Things to Think About

Good morning!

That's my big kalanchoe, up there. It is very tall, way taller than the Yazzybel.
It was given to me as a very small plant by my friend Elaine, who's a wonderful gardener.

That line coming down the left side of the photo is not coming from the kalanchoe; it is coming up from the "reed orchid" and probably eventually got a gorgeous fuschia colored multiple flower head on it. It's an epidendrum, and that is what the flower looks like. Mine are not orange, however. I got that picture from the web. I have true lipstick red ones, and fuschia ones, and one treasured white one which I am trying to keep going.  The fuschia ones are from my friend Frances, who has given me many plants also.  That is the good thing about gardeners; they are very unselfish with their plant progeny.

What I am most thinking about right now is our trip.  We shall have a house-sitter, who has been here a number of times before. His wife used to do it but I don't think she could put up with my slapdash housekeeping.  I like the husband fine, and so do the dogs.

And speaking of dogs, he just may not have any dogs to watch this year.  Both dogs are coughing a lot.  They  have that trachea condition that little dogs get, and they have it badly. The vet is not hopeful.  Birdy is the worst, and as soon as I observe that her quality of life is not worth it, we shall have to say goodbye to her.  Listy coughs too, though.  But I hate to put Birdy down and then have to have Listy try to  get used to single life AND have us gone at the same time, so we are trying to keep old Birdy going.  I notice that my tussin/DM cough syrup seems to do her some good and lets her get some rest.  I put a drop of it in a little cup, add a little water, suck it up with plastic dropper, and zappo!  Down the hatch.  About a tenth of it!!  It seems to calm her down, for when she cannot breathe she gets panicky and gets worse.  As an asthmatic for my entire childhood, I know what it's like. She is at the "whatever works" stage of her life, I guess.

So, we have to get the house cleared out. Got rid of eight bags of "stuffe" last week, and am going for eight more this week as I can.  In the meantime, making boxes and bags of stuff to take to my kids who will never never come to see us and collect it for themselves.  We have three bedrooms, so we always put our private stuff into one of them and lock it away while we are gone.  One trip, we forgot to lock it and left the door open, LOL>  I always wonder if it is a good idea to lock a room, secret files or not.  If there were an emergency, there it would all go in a fire or whatever. Will, poof.  Health directives, poof.  Letters of old, poof. Jewelry, poof.  Decisions, decisions.

And then there's OUR health. Theo is recuperating from the blows to the face he took last weekend when he fell.  He seems to be doing OK. In the meantime, I have my general wooziness and vertigo to contend with.  We need a daughter! Living with us!!  Not gonna happen. So we continue to weed out, creep around, go to the store (our only exercise), and eat as well as possible.  I think being eighty finally caught up to me. I don't know what Taterton's excuse is!!  YAZZYBEL

Friday is the Day

Good midday!!

I frittered my time away today doing things like write email, talk money, and creep around trying not to have the vertigo.

So far the vertigo is not too bad this time. When I got to the TOPS I found that two other women are having it today, confirming my theory that our government, OR El-Qaida, are spreading viruses around for us senior citizens to catch.

When I weighed I had lost a pound, so regaled myself ,when Theo drove me home, with a Long John Silver's lunch--two pieces of fried fish, a few French fries, and two balls of what they call Hush Puppies. The fish--not bad, very crispy and mild tasting. I brought it home and doctored it with lemon juice, catsup with Mexi-Pep added, and sauce tartare (provided by Long John's). And I went to my garden to get a sprig of parsley and served it all up still hot, on a china plate. The ff's were not bad but I never eat very many anyhow as they are not my weakness.  And the Hush Puppies, soi dissant, are just awful.  Took two bites, one as bad as the other.  And the drink was sickeningly sweet Dr Pepper which I dumped and re-placed in a tall glass with ice water.  Not a bad lunch then.

