I like flowers

Potted plants for transplanting

coleus

Coleus and Sweet potato plant

White Orchid given to me in 2014 when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor

Tommy's Orchid (Tommy is my nephew)

Tommy's orchid

our meager harvest

This is what I harvested the other day.  We have three huge tomato plants that are starting to produce.  A nice bell pepper that was grown in a garden container.

Earlier we got lettuce and radishes.  There are some carrots but they are kind of small.  They smell and taste like carrots, just small.

For five years or so, Nick rented a garden space in Reston.   It did pretty well most of the time.  When Nick was traveling I would try to tend the garden.  I did okay, but I am more of a houseplant girl.

We've been in pandemic mode for almost five months now.  An awful lot of people started gardens in preparation of food shortages.  Or maybe in an effort to find a meaningful way to spend time.  

When we were first married I grew houseplants.  Mainly coleus, but some avocados from their pits, and something called Kalanchoe.  I learned abut kalanchoe in a botany class.  It's a succulent.  There are ridges in the leaves, and a new plant grows from each notch. Growing up in an apartment, any kind of thing that you could grow in dirt was pretty amazing to me!

Kalakchoe Plant

I guess that's where my fanciful dreams started.   I had visions of living out in the country, with goats to milk and a beautiful garden to feed us.   Somehow I saw my self as the thin old lady in overalls and long gray braids.  Tending to everything.   Kids, cats, goats and grandchildren everywhere.

It was a major disappointment when I discovered how much I hated goats milk!   I also didn't know a thing about farming.

So I was content with my houseplants and our cats and dog.
 
Eventually came the Foreign Service.  Travel to far away places.  Be diplomats.  Have babies.  Move again.

I think I really grew up with the diplomatic lifestyle.  I always assumed that Nick was already a grown up, though I think we both grew up together a lot.

And Nick gets gout attacks that are painful, and make him feel old.   And my knees hurt and I am 100lb overweight.  That makes me feel old.

But as long as I keep watering everything and feeding the dog, everything's going to be alright.

Aging

I have borrowed this from a friend who borrowed it from a friend:

Many of us are between 65 and death, i.e. old. My friend sent me this excellent list for aging . . . and I have to agree it's good advice to follow.

1. It’s time to use the money you saved up. Use it and enjoy it. Don’t just keep it for those who may have no notion of the sacrifices you made to get it. Remember there is nothing more dangerous than a son or daughter-in-law with big ideas for your hard-earned capital. Warning: This is also a bad time for investments, even if it seems wonderful or fool-proof. They only bring problems and worries. This is a time for you to enjoy some peace and quiet.

2. Stop worrying about the financial situation of your children and grandchildren, and don’t feel bad spending your money on yourself. You’ve taken care of them for many years, and you’ve taught them what you could. You gave them an education, food, shelter and support. The responsibility is now theirs to earn their own money.

3. Keep a healthy life, without great physical effort. Do moderate exercise (like walking every day), eat well and get your sleep. It’s easy to become sick, and it gets harder to remain healthy. That is why you need to keep yourself in good shape and be aware of your medical and physical needs. Keep in touch with your doctor, do tests even when you’re feeling well. Stay informed.

4. Always buy the best, most beautiful items for your significant other. The key goal is to enjoy your money with your partner. One day one of you will miss the other, and the money will not provide any comfort then, enjoy it together.

5. Don’t stress over the little things. You’ve already overcome so much in your life. You have good memories and bad ones, but the important thing is the present. Don’t let the past drag you down and don’t let the future frighten you. Feel good in the now. Small issues will soon be forgotten.

6. Regardless of age, always keep love alive. Love your partner, love life, love your family, love your neighbor and remember: “A man is not old as long as he has intelligence and affection.”

7. Be proud, both inside and out. Don’t stop going to your hair salon or barber, do your nails, go to the dermatologist and the dentist, keep your perfumes and creams well stocked. When you are well-maintained on the outside, it seeps in, making you feel proud and strong.

8. Don’t lose sight of fashion trends for your age, but keep your own sense of style. There’s nothing worse than an older person trying to wear the current fashion among youngsters. You’ve developed your own sense of what looks good on you – keep it and be proud of it. It’s part of who you are.

9. ALWAYS stay up-to-date. Read newspapers, watch the news. Go online and read what people are saying. Make sure you have an active email account and try to use some of those social networks. You’ll be surprised what old friends you’ll meet. Keeping in touch with what is going on and with the people you know is important at any age.

