Coming Out the Other Side

 I am a week an a half  out from my knee replacement surgery.  It's every bit as awful and painful as I remembered it!

 I started physical therapy before my surgery which is what I did last time. Then, when I had to go to my first post op PT, I was afraid I couldn't make it.  Nick went in and got a wheel chair for me so I was able to get into the place.     Geeze, getting into and out of the car is so hard!

 My doctor prescribed this exercise bike that is programed to give me an optimal PT session in my house.   I'll have it for a couple of weeks and then the company will pick it up.

    I signed up to do a knitting for cancer fundraiser.   I am not sure how to post the info here, but this is what I am currently working on. A little red hat for my grandson.

 

I am very disappointing in the outcome of the election.  I was so sure Kamala would win and when she didn't I just was stunned.

I find it uncomfortable to sit in my office chair for long because my leg hurts.  So that's all for now.
 

Feeling old?

 Every time I go through this particular intersection I chuckle to myself.   Morgan was a fairly new driver of 17, and he and Darcy were driving in Herndon.  The manager of a carpet store told the boys that they could take carpet remnants from the dumpster behind the store.  They were fixing up a space in our unfinished basement that they called "the comfort zone".   

The were heading home when they decided to go back and get some more carpet pieces.  They were at the light right where this no u-turn sign is and they made the turn anyway. And wouldn't you know if, I police car was right behind them!  The police man must have been amused.  He told them that if they were going to break the law they really should not do it right in front of a cop!  I don't remember if Morgan got a ticket or not.  But I think he's been more careful since then!

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The feeling old that I put in the subject line is what I am feeling right now as I anticipate my knee replacement surgery.  I am scheduled for one week from today.  

I feel "old".  I have trouble walking without a cane.   I am depressed at how much mobility I have lost.   I am scared, knowing how painful the surgery is going to be. 

I am trying to remind myself how badly I need this surgery and how I will be so much more mobile I will be in a few months.

A lot of things are on my mind.  I care so much about La Leche League and my group, but it is almost a failure.  I do show up every month an my co-Leader tries to show up too.  But there are very few moms who come.  I want to put energy into revitalizing the group but I just can't right now.  

I think about my friend Shannon a lot.   I am pretty sure I have written about her.  She has been so sick for so long.   For most of the last 2 years or so she and I have exchanged emails almost daily.  When she is having a bad spell she cannot write.  Sometimes I write to her husband and he lets me know how Shannon is doing.

Shannon was hospitalized for 6 weeks recently. She had a rough time including brain surgery and surgery to place a feeding tube   I went to visit Shannon just after she got our of the hospital.   I have been hoping to visit again before my surgery but I cannot at this point.  I am not sure she is up for having visitors anyway.

 

And here's more of the "old" I am feeling.  I am 70.  When my mom was 70 she had been disabled for more than five years.  My mom. my sister and I went to Detroit to visit family.   We were staying at my aunt and uncles house when Carol and I heard our mother yell out.  She had fallen trying to get out of bed to go to the bathroom.   She ended up going by ambulance to the hospital and we learned that she had broken her arm.   

Seeing my mother in that hospital emergency room with her broken arm made he seem so old and frail.  And now I am that same age.  Do I seem old and frail to my kids?   Maybe.

Buddy is getting old too!

 

Yes, I am Batman's Grandmother!

Darcy sent these adorable pictures of Galileo in his Batman outfit.  What a beautiful little boy!

We'll see him at Christmas which I hope comes soon! 

 

Look at those chubby wrists!

He

 He's started to laugh!  There is nothing better than the sound of a baby's laughter!

 

Lettuce Pray

 

Oh Deer!

Sitting at a desk working on my laptop and look what I saw.  This sweet little deer looks like he is looking right at me!   Since I was inside and behind a window I doubt that the deer saw me, but it looks like it maybe was,

What a sweet face and a nice touch of the wild in my own domestic, suburban back yard.

 
 

Baby and Bird and Knees, oh my!

 

 

 

 

I knitted a pumpkin hat for Galileo and here he is modeling it!  He is not very fond of hats, but he let his picture be taken before he complained about it too much!

