Grief and Grieving and Mourning

Good morning!

That leaf is one of the reasons I love magueyes.  Look at that pink edge--audacious!!

I did not sleep much last night for thinking of Birdy and Listy.  Losing a pet is strange.  One tries to rationalize--they had a good life; we loved them dearly; not once in their lives were they ever mistreated; they were loved by many who came to know them.  It is never enough, is it?  Simply, we miss them.

Today was the first morning for fourteen years that I didn't go out to get the paper with at least one of them.  The last few mornings I had to lift one or both down the two front steps, and give them a boost as they came back up....but they were there. Now they are not with us.  The riddle of death.  My only reconciliation is that, as I am constantly expecting their company with me, their little noises and jingles and taps of their toenails on the hardwood floor, I realize that I am thinking of turning to see a couple of very old and sick little somebodies, which they were at the last.

I have lost a son.  He was extremely incapacitated at his ending, and my grief and mourning when he died were for that very handicapped person. Like mourning for a very small child or baby.  And I grieved for him that way.  At some point, the young very physically strong young man he had been took his place, and I had to go through mourning all again, this time, for the young man we had really lost two and  two-thirds year before.  Then the mourning was longer and will never go away, for his funny ways, his wit and wisdom, his problems, his passion for music and seashells and coin collecting, and his help in yard maintainance and gardening will never leave us.  We marveled  at his ability to go walking in all temperatures, in the evenings, and never get cold nor catch a cold.  He was, when not depressed, wonderfully amiable and cheerful to be around.  And loving.  And we mourn and miss him still.

Is it irrelevant or sacriligious to compare mourning for two nutty little chihuahuas (brains the size of a walnut, a friend of ours used to say: it was remarkable what they could do with those little brains) to the loss of one's own child?  No.  It isn't.
Whatever we are, wherever we are, we are all in this together, all part of this inexplicable and not understood medium we call our lives.  We were all together for a while, separated now in a way, and in a way not separated at all.  That is what we have to grasp.  Not separated at all, really.  Still part of the warp and woof.  Say, that's a funny.  Peace to all. Love to all. YAZZYBEL

Friday, Not What I Expected

 Good morning. It's always a good morning, but today it's a sad morning. Our little dogs, Birdy and Listy, had to be put down. 

They had been ill for quite a while. Birdy was ill longer than Listy, and was on prednisone tablets which kept her going for quite a while, but, of late, the effects were as bad as the illness and she was coughing coughing all the while.

Listy got sick more recently, but has been gagging and coughing and gasping uncontrollably and for the last couple of days neither ate nor drank at all.

We had wondered about, when the time came, how either of them might live without the other. They had been together for every moment of their lives on earth.  As it turned out, this eventuality did not have to be dealt with after all.  One wonders if, given the vote, how they would have voted but I think that it's part of being the demigod in the situation,--that it is the human being who has to decide, especially when their daily lives are so full of suffering.  We are going to bury them in the garden, and put four concrete squares over the top of their grave.  Flowers will be strewn.  Tears are being shed.

We are going to miss our most constant companions of the last fourteen years.  They were our closest companions and our very close friends.  We are going to miss their company, and we love them and shall miss them forever.  YAZZYBEL

Thursday, More About Books and or Movies

Good morning!

Theodore is reading me the warnings off the pages from the pharmacist about the medications he has taken for years.  It is difficult to concentrate on writing a blog under these circumstances.  If you are taking Warfarin, do not bleed, is the gist of this one. Hmmmm....who'd- a thought it?

I ordered out the old Jane Eyre from eBay, and it arrived yesterday afternoon.  I watched it immediately due to having eaten a large lunch out with prospect of a free later afternoon when we'd scratch from the refrigerator. 

It is amazing how beautiful this old black and white movie is.  Joan Fontaine is incredible.  She made Rebecca when she was nineteen, so must have made this shortly after, as she was still very young.  And there, dying in the hideous Lowood School, is eight year old Elizabeth Taylor, just as beautiful as ever.  And there, dancing ballet and frisking about charmingly at Thornfield, is very tiny Margaret O'Brien.  Talk about old friends!!!

