short stories part whatever, more bloomey things

I subscribe to a newsletter called Nautilus. You have to pay to play to get access to all the articles in every daily email but they always include one free article and they are fascinating. Most recently I read one titled How Life Works by Philip Ball. It’s talking about genes and gave forth this interesting tidbit, that we are not complex forms because we have an abundance of genes, in fact we have barely half of the amount in a banana, but because of the way our genes are regulated. We are half of a banana, I found that amusing for some reason.  Other essays I’ve read via Nautilus recently: Never Underestimate The Intelligence Of Trees by Brandon Keim and How To Quiet Your Brain Chatter by Liz Greene. I have several more still in my inbox I want to read. The one about trees was really no surprise because I’ve held the belief that trees are sentient beings with all the attributes of sentience since my early 20s. In fact I believe all life is sentient. How can it not be and survive?

When my brother was here the topic of ear worms came up. He said that the way to combat one driving you crazy is to mentally replace it with a vigorous marching tune. So I tried it this morning, tired of the short refrain from a song I can’t remember the last time I heard it and had been hanging around for a couple of days (and why does my brain pick these off the wall refrains?), and it worked. Of course now I have this Philip Souza type marching melody bouncing around but not as often and infinitely better because it has no words! And later in the day even it was gone.

We’ve been have really nice weather this last week; cool nights and mornings, low humidity, blue sky days, lows in the 60s, highs in the low 80s. That’s changing this week as highs will get into the 90s and lows in the 70s while the hill country will be broiling. Summer is creeping in.

This is the Chinese tallow tree in the little backyard directly across from the back door on the east side of the property inside the fence and shades the yard and house from the hot summer morning sun. It drops its leaves in the fall and if we get an early cold snap they turn yellow, red, and orange. Even without a cold snap they get speckled with all colors just not all at once. The leaves I drew last fall were from this tree. It’s old, average lifespan 30 - 50 years, and I imagine it’s close to 50, but can live up to 100 in optimal conditions. I love this old tree that gives us shade and color and shelter for birds and squirrels.

You might remember that I got a letter from a Frank Hofer, an account manager with a reputable Investment Bank in Canada offering me half of $9+M for submitting me as the heir to Alan Abbott’s estate who died with no kin to claim said estate. Well, it turns out that Frank is a piker because I got another letter from Noah Mark Esq., an attorney and notary public, also in Canada contacting me about an unclaimed “permanent life insurance policy” held by his client the LATE JEFFER ABBOTT, a real estate investor, who was also a cancer victim and died about four years ago with no heirs coming forth and had a “Life Insurance Policy” savings monetary deposit of $49,375,735.47 (gotta love the 47¢, makes it more authentic don’t you think?) which he will happily split 50/50 with me for submitting me as the heir. Oh and time is of the essence since the money will have to be turned over to the state after being unclaimed for four years. Boy, am I glad I didn’t jump on that first offer. Now I can go for the big money.

A week later and my eye feels almost normal. The graininess and gooey feeling is gone, mostly I’m just aware of it. It feels like there is a bit of a glare on the outside edge but now I’m thinking that’s just because I’m getting more light in compared to the other eye. And I swear, my eye is a different color. I’d been in the habit of using my glasses to watch tv so things were better in focus but now of course my glasses are useless. I was watching tv Saturday night and I suddenly became aware of how sharp, in focus, it was and while I need cheaters to read a book or look at my phone (computer screen is fine) where before I didn’t, my mid range vision is excellent and I’m not really sure how far that extends. Pretty far seems like. 

A few more blooming things: in this picture byzantine gladiolus, day lilies, society garlic;

spiderwort, one of my favorite day lilies, carolina wild petunia which I dug up out of an easement in my old city neighborhood and which has spread all over the little backyard.

bold squirrel, flowers, healing

Zinnias!

