Tag Archive | friends and neighbors

Cherry Pie

Jun24

That old ditty Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy, can she bake a cherry pie charming Billy? has been running through my head since yesterday morning when I set out to do just that. Turns out yes she can.

I used a new crust recipe that included butter and cream cheese, and chose to par-bake it though the pie recipe didn’t call for that. It was a partly successful choice.

It made the lattice top harder to attach, but with the clever little tool the lattice was a lot easier to make. However, I think I’ll give away the tool. Though the top crust looked pretty, there wasn’t enough of it. Next time I’ll try a handmade lattice or just leave it solid.

The bulk of the cherries came from Deb’s freezer, from a local organic orchard. Those few little brighter red cherries? They’re from my baby tree. It was fun to throw all nine of them in, and the gesture was well-received at the ‘family dinner’ up the hill.

Little Wren had fun with her friends Josie and Oso, though Oso spent most of the evening challenging a ground squirrel under his mama’s car. I’m grateful for having good-hearted, like-minded friends in the neighborhood, and for spending a comfortable evening savoring seeming normalcy despite the rogue president’s unconstitutional bombing the night before.

Wren inspects my work finally planting one of the little willows Garden Buddy gave me last fall.

This week’s value in the Mindful Life Community is Action, and today’s guidance centered on this quote.

“Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’ It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is ‘How can I make it better?’ To that there is an answer.” Leo Buscaglia

My challenge these days is finding the balance between these two questions. I wish this government’s policies weren’t rooted in the three poisons of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion; but they are. I wish I could do more to make the world a better place, and I suffer from feeling that I don’t do enough. Are my expectations, of myself and of human nature, unrealistic?

If you’re experiencing similar distress or confusion you might want to check out the free Mindful Living Skills webinar on Thursday online: Working with Expectations in a Time of Uncertainty. Click here to register or learn more.

Topaz lounges at the pond while Wren and I work.

Some days I just hate the lessons I learn! This evening I learned not to wear hearing aids to work in the garden. There aren’t a lot of mosquitoes, partly because I make sure there’s no water left standing long enough to breed them, even in the catch dishes under potted plants. But there are a few. One got caught between my ear and the hearing aid, and I couldn’t get it out. The buzz was strikingly loud, of course, but beyond that once I pulled out the hearing aid every effort I made just drove the killer insect deeper. There were no Q-tips downstairs so I had to hurry up the stairs as fast as I could, which still isn’t fast or graceful; the swab didn’t get it, so I hurried back down and grabbed garlic-mullein ear oil from the medicine cabinet and filled the ear to try to float it out; shook out the oil, swabbed inside, and could still feel it. After a hot shower and another Q-tip, my ear still doesn’t feel right. I pray that the damn mosquito didn’t bite my eardrum and send West Nile virus directly into my brain. Sigh. First world problems.

And a first world solution: sour cherries over chocolate chocolate chip ice cream, for a brief moment of forgetfulness. Savor the simple pleasures, while we have them.

Balance

Apr28

It’s been an emotional week. I’m sad the benevolent pope died, adding one more layer of global uncertainty. I learned of the death of a significant ex and through his obituary of the prior deaths of two of his siblings I was fond of. The DOGE disaster continues to wreak havoc on the country. Friends are suffering various losses in ways I can’t ameliorate. The mental/emotional tension before, during and after a couple of fraught conversations with neighbors sapped more of my energy and attention than I would have wished—but certainly far less than it would have before developing mindfulness skills.

There’s a big stew of suffering swirling inside. Finding peace in the yarden has been extra important. Most mornings I’ve sat at the pond for coffee after meditation, and enjoyed the blossoming crabapple, the frogs, and the tiny dingo’s delight in following her nose and her whims around. Sitting quietly for awhile each day with water burbling and leopard frogs gurgling keeps things in perspective. There are at least six fat, happy frogs in the pond. I’m grateful for this sanctuary and all the conditions that allow me to savor moments of peace and joy.

I’m grateful for making time to finally cook this so simple, so delicious chicken florentine that came together in about half an hour.

I made myself eat only one portion last night so I can enjoy leftovers for three more meals, which I did for lunch today: In the next-to-last giant spinach tortilla, I rolled up lettuce, chicken florentine, avocado and mayo for a yummy wrap.

