Mary Stewart

Lately I've read a few novels by Mary Stewart. They've floated across my Amazon page as "Recommended for you." I vaguely remembered her name from maybe high school. I read one or two of her novels now, and then I saw the title Touch Not the Cat. Now that one I was pretty sure I had read. I remembered that the heroine talked telepathically to the man she loved before she met him. She thought he was one of her distant cousins. I also kind of remembered something about a mosaic of a tiger or some other wild cat under water. So I re-read it now, and those details were there, along with a lot I didn't remember.

Just today I started reading The Ivy Tree, which I thought I had never heard of. But in the first chapter, when a man mistakes the heroine for someone he used to know, it started to seem familiar. I thought, if he says the woman he knew was a horse-whisperer, then I've read this book before. Sure enough, he said it. Whenever I read this book previously, probably in high school, I think it was the first time I'd ever heard of a horse-whisperer.

Oh, my goodness! I just googled her and found out she's the author of The Crystal Cave and the other Arthurian sequels! Now, those I remember very well. I love the Arthurian legends in all their permutations, with the possible exception of movies starring Keira Knightley. I loved the movie Camelot, with Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. I loved the T.H. White novel The Once and Future King, although it was a sad book that I read at a sad time in my life, so I've never re-read it. I loved the Howard Pyle versions. I also read some Jungian interpretations by Robert A. Johnson in my 20s, when I went through a phase of being fascinated by Jung.

Well, good. That's a good discovery. I don't know that I'll go straight back and read The Crystal Cave. Right now I'm only buying really cheap books on my Kindle. I got The Ivy Tree for $1.99, I believe. I can remember the premise of the book and a certain plot twist, but I don't remember how it all goes. If I read it in high school, and I think I did, it's been about 40 years since then. Wow, my adult life is middle-aged.

I'm older than I think I am. I was talking to some friends a couple weeks ago about getting new pets. We're all the same age, and the male half of the couple said that by the time a new kitten was 13, we'd be 70. No, I said. (Remember how good I am at math?) I was thinking that if we're in our 50s, then our 70s are 20 years away. But he pointed out that, since we're 57, age 70 is just 13 years away. I know he's correct, but it still just doesn't sound right. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

Historical fiction

August. Named, presumably, for Caesar Augustus, aka Octavius, aka Octavius Caesar. July was named for his great-uncle Julius Caesar. Those guys. Should I be ashamed to say that a lot of what I know about them and about the events leading up to Rome changing from a republic to an empire comes from a series of historical novels by Colleen McCullough?

Back in the day, meaning when I was young, she wrote a huge bestseller called The Thorn Birds. Later it was a made-for-TV movie that starred Mr. Mini-Series himself, Richard Chamberlain.

The Roman book series is called The Masters of Rome, and I think I did read them all. I bought the first few in paperback and the later ones on my Kindle. Although there is a pulpy quality to the writing, I think that her historical details are correct. At any rate, it helped me get those characters straight in my mind and know what they did: Marius, Sulla, Pompey the Great, Crassus, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, and Augustus.

Historical fiction is not all bad. In high school, I read some novel about Elizabeth I, and developed enough interest in her that I went on to read many non-fiction biographies of her and her contemporaries, the history of the time, and history and biographies of the English monarchs before and after her, and then a few about the rest of Europe.

Actually, I just read The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV, by W.H. Lewis, the brother of C.S. Lewis. He, too, was a member of the Inklings and read his works in progress at their meetings. It was a pretty good read.

There, too, I have previously met Louis XIV in the pages of historical novels. First Alexandre Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask when I was in high school, to the best of my recollection. As an adult I read a novel about Madame de Maintenon, but I can't remember the title right now. In that book, she secretly married Louis XIV after the death of his royal wife, and I thought that was a little fictional detail. But it turns out everyone seems to accept that this happened. She was his maîtresse-en-titre, but troubled by the adulterous nature of their relationship. When the king's wife, Maria Theresa of Spain, died, he privately married Madame de Maintenon. She was not of suitable birth to become the Queen of France, and he could negotiate with foreign powers for a 2nd queen if he found it useful for a ruse.

Isn't that interesting? I find it so, but perhaps others would not.

C'mon, get happy

On my drive home, while still in Bellingham, I saw a doe and two fawns walking across the street. They happened to be in a crosswalk. Pedestrians in a crosswalk always have the right of way. They made me smile.

Today I was googling terms involving the word "happy." I found a twitter page called Cute Emergency, which features adorable animal videos and photos. There is also a Cute Emergency Instagram page.

Another reason for happiness is that the weather is cooling down. We had several days at about 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but today the high was down to about 80—still higher than I like it, but better than 90—and it's forecast to drop down into the mid-70s as the week goes on, and maybe even some rain showers later in the week.

We could use rain. Not only is the ground dry, but we have smoke in the air from fires in British Columbia, Canada. Not as bad as last year, but just hazy. You can't see the mountains.

Another reason to be happy is that in 16 days my sister will come visit me. The day she arrives is our folks' wedding anniversary. If they were living, it would be their 66th anniversary. When my folks had been married 62 years, I told my dad that if their marriage were a person it could collect social security.

Gifting my thoughts to the world

I saw this headline on the web: "The Queen Reportedly Gifted Prince Harry and Meghan Markle an Unbelievable New Home." I'm not interested in the content of the article. What I'm wondering is: Why did the writer say "gifted" instead of "gave"? The Queen "gifted" them a house; the Queen "gave" them a house. What is the difference except that "to give" is a verb that has been around for centuries and "to gift" a permutation that has shown up lately for no good reason.

I know, I know. Kids today and their crazy music. Get off my lawn! This country is going to hell in a handbasket. Etc.

Speaking of baskets, the other day I was singing, "A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket. I wrote a letter to my love and put in my basket. My basket, my basket, my green and yellow basket. I wrote a letter to my love and on the way I lost it." But I was not really sure of the words or the storyline. I tried using a search engine and discovered that Ella Fitzgerald had a jazz song called "A Tisket, a Tasket." Also, everyone who makes or sells baskets uses "A tisket, a tasket" as their tag line. In youtube videos for kiddies, a lot of them sing, "I wrote a letter to my mom" instead of "to my love." Most of them say, "I dropped it" instead of "I lost it." This is the version most like what I remember (I found it at Wikipedia):

A-tisket a-tasket
A green and yellow basket
I wrote a letter to my mom
And on the way I dropped it,
I dropped it, I dropped it,
And on the way I dropped it.
A little boy he picked it up
And put it in his pocket.

