Add Water

As I was working at the castle this week, it struck me how easy my work has been made by the people who make plaster and mortar mixes. As I walked into the upstairs hall today, I took note of  the five different products sitting there waiting their turn to be used. I have plaster, sheetrock joint compound, mortar of two types (one for tile and one for tuck pointing stone), and grout.

To get each to a workable state, I just add water.

It gives me great respect for the craftsmen of yore. They had to know what they were doing in order to get the mixes right. This much sand, this much lime, this much cement to mix mortar. Leave out the lime, mix properly, and you get grout. This much lime or gypsum, cement and sand, viola, plaster. Lime and talcum powder (and other optional stuff) renders joint compound.

Me, I'd have no idea where to go to gather the correct materials, let alone properly mix them to get the desired goop. Probably, the separate components can still be purchased, but I'm pretty sure there aren't many left around who'd have any clue of what the proper mortar recipe might be. We've forgotten how to mix the ingredients to come up with a compound that will hold a wall together instead of crumbling into a pile of sand as soon as it dries.

And then my mind wandered to the everyday miracle elixir we call water; the 'just add water' part. Let the seed of a plant have access to air and water, and it will begin to grow. Add a cup of hot and a cup of cold water to jello mix, and you get a favorite childhood treat of mine. I drink several bottles of water each day, turning on the faucet and refilling my container without conscious thought. On the hot days of summer just past, I'd have not gotten in more than an hour or two of work each day without it. I can tap a few buttons on my phone, turn on the sprinkler system and water the yard - the water will cost me just a few dollars, and it will keep the grass alive. Take it away from most plants for more than a couple of weeks, from people for more than a few days, and life ends.

Where I live, tap water is clear, free of toxins, tasty. I don't have to walk to a well to draw a container full and sloshily carry it home to have something to drink. It's so easy for me to take it for granted - I appreciate the reminder, wherever it came from, that this is a huge blessing, a luxury.

So, let me raise a metaphorical glass to the brilliant people who measured and tested and came up with foolproof recipes for all kinds of things to which we can just add water. They've made my life better, and for this, I am grateful.

No More Drugs

To increase my chances of keeping my cancer at bay, I'd been taking Tamoxifen for the past eight years. I'd done pretty well on it, but since I've officially reached menopause, it was no longer an effective deterrent, so my oncologist switched me to Arimidex, one of the aromatase inhibitors, several months ago.

It was not a happy switch. There's a long list of negative side effects with the drugs, and before long, I was experiencing a lot of them. Swollen and achy joints, unhappy digestive system, uneasy sleep, almost daily migraines (mild ones, but still!). The worst part was the depression. I've struggled with it for years, but have learned some great coping tools and usually manage to keep it more-or-less under control. Not this time. I went down, down and down some more. Enough so, that when I went in to see the doc for a checkup, I planned to ask her for an antidepressant prescription.

When I got to my appointment, she asked how I was, and I responded, "Whiny." I then proceeded to go through my list of woes, hoping she'd have some options to help alleviate the worst of the side effects. To my surprise, when I'd finished, rather than telling me to keep bucking up, she said, "I think you've had enough. You've stayed on the drugs for eight years. While ten is the gold standard, few of my patients ever make it past seven. You've reached your toxicity tipping point."

And with that, I was done.

While I'm thrilled to begin to see what life is like without drugs whacking out my hormones, I also find myself a bit apprehensive. The drugs were the magic potion that kept my cancer away. If I no longer take them, does that mean my cancer will come back?

It might. And, I might get hit by the margarita truck tomorrow.

Today is the only day I have; I will do my best to make it a good one.

It's been a couple of weeks since I stopped taking the drugs, and I have already seen some improvements. My poor little sausage fingers are much better, sometimes I can actually curl them into a fist again. My digestive system is slowly recovering its equilibrium, and my appetite is returning. The headaches have largely abated (whew!). Sadly, I'm still not sleeping well, but this is where I pause and give thanks I no longer need to get up at a certain time to get to work each day. I'm still struggling to climb out of my depression hole, but at least I've managed to halt the downward spiral.