As I wrestle with my personal patriarchal demons, Mother Nature nurtures me. Is there a more feminine shrub than the lovely lilac? I think not. You’d think I’d have learnt by now to be comfortable with aggressively assertive men, having grown up under the Colonel’s temper. But maybe that’s why it’s still so hard. And the National Abusive Relationship we’re all in is a constant low-grade trigger that I keep trying to write about and shying away from. One of these days I’ll find the words…

Other good things that kept me in balance this week included some wonderful connections with old friends, being ready for the first hummingbird who arrived just after noon, and seeing the little cherry tree in full bloom. And satire:

ROME (The Borowitz Report)—A man who fell asleep during Pope Francis’s funeral was “already going to Hell,” God clarified on Sunday.

Although snoozing during the pontiff’s funeral was “beyond rude,” the Almighty said that the man clinched his place in the netherworld “decades ago.”

“If I hadn’t already made up My mind, the last hundred days would have made him a slam dunk for eternal damnation,” He said. “I mean, deporting a two-year-old? Come on.”

The Heavenly Father said the man’s decision to wear a blue suit at the funeral “wasn’t a factor” in his going to Hell, but was nevertheless “incredibly assholic.”

In another observation from the funeral, God noted, “Interestingly, Sleepy Joe Biden managed to stay awake.”

Standing on My Own Two Feet…

Oct5

With a Lot of Help from My Friends

Sunrise at home, from the rented hospital bed. Grateful.

I am two and a half weeks out of surgery. The new hip is settling in nicely, and I marvel daily at the total and astonishing absence of the arthritis pain that plagued me for so many years. I have been ‘pain-different’ since I left the hospital, with a continually diminishing pain that has been much easier to bear than the chronic, debilitating variety of aches, stabs, and sears I tolerated for so long. Each day there is a little less pain and a little more strength and mobility. I am strictly constrained in the ways that I can move the left leg until a total of six weeks have passed, after which I should be able to move in any way I want. Meanwhile, I take baby steps, first only with a walker, and this week using a cane more and more. Yesterday I walked all the way to the back gate for the first time. It’s a miracle.

Cousin Mel recovered from covid for one day before suffering a rebound, and remained consigned to the outdoors when she felt up to visiting us and helping without outside chores including garden watering and Wren-walking. We were profoundly grateful for the generosity of one friend in offering her empty home where Mel could isolate and recuperate.

Wren loved all the aunties coming and going, and Topaz did not. I’m especially grateful to Pamela, who offered to come stay over the first six nights, and much of the first few days, and with her competence and compassion kept my recovery on track. Other friends came for a few hours at a time to help with all the daily tasks I could not do, and/or brought food to both me and Mel in our separate dwellings, and yet others drove me to surgery and post-op. All day every day, it seemed, as I lay in bed explaining where things were and what needed to be done, gentle women moved through my house taking care of my life. It was exhausting to watch them filling in for me!

For days I was essentially bedridden, getting up only to totter to the toilet and back to bed with the support of a borrowed walker. After a week I was able to totter outside and sit on the patio for a few minutes, in a chair bulked up with a borrowed cushion. Pieces of many others’ homes are in mine now supporting me. Being the recipient of all the assistance, compassion and loving kindness from my local community and others farther afield brought home to me the truth of Interdependence and Interconnection, of “Interbeing” as Thich Nhat Hahn called it. I’ve felt more deeply connected as the receiver, in the center of all this supportive attention, than I am accustomed to feeling as one of many givers to others in need of support. It’s a wonderful perspective to feel such belonging. I could not have done this alone. I am so grateful for community.

Among the first foods delivered for our dining pleasure were the best deviled eggs from Garden Buddy, and borscht from Deb. More delicious, nutritious meals kept on coming for weeks.
During that first week, Mary came a couple of early mornings and prepared delicious oatmeal with yogurt, maple syrup, and fresh nectarine.
It had been hard to reach my feet for awhile, and a broken toenail was catching on the sheets, so she kindly agreed to trim my nails, and then insisted on filing them too. The left leg at this point is still stained with iodine from the surgical scrub, as I was not able to shower for a full week, until after the first post-op appointment.
I’m grateful for the cards and presents friends and family sent, including the especially thoughtful gift of maple cream ordered from my favorite maple supplier.

Recovering seems to take almost all my energy every day. Gratitude takes the rest. It’s late, and ‘the server’ is refusing to upload more photos. It’s the universe telling me it’s time to go to sleep. I am grateful to be standing on my own two feet again — with a lot of help from my friends.

Cheese Sandwich: Hospital Edition

Sep24

Imagine my gratitude when I awoke in the recovery room one week ago today, looked up at the clock across from me at exactly noon, and was shortly wheeled to a lovely room with a view. Imagine my delight when the lunch they brought me was a cheese sandwich! And a damn good one, at that.