I still think it was "love" not "mom" and "lost" not "dropped."

And that's the name of that tune. Who used to say that? Columbo? Kojak? Baretta?

I searched online again, and it was Baretta.

Columbo used to say, "Oh, one more thing." My parents liked that show. Just when the criminal thought they'd made it through their conversation with Columbo without giving away their guilt, they'd be walking out the door, and then he'd say, "Oh, just one more thing," and then ask questions that would lead up to revealing their crime.

Just for the heck of it, I also looked up Kojak, and his trademark line was, "Who loves ya, baby?"

I didn't actually watch these shows much, but they were in the atmosphere in my youth. You just heard about them. Just like I know most of the laugh lines from Young Frankenstein even though I've never actually seen the movie. My peers found it so hilarious they quoted it all over my high school.

High school. What a strange world that was. I'd rather be in my late 50s earning my living than in my late teens going to high school. Good thing that's how it's worked out.

Math whiz (not)

After work today, I stopped off at a grocery store to pick up a birthday card for my great-niece. By tradition, I put as many dollars as the child is turning inside the card, so when I made the purchase I also did the cash-back thing to pull $20 out of my checking account. That's one of the convenient amounts they offer. I actually needed $13.

I said to the cashier, "I did $20 cash back. Could I please get a ten, a five, and five ones?"

She said, "I don't have any tens, so I'll give you..." and she trailed off.

"Two fives," I said. "No, uh, three, um...Suddenly this is a lot of math."

She agreed with me. I did receive three fives and five ones, which (carry the one) does add up to twenty dollars.

Where does it go

I recently passed the fifth anniversary of starting my current job. The executive director of the firm mentioned the milestone in his monthly newsletter, along with some nice compliments my co-worker friend had drafted for him. I read it and thought I would forward it to my parents, and then I remembered. It's those little instinctive things, when you would naturally say something to the gone loved one, that cause a poignant pain.

My parents blessed me by being so interested in what I did. About 30 years ago, I worked for a company that published automotive information and textbooks. My first project was editing a textbook for potential mechanics (PC: automotive technicians) about automatic transmissions. My name was in the front pages as "Assistant Editor," if I recall correctly. I told my folks about it during a phone call, and my dad told me to find out how he could buy a copy of the book. So I went to the production manager next day at work and said that my dad wanted to buy the book. He thought that was so funny. I said, "Hey, if my dad didn't think I was wonderful, who would?" The production manager gave me a free copy to give to my dad.

I wrote the above a few days ago. Then I read a memoir of sorts by a cousin's son. My cousin lost her husband at (his) age of 59. Her son mentioned in his writing that weeks after his father died, he took out his cell phone to call him before he remembered he no longer could reach him that way.

Emily Dickinson wrote:

The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth –

The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity –

As it turns out, you can't really put that love away. It's there. I don't believe it is without use or purpose, though. In some way, I trust it reaches the ones I love. But it is a loss that I can no longer say it simply and directly to a physically present person, or show it by a hug, a touch, a look, an act of service.

Jesus said that when we do loving things for the people around us, we do it for him. That is the use we have for our love for the Christ and the saints in heaven, is to show it to others. Years ago I read in a book about Benedictine spirituality that the questions to ask yourself after an encounter with another person are: Did I see Christ in him? Did he see Christ in me? May it be so.

Good to know

Recently, I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some supplies, and one item I bought was a box of dryer sheets. I like to use those because they reduce static, but I don't care for any fragrance.



These are not only fragrance-free, but all-natural, blah, blah, blah, "Made for Sensitive Skin." Now, one of the myriad ways that I am an exceedingly delicate flower is that my skin is as sensitive as all get-out. Shopping for clothes, I'm all about 100% cotton because that's the most comfortable for my skin. And shopping for laundry supplies, I'm looking for as little as possible besides the actual product. But even I have never thought to check for this:



"Gluten Free." Although I am delicate in a thousand ways, I don't happen to have celiac disease, but, if I did, I would certainly want to know whether my dryer sheets contained gluten, just in case I decided to snack on one.

Hot spot

I'm back. They moved everything back in on a Friday. Now the house is jam packed with boxes and odds and ends. In the week since it all came in, I've managed to get one room clean and usable, and that room is the bathroom. The kitchen is usable but not clean.

When I tried to log onto the internet on my laptop, I couldn't get on. At first I thought, Oh, no, something's happened to my cable service while I've been gone. But after a little while I realized that what's missing is the little box and antenna thingy that passes on the wireless signal. It's in any one of a hundred boxes.

So all week my internet browsing was limited to my phone, which has 4G. I couldn't get new books for my Kindle and had to re-read from those already on the device. On my laptop, I just played solitaire and mah jong. When I looked at Facebook, I had my tiny phone screen, and when I wrote an email, I had to use the little screen keyboard on the phone. I'm not as fast at that as I am at touch-typing, as it was called, back when I took typing class using a machine originally owned by Fred Flintstone. I was going through kind of an internet withdrawal.

I was complaining to a co-worker and she asked if I couldn't use a hot spot. I said I had looked them up, but the hardware was expensive and you had to subscribe to some phone plan to use it. She asked if I couldn't use my phone as a hotspot. I indicated that, as far as I knew, I could not. She asked what provider I use and then asked to see my phone. She briskly found the place where I could turn my phone into a hotspot. We  tried it on my kindle, and it worked.

Well. File that under "Learn something new every day."

Just this evening after work, a man came to hook up the washer and dryer, which both use gas. When he turned on the dryer to try it out, it ran with a loud squeaking sound. I said it had done that before the accident behind it all. He took the dryer apart, vacuumed out all the lint (with his own vacuum), replace a few parts, and now it runs better than before. So not just restoration, but improvement!