 

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Then there's this picture of a blue jay.   I am not crazy about blue jays, but this one was on our deck and was so pretty that I had to take this picture!

        

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And last but not least, my knees.  I had total knee replacement surgery done on my left knee in 2019.  I know it's been a while. but I am finally getting my right knee replacement surgery at the end of this month.   

 

I have so much pain right now that I can't wait to get it over with.  But, I remember how hard the recovery was last time and I am not looking forward to that.  So much to think about!

 

Here's an x-ray of my knees.  You can see the hardware in my left knee and the bone on bone arthritis in my right knee.  Getting older is not a lot of fun sometimes!

 

 

 

Jimmy Carter is 100 years old

 In my lifetime the two best US presidents have been:  Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.

 

Eisenhower

Nixon

Gerald Ford

Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan

George Bush

Bill Clinton

Barack Obama

Donald Trump

Joe Bidden

 

 

 

 

 

I'm so confused

 The other day I started on a cross stitch project.  I have not done cross stitch for a while (years?) and had not realized how tiny the fabric and the stitches are.  I have to use a magnifying glass to do the work.  Really!  I actually bought a light/ magnifying glass combo so I can see what I am doing.

And knitting.  I knitted a cute pumpkin hat for Galileo and cannot wait to see him in it.  

Meanwhile, I have been working on a sweater for myself that I keep getting confused by.  I have taken rows out and re-knitted them and still am not sure if I am doing it right.   And I am an experienced knitter. 

 

Then, in the spirit of the season I decided I would like to knit tiny pumpkins.  I am about 15 rows in and I am still not sure if I've got it right.  I think I am going to pull some of it out and switch to larger needled.  

And I have some yarn and a pattern for a scarf I want to make for a friend.  When will I get around to that project?

In May I bought a pattern and some fabric to make a dress for my daughter, Courtney.  I cut it all out and carefully packed it in my suitcase and took it with me to Maine.  I was planning to sew it while I was there.  There's a perfectly good sewing machine in Austin's house- where I was house-sitting.   Did I do anything with it?  Nope.  The fabric and pattern et all are now sitting in the basement here, on the table next to my sewing machine.   

 

 

 

 

We have a wonderful, large basement with a great sewing/ crafting room.   I have scrap-booking stuff sitting on a crafting table.   Sewing machines.  Lots of yarn.  A TV.  But I rarely ever even go down there. Why?  I dunno.  

Below is a picture of a part of the space that has my crafting things.  Picture was taken when this house was still the model house. (Nick is the picture).

And now I have to get ready to go out.  There's an activity at the library on how to use a serger (sewing machine.  I have one and I love it, but maybe I will learn something new.

 

 

Baby love

First born, Courtney & Me 1978

 I was so thrilled when Courtney was born. I was thrilled each time I learned that I was pregnant and so happy with each of my babies.  

I know that the kids have heard me say that they were all planned and wanted.   I don't know if that meant anything to them or if they just thought "okay there goes Mom again".   I am sure I have repeated many things.  It's part of living and loving.  Sharing thoughts and experiences.   

Each birth was different and I remember the details.   I am not 100% sure I recall everything correctly as they happened, but I recall MY memories and feelings.   

There was fear, anxiety, wonder, joy, pain.   

And now they are all out of the house.  There's that whole poem about giving them roots and wings.  I love and respect them and their choices.   I know that they are all adults and have their own lives to lead.   I know that I cannot be their life blood any more.  

I wonder if they realize how much they were dependent on me and on my body for life and sustenance.     Maybe that is why they are so independent.  They had a strong bond and strong footing.

And now I have to sit back, bite my tongue and let them fly.   

My Facebook post today September 19, 2024

 

This is deeply personal, so be kind to me.

 

When we had been married about 5 years, we were very happy to learn that I was pregnant with our first baby. At around 20 weeks, I got up one morning and found that I was bleeding. I went to the hospital and learned that the baby had stopped growing a few weeks earlier and had died inside of me. This was 1977 and we were living abroad. There were no ultrasounds or anything like that.

