Category Archives: Family

Dogs, Family

Mighty Possum Warriors

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Summer                                         New Moon  (Grandchild’s Moon)

From this point forward (if I remember) I’m going to start naming the moons in ways that make sense to our life here at Artemis Hives and the Seven Oaks.  The Grandchild’s Moon is in honor of a yearly visit that takes place most often in this moon’s ambit since Jon and Jen return to work as teachers in early August.

The mighty possum warriors finally gave up and came inside to the cool, flopped down on the couch and promptly went to sleep.  A hard day hunting the wily critter had done them in.  I’m 99% sure that the possum only has shattered nerves.  All that barking.  Right out on the patio.

Jen called today and they leave Chicago tomorrow and plan to be here Sunday night.  They are going to come up on the Minnesota side of the Mississippi, stopping in Winona at the National Eagle Center.

Aging, Family, Health, Memories

Oh, Yeah? How’d It Go?

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Summer                                                  Waning Strawberry Moon

We keep our walkin’ around money at the Credit Union, Associated Health Care Workers.  I like credit unions because they’re small and friendly, unlike our mortgage holder, Wells Fargo, who has shafted us time and again.  The credit union knows who we are.  I went in today to pick up our weekly cash and the teller said, “I’m used to having Lynne pick up the money.”  She doesn’t Lynne goes by Kate, but otherwise.  “Yes, she had surgery.”  “Oh, yeah, how did that go?”  “Well.  She’s walking around.”

I grew up in a small town and I value personal interaction with merchants.  It makes me feel known and welcome in a broad, perhaps shallow way; but a wider net of personal connections away from work or friends gives a sense of density to life often, perhaps usually, lost in the city.

The electrician, Jeff, who works on our stuff from time to time was out today.  He lives here in Andover and we talked about bees and hemp while I tried to identify where the fence guys cut the wire to the sheds.  Again, personal.

alexdowntown

In Alexandria, where I lived from age 2 to age 17, most people knew who I was and I knew who they were.  Alexandria had about 5,000 citizens, but the families were much fewer and knowing a family member meant you had some sense of the rest, too.  Yes, it can be suffocating, perhaps more so as an adult, but as a kid, it meant there was no where in town I felt anonymous, a cipher, just a person paying 4 bucks for a latte or buying a new computer.  Neither of which we had of course when I grew up in the 50’s and early 60’s.

You can take the boy out of the small town, but…

Aging, Dogs, Family, Health, Memories, Travel, Weather +Climate

Route 66

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Summer                                           Waning Strawberry Moon

Rain beats down and Rigel whines.  We’ve had a couple of dogs with phobias about thunder.  Tira was the most problematic.  She preferred to climb through open car windows in the garage for some reason.  I still have claw marks on the Celica’s leather interior and the Tundra has scratch marks from a frenzied Tira trying to climb the gate closing off the back from the garage and getting hung up, her paws scraping on the hood and her teeth gripping the license plates.  Rigel is not that bad.  Thank god.

Kate’s tired tonight, her muscles aching from a lot of walking and standing.  She’s pushing it, but it’s good.  The doc said no limits, so the more she works it, the faster her muscle tone will firm up and her stamina increase.  Having the hip replaced takes general anesthetic, deep tissue and bone bruising and swelling, so painful  trauma occurs from a bodily point of view, but from a psychic perspective she can tell already that it feels better, way better.

We had our money meeting, discussing the coming of the kids and grandkids next week.  Makes me think of the trips my family used to take from Alexandria, Indiana to Oklahoma City.  Route 66 covered most of the territory, taking us, I remember, right through downtown St. Louis, a bit fearsome for small town folks.  Mom would go in to the motels, inspect their rooms and give them a passing grade or tell us to get back in the car.

Along the way the barns had signs for Meramec Caverns.  Don’t believe I ever saw them.  Sort of the Wall Drug equivalent on Route 66.

There were games involving license plates, 20 questions, word finds and generally gazing out the window as the Illinois, then Missouri landscape rolled by.  I still enjoy that part of traveling, sitting by the window, watching the scenery.  One of the reason I like train travel.

Aging, Family, Health, Memories

Changing Time

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Summer                                         Waning Strawberry Moon

Now that Kate will be home for at least  two months, I’m shifting my going to bed and waking up time.  Got up this morning at 7am and plan to keep that up with a bedtime of around 11:00pm.  This gives me more good hours in the morning, plus it allows me to use the cool of the day for garden work.

Kate’s walking on her own, with a good gate.  She’s so happy, I can see her float as she walks.  It makes me feel good, too.

I went to a CVS pharmacy this morning to pick up a few things we needed.  I don’t go there often;  the combination of heat and dew point with the familiar but still not often experience lay out made me feel, for just a moment, that I had entered a Long’s pharmacy.  Long’s is familiar to those who travel to Hawai’i because its everywhere and carries a lot of stuff tourists need desperately, or feel like they do.  It was a good memory, happy it popped up.

Well.  Went looking for a Longs photo and discovered that, guess what, CVS bought out Longs.  Sigh.

Back to continue house cleaning, garden work for the upcoming July guests.  Not stuff I like, but, hey, it needs to be done.  At least once a year.

Aging, Family, Health, Humanities, Minnesota, Woolly Mammoths

Kate is Home.

