Life is Good in my Hood

When I was growing up, I helped my mom with housework and we changed the bed sheets every Saturday. It was an unwritten rule I obeyed all of my life until I started having arm pain last summer when I did certain things including making my bed with its heavier-than-lead thick mattress. I’ll skip the details about my long-ago failed surgery and say that following my bone doctor’s life-time restriction of not lifting anything above my waist and retraining myself not to do any motion that causes pain has gone well. Except I couldn’t figure out a work-around for putting clean sheets on the bed so I’d put that job off until my house cleaning service girl was coming which meant that with the exception of the pillow cases I was only getting clean bedding once a month.

I found heaven a few days ago. I’ve had my new bed just over a week now and I changed my sheets after five days of using them. Doing so all by myself with a lighter weight mattress I could walk entirely around was so blissful I turned it into a meditation session, smoothing out even the tiniest wrinkles and making the best hospital corners my bed has seen in a year. I was coming home to myself and the ‘welcome mat’ of crawling into clean sheets that night, knowing I can have that serene feeling anytime I want, was powerful. I laid there thinking about how we take so many things like that for granted and it was on the tip of my tongue to say, "God is good" but I didn't because I don't buy into the personification of the word ‘God.’ To me it makes more sense to say, “God is goodness.”

My thoughts wandered as I lay there to a story in the news about what the police found when they raided a house because the owners failed to take their son from an Urgent Care center to the hospital as instructed. Little kids were laying in their own vomit because their parents were too stupid or lazy to change their sheets and take proper care of their kids. If God is good, why do innocent kids have to suffer poor parents? If God is good why does He help some victims of abuse or neglect and not others? To me, it’s better to think of God as the combined goodness of mankind---a random thing at times, a planned thing other times. Either way, the intrinsic value of goodness spreads so slowly over a single person’s lifetime that we often miss seeing that the power goodness is building upon itself with each century that passes. Hard to believe, but there was a time when outsiders wouldn’t have stepped in between what a parent does with or to their kids. Okay, so I went from an idyllic memory of doing housework with my mom to challenging a traditional belief system. It’s time to find something new to write about. 

How about I write about four woman with beautiful spirits and the wills to do adventurous things but who have bodies meant for staying home and reading a book, who climbed the tallest mountain in their state yesterday. They laughed as the butterflies at the top of the mountain welcomed the person to their lair who had the prettiest hat and they cried silently thinking about how their old bodies would feel the next day. But in between they were grateful to share the experience with good friends who were all equally proud that they were able to plant a flag of triumph on their adventure. And they thanked the gods of wheels and walkers that helped make the adventure possible. 

Let me translate the above paragraph. Yesterday three of my Gathering Girls pals and I went to the Butterflies in Bloom Exhibit and to lunch at the sculpture garden. What we didn’t count on was all the construction going on which meant from the handicapped parking lot we had to walk 1,500 steps (according to my Fitbit) just to get to the main door, a walk that used to be around 300 feet. They are going from 140,000 square foot of buildings to 230,000. Mind you one of my friends has severe back issues, another severe lung issues and one just finished her second round of chemo. She was the one wearing the multi-colored hat, having just had her head shaved. It actually gave me chills that the butterflies were fluting around her head and landing, even going for rides as we made our way through the huge, glass-domed tropical garden. 

People were pointing her hat out to children and each other, taking pictures of the live butterflies covering her hat and giving her the celebrity treatment with friendly chatter. No one was looking at her with pity because in any other setting it would have been obvious she was wearing a chemo hat. In the garden, the chemo hat was transformed into a joyous thing, a stroke of genius to wear it. Maybe the butterflies couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t get any nectar from that hat as they walked around the bands of neon colors, but I prefer to believe they were helping her heal. The whole experience was positive energy from the universal, goodness directed her way when she needed it the most. ©

Name this Blog Entry…I Can’t!