My house saga: 5th installlment

Well, last week the contractors did have to move my date back to this week. Now, they expect to finish up on February 28th. I'm not hearing any noises like that won't happen. They really are on to the finishing touches.

I went to my house this weekend. I had bought a bathroom faucet at Lowe's for them to install, so I dropped it off when I looked around. The tile is all done and grouted, and it looks wonderful:



The piano was the first major item to come back home. It was moved by Kelly's Piano Service, rather than the company that did the rest of the moving, and Mr. Kelly moves pianos only on Saturdays, so back it came this past weekend. I mentioned to him that it probably would need tuning, too, after moving, but he said to let it sit and acclimate for a month before having it tuned. Interesting, huh?

In the above picture, you can also see the new wood on the stairs, and the new trim that is in the process of being installed. New paint, too, for that matter. (From reading British novels, I've learned that the British call the trim "paint" and the walls, just "walls." I read a story where a woman had xx-color walls with yy-color paint, and that confused me for a while. But, here, paint is on the walls, and the baseboard is part of the trim, which also goes around the doors and windows.)

In the library (used to be my dad's office), they're re-building the shelves on the east wall:



And in the bathroom, I have a new vanity, very pretty:



They still needed to put the mirror back together and install the faucet when I took this picture.

The movers are not available until Friday, March 2, so that (I devoutly hope and trust) should be my move-in date. I am taking the day off from work to be there, and then I'll have the weekend to make a start on settling in. I will probably sleep Friday night still at my sister-in-law's until I'm set up for sleeping at home. What a concept: sleeping in my own house. I can hardly believe it.

Home! Sweet Home!

Mid Pleasures and palaces though I may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek thro' the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.

Home! Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.

An exile from home, spendor dazzles in vain,
Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again;
The birds singing gaily, that come at my call;
Give me them, with that peace of mind, dearer than all.

Home! Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.

To thee, I'll return, overburdened with care,
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there.
No more from that cottage again will I roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Words by John Howard Payne, music by Henry Rowley Bishop.

My house saga: 4th installment

Okay, so this is not about the water leak. It's about my trees.

Last fall (long, long ago...when I had just moved out of my house), I became aware that a creature had been busy in my yard. Yes, "busy as a beaver." In fact, it was a beaver. I've never met him (or her, or them) face-to-face, but I've seen their work. I was going to say "handiwork," but of course beavers don't use their hands so much as their teeth. I saw their toothiwork?



I didn't quite know what to do about it. I did call my town's animal control, which is a division (well, one person) of the police department. He told me he didn't trap beavers. All he wanted to know was if the damaged tree was on private property. Once he knew that it was, it was obvious it was my problem, not his.

As time went by, the beaver more or less cleaned up after himself, chewing the log and branches into pieces and dragging them away into the creek. I knew this tree was a goner, because he chewed all around it, so it was bound to die.

Okay, yes. This tree is a pussywillow. A pussywillow destroyed by a beaver. Oh, grow up.

Well, just at the end of December, when I was living with my sister-in-law, we had an ice storm. Branches and trees were breaking and falling down all over the north county, including my back yard.



And by the way, my sister-in-law's house lost power for 46 hours.

Anyway, when it was all said and done, a good number of trees in my back yard had sustained damage or been destroyed. I had to call a tree guy to come out. He was getting lots of calls, but he did meet me—and my sister-in-law, who knows practical questions to ask—out at my place to see what I needed and make an estimate. A week or so later, his crew came out to deal with the mess.

A large pin oak, almost as old as the house, standing right behind it, did not (mercifully) come down, but branches had broken and fallen:



We had the tree guy just prune that tree extensively:



Another pin oak, not ask old or big, but quite large enough, had split and fallen right onto my neighbor's chicken coop:



My neighbor told me that no chickens were harmed, but naturally she and her husband were eager to see my tree removed. So we had that one just taken down:



One next to a shed fell over, root ball and all, so we asked him just to get rid of it:



I'm not sure what kind of tree it was. I have lots of trees because my dad liked to plant trees. He would say, "Old men plant trees, and young men sit under them."

A birch tree by the creek went down:



A neighbor's tree with a double trunk had already been causing me concern by how one side of it leaned toward my garage, so we obtained the neighbor's permission to have that part of the tree removed:



We asked the tree guy just to get rid of the doomed pussywillow:



And I sadly gave the word to take down a Deodora cedar that was not damaged by the storm but had failed to thrive since a neighbor's trees had grown tall enough to block the sun from it:



My dad had liked that tree very much, when it was in its prime.

Have I mentioned we had a lot of rain this winter? When the tree guy's crew came into the yard with their equipment, they left their mark:



The tree guy felt pretty bad about it and said that when the weather was suitable he would come back and try to fix it as much as he could.

So, indoors and out, it's been quite the year for my house. That's my house saga so far. I hope the story has a happy ending.

My house saga: 3rd installment

After all my belongings were removed from my house and placed in storage, I came back from Ashland (where I had enjoyed seeing Julius Caesar, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Beauty and the Beast) and moved into a hotel in Bellingham. An "extended stay" hotel.



My homeowner's insurance booked the place. My dog and I moved in on Labor Day, and we were there until shortly before Christmas. It was a nice enough place, but it's a weird feeling to live in a hotel. It's a kind of limbo. It's not home. I made my own meals, using the microwave and stove top in my room. There was no conventional oven.

One nice thing was that because the hotel was in Bellingham, where I also work, I could drive there for lunch. It took about 15 minutes each way, so I had about half an hour to spend in my own space.

Sometime in December, my dog's special dispensation to come to work with me expired. The first estimate I received, back in August, for how long it would take to fix my house was "probably three months." Well, three months was up, and I needed to find a new place for him to be while I worked.

I enrolled him in the doggy daycare program at Hyline Hotel for Dogs. That's where I boarded him when I went on vacation. They play with the dogs and give them attention, so he's been pretty happy there. He goes in willingly with his tail wagging, unlike at the vet's where (although they are very kind people there) his tail drops, he trembles, and he tries to hide behind me.



At one point, I became depressed about living in a hotel, so the dog and I spent a weekend with my sister-in-law. Then, at Thanksgiving, we spent that whole 4-day weekend with her again.

