Puzzle Break

When I looked forward to retirement, I figured I'd be like my Aunt Lou. Once upon a time, talking about her life, she said, "I spent the first twenty years growing up, the next twenty raising kids, the next twenty working, and now I'm spending the next twenty just enjoying myself!" (Since then, she's passed the end of that twenty year block, but I am glad to report she is still doing a bang-up job of enjoying life.) 

I thought it was a great way to approach life, and decided then and there that I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. I still don't understand why I'm having so much trouble with this doing-to-being transition - I mean, if she can do it, so can I, right???

In the spirit of trying to "do" less, last week, I only put three things on my to-do list - if I'd have worked steadily, I could have done them all in less than a day. But I didn't work steadily. I didn't even finish the things on the list. I did the first two things, and started on the third. But then, instead of finishing my task, I got out a jigsaw puzzle.

Until I finished it this morning, every free moment of the last few days has been spent assembling the picture. It amazes me how quickly time passes when I'm puzzling. Normally, I'm antsy, unable to sit for too long. But give me a good puzzle, and I can happily sit for hours on end, procrastinating on all the things that I wanted/needed to get done, working to find just one more piece.

What better way to practice being?

I usually pull out a puzzle for a reason; I've found it to be a wonderful meditation vehicle. As my eyes scan the table, my hands pulling together all the pieces that contain any yellow, my surface mind lets go of conscious thought. My quiet inner voice starts mulling over life questions, such as "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" 

These days, I no longer look to come up with answers, but in keeping with what I've learned about emotions not being good or bad, but rather data, I try to listen to the feelings that bubble to the surface. (And hoo-boy were there a lot of them this time, because, life.)

I finished the puzzle calmer and less anxious than when I'd started it three days ago. Even though my conversations were only with myself, I feel heard, and have a better idea of what's been churning beneath the surface, messing with my sleep.

Not a bad form of therapy, I must say.

Good Enough

When I put the checkerboard tile floor down in the kitchen some seven years ago, I kinda knew I was asking for trouble. The floor is decidedly NOT level, and tile is not known for its bendability.

Sure enough, over the years, several tiles have cracked. Three gave way beneath the pressure of moving the fridge around the room, two have multiple fault lines from the pressure of a too-pointy chair leg; I don't know what excuse the others think they have.

I did a little internet research to see if there was anything, short of replacing the tiles, I could do to help hide the cracks, and found several sources who mentioned using an epoxy glue to fill the cracks, then painting the lines to help the glue blend in. It seemed like a not-unreasonable solution, so I ran it past the guys at the tile store when I was there asking about my failed grout. They agreed - and sent me to a small shop specializing in countertop installation supplies to get the good stuff.  

It took some time to convince the guy running the store I could use the epoxy without gluing the cat to the floor (I guess I don't look like a bona-fide countertop installer. Who knew?), but I got the good stuff. When you use the good stuff, you color the epoxy before adding the hardener, thus eliminating the sure-to-be-problematic step of keeping the lines painted to match the tiles. I was happy with my purchase, but once I got home, had a procrastination attack. Regular, hardware-store-grade epoxy has a cure time of 20-30 minutes. You have some time to fix your mistakes before things harden up. The good stuff gives you a 3-4 minute window before beginning to set up and becoming useless. I was afraid of doing a real botch job on the floor, and then having to decide if I want to spend the next x years looking at evidence of my ineptitude or replacing the whole **mn floor.

I tried looking up Google tips and tricks, but Google let me down. The pros out there are NOT creating tutorials on how to do this at home. *sigh* Not one to give up easily, I called the goop manufacturer, and after a couple of dead ends, was connected to a sales guy who helpfully spent a good 30 minutes giving me pointers on mixing and using the stuff.

Feeling much more confident, I procrastinated for another week on general principle, then set out one afternoon to clean and prepare the cracks per the instructions. My first two tries with batches of epoxy were a disaster. The instructions I'd been given would have worked beautifully for straight-line seams, but my floor cracks were anything but neat lines.

Frustrated, I threw up my hands and went to bed.

As I lay there, stewing and reviewing, revising and what-if-ing, some alternatives to the way I'd been told to do it floated to the surface of my mind. I drifted off to sleep somewhat comforted - at least I had new things to try in the morning.

I got up the next day, and ignoring a lot of what I'd been told, started afresh. This time, things went a lot better. I mixed up a super-small batch of goo, and used a razor blade to press the epoxy into the cracks of the first tile. I had paper towels and a cup of acetone at the ready to swipe up the extra glue, and lo and behold, the tile was repaired in short order, with very little mess. (I also had on a good P100 face mask and had a fan set up to exhaust the air from the room, so I didn't destroy my lungs in the process. I AM trainable.)