That plant up there is an Angel's Trumpet. I believe it is a member of the Nicotene family and is just beautiful.  I'll never forget the first ones I ever saw, in La Jolla, in my piano teacher's yard. His were white. Those flowers are huge.  My plant has flowers of a yellowish color when they come out, and then they shortly turn to pale apricot pink. They are all droopy and darker by the next day, but they are just stunning. I have two of them, one in a pot that struggles every year, and one that I put into the ground which thrives.

Yesterday son Benjamin sent me flowers for Mother's Day, which he does nearly every year.  He sends them from ProFlowers, and you'd think I'd know the procedure by now: how to open them, prepare them, put them in the water in the vase provided. But I always mix up a bit. Anyway now that they are safely opened and relaxing on the coffee table, they are a charming mix of pinkish red asters, pink carnations, Peruvian lilies in a lavendar shade, and some white snowdrift blossoms.  I took their picture this morning and you shall be seeing them when I get them on the computer. Love, YAZZYBEL

Groan

Good morning!

That's my hair up there seen from the back in August '09.  Since they stopped dying their hair my sisters have (nearly) all been taking pictures of the backs of their heads to show how beautiful silver can be. Of course, I never colored mine.  My hair grows too fast and I am thrrrrrifty and wouldnt want to do it as often as necessary.

I put Groan as the title to this posting because, as I woke up this morning, I felt that loony blissful feeling that accompanied my bad vertigo attack two years ago this past February.  I was in Brownville lying in bed in the Rose Garden Motel, turned over, and immediately seemed to be floating over backwards on a huge -scale turn. This was very frightening as I'd never had any such feelings before.  I could not raise my head all day.  It got better as time went by, but the vertigo did not completely go away until seven months later when I signed up for a Yoga class. After the first session, the vertigo was gone, never to return, I hoped.

I know now that it's possible it will return, that it is already lurking inside my head waiting to revive itself to its fullest power.  I did some simple body twists upon arising (in a seated position) and seem to have staved off the worst for now.  We shall see.

Today we are going to Kaiser nearby to get glasses for the Taterton. (Glasses smashed due to Saturday's fall.)  I need an eye exam too but think I may just wait till after Cedar Rapids; glasses could not be made in time even if the appointment were today and that is very unlikely.

Everyone I know is a little bit under the weather. I think the government is spraying germs out of planes or hitting us with electronic beams from HAARP up in Alaska.  There's just too much of it going around.  If it were only we wrinklies who were showing the effects I'd think it natural. But I can't tell you how many younger (age of my kids) people who have said to me recently that they are having (memory, balance, recall, strength,sleep, general health) (pick one) (or two) issues.  How can this be explained, other than something in the air?  In the water? In our food?  Is it the telly? I dont watch that much. The internet? I do watch too much Internet; I simply love it.  But gotta ration it for a while, says the Purple-Garbed Physician.  I'll try.  I'll try. YAZZYBEL

Wednesday Music Day

Good morning!

Don't I wish that tomato above was growing in my garden right now!  That's an immature Brandywine as you can tell be the shape.  That was my best tomato year so far, and it was about three years ago.  But it is too early here for tomatoes that big.  They are all blooming away and I am probably not going to get fruit-set until we are gone on our trip.  I must warn the housesitter to keep an eye out.

I read that tomatoes need nights above forty five degrees in order to set fruit.  We have perhaps had a few of those lately due to our very warm days--but maybe not. Those covers still feel very good at night as they do all year and that's why we like to live in California.  Thank you, Pacific Ocean.

Well, I face another playing day without an ounce of practice.  I shall pay for it but the bad part is that P. must pay for it too.  She is very active musically, playing with and for people all the time at her church, so she comes with an enormous backlog of preparation that I frankly am just not matching these days.  Not anywhere near it.

Yesterday I guess I did not listen to my purple-garbed Inner Physician, for I must have just eaten too much all day.  By bedtime I felt miserable, hot and fat.  I was dragging.

 I think I will try that minimal diet that I have a hard time keeping to:
Bkfst is one egg , one toast, one orange, black coffee.
Lunch is clear consomme, a salad with no oil, one toast and a glass of skim milk
Dinner is: 4 oz protein, carrots, green beans, diet jello, and a glass of skim milk.
I can keep to that for about 2 days but on day 3 am starving. But my P-G Dr is staring me in the eye and I think I'd better try.