Close to Christmas, my dog became ill. He was droopy and sad at all times and had no appetite. So I had to take him to the kind vet's office, where it turned out he had elevated counts of liver enzymes and white blood cells. So I came away with an antibiotic and a liver pill (Denamarin).

Also close to Christmas my insurance company felt they had paid for my lodging quite long enough. They had approved three months, then added one more, but that was it. They decided the reason for the delay was the choices I made for having tile installed instead of just replacing the laminate and carpet that I previously had. They were probably right. Anyway, I was on my own for lodging. Once again, my sister-in-law to the rescue. I moved into her house just before Christmas, and here I still am.

So what has been happening with my house? you may ask. Well, workers came in and installed new drywall.* This involves multiple stages, putting there, taping it, "mudding" it. I really don't know anything about the process. I'm just trying to drag out the description to match how long it took to get done.



Then painters came in and painted all the walls and ceilings in the place. I told them to match the wall color as much as possible to the old one and do the ceiling the same color but a few shades lighter. I have read that a lighter ceiling looks higher. My ceilings are low. Some of my taller relatives can touch the ceiling just standing on the floor. I come from a tall family, although I am not among the tallest.

This winter we had tons and tons of rain, and after the dry-walling and painting were complete, In December, I received an email from the contractor that water was seeping in through the north wall. Have I explained that I live in a daylight basement? The front of the house faces north, and on that side the upstairs front door is at ground level. The ground slopes down to the back yard, and on the south wall my downstairs entry door is at ground level. So the north wall of my place is part of the foundation, and behind the drywall is cement.



The contractor believed the water was seeping in because of all the rain we'd had. They needed to open up some of the just-installed drywall to find the leak. It turned out to be coming in through a "snap-tie" hole. That was a hole left over from when the cement was poured into the mold when the house was built. Snap-ties held the mold in place and when the cement was set then the mold and presumably the snap-ties were removed. This hole was a ways up the wall and probably leaked this year because of the exceptional amount of rain we had, so that the ground water went up that high.

The Pacific Northwest is famed for being rainy, so when you have exceptional amounts of rain, you know it's a lot.

Well, what with the holidays and all, it was mid-January before the hole was sealed up and the drywall replaced and repainted. Meanwhile, I had picked out the floor tile and also a wood flooring for the stairs to the upstairs unit.



The floor guys had to do some leveling before laying the tile. The southwest corner of my house has sunk a bit in the 35-plus years since the house was built, and the floor tilts visibly in that direction. But they got it prepped and they laid the tile. Just this past Friday I met them there to choose a grout color. I think they were grouting this weekend. Then, workers will put my bathroom fixtures back in place, including a new "vanity." And they'll put in the baseboards and door trim. And they'll clean up the drywall dust.

I've recently been told my place will be ready for my stuff to come back in by Thursday of this week! I'm going to confirm that Monday or Tuesday. (Monday is Presidents Day; I'm not sure if the contractor's office will be open.) I did tell the mover guys that date already. I want to make sure it's still good. I mean, I was told three months back in August, then mid-December, then mid-January, then early February. So I have a slight trust issue about completion dates.

I will say, however, that the new paint and the tiles, even without grout, look great. I am SO looking forward to moving back in.



* Another word for "drywall" is "sheetrock." My uncle, my dad's oldest brother, was a contractor, and he once told my dad that all sheetrockers are crazy. My uncle was given to sweeping statements.

My house saga: 2nd installment - Supplement

I should mention that during the time they were packing up and moving all my stuff out, I was stressed out by the state of my leg. I wrote back in August about knee pain and the feeling I had one day that something popped in the back of my knee. My lower leg swelled up some, and then one afternoon at work I had a pop in the back of my knee or calf again and it hurt quite badly. I went to the doctor that same day, and he said that, although they had to test for a blood clot, he thought most likely I had a Baker's cyst.

So the next morning I went to an imaging clinic and they did an ultrasound of the leg. The woman performing the ultrasound said that I did not have a Baker's cyst or a blood clot.

A day or so after that, I had a phone call from my doctor's office telling me to have an MRI on my leg. The woman making the call said we needed to find out what the "lump or mass" in my leg was. Lump or mass? My mind immediately told me: CANCER! I began googling symptoms of bone cancer.

I went for the MRI. It's not a comfortable procedure. A friend of mine was talking about the claustrophobic feeling of sliding into that tube, but that was not the issue. As a matter of fact, they only inserted my lower half into the tube. I simply was uncomfortable lying on the thin metal shelf they place you on. They did their best to stuff pillows around me so that I could relax, but I was not comfortable, and when they're doing an MRI you have to remain as motionless as possible. It's not a quick snapshot, like an X-ray, it's multiple sessions of loud bangs and thuds surrounding you.

It was a couple days for the results. I continued googling my symptoms frequently and carefully reading the most horrifying results I could find. While the workers were boxing up all my belongings, I thought, "What if all this trouble is for nothing because I am going to die of cancer?" I pretty much made myself ill with worry.

Finally my doctor's office called me with the diagnosis: a hematoma. (Just an aside: Spell check wants to change "hematoma" to "tomato." Ha, ha. A tomato in my leg would be serious issue.) I said, "A hematoma. That's basically a bruise, right?" Right. I didn't bump into anything. But the woman at the other end of the phone call said that sometimes a blood vessel breaks spontaneously. She said the blood would be reabsorbed by my body. Gross. I mean, what a relief. And I was relieved, very relieved. I was grateful to get the good news before I went to Ashland with my sister-in-law.

It took some time, but eventually my leg unswelled (that should be a word) and the pain went away. I think it took a couple or few months, but it finally happened. And that's the story of my leg.