I had a D&C to remove the dead baby and tissue (no I don't know if it was a boy or a girl). That D&C kept me from developing an infection and possibly losing the ability to have more children. Or it could have even killed me. Losing that baby was devastating, but I am happy to be alive.

I am grateful that I was able to get the medical care I needed. I have been able to have five very wanted pregnancies and five wonderful babies- all grown up now.

In many of the states in the US now, I would not have been able to have the procedure- D&C- it would be considered an abortion. And I might not have lived.

This is one of the reasons I am pro choice. A women's medical care should be between herself and her medical provider.

Oh, and by the way, I am a grandmother now too!!!

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Here are some of the comments:

•  
•  I also had a D&C after I spontaneously miscarried, and continued to bleed for a long time. I totally support you.
•  
•  At my 12 week prenatal check up during my first pregnancy it was discovered that I had a molar pregnancy, so had to have a d&c. My second pregnancy was a healthy baby girl. During my third pregnancy I once again found out during my 12 week exam that the baby had died. I did not spontaneously miscarry, so had another d&c. I'm so concerned that young women don't have the healthcare i did 35 years ago.
•  
•  There are so many reasons why this care needs to remain easily accessible.
•  
•  In the late1980's I experienced a miscarriage at 11 weeks pregnant and was already in maternity clothes. This followed the SIDS death of my infant son Paul in 1986. I wanted my daughter Ann to have a sibling. Kept having miscarriages and D&C's until I successfuly carried my premie Carrie in 1989. I was 41 yo and was hospitalized 6 wks with bleeding before she was born 6 was early. The D&C's allowed me to keep trying. They preserved my fertility. I don't know if a doctor would do it in Idaho today.
•  
•  I agree, Nancy. After 2 healthy babies, I had an ectopic pregnancy and my tube ruptured. I was bleeding internally so emergency surgery was performed. If that had been denied, I would not be here today. I too love being a grandma
•  
• Me too, sort of. My first pregnancy ended at 9 weeks after bleeding for 5. Doc said he couldn't say for sure that the pregnancy would be okay, and I wasn't willing to end it, just in case. 2nd pregnancy went fine. 3rd pregnancy--I started bleeding again at 5 weeks. This time doc did a blood test and compared it to the first--no pregnancy hormones at all, so there was no way that baby was going to make it. By this time, I had a 2 1/2yo, a relatively new job (with no leave built up), and no hope, so I had a D&C--and they found nothing. It was awful making the decision to have that procedure, even knowing there was no hope. It makes me so angry when folks--especially clueless men--talk about abortion decisions being so casual for women to make, and that they are made just on a whim, like deciding to try a new brand of toothpaste. No woman in the position of even considering abortion as a solution considers it so lightly, and I don't think you can go through such without it profoundly changing you. I don't know that the consequences of me not having a D&C back then would have been catastrophic for me, given the pregnancy was over, but it may have helped prepare my uterus for the next pregnancy. MY body, MY decision!!!!!!!
•  
•  In 1982, I suffered a miscarriage with twins in the 28th week, the first baby born was a perfect little girl weighing 2 lb who's lungs were not developed enough. The 2nd girl weighed just 11oz and had probably died at 18 weeks from a twisted cord; her decomposing body was poisoning both myself and the first baby. Would today's legislators considering prosecuting the doctors, hospital staff and myself because the first baby died also? How many legislators even realize that 20% of pregnancies end prematurely and medical care is required.
• 
  
• I am overcome by the emotion coming through these personal stories. It is why we must fight to maintain rights over our own bodies.
•  
•  
  I had a trip to the ER on a Saturday night, a vacuum extraction there, plus a d and c days later in his office. Later, I became pregnant with our last baby.

