Thursday? Already?

I just don't know where the time goes. Here it is Thursday, time to go to work, and I'm flying to Florida tomorrow morning to visit Bill for the weekend. My bags are NOT packed, the house is a wreck, and somehow I'm still sitting here at the computer in my jammies and not caring. Whatever.

It seems so decadent to just "fly off for the weekend." Other people do this, not us. They jet off to Paris for the weekend (in literature, that is. I don't really KNOW anyone who actually does this). It is going to be raining in Florida due to a tropical storm that may turn into a hurricane. I will take my bathing suit, but I doubt if I'll use it. I will take my knitting projects. I will eat seafood. I will listen to my husband wax poetic about his welding class.

Ozzy is going to "dog jail" at the vet's boarding facility. He will not like this. He will scold me when I return on Monday morning. Part of me hopes that he will be so overjoyed to be sprung from captivity that he will behave himself when we return home, grateful and chastised. But that may be expecting too much from a dog. Mostly, I predict that he will just be pissed, and wilder than ever.

But I will have the sweet memory of my three-day holiday to sustain me.

Revenge of the Arachnids

Ozzy is an early riser. I mean, REALLY early, when it's still oh-dark-thirty outside. Staggering up to Oz's whines, stumbling to the door without glasses, I usually just open the door and walk him out to the backyard.

For some reason this morning (being thoroughly still asleep), I just opened the door and let him go out by himself. Good thing, because when I finally did focus, this was what was just inside the door frame at eye level:


I can only assume that this web was meant to catch ME, the villain who pillaged through the spider community a few days ago:


Yes, it's beautiful and it took Mr. or Ms. Spidey all night to "knit," but come on--a web designed to catch my entire upper torso at 5:30 am before I've had my coffee? Not nice.

Charlotte's Web

I like spiders, in the abstract. Yes, sometimes they are so big I get a visceral punch in the gut when I first see them, a startle response of fight-or-flight that reminds me I'm not so far away from my jungle roots as I suppose. Yes, I have a horrific allergic reaction to their venom that makes me swell to inhuman size when bitten.

But spiders eat mosquitos and wasps, and are an integral part of our life here. The ecology of La Casa Redonda depends on spiders doing their jobs. It's just that now that it's autumn, the face-full-of-webs has gotten old. Inside the house, every window corner has its resident, and dusty cobwebs hang from the ceiling fans, stretch across the rough stones of our indoor central chimney, and gather in the corners of every room.

They hang outside my front door (because that's where the flying bugs are, drawn to the outdoor lights at night), and construct huge circular webs that accost me when coming in or out. On the trails up back, their webs stretch across the path at face height, causing mouthfuls of stickiness and shivers up my spine. I've had quite enough, thank you.

So, with stick in hand, I marched outside and wound the offenders up in their own webs and tossed them over the side railing into the forest. I similarly denuded the corners, the windows, the chimney and the nooks and crannies where the spiders lurk and tossed them into the woods.
A new batch will undoubtedly take up residence (or they'll all inch back up to the house eventually), but for now, I have beaten back the hordes.

Sorry Charlotte. You were one of my favorite book characters in my childhood, but they had to go. Although, if one were to speak and call me "Wilbur," I would have paused my wanton destruction of Spider World for a moment...before tossing him over the side with the rest.

Change of Plans

Bill leaves today--not for Norfolk as planned, but to go up to Illinois to be with his father. Bud is having a G-Tube installed on Wednesday, and after much agonizing, Bill decided that while the company meet-and-greet in Norfolk was an annual event he could do another time, spending time with his dad is limited.

Bud's jaw tumor is growing aggressively, and his doctors fear that soon he'll be unable to swallow, hence the push to insert a feeding tube as soon as possible. It may already be too late--they will only know when they get in there and attempt to access his nasal passages with a scope to place the permanent tube in his stomach. Bill says that this will give his dad some options for the future. I have a deep sense of foreboding about this, but so far have just kept my peace. It is not my decision to make, but I am pretty sure that if I were in the same spot, I would forgo the G-Tube. My reasoning is that having it there makes it easier for the medicos to prolong his pain indefinitely while they continue their "extraordinary measures" to postpone the inevitable. While starving to death doesn't sound pleasant either, it's one of those end-of-life dilemmas where none of the choices are good. It is very hard for my husband right now, and I am glad he is spending as much time as he can with his dad, whatever the reason.