Mr Rochester in the novel is a dramatic, brooding personage, full of emotion, rage, longing, and as such he is beautifully portrayed by a gloomily lit Orson Welles who did full justice to the role.  The quiet, understated Mr Rochester played by  Michael Fassbender(2011) might be preferable company for spending the rest of your life with--but--nah. We'd rather have the ups and downs of living with a real maniac like Orson Welles.  Certainly we'd rather have the watching of him.  One flaw in the old film (amongst others probably) (I have not watched it critically yet), anyway one flaw is that at the end of the film, blind as a bat, he swoops down and plants a wonderful huge kiss square on the lips of Jane...and you think--good, but...? Or do you think about it or are you just swept away as we ladies can be?

It's funny that Mr Rochester complains about being an innocent lad taken in by a conniving woman--twice.  How often do we need to be taken in before we wake up?  Often, apparantly.  He was taken in by marrying the lady who now resides in the tower...and he was taken in by Adelle's mother, a scheming dancing girl in Paris. He is a person led by his heart, apparently, and it is good that he finally fell in with Jane Eyre. His good luck.  Also good luck, as we learn in the last sentences of the novel and the 1945 film, that his eyesight comes back in time for him to see the huge brilliant eyes of his first son.  I remember reading that book and feeling so much pleasure and gratification when I read those words. Charlotte Bronte granted him and us that favor.

Now to another tack. If you want to read a good book, read Blue Desert by Charles Bowden.  Charles Bowden is an Arizona writer and desert rat sort of person who has written very very well about his beloved southern Arizona deserts and the activities thereon.  He also wrote a sequel to this book and it is good too, but what I remember is the enchantment I felt upon first reading his desert sketches.  I also liked, in the second book (title forgotten), was his description of a conversation with a Mexican lady during which she slowly slowly consumes a plate of enchiladas in bites so tiny he couldn't perceive that she'd ever finish it.  It gave me a heads up, me who is used to thinking of an enchilada as a four-bite item.  American women do eat like wolves, often.  A hearty appetite which is admired in a young girl can get pretty disgusting later on, especially as the eye follows the progression of those bites downward to generous belly and hips. No, the tiny-bite method is best, and, if you are lucky, you won't have time to finish it.

I got a phone call from Benjamin yesterday, from Minneapolis. I thought he was joking as he was supposed to have arrived in Wichita by then. No, there had been a flaw in the plane (that airline that was Northwest) and they were an hour and a half late in leaving SF.  They got to the first stop, Minneapolis, too late to make the connection, so he was hanging around for a ten thirty flight last night for Wichita. I suggested he go out into Minneapolis to get a good dinner somewhere, but he said no way would he leave the secure area and go through entering it again. Gosh, travel is becoming a nightmare. And my scientific son has become a traveling salesman at this time in history and I don't like it. YAZZYBEL

Wednesday Music Day I mean Lunch Day

Good morning!

That is Benjamin walking our two chihuahuas, Birdy and Listy. That picture was taken, I believe, at the Marina here in Chula Vista, where Theo and I used to walk our dogs.  I say used to, because none of the four of us can any longer take a walk of any significance.  There is something rotten in Denmark, my friends, when all four of us suddenly suffer from weakness and lack of muscle strength. With them it is the cheap Chinese dog food.  With us--what?
Well, we shall soldier on.  Today Patricia is coming to play piano, and in honor of Theodore's and my May birthdays, she is taking us out to lunch.  To Zorba's, perhaps, where, instead of zithers, there's a huge and fresh and delicious buffet lunch.  We'll love it and especially love it because there's not a lot of worthless starch. The cold buffet is all kinds of salads, and there 's hot soup: avgolemono, and lentil.  The hot buffet is the danger spot because there is wonderful patstitsio, pasta with tomato sauce.  But there are also fish and chicken, fried and broiled and with sauces.  And that great dish of cheese and spinach in phyllo ; perhaps I can essay a bit of that without getting my yeast cells in a fluster.  I am officially well from my dizziness and fatigue spell of this weekend, but my Purple Doctor is keeping an eye on me. YAZZYBEL

Tuesday, Book Reviews

Good morning!

Those little people were made by Theodore. I think they are adorable and I wish he were still working at woodcraft because he made so many projects that have a true "primitive" charm.  I took them to Alexander a few years ago and I hope he found a good place to put them out.  They really cheer up a window sill!!