   

   I have two stories of tubal pregnancies. One was a friend who suddenly had terrible abdominal pain. Her husband finally convinced her they needed to go to the ER, and as she was walking downstairs, she felt a pop and instant pain relief. Thankfully her husband insisted they go. Her tube had ruptured and she would have bled out if they had not done surgery. The second was a friend who had IVF. Fortunately, with IVF they do serial ultrasounds after an embryo transfer and they knew the embryo had not implanted in the right place. Being only days after implantation, they could give her methotrexate to terminate and she would not lose a tube. I’m guessing in a lot of states right now, the first case wouldn’t have surgery until the hemorrhage was critical and I’m unsure what would happen with the second. Scary stuff.

 

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added later

* I had to have a D&C the next day after a stillbirth at home. In some states they would have preferred to have my preschooler lose his mother and leave my husband a widower, because apparently i have no value as a human being. The ignorant, mostly male elected officials have no right to make that decision. It's a grotesque overreach of power.

*Medical care is nothing politicians should play around with.

 *This was posted by a man:    Thanks for sharing this tender story. These stupid male politicians who are making these drastic decisions for women's health need to get kicked out of office....

 

 

 

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No comment

 

And...here I am again

How I look when I first wake up, and how I look after a shower, coffee and makeup

 

 I feel like I "should" write more often.  At least once a day I think to myself (who else) that I should blog about this or that.  Then I don't.  Then I think that the moment for that post has passed. And so on and on and on.

I'm not sure if I am boring or am bored, or what. I feel like I have lived a very un-boring life.   Nick and I have traveled and lived all over.  Had five babies in four different places.  Raised said babies in a variety of places and circumstances.   And now they are all adults and all five live in different places.  

When I write to the kids and ask them to write- usually I ask by asking questions that they can answer- I wonder if I am perceived by them as being passive aggressive?   Maybe.  I am afraid that's how I make them feel.  When all I want is to connect.    They all carry my DNA and all came out of me an are a part of me.   It's a common theme.  Parents of adults often feel left out and left behind.   I guess it's normal.

I think I am still recovering from the Pandemic on some level.  Sort of feeling uncertain about life.  

I was reflecting that when my grandson is 20 I will be 90.  If I live to be 90.   At 70, I know that I am running towards the end of my life.   When each of our kids were born it felt like a new beginning. So much to look forward to.  Each first smile, first step and all of the other "firsts".   It's all about looking ahead.   It's exhausting and not always easy.  But as a memory it's wonderful to think about.

Living overseas in the days before email- most of our foreign service career- was so hard in many ways.  I missed my friends.  I was homesick.  I missed my family.  I missed "normal" things like going to the grocery store on Sunday or after 5:00pm.   Each place we lived had it's own unique charm.  But each place also had it's deficiencies and disappointments.  

I often think (and probably say) that if I had been more on top of my feelings and acknowledged my sadness and depression I would have been able to enjoy our new homes better.   Oh well, can't go back.

At least Nick and I can reminisce and remember together.   

I have been on a couple of wonderful Zoom meetings in the last month or so.  One involved Marian Tompson, one of the founders of La Leche League, talking about her life and how LLL came about.  I intend to write all about it eventually.

Then this week I zoomed with some La Leche League friends from my "past".  Some women I have known since I was pregnant with Austin- who is now 37 years old.  I am still in LLL and they are not anymore, but the bond will always be there.

I read, I knit and I watch TV.   I want to dance.  I want to travel.   I want to have fun.  In short, I guess I don't want to be "old" whatever that means.

Pumpkin hat for grandson Galileo's first Halloween!

 

I keep saying and telling myself that once I have my second knee replacement I will be able to do a lot more.  Once I get through the terrible pain of the surgery and recovery I hope that's true!

Hardware from my knee replacement and bone on bone soon to be replaced too

 

 

 

 

 

Vaccinated- again/ Grandparent's Day!

 

Friday we went and got the latest Covid vaccine as well as RSV and DTaP.   We will get our flu shots in a few weeks I guess.

Yesterday and today I have had a headache.  I suspect it's from the vaccines though Nick doesn't have any symptoms or reactions.   From what I am seeing on Facebook, it's grandparents day.   I looked it up online and I guess it is a real thing, not just a Hallmark celebration.  It was designated as the first Sunday in September and has been since 1971.  Who knew?