Have you ever seen a possum up close, nasty mouth wide open and growling…or hissing? (I’m not sure how to describe the sound it was making.) It’s a scary sight I hope I never see again but I suspect I will. Last night Levi was in his dog pen when he started barking like his world was on fire and I ran out to see what was going on. Usually it’s just a rabbit on the other side of the fence but this time I found him barking at a possum he had cornered and all that separated them was two feet of ground and a couple of empty flower pots. I tried to grab Levi’s collar but he dodged me and darted around to my other side and took up the turf war again. Finally---after a lot of chasing and me worrying that the possum would bite me or the dog---I was able to latch on to Levi and herd him into the garage. I didn’t know I could move that fast! The rest of the night Levi begged at least ten times to go outside only instead of me letting him out the back door to his pen, I hooked him up on his leash and took him out the front door which, of course, wasn’t what he wanted. I didn’t dare say “no” because that would be the time he’d actually have to poop and he’d punish the carpeting for my refusal to let him out. 

From scary creatures in nature to gentle creatures. This week I went to the Butterflies in Bloom Exhibit at the sculpture garden. It’s the third time I’ve been invited to join my youngest niece, her two daughter-in-law’s and her four grand babies. One of the babies is five-six months old and I was surprised she was able to focus on a dozen butterflies at a feeding station. Her eyes were huge, her tiny mouth formed a perfect “O” and her little legs were kicking a mile a minute. She was strapped into one of those carriers on her mom’s belly and it was too bad her mom couldn’t see the baby’s face. They don’t allow strollers into the tropical conservatory where the butterflies are and the two with our group were the first two parked in the stroller area. When we came back out there were easily two dozen. These young moms in my family sure were impressive as they juggled the needs of babies and toddlers. Diaper changes and nursing for the babies and potty breaks and healthy snack times for the toddlers. 

From babies to old ladies. Sorry if calling myself and others in my age bracket “old” offends anyone. Well, actually I’m not sorry but I have been told by several people that the word “old” is an insult and referring to myself as old or elderly doesn’t fit a septuagenarian. Ya, sure. Accepting our ages and the stereotypes that go with whatever age bracket we’re going through at the time can be ego deflating. But be honest here, many of those stereotypes are based on facts. 

When Don turned 50 he was dreading his birthday and he got on a kick where he’d tell waitresses that he just turned 60 and he’d ask them if that qualified for a senior discount. These waitresses knew us as regular customers and they would reply variations of, “Wow, you sure don’t look your age!” After joking back and forth Don would admit the truth and we’d all have a good laugh. This went on for several weeks around his birthday until one day we went to a state park where the girl taking the money at the entrance didn’t know us. After Don pulled this fishing-for-compliments routine, the girl looked Don squarely in the eyes, gave him the senior discount day pass and handed him his change. The look on his face as we drove away was priceless and that was the very last time he pulled that joke. (If you think you’ve heard this story before, you did. Back in 2013 I wrote about it. See, I’m living up to the stereotype of old people repeating themselves.) 

Boy, did I get off track from writing about having brunch with my Gathering Girls pals at the Guy-Land Cafeteria. I was there by myself a few days before, early in the morning, and I was reminded of why I coined that name for the place. I was outnumbered thirty to one. It would be impossible to figure the ratio of men vs. women at our brunch, though, because we were there 3 ½ hours (!) while others came and went. (Don’t worry, there were always plenty of tables free. Two of us worry about things like that and about not taking up tables that are bigger than our needs...while one lady in our group thinks we’re crazy for caring about stuff like that.) And get this: we ate twice and joked about staying a few more hours and having dinner, too. In our defense, we had to stay that long because we got off to a slow, doom-and-gloom start before for we got to the silly, belly laughter banter that is our signature, get-together mode. All’s well that ends well. Now, if only I could come up for a name for this blog entry! Can you? ©