My house saga: 2nd installment

My insurance company referred me first to a local water-damage mitigation company. I made an appointment with them, and they came out and made their recommendation: Pack out almost all of my belongings, cut away the drywall to a height of four feet on every wall touched by the water (technically that water was considered sewage), take out all the carpet and laminate and have it replaced, then they'd come back after contractors fixed the walls and installed new floors. So a huge truck came to my house, near the end of August, and they packed boxes and boxes and boxes of my stuff. In addition to my own not inconsiderable accumulation my house contained a fair amount of my parents' belongings that I and my siblings had not decided what to do with--they cleared out each of my folks' dwellings after each death and some stuff we knew right away to give away or who would take them, but whatever we didn't know whether to donate, toss, or keep, stayed at my house for me to decide. After my parents died, I was pretty sad and down and did not leap to the task. So I had a lot of stuff.

They took out most, but left the large appliances, my piano, and various pieces of furniture and odds and ends, assuming the contractors could move those from room to room as they made their repairs. Then they tore out the floors, cut away the walls as determined, ran fans to dry everything out, and treated all the exposed wall studs with mold preventative.



By this time, it was September. My insurance company next referred me to a local contractor. They came and made their estimate for the insurance company, which covered the cost of restoring my house to what it had been like before: wall repair, laminate flooring, and carpeting. That's how much the insurance would pay.

I had already been thinking of replacing my floors...someday...with either hardwood or tile. I had been thinking I'd do that in a few years. But it would be silly not to do it now. To have new laminate and carpet installed and then later replace them would be just dumb. So I told the contractors what I wanted. I decided on tile. Tile is a lot more expensive to install than laminate and carpeting, so the estimate for the difference between the insurance payment and what I'll have to pay is substantial. But it's time to bite the bullet and do it.

The first thing the contractors needed was for the cleaning company to come back and take all the stuff they'd left behind: the large appliances, piano, and so on. The guy who talked to me about it said that in the course of the repairs drywall dust would infiltrate any furniture in my place and it would be difficult to get it cleaned up. So there was about a week's delay until the cleaning company had a crew available to come and take everything else.



Once that was finally gone, it seems like there was a gap of a couple or few weeks until the contractors actually got started on the repairs. I guess their crews were still finishing other jobs.

As for me, right about Labor Day I moved into a hotel in Bellingham where the insurance company had arranged for me to stay. It was dog-friendly, as the phrase is. So the two of us moved in there. It was like a very small studio apartment. It had a bed, a couch, a desk, a full bathroom, and a little semi-kitchen with a 2-burner stove, a microwave oven, a fridge, and some cupboards and drawers with plates, pots, and silverware. I eventually worked out a pattern of shopping online for groceries from Fred Meyer on Friday night and picking the order up on Saturday morning. They brought it out to my car, so I didn't need to leave my dog in the car or in his kennel in the hotel room. If I had done that, he would have barked and cried and generally made a nuisance of himself. For a few months, I had special dispensation to bring him to work, where he spent my work day under my desk.



I had packed what I thought I would need for 2-3 months, so that even though it was August when I moved out, I took a big sweater. But I did not take my winter coat or the fuzzy robe I often wear in the house in the winter. I was vaguely given to understand that I would be out probably until Thanksgiving.

This is as much as I have energy to write tonight. I'll continue with the next installment when I feel up to it.

My house saga: 1st installment

I keep wanting to tell the story of my house damage and repair, and I keep putting it off until I have time and energy because it feels long, and then the longer I put it off the longer the story grows. So I'll just start. Blogs don't have to be highly crafted; they're just a place to dump some ideas out of a bucket onto the grass, so you and a few others can look at them.

So last August, a pump failed at my house. I live in a daylight basement and my housemates live above me. This daylight basement is below ground on the north, street-facing side, and at ground level on the south, backyard-facing side. That is because of the slope of the ground. So I have a deck and my door in the "back" of the house. Anyway, because I'm below street level, all my wastewater has to be pumped up out of my dwelling to the water lines above. There is one pump for this job. The one I had was installed in 1988 when my folks retired to Lynden and finished the basement in this house.

So on a certain August evening, I got out of the shower and there was water on the floor. The water was not just on the floor of the bathroom, but of the furnace & laundry room (where the water pump lives), of the kitchen, the hallway, and -- I did not realize at the time -- the bedrooms. I threw down every towel I owned to soak up the water and called a plumber. People who answered the phones at the plumbing places assumed that my pipes were backed up and I needed a rooter, but I strongly suspected the pump because a couple years ago I had some water spillage when the pump was unplugged. Anyway, it took me a while to find a plumber who wasn't booked out several weeks, and finally got one who could come in a few days. In the meantime, with no way for the pump to handle waste water, I essentially had no plumbing. It was the weekend by the time I got ahold of a plumber and received a promise of someone coming the following week. Each morning I got up and threw on some clothes and drove to the public restrooms in downtown Lynden to use the toilet. I did not shower until the plumber had come and installed a new, functioning pump.

My niece, who cleaned house for me every other week, let me know a while later that the bedroom I use as a library smelled bad. I keep that room closed off when I'm not in it, so that my dog can't wander in there unsupervised. I got a name from a friend of someone to call to tear out the carpet, which I assumed had been dampened by the water, and while I was on the phone with him I went into the room to pace out how big it is, and I discovered that the carpet was more than damp, it was saturated. Blech. I had my sister-in-law and her grandkids come over to move furniture out of that room into my guest room so I could have the carpet out. They discovered that the carpet in my guest room was also saturated. My sister-in-law said that my laminate flooring was also bubbling and suggested I start an insurance claim. So I did.

One year

One year ago today, my father died. I still feel the shock of losing him. I still love him so much.

Today I drove to the Muddy Waters coffee stand in Lynden and bought a 16-ounce mocha. When my folks were still living, every Saturday I would go to Muddy Waters and get a 16-ounce latte with a package of raw sugar for Dad and a 16-ounce mocha (no whipped cream) for myself. Mom's order changed over the years from mocha to tea.



I had already stopped at Blossoms flower shop in Lynden and bought an African violet in a little pot. So I drove to Monumenta Cemetery, where the folks are buried. From Front Street, I turned in at the gate closest to their grave. From the road in the cemetery, I could see their stone. It has a plaque on the back commemorating Dad's service in the Air Force.



I parked as near as I could then took the violets and my mocha and went to their grave.