It'll take another month or two (at least) for my body to regain its balance. It'll be interesting to see where I land. I know it won't be back where I started - eight years is a long time, and I have a feeling that I'll discover that some of the things I'd been blaming the drugs for will actually turn out to be normal signs of aging. 

Despite everything, I still can't quite manage to think of myself as a cancer survivor. Rather, I give thanks each day I finish NED, with No Evidence of the Disease. So far, so good.

Random Kindness

 

I got up bright and early Saturday morning, and headed off to the castle. It was raining for the first time in at least a month, the kind of rain the plants love. Not too heavy, not too light, rather, a steady drip from the skies granting relief to the parched soil.

I pulled up to a stoplight, and had to brake hard on the summer-oiled pavement, activating the antilock brakes. My entire dash lit up with an array of lights - the expected slippy car and ABS lights, yes, but also the low charge indicator on the battery - and the engine died.

I turned the key off, then back on, trying to restart the motor. The only sound from under the hood was the click, click, click from the starter. I tried again, same results. The light changed, and I tried to turn on my flashers to alert the cars behind me. No dice, I didn't have enough charge even for that. I opened my door and waved the cars to go around me; with some grumbling and just a little honking, they did.

As it pulled around, a beat-up old orange pickup of dubious vintage slowed, then backed up to park directly in front of me. The driver, a thirty-something guy with a medium build and a long beard, wearing jeans and a "Freedom is a Right" t-shirt, with no mask in sight, hopped out into the rain and came back to ask me if I needed some help. In no mood to argue the merits of a mask in the midst of a pandemic (after all, we were outdoors, it was raining, and we were six feet apart), I explained what had happened, and he nodded sagely. "Yup, either the battery or alternator", he agreed.. Either way, the car was not going to start where I was stranded, and without flashers to alert oncoming traffic, I was in a dangerous spot. He said he had a chain, offered to pull me off the street and over to a nearby parking lot. A little leery, but unwilling to take my chances on a collision by leaving the car where it was until AAA would be able to show up in an hour, I agreed.

He'd done this before. It took just a minute to dig the chain out of the debris in his truck bed, and he quickly got it hooked up under my bumper and to the spot on his rear end where the bumper would have been mounted if said bumper was actually attached to the vehicle. We hopped back in our cars, and he smoothly pulled me out of harm's way, around the corner, into the lot, and neatly into a parking spot. (or two, but let's not get picky here!)

Let me pause for a moment to give thanks for power steering and brakes - the car was NOT easy to maneuver without them. I spend the entire less-than-a-minute I was being towed frantically yanking on the wheel and stomping on the brakes with all my might to avoid crashing into the back of his truck.

Now we were safely out of traffic, he offered to see if giving the car a jump would work. I readily agreed, and he went back to the cab of his truck, dug a bit more, and came up with a set of jumper cables. We popped the hood, he hooked them up, and we gave it a shot. The car started right on up. As we waited to see if the battery would take a charge, we chatted just a bit.

He said it was just chance that had him driving down the road behind me - if he hadn't needed to drop off a something with a friend nearby, he wouldn't have been anywhere near me. I thanked him, offered him all the cash I had on me - ten bucks - but he declined. He didn't want money for doing what decent people ought to do when they see someone in trouble and they can help.

After five minutes or so, we tried unhooking the cables, and the gauge immediately dropped to zero - there was no way the car was going to make it to the nearest auto parts store, just ten minutes away. I could see his wheels turning, wondering what else he could do, but I stopped him. I was safe, my car was safe, and I had friends I could call.

He smiled, said goodbye, climbed back in his truck and drove off before I remembered I hadn't even asked him his name.

Good Is.

---------

Footnote: I called Joe, and he was able to come get me. He ran up to the auto parts store, picked up a new battery and the car started right on up. Today, I took it to my mechanic - sure enough the alternator was also on the blink - and got it replaced. When I get tired of looking at the scratched paint on the bumper, I'll get it fixed. (his chain popped it a bit off kilter and messed up the paint). The $200-ish cost to repaint will be a small price to pay for a quick resolution to what could have been an ugly situation.