I grew up with a family that included aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents.   I didn't see them very often but I knew and know who they all are.

My mother's cousin, Dan, had five children and I thought that it was very strange that they did not have any grandchildren.   You would think that they would have dozens of grandchildren.

Both of my parents came from families with five children- so, my mom and my dad each had 4 siblings.  That makes 8 aunts and uncles plus their spouses which added up to me having 16 aunts and uncles.  And all of them had children.  So that's how I thought that the world worked.

I pictured a whole bunch of babies and kids from our crew.   I looked forward to it and occasionally grieved over it.

I do respect knowing that you don't want to be a parent.  I respect and value the power to have that choice.  My kids are making their way in the world.  Some will never have children and some might want to have children but not be in the right place in their life's journey.   

We wanted children.  Babies to cherish and love.   Little kids to chase around and teens to drive everywhere.   And even the "teen angst" as one of them called it. 

Broken down cars and minor accidents.  Going to court.   Teaching them all to drive!!

And launching them.  All of them.  Grown ups.   Adults.  Not even what would necessarily be called young adults.

And, we did get to be grandparents of a beautiful little boy named Galileo.   At ages 70 and 76 we know that we most  likely will not be witnesses to some of our grandson's life.  We started this grand-parenting adventure kind of old.  Boy do we love him!

Thank you Jody and Darcy!

 

I should write a book?

 I love talking about myself.  I mean my experiences with growing up.  With the kids.  Writing about the places I have lived.

So, I have a new email address just for this.

If you have a suggestion or thoughts on what I should write, write to me here:

youshouldwriteabook1@gmail.com

 

 

Article from The Atlantic Magazine

 

Politics

Why Trump’s Arlington Debacle Is So Serious

The former president violated one of America’s most sacred places.

By Michael Powell

@GovCox / X

August 30, 2024, 6 AM ET

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.

The section of Arlington National Cemetery that Donald Trump visited on Monday is both the liveliest and the most achingly sad part of the grand military graveyard, set aside for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Section 60, young widows can be seen using clippers and scissors to groom the grass around their husbands’ tombstones as lots of children run about.

Karen Meredith knows the saddest acre in America only too well. The California resident’s son, First Lieutenant Kenneth Ballard, was the fourth generation of her family to serve as an Army officer. He was killed in Najaf, Iraq, in 2004, and laid to rest in Section 60. She puts flowers on his gravesite every Memorial Day. “It’s not a number, not a headstone,” she told me. “He was my only child.”

The sections of Arlington holding Civil War and World War I dead have a lonely and austere beauty. Not Section 60, where the atmosphere is sanctified but not somber—too many kids, Meredith recalled from her visits to her son’s burial site. “We laugh, we pop champagne. I have met men who served under him, and they speak of him with such respect. And to think that this man”—she was referring to Trump—“came here and put his thumb up—”

She fell silent for a moment on the telephone, taking a gulp of air. “I’m trying not to cry.”

For Trump, defiling what is sacred in our civic culture borders on a pastime. Peacefully transferring power to the next president, treating political adversaries with at least rudimentary grace, honoring those soldiers wounded and disfigured in service of our country—Trump long ago walked roughshod over all these norms. Before he tried to overturn a national election, he mocked his opponents in the crudest terms and demeaned dead soldiers as “suckers.”

Read: Trump calls Americans killed in war “suckers” and “losers”

But the former president outdid himself this week, when he attended a wreath-laying ceremony honoring 13 American soldiers killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul during the final havoc-marked hours of the American withdrawal. Trump laid three wreaths and put hand over heart; that is a time-honored privilege of presidents. Trump, as is his wont, went further. He walked to a burial site in Section 60 and posed with the family of a fallen soldier, grinning broadly and giving a thumbs-up for his campaign photographer and videographer.

Few spaces in the United States join the sacred and the secular to more moving effect than Arlington National Cemetery, 624 acres set on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River and our nation’s capital. More than 400,000 veterans and their dependents have been laid to rest here, among them nearly 400 Medal of Honor recipients. Rows of matching white tombstones stretch to the end of sight.

