Libbi's MS Journey

Why does my 'smart phone' make me feel so stupid?

2009-11-22T08:37:00.001-08:00

So we've been doing a bunch of technology-related stuff around our house for the past couple of weeks.

It began with David installing Windows 7. We never upgraded to Vista, but my son tells me that Windows 7 is 'what Vista should have been', and I believe him. It seems like a good OS, but the installation process was a nightmare (mainly for David, my resident Tech Support Guy), and we're still trying to find replacement software for several programs that don't run on the new OS.

Because I always believe in doing as much stuff at one time as I possibly can, to increase the stress levels as much as possible, we decided to upgrade our perfectly usable cell phones and purchase the new Motorola 'Clik' phones. Since the last thing I ever do is read the manual, I have no idea how to use the damned thing, and I'm going a little nuts trying to figure it out. To add to my confusion, I somehow managed to erase about 75% of my email address book, and am trying to figure out how to recover that data without being forced into endless data entry. I suppose I should be grateful to my father, who insisted that I spend an hour every morning one summer, learning how to touch type. That skill, once developed, allowed me to support myself as a secretary several times during my early working life, and it has sure made using computers a lot easier. That said, I now need to learn how to type with my thumbs, rather than with all ten fingers, so add that to the growing list of stuff I need to learn, just to make a damned phone call!

My phone might be smart, but lately I'm feeling kinda dumb.

I slipped and fell this morning

2009-08-25T08:56:00.001-07:00

It's easy to forget that stuff gets slippery after it rains, especially after several months of dry weather. As I was gathering some ripe cherry and grape tomatoes from our garden, I lost my footing and fell (not very far, and on a not-too-unforgiving surface -packed down soil). I grabbed onto the side of the raised bed to break the fall, and ended up bruising my hand in the process, and I'll probably have one helluva bruise on my right flank -- neither a big deal. Luckily, I was only carrying a small, plastic bucket (not the big ceramic planter whose contents I had just dumped onto the compost pile), so nothing inanimate was damaged, either.

So I got back up, finished collecting ripe tomatoes, grabbed the ceramic planter, and started thinking about falling in more general terms. I fell, got hurt a little, got back up, and continued with what I was doing. (This wasn't an MS-related fall, by the way. I didn't fall because I got dizzy or lost my balance. I fell because the ground was slippery and I lost my footing; a healthy person might have done the same thing.)

And then I thought: but isn't that a metaphor for life (at least my life)? I fall (or screw up, or fail in some way or other), just as we all do from time to time. Sometimes, I get hurt; sometimes, I don't. But inevitably, regardless of how hurt I feel, I get up and continue on with my life, my 'tasks'. It may sound odd, but that realization turned an unpleasant event into something positive.

Yep. I screw up. Yep, sometimes screwing up causes pain. But I somehow manage to stand up, brush myself off, and move on (limping at times) with what needs to get done.

So here's the challenge: can I focus on getting up rather than falling?

Relativity

2009-07-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

No, not the kind Albert Einstein talked about (something I memorized but never really understood). I'm talking about the kind we regular folks experience when we stop to think about our reactions to things.

It's been horrifically hot here in Portland for the past week. We've broken records for high temperatures all over the state, including a high of ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN DEGREES in Portland yesterday. Portland was hotter than Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV yesterday. So I'm not being a wimp when I say it was brutal outside. My son referred to it as 'volcanic', and I think he hit the proverbial nail on the head with that description.

We installed a heat pump in our house before we moved in, one that both heats and cools the house. We knew it could only lower the temperature by 20 or 25 degrees in comparison to the outside temps, but since we keep the thermostat set at 74 degrees during the day, we figured that would be just fine. And, until this week, it was.

But the heat pump simply couldn't keep up with the kind of heat we were experiencing, and the thermostat showed an indoor temperature in the high 80s - inside the house - when I gave up and got ready to try and sleep last night.

That might not sound too bad, and probably wouldn't be too bad for most people, but hot weather is deadly for people with Multiple Sclerosis. My symptoms get a lot worse when it's hot; fatigue is unbearable, balance gets even more wobbly, and life is just miserable. So I've been a very unhappy camper for the past few days.

I've been waking very early, and going outside to water the planters on the front and back decks before it got too hot for me to bear being outside. This morning, the air felt cool (even though the thermometer showed a temp in the high 60s), and that's when I thought of relativity: in relation to morning temps in the high 70s, the high 60s actually felt good!

I took a cool shower last night, dragged another fan into the bedroom and pointed it directly on me (David does much better in the heat than I do), and put a spray bottle of water on the night table. Every few minutes, I grabbed the spray bottle and essentially hosed myself down, using the old process of evaporation to cool myself when I started feeling too warm again. So I may not understand E = MC2, but I sure do remember what I learned about evaporation back in high school, and that bit of knowledge saved me last night, for sure.

Summer rain

2009-07-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

I used to love the smell of rain on hot sidewalks when I was a kid. I remember how it smelled when thunderstorms rolled through the neighborhood on hot summer days, sending me and my friends scurrying for shelter under the blue-and-white-striped canvas awning that covered our postage-stamp sized front porch. I remember how the temperature would drop precipitously, chilling our rain-wet skin, causing us to shiver moments after we'd been hot and sweaty in the midst of a game of hopscotch or jump rope. I remember how scary the lightening and thunder seemed, especially since we refused to go inside the house, choosing to stay outside, a bit closer to the swiftly passing storm. Then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the storm would move away, and the day would return to its normal, hot, sunny, summer self.

As we'd emerge from the safety of that awning, I would drink in the smell of the rain on the still-hot sidewalk, a smell I've always loved.

Uncharacteristically, it's rained here in Portland, OR for the past few days (yeah, I know, it rains all the time in Portland, except in summer, usually), and that much-loved smell of rain on hot sidewalks has returned to my life, albeit briefly. I thought about trying to find a set of jacks (another one of our traditional summer pastimes back in the day) but thought better of it, opting to enjoy the smells and memories instead.

Good-bye little Caruso

2009-02-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that we adopted an elderly kitty in May, 2007. Caruso was fourteen years old when he joined our family, and was already in the beginning stages of kidney failure. But that didn't matter, because he and I bonded the very first time we saw each other (a good friend of mine claims that he adopted me, and I think she may be right). It took a while, but in time he became part of our family unit (although he and Harley, who is a typical tortoise-shell cat, complete with attitude, barely managed armed neutrality) and settled into a comfortable routine.

He would greet me every morning when I came out of our bedroom (the bedroom is Harley's domain, and Caruso never made it in there for more than a few moments before she hissed him out of the room), making it very clear that he needed his special wet food - NOW! I used to think about him as my little gray shadow, because he followed me around the house a lot. In the evenings, when David and I would settle in to watch TV for an hour or so, Caruso would leap onto the sofa, and curl up on the cushion behind my left shoulder, purring whenever I'd reach up to scratch his ear or stroke his silky, soft fur. Late at night, when David would sit in the living room, reading, Caruso would jump up onto the armchair, circle up to the top, and down the other arm, finally curling up in David's lap. It seemed as though he'd found his home, and I really hoped he'd stick around a long time.

But he began sliding downhill in late January. We took him to our wonderful vet, and discovered that his kidney disease had advanced - a lot. We came home with a bag of fluid and needles; David gave him subcutaneous fluids every morning and a quarter dose of Pepcid every night, to settle his tummy and (hopefully) allow him to eat more. We stopped giving him special cat food (for kidney disease) and began feeding him all kinds of different foods - whatever he'd eat. We even gave him a pill to jump-start his appetite, in hopes that he'd eat more and gain back some of the weight he'd lost. Everything seemed to be working for a couple of weeks. But a second blood test indicated that things were worse.

For over a week, one of us would sleep on the sofa in the living room so Caruso wouldn't be alone all night. When I did that, he'd curl up on my shoulder, close to my face, or snuggle close next to me.

A week ago today, just as our vet predicted, little Caruso made it clear he'd had enough of needles and pills - he stopped eating. I tried everything I could think of to tempt him. He'd come into our home office, where I fed him his special wet food, croak out a weak meow as if he wanted food, but when I'd put the dish down in its usual spot, he'd look at it and walk away. And he stopped purring. Completely.

On Monday, February 16, I called our vet's office and made what would be Caruso's last appointment. David and I drove there together, and I held little Caruso wrapped in a warm blanket (no more cat carriers for him). He perked up a wee bit, looking around curiously as we drove, but then he settled into my arms, quiet. We were taken to a private little room, and within ten minutes, sweet Caruso was gone. I still cry when I think about how I'd been kissing him gently on the head, telling him everything would be okay, and then - he was gone.

Even though we know that he was in a great deal of pain, and that ending his life meant ending his pain ... I still feel as if I betrayed him somehow.

Yesterday, I picked up a small wooden box with filled with his ashes. It's on my desk, just to my right, with a Tibetan Buddha sitting on top of the box, to protect him.

I loved the little guy, and I miss him.

A day of joy and celebration

2009-01-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken at a dear friend's home, with the same people with whom we watched the election results on November 8, 2008.

Months and months ago, I posted my thoughts on why I supported Barack Obama in his bid for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 Presidential election. He was, I thought, a true leader, someone who could inspire and motivate us all, something this country desperately needed after eight years of an administration that will, I believe, be seen in historical hindsight as the worst we have had to endure since George Washington was elected our first President. Everything President Obama (can I stop and interject just how thrilled I am to type those words?) has done since his campaign first began has convinced me that my assessment was correct. He is calm in the face of hardship and stress. He sees the big picture as well as understanding the importance of detail. He is inclusive. He accepts dissent - even invites dissent - because he knows that allowing himself to be surrounded by yes-men is a sure path to ruin. He doesn't need to raise his voice in order to be heard. I believe his election will return this country to a focus on the values that formed us, and that have helped us continue to forge ahead, despite wars and internecine struggles, because he both respects and believes in our Constitution. He really is a man whose actions are consistent with his words, who (as we used to say in corporate-speak) 'walks the talk'.

As far as I'm concerned, he has given us our country back, and I will always be grateful to him for doing that.

Once again, I can honestly say that I am proud to be an American. We did it!!!

Losing a friend

2009-01-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

Rubi, in her office at home

I turned 61 last month. You'd think by this time, I'd gotten used to death. Both of my parents have died. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and dear friends have gone. But this latest loss has left a hole in my heart that keeps filling up with tears.

I met Carol online. We were both part of a magical online community called The WeLL (for "Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link"). I joined the WeLL in 1992; Carol, in 1994. We 'met' and connected in an all-women's conference on the WeLL, and became friends - real friends - after I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995. Her log-n ID on the WeLL was "Rubicon" , and we all learned to call her "Rubi", a name she loved.

We were very different people in many ways, but similar in ways that truly mattered. She was a tiny, petite woman, with a head of thick, beautiful, silver-white hair, and the most beautiful, big, blue eyes I've ever seen. Ever. You could lose yourself in those eyes, listening to her talk about her beloved family (her partner-now-wife, Kay Ryan, her daughter Peggy, and her three wonderful grandchildren) or her work teaching at the College of Marin. She loved fiercely, deeply and passionately, and everyone who was lucky enough to be loved by Rubi had a warrior at his or her side.

The first time I saw her 'in real life' was at a party of women on the WeLL at a beautiful home in Marin County. My eyes kept being drawn to this gorgeous woman across the room, wearing a skin-tight, black turtleneck and a floor-length red-and-black skirt, and I swore the room glowed wherever she walked. That was when we were introduced for the first time, and when our friendship really began.

But the image I'll hold in my mind and my heart is a more simple one. She'd driven over to meet me for lunch, and we met at a wonderful little Indian restaurant in Berkeley, a mile from my house. We sat at a small table, and I listened, fascinated, as she talked about her latest work project. Her face glowed with energy. She talked with her hands, energetically and passionately. And those gorgeous blue eyes shone with excitement as she shared her thoughts and ideas. I can see her face in my mind's eye (where tears can't blur the image).

Rubi and Kay were married (the first time) in San Francisco City Hall. That was one of the reasons David and I chose to be married there, even though the same-sex marriages had been declared invalid several months later. They were married again in July 2008, on the same day Kay found out she'd been named Poet Laureate of the United States.

In the midst of these wonderful events, Rubi was locked in battle, for the third time, with cancer. She'd managed to fight it off two earlier times, but this one looked a lot worse. All of us who loved her kept hoping against hope that she'd be able to win another battle with cancer, but this time the cancer was too damned aggressive. Despite radiation treatments that burned her skin, despite chemotherapy treatments that so sickened her she wasn't able to find any release from the nausea and pain, and despite her fierce determination and love of life, the goddamned cancer won. Rubi lost this last battle two days ago, and a light has gone out for all of us who loved her. I know I'll never see her again, at least not in the lovely body she inhabited for over sixty years, but so much of her will always be with me. I need to be grateful for that.

But right now, all I am is sad. I miss you, Rubi-cue. And I love you.

"It doesn't get better than this!"

2008-10-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

I almost bagged my morning walk today, since yesterday was pretty exhausting (we had new windows installed which meant no rest/nap/sleep all day), but the sight of the sun shining and the gorgeous blue sky lured me out. I threw on a hoodie that I won at an MS Walk a couple of years ago (which I thought was highly appropriate), stashed my cell phone in one pocket and a plastic baggie filled with dog biscuits in the other, and headed out to do one of my longer routes (almost a mile, but not quite). I was thinking how lucky I am to live in such a gorgeous place when a woman I've seen before passed me as she was jogging. "It doesn't get better than this, does it?" she asked. "Nope," I replied, "it really doesn't. Enjoy the day!" "You, too!" she said, as she rounded the block ahead of me.

Autumn has taken hold here in Portland, no doubt. We've had evening temps down in the high 30's, and the combination of colder nights and shorter days is having the expected impact on all the deciduous trees in our neighborhood. I find more and more deep, red maple leaves in our driveway each more, and the changing colors are more obvious every day. Mornings like today's are my absolute favorites: crisp and chilly, sunny and blue-skied, and so clear it feels as if you can see forever.

As I headed up a hill towards SW Hamilton Street, I could hear the sound of children playing in the field adjacent to Bridlemile Elementary School. As I got closer to the field, a little girl in a blue outfit ran over to the fence, retrieved a soccer ball, and headed back to the game. Yep, it's definitely autumn.

There's a home across the street from the school with Halloween decorations adorning on of their trees - small, orange plastic bags with black pumpkin faces hanging from the branches. I noticed several more houses with Halloween decorations set out, and several with carved pumpkins, as well.

As I was headed back home on the final stretch of my walk, the jogger passed me again. "We have to stop meeting like this!" I said as she passed. She laughed and said "I could do this all day!" "I wish I could", was my response. "It's just as good to walk", she replied, as she rounded the corner ahead of me.

I thought about that as I labored up the final hill that leads to our street, always a difficult process at the tail-end of a walk. She's right, I thought. It is 'just as good to walk', even if my pace is slower, my distances nothing to brag about, and my 'lazy leg' starts acting up as I head down our driveway. As long as I can walk on my own, and be grateful for a beautiful autumn day in Portland, OR, it's good enough.

Autumn begins in Portland

2008-10-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

As I readied myself for walking this morning (mainly ensuring that I had my cell phone and a few dog biscuits in the pocket of my slicker), I thought about a friend's advice, given a few weeks ago. I'm paraphrasing, but it was essentially "Don't stop walking because of the rain", and that's very good advice when one lives in rainy Portland, Oregon.

It was drizzling a bit when I left the house, but most of the drips and drops and plops I was hearing came from the trees and bushes, not the sky. I don't much care if my hair gets wet (right now, it's so short, it dries in moments), but it's a real PITA wearing glasses in the rain. When I was a kid, maybe in third grade, I told my father someone needed to invent little windshield wipers for people who wear glasses. I still think that would be great idea. In any case, the day turned clear and sunny as I was walking, so I got the best of both possible worlds: everything washed clean by the rain =and= sparkling in the sun. Not a bad combination.

Autumn is taking hold all over the place, although we're not yet in the thick of it vis-a-vis falling leaves (no pun intended). I picked up a few beautifully colored maple leaves to press (and use in making birthday cards) and snipped the last two hydrangea blossoms from "Hertha's hydrangea" in our front yard and dropped them on the front porch to retrieve when I returned home. Took one of the half-mile walks, one that takes me to a fairly busy street across from an elementary school, so there were a lot more cars on the road than I usually encounter. I was acutely aware every time a car passed me; in addition to the noise of the engine, the smell of exhaust momentarily masked the fragrance of the rain-washed trees and grasses, and I found myself holding my breath every time a I heard another car approaching. It sure is different living nestled in this little neighborhood, surrounded by trees and very little traffic, nothing like working in a city like San Francisco or Boston, where traffic and cars are ubiquitous.

I'm noticing the trees and bushes as they begin to show fall colors, and have begun trying to picture what the landscape will look like in November, when the deciduous trees have dropped the last of their leaves, all the flowering plants have gone dormant, and the only green comes from grass, moss and conifers. It will still be beautiful, I'm sure, but I'll be noticing different details as I walk along, no longer focused on summer foliage. I'm actually looking forward to this.

Harvest time

2008-09-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

So here the thing: I'm a city girl. I was born in Philadelphia, and have lived in cities (Boston, Berkeley, Portland) my whole life. We never had much gardening space when I was growing up, and what we had was usually devoted to rose bushes and flowering plants (my dad was the gardener in our house, and he always grew beautiful things). So we never grew vegetables; the only home-grown fruit I ever tasted came from a small peach tree in our minuscule back yard.

We had two apple trees on our property in California, and both produced prodigious amounts of fruit. I'd make pot after pot of applesauce which I'd freeze and then thaw in winter, when the taste of anything made from fresh-picked fruit was a real treat.

We now have a sizable back yard (my friend Deb's mom told me it looks like a park!), and last year David built me a small raised garden bed so I could plant some veggies. We planted late in the season and our harvest was small (maybe a quart of tomatoes and no zucchini at all), so this year we did our planting earlier.

I've learned a bit about the demands of harvesting from our amazing strawberry plants, as the gallon or so of frozen strawberries in our freezer prove. But even the strawberries didn't prepare me for our tomato harvest.

I picked a bunch this morning, and decided it would be interesting to see how much we have available at the moment (and believe me, we've been eating tomatoes every night, as many as we can manage), and it's about a pound of cherry and/or grape tomatoes. But there are a gazillion more out there, waiting to ripen and be gathered. At least a gazillion, maybe more. An on-line friend pointed me to a recipe for a cherry tomato tart that I'll attempt to make this weekend, and I've made a batch of pasta sauce that's frozen and ready for January/February consumption (along with about a quart of homemade pesto made mainly with basil we've grown here).

Oh, and I've done nothing with the pears that keep dropping onto the lawn. I have to get working on them, as well.

