Unearthing a life.....

I came across this old photo this afternoon and scanned it so's I could forward it on to a childhood friend that I just made contact with after about fifty-four years. This fellow's name was Knute Holstein. He was more-or-less a hermit who had a cobbled together place up on Royal Slope decades before there was a Highway 26 running across it, or irrigation, or Royal City, or any of that. The rumor (amongst us kids) was that Knute had killed a man once ... maybe even two men. A Swede with considerable accent, he lived up on the 'slope' with his chickens and a small herd of goats. If you drove the old dirt road that went by his place, the goats all scrambled up on the roof of a shed and watched your approach. Maybe once a month he'd drive his old Model T Ford down to Smyrna for 'supplies'. For him, supplies were the occasional piece of mail, a large box of soda crackers and some tins of 'snoose'. Other than that he seemed to live off his chickens and goats.

I think that is my '53 Chevy in the background, so this probably was taken ca 1955. The sloped tarpaper surface on the left is the covered stairway from our Section House porch down into our dirt-domed root cellar. It was also the late summer night escape route from the upstairs bedrooms, across the kitchen roof, and down the incline .... to meet other teens who might have arrived on horseback in the dark. The dark chunk of building on the right was a small garage that my brother and I turned into a summer 'bunkhouse'. The white building in the background was the section laborer's house. A few years after this (and after I was long gone) it burned to the ground one night, killing the friend and neighbor who lived there.

I watched Tim Russert raking Gov. Richardson over the coals on the TV this morning. Russert was in his face with the usual "here's what you wrote two years ago and here's what you said last week ... how do you explain the contradiction?" And it doesn't do Richardson any good to say "I was wrong then," or "I've had to change my mind," Russert is only interested in carping on about contradictions. I'm sick and tired of all these talking heads and talking news-heads and shouting psuedo-news-heads doing their level best to DESTROY every candidate who dares to run for the presidency. I'm even getting tired of them destroying the candidates I hate. Richardson seemed like a nice guy. Russert not so much.

PETALS FALLING

I just couldn't leave that ChemoGuy shot as my last photo .... so here is a small ray of photographic sunshine to help wash away the darkness.

This picture is the product of the mind of Frau Bookworm, who sneaked her camera into the clinic and blazed away at me in my Recliner-of-the-Day. It seems a little macabe to me ... so I gave it a golden border.



And there was some golden news from the Doc. I've been saying, for the past week, that it seems to me that I'm breathing deeper and he verified that when he listened to me breathing with his stethascope and announced that my breathing was much, much better. His attitude was almost triumphant! I take that as a good sign.



Yesterday (the day after) I had a good morning, but 'crashed' for the afternoon. Fellow(ess) blogger 'MOM' droped by about 5:30 with a container of spagetti and meatballs and microwaved me up a plateful. This morning I am feeling pretty good again ... good enough to attempt to blog. And it seems to me that this is a bit better than last time. As I recall, I spent the mornings 'crashed out' also for the first four days after. Another good sign?



And yesterday's mail came with a lovely surprise. A package from Amazon.com with a CD of readings by the poet Billy Collins and a kind note by the sender, Florrie B. of the KUUF. I've had to reciprocate with a CD of my own favorite (humorous) poet, David Lee. I wonder if that qualifies as one of Bookworms proposed Three Good Deeds for the day?

This blog post 'crashed' as I tried to file it this morning. Two-thirds of it was auto-saved as a 'draft' when that happened, so I've tried to reconstruct the ending. It's now afternoon and I'm feeling a bit rougher, so will not linger on here.

I thought my energy and alertness had gotten into gear last week (and I do believe that it did), but this week has not gone as comfortably. I've gotten very tired in the afternoons and have had a trio of brushes with hypoglycemic reactions.

Bookworm's office move is in high gear. A workparty of friends will truck her files and furniture back here tomorrow afternoon. Poor departed Dakota will not be here to welcome the clients with his outsized barking.

And my blogginh ambitions are in low gear. Or no gear. Or stripped gears.

.... or "What do you have in your little magical medicine cabinet?"

I want to fly away with the Jefferson Airplane and not have to think about this coming Monday with its gift of bagged poisons. Dr. Ted J. came by this afternoon ... to visit and to nail the lid down on his taking me to chemo Monday. My brain is getting pretty half-assed here this week. I had 9:00 AM appointments for some breathing rehab at Capri on both Tuesday and this morning. I've blown right by both appointments and not woke up to that fact till mid-afternoon. Sorry, Ann!

....and into the light! I went back to the scene of the chemo crime this morning and had a blood workup of some sort. Where they snap you on the finger with what feels like a major staple gun ... then squooze out a few drops of blood. About twenty minutes later, a nurse came up to us (Bookworm being with me) and announced that ALL my numbers were GREAT, including the white blood cells (or platelets?). Major good news!

On the way home, Bookworm informs me that this is the step that most of her clients (experiencing chemo for various cancers) fear the most. Being previously unaware of that, I hadn't bothered to be concerned about it. Maybe next time.