A cemetery employee politely attempted to stop the campaign staff from filming in Section 60. Taking campaign photos and videos at gravesites is expressly forbidden under federal law. The Trump entourage, according to a subsequent statement by the U.S. Army, which oversees the cemetery, “abruptly pushed” her aside.

Trump’s campaign soon posted a video on TikTok, overlaid with Trump’s narration: “We didn’t lose one person in 18 months. And then they”—the Biden administration—“took over, that disaster of leaving Afghanistan.”

Trump was unsurprisingly not telling the truth; 11 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in his last year in office, and his administration had itself negotiated the withdrawal. But such fabrications are incidental sins compared with what came next. A top Trump adviser, Chris LaCivita, and campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung talked to reporters and savaged the employee who had tried to stop the entourage. Cheung referred to her as “an unnamed individual, clearly suffering a mental-health episode.” LaCivita declared her a “despicable individual” who ought to be fired.

There was, of course, another way to handle this mistake. Governor Spencer Cox of Utah had accompanied Trump to the cemetery, and his campaign emailed out photos of the governor and the former president there. When challenged, Cox did what is foreign to Trump: He apologized. “You are correct,” Cox replied to a person criticizing the event on X, adding, “It did not go through the proper channels and should not have been sent. My campaign will be sending out an apology.”

Read: Trump dishonors fallen soldiers again

This was not a judgment call, or a minor violation of obscure bureaucratic boilerplate. In the regulations governing visitors and behavior at Arlington National Cemetery, many paragraphs lay out what behavior is acceptable and what is not. These read not as suggestions but as commandments. Memorial services are intended to honor the fallen, the regulations note, with a rough eloquence: “Partisan activities are inappropriate in Arlington National Cemetery, due to its role as a shrine to all the honored dead of the Armed Forces of the United States and out of respect for the men and women buried there and for their families.”

As the clamor of revulsion swelled this week, LaCivita did not back off. On Wednesday, the Trump adviser posted a photo of Trump at Arlington Cemetery on X and added these words: “The Photo that shook the world and reminded America who the real Commander in Chief is …August 26th 2024 ..Mark the day ⁦@KamalaHarris⁩ and weak ⁦@JoeBiden.”

The Army, which is historically loath to enter politics, issued a rare statement yesterday rebuking the Trump campaign, noting that ceremony participants “had been made aware” of relevant federal laws “prohibiting political activities” and that the employee “acted with professionalism.” The Army said it “considers this matter closed” because the cemetery employee had declined to press charges.

Meanwhile, an unrepentant Trump team kept stoking the controversy. Yesterday, LaCivita posted another photo of Trump at Arlington and added this: “Reposting this hoping to trigger the hacks at @SecArmy”—the Army secretary’s office.

It had the quality of middle-school graffiti, suggesting that Trump viewed the controversy as yet another chance to mock his critics before moving on to the next outrage. For grieving families with loved ones buried in Section 60, moving on is not so easy.

How old, I asked Meredith, was your son at the time of his death? “He was 26,” she replied. “He did not have time to live. I didn’t get to dance at his wedding. I didn’t get to play with grandkids.”

This week, all she could do was call out a crude and self-regarding 78-year-old man for failing, in that most sacred of American places, to comport himself with even the roughest facsimile of dignity.

About the Author

Michael Powell is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

My babies keep getting older

 

 

 Forty years ago on this date, we were newcomers to Tromsø, Norway. We had only been there for 3 weeks and were waiting for my mom to come help out. On the evening of August 30/ early hours of the 31st I went into labor. My mom was not there and my husband and I did not know a soul. I cried because my mom had not gotten there yet and I needed her, especially because I had a 6 year old and a 3 year old who needed looking after.

I sat in the bathtub with warm water thinking that somehow it would slow or stop my labor. It did not.

On August 31, 1984 I gave birth to Darcy Brewster Sherwood. One of the very few American diplomats born north of the Arctic Circle!

 And now he is turning 40 and has his own son!

 (my mom got there about a week later and boy was I glad to see her)