A couple of hours later, the floor looked as good as it's going to get. The cracks are still there, but are no longer eye-catching - you need to look to see them - which is exactly what I'd. hoped for. No longer are they the first thing I notice about the floor when I walk in the room, and I can now quit worrying about the broken pieces working their way loose to leave gaps in the floor.

Progress, even - or, especially - in the small things, feels good.

Goodbye, Angel

The part of Angel's story I know started when a lady near Rolla. MO was driving down the road and saw the car in front of her slow down on the shoulder. The window went down, a cat was tossed out, and the car drove on.

She (I never knew her name) stopped to rescue the young, snow-white, pregnant cat, tended her injuries, and took her and her eventual kitten into her home. She named the mama cat Angel, her son, Monster. (Neither name fit the cat's character, but they stuck.) But then she went into a nursing home, and the cats needed a new home. Eventually, via my son's friend's girlfriend's friend, they wended their way into his care. When Joe moved home for a time after college, the cats came with him. With the exception of the year after Joe married, they have stayed with me ever since, and that was almost ten years ago. 

To the other household animals, Angel was a brat kitty, ruling the house with a velvet-clad, iron paw. To me, she showed only her sweet side, jumping up on my lap to purr at me any time I settled down. 

Having the cats helped to save my sanity during the pandemic. During the cold and dark days after Joe and Rita moved out, and there was not yet a vaccine, I spent too many afternoons alone. I curled up on the sofa beneath a blanket and just stared at the quiet my life had suddenly become. Inevitably, shortly after I lay down, I would have a purring white companion (or two). They turned my pity parties into cuddle sessions, were a critical part of helping me to stay grounded.

I've been keeping a close eye on Angel for the last couple of months. It was clear arthritis was settling in. No longer did she easily vault to the countertops - instead she always stopped on the chairs on the way up, and at times, even that jump was beyond her. 

Then, with the hottest weather this year, she abandoned even the sofa, preferring to spend her time curled up in a corner of the living room, clearly in some pain. I had a couple of stern talks with her. She was sixteen-ish, didn't she know my cats all live to be nineteen or twenty?

She purred just a bit, just enough to let me know she had heard, but didn't move. 

She was a sad corner kitty.

I wanted to put off making the vet appointment; I knew what they were going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. With a heavy heart, I took her on in anyways, and after drawing some blood so we could figure out what was going on with her, the vet gave me some pain meds to ease her hips.

The pain meds helped a lot, but it was clear Angel still did NOT feel good. I got the test results the next day - all the numbers were askew. She wasn't going to get better.

I made one last appointment for her, just a few days later. I was grateful for those days, a chance to say goodbye. I gave her extra love and lots of formerly forbidden bits of people food until the hour came to leave. 

I put her into the carrier one last time, then drove to the vet even though my heart was screaming, "NO!" But I couldn't leave her hurting in her corner any longer. She depended on me to do right by her, and so I did. Her last moments were peaceful. I was petting her as she relaxed in my lap; she never even noticed when the vet gave her first the one shot, then the second. I kept petting her, telling her how much light and love she'd brought into my life, long after the vet said she'd crossed over the bridge, then quietly left the room to leave me to cry.

Goodbye, Angel. I like to believe I will see you again one day. That I will walk into the room, and as you used to do after I'd been gone for a bit, you will oh-so-nonchalantly stroll over the moment I sit down, hop into my lap and give me a longed-for kitty hug. 

Until then, Rest in Peace.

Family Weekend

This past weekend's trip to Minnesota had two purposes:

One, I needed to deliver Sophia back home. We, as I had hoped, had a great week together. We went shopping some, out to eat some, yoga-d some. She didn't seem to mind hanging out with just me, and I enjoyed having her around.

Two, I wanted to attend another niece's graduation party. Onnika's high school years were rocky. Between her mother's death halfway through her first year and covid which hit halfway through the next, she was treading water at best, barely holding her own. I knew this, but also knew her problems weren't mine to fix. Fortunately, she has a great dad and he listened and worked with her and found her the help she needed. She switched schools to get away from the ghosts, and was able to regain her footing in time to finish her coursework and graduate on schedule.

I haven't seen her much in the past few years; she's avoided the few family get-togethers we've had. When I did see her in those years, her struggle was written all over her face, body, clothes. So it was a welcome change to be greeted as we pulled into the yard by the sprite I remembered from of old. 