Anyway, these rosy with health tulips [above] represent my 'great numbers'. Long live the 'great numbers'!

This year Mother's Day has slithered up on me like a snake in the grass. I expect, by the end of July, a number of days will have slithered up on me without apparent due warning. And I would like to list some appreciations here for those Sisters of Mercy who are sustaining me (past, present, and future) in this, one of my dimmer hours.

Happy Mother's Day, Bookworm. Without your constant love and day to day, minute to minute care and attention, I might well be treading pathways of confusion here. You've kept the medical elements organized, and more importantly, moving ahead.

Happy Mother's Day, to daughters Kelly and Erin and acquired daughter Angela. You've all shed tears and then come around and given me your hands on love and help with the needs at hand. From housekeeping, to cooking, to planting ornamental grasses.

Happy Mother's Day to my sisters Norma and Doris. Thanks for taking the initiative to increase our sibling contact.

Happy Mother's Day to the blogging ladies! To Bookworm and NoApologies (and, by natural extension, Ann) and BrownShoes and 'Mom' ..... all those whose writings keep me entertained and motivated to keep writing myself. To all the messages of love they've sent my way.

Happy Mother's Day to my Sisters of Mercy who have formed up a support group behind Bookworm and myself .... to help us keep out of time and appointment binds .... to help us keep our life on track. My deepest appreciation to Ann L., Darlene J., Mary Ellen D., Liz S., Margo R., Jean F. and several others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Peggy D. and Jennifer S.

I love you all!

.....I'm coming back as a blonde. I've given the dark hair a good workout. Enough of that. Enough Taurus and steadiness and oldest child. Let's just belay all that the next time.

I think I've caught the Beach Bum effect here. Not having to BE fashionable 'cause I AM fashion. It's a pity beaches are basically boring. They tie their monotonous butts to the geologic time scale. So I would be a Beach Bum in name only. Being munched off a boogie board by a Great White is not my idea of blondes having more fun. Better to live inland. At an elevation. Where it's cool. Throw up a cabana, lean the the various flotation devices against it and dream of the surf while napping.

What else do blue-eyed blondes get to do? I'm drawing a blank here.

When I was a lad 'tending the Christian Church in yon Othello, WA, we had a blonde minister with pale blue eyes. He was intensely spooky and ghostly looking .... eyes of ice. And, it seemed to me, that he had pinned his future claim to heavenly glory on the idea that he was, from the pulpit, going to preach my dark-haired soul forward to a meeting of minds with Christ His Lord somewhere down there near that pulpit. And then it would likely come to pass that he would immerse me, whereupon I would inhale water, choke, and thrash about like the very Devil. [This was the same problem my Dad faced every time he tried to teach me to swim. The victory of fear and the struggle to survive.]

I did accidentally learn to swim when I was thirteen. I was somewhat amorously chasing a young lady around the edges of a swimming pool when I became over-excited and launched myself across a deep corner of the pool .... thinking to intercept her route, I suppose. Rather than silently sink like a stone, I actually swam three or four strokes and that was it. I never did turn out to be a good swimmer. And unfortunately the minister had moved on some years before and was no longer there to issue his weekly summons. Not that I would have ever ventured pulpitward anyways.

I recall, during the latter days of WWII, preachers used to come down to Crab Creek Valley and hold forth in the Smyrna schoolhouse of an evening. I think they were from something called the American Sunday School Union -- something along that order. They were fairly young people. Male and female. Played accordians and sang loudly and kept the beat with vigourous tapping of very large feet.

The preaching was loud and full of righteous bite. Maybe a tad bit too much righteous bite. Folks would come from Corfu (east) and Beverly (west) and there would be a hymn singing storm. By the light of kerosene lamps. One night there was a pretty little girl from Beverly there with her old grandma and a couple siblings. I was in love with that girl all evening ... despite the fact that her granny looked like the witch the house crashed on in Oz. The preaching got pretty hot and heavy and I was just sitting there gawking at the gal in holy adoration, when Granny caught the Spirit of the Lord and was suddenly on her knees between the rows of school desks crying out things in non-English and gathering her grandchildren down there with her.

As I recall, the preaching fetched up short, my Mother pointed at the door and said "GO!" And we went. With swiftness.

My last posting (of last Monday evening) was unduly optomistic ... the triumphant grin was premature .... all was not the easy path I thought I was trotting down.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday flat on my ever-lovin' butt, limp as a dishrag, so tired and beaten that I could hardly remain conscious. They were four very lost, lost days. Bookworm watched over me and tended me and kept me from self-harms way. I could barely eat, could not read, dozed off while the Mariners were winning and all in all was a real dull poke of a fellow.

Today (Saturday) there has been noticeable resurrection. I've been on my feet some. I went to Safeway and wandered around hanging onto a grocery cart. I've eaten more. And able to drink more. I may yet live. This time.