Squirrels

The last few weeks, as I've gotten up in the morning, I've been aware of the sound of the squirrels scampering on the roof.  Then, one day last week, I happened to go outside when they were scampering, and there wasn't a squirrel to be seen.  But, I could still hear the sounds of little fat-tailed rodents.

Inside the eaves.

So, I took a look around.  Sure enough, up at the corner of the roof, there was an opening where the flashing had come loose.  And a matching opening at the opposite corner of the house.  Just enough room for an cold squirrel to squeeze on in.  And, once they were in, I'm sure it was no trouble at all to find their way down the plaster walls to the first floor eaves where they have set up two cozy condos, one front, one back.

They make rather considerate neighbors.  They get up around the same time as the sun.   You can hear them moving about as they get ready for work.  Then, they come home about the same time I do, and settle down for the night.  But, considerate neighbors or no, they had to go.

So, I did my internet research, and found that loud noises will often scare them off.  So this Saturday, while I was out and about for a while, I turned the stereo up real loud.  When I came home, I climbed up on the ladder and plugged up the holes.

It worked for the back condo, I haven't heard another peep.  But this morning, at approximately 6:42, I was startled awake by the tenants in the front condo.  Seems they are rock and roll lovers, and hadn't left because of the noise after all.  They were quite frantic, running up the wall to the (now plugged) exit, then back down, the scurrying in circles.  I couldn't leave them trapped in there to die, so, with a heavy sigh, I got myself up out of my warm bed, rousted Joe out of his, and we got the ladder back out to unplug the exit.  That ended the frantic noises in the walls.

I was telling my story at a gathering yesterday, and a lady with experience with critters told me that if the music didn't chase them out, the best way to get rid of them would be to put coyote urine in their space.  Fortunately for me, since I don't have any coyotes handy, and have no idea how I would get them to pee in a cup if I did, the third hardware store we went to today had some for sale in a well-sealed box.

We shoved a couple of the packets into the eaves through a handy outlet box, and now we'll see.  I hope it'll get them out - it would work for me, I can tell you that much.  I caught a whiff through the package seal - whew!

Happy Cancaversary!

The surgery to remove my breasts was two years ago today.

In most ways, it seems forever ago.  It took longer than I thought it should, but my health has returned.  My visit to the oncologist last month was short and sweet.  "Still taking your drugs?  Yup?  Good.  Go home, keep it up, I'll see you in six months."

The rest of the world, along with my brain, is pretty sure the demon has been banished - if not for good, then far enough away that he'll be a long time returning.  My gut doesn't agree.  It still remembers Mom feeling better, then the news of her cancer returning.  It doesn't care about the estrogen positive markers, the drugs I take to remove estrogen from my body so the cancer can't grow.  It's still afraid.

I picture some escaped cancer cells, sleepy from lack of nutrition but still there, waiting for the estrogen to return and their chance to grow.  It would only take one surviving cell to bring me down. 

Not that it'll get its chance any time soon.  The Tamoxifen and Lupron I take do an effective job of removing estrogen from my body.  I can tell by the side effects.  I LOOK normal, but I'm tired.  My skin is dry, my joints ache, I spend nights tossing the covers on and off based on the state of my hot flashes.  When I get the Lupron shot each quarter, I struggle with heightened fatigue and easily gained weight for the next month.  In other words, all the symptoms of menopause, 'just' magnified and compressed.

I try to take the side effects as part of the price that needs to be paid if I want to continue to live.  Life doesn't come cheap.  I try to remember Victor Frankl's thoughts, that the last of human freedoms is to choose my attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose my own way.

I choose not to let the fear win.  I choose to get up (almost on time) every day despite the fatigue, to put on my best face, and to face the world with the closest expression to a smile I can muster.

And tonight, I choose to spit in the direction of my banished demon.  She is wailing and gnashing her teeth in the darkness, I am marking the day with a bowl of ice cream and a grateful spirit.  So there!

Snow Day!

the cat is NOT sure about the snow!

Snow Day!

It's one of the great things about working for a school.

I find the unexpected break in the work week so delightful.  That, and by the fact it's a snow day, I know I don't have to get out and about.  which makes it a lazy kind of sleep-in day.  the kind I had in my camper van every day.  which makes me really miss the camper van.  but that's a story for another post.

A lazy kind of day, except for the shoveling part.  It takes a little over an hour to shovel the driveway and sidewalk at my new house.  And none of it is snowplow snow, which makes the job much easier.  I don't mind getting out to shovel as long as it's snow and not ice (and today's snow has no ice under it).  It was just the right amount of exercise - enough that my muscles are tired and talking to me, but not screaming at the abuse.

A lazy, make-chicken-soup kind of day.  I knew I didn't have the ingredients on hand, so stopped at the grocery store last night before the storm hit (along with several hundred of my closest friends).  While crowds are not normally my thing, I happened to get in line behind one of my old neighbors, and we spent the fifteen minute wait catching up on life, so it wasn't too bad.  That, and it's interesting to see what people figure they can't live without for the next two days.  There was one girl with only a 12-pack of Diet Coke in her basket.  Me, I'd have lived without the soda.