So, anyway, here's this city girl, born and bred, suddenly getting a real-life glimpse, if only for a brief moment or two, into the rigors of life on a farm. I don't mean to aggrandize my own experiences by saying that; I'm quite aware of how small my efforts are. But going out every morning to check the garden, harvest what's ready, and then figure out how to preserve what I've harvested has opened my eyes to just how difficult and all-consuming the lives of farming families are. I try to imagine what life would be like without refrigerators or freezers, in a time when nothing was wasted and everything needed to be preserved quickly (unlike our lives now, when I see gallons of apples fallen from trees along the streets where I walk crushed into pulp by passing cars). Hell, I'm wiped out when I make one batch of tomato sauce. I can't imagine spending day after day, keeping a stove going so all the various fruits and veggies could be prepared for canning. My guess is I wouldn't be worrying about losing weight!

David built another set of raised beds about a month ago, which means double the harvest next year. Ack!

Morning walks again!

2008-08-23T09:40:00.001-07:00

There was a time, not all that long ago, when I'd set my alarm for 5:00am, throw on a pair of sweats and my Nikes, grab my Walkman, and set out to walk a mile around our development in New Jersey. We lived in one of the older developments, where the builders knew better than to level all of the glorious old trees, and I loved seeing beams of sun dancing among the branches and leaves of the huge pine trees and beautiful, mature rhododendrons. My regular walk was exactly one mile, and it took me somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes to make that loop. Once home, I'd jump in the shower, get myself dressed, get Zack up (grumbling, 'cause he's NOT a morning person!), make his breakfast, feed the cats, drive him to before-school day care, and set off on my own hour-long commute to work. Oh, and then work a full day.

Life has changed a lot in many ways since then, but it occurred to me this morning, as I walked around our little neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, that I chose to live in an area not all that unlike the development in New Jersey, at least in terms of foliage. Of course, everything around the house in NJ was very, very flat (we could never figure out why they called our town "Cherry Hill" since we never really saw anything remotely resembling a hill nearby!). Now we live on a rise, near the West Hills, and it's impossible to reach our home without climbing a steep rise. So the view is markedly different, with the hills rising to the north, and all the dips and rises in the blocks surrounding our home. But many of the trees and bushes are very much the same. Huge conifers, every variety of Japanese maple you could imagine, banks of rhododendrons and azalea bushes -- the kinds of plants that can thrive in clay-y, acidic soil. It's funny how these decisions get made - somewhere in the lizard-brain, I guess, and suddenly I realize that I've managed to repeat a decision I'd made many years before (this time, however, with much better results).

So. Walks, you think? But you have MS, and haven't been able to walk much at all for years, right?

True.

However, at my dear friend Elaine's urging, I made an appointment with an amazing woman, a hypno-therapist who (as far as I'm concerned) does miraculous work. I've seen her five times, and am now able to walk about a half mile every morning. I can even make it up the final hill to our street (which is NOT an insignificant accomplishment, believe me!). It's slow going at the end of the walk, and I need to stop and rest at times, but dammit, I'm WALKING!!

I know you're probably thinking something along the lines of "Big F***ing Deal", those of you who are able to stroll a mile to the nearest coffee shop and pick up a large latte without thinking twice. But lemme tell ya, this IS a BFD for me. I've missed walking more than any of the things I've lost due to MS, more than my work (which I loved), more than the seemingly boundless energy I used to have -- more than anything. And now, miraculously, I am able to step off our front porch, walk out into the street, and make a half-mile loop around our neighborhood. I encounter neighbors and chat with them, pet the dogs they're walking and move on. I notice tiny details about gardens and trees. I chatter to the squirrels and listen to birdsong. I breathe deeply, loving the smell of grasses and trees and flowers.

I think this was the best 60th birthday gift of all.

Details

2008-08-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

I am NOT good with details.

If you know anything about the Myers/Briggs Type Indication (MBTI), you'll understand when I say that I have zero preference for "Sensing". I've had to learn to pay attention to details (like when I'm trying to follow a recipe, or read instructions or drive somewhere I've never been before). I try to pay attention to one thing, to focus and concentrate, but inevitably I find my mind has flitted somewhere else (like just now, when I started to think about our cat Caruso, who isn't eating at the moment, rather than focusing on this post). We ENFPs aren't known for our ability to concentrate and pay attention to details (unless, of course, we're really, really interested in the task). When I try to look for something positive about being disabled, I often think about having the opportunity to slow down -- stop, even -- and pay attention to what's going on around me.

About a week ago, I turned to David and said something along the lines of "Well, the end of summer is coming". He responded "What?! It's just the beginning of August!" I'm sure he thought I was into one of my glass-half-empty, down-the-rat-hole things, but that wasn't it at all.

The thing is, I'm paying a lot more attention to the changes in the gardens that surround our home, and it's pretty damned clear that things are starting to wind down out there. Here are a few examples:

The hydrangea bushes are flowering. Hydrangeas flower towards the end of the growing season, into the fall, not in spring or early summer.
The dozens of volunteer columbines have produced hundreds of seed pods, all bursting and ready to inundate the surrounding area. Another end-of-summer activity.
The grape vine in the back yard is producing a prodigious amount of grapes.
All the tomato plants are covered with little tomatoes.
The pears on the pear tree in the back yard are getting bigger every day, and they're no longer bright green.

I have more examples, but you get the picture, I'm sure. I don't need a calendar to tell me that summer is on the wane. Just paying attention to the details that nature provides can do that for me now.

On my walk this morning...

2008-08-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

...as I rounded the corner onto SW 47th Avenue, I stopped to look at the intricacy of the leaves on the conifers that border the home on the corner, and began to think about how much more I'm able to notice when I walk around the neighborhood.

The first house I pass as I walk south has a lovely collection of planters, all filled with a different variety of plants, from tall, waving grasses to brightly colored flowers. I noticed that the two big planters on each side of the driveway stand on several large, flat rocks - a little detail that somehow makes the arrangement much more interesting than if they sat flat on the ground or in a matching saucer. Little details, but boy, are they fun to encounter.

In the next driveway, I ran into my neighbor Barb, who was talking with the young woman who owns the house at the next corner. We were introduced, and I got to meet her three (absolutely beautiful) chickens. The hens were sitting close together, in the shade of a bush, rubbing against the cool soil - and obviously having a great time in the process. I complimented her on the garden they put in last year, which I love to see as I walk past, we talked a little about the raccoons that have appeared in the neighborhood (and at some point, in most of our yards), and I excused myself so I could finish the walk before it got too hot for me.

In contrast to yesterday, when the temps were in the low 50s as I walked, temps were nearing 70 and the sun was already feeling hot, so I knew I needed to finish my circuit and get back home as quickly as possible (heat and MS do not play well together).

I made it home just fine, decided to water the pots on the back deck to help the plants make it through the heat of the day, and wandered down to check on our little vegetable beds. Our tomatoes are going nuts and I had to scrounge a couple of sticks to support branches that had escaped from the cages and were threatening to climb the fence and attack the homes to our south. They're covered with green tomatoes, and I'm optimistic that we'll have a great harvest this fall! Still not sure about the zucchini or the pepper plants, but time will (as they say) tell.

So now I'm back in the house, where the indomitable heat pump will keep temps in the mid 70s, even though it will hit the 90s today outside.

Sam, the feline escape artist strikes again

2008-07-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

My dear, dear friend Liz is here for a few days, a mid-way stop on her trip from the Bay Area to Seattle and back.

I adore Liz, and I love having her here. Her energy is positive, her wisdom seems boundless, and she has a killer sense of humor. Best of all, she understands the need for alone-time.

Yesterday, after I returned from an amazing session with my hypno-therapist (another story here), I suggested that we make a quick run to New Seasons (a locally-owned and totally righteous supermarket) so I could pick up a journal and a few other odds and ends.

When we came back, Liz made a phone call, and I sat down at the dining room table with the newest Willamette Week and a bowl of watermelon. For some reason, I looked over my shoulder and saw that the sliding door out to the back deck was open - and that the screen door, which should have been closed tight, was also open. "Damn!", I thought. "Sam opened the door and escaped again."

So I went outside, called his name, and was rewarded with a loud 'meow' in response. There he was, crouched down next to the tall grass and the little pond, chowing down on greens. I grabbed a bit of grass and lured him over to me, picked him up (no mean feat, since he weighs about 22 pounds these days) and lugged him up two flights of steps from the lower deck into the house. Then I went out to try and find Caruso. No luck. Liz joined me, and we scoured the back yard, calling his name, did the same in the front yard, tried again the in the back yard, and finally gave up.

It was time for my daily siesta, so I rested for a couple of hours, woke worrying about Caruso (temps were in the mid-80's, he's an elderly kitty who's in the first stages of kidney failure) being outside for so long, and went back out to look for him again. I was in the lower part of the yard, near the raspberries, when I heard a rustling above me. I looked up to see a bird hopping away from something, and realized there was a furry, gray lump crouched nearby, watching the bird intently - Caruso! So I climbed up the stone steps to where he was hiding and grabbed him.

It was easier to carry him back up and into the house, skinny old guy that he is, and I deposited him on the floor in the sunroom with an enormous sigh of relief.

Here's the thing. When we began keeping Sam in the house at night, in an attempt to decrease the number of fight-related injuries he was sustaining on a regular basis, our vet told us that he'd adjust to being an indoor cat in "oh, a month or so". It was to laugh.

We had that conversation in 2004. We are now half-way through 2008, and Sam still bolts whenever he gets the chance. Part of me feels badly that he's on permanent house arrest. But realistically, I know it's better for him (and MUCH better for the birds that come to our feeders) if he stays indoors. I remind him about those issues all the time. For some reason, he ignores me, despite my usually-effective powers of persuasion.

This morning, both guys are inside, having been given their usual morning treats, and settled down for a day of napping. With luck, they'll stay inside.

This morning...

2008-07-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

... for the first time in more years than I can count, I woke early, did my regular morning routine, and then (insert drum roll), went out for a walk. Yeah, I know - BFD, right? Well, it IS a big fucking deal for me, and I am so glad I did it. It's cool here today, and overcast, perfect walking weather for me. One of the things I love most about where we live is how rural things feel (no sidewalks help with that, as does the amazing abundance of lush greenery). It's not like taking a walk to, say, Solano Avenue in Berkeley (although I still miss Solano Ave.), it's more like taking a walk on a thickly settled country road.

No one was out and about, other than dozens of birds and one black and white cat, crouched low and safe close to its house at the top of the driveway. I walked slowly, trying to breathe in and out, deeply and regularly, and to pay attention to little details like the color of a blossom on a bush or the sound of birdsong high in one of the huge conifers that line the streets. Even though I could hear the faint sound of traffic on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway a couple of blocks to the south, it faded to white noise almost immediately, and the sound of birds took center stage.

We live on a rise, so any walk from our house requires navigating both a steep incline and a steep climb at one or the other end of the walk. I opted to do the incline first, and brave the climb on the way home, and managed to do both without much trouble. I stopped at the crest of the little hill, just to breathe and be grateful that I'd managed to make it.

It's a far cry from the days when I could walk a mile in fifteen minutes (it took me about that time to do what I assume is about a quarter mile stroll), but who cares? I took a walk!

What to write, what to write?

2008-07-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, I'll get an email from a dear friend back east, gently wondering why this space has been so silent lately. Am I too depressed to write? Too busy (not likely)? Have I forgotten how to type, perhaps (my question, not his)? The answer eludes me, except that it doesn't feel as if I have all that much to say.

I read blogs brimming over with the writers' achievements - culinary, artistic, poetic, corporate. I think about my own life with its rather small and sad list of 'achievements' (cleaned the cat boxes, watered the herbs, emptied the dishwasher), decide it's kind of silly to post on a blog about all of this mundane crap, and the space remains silent.

This post isn't about me, though. It's about a wonderful event that was announced two days ago. A friend of ours, Kay Ryan, was named U.S. Poet Laureate. You can Google her name and read all the latest articles announcing her appointment in the NY Times or Washington Post. I just want to add my little voice to the chorus of congratulations, both for Kay, whose talent is boundless and who so deserves this honor, and for her life-partner and now-wife, Carol Adair, my very beloved friend. Carol and Kay have been together for over thirty years. They married for the first time in 2003, when the city of San Francisco legalized marriage for same-sex couples (and we chose to be married in San Francisco City Hall in solidarity with our gay and lesbian friends, even though those marriages had already been declared invalid by the reactionary and fearful folks who refuse to believe that 'different' doesn't necessary equate to 'bad'. Kay and Carol were married again on July 8th, 2008, the same day that Kay received the news of this wonderful honor. It was one helluva wedding present, wasn't it?

Congratulations, Kay (and Carol)! And my thanks to those who realized that brilliant talent has nothing to do with sexual preference or gender or race. It just is.

(Hey! I know the Poet Laureate!)

June already?

2008-06-03T09:10:00.000-07:00

Whew. And the last time I posted in here was April? How did that happen?

It's not as if I've been doing anything even remotely interesting. I did, finally, catch the Flu From Hell that was making its rounds in Portland, and that little episode lasted a good two-and-a-half weeks. But that's not why I haven't posted here. It's mainly because my life is so damned boring. I don't do much of anything (other than the morning cat-related duties, an hour's volunteering at the local animal shelter, and a little volunteer writing for Onward Oregon). That, a weekly lunch date with my wonderful son Zack, and the usual, boring household/garden chores seem to be the sum total of what I do most days. I see friends for breakfast, and we get together with friends in the evening from time to time, but my life is - for the most part - deadly boring. I mean, how many times can I post reports about our garden or the hummingbirds or the pesky squirrels that insist on raiding our bird feeders on a regular basis? Ho hum, ho hum, ho .... zzzzzzzzzzz. Oops. I put myself to sleep just then.

However, I can report that, after one year's residence with us, Caruso (the now-15-year-old kitty we adopted from Animal Aid) is doing beautifully. He and Sam (our HUGE black cat) chase each other around the house and play together as if they've always been buddies. Harley still doesn't like him much, but her reactions to seeing him are a little less intense than they used to be. I don't think I can say they've reached a detente, but at least they're not engaged in active warfare. Most of the time.
I doubt that my fantasy of a three-cat night will ever happen, but it's pretty clear that Mr. Caruso has settled into his new home quite comfortably. Which isn't, at least to me, boring at all.

2008 Oregon MS Walk

2008-04-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

Our intrepid team participated in the MS Walk again this year, and so far we've raised a little over $4,800 for MS research. My thanks go to the team members and to all of our friends, family and associates whose generous contributions to The Lib*erators resulted in such successful fund raising.

Unlike the first year we participated, when it POURED the entire time, this year's weather was spectacular. It was sunny and warm, but the breezes from the Willamette River made it just right for spending an hour walking (or, in my case, being pushed in the wheelchair). According to the folks from the Portland office of the Oregon MS Society, this year's turnout was the biggest ever (including all kinds of dogs from our own Waggoner, who joined for the second year in a row, to a group of Basset Hounds who seemed to be forming their own team!). There were several of us in wheelchairs and/or motorized scooters, obviously folks with MS who found their own way to participate in the Walk, despite our inability to do it on our own two feet.

At one point, a woman I'd never seen before (and probably won't see again), walked past us and asked my friend Reva if she'd take a picture of the two of us. This wasn't easy, since Zack was still pushing me in the wheelchair, but Reva managed to do it somehow. The woman patted me on the shoulder, said "Bless you for doing this" and walked on ahead of us, disappearing into the crowd. Amazing.

It's events like this one that remind me how deep the human capacity for kindness and generosity can be. I'm grateful to everyone who participated in Saturday's Walk, to those I know and love and to all the strangers with whom we shared a glorious morning along the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. Who knows? Maybe the money we raised will fund a research experiment that finally discovers the cause of Multiple Sclerosis. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Anniversary Celebration

2008-04-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our third wedding anniversary (I tell folks that we had a decade-long engagement and decided it was safe to make things legal after that). We were married in San Francisco City Hall, just two weeks before I arrived in Portland (I'm a firm believer in cramming as much major change into as short a period of time as possible in order to maximize the stress factor). We chose to be married in that venue in solidarity with our gay and lesbian friends whose deep and loving relationships were given all-too-brief legal recognition by the city of San Francisco in that same place. It rained buckets the morning we were married, but the weather cleared later that day, and yesterday's weather was much the same.

Since I'm into the fourth month of my Year of Not Buying Stuff, we didn't exchange gifts (actually, we stopped doing that years ago), but we did exchange cards and David bought me a beautiful bouquet of French tulips (my favorite flower). Best of all, he made reservations at one of the restaurants we've been wanting to try for a while - Genoa.

I was a bit apprehensive when I looked at the menu (seven courses!?) but the meal was about as close to perfect as any I've ever had. Portions were small, thankfully, just enough to allow full enjoyment of the presentation and amazing mix of flavors without being overwhelming, and the menu itself was outstanding. I wish I'd thought to grab a menu before we left, because the menu was much too complex for me to remember, much less describe here. A few highlights:

Spectacular watercress soup (who knew?)
Kobe beef (David's)
Roast squab (mine)
The best selection of cheeses I've ever had

I loved that the waiter brought David a glass of red wine to accompany the beef course, since I mentioned that David kindly allowed me to order a bottle of white wine, even though he preferred reds. And that he put a slender candle in each of our dessert plates to commemorate our anniversary.

It was a quiet, elegant and totally satisfying celebration.

Spring Snow

2008-03-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

I was talking with my ninety-three year old mother-in-law last week, saying I was hoping to find the energy to clean out the flower beds around our house later in the morning. She is a life-long gardener, and lived most of her life in Oregon, so when she cautioned me to wait a few weeks before doing anything like that, I listened to her. "It will get cold again," she said, "and there's always a chance of snow in March."

When I woke this morning, I silently thanked her for her sage advice, because the first thing I saw when I looked out the kitchen window was - snow! There's not a lot of it, and it looks as if the precipitation has already turned back to rain, but there are patches of snow all around our house - on the lawn and the decks, on my car, and coating the clear plastic domes that protect our two bird feeders on the back deck.

The daffodils still seem just fine.

This reminded me of the first spring I spent in Boston, after moving up there from Philadelphia. We'd had a week of absolutely perfect, glorious spring weather, after a very hard winter. My son's dad and I went for a long walk along the Esplanade, abandoning our parkas and gloves for light jackets, breathing in the smells from the trees and the newly grown grass, and loving the feel of the warm sun on our faces.

A week later, on May 11th, it snowed - big time. I think we ended up with a foot of snow in that freak storm, and the gorgeous magnolia trees that grace Commonwealth Avenue lost every single blossom. Gah!

When I lived (and gardened) in Massachusetts, I learned that it was wise to wait until May 31st to plant a garden. So when I wake to snow here on the other side of the continent, in a city that could have been called "Boston" rather than "Portland", had a coin-toss gone differently, I know that I'll be out in the garden within a couple of weeks, doing as much as I can to clear things out before my energy disappears.

I can't wait to plant vegetables again this year. But I will.

What we need is leadership

2008-03-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

I can’t count the number of times I said those words when I worked in large corporations. I can’t count the number of times I sat in a coaching session with someone struggling to move up the corporate ladder, trying to explain the difference between a manager – even an exceptional manager – and a leader.