I stood before their grave while I drank my mocha. I told them they had been good parents to me. I thought about some of the Saturday visits with them. I stood just feeling my love for them. I said the Lord's Prayer. When I left, I quoted a few words from a hymn: "Till we meet at Jesus' feet, God be with you till we meet again."

I sat in the car and cried just a few tears. It's hard to have them gone. Death is such a strange thing. As I drove away, I sang the hymn, although I mis-remembered some of the words. I sang:

God be with you till we meet again,
In his arms securely hold you,
With his sheep securely fold you,
God be with you till we meet again.

Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet at Jesus' feet.
Till we meet, till we meet,
God be with you till we meet again.

Here's a more correct version:

Tweede kop vrij

I visited the Netherlands some years ago, when my parents were stationed there with the Air Force. This was during the Cold War. In the Netherlands, if you order a cup of coffee in any eatery, they bring you a cup—not a mug—of coffee, on a saucer, with a cookie on the saucer. The wait staff do not wander around, as they do in the States, with a pot of coffee to “top off” or refill anyone’s cup. If you order another cup of coffee, they will bring you a new cup, on a saucer, with a cookie, because you have place a second order. When the bill comes around, you will pay for each cup.

My parents kindly travelled with me by car from Soest, the Netherlands, to Chartres, France, on this particular visit, and, along the Dutch freeway, there was a restaurant, something akin to a truck stop in the States, and a sign on the freeway advertised that here you could have a “tweede kop vrij”—“second cup free.” We stopped there for lunch and when we wanted our “tweede kop” we got in line with a lot of Dutch people eager to enjoy this bargain.

Nowadays, when I get up Monday through Friday, I generally have a cup of coffee with my breakfast, but I am watching the clock, mindful that soon I have to hurry out the door and go to work. But on Saturdays I can leisurely have coffee with my breakfast, then have another cup comfortably seated in my living room, with my dog on my lap and a book or some knitting to occupy me. I love it. I remember that phrase and say to myself, “tweede kop vrij.”

My home away from my home away from home

So a couple months ago I mentioned some plumbing issues, just an off-hand phrase. But it turned out the issues were serious—damaged floors and drywall. I started an insurance claim. A company came and packed up all my belongings, except my piano and the few things I took with me, and tore up most of my flooring and quite a bit of the drywall up to four feet high. This is a sample of what my home looks like now:



My insurance company found me a home away from home: Marriott Towneplace Suites in Bellingham, Washington. Ever since I got back from Ashland, I've been living there in a studio-type room that has a bed, desk, couch, and "kitchenette." My dog is with me:



Tonight, however, I am at the Salish Lodge, in Snoqualmie, Washington. (My dog is at the Hyline Hotel for Dogs, in Everson, Washington.) I am spending one night here prior to attending a work conference tomorrow. Our company got a deal because the Lodge either is or recently was renovating and had unbooked rooms. When the conference ends tomorrow evening, I'll drive back to my home away from home.

Right now, my home away from my home away from home is lovely. My co-worker and I got here around 5:00 p.m. and checked in. I have a room to myself that has a door to a little balcony outside, from which I can hear, though not see, the Snoqualmie River and Falls. The Salish Lodge is a spa, though I won't have a chance to do the spa-type stuff. But in my own room is a deep tub with jets:



That's practically like a spa already. When I joined the conference-goers for dinner, we were all expressing excited anticipation of going back to our rooms and taking baths. What's more is the rooms have wood-burning fireplaces, and you can open sliding screens to be able to see the fireplace from the tub.



I came back from dinner a few hours ago. The co-worker I came here with had advised me that she had asked if a hotel employee could light the fireplace for guests, and the answer was yes. I was glad to hear that. The instructions about opening the damper, lighting a rolled up newspaper, and holding it up the chimney to warm it up so it would draw were quite intimidating. So I called the front desk and shortly a friendly young fellow knocked at my door. He came in bearing a blow torch, and he used it to blow flames up the chimney and warm it up, then he used it to light the fire. I thanked him and he departed.

That first cup of coffee

Just a brief note from Ashland, Oregon, where I am visiting the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Note: The B.C. smoke eventually blew away from Lynden, but here in Ashland, nearby wildfires are creating smoky air. Every evening at about 6:30 a "smoke committee" at the OSF has to determine if air quality permits the outdoor performance in the Allen Elizabethan Theatre. They have had to cancel several shows in the recent past. My sister-in-law and I have tickets for the performance there tonight of The Merry Wives of Windsor. If it gets cancelled I'll receive an email.

Anyway, today's episode is about my coffee dependency. When we checked in two days ago, there was a packet containing a coffee pod for use in the tiny automatic drip coffee maker in our room. I used it yesterday. This morning, I slept past the complimentary "Continental" breakfast offered by the hotel and, having no coffee in the room, decided to drive down the road to a Dutch Bros Coffee stand I noticed yesterday. My sister-in-law came along.

Walking to the car, I veered into a bush beside the sidewalk. Under the best of circumstances, I veer when I walk. It's a family trait. We don't walk a straight line. We zig-zag. My in-laws have all learned when walking with their spouses to expect him or her to bump into their arm every nine or ten paces before reeling off again to a distance of up to a yard away. For the most part, we avoid crashing into objects lining our path, but this morning, pre-coffee, I walked into a bush.

We got in the car and I backed out of the space, put the car in drive, and gently pressed the accelerator. No action. Eventually I realized I had the emergency brake on, loosed it, and we drove out of the parking lot onto Siskiyou Boulevard. I drove a little ways before my sister-in-law suggested I pull out of the bike lane into the lane of traffic. I did.

I made it through the process of pulling up to the coffee stand, ordering, paying for, and receiving coffee without undue mishap. I got a drip coffee with cream, my sister-in-law a white chocolate mocha. We drove back. Before getting out of the car, I fished in my wallet for the room key, which is a card, not a key. You wave it in front of the door handle and the lock clicks open, a green light flashes, and you can open the door.

We got up to the door and I waved my card around to no avail. I looked more closely at it to see if I was holding it in the right direction and saw that in fact I was waving my Kaiser Permanente insurance card at the door. My sister-in-law came to my rescue and opened the door. We came in and I was finally able to drink my coffee and return what passes for normalcy.