10. Respect the younger generation and their opinions. They may not have the same ideals as you, but they are the future, and will take the world in their direction. Give advice, not criticism, and try to remind them that yesterday’s wisdom still applies today.

11. Never use the phrase: “In my time.” Your time is now. As long as you’re alive, you are part of this time. You may have been younger, but you are still you now, having fun and enjoying life.

12. Some people embrace their golden years, while others become bitter and surly. Life is too short to waste your days on the latter. Spend your time with positive, cheerful people, it’ll rub off on you and your days will seem that much better. Spending your time with bitter people will make you older and harder to be around.

13. Do not surrender to the temptation of living with your children or grandchildren (if you have a financial choice, that is). Sure, being surrounded by family sounds great, but we all need our privacy. They need theirs and you need yours. If you’ve lost your partner (our deepest condolences), then find a person to move in with you and help out. Even then, do so only if you feel you really need the help or do not want to live alone.

14. Don’t abandon your hobbies. If you don’t have any, make new ones. You can travel, hike, cook, read, dance. You can adopt a cat or a dog, grow a garden, play cards, checkers, chess, dominoes, golf. You can paint, volunteer or just collect certain items. Find something you like and spend some real time having fun with it.

15. Even if you don’t feel like it, try to accept invitations. Baptisms, graduations, birthdays, weddings, conferences. Try to go. Get out of the house, meet people you haven’t seen in a while, experience something new (or something old). But don’t get upset when you’re not invited. Some events are limited by resources, and not everyone can be hosted. The important thing is to leave the house from time to time. Go to museums, go walk through a field. Get out there.

16. Be a conversationalist. Talk less and listen more. Some people go on and on about the past, not caring if their listeners are really interested. That’s a great way of reducing their desire to speak with you. Listen first and answer questions, but don’t go off into long stories unless asked to. Speak in courteous tones and try not to complain or criticize too much unless you really need to. Try to accept situations as they are. Everyone is going through the same things, and people have a low tolerance for hearing complaints. Always find some good things to say as well.

17. Pain and discomfort go hand in hand with getting older. Try not to dwell on them but accept them as a part of the cycle of life we’re all going through. Try to minimize them in your mind. They are not who you are, they are something that life added to you. If they become your entire focus, you lose sight of the person you used to be.

18. If you’ve been offended by someone – forgive them. If you’ve offended someone - apologize. Don’t drag around resentment with you. It only serves to make you sad and bitter. It doesn’t matter who was right. Someone once said: “Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Don’t take that poison. Forgive, forget and move on with your life.

19. If you have a strong belief, savor it. But don’t waste your time trying to convince others. They will make their own choices no matter what you tell them, and it will only bring you frustration. Live your faith and set an example. Live true to your beliefs and let that memory sway them.

20. Laugh. Laugh A LOT. Laugh at everything. Remember, you are one of the lucky ones. You managed to have a life, a long one. Many never get to this age, never get to experience a full life. But you did. So what’s not to laugh about? Find the humor in your situation.

21. Take no notice of what others say about you and even less notice of what they might be thinking. They’ll do it anyway, and you should have pride in yourself and what you’ve achieved. Let them talk and don’t worry. They have no idea about your history, your memories and the life you’ve lived so far. There’s still much to be written, so get busy writing and don’t waste time thinking about what others might think. Now is the time to be at rest, at peace and as happy as you can be!

Hot hot hot!

115 Heat Index Monday, Excessive Heat Watch Issued For NoVA, DC

The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat watch for northern Virginia and DC, where it could feel like 115 by Monday.

Taken out of the headlines!  Not really sure how that expression goes, but what I am getting at is that it's really hot.

I am making a point to get out and water everything in the morning.   So far we have had one tomato ripen enough to be picked and brought inside.   I have not eaten it yet  but I guess I should before it goes bad.

Now that the weather is out of the way, what's going on?   Covid 19 is still raging on.  Masks are important.  People are making the wearing of a mask a political issue.  How?  Liberal Dems wear masks, rednecks don't.  That's an oversimplification, but that's how it feels.

I have not really been out in mask territory much.  Nick does most of the shopping.  I stay home.  I did shop a couple of times when Nick was having bad gout.  Walking was too painful for him.  I'll be honest, it is a pain and annoying to wear a mask.  I would much rather NOT wear a mask, but I don't know if or when that will happen.

Moods change for better and worse.  Sometimes I fantasize about traveling.  Other times I feel like we will never leave the house, or at least travel again.

Courtney and I were really excited and looking forward to going on an Alaska cruise together this month.  No go.  In fact I cancelled a while back.  As did Nick with the cruise he had booked in May.