Here’s the thing: organizations need both. Managers – good, skilled managers – are absolutely essential to the health and ongoing success of any organization (and the U.S. is one huge organization in dire need of exceptional management skills, for sure). But leadership, that almost intangible ability to envision how a successful future will look, to communicate that picture over and over again so others can see it and taste it and feel it and (most importantly) to motivate people and convince them to pull together in order to work towards that future – well, that’s leadership, not management. A truly extraordinary leader hires talented managers without the need to micromanage them. A true leader knows how to trust.

I turned sixty in December 2007 (astounding though that seems to me, since I still feel a LOT younger inside). I’ve been politically aware and off-and-on active for over forty of those years. When Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon was one of only two members of that prestigious body to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 (I was still in high school at the time), I wrote a letter thanking him for his courage. At the time, I lived in Philadelphia, and Oregon was one of those big states out west that I figured I’d never see; who knew I’d find myself lucky enough to live in Portland forty years later? Since that time, I’ve listened to more motivational speeches than I can remember, much less count. But not one of them ever moved me the way Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia on March 18th did. I sat here at my desk in our home, watching the video on Obama’s web site and listening carefully to every word. When he was finished speaking, I realized that this man embodied everything I thought a leader needed – including something I didn’t list in the paragraph above – integrity.

Hillary Clinton is a brilliant woman whose talents should neither be denied nor discounted. She strikes me as one of the most competent and effective managers I've ever seen in action, and that's saying a lot. However...

There hasn’t been a time in my life when this country was more in need of a real leader, someone who (in my husband’s words) can present both a literal and figurative face to the people of our country and the rest of the world that the United States is more than just a place where wealthy white men live and prosper. I absolutely believe Barack Obama is that man.

So why the Monster Story, anyway?

2008-03-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me that people might think it a wee bit odd that the URL to this blog is TheMonsterStory. What's that about?

Giving credit where it's due, it was a friend in California who used to call the disease The MonSter (get it?) and hoo boy, was she right. This really is a monster of a disease, especially for those of us who want to believe we have even minimal control over our lives. For years, my life was ruled by my calendars. I shlepped a blue leather binder that sported a little brass place with my name etched on it everywhere -- at work, at home. It was ubiquitous. The more appointments and dates I could cram onto each page, the better I felt about myself. I was doing stuff. I was accomplishing stuff. I was competent! I was worth something. That binder represented so much to me, now that I think back on it (and I have no idea where it is these days - I might have tossed it when we moved to Portland). It carried more than physical weight - it represented my success, as surely as my job title or the number of people who clamored for appointments on my crammed schedule at work.

Of course, that was all illusion, sure as I'm sitting here in an old t-shirt and fuzzy slippers. I'm not saying that my efforts at work weren't valuable, or that I wasn't effective. It's just that those jam-packed pages listing meetings and assignments had just about nothing to do with my worth as a human being, even though that was the value I ascribed to them. Unfortunately, at least as far as the rest of the world knows, whatever contributions I was able to make in the past, or those I make today, really can't be represented with numbers or entries on a calendar. If I made a difference, it was with the people with whom I worked, and it's almost impossible to quantify those experiences and interactions.

The MonSter continues to try and teach me that Life Lesson. The first thing I think about every morning as I wake is a 'to-do' list. What do I need to accomplish today? There's the usual morning routine (focused mainly on cat-related tasks). I can add a few more chores like cleaning and re-filling the hummingbird feeders or trying to run the Dyson vacuum without tripping over the cord or losing my balance and tumbling into a chair. Maybe I can manage a half hour on my trusty Theracycle, getting my arms and legs moving and my heart rate up a wee bit. It's pretty certain that I can't add a visit to the supermarket if I've already done the stuff I listed above. That will need to wait 'til tomorrow or the day after - or maybe even the day after that. So I've gone from being a much-sought-after, high-paid corporate manager, one who traveled extensively and worked 24/7 to - what? A sixty-year-old woman with a not-very-interesting life who can barely fit one outside event on her calendar, much less a long list of appointments. Does that mean I'm worth less (or worthless, either will work, I guess)? That I'm a walking waste of oxygen?

Intellectually, I know that's not true. But damn, there are days when the MonSter's impact on my life makes me feel that way.

So it's not all about MS, is it? Isn't it also about the way we - our society - values people?

Whew. This is way too heavy all of a sudden. I think I need to climb on the old Theracycle and watch a light-hearted DVD...

Watching the seasons change

2008-03-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

I've been a little down these past few weeks, thanks in part to The Cold From Hell that's been cutting a swath through Portland. There's a part of me, the self-absorbed crazy part I s'pose, that always thinks something like "Wait a minute! I already have my disease, dammit! What's with this add-on? Enough is already way too much!" But the Universe, in its perverse and unknowable way, has piled a cold that simply won't go away atop my regular list of MS-related physical woes, and that's been enough to eat away at my reserve of positive thinking. I'm not suicidally depressed - nothing dramatic like that. But I'm feeling blue and kinda sorry for myself (and boyohboy do I miss shopping).

All around me, though, our gardens are shaking off the last of winter's dormancy and coming back to life. I first noticed a sprinkling of crocuses in the beds around the driveway in front of the house. Light and dark purple (my favorite color) suddenly appeared among the dead leaves and brown branches - the first harbinger of spring. In the past week, the daffodils have come to life, and there are banks of bright yellow blossoms just about everywhere I look, turning what was a typical dull and unhappy-looking winter landscape into something bright and optimistic (yeah, I know, I'm projecting just a wee bit here, but - what the hell - it's my blog, right?).

This morning I noticed that the pear tree outside our dining room window is covered with pale green buds. And the camellia bushes are beginning to flower, as well.

The cycle of life continues around me, despite my blue interior. This is a Good Thing. It helps pull me out of my self-absorbed self and focus back on all of the beauty that surround me every day. As the two or three people who read this blog know by now, I spend a lot of my time clambering out of emotional rat-holes - dark, dank, unpleasant places where things always look grim and impossible. Thankfully (cheap date that I am), something as simple as a bank of daffodils swaying in the breeze can help me refocus on the good stuff in life.

So even though I still feel lousy, and keep sniffling and coughing and sneezing and keeping the Kleenex people in business, I'm not down in the rat-hole this morning.

But I am saddened at some news that arrived in an email from my son's dad this morning. One of my son's uncles, a very kind and loving man, passed away this morning after a long battle with brain cancer. I haven't seen Bruce in almost fifteen years, but I remember him very clearly, and with affection. Once again, the wheel of life turns. The daffodils spring back into life, and one human being passes away. Forgive me if this sounds maudlin - that isn't my intent at all. But these two polar opposite events hit me this morning, and reminded me that change - good change, bad change, neutral change - is as integral a part of our lives as breathing.

Whether you're out there actively working as an agent of change, or simply watching the seasons change from inside your home, it's gonna happen.

Condolences to Bruce's family, and a peaceful passing for him. And for you three or four friends who read this blog - remember that spring will come again this year!

Valentine's Day 2008

2008-02-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

These are the roses David gave me for Valentine's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day in Portland in 2005, when we came here to check things out and see if we were ready to commit to a move from the Bay Area. David made reservations at a funky little restaurant called "Wild Abandon" (he liked the name) on Belmont Street. We sat in a booth, way in the back of the restaurant, and we both loved the venue as well as the meal. Since our reservation was on the early side, we decided to go to a movie after dinner. We ended up at the Moreland, an old, neighborhood theater that turned out to be the second oldest, continuously running movie theater in the country (the first oldest is also in Portland!). We saw Sideways, which was a first-run movie at the time, and paid $4.50 each for admission. Movies in the Bay Area had just hit $9.00, and parking was always an issue unless we opted to go to a suburban movie complex instead of one of the smaller theaters in Berkeley or Oakland. We anticipated having to drive around looking for parking, but we ended up parking in front of the theater (well, not in front, exactly, but in the first available parking space next to the entrance). Amazing!, we thought (and still do). We get to see a movie for half of what it would cost in the Bay Area and manage to find a free parking spot within spitting distance of the front door! It was a very cool way to spend Valentine's Day.

Last night was much more quiet, but equally as lovely. I made dinner (lamb chops glazed with honey, cumin and coriander and curried couscous with dried cranberries, saute'd onions and cilantro. We opened our last bottle of a beautiful Rosenblum Zinfandel, toasted our third Valentine's Day in Portland (and each other, of course). The venue this year was much more familiar (and had a lot more cat hair wafting all over the place!), but the feelings were as strong as ever.

I am one lucky woman.

A Year Without Shopping

2008-01-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

This started as a way to deal with the cost of Avonex, once I've fallen into the Medicare Abyss, but it's turned into a much more interesting - and potentially richer - process.

I decided to stop buying stuff, stuff like shoes (I ask you, how many pairs of black shoes does someone who walks barefoot in the house and doesn't go out much really 'need'?), or ceramic bowls, or computer games, or even books. We have one of the best library systems in the country here in Multnomah County, OR. If I want to read something, I can go online, put in my request, and it ends up waiting for me at the local branch of the library. We have more ceramic bowls (and glass bowls and stainless steels bowls and wood bowls) than any two people can use in a month. Why add anything more to our collection? My closets are stuffed with blouses and coats, jackets and slacks (and, of course, shoes). I have more sweaters, tunics, turtlenecks and other assorted tops than I care to count. Do I really need another purple one?

No way. I may want another purple blahblahblah, but I sure as hell don't need another purple blahblahblah.

And therein lies the real richness and learning opportunity in this self-imposed denial of retail adventure. Whenever I find myself thinking "Boy, I really need a purple blahblahblah" (which happens, sadly, a lot more frequently than I'd wish) I ask myself "Do I really need that purple thing, or do I want that purple thing? And if I want that purple thing, what is it I really want?"

Believe me, that last question isn't an easy one to answer. Often, I can't figure it out, and have to put it away. But once in a while, I'll realize what I really want is my health, or my work, or to be fifteen pounds thinner or fifteen years younger - none of which happens if I buy a purple blahblahblah (hell, none of which will happen again, at least in this lifetime). So instead of buying something, I spend a little time thinking about the real thing I'm missing, not finding answers, but learning in the process.

We find mindfulness wherever we can, if we try.

Out with the old year...

2008-01-01T10:59:00.000-08:00

...and in with the new.

Except I neglected to write about a couple of cool things that happened last month, so please forgive me for a quick look back?

David, my wonderful husband, managed to orchestrate a surprise birthday party for me on the evening of the Day Itself. I wasn't much into celebrating the day, since I'm still not quite believing that I'm actually sixty years old, and since he hadn't suggested anything to me by Friday afternoon, I asked if we could call my son Zack and his sweetie Emily, and invite them over for Pizza And A Movie. David, looking a wee bit uncomfortable, answered that he'd made reservations at JoPa, a terrific restaurant just a quarter mile from our house, figuring that it was a safe venue even if I ended up being tired in the early evening. Since this interchange occurred just before I crashed for a 3-plus hour nap, I completely spaced on the fact that JoPa doesn't take reservations for parties under six.

Later that afternoon, the phone rang and someone asked to speak with David. I asked who was calling (all those years of working in offices has made it impossible for me to answer the phone and just hand it over to someone!) and the guy on the other end of the line said "I'm calling from JoPa to confirm tonight's reservation". David took the phone and walked out of the room to continue the conversation (another clue) and I realized that something beyond dinner for the two of us was afoot.

When we got to the restaurant, David asked if we could 'check out the upstairs room' (okay, that's VERY odd, I thought, we've been here dozens of times, and he's never even glanced towards that space) but I slowly climbed up the steep staircase, expecting maybe a small party of six people to greet me when I finally made it up there.

Nope. The room was filled with almost everyone we know in Portland - a real party! There's something special about being in a space like that, surrounded by folks you love and who love you, and I can't imagine a better way to celebrate my sixtieth turn around the sun. Thank you, dearest David, for pulling it together so beautifully!

There are photos from the party on some digital camera or other, and I'm hoping to share a few of them if/when I'm able.

On a completely different note, let's go back to the letter I posted here a week or so ago. I sent a copy to the Oregonian newspaper as a letter to the Editor, and it was published last week. An interesting thing happened yesterday - maybe a little hint that it's worth taking the time to voice my opinions and share my experiences.

The phone rang in the late morning, and a voice I didn't recognize asked if I was Libbi Lepow. Assuming it was a telemarketer, I answered in the affirmative (but warily) and the man proceeded to tell me that he'd read my letter to the Editor in last Friday's _Oregonian_, and wanted to let me know about a prescription assistance program in Oregon that might help me with the exorbitant 'donut-hole' costs for medication. Turns out that he's a retired dermatologist, and knows the program's director quite well; he gave me their toll-free number and her name, and encouraged me to call them. As he said "You've got nothing to lose - even the phone call is free!"

I'm still a wee bit amazed that someone would take the time to track me down and share that information. It was a ray of light in a year that will live in my memory as pretty damned dark overall. It's little acts of generosity and kindness like the phone call that keep my trust in humanity from disappearing completely.

So, on that note, I wish everyone who takes the time to read these rambling, stream-of-consciousness missives the best possible new year. I hope it brings you light and love, abundance and joy (and for all of us, regime change at home and a return to the core values upon which this country was founded).

A birthday...

2007-12-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

...and a death.

This wasn't quite what I was thinking about posting here today, but my plans were altered by the news this morning of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. She was fifty-four years old. Today, I enter another decade of life as I find that I've somehow managed to survive sixty turns around the sun. It's my sixtieth birthday.

Like so many of my friends, I don't feel like I'm sixty years old.

Some days, when I'm tired and cranky, I feel like a five-year-old. Some days, when the symptoms of MS are on a rampage, I feel like a ninety-five year old. But most days, I feel like I'm somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five - old enough to have stored up some wisdom, but young enough to laugh like a maniac when I watch an episode of "Family Guy" on TV.

So maybe the reality is that no one really feels their true age? Or that age, as so many people insist, is irrelevant?

When I look in the mirror and see that the gray hair is starting to win the battle with the dark brown hair, or that those once-imperceptible lines under my eyes are suddenly a lot more apparent, it becomes quite clear that I've lived each and every one of those sixty years. But inside, where it counts the most, there's still a young woman with a silly sense of humor and a desire to keep on living life as fully as possible - in spite of the passage of years and the damage to her fragile central nervous system.

As the sad news this morning reminded me, yet again, life is both fragile and miraculous, and never something to be taken for granted.

So on this day of my birth back in 1947, I remind everyone who bothers to read this little blog to take a moment to breathe deeply and be grateful for your life. I'm sure grateful for mine.

Teetering on the edge...

2007-12-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

...of the Medicare Abyss.

I just sent this letter to my Senators:

"I am one of the many older or disabled residents of Oregon for whom the 2008 Medicare D coverage changes will cause tremendous hardship.

I have Multiple Sclerosis. In 2001, I suffered a severe, and ultimately disabling, MS exacerbation that abruptly ended my working career. I intended to continue working as long as possible, to continue contributing to my 401(k), and thus be in a position to supplement my Social Security benefit when I retired. So much for plans...

Compared to many others, I’m one of the lucky ones. I had Long Term Disability insurance when I got sick, and my benefit continues for another five years. But now that I find myself facing the dreaded ‘donut hole’ in Medicare D (I’ve started calling it the ‘Medicare Abyss’ – donut hole is too nice a term), I worry that I won’t be able to pay for my medication without great difficulty.

Avonex, the medication that slows the progression of MS, will cost $1,600 a month once I fall into the Medicare Abyss (some time in the first quarter of 2008). I’ll need to come up with $4,090 out-of-pocket if I want to continue this treatment. When I see my neurologist in January, I’ll speak with him about the risks involved in stopping Avonex treatment. I don’t want to take that risk, but I may have no other choice.

I know I’m just one middle-class person, representing just one vote for you. But I’m joined by thousands and thousands of people, many of whom can barely afford to heat their homes in the winter, much less pay exorbitant prices for medication they desperately need.

Please support me and my fellow citizens and do something to fix Medicare D?"

I guess I should be glad that we bought the wheelchair and walker when I was still working and had decent health insurance (my used, portable wheelchair cost over $900 when we bought it in 2002!), and that David's mom gave me his dad's motorized scooter when his dad passed away. We need to get it repaired, since it got screwed up when we moved to Portland, and I'm hoping it's repairable, since those little machines cost several thousand dollars. The thing is, if I do stop Avonex therapy, I may well find myself needing all of those mobility-assistance tools a lot more than I do today.

This is one helluva sixtieth birthday present.

The "Ladder of Abundance"

2007-11-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know. Everyone blogger and his/her mother (at least in the US) is writing something about Thanksgiving today. So I'm not original. Big deal.

Here's the thing. I spend a lot of the time in my head being negative, grumpy and cranky. I think about getting old (hell, I turn sixty next month), being sick with an incurable disease, facing increasing medical costs with a shrinking income, the horrific political climate in this country, war, climate change... well, I could go on, but I'm not gonna do that. Whenever I find myself peering up out of one of my emotional rat-holes, I force myself to look, instead, at the amazing abundance in my life, and all the things I have to be grateful for. Doing that actually does help a lot, even when my climb out of the rat-hole seems impossible.

So this morning, this absolutely, drop-dead-gorgeous autumn morning in beautiful Portland, Oregon, I will share my list of Things I'm Thankful For (even though I ended that phrase with a preposition).

My husband, whose unfailing love and support keep me going every day. David, I can't imagine life without you.
My son, Zack, who now lives a scant five miles away, and who is willing to meet his old mom for lunch once a week. Seeing your smiling face lights up my life, my son, more than you can imagine.
Emily, Zack's sweetie, whose love makes him happier than I've seen him. Thank you, Emily!
Frank, my son's dad, whose love for Zack helped us all navigate through some tough times. Frank, I'll always be grateful to you.
My small-but-beloved birth family. I love you all very, very much, and am so glad that we can stay connected through email, even though we live a continent apart.
The Dunning clan - all of them - for accepting me into their family with such unconditional love. You guys are the BEST!
My friends - here in Portland, in the Bay Area, back east, wherever. Whenever I get crazy about finances and the future, I think about the true 'wealth' in my life, and realize that I'm rich beyond words when I consider my friends. I sure do love you guys, too!
Our three kitties - Sam, Harley and Caruso. I love you little furry creatures, even when I'm greeted with a pile of cat-puke first thing in the morning (like this morning!). There's nothing better to counteract the blues than snuggling with a warm, purring kitty.
Our beautiful, whimsical, colorful home. I spend a lot of time here, and it's about the best place to be on house-arrest that I can imagine.
The ability to volunteer, even a little, with organizations that matter to me. Whether I'm petting cats or doing a little writing for Onward Oregon, being able to contribute a tiny bit to my community is a real blessing.
Living here in Portland, a city of communities, where commitment to maintaining a livable environment is still a core value (and the politics are Blue!).