She was radiant in her long white skirt, soft pink blouse, and coordinating random locks of bright pink hair. Her rose-colored, heart-shaped glasses told a story of their own. I stepped out of the car into her waiting arms. She held me close, and whispered, "I did it. Mom would be proud of me."

Yeah, baby, she would be at that. No doubt in my mind. *surreptitiously wipes a stray tear*

The rest of the afternoon sped by in a rush as I attempted to catch up on the lives of my family who were able to attend the celebration. I hadn't seen some of them since Covid, so there was a lot of catching up to do - fortunately for my anxious heart, they are all doing well. I heard no new stories of illness or failed relationships. *whew*

It did my heart good to see them; to renew the bonds of kinship. 

Love Is.

Teen Week Reprise

 

For the last twenty-odd years, teen week has been one of my favorite weeks of the summer.

It started when my daughter hit her teen years - I thought it would be fun for her to get to spend some time with her cousins, and so a lovely tradition was born. The kids would come in for a week or so to splash in the pool, walk to the local shops and just hang out. (Aside: This is how I found out what your cart looks like when you take five teenage girls to the grocery store and tell them to each pick out two things they want - you get nine kinds of fruit and seven kinds of ice cream. I still think those are good choices...)

I enjoyed watching them relax and enjoy themselves, and having friends also kept my kids busy and out of trouble. One of those win-win situations in life.

The tradition took a break for several years when I ran away from home in the camper van - it took a while for my life to settle out after that - but for the last three summers, I've gotten a delightful reprise as the youngest of my nieces have opted to come down, even though I no longer have teens of my own or a pool to draw them in.

Sophia arrived this weekend for what, since she's about to enter her senior year of high school, will probably be my last hurrah. I was a bit unsure how this would work, since this is the first time ever I've hosted just one teen. Usually they come in herds. I know what to do with the herds - make sure they have food, water and transportation to their activity of choice, then all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the interplay. With just one teen, that interplay becomes problematic.

However, once she got here, and we sat down to talk over some of our hopes and ideas for the week, my uneasiness lifted. She is independent and largely self-entertaining. She has some definite ideas around what she'd like to do, so I don't have to make stuff up, and amazingly enough, seems to think I'm an acceptable substitute for company her own age. 

This will be fun!

Scattered Thoughts

I. Can't. Even. 

The Illinois 4th of July shooting. The orphaned toddler, a COVID baby. His parents, relieved to finally be able to take him out and do normal 4th of July things, like a community parade. 

My emotions are a churning mass of anger and grief. What needs to happen to stop the madness? Why are military-grade killing weapons available outside the military? Why? 

I'm not even trying to make sense of it any more.

But I am trying to reground, recenter my core. To find light anyways, because "darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." (MLK Jr)

It's a work in progress.

=========

I went to see Kevin. There are still no traces of active bed bugs to be found. I am calling the war won.

ALL of the grout I'd used to repair the shower turned out to be bad; it just turned to powder rather than curing. Which made cleanup easy. The re-regrouting work has been finished, and the shower is good as new. 

I had a small water leak. I found it when working with the sprinkler guy to fix a leak in that system - he fixed the problem, but the meter still showed a small drip somewhere, so I started turning off plumbing fixtures. The problem turned out to be the toilet in the basement. It's accessible, easy to fix, and I can turn it off for a week or two or ten until I get around to buying new toilet guts. *whew* That could have been SO much worse.

I tell myself, "See? SOME problems are solvable!"

And, as big as the other problems are, they, too, shall pass.

Breathe. Anyways.

Assorted Bugs

For the past month or so, I've been trying to kill a colony of sugar ants that's decided my kitchen is the 'it' place to be. It's my fault it has been taking so long. I put the Terro bait down for a few days, then, as soon as I don't see any ants, move on. In the meantime, the little critters are back under the cabinet regrouping, and we repeat the process a few days later, as soon as I notice them crawling across the floor, getting into the cat food again.

I feel a bit silly about it, but part of the reason I've been lax is because, with all the unbalance going on the the world, it seems somehow unfair of me to kill the ants. I'm way bigger than they are,  and I feel like a mean executioner killing them off because I don't like where they've decided to make their nest.

I gotta admit, I've killed off many an ant colony with nary a second thought. Feeling sympathy for them is new to me. I blame the COVID years.

But, it turns out, I haven't gone totally loony. My sympathy for the lives of bugs is limited to what they're working to destroy. 

I went outside yesterday morning to remove the latest group of black-spotted leaves from my beleaguered rose bushes, only to find a bunch of Japanese beetles had moved in and turned a number of the remaining leaves to lace. And. And! They decimated the one flower the bush has managed to produce anyways, despite the fact it is down to fewer than half its leaves since the black spot returned with a vengeance.