Castle Progress

I love having Joe, Rita-Marie, Joe B, and their pets stay with me, and they need to not be here any longer than is absolutely necessary. Both parts of the sentence are true. We are all playing nice and getting along pretty darn well. We've figured out ways to not step on each other's toes, and no one steals anyone else's cookies. Still, I don't think I'm just projecting when I say they are tired of essentially living out of suitcases and that they miss having their stuff around.

On a project this big, it's easy for me to get lost in the enormity of what has not yet been done and get overwhelmed, but when I take a step back, we've made tremendous progress.

When Ted was working on the plumbing, he started a string of messages - as he finished work each day, he'd take a photo of what he'd done that day and text it to us with a simple caption: Progress.

Enough photos, enough days, and the plumbing rough-in is now complete. Progress.

The electrical work is essentially complete. Progress.

The roofers came back almost two weeks ago, and are moving rapidly ahead. Their work is beautiful, and they fixed the leak above the third floor stairwell before it rained again, which means my hard work at plaster repair was not done in vain. Progress.

My attempt to learn to repair plaster without cheating and filling most of the hole with Sheetrock has been a success! *pats self on back* (see above photos) Progress.

Joe has finished building out the new shower for the bathroom. Progress.

We've finished hauling debris out of the house and garage. Since there's no more water coming in, we've been able to clean out the rotten stuff and treat what's left to get rid of the remaining mold. (turns out the magic answer to getting rid of mold you can get to is to spray it with two solutions: first, use borax water. After it dries, respray with straight vinegar. It takes a few days for the vinegar odor to dissipate, but when it's gone, so is are the active mold spores!) Progress.

I have been spending more time over there; I work every day I can. It doesn't feel like I get much done each day, but it turns out that showing up is over half the battle. By taking baby steps each day, progress automagically happens. Who knew?

We're still hoping they'll be moved in before the heating season starts. It's been a project and a half, but one day it's going to be a show place again. She's been neglected for a long time - it feels good to be part of the team working to restore to her former stately beauty. 

Happy 1st Birthday to Joe B.

 

What a difference a year makes.

A year ago, Rita-Marie was experiencing premature labor. Her water had broken too soon, and she was on complete bed-rest trying to make it 48 hours before giving birth, to give the lung maturing steroids a chance to take effect. Joe waited out the 48 hours, but not much longer before making his appearance.

While labor and delivery went well, he spent the next 23 days in the NICU learning how to eat, breathe and swallow. He was so small, so delicate, so still. I didn't realize until I met him how quiet preemie babies are - they spend ALL their energy growing with almost none over for moving.

We rejoiced when he had no breathing problems and was able to come home over a month before his original due date. He's been a champion grower ever since. He made his way to 5% on the growth charts by his November appointment; for his one-year checkup last week, he was in the 97th percentile for height and 85th for weight.

He's completely caught up to his age-mates. He's got the crawling thing down, and has started to use his little walker to help him take his first steps. He loves sticks; has mastered up-stairs. We have to keep close tabs on him when he's loose because there are times he'll get halfway up the stairs and decide he's tired and try to sit down. (I hope his complete trust that there will be always someone to catch him to keep him from falling lasts a good long time.) He hasn't mastered the down-stairs motions at all, so caution is warranted, but soon.  Soon.

He's selected his first word, "Uh-oh", but has otherwise gone a bit quiet. I miss the background noise of his happy babble - my theory is that he's busy sorting the sounds into words.

He's almost done being a baby - racing around the corner into toddlerhood as I watch. As much as I will be happy for all of us when he and his parents are finally able to move out of my home into their castle, I already dread the occasion, for I know I will miss seeing him every day. (On the plus side, their new home is much closer to my place than their old one, so I anticipate I'll be able to see him fairly often.)

I still find myself trying to hold on to the days, the hours; to capture those perfect moments when I walk into the room and he sees me and smiles his slow grin that reminds me of my dad's. While I will likely never figure out how to pause time, the futility of wishing I could has me learning to stop and savor the moments when they are there - no small feat. 

Happy 1st Birthday, Joe! I am so grateful you are here to brighten my days and lighten my heart. Keep growing strong; you're doing a great job!