I wrote my last post mostly in the morning the day after my surgery and didn’t really get around to proofreading it until the afternoon when it was already published. OMG! So many typos. Now three days after my surgery and I’m ready for it to be healed! I know, I know, patience. It will take weeks to be fully healed and my vision settled. It’s a little better every day, colors are saturated again but I get a grainy feeling off and on and I’m ready for that to stop. I have to wear sunglasses outside even when it’s overcast. In fact I’m wearing them now in the house because it’s a clear blue sky day and the sun is coming in the windows I face and reflecting off the laminate on my desk into my face. I slept off and on most of the day Wednesday after my surgery. Slept a lot Thursday but not as much and even took a couple of brief naps on Friday. 

We’re having cool mornings and low humidity days so the back door is open. First thing I do every morning is fill Cat’s bowl, fill the bird feeder (though I’m out of seed right now), put a couple of handfuls of cracked corn on a paving stone (also out of that right now), and put a handful of peanuts on the ceramic elephant for the squirrels. I missed putting out the peanuts on Wednesday and Thursday though I did on Friday. I keep the bag of peanuts on the shelf under my big work table easily visible from the outside when the door is open and I don’t close it until dusk when the weather is nice. Apparently I’ve been being watched. I was in the next room yesterday early afternoon when I heard a quiet rustling. When I looked through the door into my studio room I caught a flash of a squirrel dashing out the door. This morning the open bag of peanuts was empty except for one nut, the bag had been moved further back on the shelf and there were a few peanut shells laying about. There was only about a handful left in that bag but now I suppose I’ll have to use a clothes pin to close the new bag. We’ll see how clever the little devil is.

I looked out the back door on Thursday to see this.

This is not from lack of water. I’d already cut off two wilted long branches but there was new growth at the top so I figured these older stems were dying back. I have no idea why this Brazilian button is dying and I’m not happy about it. There is one new little plant coming up from seed in the pot so hopefully it will grow and thrive.

Not everything in the yard is pink or purple: developing tomatoes, clasping leaved coneflowers, various daylilies, easter lilies, althea (rose of sharon).

But a lot is: althea (rose of sharon). (I do not know why blogger insists on this type face for these sentences but it will not change.)

And the ginger root from the grocery store finally sprouted!

While I was fixing breakfast and eating the little devil made about 5 attempts. I saw him/her (?) on the shelf under the table and when it saw me watching it scampered out. We could hear the rustling of the cellophane bag while we were eating. A couple of times Minnie chased it out. It managed to get the clothespin off three times, the last time the little bastard tore the cellophane bag (which of course I knew would happen).

Ok, it’s been fun and games little squirrel but that’s all over now. I emptied the peanuts into a ziplock bag and put it on top of a shelving unit further back in the room.

beans and my left eye

My first harvest of green beans, picked and eaten on Tuesday. 

The surgery went well yesterday, no complications. We were there by 7 AM and home by 10. I had a weird dream just before waking yesterday morning. I dreamed we were still at home and Marc was watching TV and I noticed it was already ten minutes after seven. We have to leave, I’m already late and he was all meh. Anyway we got in the car and he was driving in the wrong direction, where are you going? He drove up to the back lot of a big electrical company, why are we here? This is not the hospital. Give me the keys, I’m driving. This pissed him off and he threw the keys and they got hung high on a pole where I couldn’t reach them but he had another set. So I drove us to the hospital and said I was a little late. That’s OK, the doctor is running late and I would be having a different doctor. What, why? We decided so and so would be better. NO. No, no, I don’t want a different doctor. Well he will be doing the procedure. No, I said again, and left.

So that’s how my day started out yesterday. Actually we got to the hospital here in Wharton on time and no, there had been no substitution. I checked in and they took me back to pre/post-op to remove my clothes and put on the gown which was huge, I mean big enough to wrap around three people. There was no way that thing was staying on my body so they brought me a small one. This was the most bare bones pre-op room I have ever been in. A cubicle screened off from adjacent ones by curtains as they all are but it was totally empty except for a narrow bed with only a bottom fitted sheet on it that was in a sitting position, no pillow but a padded headrest, no chair, vital sign monitors on the wall behind the bed. They brought me a blanket when I asked for one. The nursing staff was nice enough, we joked around, I initialed and signed all the forms, anesthesiologist came in and asked a bunch of questions, got an IV, gave me a valium and anti nausea meds, drops in my eye and they laid the bed down flat and wheeled me into surgery and that’s really the last thing I remember. I wasn’t completely out but I don’t really remember anything and then I woke up back in pre-op with a bandage over my eye which I was allowed to remove after four hours. 