Not on my watch!

I immediately marched back inside for a cup of soapy water, and knocked all the bugs I could find off of their perches and into the cup, where they quickly drowned. I grimaced when I missed the cup, only to watch the bug sail away across the yard to freedom. Not only did I feel zero ounces of sympathy for the bugs I killed, I left my cup outside, where it would be handy when I returned an hour or so later to see if any of the escaped bugs were unwary enough to return.

Mess with my roses, will you!

Shower Repair

Six years ago, when we tiled the shower, we made a mistake. We cut the bottom course of tiles on the back wall level across, instead of following the slope of the floor. We didn't think the gap would be noticeable once we'd filled it with the Tile Shop-approved-color-matched caulk. We were wrong.

It looked good for about a month, then the caulk got dirty and couldn't be cleaned, and it's been bugging me ever since. It's clearly not been a high priority on the fix-it list, but after one of the little black diamond floor tiles came loose last month, I decided it was time to tackle the repair.

Of course, of course, once I got into it, it couldn't be just the one tile that had lost its adhesion. Nope, about fifteen of the floor mosaic tiles came up in all. But those wall tiles that had been bugging me for years?  Their adhesion was beyond solid, and I ended up tearing up the backboard before they'd come loose. Figures.

To my surprise, thus far into the project, my time and effort estimate was right about where I'd anticipated it would be - rare when speaking of my home-improvement projects. I'd only broken one extra tile, and the backboard damage was easily repaired with a coat of thin set. I was starting to feel like I might know what I was doing!

Then, I replaced the grout. Grouting is usually the easy part. It's hard to break things while grouting, and I figured, since I had all the supplies out, I could replace the grout that had failed elsewhere in the bathroom and the kitchen floors. What the heck. I got the cracks cleaned out without trouble, mixed up the goo, and troweled it into place. I'd stored the leftover grout powder from the original project in a temperature controlled space in a moisture resistant container, and it all still looked properly dry-groutish when I opened the tin, so I thought it would still be usable. I thought wrong.

I'd gotten all the work done with a single batch of grout. The next day, some of it was setting up as expected, but to my dismay, the grout in a few of the joints had instead turned to powder. What!!??!! Off to the Tile Shop I went, to see what I'd done wrong this time. They didn't have to think long at all, and told me grout has a shelf life of about three years. My bag had been sitting for six, and apparently when the stuff sits for too long, it starts to separate out, and the powdery parts just didn't have enough glue to hold together.

*sigh*

I guess the good news is that it's easy to determine which parts are OK, and which have gone bad. If you touch it with a knife and it turns to powder, that's the bad stuff. If the knife barely scratches the surface, you're good to go. And, the part where it turns to powder will make it easy to re-prep the tiles. I'm still in the dourly-glaring-at-the-mess stage of moving forward, but it shouldn't be too long before I regather my oomph and redo the bad grout.

It's a small setback, not a failure. 
Live and Learn.

Black Spot

The roses in my backyard struggle.

When I selected the bushes five years ago, my criteria, in descending order of importance, were: climbing, disease resistant, fragrance, then color. The first two years, I thought I'd done well - they got established, started growing, and produced a beautiful array of fragrant peach-colored blossoms.

Then, the disease gods struck, and I went out one day to find the leaves covered in black spots. The first year, I used some commercial fungal treatment with some degree of success. But then, to my dismay, I was told the product made the flowers toxic for the bees. The bees are important to me, so off the list that stuff went.

Well, if you're not going to use the anti-fungal stuff, the only remedy recommended by the internet is to pick off the diseased leaves, and then hope for the best, which is what I've done the last two summers. 

It's kind of hard to watch. The bushes are hardy, and as long as I'm diligent about pulling off the diseased leaves, they've been right behind me, shooting out new leaves. But after a short time, the fungus affects those new leaves, and the whole process repeats.

This year, the bushes started out with vigor, covered with healthy green leaves and beautiful flowers. Then, the rain and the heat came in together, and (I think) reactivated the fungus, and I've been back out there this week, my heart breaking just a little, beginning the process of pulling off leaves for a third year.

My landscape architect friend has watched all this with some dismay. She's one of the best plant people I know, and even she just shook her head when she stopped by one day. She recommended I just give the plants a shovel-upgrade. (i.e. Let nature do what it's gonna do, and just dig them up and replace them.)

I've given her suggestion a lot of thought, she does know of which she speaks, but I haven't had the heart to follow through, at least not yet.