I'm sorry to have to admit I did spend part of the day working.  I have a project that I can do from home, and even though I didn't HAVE to work on it, the work is done much more easily without interruption, and interruption-free time can be hard to come by at the school.  And it wasn't so bad, sitting at my table at the computer, watching the snow come down. 

As the day winds down, I am deeply satisfied with how I spent it.  A little work, a little exercise, a little play.  It's all good.

The Kid's Got Try

As part of my duties at work, I ended up at one of the student basketball games last week.  The girls played first, by half, they were 30 points ahead, and handily won their game.  (Go, Pumas!)

The boy's team followed.  I'll have to admit I was surprised when I saw, among the starters, a freshman.  The kid was at least a foot shorter than anyone else on the court.  I figured the coaches must have a reason for starting him, and I was right.

The kid's got try.

He knows how to catch, throw, shoot, dribble.   He uses his lack of height to get under the other players.  He grabbed one pass, started dribbling down the court, and just ducked down and ran beneath the opposing team's guard when they converged on him.  You could see the surprise on the opposing team's faces.  "Where'd he go???"

A short while later, he was in the cluster of players under the basket.  You could hardly see his purple uniform hidden behind the sea of white worn by the players on the opposing team.  They made a shot.  It rebounded.  And from the midst of the white, I saw his brown hands come up from nowhere to grab the ball.  A moment later, he hunkered down once again and emerged victorious from the huddle to dribble down the court to where he could pass the ball to one of his taller teammates.

Unless he comes up with an amazing growth spurt in the next few years, he'll never be the top scorer on a team.  But he'll be the kind of guy you want on your side.  The kind with hustle and grit; a great team player.

Gotta love it.  (Yes, the guy's team also won...)

Impossible

"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queeen.  "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

-- Lewis Carroll

My sister-in-law gave me a coffee cup with the above quote inscribed on it as a gift several years ago, when things were a bit stalled in my life.  It's one of my favorite cups.

For the past few weeks, when I've had the luxury of drinking my coffee at home (on work days, I grab it in a to-go cup), I've found myself digging this cup out of the cupboard, and even out of the dishwasher and washing it by hand (if you know me, you'll know this is a rare thing - I quite dislike washing dishes...), so I can use it instead of the other five perfectly good cups I have in the cabinet.

While it's not been near as cold here as it has for my dear ones in Minnesota, it's been dark.  My project is stalled, work is frustrating, I am tired - and part of me is convinced it will stay this way FOREVER!  The email migration at work will never be finished, it will never be light when I have to get up in the morning, the weather will never warm up long enough for my foundation work to be completed.

The cup has provided much-needed balance to my litany of woe.  I wake up when it is light (I don't get up in the dark for much on the weekends any more - I don't have to), I stretch, I make my cereal and coffee.  I sit enjoying the light (this house has wonderful windows), cup my hands around the welcome warmth of the mug, and practice believing impossible things.

I've never made it up to six, but sometimes I get myself to believe in one or two, which is pretty good for me...

A Small Thing

Last fall, the weather turned abruptly.  My tomato plants were still full of green tomatoes, so I went out before the freeze to gather them all in.  I ended up with a cookie sheet full of the little guys.  I knew if I left them in the sun they would ripen despite being off the vine, and so they did.  Since that mid-October day, I've been able to enjoy a few home-grown tomatoes once a week or so.  The first few weeks, I took it for granted, but as October turned to November to December, and they still kept ripening, I have appreciated them more and more.  They're tart when they ripen now, but still hold the essence of summer's sweetness. 

In the last few weeks, I've been down to the last four little tomatoes.  Still stubbornly green, they are a little dried, but look fine.  But the batch before this last ripened before Christmas, and I was beginning to think these would just dry up on my counter top.  Then this morning, when I went down to the kitchen, I thought I saw a blush of yellow on one of them.

Sure enough, by this afternoon, two of the four were definitely on the yellow side of green and leaning towards orange.  If they follow the path of the others, they'll be ready to eat by mid-week, and I'll be able to enjoy two small tastes of the summer past. 

A small thing, to be sure.  But often it's the small things that bring hope to my heart and a smile to my face.

Home-grown tomatoes in January.  Who'd'a thunk it?

Puzzle Time

no, I don't know why the pic loads upside-down

On the cold and dark weekends of winter, when I don't have a whole lot else to do, it's time to bring out the puzzles.  I always feel a bit old-fashioned these days when I sit down with a jigsaw puzzle; it's such a low-tech option for entertainment.  But, it's one I've loved since I was a kid.

These days, I don't start to put one together until I've finished everything else I needed to get done for the weekend, because once I've started the project, it becomes an addiction.  I stay up too late.  I procrastinate on cooking - and eating.  I tell me to get up from the table.  I promise I'll do it after I find one more piece.  OK, one more.  Just one more.  You see how it goes.