Good Things

My friend Jean came by for a socially distanced drink a few days ago. She brought a box of ridiculous sunglasses with her, and let us each choose a pair. I got the sunflowers, Rita picked the flamingos, and Joe got the penguins. And, she brought me soap bubbles. I laughed.

When I was driving yesterday, I passed a tall, fifty-something, slightly stooped, white man standing on a street corner. He was dressed in a plain blue shirt and shorts, holding a tray of bubble soap, creating bubbles for the passing cars. No sign, no visible agenda, just iridescent bubbles floating serenely in the air. I laughed.

My daughter's landlord told her on Friday he was going to put his house on the market soon, and she'd need to find a new place to live. She got online, looked at the available options, and found a place that meets all her checkboxes. She visited it Sunday morning, and by Monday night had a signed lease; an amazingly short search time. One less worry.

Young Joe has spoken his first word: Uh-oh. He uses it in a versatile fashion. In his lexicon, it can be a question, a statement, uncertain, definitive, or some combination of the above. I think it's adorable!

My friend Tom has come by several times over the past month to help clean up the assorted piles of trash at the castle. Sometimes, he brings his grandkids, sometimes, he comes alone, always, he brings a cheerful attitude and willingness to haul wheelbarrow loads of stuff to the dumpster. When he helps, I can more clearly see the renovation work will not stretch on forever, even if it feels that way at times.

I had a wonderful visit with my sister in Minnesota last week; got to spend some good time with her, my granddaughter and my daughter. She hosted a socially distanced lunch for us, so I got to see some of my favorite family people. I got some rest, enjoyed exercising in the cool morning air, caught up with people's lives and was able to gain some perspective on the worries of my life. That's a lot of good from one week.

Oh, and she was able to get her massage therapist to come by the house to give me a massage. Wonderful!

I saw my formerly-tortured-by-bedbugs friend this morning. The infestation is finally under control - he hasn't seen any bugs in four or five days. He looks much better; has finally been able to get some good sleep again. (And, I have still found just the one at my house. If there were ever a time to beat the odds, this is it!)

I've been a little down, a lot overwhelmed. But when I stop to look, I find good in each and every day. Not great things - they are small things, even, but they are good things. They give me hope, help me take one more step. I am grateful.

Goodbye, Todd

Todd Bursch
Jan 1964 - Jul 2020

Cancer sucks. Just sayin'.

I liked him, but can't say, despite the fact he was married to my sister for 32 years, I knew him well. Todd was uncomfortable when thrust into large groups of people; a bit hard of hearing. Since our family is large, and I rarely saw him outside group gatherings, my sense of him is mostly filtered through conversations with my sister, Colleen.

He was a man who wasted few words. Once, he called Colleen, who was at an appointment at the hospital. "Haley (their daughter) is hurt. I'm taking her in."

That was it; the entire message. 

Colleen was at wits end. What????? By the time she caught up with them and learned Haley fallen on a piece of play equipment and managed to tear a big gash in her thigh, requiring stitches, Haley had been stitched up and taken care of. It took Colleen quite a bit longer to collect her scattered nerves and calm them down.

I do have a few treasured memories of my own. Back when my son was learning to drive, he was having trouble keeping the car centered in the lane, and I didn't know how to help him guide the car. Todd drove trucks for most of his life, and since we happened to be staying there overnight, I asked him if he'd give Joe a few pointers.

We went out in the car, and Todd watched for just a few minutes. From the backseat, I listened as, in his calm steady voice, he told Joe to keep the middle of the hood centered on the stripe on the side of the road. (or, in this case, since we were on a gravel road, the edge of the dirt.) It was exactly what Joe needed - he straightened out the car, finished the drive into town for whatever it was we were fetching, and from then on, had no more issues with wandering about his lane. I was most grateful for the parenting assist!

We first heard Todd had cancer shortly after we buried Libby; about eighteen months ago. They did surgery to remove his kidney; were optimistic the cancer was contained and they'd gotten it all. Sadly, their optimism was short-lived. There were a few rogue cells hiding out and by October of last year, they'd grown enough to show up on the scans. *sigh*

Kidney cancer doesn't respond well to chemotherapy, and they couldn't do further surgery because of the location of the tumor. The diagnosis set the end of the road, but Todd didn't let it stop him from living.