I have been mostly in bed for the last few days so have been reading more than usual.  Ben left me two police procedural kinds  of books when he was here at Easter.  I have now read The Sentry by Robert Crais; this one is a Joe Pike book.
Joe Pike is an enigmatic figure, a sort of superhero. I found him a little bit incredible in this book.  And those dark glasses! He wears them day and night and when I read of that, all I can think of is my vision in my old age, when I go from spot to spot to try to concentrate every photon in the atmosphere on my page in order to be able to read it at all.  Dark glasses, indeed. Who needs 'em?

Then I read Michael Connelly's third or fourth Hieronymus Bosch book, The Last Coyote.  Aside from the protagonist's ridiculous name, I like those novels pretty well.  Connelly is a good writer.  So is Crais, for that matter, when it comes to putting sentences together to make some sense.  Connelly is more subtle and goes deeper into his characters somehow.

In The Last Coyote, Bosch goes looking for a killer--the person who killed his mother long ago when he was a kid.  It's an interesting chase.  The people all come to life.  When I thought that at last the story was over, it too had a long extension at the end when the real truth comes out.  In this case, the extension was necessary to the story's ending.  I thought it well written indeed.

I am not devoted to "mystery" novels as a rule. They are too gripping, too easy to read, and even if not too superficial, too light to consider as literature.  You forget them as soon as you put them away.  But Crais and Connelly, in their separate focuses, have one great thing in common: The City of Los Angeles.  We lived in Los Angeles for several months in 1958-9.  Think what it was like then, folks!!  We were seeing the last of an era.  I was fascinated by the place and never saw enough of it.  Since then, the great surge of Hispanic and Asian immigrants has irrevocably changed the face of the place, and we will never see that old Los Angeles again.  Have yall seen Blade Runner, that movie of the future? Those downtown scenes are so close to 21st century reality that it's uncanny, folks.  And Crais and Connelly in their characters of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike and Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer, and via the Police Department of Los Angeles, are keeping it all alive on the page in front of us. I love that. Love it that when the guys are chasing from freeway to freeway, canyon to canyon, park to park, ravine to ravine, seedy neighborhood to home of palaces, we can follow along and say, "Oh yes! I know that place!" So viva the lot of them. YAZZYBEL

Monday Feeling Better

Good morning! 

I feel better than I did yesterday.  But I think I still have the virus or whatever it was that made me feel so tired, and blue, and dizzy, the last few days of last week. I never think when I feel that way, "Hey--you're sick. You need to go to bed and sleep."  But finally I did and I feel better for it. When I woke up this morning I actually felt like getting up and making breakfast.  Am tired again now already, but that is OK.  It's an improvement and I am going to go back to bed.

I 'll finish reading The Last Coyote, by Michael Connelly.  It's a Hieronymous Bosch book, and I hate serieses..seria...serials...Theo looked it up in the dictionary, series is the plural sez Webster. I don't believe it. Anyway, serial books with serial detectives are so boring...the author assumes you know all the cute quirks of that hero and are going to say (as I say when I see Mrs. Lynde again in the Anne of Green Gables books, "Well, there's good old Mrs. Lynde, chuckle chuckle,")  ,    " Oh goody there it is...that cute quirk. Now I know it's good old (blank)". Grr.  However, M. Connelly is a very good writer and his character, though quirky enough for quite a long series of books, is interesting.

It's a good day to go back to bed. Gray and cold. Duh. I didn't make enough of the beautiful beautiful days we had last week (when I was breathing deeply and taking in viruses)...but they were wonderful.Wonderful not to need warm warm comforters at night, and to be able to wear shorts and short sleeves about the place without getting gooseflesh.  Isn't gooseflesh the most horrible word. (Word for the day.)

That sunflower was in my garden two years ago. I like the multicolored ones. One year I planted a huge flock of Martha Stewart Italian White sunflowers--my favorites. But the dark ones are very good too.  That bed now has my sages and parsley and thyme and arugula. I also planted chard but think it got washed away when I watered. Should have started it in a pot.  I am wondering if I should turn up a lot of that area and let it rest while I'm gone to Cedar Rapids and points otherwhere. The arugula is tall and bitter and tough.  The sage that bloomed so beautifully should probably be cut back and given a rest...the parsley is going to seed and its leaves are bitter too...needs a haircut and a rest...I have those new tomatoes in pots, lots of flowers, no fruit. Perhaps Don the housesitter will have a nice little bonanza. Or, bonzana, as Greg used to say when he was a little boy.

Off to the tub and the bed and the book. Ahhhhhhh!!! YAZZYBEL

Mothers' Day--I love 'em all!!!