I think this is the same room I got fourteen years ago after another surgery. I remember being so grateful then that I got a single room with a view of the trees, as I was last week. I’ve been at home recovering since last Wednesday, with all the best care a girl could get from her community of friends. There have been some hiccups, and I’m learning some profound lessons. In the way of lessons, they’re often nothing we haven’t already learned, but they come back with more clarity, nuance, and relevance.

Sign on the ceiling above the hospital bed…

More later. I’m still pretty tired. And awash in gratitude, for the artistry of the surgeon, the quality of care at the hospital, the friends who have rallied around to attend to my every need, and the needs of my dear carer who came down with covid the day after she arrived. The biggest hiccup.

Morning after breakfast. It was tasty, but I have been belching nonstop ever since. I mean, all that day, all the next day, up to ten burps a minute… It calms down when I am still for awhile, but the second I move a limb or take a deep breath, or speak, or swallow a mouthful of anything, it’s greps, greps, greps – my new vocabulary word!
Home Sweet Home

Cheerful, Tender Care

Oct31
Where’s Wren?

I’m grateful today for all the support from friends and professionals as I had another basal cell carcinoma removed from my face by Mohs surgery. There were neighbors ready and willing to come check on Wren throughout what was a long day that might have been even longer. There was the friend who offered to chauffeur me and invited Wren to come along with us. There were messages of love and well wishes from friends throughout the day. There were people I could share photos of my Bride of Frankenstein forehead with, but I’ll spare the general public that image. There was Dr. Weber and his assistant Molly at Mountain West Dermatology, who do a superb job with this delicate and precise surgery; and there were the office staff who are always cheerful and friendly with a bonus today that many wore Halloween costumes. And there was my best little dog Wren, who was calm while she waited in the car with Auntie Rosie and excited when I reappeared, and who was up for anything including a stroll down Main Street.

I was so grateful today for Rosie’s cheerful, tender care of me and little Wren. After I was released from surgery, she drove us downtown so I could buy lunch. We were diverted off-course from our walk to the bagel place by this gleaming market-deli across the street, The Hog and The Hen, which predictably offered a lot of pork and chicken sandwich varieties, as well as possibly every kind of candy in the US. We ordered and ate outside in the sun. Grand Junction downtown celebrates sculpture in a way I’ve not seen elsewhere. All along Main Street are whimsical, dramatic, poignant, or beautiful sculptures, and the ambience has only improved since the last time I strolled it years ago. This adorable Pigano in front of the market tempted many passersby to plunk its functional keys. I’m grateful that what could have been a distressing day was as companionable, pleasant, easy, and fun as it could have been.

Wren’s Fun Day

Sep19
Miss Mary takes the early shift. I left Wren under the covers before sunrise, and Mary stopped by to let her out not long after it came up… [all photos by babysitters]

So much gratitude today! Grateful for Wren’s babysitters who checked in on her throughout the morning while I spent it traveling and undergoing a Mohs surgery. I’m grateful for neighbor-friends who happily supported me and my little family during an anxious time. I’m grateful to my dear chauffeur who drove me there and back even with her own concerns, and for the meaningful conversations both ways.

I’m grateful to the skilled surgeon who explained everything lucidly and managed to get all the basal cell carcinoma off me in one cut. Even after multiple Mohs procedures on my face and head over the past twenty-plus years, I learned a new piece about the process today. Dr. Weber explained how he marks the tissue so he can follow the cancer’s direction, and furthermore that he is the actual pathologist in the process. I knew he was trained to excise the cancer in layers, and to skillfully repair the wound, but I hadn’t realized that he is also the one who dissects the tissue to see where the cancer margins are. He told me, “If someone says they’re doing Mohs but they’re sending the tissue out to a lab and not examining it themselves, they are not doing Mohs!” I found this really reassuring.

Honey Badger takes second shift…

Around the time Honey Badger came by, I was waiting in the chair in the dark with a garish patch over my eye after the first incision, for Dr. Weber to determine if he needed to remove more. The wait was longer than I expected, two hours, but I was so relieved when he came in and said we were done, and he didn’t even have to stitch the wound. They cleaned and cauterized it, and left my eyelid largely unmarred. I’m grateful he has a sense of humor and we could joke about him including an optional blepharoplasty to lift my droopy lid.

…and even though he can’t persuade Wren to get in his lap, Fred manages the near impossible: to pick up Topaz!