Dry days

What's there to say today? We continue with the smoky skies. It would be nice if it would rain, but I don't see any rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future, just hot, dry weather. July and August are the hottest, driest months in the Pacific Northwest. The rest of the year, it's pretty reliable to get either a mixture of clear and rainy days or mostly rainy days. It's only this time of year that we get dry weather, and we don't get that every year. It is tradition that during the Northwest Washington Fair, which is always the 2nd or 3rd week of August, we get at least one rain shower. This year the fair is August 14-19, so we'll see.

This afternoon I took a long, deep nap. My plumbing issues have disrupted my routine. I don't like disruptions, and I do like routine. Anyway, I think I sat down to give my dog some one-on-one time. Petting and cuddling with a dog relieves stress. In my case, my stress was so relieved I sank into a deep sleep for several hours. It was a good sleep.

Apply as needed for stress relief.

The Twilight Zone

Yet another day of gray-white sky, no distant views, and yellow atmosphere. Last night I slept at my sister-in-law's house (plumbing problems at my home) and when I came outside in the morning, the sun was a red disk through the haze. It really was like that song line, "The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball." Maybe the person who wrote that lived in an area with a lot of pollution in the atmosphere. It was like this:



I did not take this picture. I downloaded it from Fox News. When I saw the morning sun shining like a red rubber ball, it was higher in the sky and looked smaller. But it was just as red.

This atmosphere gives a sense of weirdness to the day, hence the title of this post. The light is like twilight, and it's weird like the Twilight Zone.

Blowing smoke

Well, the smoky skies continue. Now there's a fire in the Chuckanut Mountains, about 30 miles south of where I live, in addition to the fires north of here in B.C.  Here is a map where I've circled my town, Lynden, and the part of Chuckanut that is in Skagit County (I live in Whatcom County):



I got the map by doing a screen shot of Google Maps' topographical image of the area, cropping it a bit, and using Paint to draw circles. Most of what's known as Chuckanut is in Whatcom County, but the news says the fire is in Skagit, so that leaves just that little triangle I've circled as the general location.

The air quality is bad, but I've spent the day indoors, breathing air-conditioned air. Nice.

Not a cloud in the sky

The other day, I saw a news item warning of excessive heat—telling people to stay hydrated (isn't it interesting we say that now, instead of "drink lots of water") and talking about the symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Yuck, thought I.

So this morning, knowing we were in for hot weather, I was expecting glaring sunshine. But when I drove my car to work, my first thought on pulling out of our cul-de-sac and driving east was, "What a weird sky." It was overcast, but not in a way I had ever seen. I thought it must portend some bizarre weather. It was hazy, just hanging at a certain height, obscuring the hills.

On my lunch break, I saw on the internet that smoke from wildfires in British Columbia is blowing into western Washington. That's why the sky looked different from anything I'd ever seen in Washington before, because it wasn't cloud cover, it was smoke.

I downloaded this satellite image, so I could mark about where my town is, but the original is here, and the caption for the photo says, "Photo from NASA MODIS satellite taken on Aug. 1, 2017 showing wildfire smoke spreading south into Western Washington (Photo: NASA/MODIS)":

Signs

I was going to go see Sherman Alexie at the Mount Baker Theatre in Bellingham. He was on tour promoting his latest book, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, a memoir about his relationship with his mother. His mother died in 2015, and he wrote this book as part of his grief process. I ordered it and read it in preparation for going to see him, but then he cancelled the majority of his tour. He explains why on his website.

Some weeks ago, I saw a book on my co-worker's desk called H Is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald. At my co-worker's invitation, I picked it up and paged through it. Chapter 2, "Lost," starts out with her account of the phone call from her mother telling her that her father is dead. I also saw references to her reading Elizabethan and other-era treatises on falconry, a literary touch that appealed to me. She wrote well. I gave it back to my co-worker and said it looked like a good book. My co-worker offered to loan it to me after she read it.

After I read the Sherman Alexie book, although she had not yet read the Hawk book, my co-worker told me to go ahead and read it, as she would not get to it for a while. So I have started it. I'm in Chapter 3, "Small Worlds." In it, the author is reading The Goshawk, by T.H. White, an author I like, though I haven't read this particular book by him.

Sherman Alexie, in his memoir, mentions a number of visions and feelings of encounter with his mother that he has after her death. Ironically, he claims not to believe in life after death. He says that, even though he doesn't believe in ghosts, he sees her ghost. In the letter I linked to above, he recounts more mystical experiences of his mother's presence, and he says:

As I write in the memoir, I don't believe in ghosts, but I see them all the time.

As I also write in the memoir, I don't believe in magic, but I believe in interpreting coincidence exactly the way you want to.

I don't believe in the afterlife as a reality, but I believe in the afterlife as metaphor. And my mother, from the afterlife, is metaphorically kicking my ass.

It's frustrating. I do believe in the afterlife as a reality. I don't believe in magic, but I believe in miracles, prophecies, and visions. And I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe in the eternal life of the soul and the coming resurrection of the body. But I never hear from my parents now that they've passed on.

Enlightenment

So I was getting into my car this afternoon according to my usual method, which is to put my right foot into the floor well, keeping my left foot on the ground next to the car, sit down in the driver's seat, then pull my left leg into the car. Well, as I sat down, angling my left leg as necessary, I suffered an agonizing twinge in my knee.

As I sat recovering from the pain, a light bulb turned on over my head. Actually, it was already on—it was just the dome light in my car. But, in a completely unrelated event, I had an idea. Maybe the way I've been getting into my car is the root cause of my knee pain. Before the popping event on Friday afternoon, I had wondered what was causing my knee pain as I so seldom exert myself. It's not like I play contact sports. But I do bend my leg awkwardly getting into the car.

So now I'm going to see if a new method makes the pain go away. I shall sit down on the driver's seat with both feet outside the car, then swing both legs in.