Whew. Okay, that's enough for now. I could probably keep going, but you get the idea. Everything I wrote about is a rung on the Ladder of Abundance that I can use to hoist myself up out of a rat-hole back into a brighter reality. So thank you for helping me!

And have the happiest Thanksgiving ever!

Rumors to the contrary...

2007-11-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

...I'm still alive.

The thing is, there's not much new here at Rancho Dleepow del Norte, so every time I've begun a post here, my internal dialog goes something like this:

"Who's gonna care what your stupid back yard looks like? Probably no one. I mean, how many times can you write about the way the trees look or the squirrel who has figured out how to circumvent the 'squirrel-proof' bird feeder or how much you love autumn in Portland?"

"Hmmm. Good point. I'll log out instead."

And I leave Blogger and do some fantasy online shopping for a while.

But several of my friends have mentioned in email that they check the blog regularly and wonder if I'm okay (this is what happens when you're a life-long extrovert - silence implies disaster!), so I'm here to report that I'm doing as well as an almost-sixty-year-old women (gasp) with Multiple Sclerosis can do. The truth is, as I think about it, a lot has happened in the weeks since I posted here, but I'm not sure how much of it I can (1) remember and (2) seems worthy of sharing here.

One very recent event, however, is haunting me. I received an email from a friend/ex-colleague, letting me know that the 23-year-old son of another colleague had been killed in Afghanistan on November 9th. Twenty-three years old. My beloved son will turn twenty-three on his next birthday.
Sean, the young man who was killed this month, was married in January 2007. His wife will give birth to their child in February, 2008. And he's gone - killed while on patrol in Afghanistan, along with four of his fellow soldiers. Just - gone.

Can I tell you that this is a parent's worst nightmare?

When I first held my son, I was almost overwhelmed by the rush of love I felt for him. I'd never felt anything like that before, and could hardly believe how deeply I loved that tiny, red-faced little guy. I still love him like that - a deep, fierce, protective love that often feels overwhelming. I worry when he doesn't reply to emails (even though I remind myself that he's very introverted!) or when he doesn't call for a week or so. I cannot imagine living with the the unending fear that all the parents with beloved children in Afghanistan and Iraq must contend with each and every day. It is beyond heartbreaking.

Sigh.

Do you ever wonder how the President and his band of merry men sleep at night? I sure do.

Living in a (kitty) war zone

2007-09-27T10:57:00.001-07:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted here, so it's time for a quick update on Caruso and Co. Caruso is doing beautifully. He now owns the living room, and spends most of his time curled up on the big sofa in a little gray-furred circle, sleeping peacefully. When he wakes and stretches, he'll usually do his little "Where is everybody?" yowl; if I'm awake, I'll lumber out to the living room, scoop him up, and we'll have a short love-fest before he settles down at his food dish for a snack.

He and Sam have reached a detente of sorts, and we've seen them sleeping near each other on the guest room bed, or lying on the sofa together. Every once in a while, they'll pause next to each other and Sam will attempt to groom Caruso, while Caruso sniffs at Sam's face. All in all, they've found a way to co-exist.

Harley, otoh, is a completely different issue. She refuses to enter the living room, preferring to go through the kitchen to get to the food bowl in the sun room. If she catches sight of Caruso and he moves a muscle, she's after him, hissing all the while, chasing him into his hiding place behind the sofa. It doesn't matter how often we reprimand her, or try to carry her into the living room when we're sitting in there together, she morphs into the Terrible Tortoiseshell Torpedo whenever she realizes Caruso is nearby.

Harley is a big cat (and she can't get away with the 'I'm not fat, I'm just big-boned' excuse - she's a porker). Caruso is slender and probably weighs half of what Harley weighs. So far, they haven't tangled (he clearly understands that discretion is the better part of valor, choosing to run and hide rather than attempt a fight with her). I sure hope he continues to do this, and that she eventually learns to accept him.

Lately he's been following me around the house, and he's even ventured into our bedroom, where Harley tends to sleep most of the time. So far, she hasn't realized he's been in there. Thankfully.

Of course, my fantasy is that our war zone will eventually turn into a place where all three of these kitties will learn to tolerate each other -- but I'm not holding my breath!

More about the garden

2007-09-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

The forecast for Portland is hot - temps near 90 degrees. So I went down to the vegetable beds just now, before it heats up and I need to cocoon in the house, and picked a few ripe cherry tomatoes, a handful of lettuce leaves and a few sprigs of oregano and thyme. I anticipate a significant crop of tomatoes - yellow pears, red cherries and Roma tomatoes - in a week or so, but the zucchini, cucumbers and eggplant are still not really producing much. Next year we'll put things in much earlier, in hopes of a bigger harvest ('big' being a relative term, of course!).

The pear tree is bursting with fruit, and our niece Bobbi is coming over mid-week to help me can a bunch of pears (bottle, really, not can, but the old-fashioned verb seems to linger). The muscat grape vine is covered with fruit as well, not enough for wine and too much to eat. I need to find some recipes for using these grapes since the vine produces prodigious amounts of fruit every year.

I saw a large, brown maple leaf on the front deck this morning, and the Japanese maple in the front yard is showing its first bright-red autumn leaves. It's odd to think of autumn with such summer-like temperatures, but it's clear that autumn is definitely closer than I'd like to think.

I sure did miss the change of seasons, and am very glad to be living in a place where we can experience all four, distinct seasons again.

Summer's ending

2007-08-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

The end-of-summer spiders have arrived, and are spinning their webs everywhere. I wasn't aware of this phenomenon until a few years ago, when I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that described it; ever since then, I watch for their return and that becomes the first indication that summer is on the wane. There are lots of other signs that autumn is approaching around here - the leaves on some trees are beginning to turn, many of the plants in our yard are slowing down and/or stopping entirely (I've been clearing out piles of lily-leaves and dumping them on the ever-growing compost pile in the back yard), the pear tree is laden with fruit and the grapes are ripening as well.

We started our vegetable garden in early summer, and I wondered if we'd get much of a harvest from the things we planted. I saw the first cucumber on that vine yesterday, the tomato plants are covered with fruit (not yet ripe) and it looks like we'll have more carrots than we can use. I'm not sure about the eggplant and zucchini, though. And we've been picking yellow grape tomatoes from one of the plants we put in a big pot on the back deck - those are just wonderful.

I'm beginning to understand why harvest time was such a huge thing back in the days when folks lived and worked on their own farms, and depended on those farms for their food even though my experience is on a very small scale. I've prepared and frozen a dozen containers of pesto, made with organic basil from our weekly box of veggies (our subscription is with Winter Green Farm, a wonderful CSA that delivers to the Portland area) and with basil from our own little herb garden. I froze a huge bag of garlic (also from our veggie box), and won't have to buy garlic in the supermarket for months and months. I'm researching all kinds of information on freezing veggies and herbs so we don't waste any of these delicious veggies and fruits, and so we can enjoy them in a few months, when locally grown summer produce isn't available. We already have a dozen or so freezer bags filled with blueberries and strawberries, and I anticipate adding a lot more produce to our stash before summer ends.

Of course my experience is nothing like the lives of real farm folks. I'm quite aware of that, and don't mean to imply that it is. But I began thinking about this whole issue while I was cleaning the basil yesterday, so I thought I'd ramble about it here today.

Oh, and the pesto was killer! I'm so glad we'll have some to enjoy in the dead of winter.

Cat Update

2007-08-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted about our three kitties, I know. Life has been - um - just a bit hectic for the past several weeks, and I've barely been able to feed and cats and keep the litter boxes emptied, much less write about them. But things seem to be settling down again, so here's a quick update.

Sam and Caruso have reached a detente of sorts - I've even seen Caruso sit patiently while Sam grooms him (something Harley rarely, if ever, does). They're not yet what I'd call 'friends', but they more than tolerate each other.

Caruso and Harley, otoh, have a much less friendly relationship. This morning, I saw Harley crouching under the dining room table, glaring at something in the sunroom (which turned out to be Caruso). She waited until he scampered into the living room before venturing out to the food dish in the sunroom. I suppose it's good that she's no longer actively hostile towards him, but my fantasy of having three cats sleeping together with us on our bed is clearly just that - a fantasy. Hopefully, Harley will be comfortable enough with Caruso to come back and join us in the living room, though; I miss that.

So - it's not perfect yet, but it's getting better.

Caruso's newest activity is to curl up and nap on a pillow in my lap whenever I'm sitting on the sofa in the living room. It makes reading a bit difficult, but I sure love that he's comfortable enough to sleep on my lap!

Minnie Driver rocks!

2007-08-16T18:39:00.000-07:00

Last night we heard Minnie Driver at a local music venue, and I gotta say, the woman can sing. I've been a big fan of her acting, and we both loved The Riches (and can't wait for the new season to start). Neither one of us knew anything about her singing career, but she sounded terrific when we listened to a cut from her album online and decided we'd spring for tickets.

I'm really glad we did. Her band was great, she's got a terrific voice, and the material she writes is pretty damned good, as well.

If you get a chance to see her perform, do it!

Zack and Emily

2007-08-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Zack's dad took Z&E on a sightseeing ride up to Mt. Hood (one of the myriad 'must-see' places in and around this beautiful city). He sent me this photo, taken during their wanderings.

I had to share it here.

And the beat goes on...

2007-08-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

Zack and me at Fatapples restaurant in 2004 (spring break)

I got a week's respite from non-stop visitors (which was nowhere near enough) and my son's beloved, Emily, arrived in Portland last Monday, to await him and his dad, who were driving here from Minneapolis. Zack and his dad made it here on Thursday; David helped them unload the contents of Zack's truck and the trailer they'd rented for the overflow that didn't fit in the moving pods, and Zack joined Emily here that afternoon. The pods should arrive on Monday, and they'll be ready to move into their first home together -- here in the beautiful Portland area!

We haven't lived in the same city for twelve years, since I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and Zack remained in New Jersey with his dad. That was the single most difficult decision I've ever made, and the most painful, but looking at it with 20/20 hindsight, it was also the right decision. Zack and his dad have an enviable relationship, built on mutual love, trust and respect. And despite my having moved across the continent, Zack and I have managed to build a solid, loving relationship, as well. For years, we talked on the telephone twice a day - once when he got home from school and again right before he went to sleep at night. That routine changed when he went away to college, of course, but we still spoke at least once a week while he studied at MCAD. I have a raft of regrets at not being around to watch him grow up, day by day, but the single thing I missed the very most was not being able to hug him on a regular basis.

But now I can! Yes!

Life is fragile

2007-08-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting at my desk, adding the names of all the cities I've visited to my Facebook profile, when my cell phone rang. It was my beloved son, Zack, calling to tell me that he and Emily were fine, that they hadn't been on the bridge over the Mississippi River that just collapsed.

I, of course, had been blissfully unaware of the disaster until he called, and am grateful beyond words that their planned trip OVER THE BRIDGE THAT WENT DOWN was delayed by enough time that they were nowhere near the bridge when the disaster occurred. (Thank you, Zack, for calling to let me know you guys were okay!)

Ever since then, I've been thinking about how incredibly fragile our lives are, how we can be safe and well one instant and then - poof! - gone in the next instant. Just ... gone.

I'm really bad at living in the moment. I spend my days either regretting something in the past or obsessing and worrying about the future. Intellectually, of course, I know crazy it is to live like this, but it takes an event like yesterday's near-miss for Zack and Emily to slap me upside the head, get my attention, and remind me how important it is to pay attention to the here and now.

Forgive the somewhat smarmy advice, but take a moment to tell someone you care about that you love them. And a hug wouldn't be a bad thing, either.

I ain't no energizer bunny

2007-07-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

Apres tattoo: me, Sandi and Vona

(Photo by Reva)

When we lived in the Bay Area, people were willing to visit us at any time of year. We were just as likely to have out-of-town guests in February as in July, which made it a lot easier to manage the flow of folks in and out of our house.

It's a little different now that we've moved to Portland, where there are four discernible seasons, and winters mean the possibility of snow and cold (ish) temperatures. As a result, folks prefer to visit in the summer, which makes perfect sense, but makes it a wee bit difficult for me. This year, we've had back-to-back visitors (literally - one leaving the same day another was scheduled to arrive) for two solid weeks. I wanted to see and be with everyone, but it's pretty clear that my desires and my capabilities are, shall we say, misaligned?

When I dropped my sister off at the airport on Sunday morning, I felt pretty good - I'm a morning person, so getting up at 6:00 am so we could get to PDX by 7:00 am wasn't a huge problem for me. The freeways were almost empty, and I blasted vintage Bruce Springsteen on the CD player during the ride home (there's nothing like "Born to Run" as background when you're driving 15 miles above the speed limit on an empty freeway). I felt pretty good when I got home, but got slapped upside the head by MS fatigue within an hour after arriving at home. For the past two days, I've been drifting around the house like a zombie, too tired to do much of anything, spaced out most of the time, and almost too tired to sleep. Today was the first day I woke up feeling even close to what passes for normal in my life these days, and I'm hoping to put in an hour at the animal shelter (for the first time in three weeks).

But a lot got accomplished in the past couple of weeks. My beloved son was here to find an apartment for himself and his sweetie; we managed to look at about a dozen different places, and they got a great apartment in the complex they liked the best. My sister, who flew out to Portland to spend an important birthday with me (she and I are all that's left of our nuclear family), not only had a birthday celebration, but managed to fulfill one of her fantasies by getting a tattoo! (See photo, above.) I knew she didn't want a party, but I really wanted to commemorate her birthday, so I threw a "Leos' Birthday Bash" for all of the Leos in my life (including my husband, his sister and brother-in-law, and several of our friends) so Sandi wasn't singled out. The weather cooperated, and we had a lovely evening out on the back deck, with lots of food, drink, laughter and conversation.

Unfortunately, I'm gonna need about a month to recover from all of the activity. It sucks. I love being around people, especially people like the ones who visited this month. I just wish I had half the energy I used to have. Where's the Energizer Bunny for humans, I ask you?

I took a walk this morning...

2007-07-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

...around our back yard.

The first thing I did was admire (again) how gorgeous the back decks look since David worked his usual magic out there. He found a (relatively) environmentally-friendly set of products for cleaning the decks, and deck stain from the same manufacturer. Everything looks brand new out there, as if the deck had been installed a week ago. We're in the process of rearranging everything that's out there (benches, plants, etc.) and the few changes we've made already look terrific.

My initial intent was to check on the hydrangea bush at the very southeast end of the yard, to see if the blossoms had opened completely. In the process, I discovered a second hydrangea bush hidden back there, with much deeper blue-purple blossoms than its larger neighbor. My plan is to check the bushes every couple of days so I can capture the blooms at their best, cut them, dry them, and have a new set to take us through the winter.

Of course, once I was out there, I saw a gazillion things needing attention, so I lumbered back up to the house, grabbed my gardening gloves and some clippers, and did some pruning. The Grapevine That Ate Portland needs to be pruned daily, so I saved the roses from extinction by cutting back the vines threatening to strangle them. Then I did a bunch of clean-up around the day lilies (we really need to dig up a bunch of those guys this fall, 'cause they're taking over), gathered up the clippings and loaded the wheelbarrow (which was close by, since David did a bunch of pruning on the big clematis when he was prepping the deck last week).

The most exciting news (for this city gurl) was a squash-blossom sighting! We only planted one zucchini plant, knowing that zucchini can take over a garden, and having only limited space in the raised beds. I'm really looking forward to harvesting zucchini from our own little garden.
All of the tomato plants have lots of blossoms, and the few I planted earlier in the season are covered with small tomatoes. More than any of the veggies we planted, I'm so looking forward to harvesting tomatoes.

So now the front deck is clean, as well. David is giving it a day to dry, and will stain it tomorrow. He's been itching to get these two projects done, and he can check them off his 'to do' list now.

You wouldn't think a short trip around your own back yard could be so interesting, would you?

Dance of the cats

2007-07-09T16:37:00.000-07:00

It's been fascinating to observe the way our three cats behave with each other.

Caruso has staked out the living room as 'his' space. It's taken time, but he now feels comfortable enough to curl up and nap on the couch during the day, and I'm pretty sure he sleeps there at night as well. Sam roams the living room, doing a route around the back of the couch and under 'Caruso's' table, but the two of them seem to have reached a point where they tolerate each other.
Caruso is very careful when he leaves the safety of the living room to use the litter box or to munch on wheat grass from the planter in dining room bay window, since he knows there's always a chance he'll encounter Harley.

Harley does NOT like Caruso. They've only tangled a few times, but the result has been a house filled with blood-curdling yowls (Harley) and a very frightened Caruso high-tailing it behind the couch.

Last night, they got into it again, and Sam came charging out from wherever he'd been sleeping to come to Harley's defense. He's done that a few times (like when she went nuts because we were putting Advantage on the back of her neck - go figure); he's very protective of her. She, on the other hand, claws him whenever he bothers her; as far as I'm concerned, she hasn't really earned his obvious devotion to her.

More than likely, Caruso will avoid our bedroom and the office, which are definitely Harley's places, and stick to the other end of the house.

Sam, like Switzerland, will remain neutral most of the time, but will always, I assume, come to Harley's defense if it seems necessary.

And so, they dance.

Caruso doesn't like cameras

2007-07-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

Caruso and Lib

I'm not sure why, but every time I've tried to take a photo of him, he's ended up hiding somewhere.

The other night, he was snuggled on my lap, purring away, and I asked David to sneak into the office, grab the digital camera and take a photo. As soon as Caruso saw the camera, he tensed up, but I held onto him, petting him and whispering that it was okay, and David managed to snap one picture before Caruso bolted.

As you can see, we both have gray hair.

Back yard boogie

2007-07-02T07:37:00.001-07:00

We were sitting out on the back deck late yesterday afternoon, enjoying the colors and birdsong, when we heard a band tuning up, somewhere to the south of us, obviously in a nearby back yard. I wasn't sure if we were going to find ourselves surrounded by very loud (and possibly badly-played heavy metal), but the band was great and they played a set of old rock'n'roll (songs like "Under the Boardwalk" and "Love Potion No. 9"). From what I could tell, in addition to the basics (bass, guitar, drums), there was a keyboard player and a saxaphone, too -- the perfect combo for 1950's and 1960's rock.

I got up to do some weeding and to pick strawberries for dessert, and found myself dancing along to the music (if you can call what I'm able to do with limited balance 'dancing'!). The music made my chores a lot more fun, and I was disappointed when the band announced their final song and stopped playing.

What could be more wonderful, I ask? A beautiful summer evening, warm-but-not-too-hot, surrounded by trees, bushes and flowers, listening to live rock and roll -- for free!

Weekend update (about Caruso, of course!)

2007-06-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

This little guy continues to amaze me.

Last night, we hosted David's twin nephews and one of their wives (Kurt's wife and two children are in Germany for most of the summer, visiting her family, and he's been here for a few days). Mr. Caruso was curled up on the love seat, which has become 'his' place in the living room, when they arrived, and I was sure he'd disappear in a streak of gray fur as soon as he heard their voices. But I was dead wrong - he sat in his spot, calm as could be, and even let Kevin scritch his ears! He stayed out of his hide-y hole for the most of the evening, letting everyone pet him, purring up a storm, and behaving as if he's always lived here.