By the third neighborly visit, I was almost out of the office with a few less eyelashes and a simple bandaid. I admit I had a hard time going to sleep last night. I’d done all the right things: meditating, breathing, accepting, allowing, surrendering, and still my heart pounded and my mind wrestled with worst-case scenarios. Then I remembered a suggestion I heard recently to think on the best-case scenario instead of catastrophizing. This skill of being able to choose one thought over another comes with meditation and mindfulness practice, cultivating one’s capacity to choose where to place attention and to hold it there.

And so I finally fell asleep after choosing to visualize all the aspects of a best-case scenario: just one small cut, quick in and out, easy repair, Wren safe and cared for, pleasant companionship on the road, and home in time for lunch. I’m grateful for the wisdom that allowed me to rest in that possibility, and for the success and validation of that thought-choice. I’m grateful, too, for the many well-wishes that came to me via texts, emails, and messages from friends around the neighborhood and across the country. I’m grateful for everything about Wren’s fun day.

All Terrain Croquet

Sep5
I’m grateful for the high-low thermometer that’s been telling me the temperature range of the day for twenty-five years, and I’m grateful that the highs have been lower in recent days. I’ve checked it almost every night for decades when I let the dog or dogs out, and this is the first time I caught someone snoozing on it.

I’m grateful for another delicious sandwich for lunch today, lettuce, havarti, and another beautiful garden tomato.

And I’m grateful for good neighbors and good fun. Honey Badger’s brother is visiting and so they hosted an ice cream social with All Terrain Croquet, one of our favorite pastimes from pre-Covid days. The terrain is challenging, with ricegrass traps, rocks, and sagebrush stumps among other hazards, along with dips and swells that turn a ball mid-course in an unexpected direction. This makes a good shot even more amazing, and also slows the game considerably. By halfway through, the rules have become flexible, and toward the end nearly ceased to exist. We’re having too much fun, and being good neighbors, we all want each other to succeed so there are many extra and questionable shots; all in service of the larger goal, homemade peach ice cream as soon as someone wins!

Little Wren wasn’t too sure about All Terrain Croquet, but she sure enjoyed the Ice Cream Social!

The Last Basket

Aug16

One of my dear next-door neighbors came over this morning to help pick the last basket of apricots off the tree. We dropped plenty for the deer, Wren, and Biko, and left plenty pecked ones on the tree for the birds. I was grateful for help with the last basket, and she was happy to take them home. I’m grateful beyond words for the joy this amazing tree brings to me and to others, for its beauty all year long, for the history we’ve shared, and for the generosity of its harvest this year.

I said I wouldn’t show her face, but she’s just too pretty to hide!
The cloud show this evening was spectacular. It was followed after dark by dry lightning and loud thunder. I spent an hour playing thunder-coat to a trembling little dog instead of doing dishes, but I’m grateful she let me hold her through her terror and gradually calmed down enough to go out again before bedtime.

I’m Not the Only One Suffering

Aug6

Tonight, I’m grateful for my martini-buddy Connie who taught me how to can, for Chrissie Lou who suggested cream cheese with my warm jam on toast, for Ruthie who started me on my sourdough journey all those years ago, for Neighbor Fred who prunes the apricot tree, and for the bounty this precious tree has provided this year. I’ve frozen ten cups of halves already, given away bags and boxes, and today canned five pints of jam, with a seemingly endless supply of fruit left on the tree. I can spend only a few hours a day on my feet currently because of plantar fasciitis and sciatica, and so am alternating daily between picking and processing apricots among other standup obligations. I’m grateful to remember that I’m not the only one suffering, and that even with consistently limiting physical pain, I’m able to balance and enjoy every good thing my little life has to offer; including remembering that just like me, there are thousands or millions of others around the world experiencing similar pains and limitations. I wish that they also might find joy, pleasure, and meaning in the simplest elements of their days.

Sour Cherries

Jul14

My friend John picked sour cherries from the tree in their garden and his partner invited me to come get some. I tried to grow a sour cherry tree once but something went wrong and it died; I haven’t tried again. I’m grateful I live where fruit thrives, markets in summer are abundant with it, and friends are generous with it. I’m grateful for sour cherries, and also sweet cherries, nectarines, peaches, apricots, apples and pears. While I’m at it, I’m grateful for the fruits that don’t grow locally, like oranges, and for the work of thousands of people growing, packing, and shipping it so that it ends up in my kitchen.

Serene scene on the evening stroll, broom snakeweed in full bloom under a sky of cumulus humilis clouds, the ‘fair-weather cloud.’