A few years ago, I had a similar aha! moment with the plantar fasciitis I had been suffering. Plantar fasciitis is an excruciating pain in your heel. It bothered me most when I first got up in the morning, but I felt it at various times. Then one day I parked in a strip mall parking lot and, as I walked to the place of business I had come to visit, I walked across a grass median. I noticed that walking on the pavement hurt, but walking on the grass did not. If I had been in my car, the dome light would have turned on. I realized that, living in a basement apartment, my floors were basically cement, I walked my dog on the sidewalk, and just in general trod hard surfaces either in bare feet or thin-soled shoes. I bought thicker-soled, more cushioned shoes, including Birkenstocks to schlep around in in the house, and voila! my plantar fasciitis disappeared and never came back.

I confidently expect the same for my knee pain.

On my knees

I'm thankful that my knee is much improved today. It's not completely healed. It's still a little tender, and I still have to be careful how I move and walk, but it's much improved.

Ow

My knee hurts. My left knee. For a while, recently, it has felt not-good, as though I had hyper-extended it. It felt stretched-out and often painful in the back of the knee. I felt like it was improving, though, until yesterday after work. I was jay-walking across Cornwall Avenue in Bellingham to get to my car to go home. The way was clear, except there was a car, far off, to my right, that would be coming through a green light into that further lane, so I walked quickly. Mid-way through that crucial lane, I felt something pop—I may even have heard it pop—in the back of my knee and the sensation was extremely unpleasant. I still had to hurry the last painful three steps to the sidewalk, and then I stood realizing the discomfort.

Writing this, I just remembered how, when I played Barbies as a little girl, my brother would occasionally rush in, bend the Barbies' legs forward at the knees, and then rush out again. My knee feels like I did that to myself.

Holding hands

A little while ago, I saw a picture online of a little boy holding a parent's hand, and it made me think of my dad. We clasped hands often. I had a special grip for helping him get up from a chair. When I left him to go home, we would press each other's hands.

In his final illness and on his deathbed, my sister-in-law, sister, and I held his hand as much as possible. When we brought my mom in her wheelchair to see him, he would put out his hand to hold hers.



When he was past the point of speech, he would sometimes pull the hand holding his to his lips and kiss it. He loved us all tenderly to the very end.

It's a painful realization that for the rest of my life on this earth, I can never take his hand again, never hug him hello or kiss him good-bye. Just gone.

Mother's Day

Well, about a month after her 85th birthday, my mom died. She passed just two and a half months after my dad. I felt like this time we knew the drill because we had just done it. Back again in the funeral director's meeting room. Same coffin as my dad, same schedule of viewing on Wednesday evening and burial and memorial service on Friday afternoon. Similar emails with the church office, same order of worship for the memorial service—different hymns and Bible passages. Meeting again with the pastor to go over the service. Siblings flying in again for the obsequies—but not so many of my folks' grandchildren, as they had used up their money and time off just a couple months ago coming for my dad's service, and we also felt that their seeing my mom at that time, while she was still with us, and comforting her then, was more important than coming to her funeral.

Different weather. The day of my dad's graveside and memorial services, in early February, was the beginning of a severe winter storm. At the cemetery, a freezing wind blew ice crystals against us, and some people who would otherwise have come to the memorial service stayed home because of the driving conditions. The day of my mom's graveside and memorial services, in mid-April, was a lovely spring day, mild air, trees in bud, flowers in bloom.

Abide with us

But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. — Luke 24:29 (KJV)

It has been 51 days since my father died. I wrote at the time how I woke my mother up and told her of his death. She came in her wheelchair to the room where he lay, and she saw his body. She came to the viewing of his body at the funeral home, and she was at the graveside service and the memorial service. But she has not really been able to take in the reality of his death. Almost every time I see her, she asks where he is.

This past week, we celebrated her birthday with family and friends. She was in her wheelchair, and for some time I sat next to her to watch over her during the party. I told her who all the guests were, and she asked me, "Where is Lou?" As usual when she asks this question, I said, "Dad passed away, Mom. Do you remember? You were at his memorial service. He's in heaven now." As usual, she accepted this and seemed to remember that it was true once she was reminded.

My sister was here from out of state for the celebration. After her last visit before going home, she came back to my house in tears. When she was leaving, my Mom had asked her, "Where is he?" "Who, Mom?" "Lou."

They were married for 64 years, five months, and eleven days. No wonder she can't comprehend life without him.

When I knew my mom's mom in her old age, she loved the hymn "Abide With Me." If I fiddled around on the piano, I could be sure of a grateful comment if I played that hymn. It is the beautiful prayer of one approaching death. I pray it on my mom's behalf.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
change and decay in all around I see;
O thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need thy presence every passing hour.
What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still if thou abide with me.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.



Words: Henry F. Lyte
Tune: "Eventide," William H. Monk

Adjustments

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, I gather. For the past number of years, I've watched the Super Bowl with my dad, just to keep him company. I would buy some snacks and beer and we would partake fairly moderately while watching the game and the commercials. I'm not really interested in football for its own sake, and in recent years the commercials have been disappointing, but I usually had fun talking with my dad and posting my thoughts on Facebook.

Today my father has been dead for more than a week, and his funeral was two days ago. I don't think I'll watch the Super Bowl. My brother is staying with me, post-funeral. If he wants to watch the game, he's welcome to put it on and then I might watch it by default. But I have no plans about it. That's my "new normal," as the saying goes. I can no longer think of little things for my dad to enjoy and then do them.

Emily Dickinson expressed it well:

The Bustle in a House 
The Morning after Death 
Is solemnest of industries 
Enacted upon Earth – 

The Sweeping up the Heart 
And putting Love away 
We shall not want to use again 
Until Eternity – 

The longest day

It has been a long day. It started at about 2:30 a.m. I was in my father's room at the skilled nursing facility where he had been under hospice care. I was spending the night to monitor his safety. At some point I was so tired I told him (though I was not sure he heard or understood) that I needed to sleep for a little while, and I did sleep in a chair. I don't know what time that was. At about 2:30 a.m., I woke up and his previously stertorous breathing was silent. He had died while I was asleep.

Now it is about seventeen hours later. I have brought my mother the news of her husband's death, said good-bye to his body, told relatives about his death, drafted an obituary, assisted in sorting some of his papers and information, signed other papers, and been part of a meeting concerning his memorial service.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace.

Amen.

He was the best father in the whole world.