The first thing I noticed after I removed the bandage was how bright everything was. I would close my left eye and look out my right eye and everything was the level of brightness I was used to. Left eye only, really bright. I had to wear the sunglasses they provided in the house. The second thing I noticed was the nature of that brightness. It wasn’t a white brightness but a blue tinged brightness that affected the quality of colors. Colors look different from the left eye only compared to the right eye that I was used to. My brother told me I would be surprised by how blue everything was but I thought he meant that the blues would be bluer which I couldn’t understand how that could be since blue looked very blue already. But it’s the nature of the brightness that has a blue tint. A cool tint rather than the warm tint of the light that I was used to. Which got me to thinking about color, the nature of color, the seeing of color and that probably none of us sees any one color exactly the same. And it made me wonder how this is going to affect my watercolor painting. The other thing I noticed is that colors were less saturated with my left eye only. I don’t know if all this is permanent or will change as my eye heals. This is one of the questions I have when I go for my follow up appointment today.

Physically, the eye was very bloody when I removed the bandage and felt gooey, like I wanted to rub it out. And yes, I have restrained from rubbing the eye. I have three different eye drops that I must use four times a day. For how long I asked the doctor, until I tell you to stop she told me. So Marc has been administering the drops. I don’t have trouble putting drops in my eyes but my vision in that eye is kind of blurry, easier to get Marc to do it. Speaking of vision, I have not needed glasses to read for the past four or five years, an improvement in my eyesight caused by the developing cataract. Now I can’t read without cheaters, my glasses being fairly useless. How much of that is trauma from the surgery and how much was reverting back to my pre-cataract eyesight I don’t know.

Today the bloodiness is starting to clear, my vision in that eye is improving some, colors still don’t seem as saturated but better, light still has a blue tinge. The color of my eye seems to have changed. I’ve always had very dark brown eyes which I attributed to my parents never being able to tell if my eyes were dilated when I was stoned as a teenager and young adult. As the cataracts have developed a light white/gray ring formed growing inward and now after the surgery the left eye seems bluer if that makes any sense. Maybe because my vision is still clearing up. It’s only been a little over 24 hours.

Had my post-op visit. The assistant checked my vision in my left eye, says it went from 22/70 to 20/25 and the fuzziness was because “you just had surgery a day ago”. The ophthalmologist responded to all my observations and questions. She says the ‘blue tint’ is because I’m now seeing the true colors, that the developing cataract warms or browns colors and I’ll get used to it. The less saturated level, as compared to my right eye, is probably because I have some inflammation in my eye and it will clear up and colors should seem more vivid. My neighbor’s house which has always been an unassuming gray now appears to have a violet tint to the gray, at least from a distance. Here’s another observation…my computer screen is so bright! Several months ago I was looking at the settings to see if I could brighten it up but it was at max level. Now I may tone it down some.

I have another follow up in 10 days.

spring cleaning of a different kind, Minnie progress report, last of the spring flowers

Two weeks of house cleaning, company and recovery and the inbox on my email account was astronomical. I get a lot of daily emails from news accounts and individuals who write about what’s happening in the country and some other interesting stuff. This morning I read two and then just deleted the rest unread. One can only tolerate so much.

Friday night we finally got some real rain, about an inch and a half, and of course it came after I spent the day watering all the beds in the big backyard. It also brought in some cooler and dryer weather and since I had finally brought over the unused 3’ x 6’ folding table in my sister’s shed for the party I spent the day Saturday hauling all the pots and buckets and other gardening miscellanea and the small table I’d been using out of the barn. First I raked out all the leaves that had accumulated, then I put up a little shelf, put the new table in, hung some stuff on nails, busted up all the broken pots into shards and put them into a planter I’ll never use, reorganized all my pots and hosed off everything, and a bunch of other stuff. Looks great. Did I take a before picture? Of course not, have you met me? But this is how it looks now.