I have ordered The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock from Amazon dot com. I am sure I have it around here somewhere but have reached the point where it's easier to order it out for one cent than try to find it.  I think the book club might be ready to do some poetry, In fact, it would have been a good summer choice...all the books or assignments(!) for summer would be poetry.  Last  year it was detective stories but I didnt like that although I like some of them.  Once when it was my turn I prescribed that everyone bring a short poem and tell about it...I thought it was interesting and went very well, but nobody has asked for a rerun of it.

Well, now that I have rambled long I must take my bathy and wait for Patricia to come, full of hope that the playing will go well. Ah, well. YAZZYBEL

Tuesday After Book Club

Good morning!

There's Taterton, standing on the steps that he built about two years ago, down to the Lower Forty. We really needed them, for as you can see the yard is deep and steep at that point.

Did I tell you that he fell in the front yard on Saturday?  Well, he did. He hit his face, literally, on a brick planter bed, so got a serious smashing of his glasses into the skin of his face in a circle around the left eye.  I have a picture of it but I think I will spare my readership.  Of course, he would not go to the ER either on Saturday or Sunday, but by yesterday I had finally nagged him into going to the small walk-in clinic that Kaiser runs down here at Otay.  That was our undoing, for once we got into calling about it we got shuffled off to a triage nurse on the phone who after some probing heard the word "Coumadin," and sent us to Kaiser Emergency at the hospital at Zion ( a street, not a place==though it is a place).  That's another story. Long drive, difficult parking, long wait, long treatment session, long long long drive home.  We left at two thirty, walked in the door at home at five thirty.  Not too bad.  And his results were good; he got lots of positive attention and a good pronouncement as to his injuries.

The main thing he was asked, several times, was: Did you trip, or just fall down?
And, did you black out?  They want to make sure he did not have a stroke.  I think he did not. He had cat scan, heart tests, blood test.... He just goes out onto the uneven ground of our territory and takes tumbles.  So do I.  The dogs don't walk well now either. In their case I attribute it to Chinese dog food.  In ours--I don't know what, as we eat two distinct diets mostly.  Ah well, he looks better yet this morning so I see nothing but steady improvement from here out. (Except that he's going out to work in the yard later today.)

After we got home, the issue of book club came up.  My friend offered to bring me home, or for someone to come down and pick me up.  This is no small issue, folks. It involves adding a half hour each way onto someone's trip home after the book club.  Theo seemed to feel so much better that we agreed that he'd take me up, and somebody would bring me home.  Very kind on both parts.

So I went to the book club and we heard an excellent presentation by Phyllis.  And then we chose a date and meeting place for the next meeting.  July 11, folks. We shall skip June because we expect to be on our Cedar Rapids trip somewhere along the way. And others will be gone too.  And the book--Anna Karenina!!!  There is a newer translation which I'll try to get as it looks interesting.  Of course we have done AK before (I think). I know I have read it and love  it though it rends my heart.

Then we had the best dessert I've ever had at the book club. Maureen had made a wonderful cold mango mousse. She served it in small cold cups with a dab of whipped cream topped with a flake of candied lemon peel.  And on the side, a madeleine she made herself.  Wow.  It was perfect.  She made the madeleines in the hope that we'd be celebrating the choice of Swann's Way for our next book, but it was not to be.  Conscienceless, we gobbled them up anyway.

And the book, Old School, by Tobias Wolff?  Well, I for one had figured out the name of the nameless hero--Tobias.  But I'm cynical.  It was a good book anyway, in its parts.  Lee brought me home and we talked and talked.  I am lucky to have such very good and nice friends. YAZZYBEL 

Monday after George

Good morning!

That is the beginning of a sketch of crotons I made on the computer. I don't know why  I never finished or refined it.  I love crotons now. 