At one point, he was sitting under the table and I came into the room, called his name, and he popped out from under the table and walked over to me, tail held high, obviously glad I'd returned.

He's a courageous little guy, and I'm so, so grateful that the folks at Animal Aid trust me enough to let him live with us.

Now all we have to do is convince Harley, the o-so-irritable tortoise-shell princess, that Caruso has as much right to roam the house as she does. With luck, this will happen some time in the next, oh, decade or so.

He seemed a bit more nervous and skittish this morning, and I'm wondering if the months he and his fellow kitties spent alone when his guardian was in and out of the hospital has scared him enough that a prolonged absence of humans (like when we sleep) scares him into thinking we're gone and won't come back? Or am I anthropomorphizing just a little bit here?

Strawberries!!

2007-06-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

We have two large banks of strawberry vines growing in our back yard, and I've been out every morning for the past week, bucket in hand, picking strawberries. David has strawberries with his cereal every morning. I've made one strawberry pie, several servings of strawberry shortcake, strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar, and I've frozen about six cups of whole berries so far. I picked another quart or so this morning, and plan to serve them tomorrow evening with pound cake and whipped cream. From the looks of the vines, we'll easily be able to harvest another few quarts of berries before this year's crop is done.

And the berries on the blueberry bushes are starting to turn blue-purple, so it will be time to do some harvesting there very soon.

Oh boy, oh boy!

Yep, another Caruso Comment

2007-06-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

I gotta say that this little guy is absolutely amazing. He's been living here with us since June 1st, less than a month, and the changes in his behavior have been incredible.

Don't get me wrong - he's still extremely wary of Sam and Harley (Harley, being a typical tortie, is much more aggressive towards him than Sam), and he runs and hides under the table in the living room whenever he hears a loud noise, or when David comes into the room. But the bonding he and I did when he lived at Animal Aid has continued, and we've established what seems like a decent trusting connection. So when I wake up and finish my morning 'duties' (make coffee, clean litter boxes, put out a few Greenies for Sam'n'Harley) I now go into the living room and call out "Caruso!". Within seconds, he's out from under the table, leaping gracefully up onto the love seat, and we start a little love-fest. I never dreamed that he'd respond to my calling him in such a short period of time, or that he'd have the courage to curl up on a pillow next to me on the love seat and fall asleep - but that's what he'll do now. A week ago, when I'd stand up and leave the living room, he'd be back under the table in a flash of gray fur; in the past couple of days, he's stayed on his pillow, in a cat-curl, with his head on his front paws, and continued to sleep even though I'm no longer there to protect him.

Oh, and he comes by his name honestly, that's for sure. He'll yowl whenever he's moving from one space to another in the house, or when he wants me to come in to the living room and spend a little time with him. And his purring can fill the room!

My guess is that I won't see three kitties curled up in bed with us when I wake in the morning for quite a while, but things are definitely moving in the right direction.

I'm so, so glad we were able to adopt him. Most people who go to shelters want to adopt the tiniest kittens and puppies (who wouldn't - they're adorable!), but we opted for slightly older cats when we brought Sam and Harley into the family (they were four and five months old, respectively) and now that we've adopted a senior kitty, I can see us continuing to do that in the future.

Hell, I'm older and sick - why should I discriminate against a cat with the same demographic?

A little this, a little that

2007-06-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

Let's start with Caruso.

It seems like he's getting a little less frightened every day, although he has a long way to go before I'd call him 'comfortable' living here. The latest change in his behavior happened two days ago. I was sitting on the love seat in our living room, reading a book, when he emerged from under a table next to me, me-yowled a couple of times, and jumped up beside me. He began purring almost immediately, rubbing up against me and showing me exactly where he most needed scritches, when he noticed I had a small pillow resting against my (much-too ample) belly. He half-climbed onto the pillow, got that eyes-half-closed-ecstatic look that cats get when they're blissful, and began kneading the pillow, purring all the while.

After a few minutes of this, he noticed the other small pillow propped up in the opposite corner of the love seat, went over there, did a little kneading, and curled up for a quick wash-up and a nap. We sat there together for a long time, me reading and Caruso napping. It was a lovely moment of peace and calm, and I'm hoping for many more.

On another topic entirely... David built me a small, raised garden bed in the sunniest corner of our back yard. At one point, there was a huge (and apparently gorgeous) cherry tree back there, but it died and had to be cut down. The folks from whom we bought our home had built a child's play structure in that area that David took apart last year. We had the tree stump ground down last summer, our nephew carted the sliding board and swing away to use for his kids, and David salvaged all of the lumber and most of the screws from the structure.

Last week, using what he'd salvaged from the play structure, he built the raised beds. We got a trailer full of soil from David's sister & brother-in-law, he shlepped it all down in wheelbarrow loads, mixed it with soil from the garden, and yesterday I planted veggies (four kinds of tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, cukes, eggplant and zucchini). I need to strew some Sluggo on the soil to try and prevent a slug-fest out there, and to keep everything well watered and weeded. With some luck we'll have salads made from our own little veggie garden later in the summer!

One more from graduation

2007-06-14T08:36:00.001-07:00

(From left to right: Emily, Zack and moi, a few minutes after graduation in May)

One of my beloved friends suggested that I post this photo (she really loves Zack's smile - and those gorgeous dimples). As I look at this photo, I swear his joy is almost palpable!

I live to serve, so -- here it is!

Caruso, con't

2007-06-12T15:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked some kind of breakthrough for Caruso, I think.

I looked into our guest bedroom, where he's spent a lot of time hunkered under the bed, and there he was, curled up on one of the pillows, out in the open! We did a little bit of bonding, and I left him there, still on top of the bed. About an hour later, I saw Harley sitting in the doorway of our bedroom (an unusual place for her to be), so I peeked in and saw Caruso lying on our bed! (I'll know he's been accepted into the pack when all three cats end up sleeping with us at night.)

Unfortunately, Harley, who is a typical tortoise-shell cat, with enough attitude for several other kitties, got pissed that he was in her spot, and chased him off the bed and back into the guest bedroom. She began a fight, but I think David managed to make it clear to her, in his inimitable and quite successful way, that she was not allowed to harass Caruso. So far today, she's left him alone.

I went looking for him when I woke this morning, and couldn't find him anywhere. I checked all of his hidey-holes with no success, when suddenly I saw his head pop up from behind a small table that sits in the center of the bay window in our dining room - he'd been stretched out on the windowsill (something neither of our huge cats could possibly manage) and I didn't see him until he looked up. He let me come over and scratch his ears, and then he spent an hour or so lying in a pool of sunlight while David worked on the crossword puzzle nearby. When I returned from volunteering at Animal Aid, Caruso and Sam were lying a few feet apart on the dining room rug, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight that was streaming in the windows.

It looks like this is gonna work!

Caruso, continued

2007-06-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

For now, he seems stuck in a holding pattern, spending most of his time curled up in one of those wonderful cat-circles, with his head resting on a paw, safely tucked away under the bed in our guest bedroom. My morning routine now consists of (1) make coffee, (2) empty the litter box,
(3) give Sam and Harley some 'greenies' (cat treats that clean their teeth) and (4) lie down on the floor next to the bed where Caruso is hiding and spend some time petting him/talking to him. At first, there was no reaction from him, but now he starts to purr almost immediately, which I'm hoping is a Good Sign.

Whenever he's moving from one spot in the house to another, he announces his intent with very loud yowling, as if to warn everyone away. I've managed to pet him when he's hunkered down under the dining room table, and even to catch him and hold him a couple of times, but for now, he's very much the phantom cat living in our home.

C'mon Caruso! We like you a LOT, and would love it if you'd join the tribe!

Caruso Update

2007-06-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Mr. Caruso is quite a bit more adventurous than we'd imagined when he first arrived here. After two days living in the hall bathroom, he decided it was time to get out and explore the rest of the house; once he'd done that, there was no keeping him in that room. He's still scared, of course, and tends to run away whenever David or I try to approach him, but we figure it's going to take some time before he feels safe enough to hang out with us the way our two cats do.

He's found several places to hang out (under a table in the living room, on top of a set of drawers under the desk in the sunroom and under the dining room table - do you sense a theme here?) and we can usually find him in one or another of his hidey-holes when we look for him.

At this point, our biggest problem is keeping Harley and Sam away from Caruso's food (he's on a special diet), which isn't easy. But from what I can tell, he's eating and drinking and not too terribly traumatized by this latest change in his life.

I'm just looking forward to waking up one morning and finding him curled up on our bed, fast asleep. Then I'll know he's really joined the family!

Seven Things

2007-06-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

So a ways back, my dear friend Reva tagged me to post seven things about myself that most folks don't know.

This is a difficult task for an extravert, since we tend to share intimate details of our lives with strangers in line at the supermarket, but I'll do my best.

1. I was born three weeks before my actual due-date, on a Saturday evening in December. My parents were attending a Philadelphia Orchestra concert, and my mom's obstetrician was away for the holiday, unable to make it back for my arrival. So I was delivered by an intern who, in what I can only assume was sheer panic, somehow managed to drop me as I emerged into this life, and I landed on my head in the 'after-birth' bucket. I've often wondered if that event explained a bit about my bizarre mental process, but I'll never know. My uncle, who was our family physician, stopped by our house every afternoon on his way home from house calls (remember house calls?) 'just to see your beautiful little baby'. He was, of course, checking to see if I was okay, and didn't tell my parents what had happened until I was over a year old. Times have changed, huh?

2. Back then, I was a friendly, adventurous kid. One afternoon, when I was five or six years old, I convinced one of my little girlfriends to 'explore' with me. So we took off to visit someone who lived several blocks away, something that little kids simply didn't do back then, causing huge panic when our parents realized we were nowhere to be found. I'm not sure how we got back home, but I do know that was my last solo exploration attempt for a very long time, at least one that took me 'off the block'.

3. But I was still an extremely social little kid, so one afternoon I wandered down to visit the one family on our block who had a television set. When I got home, I told my parents I'd been 'televisiting' (apparently, this is a true story). My dad was so charmed by my cleverness that he sent the quote into Readers' Digest where it was printed in the 'Kids Say The Darndest Things' column. He won $5 for the quote.

4. One summer, my roommate made extra money driving a Good Humor ice cream truck. She wasn't able to make her rounds on a couple of nights, so I did it for her (which was pretty interesting, since I had absolutely no idea how to drive a standard transmission back then). I'm pretty sure I took my profits, meager as they were, in ice cream.

5. When I moved to Boston in 1977, it was almost impossible to find work in my field (Human Resources), so I registered with a temp agency, and ended up working at Harvard. I worked as a temp at the Law School, and then spent several months working in the Provosts' Office at Harvard College, where I typed and re-typed and re-typed dozens of drafts of what became the Core Curriculum. I ended up being hired as assistant registrar at Harvard Law School, where I got to meet all kinds of luminaries, from Archibald Cox to Lawrence Tribe. One of my responsibilities was producing the 1L seating charts, made famous in the movie "The Paper Chase", and I still remember seeing student workers sitting on the floor outside my office, cutting photos out of the freshman 'face book' and pasting them onto huge pieces of poster board.

6. Many, many years after this, one of my managers suggested that I attend the Dale Carnegie course. I went - reluctantly - and was all set to hate the experience when, to my surprise, I loved it. I just rediscovered the "Outstanding Performance" pen I won during the course, and i still have all of the books I purchased for the course, including the workbook with signatures from all of my fellow attendees. A year or so later, I went back as a 'graduate assistant', and the instructor with whom I worked convinced me to sign up for instructor training, about half-way through my first stint as a graduate assistant. I did it, was certified as an instructor, did one session as a student teacher, and was assigned my first solo class a few weeks after that. It was rare for anyone to attend instructor training after only one experience as a GA, and unheard of for someone to be assigned their first solo class after only one student teaching gig, but somehow I managed to do that. There's no doubt that the course changed my life.

7. In 1990, I was scheduled to fly to Shanghai with my manager, to work with the Plant Manager and his newly hired team in a chemical plant being built by the company I worked for at the time. At the last minute, my manager had to bail on the trip, and I was faced with going to China alone (I didn't even have my travel visa at that point!). I was terrified and furious, but I found the courage to get on the plane and make the trip. It ended up being one of the most memorable experiences in my professional career, even though I arrived in Shanghai with nothing more than my scented markers and a few rolls of masking tape. I spent the week facilitating a series of meetings with the plant managers, a group of young Chinese workers whose employment with this joint venture showed both courage and vision. At the end of that week, we had crafted a series of seven core values for managing the plant and the people who worked there; as far as I know, they are still being used! I still have a little bowl that the managers gave me as a thank-you gift the day before I left.

Caruso update

2007-06-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

Caruso is settled in to his temporary home in our hall bathroom. He found his new bed within seconds, and seems quite content to curl up in there when he's alone. But as soon as I'm in there with him and settled on the floor, he pops out of his bed and joins me for a love-fest. I coo at him, he purrs back at me. He rubs up against me, marking me with his scent and I scratch his ears and rub his back. He's definitely eating and drinking, and has used the litter box, so it seems as if he's gotten comfortable in this new place already.

He's very skinny, so I'm hoping we can get him to eat and gain a little weight back. The biggest challenge for me is all about patience, a quality I lack. It will take time to integrate him into our household, and I, of course, want to open that door and let him out into the rest of the house RIGHT NOW. So maybe we will end up helping each other?

I'm so glad he's here.

Meet Caruso!

2007-05-31T17:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about having met (and bonded with) an elderly cat who was living at Animal Aid, the shelter where I've been volunteering for the past month or so. Caruso is a beautiful boy, part Russian Blue, whose owner died in January, having ensured that all three of his cats would go to a no-kill shelter.

Caruso (so named because he was very verbal!) was quite depressed when he arrived at the shelter, and spent most of his time hiding. It took the wonderful folks at Animal Aid a long time to coax him into eating a little bit, but he was clearly still quite frightened and skittish when I met him.

I'd promised David not to turn into a Crazy Cat lady, bringing a new cat home every week (although I gotta tell ya, it's a HUGE temptation), but Caruso just tugged at my heart as soon as I met him. I convinvced David to accompany me to the shelter to meet Caruso, and the two of them hit it off as soon as they met, so we agreed to start the adoption process.

We had to take our two cats to the vet to be tested for feline HIV/leukemia, and we were distressed to discover that Sam (thanks to those years of brawling back in California) is HIV positive. Harley, on the other hand, is fine, and our vet assured us that it was highly unlikely that Caruso would contract the virus, but we assumed the folks at Animal Aid wouldn't let the adoption go through.

Much to my joy, the day after I'd left a message letting them know the results of Sam's blood test, I got a call from one of the women who works at the shelter, telling me that she'd called our vet and was willing to let the adoption go through.

Two days ago, I bought a new cat bed, and I set it up in our hall bathroom, along with a small litter box and a food/water dish, and sweet Caruso arrived at our front door about an hour ago. He found his bed in seconds, and has been curled up in there ever since (except when he ventures out to do a little exploring). He started to purr as soon as I began to scratch his ears, and it seems as if he knows he's out of the shelter and back in a home.

Now we need to work to ensure that our two cats accept him, so he can join the household. Wish us luck!

Graduation weekend

2007-05-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

Zack and his ancient mom, just after the graduation ceremony

We've been back from Minnesota for a couple of days, and I'm still in Major Recovery-From-Travel mode, but I did want to write a bit about my son's graduation from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD).

MCAD is a small art school (there were less than 100 people in his graduating class) located right next to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Zack graduated with a BFA in Comic Art, MCAD being one of only two colleges that offered a degree in Comic Art when he was applying to college four years ago. From everything we've seen and all he's told us, it's a terrific place, and the graduation ceremony definitely confirmed that impression.

Graduation was held in the Children's Theater, which is part of the art institute complex. The room was large and comfortable, and the stage set was gorgeous (done in my favorite color palette, with lots of blues and teals and purples, so what could be bad, right?). The ceremony itself was a wonderful mix of formalities, whimsy and humor - just perfect for an art school that encourages creativity and individuality. The masters' degree recipients all wore commencement garb, but the bachelors' degree recipients could wear whatever they wanted; this led, as you can imagine, to a fascinating range of garb, from the graduate who wore the tux he'd rented for his wedding (which happened the following day), to the guy who graduated in a black toga covered with green glitter drawings, to Zack, in the 'dressy' outfit you see above. Some of the guys wore jeans and t-shirts spattered in paint, which seemed totally appropriate. Each masters' degree graduate had a mentor, and I loved the fact that each and every one of those pairs hugged each other when the diploma was delivered.

Best of all were the speeches (one speaker for each class and a keynote speaker), each different but all three were terrific. Who knew that it was actually possible to enjoy a graduation ceremony? Not me, for sure!

After the ceremony, there was a reception in the main MCAD building, where we got to see the display of Senior Projects (an amazing range of work, from comics to illustrations to furniture to fashion). It looked like every graduate had designed a business card, and I have two of Zack's new cards right next to my monitor.

It's very rare for someone to know what he or she wants to 'be when I grow up', but Zack has known since he was nine years old that he wanted to be a comic artist. I'm so grateful that he found a school like MCAD, where creativity and individuality are encouraged along with the highest standards of performance, that he was admitted to study there and that he's graduated!

Congratulations, Zack! You rock!

How does our garden grow?

2007-04-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

Well, up until yesterday afternoon, the answer would have been 'awash in weeds'. Dandelions. Fireweed. Popweed. This fuzzy-stemmed stuff that re-seeds EVERYWHERE. Same with a yellow-flowered weed that is not only invasive, but about impossible to wrangle out of the ground.

I put in three hours of weeding last week, one hour a morning, and managed to fill a 30-gallon green-waste bag with the results of my labors. But David put in about six hours over the weekend, filling another two bags in the process. Some of our work was pruning/thinning (the strawberry patches needed thinning really badly, and the grapevine was begging to be pruned back). He cleared out all of the popweed and grass that had grown between the stepping stones on the various paths down into the garden - a painstaking task that required tremendous patience (which he has, and I definitely do not!). He found a half dozen stepping stones buried in the weeds in one of the garden beds, and used them to fill in the main path that leads down from the gate. That path got pretty treacherous in the rain, especially for a gimp like me, but now there's a safe pathway that even I can manage!

It's still a bit too early to think about new planting, but when we return from Minneapolis in mid-May, I'll start planning for some summer-blooming additions to the garden. For now, we're both enjoying the new, green barrier that surrounds our back yard, blocking out any glimpses of rooftops or the unsightly billboard we can see in the winter months.

Ah, spring!

The Seat of Enlightenment Rulz!