I should have gone to the feed store and bought bags of dirt and compost and mulch since I’m out of all that but that will have to wait. Sunday I started weeding the east flower bed, the one that is the most neglected. It’s where the two plumerias go in the summer and where the orange cosmos and the rock rose dominate; the cosmos in the fall, the rock rose all summer. It’s also the one that gets full sun first and so I didn’t get much done even though the rain brought in some cooler and less humid days before it was time to move in the shade. So I switched over to the west flower bed that has all the day lilies and other bulbs and dug out all the dewberry vines, a never ending task because it’s impossible to get all the roots out.

I haven’t reported on Minnie’s recovery but she got the cast/splint off two weeks ago. She is gradually using that leg more and more. Today she stands on it, scratches with it, goes up and down stairs, will jump up on the couch but nothing higher though she’ll jump down off higher, she’ll slow walk on it but anything faster and she lifts it up. That dog is fearless and took off after a bigger dog in the yard two days ago and she can go pretty fast on three legs when she wants to. Took her in today for a new X-ray to check on the healing and that joint has developed some arthritis which the vet said is a response to the injury and healing. He thinks that given time she’ll use it more and more but may have a bit of a limp. He gave me more pain/anti-inflammation meds and an antibiotic because he thought it felt a little warm. Might help and won’t hurt in any case.

Here are some things that bloomed that I never got around to posting pictures of and some things blooming now. I’ll post food garden picture next time. So in order: penstemon done and going to seed, purple iris over at Pam’s I intended to dig up last year and move to my yard also done, german verbena, rock rose, day lillies first of many varieties, byzantine gladiolus, purple coneflower. Very pink and purple. Zinnias are starting up but I’ll save them for another post.

Tomorrow I have to arrive at the hospital for cataract surgery at 7 AM.

nine days later

Every room in the house and almost everything in the house was clean by end of day Saturday, a few things on one wall and a high shelf in the kitchen I didn’t get around to. It took me 6 days but I have to say, the house looks spectacular. I’ll probably never do this again, not the whole house, not everything at once. My brother and sister in law Cathi arrived late Thursday evening at the AirB&B where they were staying for his every five year high school reunion in Houston on Saturday and the visit just happened to coincide with my birthday this year. 

Sarah and I did the grocery store and liquor store on Saturday. Sunday I made the two salads I was making. Cathi made one batch of cookies on Friday and I made another on Saturday. Sarah showed up Sunday around 1 PM with a truck load of barbecue pit, chairs, and the food she had made. Her husband Mike showed up shortly after and got the barbecue pit and the chicken leg quarters going while Cathi made the hamburger patties to go on later.

Mikey had towed the truck over to the shop yard on Friday (needs a fuel pump) and I moved the car over early Sunday so bbq pit and chairs and coolers of drinks and ice were set up on the concrete apron in front of the garage and barn in the shade of the oak, crepe myrtle, and magnolia trees; food was spread out on my big work table inside. 

I had ordered a warm onion bacon potato dish from the local barbecue place earlier in the week, enough for 35 people which they said was a gallon and a half, paid for it in advance and when I went to pick it up on Sunday somehow between my ordering it and the kitchen getting the order it became 2 1/2 gallons! Since I had my paid receipt that showed clearly 1 1/2 gallons they waived whatever the extra cost would have been but what was I going to do with 2 1/2 gallons of potatoes! It got divided up among family afterwards and I still have some in the freezer.

It was a fine party, people started showing up at 3 PM and by all accounts everyone had a good time. I counted 31 people including Marc and me, a very varied group of people; friends from our glass studio days, friends from the neighborhood, a co-worker from the antique store days, co-volunteers from SHARE, fellow yogis, and family. Finally it was just the family sitting around and well after dark by the time we had all the food put away and coolers emptied, chairs folded and stacked, tables cleaned off. Fun day. Did I take any pictures? No. Jade took a few, Sarah took a couple. My party planner daughter and son.