The bushes have become a physical metaphor for me; they represent my fears surrounding all the hard stuff in the news. Wars are looming, disease is still rampant, we've missed the window (I fear) on climate control - and those are just the top three. It's bleak, but I'm not ready to give up yet.

Where there's life, there's hope. As long as my bushes are willing to fight the good fight, I'll do all I can to help them along. As long as there are people in the world willing to fight back against fear, I'm on their side. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, it's a lot harder to know what to do for the latter.  

The bushes are easy. As long as they have enough oomph to produce new leaves, I will pull off the diseased ones. And should they run out of oomph, I will be able to hold tight to the memory of the beauty they brought to my little corner of the world while they were here.

Knowing what bit I can do to save the world is harder. But I'll keep working, in the small ways I work, to help Good as best I can, because I can.

Bedbugs - Maybe Gone? For Real This Time!

I started my latest outwit-the-bedbugs campaign back in January, this is June. In between, I’ve gone over to Kevin’s place every week that I could (that’s all but about three of them), and vacuumed the floor and washed down the walls around his bed (to clean up the bits of blood; i.e. bug poop). I've inspected the bed and surrounding area for signs of activity, killing all the bugs I could find. I made him wash his sheets and keep the area around the bed clear of stuff.

I wanted to make him do the work, but every time I talked to him about it, I could tell he wouldn’t do it. Maybe it was too complicated? Physically, he is no longer agile, and doesn’t bend well, and there isn’t a lot of space to move stuff around, so the cleaning is difficult. He also couldn't quite comprehend why I was doing what I was doing. He didn’t believe it would make any difference, and doesn’t do things he doesn’t want to do; things that don't make sense to him. (I hate to say this, but I really think he'd have let himself get put back on the street rather than do the weekly cleanings - brain injuries are weird...)

The first week I cleaned, I found a LOT of bugs. Ignoring his protestations, I made him get rid of all the cardboard boxes in the bedroom, along with all but the most vital of contents, which I thoroughly inspected and encased in plastic before setting aside. I was encouraged when, the following week, I found fewer bugs. The next, even fewer, until the last three weekly trips, when I found bug tracks, but no actual bugs in the traps or on his bed. Progress!

As time ground on, my fear of the bugs has lessened. It turns out they’re not like wood ticks or fleas. They don’t try to get to you as long as you’re awake and moving. They really just want to eat, then be left alone to digest their meal. And they don't want to travel far to eat - they prefer to live within a few feet of the restaurant. As I was cleaning and would find them, they'd never come at me. They’d either try to walk away, or sit there in one spot, hoping to be overlooked. (I did my best not to overlook any…) 

My peace of mind was helped along by the cooperation of the building manager. She gave me access to her private bathroom, so I could change clothes and towel down when I'd finished each day. After I changed, I put the clothes I'd been wearing into ziplock bags, so I was able to greatly reduce the risk of carrying hitchhikers home.

And, each week, when I was done cleaning, I’d stop down and talk to her. I'd report what I'd found, and see if she'd scheduled a new heat treatment yet. Each week, I was able to tell her I’d been able to lower the bug population with what I was doing, but also told her I would not be able to eliminate them without professional assistance. 

After the first month, when I kept coming back, she sorta listened to me, and scheduled in another chemical treatment. (I think I wore her down.) She’d hired a new bug treatment company at the start of the year, and it's a vast improvement - the new people actually try to track down and actually treat the bugs, as opposed to just spraying some goop around the middle of the room, the way the other company did. They went so far as to pull the baseboard off the walls so they could better treat behind them, once it was clear that was one of the places the bedbugs were nesting.

The chemical treatment helped, but I still found evidence of the infestation week after week. I'd go on over, clean the place up, report what I'd found, repeat. I gotta admit, I got tired of the routine long before she got tired of me stopping by every Tuesday morning with my weekly report. But, once it became clear I wasn't going to go away, she finally relented and got approval to get the company to do another heat treatment.

A couple of weeks ago, after the treatment, I gave the place one more cleaning, hoping that maybe, finally, I could close this chapter of my Kevin story. (It’s not one of my favorite chapters. It's too long, and is repetitive and tedious.) 

I went back this last week to find…. NO evidence of active bedbugs! No bugs in the traps around the legs of the bed. No new bug poop spots on the walls. No shed skins, no sign of eggs. First time ever.

This time, I’m going to give it a month before I go back. I really, really, really (that’s three reallys) hope, when I return, I will again find no evidence of bugs. If I do, I will continue to do what I’ve been doing. It’s working, and sooner or later, I am determined to win this war. I refuse to be bested by a bunch of shy bugs.