Doctor Happy and the Bunnies and Butterflies

Easter Sunday was noisy here in Levi-the-Mighty-Schnauzer Land where he spent the entire afternoon in voyeur mode watching and barking at four rabbits trying to mate in the back yard. The lady rabbit/s were playing hard-to-get. Every so often I’d let Levi out on the deck and when the rabbits ran by he’d bark and they’d freeze in place like plastic toys on a cake. It was probably the only rest they got all afternoon, it was a regular rodeo back there. I can’t tell the bucks from the does, so in three weeks we could have one, two or three new mom’s making nests in the neighborhood. Most years I get one under my pine trees just 6-7 feet from the dog’s pen. Crazy momma. She’ll sleep in that nest all night long even when Levi goes out to pee and to bark at her from the other side of his white picket fence. In the daytime she’ll leave the babies on their own so she doesn’t draw the attention of predators. I always have to make sure my lawn care guy doesn’t disturb the nest when he puts down the new Pacific Northwest pine needle mulch in May. I know what you’re thinking: Who buys pine needles to put under their pine trees? I’ll try to remember to take a photo when he’s done. It looks so much better than bark mulch under those three trees and along my near-by cattail bog.  

For Easter dinner I grilled a steak, steamed some asparagus and had strawberry shortcake and, yes, Levi got a little plate of his own of everything. He especially likes strawberries and when I make protein shakes in the mornings, he’ll come running to the kitchen when he hears the blender where he knows he’ll get a few bites of whatever fruit I’m using that day. I expected my big Easter dinner to show up on the scales Monday morning. It didn’t. I’m saving the traditional Easter ham I bought for later in the week because I didn’t want the salt to show up at the doctor’s office in the form of a higher blood pressure reading and added water retention. 

My bi-annual appointment with my internist was Tuesday. The doctor was pleased. I was pleased. Even his young, tag-along student doctor was…well, he couldn’t have cared less. I think he was bored with this old lady with no real problems to solve. I did get permission to go faster on the treadmill as long as I don’t let my heart rate get over 135 on my Fitbit---like I could actually go faster than the 1.35 miles in 30 minutes that I’m already doing. I was glad the doctor thinks doing the treadmill a half hour 2-3 times a week is ideal, that I don’t need to walk longer, just a tad faster, if I can work up to it, using my heart rate as my guide. He also said that strength training and exercise is more important at my age than at any other time in our lives. 

The day before Easter I got to spend time with eleven members of my family---me being the oldest person there and the youngest one is just a few months old. We met at our local sculpture garden to see the Butterflies are Blooming exhibit in the tropical conservatory. We were there all morning and the baby woke up just once to nurse but otherwise slept contentedly in one of those baby slings that keeps babies close to their mother’s stomach and chest. Why did it take so long for those slings to get popular in modern society? Indigenous people all over the world have been using them since way back when the earth was still thought to be flat. The two, two year olds with us took quite an interest in the butterflies. It was fun watching their faces light up and it was heart-warming when Little O held my hand for the first time. Until now, he’s been standoffish to me, the little girl is just the opposite. I don’t know how to interact with children anymore like I did back when my nieces and nephew were young, but I don’t see these kids often enough to re-learn. Big sigh of regret here.

I started going to the butterfly exhibit after my husband died as a life-affirming pilgrimage around all of my April sadiversaries, then last year when my youngest niece heard that I was going she wanted to meet me there. Five of us went last year and that grew to eleven this year. I’m hoping we’ve started a tradition that will last a while. The park is huge with lots of things for kids to do as they grow older. For me, I don’t think I’ll ever lose my fascination of seeing thousands of butterflies all in one place and I still haven’t gone after dark to one of their butterflies and flashlights events. The exhibit has the power to slow us down to pay closer attention to our environment---the sun patterns through the foliage, the kaleidoscope of colored flowers that draws the butterflies to land and the warmth of the conservatory that previews what’s to come outside as April creeps forward into May. And of course, the amazing and mysterious cycle of chrysalises and cocoons that turn into beautiful creatures that live for such a short time but while they’re here they do their work in making sure their species continues. Life affirming. Oh, yes! ©

My great-great nephew and niece. I don't like to post pictures of kids without their parent's permission---adults either---but since no one can see their faces here, I'm making an exception. In the one up above Little O is taking a close-up look at a butterfly and the photo below was taken in the children's garden at the sculpture park.