It's a great way to get in touch with my inner two year-old:

All the pieces are mine.
No, thank you, I wouldn't like your help.
I don't care if you can see a bunch of pieces I'm missing.  Don't even think about touching my puzzle.
DON'T TOUCH MY PUZZLE!

I first started to put them together in second grade.  My genius of a teacher always had one on the table in the back of the room, and if you finished your work, you were allowed to go back there and work on the puzzle.  I tried very hard to finish my work early.

We also put them together as a family when I was a kid.  It started out as good fun, but then, as our abilities grew, the fights started.  I was often the transgressor.  If someone had a puzzle out on the table, I'd wander by and find a piece, and then another, and before I knew it, I'd finished a whole section.  At which point, the person who started the puzzle would cry foul, and I'd be in trouble.  (deservedly so; if you weren't the one who started the puzzle, you weren't supposed to work on it without them.  I knew the rule - and vigorously enforced it if it was MY puzzle...)  So much for family togetherness.

It was the perfect activity for this cold after-holiday weekend...

Doldrums

'Tis the time of the after-Christmas doldrums.  The tree is still up, but the baby who delighted in its lights has gone home.  The gifts are unwrapped; the cookies are eaten.  The mail no longer comes with packages and cards bearing news of friends and family.  The days are still short; winter has just started.  The holiday has come and gone and I blinked and missed much of it.

It's easy for me, during this time of short days, to fall into a listless state.  I dislike getting up before the sun, but my work schedule just doesn't seem to allow for my starting at 9:30.  I also don't care to work past sunset, but they don't seem to want me to leave at 4:15.  (what's with these people?)

I feel ungainly; those cookies didn't go far when I ate them - they seem to have firmly attached themselves to my hips.  I'm not exercising as much - the cold, snow and wind conspire to keep me inside.

All of which makes me extra grateful for days like these past two - the sun has been out, we've had a temporary respite from the cold.  I was able to get out and exercise and breathe deeply of the warm air.  (it doesn't take a lot of days spent below freezing for a temp in the mid-40's to seem heavenly warm...)

As I was out walking today, I was caught anew in the beauty of the leafless trees.  Without their cover of green, I can better see the lines of the branches as they reach for the light.  I can see the scars marking limbs sacrificed to passing storms. 

And if I look closely, I can see tight buds on branch-tips waiting for the sure arrival of spring.  For though it seems far away now in the midst of winter's dark, these doldrums, too, shall pass.

Silent Night

There are a few things in this world that transport me immediately back to a when and where that have long existed only in my dreams.  One of the transport vehicles is the carol, 'Silent Night'.

As soon as the song starts, I am a child again, just into my teen years.

It is Christmas Eve, and we are on our way home from church.  The car is icy cold with the chill of the Minnesota winter's night.  Outside, the snow is brightly lit by the moon.  I am tired, yet happy.  It's been a good Christmas.

We sang the old familiar carols in church, and on the way home, we start singing them again.  Mom is singing soprano; her voice soars.  My oldest brother has learned to sing tenor, my sisters and I sing the alto part, the little kids join in for the parts they know.  To my ears, the music is as heavenly as the chorus that first welcomed the Christ child.

Though the car is cold, I am warm. 
I am warmed by my coat and hat and mittens. 
I am warmed by the bodies of my sisters and brothers; we are tightly packed into the back of the car. 
I am warmed by my full stomach. 
I am warmed by the thoughts of presents waiting to be opened when we get home.

The trip to the past always leaves me with a glint of tears in my eyes; it's been long and too long since I last heard my mother sing.  Yet beneath the tears, I smile - grateful still and again for the gift of music she passed on to me.

Sleep in heavenly peace...

Darkness

I always find this time of year, with its cold and dark days to be a trial.  It's been a bit worse since my camper van trip - before that I harbored the illusion that I could run from the darkness, now I know I can't; not and stay in the main part of the U.S.

The news is full of horrible things happening in other people's lives.  From Nature and her storms to the pain people inflict on each other.  Senseless deaths and beatings.  Hungry children and drunken fights.

Somehow, in the midst of this, the death of Nelson Mandela brought a bit of perspective to it all.  Among the many quotes of his in the news this week, this one struck home:

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

He was living proof of the power of light.  He forgave his enemies and worked for reconciliation for all races.  He spent twenty-seven years in prison, and made a good friend of one of his jailors.  He stood for what he believed.

Darkness is incapable of extinguishing light

I needed the reminder.   So often these days it seems that darkness is winning.  Then I hear stories of Malala surviving the shot meant to silence her, of a lady here in town who has begun a mission to pay it forward - to work to spread a message of good.  You hear of people who go out of their way to rescue lost children and pets.  Of those who work for the light anyways, even when it seems like the dark must be winning.

It doesn't seem possible that fighting the darkness can do any good - yet Mr. Mandela accomplished the impossible.  If he could keep spreading light from the confines of his prison, perhaps darkness is not as powerful as it seems.  There is hope.

In a few days time, the season will turn, the days will begin to grow longer and the year's cycle will begin anew.  There is hope.

There is hope.