As soon as Bill gets back, he'll be leaving for his class in Florida for two weeks. I will fly down for the weekend in between, but for the next 3 weeks, it will be just me and Ozzy holding down the fort. There is plenty to do, as always.

Thoughts from the Laundromat

I have been poor, and I have been not poor. As far as I can tell, there are only a few significant differences between those two economic states: what kind of meat you eat (and how much), and where you do your laundry.

When you are poor (or camping, which is sort of the same thing on a temporary, volunteer basis), you do your laundry in the laundromat. You gather up all your dirties in a giant pile in the middle of a bedsheet and slog down to the local washateria for a couple of hours of mind-numbing bending, lifting, wheeling great gobs of wet cloth around in carts with challenging, non-working casters, burning fingers, separating loads of almost-dry from not-at-all-dry, shifting into working dryers from non-working dryers, complaining to the management, fending off conversation with sketchy characters you would give a wide berth to on the street, and trying to cadge enough quarters for the whole thing to be DONE, so you can fold in peace and go home.

There is also a middle ground of laundry world, where your apartment building has a few washers and dryers, saving you the trip to the general public laundromat, but constraining you with the first-come, first-served scheduling. If your neighbor beats you to the laundry room, your day is shot. Or, if your neighbor doesn't come back when their load is dry, you are left with the uncomfortable dilemma of whether to remove their clean laundry from the dryer you want to use and risk their wrath when you lose a baby sock down the gap by the hoses. I have been yelled at by complete strangers, even when I knew they should be apologizing to ME for blowing off their laundry chores and not removing their clothes promptly.

The lap of luxury as far as I am concerned is being able to do laundry in your own home. When Bill and I received our first washer and dryer as a gift from my grandparents, I thought we had finally hit the big-time. The unimaginable freedom of being able to do a load every few days so it didn't turn into a full-day chore of gathering,sorting, pre-treating, washing, drying and folding every blessed piece of clothing we owned! Not having to find or feed quarters, resenting every coin spent on another 6 minutes of dryer heat! To choose whether to line dry or heat dry! The ability to wash, dry and fold at my leisure!

But at the end of summer, when the well is dry, the spring smells of sulfur, and I don't want to use what precious water we have on clothes, I revisit the laundromat, and I am, in one word, grateful.

I have washed clothes in a New Zealand laundromat with the kind of washers without a spin cycle--that is, they washed in a mechanized tub, and then I ran them through a hand-cranked wringer. I have stood on the banks of the river in Fiji, watching the women hand-scrubbing their clothes on rocks, while trying to keep an eye on their children playing in the water (and hopefully, not drowning). I have walked by the open-air "laundromat" in San Miguel, Mexico, as the women bent over cement tubs, agitating by hand, squeezing by hand, and then hauling heavy, wet clothes in baskets on their backs, trudging home, where it then had to be hung on lines in a living room for days.

So I really don't mind the few hours each month I have to spend not being able to wash at home. It gives me an opportunity to knit quietly (as long as I remember to check that my knitting needles aren't in with the clothes), brush up on my Spanish with the local construction workers who are in for their weekly wash chores on Sunday afternoon, and reflect on how nice it is to have a choice of where I do my laundry. Is this a great country or what???

New Driveway, New Trees, Big Fish, Old Dog, Bad Headache

Bill and I tromped down to the pond at sunrise a few mornings ago, hoping to catch some breakfast. I pulled this guy out on my fifth cast. Bill hooked a huge bass, but he spit the hook at the last minute. I got another crack at him, but I lost him when he snapped my swivel and took my lure. I put this one back in the pond and we had cereal instead of bass for breakfast. Tomorrow is another day...

Ozzy continues to entertain us with his playful, puppy-like antics. He does not act like an old dog (except when he over-does the exercise). Bill decided he couldn't give him up and send him to Baltimore to a new home, so we have signed the papers and adopted him. He thinks he was already "home," so it will work out just fine. He is now our dog.

While Bill shopped at Lowe's for drainage supplies for the new driveway patch, I bought trees. I found a Granny Smith apple, a Montmorency cherry and a self-pollinating nectarine. Bill is clearing some of the hillside to start our "orchard" near where Echo is buried.