Monday everyone slept late and after John and Cathi finally made it over we basically just sat around all day. Tuesday we had planned to drive to Galveston and spend the day so we left about 9:30. We walked the Strand in the historical district with all the shops and eateries. I made a beeline as soon as we got there to a store that carries the jewelry of an artist whose work I have long admired. The last time I was there with my sister and niece they didn’t have any and I was sorely disappointed as I planned to buy something. This time though they did and I had barely stopped in front of the case when the salesgirl appeared asking me if I would like for her to open it, probably because I did not saunter around the store looking at anything but went straight to the case that usually contains his work. The top shelf had a collection of phlox pieces; a gorgeous full necklace, earrings, necklace drops, and charms. I wish I had taken a picture of the necklace just to show but I did pick out a pair of earrings and at the counter mentioned to my brother that I hadn’t bought myself a birthday present yet and he said since he had not brought me a birthday present he would get them for me. Earrings by Michael Michaud Designs 

Then he treated us to lunch at a seafood restaurant (my brother wears the best shirts)

and after lunch we drove down Seawall Blvd and parked to walk on the beach for a while where the seaweed from the Sargasso Sea was coming in as it does every year around this time. The city used to scrape it off the beaches and take it to a landfill because tourists thought it was icky until the beaches and dunes started eroding away. The seaweed is essential to protecting the sand and building the dunes.

Wednesday was my actual birthday and after browsing two shops on the Square where I bought two more crystals and made a quick stop at the grocery store, we just sat around all afternoon watching cooking competition shows. John and Cathi left early Thursday morning heading back to Washington state. 

The next few days are going to be very laid back and then on Wednesday I’m having cataract surgery on my left eye.

house cleaning and book reports

We’re finally getting some rain today, kind of slow and steady, some thunder rumbling now and then, enough to set the dog off into her neurotic response to rain and thunder. Thank all the powers that be no lightning. 

Since the yard has been put in order I’m clearing off surfaces and cleaning house this week pre-party. Not just sweeping or vacuuming or a quick wipe of dust but cleaning hard to get to window sills and baseboards, wiping down every piece of art on the walls, all the tchotchkes, daddy long leg wispy webs in the corners of the ceiling. A real spring cleaning, something I rarely do as I have a high tolerance for the detritus of life. The only thing I’m not doing is oiling all the wood furniture. No time for that but maybe I’ll do that after the party. Or not. Monday and Tuesday I did my bedroom and the big work room/in house studio/office. 

Today I start on the rest of the house, bathrooms on Saturday. So since that’s all I’m doing and I doubt anyone wants to read a blow by blow here’s the report on the last six books I’ve read. Not going to mention how long it took me to read six books.

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley - Francesca and her twin older brothers are the grandchildren of the last lord of Tome Manor in the English countryside where they vacation every summer. When they are 16 Frankie ‘adopts’ a girl as her best friend for the summer whose family vacations at the nearby caravan park after meeting her on the beach and who she calls Sparrow. Frankie and her brothers are not nice people. Fast forward 15 years and Frankie, now Francesca, has remade herself and the Manor after inheriting it from her grandfather. The Manor is now a high end organic spiritual retreat hotel and she is married to the architect who made her vision a reality but things are not as calm as they seem. The locals, who Francesca detests as being beneath her, are not happy about her attempt to privatize the woods and the beach, the woods where legend has it there are mysterious avenging creatures, The Birds, that exact justice when needed. Opening night during the Solstice is sold out but during the Midnight Feast celebration things are not going the way she planned. There are intrusions, a body is unearthed, the guests are acting strangely, there’s a fire and it’s up to Detective Walker the next day to unravel the events of the night that unfolded, rooted in that summer 15 years previous. It took me awhile to get invested in the story but when things started happening, I stayed up late into the night to finish the book.

