relive.

Over the years John and I have sometimes been close, sometimes almost estranged in recent years. There’s an elephant in the room with us—politics. But we have much more that binds us together—our Chicago background, our families past and present, osteopathic medicine, Texas (we both like dogs—he can have the cattle). We had grand, huge family celebrations, until both our families grew too large to do that. Since his health has taken a turn, I think, without ever talking about it, we are closer. We talk on the phone often, and I have taken all four grown children to see him. From his hospital bed, a wink or a look with a smile tells me he’s glad I am there, and we are still brother and sister. He is, after all, the one who used to protect me from all kinds of evil, like bad boys who teased me when I was little and very shy. And he is the one who said, “You need to get away from home” and took me to Missouri to graduate school. He had a hand in shaping my life, and I have always known he was there for me.

I think he will like this story. But now about that blasted wheelchair ….

Reading your own works, writing about food, and a new taste

One of those days where I didn’t get out of my pajamas until late afternoon. I get so much done on such days! Today I finished proofing the last of my mysteries to post to several ebook platforms, wrote a guest blog, planned an antipasto platter for guests.

I don’t know if it’s a good sign or not but proofing the final chapters of Murder at the Tremont House I found myself tearing up this morning. Those chapters contain one of the most suspenseful climactic scenes I’ve written—I’m not long on suspense, which is probably why I write mostly cozies. But this one involves superficial injuries to a child and a car chase, with the protagonist forced to drive, probably to her own death. (No spoilers there.) And there I was, dabbing at my eyes with a Kleenex. The novel also has an epilogue. I know that, like prologues, they’re out of fashion now, but I think readers want to know how the loose ends tied up. I do when I read mysteries.

Right after lunch I wrote a guest post for a blog on learning to cook again—neat way of calling attention to my three foodie books—Cooking My Way Through Life with Kids and Books, Texas is Chili Country, and Extraordinary Texas Chefs. With the move to the cottage and my confinement to a walker or wheelchair, my cooking really had to change. The cottage has no stove or oven—just my super-duper hot plate on which at first I burned everything. And I blame the wheelchair for the fact that I’m the messiest cook in five counties. But I am gradually getting better. And as I feel better, my interest in food increases. If I hadn’t had an established career as a writer, I’d have become a chef somewhere along the way. As it is, writing about food gives me an outlet for my interest in all things culinary.

And I had a new culinary experience today, a new taste: shark. My neighbor had a sharkfest last night, and Jordan brought some to me. There were fried pieces, chunks cooked in milk, and some grilled plus ceviche. I particularly liked the grilled. Tasted like chicken with a bit of sweetness to it. Nice firm texture.

Tonight we’ll go to Macaluso’s just down the street—dinner tonight supports our local Lily B. Clayton elementary school. Sweet Lily B. Sad this is Jacob’s last year there.

29.00

Oops. There goes my lifestyle, changed again—for what? The fourth time within a year? There was the broken ankle/leg with non-weight-bearing which finally morphed into weight-bearing in that black boot; then there was the whole huge change of moving out of the house and into the cottage—which I absolutely adore.

Today I saw the orthopedic surgeon, proudly showing off my new, lightweight brace. He approved, showed me where and how it is supporting the ankle. Of course I had questions? May I go to the bathroom barefoot in the night? Yes. You have no idea what a relief that is. Struggling into either the boot or the brace is a pain in the middle of the night when all you want is to answer nature and then go right back to sleep. Besides, sometimes there’s a certain urgency to my night trips.

Next question: may I drive? Yes, if I practice in an empty parking lot and find that I can stop in time and control the car. My right foot is, he told me, a clumsy foot. But unless I make a miraculous mobility recovery, the car presents problems. It’s a VW Bug convertible, and the walker won’t fit. I love my car. I’ve had it eleven years. It’s my sporty car to keep from being a stodgy grandmother. I don’t want to sell it (probably $500) and buy a new car. Dilemma, but at least I don’t have to solve it today.

Then the kicker question: how long do I have to wear the brace? As long as I’m walking. “The rest of my life?” I queried, and I’m sure my voice went of the chart for squeakiness. He, a taciturn man, nodded and said yes. I’m still processing that in my mind. First of all, there go all my cute shoes, and I am sentenced to wearing orthopedic shoes with ankle socks. Second of all, it isn’t at all like running carefree through the grass. I will always be awkward, which I guess is better than not being able to walk. I’ve actually wondered how much that was a sentence to the walker, whether sitting in it or walking.

We will be getting an electric wheelchair, but I thought of it as something in the far-off future. I don’t want to put myself in a wheelchair now, because of that old adage, “Use it or lose it.” Spend 24 hours without walking and there’s a strong possibility that you’ll never walk again.

The physical therapist should be here in a day or two, and I’ll run some of these questions by him. I know however that I have to get serious about exercising and recovering the strength I’ve lost.