And the driveway patch. Those of you who have braved our road rally-type transition from gravel to the steep concrete, bouncing over water-damaged ruts and gullies, straddling potholes the size of tiger pits, will be pleased to note the new, improved roadway. The water runoff now flows into a grate to be carried away into the pond (by the soon-to-be installed pipe), instead of washing out the bottom of the drive.

I was fortunate to be working the day of pouring concrete. There was WAY too much testosterone in the air, four sweating men (including Bill), heavy machinery, shovels, Bob-cat, and cement truck. When I came home from work, it was done (and quiet). We spent the rest of the week hoofing up and down the drive back and forth to the cars parked down by the pond, while the cement cured.

This is my week of working everyday. I had a truly monstrous headache all last night, checking books in and out with an ice bag on my head and ignoring the patrons' snickers. I came home, immediately changed into my jammies and stuffed my throbbing skull into a pillow. Today the library is closed and we will all show up in grubbies to clean and organize without the distraction of having to wait on people. Then back to the routine on Thursday and substituting for a co-worker on Friday. Bill leaves for Norfolk on Sunday.

And that, as they say, is that.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation...

There's a touch of fall in the air, FINALLY! The last few days have been downright gorgeous--cool breezes, warm sun, but with that distinctive thin light that says summer is ending. "Slug Summer" is over for Pam, time to get back to a less restrictive, more enjoyable set of activities. Blogging returns!

Yesterday, Bill and I went up on the Clinch River, near Kyles Ford, for some outdoor recreation!



Where did the summer go?

I spent an inordinate amount of time complaining about the unrelenting heat, taking cold showers, managing hot flashes on top of the 56 continuous days of 90+ temps. I threw the frisbee for Ozzy on my brief scuttles outside, breathlessly staggering back to the cooler indoors after five minutes.

I learned how to make ice cream, made biscotti, fabulous meals, and cookies for my sweet-toothed husband.

I watched rabbits eat ALL of my bean patch, my potted porch garden turn crispy in the sun, and marveled as my still-thinking-he's-starving-dog ate cukes, peppers and tomatoes, right off the plants before I could get them myself. I finally ate one of my pears, a sole-survivor that the deer somehow missed. It was delicious.

I slogged through my library days, panting and whining. I developed a nice little case of roseacea on my face from the heat and humidity (I'm thinking of sending the bills to the mayor, who still sits in HIS air-conditioned office and doesn't think about the sweltering minions down at the public library).

I got the car fixed from Bill's encounter with a dive-bombing turkey. I had lunch with friends. I let the housework slide and only did laundry when I ran out of underwear. Bill and I went to Illinois and visited his father, whose time is increasingly limited. I tried out some new knitting techniques. I leveled up in Farmville.

I did not exercise. I did not worry about anything. I lived in the now, and usually that meant assessing my best options for what to do and deciding on a nap.

Now the calendar is filled to the brim for the next few months. Today, concrete is being delivered to repair the broken driveway at the bottom of the hill and make ramp from the top of the driveway to the basement. I am working three days this week, four next week, and then Bill goes to Norfolk for a three-day "meet & greet" with the home office.

Then, on the 26th, Bill will go to Florida for a two-week welding class. I will visit him in Ft. Lauderdale on the weekend between.

Then Alex flies into Tri-Cities for a visit and the three of us will drive up to New York for the Hoffman wedding. Juli and Kerne are planning on flying in to meet us for the wedding as well, and then Alex and Kerne will fly back to Seattle and Juli will drive back to TN with us for a short visit.

At the end of October, Bill will go back to Florida for another three-day class in something.

And then it will be November, time for a short stab at filling the freezer with some venison, and then back to the briny deep for Bill. I'll be driving to the west coast with Ozzy, for a visit with my mom and brother's family in Los Angeles.

And that, my friends, is that. The whole year, gone in a snap.

On the mental front, life is good. I have pretty much forgotten that I am a cancer refugee. My body is finally my own, comfortable, familiar and taken for granted, except for the 3 times yearly I have to check in with the oncologist or other medicos. Those are the only days I fret and worry that the monster may have returned. But so far, the news is good. I am still a success story. And damned grateful for it too. No regrets, no boo-boo face. I don't have to wear a bra for the first time in my life. Yes, I look like a Barbie doll with middle-age spread, but I'm here. And that qualifies as a hugely welcome miracle.