As usual, I think about all of the kids all of the time.  I am in communication with Courtney the most.  Not sure why.  Maybe because she is the first born.  Maybe it's a gender thing.  I am grateful to her for answering my texts and my questions.  And my emails.     

I have a sort of travel wish list.  I don't want to call it a bucket list because I just don't do bucket lists.

The places I want to travel to are:

• Bangkok
• Chiang Mai
• Tromso
• Taipei ?
• China ?
• Australia

 I can see spending up to two weeks in Thailand.   I want to visit Ampai and Bangkok, and Alek and Julie, and any other friends I may have in Chiang Mai.

It would probably make sense to put Taipei and China (as well as Hong Kong) into a whole South East Asia trip.  But I don't have any friends in Taipei or China.  I do have friends in Hong Kong.

After the trip to Norway five years ago, I feel like it would be really nice to spend an extended time in Tromso.  Maybe up to a year.  I would use Tromso as my home base while I travel through Europe.   That's where I would make a trip to visit Poznan.

I have friends and family in Norway.  I don't know a soul in Poland, but I would just like to see how it has changed.  And walk by the house that was our home for two years.

Australia?   How and when I do not know.   I have lost touch with almost everyone I knew in Perth, though there are a few people I would like to look up.

Who knows?   The global crisis we are going through may be a make it or break it.  For the US.  Maybe the rest of the world as well, I don't know.   

I am 66.  History of brain tumors/ surgery.   One new knee, one knee needing to be replaced.  I am obese.   I have celiac and who knows what else.  I don't feel old. I don't think of myself as old.  I feel like I have a lot of time and energy for many more adventures.

I can hope

Bathing Caps

I know that's a strange heading for a blog entry.   What prompted it, you ask?   Yesterday my sister and I looked at some old home movies that were converted to DVDs.   In the home movies, there were a couple of times in which we were swimming.  In all of them, when we were in public pools, we were wearing swim caps.  Bathing caps.  Whatever we used to call them.

   

Bathing caps were rubber smelling, tight fitting skull caps after a fashion.  They fit very tightly on the head.  All hair had to be tucked in.  Mine were mostly just that, a cap.  They were sort of puckery, I suppose to make them more stretchable..  My mother had rubber flowers on hers.  If I ever had to use my mom's swim cap, I was pretty embarrassed. Yesterday while looking at the movies we (my sister and I) both agreed that our mother's swim cap was pretty.  I guess our taste has changed- we're older now.

I it so hard to believe that we were ever so young and thin.  Dale was in a lot of the movies as well.  That's strange too.  So many of the people in our old home movies are dead now.

All of the babies are grown up.  Many have children of their own.  All of the young people- teens and adults are old now.  Older anyway.

And the generations.  One minute we are watching a movie of a cute cousin toddling down the sidewalk in front of our grandparent's house.  Grandma loving the baby and smiling.  In the next minute, the same cousin is an adult.  Married and a mother.  And now (not in the home movies) that same cousin is a grandmother.

All of my uncles on my father's side are dead and gone now as are all but one of my aunts.  Only two of the 5 children born to my maternal grandparents are still alive.  

All of the parents and children doing so many things together.   The oldest movies we watched were taken in Warwick Village in Virginia when I was probably three or four.  Then Afghanistan.  What a poor country.  Very little auto traffic.  Lots of bikes and camels.

The most recent movie we watched was from a family reunion in Michigan in 2001.  Shortly after my brother died and less than a month before 9-11.  My mom and all of her siblings were there. And my cousins.   So many cousins.  And the children of my cousins!    My mom was in a wheel chair.  My sister and I taking were care of our mom.  She had all of her mental faculties, but was disabled by strokes.

It made me think of my own family.  All the time we spent caring for babies, kids, and now adults who are tending to themselves. 

Can you be nostalgic about the future?   I guess now.  I guess it's wistfulness I was thinking about.  I was wondering what the future holds.   Who will be in the pictures and movies in the years to come.  Which of my children will tend to us in our old age?   No,  they are not obliged to do anything.  But in my family of aunts and uncles and cousins, being a parent and an adult child go hand in hand.

My sister and I took my mom to doctor's appointments.  We visited her.  We were on the phone with her almost every day.

Nick went to his parent's place at least every week.  At first they would go to a restaurant together.  Later to one of the eateries in their building.  Nick took them both to doctor and dentist appointments.   They didn't ask him.  He did it because he wanted to.  And he wanted his parents know that he would help them when they needed him.  It was the same with my mom and my sister and I.

