Imbolc and the waning Megillah Moon
Thursday gratefuls: Kate, feeling better with a new placement of her feeding tube. Our 31st anniversary. Vaccine shot #1! Vaccines. Polio. Snow. Big Snow. Living in the mountains. Ruby, sure footed on the snow. Blizzaks.
Sparks of Joy: Vaccine shot #1! Vaccines. Kate. Seeing her yesterday.
What a day yesterday. A good day. Needed one. Went into see Kate. Can’t miss seeing your wife on your anniversary, right? She looked and sounded wonderful, better than she has for weeks. I took her an empty olive jar filled with wine. Looked like a urine sample since it was white wine. I figured the hospital would be less likely to reject a glass jar than a wine bottle.
31 years. Good ones. We’ve been places together, grown flowers and vegetables, raised many dogs, and have two wonderful sons.
Her self-advocacy convinced the interventional radiologists to snake her feeding tube lower, getting it all the way into the jejunum. We’d expected that placement during her surgery to create the feeding site.
This puts the tube further down, out of the small pouch of her stomach created during her bariatric surgery. Hopefully this will mean less or no leaking, allow a faster feeding pace, and better absorption of the nutrients and calories. Since malnutrition is a major, perhaps the primary, medical issue for her at this point, we may see some significant improvements. Yeah! Go, Kate.
Love is a verb. Love guides and wills you to act. And, love is the act itself. Life without love is a sterile desert, nothing blooms. Flower for those you love.
First vaccine dose. Pfizer. Left arm. No pain or swelling. I sat in a socially distanced chair afterward, a small plastic timer stuck to a doorjamb behind my head. 15 minutes. Carla, the nurse, watched the long hallway filled with just shot folks. My timer beeped and I could go on with the rest of my day. And, I was that much closer with being able to go on with the rest of my life.
Even with the chaos of the weekend and the last three days I felt jubilant. A positive, wonderful step toward dealing with the virus instead of passively trying to stay out of its way. After a year.
45 in the rearview. One of two jabs complete. Kate feeling better. The stimulus passed. A big snowstorm on its way. I could get giddy.
I started yesterday with a trip to Bailey, The Happy Camper. (THC, get it?) Bought my Cheebachews for a good nights sleep. Had to wait until around 10 am so 285 could clear the snow and ice collected over night. That’s the beauty of the Solar Snow Shovel. The continental divide snakes along the horizon just after Pine. Snow covered.
On the way home I stopped at Scooter’s Barbecue. Voted the top barbecue joint in all of Colorado two years in a row. And it’s in Conifer. Odd, but true.
The guy who runs it is a linebacker sized guy, Southern. Thick accent. “I have this catering job, a Mexican wedding in South Park this Saturday. I’ve told them we’ll not be here on Saturday, that they have to pick it up on Friday.” He shook his head, “These people.” I waited for a racial slur, “They just don’t understand March in Colorado.” Ah. Good.
We’ll keep yesterday as one of the good days.