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz - if I didn’t know Koontz wrote this book I would never have guessed. It’s written in a light hearted unserious style with the story teller injecting now and then suggestions for discussions if being read in a book club. It’s the story of Benny, a 23 year old high real estate agent who shows up for work one day to be patted on the back and told to clear out his desk with no real explanation, his girlfriend dumps him, his attempts at reaching out to other real estate companies ignored. On the same day he receives the shipment of a casket sized box with a letter about the gift/contents from an unknown uncle who appears not to exist when Benny tries to contact him. When Benny goes to breakfast with his PI friend Bob, but before his girlfriend dumps him, he meets Harper, the waitress and as it turns out Bob’s assistant and PI in training. When Benny’s kitchen is trashed the next morning he calls Bob who shows up with Harper. While Bob is investigating the garage and the crate, Benny and Harper discover what was in the crate, a 7’ muscular supernatural being whose sole purpose in life is to protect and set aright Benny’s life from those who would destroy him because he is too ’nice’. As Benny and Harper and Spike set out to find those responsible for Benny’s plight and rectify things, Benny’s story is revealed from childhood to adulthood as memories that come to him during the night. Benny did not have a normal life. I don’t know if I recommend this one or not. It started out entertaining enough but I lost interest about halfway through, sat down finally to just plow through it and thought the ending was pretty good. It is not a typical Koontz book.

Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits edited by J. Michael Straczynski - I mentioned that Ellison was one of my favorite authors back when I was reading science fiction almost exclusively. Some of these stories I have read and some I had not, at least I don’t remember them. One I skipped over almost completely after a few pages because I found it tiresome. Oddly enough it did not include A Boy and His Dog, a glaring omission to me.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig - I read The Midnight Library by this author which I liked so thought I would like this one. Nope. The premise is an alien presence hidden in the sea grass off the coast of Ibiza that heals those it reaches out to who venture under the water near it and gives them extrasensory perceptions like mind reading and is also a sort of portal to that alien world. The island itself and its protected ecosystems are under attack by a developer. A 72 year old woman retired math teacher whose only child died in an accident at 12 and whose husband is recently deceased inherits a house in Ibiza which changes her life as she helps to save the island from the developer. Eighty percent of this book is filler...lectures, preaching, whining about being a useless person, lots of repetition. It got to the point where I would just skim over stuff until the writer got around to advancing the story. 

Things Don’t Break On Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins - It’s been a long time since I picked a book from the library that grabbed me immediately and read in (what counts for me these days) record time. Twelve pages in I already liked this one way more than the entire previous book. It’s the story of three women, two sisters and a best friend of one of them. Willa, the perfect golden girl in her father’s eyes, is 3 years older than Laika, headstrong and is abused and berated. Willa learned early how to avoid their father’s wrath, Laika refused. One morning on the first day of school 16 year old Willa is anxious to get there and see her friends while Laika is dragging so although they always walk to school together, this day they don’t. Thirteen year old Laika leaves for school, never arrives, and is never seen or heard from again. Her sister’s disappearance devastates Willa and to avoid the constant press and the pity of her friends her parents send her to a boarding school where she meets Robyn. Willa and Robyn are each other’s first love. The relationship doesn’t last but they remain friends and Robin supports her friend in her efforts over the years to find Laika whom everyone assumes is dead. Twenty three years later Willa attends a dinner party being given by Robyn and her wife Cat. Their brothers are in town at the same time and they are anxious to meet Cat’s brother’s new French girlfriend who he talks about constantly. I don’t want to say too much more. It’s a great story and I highly recommend it.

Return To Blood by Michael Bennett - The second book featuring Hana Westerman. Set in New Zealand Maori ex-detective Hana has returned home to start a new life (I have not read the first but I gather it’s the story of her last case and why she quit the police force in Auckland). Two decades previous the body of a young woman was found buried in the dunes and now the skeleton of another young woman who went missing four years ago is uncovered in the same area, discovered by Hana’s daughter Allison. Allison sets out to learn more about the young woman Kiri while Hana can’t leave her talents behind and conducts her own unofficial investigation and thinks she has uncovered who committed both murders. There’s a twist at the end.