He made a lot of lifestyle changes - changed the foods he was eating and lost some excess weight to reduce the workload of his remaining kidney and liver. For several months, despite the diagnosis, he felt no ill effects; to the contrary, the changes he had made had him feeling better than he had in some time. He had time to tidy up some loose ends; to tell his people he loved them - no small gift.

But the cancer had its way, as cancer will. When he started to go downhill, he mercifully went down pretty quickly. Colleen told me his end was peaceful. His children were all able to be near, to say goodbye. As he left this world, they drew in and provided support for one another, continuing a lifelong pattern of close knit love.

Todd, I am sorry you have left this life too soon. I hope and pray you are in the better place your sustaining faith promised is beyond death's door. For me, you continued the lessons Libby started to teach; reminded me cancer is not the enemy. The enemy is fear. You didn't let fear rob you of the days you had - in these days of pandemic uncertainty, I needed the reminder of the lesson.

Rest in Peace. 

We will miss you.

Plans?

I've still been struggling with my lack of retirement plans. It seems I should have some, but beyond helping Joe and Rita get into their house, I don't. (And they SHOULD be in there sometime in the next few months.) Without plans, I feel adrift, directionless. I always told my kids they needed to have plans, because that way they'd know what they were deviating from - and here I am, not following my own advice.

Since I retired last October, I've tried several times to scope out a tentative path, but each time, life just didn't work out that way. (No thanks to COVID-19, which seems to delight in upending not only my plans, but those of most people on the planet.) 

Then, earlier this week, I stumbled across an editorial in the New York Times. The article isn't typical of them. I usually read the paper for its political and national news; to find a feel-good story about bread and roads and traveling and plans or the lack thereof was a surprise twist in my daily reading.

The author, Emily Scott, is a Lutheran minister; her story in the paper talked about leaving a long-term assignment and taking six months on the road in a camper van to recenter herself. (Sound familiar?) She experienced the same disconnection from time and place I did back in the long ago when I was able to take my similar journey. She speaks of Jesus gathering people, yes, but also scattering them in ones and twos to carry on his ministry. She speaks of her longing to share bread; to share a meal with a large group around a crowded table, bumping elbows and passing the food.

I read the article several times, convinced it was written just for me, placed in the paper because my soul needed to hear her message.

She ends her piece by saying:

In Erie, Pennsylvania, I rolled into a campsite and backed my van up to the edge of the great lake, surrounded by Harley-Davidsons. I shared a beer with a biker who had one thing to tell me about my trip: Don’t plan a thing.

“Because all my plans will fall apart?” I asked.

“Not only that,” he answered, “but because when you don’t plan, things will happen you wouldn’t believe.” He winked, his bristle of mustache rising mischievously as he smiled.

During this pandemic, I can’t depend on communion each Sunday as I used to. But there will still be bread. Here, on the road, between the old life and a new one, we have the opportunity to be remade. Who will we choose to become?

The pandemic has changed our lives. Like when I took off in the camper van, when it subsides we will not be where we started, nor will we be able to go back there even if we want to. This is a scary time, yes. But that doesn't mean there isn't wonder to be found ahead on the road.

I needed the reminder. Thank you Rev. Scott

Link to original article:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/opinion/start-looking-and-youll-see-roads-all-over-the-bible.html

New Skills

3rd floor stairwell

There's nothing like a project house to teach one new skills.

The front bedroom of the house has some water damage on its curved ceiling. Normally, when I do a plaster patch, I reinforce the hole, cut a piece of sheetrock to more-or-less fit, and tape and mud around the edges. In this case, that won't work. Sheetrock doesn't curve well. 

I looked up methods of traditional plaster patching on the internet. Near as I can piece together, the best way to properly patch plaster is to repair the underlying lathe boards, apply a couple of coats of plaster patch, then end with a coat or three of Sheetrock joint compound. (If you're really good, you can do plaster on all the layers, but the stuff is deucedly hard to sand, so the method does not come highly recommended. And, I'm moderately OK, but I'm not really good at this. Let's not kid ourselves.)