2007-04-27T08:29:00.000-07:00

The Chair Affair auction was held last night, and I gotta take this opportunity to say that The Seat of Enlightenment kicked butt! The chair was one of only a dozen entries that made it into the live auction (the remainder of the fifty entries were sold in silent auction) and we were hoping it would bring in a lot of money for the Community Warehouse. It sold for THREE THOUSAND, SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS!!! When you consider that this was the first time David and Larry collaborated on a project, and that it was the first time David attempted to build any kind of furniture, this success becomes truly amazing. I'm not surprised, mind you. The chair is both unique and beautifully crafted. But the competition was fierce, and included quite a few well-known artists/artisans, so it's clear that these two guys make one hell of a creative partnership. Oh, and not only did the chair sell for that astounding amount of money, the next-highest piece sold for $1,000 LESS than the Seat of Enlightenment! We found out last night that the Warehouse estimates it costs about $100 a family to provide the household goods/furnishings people so desperately need, which means the proceeds from the sale of this one chair will help close to forty families at some point in the future. Not a bad outcome, huh?

At the animal shelter

2007-04-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is Martin

I've attempted a couple of options for volunteering since we moved to Portland, none of which really felt right to me -- until I was accepted as a volunteer at Animal Aid, a no-kill shelter that's less than a half mile from our home. Our wonderful neighbor Deb suggested that I check out volunteer opportunities there (since she knows what a sucker I am for cats), so I downloaded the volunteer application and mailed it in about a month ago. I got a call from the Volunteer Coordinator who signed me up for an assignment socializing (read 'petting') cats one morning a week. I started two weeks ago, and had to force myself to leave without committing to adopt at least one cat (my mantra is "remember the litter box!", a gentle reminder that we already have two cats). I skipped last week after hearing there was an outbreak of ringworm at the shelter (we of the Suppressed Immune System can't risk exposure to something like that), but I was back again this morning, visiting every room except the ringworm-ward, and falling in love with several cats while I was there.

I spent a lot of time with Martin, a somewhat shy guy who lives in one of the four smaller rooms (for cats who are skittish or too shy to live out in the biggest room). He is an absolute love, and it was hard to leave him after I'd spent a full hour at the shelter.

Before I met Martin, however, I spent a good deal of time with Caruso, a 12-year old gray cat whose owner passed away, leaving three cats behind. Apparently, it's taken him quite a while to recover from the trauma of losing his beloved person, but today he was about as sweet and friendly as a cat could be. At one point, while I was petting him and talking with one of the women who works in the office, I stopped scratching his ear momentarily; he put out a paw and gently grabbed my hand as if to say "Hey! You're here to pet me, not talk to some other human!" He's another love of a cat, and I sure hope he finds a home soon.

The truth is that I feel as if the cats are doing as much, if not more, for me as I am for them. There's nothing quite as wonderful as an hour spent scratching kitties behind their ears and listening to their purrs...

Being human

2007-04-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

David and I were talking yesterday, about the horrific events in Virginia. I keep thinking about those lives, snuffed out by a sad and obviously disturbed young man, and am overwhelmed with sadness for all of the people who loved them. This event opens the door to my Fear Closet, the place where all of my deepest fears lie in wait (the door tends to open in the middle of the night, when I awake from a sound sleep), where I worry that something like this might happen where my beloved son attends college. It's usually easy to close the door to the Fear Closet, especially during the day, and I do so with great relief every time.

What we'd both thought, within moments of hearing about the carnage in Virginia, was that the loss of only 32 lives in one day would represent a good day in Iraq. It seems as if the number of innocent people killed in daily violence in that war-torn country escalates every day, at least according to the headlines in the Oregonian. If you think about it, we should be damned grateful that only 32 lives were lost to madness and hatred this week. We could, after all, be living in Iraq.

So where is the sadness and empathy for the husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children and grandchildren of each and every human life snuffed out in Iraq? Do you feel that every time you read a newspaper headline or watch the news on TV? To be honest, I didn't. As so often happens, I've become accustomed to these awful statistics, just as I did during the Vietnam War. I'm not proud to admit this, but sadly, it is true.

So here's my latest resolution: I will stop every morning, if even for a moment, and think about the people whose lives are ripped apart each and every day in Iraq, with love and compassion. As if they were Americans. As if they were just like us, human beings. What a concept, huh?

We did it!

2007-04-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

"The Lib*erators", nearing the end of the 2007 MS Walk

For the second year in a row, our little team of friends and family participated in the annual MS Walk, a fund-raising event in support of MS research. The final tally isn't in yet, but it looks like we've raised close to $5,000!

Unlike last year, when it poured buckets for most of the morning, we had perfect weather for a 5k walk (or, in my case, a 5k roll!). Several of us learned from last year's wardrobe malfunctions (one should never sit in a wheelchair in rainy weather without some kind of waterproof protection on one's legs!) and we were prepared for rain and wind; luckily, we didn't need that protection this time!

I want to thank my beloved friends and family (those who walked and those who contributed to our effort) for their love and support. You guys are the BEST!

A few more photos

2007-04-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

...of The Seat of Enlightenment.

Transformation

2007-04-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

This is something we used to talk about a lot, back when I was working. We did a lot of work focused on 'transforming' organizations, or departments, or teams or individuals, mainly so the corporation could sell more widgets and make more money.

Now that I've been forcibly removed from the corporate universe, now that I spend the majority of my time in and around our home, I had a thought about transformation - real transformation.

I know I've rhapsodized about spring in Portland a few times (maybe even a few too many times?) in earlier posts. I'm not here to retract one word of what I've written (spring in Portland is absolutely the best) but watching the changes - or, if you will, the transformation - taking place daily in our back yard, has caused me to think about that process in a very different way.

A few minutes ago, I cut the first tulip (a lovely, yellow blossom), brought it into the house and put it in a vase. It occurred to me that the tulip buds hadn't even appeared at the beginning of last week, and now - presto! - we have buds and tulips appearing all over our yard. Trees (there are several huge trees in yards that abut ours) that were just barely showing green if you looked carefully a week or so ago are now so covered with green blossoms that we can no longer see through to the road below (which means, thankfully, that we can no longer see the billboard either!). Within a week or so, we won't be able to see the houses to our south, and we'll again feel as if we're living in semi-isolation, rather than in a thickly-settled neighborhood in Southwest Portland. The split-leaf Japanese maple that traveled with us from Berkeley, and now sits on our front porch where I can see it from the kitchen window, is suddenly covered with open leaves. Two weeks ago, I had to strain to see the first buds appearing on its branches.

In my current incarnation as a stay-at-home, non-working person, I see all of this amazing change in our landscape as different kind of transformation, one that doesn't have to be taught or mandated or demanded. This beautiful, quiet, delicate, elegant and silent transformation happens because - well, because it's part of an organic and natural cycle.

I very much prefer this natural transformation to the kind we tried to facilitate back when I was working. With 20/20 hindsight, I finally realized that the best we were able to do was effect temporary changes. Calling what we did 'transformation' was the ultimate in arrogance.

It's the trees that really understand transformation.

Running on empty

2007-04-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

If you've ever been so sick or so tired that the thought of doing anything beyond brushing your teeth and throwing on some clothing makes you want to weep, then you have some idea of how MS-fatigue feels. A friend of mine said it was like sinking into quicksand. I used to think of it as a heavy, dark curtain falling over me, forcing me to stop whatever I was doing and rest. Regardless of the metaphor used to describe it, MS-fatigue is both unrelenting and overwhelming.

It's been six years since the Big Exacerbation hit, six years of gimpy legs, canes, ever-more limited physical capabilities and fatigue, fatigue, FATIGUE. Fatigue is my appointment secretary. It dictates what I can and can't do every day, whether I can manage to exercise and go to the grocery store in one morning or whether I'll need to spend all day doing nothing but checking email, watching DVDs and sleeping. On a 'good' day, I can manage 40 minutes on my trusty Theracycle, a drive to New Seasons for groceries and maybe even a light chore or two before I have to collapse and sleep. But I still haven't adapted to this way of living, not even after six years, not really. Because I still want so very much to live my old, 'normal' life, the one where I could do pretty much whatever I set my mind to do. Change jobs? Sure. Change careers? Absolutely! Move across the country and start a new life on the West Coast? Hell, why not? Travel to China - alone - for work, in the early 1990's, before China had truly opened up to western visitors? You betcha!

Now? It doesn't matter one teeny, tiny bit what I want to do, or how much I will myself to do it, because my new Appointment Secretary controls what I'm able to do, regardless of what I want to do.

So why am I whining about this issue again today? Because I'm trying to recover at least some of my energy after a week-long visit from my beloved son and his sweetie, who spent their spring break week with us. I LOVE having my son nearby. I love being able to talk with him, to hear what new things he's into, to see him so in love with his sweetie and, best of all, to hug him whenever I feel like it (he's very tolerant of my need for hugs, which I appreciate). He and Emily are extremely undemanding visitors, asking for little more than visits to the Japanese and Chinese Gardens, access to cats, and an adequate supply of Diet Pepsi. But I'm determined to make the visit something good, something special, and I always end up doing too much, resting too little and running on empty, energy-wise, when they leave. This visit, I was too damned exhausted to sit in the car when David drove them to the airport, so I stayed home and rested instead. This damned MS Appointment Secretary made it impossible for me to spend an extra half hour with my son even though I desperately wanted to grab that extra time with him before he left.

And I've been more limp than the proverbial wet noodle ever since. I sleep eight or nine hours at night - deep, uninterrupted sleep - and I'm too tired to do anything requiring energy within an hour of waking. I'm too tired to cook (last night, I made a tossed salad and that was exhausting). I'm still running on empty, three days after they went back to Minneapolis (three lazy days spent doing nothing) and I'm not quite sure how to fill that energy tank back up.

Maybe I should end this post and rest a while, huh? Or even better, maybe I should figure out what my limits really are.

The Seat of Enlightenment

2007-04-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

The Seat of Enlightenment

A good friend of ours has been working, non-stop, on a fund-raising event in support of the Community Warehouse here in Portland. The Community Warehouse is a righteous place that provides furniture and household goods to people in need, at no cost to them. This year's fund-raiser (The Chair Affair) is an auction of about fifty chairs designed or re-created by an amazing group of artists and artisans -- among them, my husband David and our good friend Larry Shifrin.

Larry is the 'Owner and CIO (Chief Illumination Officer!)' of Lumen Essence Lighting, a fascinating and creative shop in the Pearl District selling an impressive range of reclaimed-and-refinished lighting fixtures as well as fixtures Larry has designed and created himself. It's a terrific place, and well worth a visit even if you're not in the market for a new wall sconce at the moment!

So when Larry approached David with an idea for crafting a chair to include in the auction, there was no doubt in my mind that this duo would create something absolutely spectacular. Which they did.

Here's their description of the chair:

The Seat of Enlightenment

Designed and constructed by Larry Shifrin and David Dunning, this chair is an expression of West Coast Pacific Rim fusion. The Buddha floats in repose over translucent arcing waves of Pacific tranquility. He sits centered, at home among forms reflecting both East and West. As Frank Lloyd Wright drank in the aesthetics of the orient and drew them into his forms, we seek an expression that makes the old new, and the new, timeless.

For his part, David built and shaped in hardwood, forming over ninety wood-to-wood joints involving no metal fasteners. The chair form is seven feet tall and features fifteen legs. He developed the layered, crackled paint effect and finished the hardwood in urethane. Meanwhile, Larry selected the brass and bronze elements and produced the rich blend of subtle polychrome finishes seen on those pieces. Larry also chose, from his extensive inventory of period glass, the 1912 leaded glass shade illuminating the Buddha. The gifted glass artist Carol Hall was kind enough to contribute the highly textured curving glass from her studio, recycling and re-slumping it for this piece. To complete the piece, Larry illuminated the forms with ten integrated light sources.

MATERIALS

Lost wax cast bronze Buddha
Recycled, re-slumped art glass donated by Carol Hall Glass Design & Lighting
Leaded glass from the venerable Jefferson Glass Company, dated 1912
Hand-blown aurene glass with delicate glass webbing
Hardwood
Brass and copper
Paint

What the description doesn't talk about are the 12-plus hour days spent creating the design (and fine-tuning it a gazillion times - these Myers/Briggs 'NTs' are all about perfection), cutting the wood, measuring the various elements to ensure that each and every piece/cut/joint was as close to perfect as possible (and measuring again, just to be sure), talking on the phone, consulting in the workshop, figuring out how to place all of the wiring required for the amazing lighting, sanding, gluing, painting layer upon layer upon LAYER to create the final crackle finish -- and making at least one wife (and probably two!) totally CRAZY in the process. Larry got to experience me in Full Cranky Bitch Mode one evening when dinner got postponed way, way too late; I must have scared him, 'cause he came over the next morning with a peace offering of beautiful Shasta daisies (Which worked, of course. I'm a sucker for fresh flowers). And that's just the stuff I got to see. I'm quite sure that Larry put in tons of time when he wasn't in the workshop with David!

But I gotta say that these two men (along with Carol Hall, the glass artist who donated the two beautiful pieces of slumped glass) have created something beyond special.

If you're in Portland, OR, or can get here on April 26th, why not buy a couple of tickets and attend the auction? It's for a very good cause, and you'll get to see some amazing, beautiful, quirky and interesting creations (and who knows - maybe you'll bid on something and take a piece of art home with you!).

I'm in love with Jon Stewart

2007-03-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

Every time I watch the Daily Show, every time I watch Jon interact with the people around him, I fall a little more in love with him. (btw, I do NOT mean this literally) Aside from his amazing wit and enviable ability to think on his feet, it's clear (at least to me) that he genuinely cares about the people with whom he works.

Let me ask you a question. Did you ever have a manager who did everything possible to prevent talented people from succeeding in the greater organization? You probably know what I mean - the boss who guards his or her staff like a bulldog, not in a positive protective way, but with the goal of ensuring that good people never get a chance to get promoted or moved into a more challenging position. I've worked at companies where that misplaced sense of ownership was so rampant (and ultimately so damned destructive - because good people eventually leave companies where they feel trapped or unappreciated) that we were forced to include the number of promotions out of a department as a positive factor in the executive and senior management bonus plans. Imagine this: the only way we could pry good people away from these pathetic, insecure bosses was to PAY them extra money if they encouraged their employees' growth and success. "What the hell?!" you might ask. And all I can do is nod my head in agreement, and assure you that I saw this happen more times than I can count during my tenure at several large, successful organizations. I'd leave work after a session with one of those managers, and wonder if I'd somehow died and was now living the Myth of Sisyphus in some weird version of Hell, constantly rolling the same damned boulder up the hill, only to have it roll back down the second I'd gotten it up there. Why was it so obvious to me, with my B.A. degree in American History and no business school experience at all, that ENCOURAGING THE GROWTH AND SUCCESS OF PEOPLE IN AN ORGANIZATION KEEPS IT HEALTHY? Beats the hell out of me...

So look at Jon Stewart as a manager (which, I assume, he is). Stephen Colbert, once a reporter on the Daily Show, now has his own highly successful show (and Jon Stewart is an executive producer for the Colbert Report). Steve Carell, once a reporter on the Daily Show, has an amazing career in movies as well as starring in one of the funniest comedies on broadcast TV these days - The Office. Rob Corddry and his brother Nate are also Daily Show graduates, both having moved on to rolls in other TV shows. I'm sure there are more examples, but you get the point.

I'm not presuming to imply that Jon is directly responsible for the success these other guys have achieved. But I feel pretty certain that he has encouraged them, that he continues to encourage everyone who contributes to the success of the Daily Show, to hone their skills and increase their competence. And I'd bet that he has never tried to hold anyone back from pursuing new opportunities, even if it means a loss of talent in his organization. My guess is that Jon understands that a healthy organization needs not only to nurture and reward talent, but also to let people move on when it's time for them to do so.

So beyond his awesome sense of humor and timing, his not-to-be missed imitations of our president and vice-president, his courage in facing many guests whose hostility and anger is palpable to most viewers, and his very occasional fits of giggles when it's clear he's just loving someone else's performance, I love Jon Stewart because I think he's exactly the kind of manager I dreamed about working with when I was still able to work.

Yep. I'm in love with Jon Stewart (even though I'm old enough to be his mom).

My son, Zack

2007-03-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

I know most parents say this a lot, but today, right at this moment, I feel the impact of these words more than I ever have in the past: Zack is an incredible human being, and I love and respect him more than I can find words to say.

There's no reason to go into the situation that prompted me to make this post. But watching him wrestle with a difficult, painful problem, and seeing the amazingly mature result of his deliberations, fills me with love and deep respect for him.

The majority of parents would tell you that they love their child(ren). But I've often wondered how many, if asked this question, would also say that they like their adult children. I'm definitely in the 'love-and-like' camp, and being able to add the word 'respect' in the mix is a real gift.

He's quite a guy.

Cooking Cabbage

2007-03-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

Last night, I made something called "Savory Cabbage Strudel". I found the recipe because we had two heads of cabbage in the refrigerator, both delivered in the bushel of organic vegetables that's delivered to our house every week, and I was determined to use them, rather than give them away (or worse, dump them directly into our compost bin). The recipe involved saute-ing a bunch of veggies and fresh herbs, rolling the mixture up in phyllo dough and baking the resulting 'strudels' for about a half hour. In retrospect, I'd pump up the onion, add garlic and a few more herbs to the mix, but overall, the strudels turned out to be quite tasty. Whew! No more guilt about wasted cabbage!

So here's the thing. I'm not really just writing about my Culinary Success With Cabbage, but more about how important it is to push myself to try new things these days. I mean, I have dozens and dozens of tried-and-true recipes, some that I've been making for three decades by now, and it's often so much easier to pull one of them out of the file rather than attempt something new.

This whole tey-something-new-in-cooking thing happened when we first got involved in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and subscribed with Full Belly Farm, a truly wonderful CSA that serves the Bay Area. I had no trouble with the contents of the summer and fall veggie boxes; after all, I'd been making stuff with tomatoes and zucchini and stuff like that for a long time. But as we moved into winter vegetables, and I found myself gazing at four or five leeks (yep, I'd never cooked leeks before) or celery root or Jerusalem artichokes, I suddenly realized that I'd either have to learn some new tricks or give away half of what had turned up in the box every week. As it is, I do have to gift someone with the kale and chard that comes every winter, because David, whose mother had a huge vegetable garden when he was a kid, has eaten enough of those greens for several lifetimes, and refuses to eat them anymore. But I really wanted to figure out how to use some of the ingredients I'd never used before, so I pulled out three or four of my vegetarian cookbooks and, among other things, discovered a killer recipe for potato-leek soup that has become a new 'old favorite' around here.

But every recipe I found for cabbage either bored the hell out of me, or sounded ghastly, or was too boring for words - until I found the Savory Cabbage Strudel somewhere online. We both agreed that this was a keeper, and I think we'll be adding cabbage to the list of veggies we eat at least semi-regularly.

Which doesn't sound like much of a step into Doing New Things, I know, but the experience was a reminder that I really do need to seize every opportunity that presents itself for new and interesting stuff to try. Hell, even if the new thing doesn't end up being all that interesting, at least I'll be open to possibilities. Once that happens, the likelihood of stuff being fun and interesting increases, I think. And heaven knows, I need as much fun and interesting-stuff in my life as possible these days.