When I was a child, I hated all red or multi-colored leaved plants. I don't know why but the deep peace of green leaves really soothed my soul.  Now, I love colored leaves and the grayish plants, that stand out in three-D in a landscape, are favorites.  I have another croton sketch that will turn up sometime. It's also unfinished but more refined than that one above. I did it with paints.

Well, I did not go to St George's.  I have rarely skipped it over the years, but yesterday I was feeling fatigued so I made the last of my sandwiches, took them up to the church, and said adios.  Theodore and I went to Anderson's Nursery, where I looked for the tomatoes "Caspian Pink" and "Mortgage Buster" which were touted by the paper on Saturday.  I found neither one but did buy "German Johnson,"  hoping that German means pink, and "Fireball," which I hope is the tomato brought to me by a friend some years ago--huge and red and very tasty.

I decided that my purple-attired mystical doctor is telling me: Eat Less. So I did, was good all day until eating ice cream after dinner.  But did feel somewhat less fatigued from eating small amounts of food during the day.  It is nine thirty now and I just had a half of red grapefruit sweetened with a little maple syrup, so I hope that keeps me from feeling famished at midday and tempted to eat too much.

Last night Osama Bin Laden, the famous, was captured and killed in that order,(I guess) and dumped into the sea.  All that is very mysterious.  When I hear an announcement like that with all the newscasters jumping for very joy, I wonder at many things. The timing. The circumstances.  The details: why buried at sea, of all things?

When things are going on: the shuttle launch, the royal wedding, with all their hullabaloo which is mysterious enough in itself--I always think : There's another thing. There will be a third thing that is now hidden. I could not imagine what it would be. Now I know, it was the capture and killing of Osama. You know they've known where he was for ages. Come on.

Perhaps I am too big for my britches, commenting on national affairs.  That's OK, you may tell me so. YAZZYBEL

Sunday, May 1st

Good morning!

It's May Day!!!  Here at St Paul's, it's also St George's Day!!

I am not attending services but am going up to church to take the numerous small sandwiches I have made for the celebration of St George this afternoon. I made cheese and butter (freezable) , peanut butter and honey (freezable), and chicken salad with mayo, green and red pepper bits, and decorations of nasturtium leaves and baby aragula  and parsley. (Not freezable so I made them this morning.) I always like to make some decorated sandwiches because they look so pretty on the table.

After church we are going to drop by Anderson's nursery where I shall look for my two choice tomato plants that I'll coddle along and hope the housesitter will coddle, hoping for some great tomatoes after we get back from Cedar Rapids in mid-June.  I have two names from the paper that I am looking for. We have the best garden section in our paper and I just love it.  The two tomatoes that catch my fancy are Mortgage Lifter and Caspian Pink.  Since they are heirlooms, Anderson's may not have them--but they may.  I love pink tomatoes above all others, and at the bottom of my list are grape tomatoes with cherry tomatoes a bit above. I like cherry tomatoes but only if already cut in two.

Yesterday, the Sons of Norway luncheon with my friend Janet and her son Will, and hundreds of other Norwegians, was just lovely. In a beautiful room, the Trellises Room at the Town and Country, set in a beautiful garden, we were served a really delicious halibut plate.  Fillet of halibut perfectly grilled set upon a trio of asparagus tips, set upon quarters of roasted red-skinned potatoes. We also got wine, and a dessert of chocolate mousse cake which I unwisely ate. It was good, though.  Folk songs of Norway and the US were sung. These are the nicest people you could ever meet, so friendly and welcoming.  A good time was had by all.

While I was wining and dining, my husband Theodore took a tumble in the front yard, falling straight to the ground and badly striking his upper face and glasses into the ground and a flower pot, and some part of his thigh on another flower pot.  He says he lay there for fifteen minutes waiting to get the strength to get up. The place where he fell is in our little secluded spot under trees and sheltered from the street and neighbors...not too wise I guess.  Anyway, he looked horrible when I got home and would not go to the ER.  Who could blame him?  I doctored him up a bit and he still looks bad today but no worse. His whole eye area is swollen up and he has a black eye kind of. Otherwise, he will survive.  Thank goodness. YAZZYBEL