Currently, Nick's ankle and foot are really sore (gout).  My knee hurts (I need a knee replacement).  we look like an old decrepit couple of fogies.  I know that right now we both have temporary setbacks.  But one day we will be really old......

I'm getting tired of this shit

I guess it's easy to blame covid 19 and the shutdowns for being depressed.   It's the wondering if "it" will ever go away.   Staying home.   Staying safe.  The people that I have little or no respect for- refusing to wear masks.  Saying that the virus isn't real.  

I don't feel the need to have all people agree on all things.  Or even most things.    But the fact deniers are bringing me down.  The people who choose to be reckless by not wearing masks.  But ignoring guidelines for pubic safety.    Some even deliberately cough or spit on mask wearers.

Okay, don't believe in science.   Choose to take your risks.  But for god sake is it that hard to respect other people's boundaries?

Some of the beauty and wonder of the United States is the liberty we appreciate.   But that doesn't mean that the right to one person's liberty gives anyone the "right" to step on my freedom of choice.  I choose to wear a mask.   You choose not to.   Just stay away from me and the people I love.

I love America.  I am sad that there are ignorant people.  I am sad that there are crooked and dishonest people.  I am also sad when people shout about how horrible our country's health care system is.  How crooked our politicians are

Stop shouting.  Shouting will not fix it.  The more you shout and complain the less energy you are putting into making it better. 

Register to vote.  Read more.  Help people in need.   Be angry.  But do something with that angry energy.

I know that there is more that I could be doing.  I also know that I have touched hundreds if not thousands of lives in a ways that have enabled those I help to find their own strengths and their voices.

I'm going to have a cup of coffee now.

Here I am again

The format for this blog has changed. I had to look all over the page to figure out how to write a new post.  So, here I am.

I have felt really crummy most of the day.  Actually, it probably started yesterday.  I was trying to dead head (prune) my roses.   It hurt so much to even do the little amount of bending that I did, that I quit.  Even bending the slightest bit causes whatever is inside my right knee (yes I know it's "bone on bone").  It feels like shards of glass. I swear I can even hear the crunching sound.

Add to the feeling that everything I do hurts my knee is the fact that the house needs to be cleaned.  Well, I think it does.  Apparently I am the only one. When the  bottoms of my white socks get filthy from walking in my own house it only means one thing,. The floors are dirty.  They need to be swept.  And mopped.  And the rugs need to  be vacuumed,  And the furniture polished.  And then there are the bathrooms.  Actually the bathrooms are more dusty than dirty.

Today I took on the bathroom in the master (our) bedroom.  I swept.  Did you know that there can be dust even behind the toilet?  I shook out the bathmats.  There are four of them plus the rug in front of the toilet.  I shook them all in my bedroom- over the rug, figuring that the rug would get vacuumed. 

I cleaned the shower, squeegeed the glass shower doors.  Cleaned the sinks .  Windex-ed the mirrors.   It was a sight to behold.  It was so clean and nice.

However, all of that maneuvering required to clean a bathroom was more than my body really wanted to do.

After I showered and came to sit in front of the TV to knit, I was in so much pain.  My whole right leg hurt.  From my knee all the way to my ankle.   At one point I even thought about driving to the hospital to be checked out and figure out why it hurt so much. 

When Nick went up to take his shower, I asked him to give me my compression socks.  Lovely things they are.  Blue knee socks that are kind of pilled (lint/ fuzz).  Wearing my navy blue socks with my grey capris must have looked crazy.  But those socks make so much difference. I have felt better all day.  At least my legs have.

Even with some relief from the pain in my legs, I have been just feeling really down.  Just tired of the corona virus.  The wearing a mask and staying home and away from people.  I would love to just go to Target and walk up and down the aisles.   Is the opposite of sensory overload, sensory deprivation?

Then, this evening I started to look through pictures on Facebook.    

I got to the pictures from December 2017, when I had my second brain surgery.   There are pictures from shortly after the surgery.  Pictures of me at home showing off my "bangs" and my bald, scarred and stitched up head.  There are pictures of me after the surgery when my face and head swelled up.

I got so many positive messages and messages of care and concern.  It made me realize and remember how good my life really is.  I know that I post jokes and political stuff on Facebook.  And I get a good number of "likes".  But the outpouring of genuine friendship brought me back to earth.  It brought my out of my funk!

Now if we can only get through this pandemic and also get rid of Trump, the world will be a much nicer place to live. Knee pain and brain tumors and all!