So. A new mantra of sorts has arrived in my life. Whenever I find myself reluctant to try something new, I will repeat the phrase 'cooking cabbage' in my head - a reminder to be open to the possibility that something very tasty might be waiting out there to be experienced!

Feeling sorry for myself today

2007-03-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

Most of the time, I can talk myself out of starting my own little pity-party. I remind myself of how lucky I am for dozens of reasons. I live in one of the most beautiful places in the country. Our home is comfortable, filled with color and quirky things everywhere you look (like the wood flying pig we bought years ago in Carmel Valley, or the little wood birdcage where we've put a ceramic fish instead of a bird). For the moment (who knows what will happen next month or next year?) we can afford to pay for health care coverage, and we have access to an HMO that was rated the best in the country by Consumer Reports last year - no small thing when one takes medications that would cost close to $3k a month without insurance. We're warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We see and hear songbirds every day. Signs of spring come early, in February, when the daffodils burst open and the camellia bushes are covered in magenta blossoms.

I could go on with the list, but you get the point, I'm sure.

In the scheme of things, compared to 99% of the people living on the planet today, I have no reason to feel sorry for myself. But I do.

I miss my work so much. I even miss getting up at 5 a.m. and starting my arduous commute to Silicon Valley 40 minutes later, just to avoid the traffic back-up on the approach to the Bay Bridge. (I don't miss having to stay in the office until 6:30 p.m. for the same reason, or working in a company that demanded "24/7" of its managers, though.) I guess the thing I miss the most, smarmy though it might sound, is the connection with a diverse and interesting group of people and the clear knowledge that my work actually helped a lot of them survive the rigors of life in the DotCom universe a little bit better than if I'd not been around. I miss knowing that I was someone people could trust. At one point, my boss called me "The soul of the company" (okay, he said it as kind of a guilt-trip, when I was thinking about quitting, but still - I like knowing that someone valued my integrity).

Hmmm. So as I read what I've written here, it looks like my Ego is what's hurting, doesn't it? I'm such a competitive being, and I've lost the ability to compete in the one place where the ol' Ego had the opportunity to shine, to get all kinds of positive feedback, all kinds of strokes. So when I tell myself I'm feeling sorry for myself because I have Multiple Sclerosis, that's really bullshit, isn't it? My poor little Ego is feeling neglected - that's what's really going on here.

So maybe the way out of this rat-hole is finding a way to soothe that part of me and find contentment elsewhere?

Oy. An AFOG (Another F***ing Opportunity for Growth) appears. Maybe I can take up the challenge and do some real work around this not-so-new- but-still-uncomfortable life of mine? If I do, at least I'll stop whining, even if I only whine inside my head? Who knows? But stay tuned, 'cause I'll probably end up bitching about the process here!

The goldfinches are back in Portland

2007-02-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

Last year around this time, I was gazing out at the back yard and I noticed a swarm of little, gold-colored birds fighting for space at the thistle feeder that hangs from a branch of the Japanese maple. "Hey," I said to David, "there are parakeets at the thistle feeder!"

So he came over, looked out at the birds, looked at me (with a faintly pitying glance) and replied, "Uh, no. Those are goldfinches, hon."

In my own defense, City Gurl that I am, I'd never seen goldfinches outside of books. The sad truth is, even if I'd been walking through a flock of goldfinches, I probably would have ignored them, or tried to shoo them away. In Life Before the MonSter, birds didn't make a blip on my radar screen (unless one of them pooped on my car, in which case my reaction was momentary annoyance and then indifference.

Sad, huh?

Now, the comings and going of the birds in our back yard is a constant joy - and very interesting, indeed. So the I was pretty excited when I noticed that the goldfinches (or maybe, at this point, lesser goldfinches) had returned to our back yard. At times, the flurry of activity around the sunflower chip feeders is dizzying; a few days ago, one of the house finches bonked himself against the dining room window (one assumes in a frenzy of sunflower-chip lust), making a loud THUD in the process. Ack.

The bird equivalent of the jungle-drums must be in full force, 'cause every tree in the back yard is filled with birds - perching, swooping over to the feeders and jockeying for one of the perches, and swooping back to the pear tree or the Japanese maple. It's not necessarily a graceful process, but it's endlessly fascinating.

Once again, I have to stop and thank the MonSter (a term for Multiple Sclerosis coined by my friend Cindy, a fellow sufferer) for forcing me to stop and pay attention to what's going on around me. There's a lot to watch and think about when the pace is slowed and attention focused on the here-and-now.

The crocuses are up in the yard

2007-02-17T17:56:00.000-08:00

Can spring be far behind?

Even better, it's a little before 6:00 pm and it's still light outside! Not bright sunshine, of course, but not darkness, either. I ask you - is there anything that can lift one's spirits more than the sure knowledge that spring is on its way?

In honor of the Coming of Spring, I stopped off and bought a few flats of flowers - primroses and pansies - and planted them in pots on the front porch. There was one valiant primrose, one with deep purple blooms, that survived snow and temperatures in the 20's, and is sporting a half dozen blooms right now. I added two more to the planter - one yellow and one pink-and-white - and I've got my virtual fingers crossed that we won't have another deep frost this year. Pansies and primroses - harbingers of spring.

If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I plan to scope out the back yard, to see what kind of clean-up is needed, and to check on the shoots coming up all over the place back there. We have dozens and dozens and dozens of daffodils; not only are the stems out and growing, but the tips are showing light yellow, which means we should have bright yellow blooms scattered all over the yard within a week.

I LOVE spring. It's by far my favorite season, made oh-so-much more sweet after a cold and snowy winter.

I'll get a few photos up in a couple of days, when David returns with our digital camera!

Signs of spring abound

2007-02-11T09:50:00.000-08:00

I went out to retrieve the Sunday Oregonian a little while ago, and spotted what used to be the quintessential hallmark of spring when I lived in Philadelphia - a robin redbreast. Winters were a lot more severe back east, so catching a glimpse of a robin was a really exhilerating event, one that heralded the end of boots and gloves and scarves and hats and heavy, wool jackets and the possibility that summer vacation really, truly would arrive.

Things are quite a bit different these days, for lots of reasons beyond the weather, but seeing that big, plump robin pecking away at the grass on our neighbor's front yard produced that same reaction in me -- "Wow! There are green shoots coming up all over the yard, and the buds on the rhododendron bushes seem bigger and fatter, and things are getting green everywhere I look. Yes!!"

A few days ago, I saw two, tiny buds on the fuchsia plant that's been hanging in the sun room for several months - another sign o'spring, for sure.

It's amazing, isn't it, how these tiny, seemingly inconsequential changes in one's environment, can make such a difference in one's attitude?

Or at least in this one's attitude!

The thankless life of a housekeeper

2007-02-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

As I was making coffee this morning, and admiring my (temporarily clean) kitchen, I realized that I've been given another Life Lesson and glimpse into my mother's thinking. She and I fought bitterly from the time I was in high school until I was in my mid-20's, and we never managed to craft a decent relationship. I did a lot of work around our relationship at an intense spiritual retreat about seven years ago, and was able to see and understand some of her behavior in a much less critical, and much more adult, light. But some of my memories about her still baffle me, and make me wish we'd been able to fashion a minimally close relationship while she was still functioning so I could have gotten to know her better as an adult.

Anyway, I noticed a few smudges on the white countertop tile, and began an internal fume about how HARD I'd worked to clean the damn thing yesterday and how NO ONE appreciated that work, and how David, damn him, didn't wipe up after himself, and, and, and ... and suddenly, I understood my mom in a way I never had before.

My mom was a fierce housekeeper. We used to joke that one could have open-heart surgery on her kitchen floor without any concern about infection. She had a hard-and-fast schedule for cleaning, and the only days where she wasn’t cleaning something in the house were Friday and Saturday. And she CLEANED. She didn't muck around with sponge mops, she got down on her hands and knees and SCRUBBED the kitchen and bathroom floors (hence the open-heart surgery joke).

Our home did look wonderfully neat and sparkly - as long as none of us did anything to mess it up. Of course, we did, which meant that she was almost always pissed off at one of us - at my dad for spilling pipe tobacco on the rug, or at me for being such a complete slob (I’ve matured into a somewhat neater person than I was back then), or at my sister for doing something equally horrific and inconsiderate.

Back then, I thought she was a raving maniac. But now that I'm home so much of the time, now that this house really is the center of my corporeal universe, and now that I'm hyper-aware of cat litter trailed on the floor by the cat box, or crumbs on the countertops, or how gross the bathroom sink gets after a couple of days, I finally understand how she must have felt. Because keeping that home sparkling clean was her JOB, a job she did magnificently, and most of the time, we didn't appreciate a thing she did. If we did appreciate her efforts, we rarely acknowledged them.

When David crafts a magnificent hardwood cutting board, everyone can see and appreciate his hard work. But when I spend several of the very precious hours when I have energy scrubbing the kitchen down, not only do things get dirty almost instantaneously, no one notices my efforts. That kind of ‘work’ is pretty much taken for granted. The work of a housekeeper isn't valued all that much in our society, is it?

No wonder she was so angry all the time. At least I’ve had a 30-plus-year long working career, the last years of which were interesting and fulfilling and (at least some of the time) fun. I sure wish I'd figured out all of this stuff before she disappeared into dementia so I could have apologized for being a self-absorbed, unappreciative teenager, acknowledged her hard, fierce, loving work, and thanked her for it. It’s too late now; she passed away on New Year’s Eve, 2003. But I’ll never discount what she did for us – ever again.

Thanks, Mom. (And I'll never have a house as sparkly clean as yours was. Not ever!)

An (almost) shameless pitch for a contribution

2007-02-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

Truthfully, I am feeling kind of weird and uncomfortable doing this, but I'm hoping the three or four people who actually read my ramblings will understand my motivation.

The National MS Society holds a bunch of fundraising events every year, including the "MS Walk". Last year, they held the Walk in Portland on our first anniversary (and Buddha's birthday), so we decided to form a team and participate (I sat in my wheelchair, of course; otherwise, I'd still be walking somewhere on the Hawthorne Bridge). We called the team "The Lib*erators" and were joined by a wonderful group of family and friends -- and somehow I managed to end up the highest individual fundraiser in the state of Oregon. This was very cool on several levels, not the least of which is my still-active sense of competition, which will probably end a few days after my body ceases to function and I leave this life - not before. But best of all, we managed to raise over $5k (appropriate, I guess, since it's a 5k Walk) as our contribution to ongoing research into the cause -- and one hopes -- a cure for this lousy, stinking, bizarre disease called Multiple Sclerosis. And I type those descriptors on a day that's started out fairly well so far.

If you have a few extra bucks, and are able to earmark a little of it for a very, very worthy cause, please visit this link at http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=2344324&pg=personal&fr_id=1850. Look for the heart at the top of the page, click on "Pledge/Sponsor a Participant and make a contribution either to me (Libbi Lepow) or to The Lib*erators. Either will work, and either will make a difference. Hell, just make a contribution to the MS Society if you can!

The MS Society not only funds research, it also provides incredible support to those of us with MS - from written materials to workshops to support groups. They have a kick-ass web site, something those of us who aren't as mobile as we once were really, really appreciate. I can't count the number of times I've gone to their web site to look something up, or to try and learn more about one of my more bizarre symptoms; I'm very grateful for that resource, believe me.

So, like I said, I do feel a wee bit sheepish asking for support, but know that the only thing I'll get out of this (aside from a morning spent with a team of amazing and beloved people, several hours outside in the pouring rain, and maybe another t-shirt) is the hope that maybe a few of the dollars we collect will be part of a major breakthrough in MS Research.

My husband, the artisan

2007-02-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

I think I posted something about how multi-talented David is (note I am NOT implying that he's good at multi-tasking). I'm not going to list all of his skills, for a few reasons: (1) I get depressed when I see how many things he does really well, 'cause my list is miniscule next to his and (2) it will take too long, and it's almost time for dinner.

Here's a quick look at his latest endeavor; he now designs and crafts hardwood cutting boards. These are gone now, given as gifts to friends and family during the holidays, but there are more being crafted at this moment (well, at least the glue is setting up on them).

Keep in mind, please, that he never made one of these things until early last December, some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The woods in those boards are rock maple, African Padauk, black walnut and something I can't remember how. Birch, perhaps?

Sophie, the Beauty Queen

2007-02-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

Sophie is a beautiful corgi who lives across the street with our neighbors Deb and Mark. She is definitely Mark's dog - she clearly adores him (and even though he'd probably pooh-pooh this, I'm pretty sure he adores her, too).

The day of the Big Snowstorm, I was outside clearing the snow off my car, when I heard her barking. I turned to look for her, and the next thing I saw was this adorable bundle of blonde-and-white fur bounding through the snow, across the street and into our driveway. She seemed to love it, even though a few more inches of the stuff would have buried her!

Our doorbell rang yesterday afternoon - it was Mark and Sophie, just back from the groomers, so I asked David to take a few photos of her in her lovely, pristine, just-shampoo'd state. These pix don't show it, but she was wearing a brightly colored, paper bandana around her neck, a gift from the dog grooming establishment.

I wanted to share these pix with anyone who reads this blog, 'cause I think she's just gorgeous.

Everything changes, nothing stays the same

2007-01-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

That's a line from a country and western song (Patti Loveless? Kathy Mattea?) that I played at the end of a brief workshop about change I once gave, and I'm reminded at least once a day how true that is.

So after bitching and moaning about winter (and yes, it's still pretty cold here, and the little pond in our back yard is still frozen) I discovered dozens and dozens of new, green shoots jutting out all over our yard. The two planters next to the front stairs are showing lots of shoots (probably daffodils and tulips), and there are daffodil shoots all over the garden plot beside the driveway (and probably out back, but I haven't ventured out there for a while).

David went out yesterday (while I stayed in bed, trying to fight off a case of the flu) and cleared out most of the detritus left over from last year's blooms, which will, we hope, allow these lovely, little green shoots to get more sun and more room to grow.

I'll take a few photos and post them in the next couple of days, but I did, at least, want to report that we're beginning to see some clear hints of spring here in Portland. That, plus the return of light (it's still light outside at 5:30!) gives me hope.

More whining about winter

2007-01-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

This is 'Campaign Craig', a sculpture made from a shovel and a couple of rakes. We bought Craig from the guy who made him (whose name was - you guessed it! - Craig) and David added the 'campaign' when we placed him on a tree stump in our front yard. What can I tell you? David loves puns...

So Craig greets folks as they walk towards our front door. We had him draped in fake spider webs on Hallowe'en, and he took to that costume like a pro. But I'm not sure how he feels about the snow that's currently piled up on top of his head and back. I mean, he MUST be cold, right? Poor little guy...

I'm feeling like the biggest wuss in the world. I mean, I lived in and around Boston, MA for fifteen years, and I drove in all kinds of lousy weather to get to and from work, but now? Now I'm too nervous to try a quick trip to the post office, much less venture out on the freeway.

Of course, they knew how to clear the roads in Massachusetts, at least the major ones. I'm starting to wonder if Portland, OR even owns a snow plow, and, if they do, whether they've been using the plows to store stuff in a warehouse somewhere, 'cause it sure doesn't look like there's been much plowing going on around here. Of course, our little neighborhood, which doesn't even have sidewalks, is obviously gonna have to wait until nature takes its course, as it were, and things thaw enough to melt the snow on the street. But the Traffic Cams I checked this morning, the ones that show the major freeways and bridges, don't give me a lot of hope that things are gonna clear out on the neighborhood streets any time soon.

As Reva suggested in a comment on one of my last whining posts, we're pretty lucky that we don't have to be anywhere in this kind of weather (and my life doesn't include a lot of going-outside anymore in any case). But there's something about knowing you have the option to venture out if you want to do so that I find comforting. So I'm not feeling particularly comforted this morning!

Whining aside, I do need to admit that it's looking pretty gorgeous out in our back yard this morning. And I kinda like Craig's white-hat look, so he's gonna stay that way until - well, until nature steps in and melts it all away. Guess I shouldn't bitch about the snow-plow guys after all, huh?

Okay, we get it!

2007-01-16T17:57:00.000-08:00

Left: The front of our house from across the street

Below: The view from our front porch

We get it. It's really winter in Portland. There's no need to do anything else to prove that fact to us, honest there isn't!

We got between three and four inches of snow here today, which isn't much by, say, Boston standards, but is a LOT for two folks who got used to what passed as winter in northern California. As the pictures show, we found ourselves in a literal winter wonderland today.

I went out when it stopped snowing, armed with a broom and wearing a pair of snow boots I unearthed from the closet in our guest bedroom, and cleared all of the snow off my car. Luckily, it's very dry, light snow, so it wasn't hard to get the car cleaned off. Now I'm wondering what the road will be like tomorrow....

What's a weekend?

2007-01-15T08:45:00.000-08:00

Today is an official holiday, the observance of Martin Luther King's birthday.

I remember when I looked forward to these three-day weekends with great relish, when the thought of having three full days away from the office and work was a gift to be anticipated and savored. Now that I'm no longer able to work, I find that weekends (long OR short) simply don't matter much anymore. The week consists of seven days, without much differentiation other than trash-and-recycling pick-up day, or Hillsdale Farmers' Market day, or the day that I refill the nifty container that houses the myriad medications and vitamins I take every day. Oh, and Shot Day, the day that David gets to stab me with an inch-and-a-quarter-long IM needle filled with Avonex, the medication that may (or may not) be slowing the progression of MS.

Our DVR (DISH TV video recorder) even eliminates the need to remember what day it is in order to watch a program we like: all of our faves are set up to record automatically, and we can watch them when (and if) we're up for it.

Many of our bills are set up to be paid automatically, both in Quicken (I bow to the person who developed this software, without which I would likely be in debtor's prison, given my complete lack of attention to detail and underdeveloped arithmetic skills) and in our bank's online bill-paying system. I get email from several credit card companies, letting me know that my monthly statement is available online, so I don't even need to open an envelope to record an upcoming payment or three.

Is it any wonder that I find myself not knowing the actual date more often than not? I can always look at one of the five paper calendars hanging in strategic places around the house, or at my Live With Intention 2007 Datebook, or even rest my cursor over the time displayed in the lower left-hand corner of my monitor screen to show the day and date. Hell, who needs a memory with all of these aids available?

And, sadly, who needs a three-day weekend when life is no longer neatly arranged into work-week and weekend?

Will I ever settle comfortably into this unwanted retirement? I wonder...

The thing is...

2007-01-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

....ya gotta laugh.

Ya gotta laugh no matter how screwed up things seem to be; if you lose the ability to laugh (especially at yourself), life gets very bleak, very quickly.

One of my favorite people, my friend Stephanie, sent me this t-shirt for my birthday. I know some folks might be offended by it, but I'm just glad I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when I opened the package, 'cause I would've spit it all over the place if I had, I was laughing so hard. I love it! And the truth is, if there's anything positive at ALL about this damned disability, it has to be the disabled parking, right?

So thanks, Stephanie, for the gift and the belly laugh!