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Summer                                            Waning Strawberry Moon

Kate is home.  She looks amazing, walking without the characteristic roll she had developed while favoring her right hip.  We went to Lucias, site of our first date, and ate at their outdoor tables.  Kate savored the wind, the freedom and “being on this side of the windows.”  Doc Heller says 2 to 2 1/2 weeks and she should be able to walk without the walker.

While we had a snack at Lucias, a stead stream of young singles and young couples with children came by, strolling in their neighborhood.  I realized I seldom see this many young adults.  The MIA docents are an older crowds, the Woollies, too; only the Sierra Club, of the groups I see with any regularity has a mix of youth and older adults.

One of the younger  couples that came by was a young man in scruffy jeans like I wore at his age and a woman in a print dress, black hair done up in tufts, Goth  eye shadow and lip stick, smoking a cigarette and wearing Doc Martens.  She was not happy with the parking ticket the laid back parking meter attendant had given her only a few minutes before.

Here’s another sign of the shift I’ve made from city boy to exurban man.  The traffic, the crowds, the heat, the buildings felt too close, too vibrant, more energy than I could inhale.  I look forward to breaking free of the urban heat island, the jockeying for position.   Never used to feel that way.  Now I like our little patch of land, the quiet here, our dogs.

Art and Culture, Bees, Family, Friends, Great Work, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue

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Summer                                            Waning Strawberry Moon

Hooray for the red, white and blue.  That is, the blueberries, the raspberries and the white clover among which I picked them this morning.  Worked outside for an hour and a half, moving an outdoor table back to its original place on the brick patio outside our garden doors, a plastic table into the honey house for some  more space.  Can’t set the smoker on it though.

(Georgia O’Keefe, 1931)

This all has two purposes, getting the house nicer and in better shape for our own use as the summer begins to take up residence and for our guests in July:  Jon, Jen, Gabe and Ruth and the Woolly Mammoths.  I also moved some potted plants around and am mulling painting a post I stuck in concrete a few years ago.  Painting it some bright, contrasty color that will make the green pop.

Only 83 this morning but the dew point’s already at 67.  Glad the bee work got done yesterday.  On the bees.  The president of the Beekeeper’s Association lives in Champlin (near us, sort of ) and has offered to come over himself after the fourth.  I’ll be glad to have his experience looking in on my colonies.

While I picked mustard greens this morning, I noticed a bee making a nectar run on a clover blossom near my hand. “Keep up the good work.  Glad to see you out here and hard at work,” I told him, rather her.  She jumped at the sound of my voice.  One of those workers best left to her own initiative.

Haven’t heard yet from Kate but the plan is for her to come home today at some point.

Family, Health

Kate Today

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Summer                                    Waning Strawberry Moon

Talked to Kate this morning.  She has walked a bit on her hip, not with much weight yet.  She says now that she’s exhausted.  Well, duh.  A lot better than the pain she felt on Wednesday.  She had a couple of tasks for me when we spoke this morning.  That’s the Kate I know and love.

A bee day today and I want to get out there before it gets way hot.

Aging, Family, Humanities

I’ll Be Glad When She’s Home.

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Summer                                     Waning Strawberry Moon

Tomorrow hive inspections, then into see Kate.  The original plan was for her to come home on Saturday.  I hope that  holds up.

Having her away, yet close, seems almost more distance than when she was in San Francisco.

We have a lovely summer night, warm but not hot, a clear sky, the drinking gourd poised in its summer position, the bowl headed north and the pointer stars, as they always do, showing the way to Polaris.

I finished my review of my Latin, mechanically locating the verb, the subject and the object in each of the sententiae antiquae I had translated in the last three chapters.  Greg’s right, this approach makes grabbing ahold of the sentence’s intent much easier.  That’s why he’s the tutor.  I’m going to go ahead and finish chapter 20, which will put me half-way through Wheelock.

Aging, Family, Health

Morning Update on Kate

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Summer                               Waning Strawberry Moon

Back from seeing a much improved Kate.  The pain has receded somewhat and she’s coherent.  Back to her old self with a gimp leg–for right now–and lots of tubes.  As I left, the nurse had begun to set up an IV for 2 units of blood.  She lost a lot, one of the possibilities in this type of surgery.  After she gets that, they’ll probably get her up for her first post-op walk.

She says she already has noticed a positive difference with no pain shooting down to her knee.

I took her one of the yellow Asiatic lilies from our garden.  They look cheery and there are several right outside the patio  door.

Family, Health

First Day Post Op

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Summer                             Waning Strawberry Moon

I went into see Kate this evening.  The first day post surgery can be brutal and it is this time.  A lot of pain.  She’s a stoic and the pain went well beyond her threshold .  It was hard to see, but I talked to the nurse and they adjusted her pain meds.   I’m going to call around 10:45, near the end of Clare’s shift, Kate’s nurse.  I want to know if things have gotten any better.

On stupid things people do:  I saw a motorcyclist riding his bike, his mobile phone pinned to his ear by his left shoulder.

Wanted to know what was going on in the head of the older red haired woman I passed.  She was behind the wheel of a bright yellow late model Volkswagen bug with plates that read:  Manilow.

Drove behind a new Cadillac with the license plate:  NINES.  Won it in a poker game?