While I am pretty sure my patching skills are up to the task, I decided maybe, just maybe, I should practice on an out of the way repair spot first, before tackling the highly visible bedroom ceiling. What the heck. So, earlier this week, I started on the fix on the ceiling of the stairwell going up to the 3rd floor. The spot meets all my test criteria - it's out of the way, a similar type of ceiling repair, and approximately the same size as the hole in the front bedroom.

So far, it's going pretty well. I replaced the rotten lathe strips (and even put a new piece of insulation behind the boards). I covered all that with a first, then a second coat of plaster patch stuff. It didn't start out so well. Every time I'd pick up the knife full of goop and start to apply it to the ceiling, a good half of it would fall to the floor and get dirt crumbs in it which made it useless. I cussed under my breath, kept at it, and figured out the trick to make the stuff stick. I also learned to hold the mud bucket underneath the putty knife, so when it didn't stick, it would fall back into the bucket where I could try again.

Today, I put the first coat of Sheetrock mud on the mess. I wasn't sure how to tell if it was even close to level across, then remembered a trick one of the guys who once did work for me told me. You take a long straight board, hold it straight against the undamaged part of the wall, and let it overlap the patch. Slide it down the wall, and it'll scrape away the high parts. I tried it, and sure enough, it worked. *whew*

I figure it'll take me a couple of extra coats of mud and sanding to get it remotely level, but I do think I've got it. It was definitely a good idea to practice in an out-of-the-way spot first. 

Yup, yup. I can picture the final ceiling now. I'll be showing someone the restored house and say, "see where I patched the hole up there?  No?  Great!" Then, I'll smugly mentally pat myself on the back. Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks?

Happy 4th!

April lasted forever, but June just came and went without pause, so I'm pretty sure I now know where all the extra April days were pulled from. It does work that way, does it not?

Despite COVID, I had a wonderful 4th of July holiday this year. The original plan was for my niece to come into town from Minneapolis, and then the two of us would head to the Kansas hinterlands to visit her brother near his army base (his travel was limited to a fifty mile radius of base), but at the last minute, he was able to snag permission to expand that radius to 150 miles, which allowed him to come on in to my place. (which made us all happy - his sister got out of extra hours of driving, he got a break from his work at the base, and we all got to see more of him than we would have been able to in the nearby town where we'd originally planned to meet. As they say, win, win, win!)

It wasn't an action-packed weekend; we stuck close to home, but I think we were all good with that. We talked and laughed a lot. We ate too much good food, as is proper for the holiday. We enjoyed the baby, and even managed to get in a little bit of work at the castle, cleaning out the basement.

The visit left my heart a lot fuller, the aches of my soul eased just a bit.

I am introverted by nature, and sometimes don't realize the toll the isolation imposed by COVID is taking on my spirits until I skirt the quarantine rules to make room for the physical presence of people I love and miss seeing. Hugs are important, and thank goodness baby Joe and his parents are staying here, because otherwise I'd be starved for contact.

Speaking of the baby (which I can do at length at the drop of a dime these days), Joe is a study in motion these days. He started to crawl a couple of weeks ago, and gains in speed, agility, and dexterity by the day. We are trying to teach him to avoid light sockets and to be careful around stairs. So far, we've had far better luck with the former - if we say 'no' when he reaches for the flat plates, he quickly loses interest. However, when the single stair between the living room and porch catches his interest, and he zooms over there to try to figure out how to negotiate it, he is much harder to divert. So, when this happens, I usually just go sit on the floor and play catch the baby as he works on mastering the challenge.

Life is Good.

P.S. Bedbug update: Against all odds, it seems that I did manage to bring just the one bedbug home. (??!!!!??) On the recommendation of a local pest control company, I invested in pheromone and bed leg traps - they won't get rid of an infestation but will give you an idea how many resident pests you are sharing space with. The guy said, if we had bugs, we'd see evidence of them within 3-4 days after installing the traps. It's been almost two weeks, and the traps are all still clear. I don't want to jinx anything, but am starting to be cautiously optimistic. Maybe we've managed to dodge a bullet.  Maybe???  I hope???