Another piece of good news in all this is that the doctor says the brace should help alleviate the terrible ache and pain in my left hip, though, as he emphasized, it takes time. But if that pain lessens, I’ll be more willing to walk and do exercises. Right now, it hurts. And yet, I guess I have to walk to heal the hip. Seems to me I’m caught in several circular dilemmas.

Who thought, the night last spring that I fell, that I was triggering all these changes in my life?

First date jitters

When Carol Roark came to get me for supper tonight, I felt like a teenage girl on her first date. I had warned Carol that getting me out of the house was a difficult process but she plunged ahead, called it “extricating” me. Jordan stood by for advice and counsel, but Carol did it all—as my kids used to say, “by self.”

First I have to transfer from walker to wheelchair—a lightweight transport chair. This requires someone to hold the wheelchair steady while I pivot on my good foot. Then just getting the chair over the doorsill is a project that often has me tilted at crazy angles and Jordan cautioning, “Keep your arms in.” Then it’s down a steep makeshift ramp, across some plywood boards, and down a small drop to the driveway.

Getting into a car is also a process. The wheelchair has to be pulled up close to the seat, as head-on as possible. Once again, I pull myself up on the good foot and try to pivot until I can back onto the car seat. At times I can’t help but do a little hop-step on the weak foot. Once on the seat though, I can slide myself around and all is well. I’ve done serious study of cars—no way I can get into Jordan’s Forerunner, even the Lexus Suburban that Christian had briefly was a bit high. On the other hand, Jamie has a Porsche sports car—I’m afraid if I get down in it, I may never get back up. He’s taking me to a doctor appt. Tuesday so we’ll see.

Carol and I met Lon, her husband, at the Old Neighborhood Grill where aside from the fact that Lon drank half my wine before we told him which was mine and which was his, all was well. We had a pleasant visit and a good supper. My neighbor Jay (yes the good-looking one) came along, and the visit got longer. Then it was time to reverse the process.

Carol wanted to make sure she had the strength to push me back up the ramp, so both Jay and Lon stood at the ready, though Carol insisted she wanted to do it herself. When I was safely back in the house, she said, “This proves that we can do more outings.”

Not sure why I’m so blessed with friends, but I think it’s a great gift to me that she cares enough to learn the process and to plan on getting me out again. I am eternally grateful.

In Tomball I had lunch in restaurants twice, but Colin, who makes me feel so safe, was there. This was my first outing for supper and with someone who is not immediate family—well, close. It was good to be out in the world, and I hope to go more often now. I’ve always said I enjoy my solitude, but I also need the stimulation of people and good conversation. Thanks to Carol for giving me that opportunity, widening my world, and making me know that I will once again someday be able to come and go.

Not my best day

 

Life's okay if you have a lovey to hug
Sophie will be my convalescence pal
 

We found out today that my foot/ankle/leg is much more serious than we thought. I have some torn ligaments and both bones in the lower leg are fractured, not just the non-weight bearing one. It explains why I still had pain even with the boot, but I am headed toward a wheelchair, an orthopedic surgeon, and a long convalescence. Until it all gets straightened out I am to put absolutely no weight on my right foot—makes everyday living difficult, like going to the potty.

My kids are my angels. Jordan is here tonight to spend the night and is taking the day off tomorrow to deal with details—clarifying things with the doctor like home health care, arranging for the wheelchair, etc. And Megan, the lawyer/daughter, came up with a list of thousands of questions. My oldest son is insisting that I not abandon plans to visit him and his family, with Jacob, in July. I told him I’d see what the surgeon says—and I sincerely hope he doesn’t say surgery.

I meantime am exhausted. Felt better than ever this morning and got a lot done on my desk but the news about my foot sort of took the wind out of my sails, and I am ready to go to bed at nine p.m. I’m sure the exhaustion is emotional. I also realize I have a choice—throw a pity party or gut up and deal with what life brings you. I am a person of faith, so I expect to gut up and deal with it, knowing the Lord as well as my family, has my back. I may lapse every once in a while but that’s my goal.

My goal also is to keep working at my desk. I have many projects that I can see through to completion, books to read, recipes to sort. I hope friends will drop in to visit so I’ll have some company.

Meantime construction continues, but I cannot get out there to see what’s going on—frustrating. Jordan showed me pictures tonight of my French doors—they look lovely. And it’s nice to know there are people on my property even when I’m alone in the house.

I’ve heard such platitudes as “God never gives you more than you can handle” and “God is testing you”—my response to the latter is why would God test me. But other thoughts come to mind, such as if I had to fall and break a bone, I’m so grateful it wasn’t a hip. And who am I to complain about a temporary disability in the face of the tragedy that is Orlando. I have been praying for the victims and their families, and it occurs to me to wonder if they had given loved ones a last hug. What did they leave undone that they would wish they had done? And worst of all—were they estranged from family, friends, lovers, leaving a gap that now can never be bridged? Life is fragile. We hear this advice all the time, but it is so true—hug your loved ones.

I told Jacob I need extra hugs today and he obliged—a bit reluctantly.