Some more about friends

2007-01-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

A good, good friend was visiting Portland earlier in the week, and came to our house for dinner and a long visit on Tuesday night. This is a guy I just adore; he's very smart, well-read, interested in a wide variety of stuff (from movies to books to music to nature), and he's going through an extremely difficult time at the moment. It's times like these that I regret not being in the Bay Area (not that I can do much to help, but at least I'd be around for coffee dates and shmoozing). He has a lot of good friends who care about him deeply, and I don't doubt that he'll get through all of this at some point, but it's hard for me to see someone I care about in pain. I do hate feeling helpless...

This morning, when I climbed off the Theracycle, I glanced over at a wicker rocking chair that sits near the west window in our sunroom. The chair was a hand-me-down from our friend Mary, who was going to ditch it if she couldn't give it away. The cushion on the chair is covered with gorgeous fabric, bought in consultation with our friend Darlis, who also sewed the cover (since I can barely sew on a button properly). And there's a little, quilted pillow, with Laurel Burch kitties on both sides, made by our friend Reva, sitting up against the back of the rocking chair. It's a small piece of furniture, but boy, does it carry lots of wonderful energy - and reminders of good friends.

I just glanced over at a small cork board hanging on the wall to the right of my monitor. There are several post cards from Paris (my favorite city), sent by friends who knew how much I love the place. There's an origami heart that Reva made, and a wonderful birthday card my sister sent me a few years ago. There's a tiny Christmas ornament, given to me by Patti, whose presence in my workplace when I first moved to the Bay Area literally saved my life, and who remains a dear, dear friend, as well as a set of worry beads she brought back from Greece. There's a tiny Japanese kimono-doll, given to me by my friend Peg. And a drawing of a Land Shark, done by Zack when he was nine or ten years old. And my pin, designed and printed by David, so many years ago that it's very faded (used at WELL parties to identify me to all the folks I'd only met online).

And that's just one small space in the office, again a spot that's crowded with memories of good friends and beloved family.

So the next time I'm feeling blue because a friend has visited and is now many hundreds of miles away, I'll do a quick reconnaissance around the house to drink in the memories and remind myself that all of my friends are available, at least virtually, whenever I need a fix.

A magical start to the new year -- finally

2007-01-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

Anna's Hummingbird

Happy New Year!

So we did our traditional New Year's Eve thing, which consists of staying at home together, feasting on finger-food (unfortunately, the theme ends up being 'the more fat, the better!), drinking champagne (I only had one glass, okay?) and watching movies. Last night, we watched Scoop and the very first episode of Saturday Night Live (which I watched from a friend's house in Yonkers, NY when it was first broadcast!). We hung around until midnight, playing computer games, watched the ball come down (three hours delayed, of course) in Times Square, smooched, did some more computer gaming, and crashed around 2:00.

Sometime around 3:00 am, driven out of the bedroom by some powerful snoring, I fumbled my way into the guest bedroom, grappled a quilt out of the blanket chest, and ended up asleep on our very comfortable couch until 8:00 am or so.
When I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep, I hauled myself up out of bed, brushed my teeth, emptied two litter boxes, took the hummingbird nectar out of the refrigerator to warm it up, and did a full forty minutes on my trusty Theracycle (a truly remarkable exercycle, made especially for disabled folks). I brought the little glass feeder bottled into the house so I could wash them and refill them, and went out to hang them on the feeder.

(I bet you're wondering where the hell the magic is, right?)

As I was struggling to hang the second glass globe, I realized that a hummingbird had flown over and was drinking out of the one globe I'd managed to hang on the feeder - not more than a foot away from me! It was an Anna's hummingbird, a male, with a gorgeous, iridescent, ruby-colored head, and it hovered there, right next to me, sipping away for about 45 seconds. It stopped drinking, hovered for a moment or two just looking at me, and then darted away into the huge bush in the next yard. I stood there for a couple of minutes, not quite believing what had happened, and then I decided that one of my 'gentle goals' for 2007 simply had to have something to do with seeking out the magic in my life everywhere I can find it.

So here are my Gentle Goals (I hate the whole idea of 'resolutions') for 2007:

Be mindful of what I eat
Exercise every day
Be compassionate - towards myself and everyone else
Seek out and notice the magic around me

(fwiw, none of these are particularly easy, but they seem gentle to me)

What else? New Year musings

2006-12-31T13:06:00.000-08:00

Much as I'd love to write something profound or memorable today, this last day of 2006, I'm much too tired and spaced out right now to do much of anything beyond a quick post and a weaving walk into the bedroom, where I'll likely sleep for several hours.

It's been a social whirlwind (at least in my current definition of such things) around here since the start of the 2006 holiday season. I've baked up a storm (three batches of brownies, chocolate-chip cookie bars, chocolate-chip spice cookies, 'thumbprint' cookies with raspberry centers and two kind of gingerbread), cooked almost as much (yesterday's experiment was split pea soup) and spent lots of time with friends and family. I missed The Nutcracker because I was too sick to go out, but managed to see Susannah Mars' holiday show at Artists' Rep in Portland (a real winner!). Tonight will be a return to our traditional New Year's Eve - just the two of us, a lot of finger-foods, some good champagne, a movie and a time to say good-bye to some of the stuff we'd prefer not to see in the coming year.

Here are a few of the things I hope will disappear in 2007:

Neo-con control of our government
The war in Iraq (what the hell, how about war in general?)
Cancer. Too many of our friends died last year, or had brushes with cancer (including my beloved, who is, we hope, now past that particular threat)
'Sectarian violence' -- of any kind, anywhere on earth
Stubborn ignorance, especially as it relates to our policies on global warming, or the lack thereof

I would so like to be like Anne Frank, who somehow managed to hold on to her optimism and belief in the essential good of her fellow man, and I think that will be at the top of my goals for 2007 -- to look forward, as much as possible, with optimism and hope.

Happy New Year to all. May 2007 bring light and abundance, health and hope.

Today is my birthday!

2006-12-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

Now, I gotta say, when you hit the age of (gulp) fifty-nine, you don't actually celebrate getting a year older, but --- what the hell. Fifty-nine years ago, give or take about 12 hours, my parents were attending a Philadelphia Orchestra concert, and my mother went into labor (I wasn't due for another three weeks - looks like I started out impatient, and that hasn't changed one bit, as David will attest). Mom's obstetrician was in Atlantic City (a very different place in 1947, with nary a casino to be seen) so I was delivered by the intern on duty at the time. He was so nervous (and I was apparently so eager to get on with it) that I slipped out of his hands and fell - head-first - into the bucket awaiting the afterbirth, positionedon the floor next to the delivery table! I wish I could say that explained a bit about how I turned out, but I've learned that babies and small children manage to do a lot of tumbling and falling without major damage, so I can't use that event as an excuse, much as I'd like to!

For the next year, my uncle, who was an MD, and our family doctor, stopped by our house at the end of the day before he went home for dinner, 'just to take a look at your beautiful baby'. Both of my parents found that rather odd, but didn't know the reason until I was a year old (can you believe it? no one told my parents what had happened for an entire year after I was born! Today, that would mean Major Lawsuit, I'm sure).

In any case, head-bonking, the Years of Sex, Drugs, Rock-n-Roll, working at a nuclear power plant (really!), and Multiple Sclerosis notwithstanding, here I am, like an overweight Energizer Bunny, still going after fifty-nine years.

And the day dawned sunny and bright in Portland, a welcome gift for all of us!

(Cue the Beatles singing "Today is Your Birthday...")

Christmas greetings

2006-12-25T08:53:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling a whole lot less sorry for myself this morning, thanks to Nyquil and two good night's sleep (as well as the blessed ability to go more than three minutes without sneezing!). The Paris Ring hasn't shown up yet, but it seems much less of a tragedy than it did when I posted the other day; after all, it's just a thing, right?

We spent Christmas Eve with my husband's family, at an informal get-together that included a Secret Santa (which we called a 'Yankee Swap' when I lived in New England). I gathered a few gifts I had bought over the past couple of years and stored away for just this occasion (a painted wooden rooster made by a Native American couple, a pot holder with a rooster on it - can you sense a theme here? - and a slightly obscene rubber-chicken keyring that lays an eggs, complete with yolk, when you squeeze it. Oh, and a pair of hugging salt-and-pepper shakers which were a slight variation from the major theme but fit in a secondary, kitchen-related, theme. Of sorts.) Gifts ranged from that to some of those sponges that morph when you wet them (I LOVE those sponges!), to two sets of 'cocktail' plates (because each has a drawing of a wine bottle or cocktail glass on it), to one of David's gorgeous cutting boards. David's mom, who turned 92 earlier this month, managed to find a ceramic bell in the shape of Santa Claus - who knew that she actually has a bell collection? She was THRILLED (and I would have taken it to Goodwill immediately).

Christmas dinner will be here today, with our dear friends Reva and Jerry, who moved to Portland shortly after we did, and our new friends Deb and Larry. I've unearthed my mom's good china (a gift in 1929, when she and my dad were married) and am ready to start the early prep (making the stuffing for the capon) as soon as I log off and get back to 'real life'.

I wish you all (assuming there are more than three people who read this Blog!) a very happy holiday, no matter what your celebration might be. Me? I celebrate the returning light, beloved friends and family, and another day of life.

Lost (and not yet found)

2006-12-23T10:47:00.000-08:00

When I was ten or eleven years old, my parents gave me a pinkie ring with my initials engraved on it. I was warned not to wear it 'just anywhere', but it was my very first piece of real jewelry, and it beckoned me like a Siren ("C'mon, open the drawer and put me on!") and I, never good at postponing gratification, did exactly that. And, at some point during that day, I lost the ring. I'd had it less than a month, and my mother was absolutely furious at me when I came home and confessed that I'd lost it. "I'll never buy you another piece of jewelry again," she shrieked. "You can't be trusted!"

Of course, she didn't make good on that threat, and they did buy me jewelry as I grew older, but most of it was stolen when my apartment was burglarized in Boston. When I called my parents to tell them about the burglary, her response was "It's your own fault, you know. You should have put it all in a safe deposit box!" (never mind that all of her jewelry, an impressive collection, was stored in the top drawer of her bureau). It was the last time I called my mother with a problem, and the end of expecting any kind of solace or comfort from her.

When David and I went to Paris in October, 2000, we were walking down a small street on the Left Bank, and I saw a gorgeous ring in the window of a tiny store. We went in so I could try it on, but it was too small. The saleswoman showed me another ring, a silver ring with a blue topaz, and I fell in love with it as soon as she pulled it out from under the counter. The exchange rate was in our favor, and the ring only cost the equivalent of $75! I've always thought of it as my "Paris ring".

A couple of weeks ago, I started wearing it all the time, not taking it off when I showered or slept; it reminded me of what will likely be my last trip to Paris, a city I love, and I liked having such a tangible reminder of a time when I could still stroll for five or six miles, without having to use a cane.

Somehow, I managed to lose the ring last night. It's in the house somewhere, I'm sure, but I have no idea where. When my hands get cold, my fingers shrink a little, and the ring obviously slipped off at some point during the evening. We've searched the trash cans and the bed, and all of the obvious places it might be, but so far, it hasn't turned up.

At one point last night, the memory of my very first ring flashed through my mind, and I heard my mother's voice admonishing me for having lost this ring, even though I'll be fifty-nine years old on Wednesday, and my mother has been dead for several years. That voice, that angry, negative, critical voice lives on in my head, despite years of counseling and a life filled with accomplishments and success. Why the hell can't I lose that voice, I ask you?

Sunrise

2006-12-20T08:18:00.000-08:00

It's rare these days for me to be up and around early enough to catch a sunrise (unlike my bad ol' working days, when I'd leave home in the dark and not return until long after sunset). But I got up early this morning to set out gifts for the guys who pick up our trash and recycling and to get the morning Oregonian. As I turned to walk back inside, I noticed that the sun was rising in the east, above the huge maple and oak trees in our neighbors' yards, and I decided I wanted to watch it a bit longer. So I came back inside, went out to the back deck (where there's a much better view) and stood out there, breathing in the cold, fresh air, and watched the sky change to a palette of rose and gold.

And I was really very glad to be alive.

Some more about winter

2006-12-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

I feel a little wimpy complaining about winter weather in Portland, especially after having spent fifteen years living in and around Boston, MA, where winters are beyond intense. The year after we moved to Boston, we experienced the Blizzard of '78 (1978, that is; I'm old, but not THAT old). A nor'easter dropped 24 inches of snow on the city in 12 hours, and high winds took out a bunch of transformers near the harbor. We were without power for 36 hours. We lived in a basement apartment at the time, with no windows other than two, tiny windows at street level that were much too small to let in any light at all. But we had flashlights and candles, and Frank (who later became my second husband) fought his way to Boylston Street and snagged the very last transistor radio in the drugstore (which, we discovered when the lights came back on, looked just like a hand grenade) so we were able to stay on top of what was happening outside.

When we emerged from our dark cocoon, the snow drifts in the Back Bay were astounding, higher than anything I'd ever seen before. We walked to a local grocery store to get a few things (we lost everything in the refrigerator, of course) and saw a snowplow take out an MG that had been completely covered in snow - the CRUNCH of smooshed metal and breaking glass was awful to hear.

But, of course, we lived through the storm, and the week following, when all streets were closed to traffic, which meant having to walk about a mile and a half from the Red Line to our apartment to get to and from work every day. Eventually things got back to normal (and our next apartment was a 4th floor walk-up -- no more living underground, thankyouverymuch!

I thought about that winter as I was scraping the frost from my car windows early this morning, wanting to get to the supermarket before things got too crowded there. I do have a new, warm jacket (something I didn't need in the Bay Area) and gloves, so I wasn't at all cold, and there was only a thin layer of frost on the car windows, which was really easy to scrape off. So when I started that internal bitching session, complaining about having to take the time to clean off the car, I stopped myself and thought about the Blizzard of '78 -- and stopped internal complaining as well.

Yeah, it's cold here (25 degrees when I went outside) and yeah, it took five extra minutes to get the windows cleared off. BFD, as they say.

BFD.

Winter returns to Portland

2006-12-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a wild and woolly week in Portland, weather-wise. A wicked winter storm blew in (literally), bringing a ton of rain and hurricane-force winds with it. I've never been as happy that we have a new roof as I was on Thursday night, listening to the rain pelting down and hearing the roar and whine of the winds.

We lost power (about 20 minutes after I'd put a meatloaf in the oven, of course) for about three hours, but we were prepared for that. David hung his Coleman lantern from a hook in the living room ceiling, and I lit a few dozen candles around the house. We have flashlights in every room of the house (thanks to years living in earthquake country), so it was easy to find one to use if we had to visit the bathroom while the power was out. The lantern put out enough light that we could sit and read, which is pretty much what we did until the power came back on three hours after it went out.

When I checked outside the next morning, the only visible damage to the trees and bushes was a small limb in the driveway, down from the maple tree, and the poor, battered grape arbor on its side (it's been propped up - precariously - since it fell over due to the weight of all the grapes last fall) in the back yard. David did some more pruning on the maple, taking down several dead branches, and the grape arbor is once again upright.

Yesterday, the temperature dipped into the low 30's, and there's been frost on everything in the mornings. I'd much rather have cold, sunny weather than warm stormy weather, so I'm quite happy with the Return of Winter.

At least for now...

More fun with earplugs

2006-12-16T11:49:00.000-08:00

So I've been excrutiatingly careful with ear plugs since Harley's initial debacle. I always put them away carefully, and am even paranoid about tossing used ear plugs into the trash can, lest she be tempted to root around in there and chow down.

Towards the end of January, Harley got really, really sick - so sick at one point, that I was terrified she would die. We took her to a vet that one of our neighbors had recommended, they did all kinds of tests (including two sets of x-rays), put her on an IV drip, and sent her home with three different medications, as well as an IV bag and needle so we could continue to hydrate her. Nothing helped. She kept on puking and getting more and more lethargic. The new vet (where we dropped over $1,000) was absolutely no help at all, and we ended up having her moved to another vet's office, a woman who had worked at the first vet's until it was acquired by some big corporate entity, which resulted in a push for profits and not for decent care. The new vet suggested a barium x-ray, and, in the process, discovered (yep, you guessed it) an ear plug wedged in the duodenum, making it impossible for Harley to do anything but puke because of the blockage. We approved immediate surgery, and Ms. Harley returned home the next afternoon, a little bit shaky but otherwise just fine.

How, you ask, did she find an ear plug to savor and ingest? All we can figure out is that one got loose as we were packing and moving from the rental house where we lived when we first moved to Portland into our home, giving Harley the opportunity to pounce on it and devour it. We figure the plug moved around in her digestive system for a few weeks (hence the symptoms, which came and went mysteriously) until it finally came to rest, as it were, in a place where it was causing her a great deal of pain and discomfort.

She may not be very bright, but she sure as hell knows what she wants and how to find it. Dammit.

A little about MS

2006-12-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

...after all, this is supposed to be a blog about my 'MS Journey", isn't it?

So I saw the neurologist yesterday, for my semi-annual check-up. He ran me through a bunch of simple tests (memory, muscle strength, etc.) and pronounced me 'steady as a rock'. Yeah, right.

The thing is, I guess I am 'steady' in that I haven't deteriorated in the past six month, which is, I know, a Good Thing. But dammit, I want to IMPROVE, even though I know that's beyond less-than-likely, and it's hard for me to get excited because I know what city and county I'm living in or that the thing with the shiny, metallic band and round, glass-covered thing in the middle on the doctor's wrist is called a 'watch'. Cut me a break. The last IQ test I took clocked me in somewhere in the 150's - of COURSE I know what a watch is! But ask me how many words I lose every day, or whether I can walk more than a block or two before my legs are too clumsy to be trusted. Or whether I can stay awake for longer that five hours before I have to collapse in bed and sleep the afternoon away. Or whether I can hike. Or run. Or work.

Of course I know why he was so bubbly and positive throughout the examination - I haven't gotten perceptibly worse in the past six months, and that really is a very good thing. If I could only figure out how to relinquish my dreams of getting back to what used to be 'normal' and settle into what is now 'normal' without the fear that I'll give up entirely if I do that.

He also mentioned that one of the the liver enzymes they track in my every-six-month blood tests came back elevated (not a surprise, since three of the meds I take can negatively impact liver function), so he told me I now have to get monthly blood tests and (JUST BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS!) give up alcohol entirely. It's not like I drink all that much, either. I don't drink any hard liquor, haven't for years and years. But I do like a glass of wine with dinner, and several glasses if we're at a restaurant or hanging out with friends. But for now, and until my blood tests show a reduction in that enzyme, even my one glass of wine a day is verboten.

Yeah, I know. I could be in Fallujah, or Darfur instead of in beautiful Portland, OR. I have nothing to complain about, not when you look at the way the vast majority of human beings live on this planet of ours. But for today, just for now, I'm really bummed that I can't toast the holidays with anything stronger than a Diet Pepsi.

Poor pitiful me.

Harley's Biggest Bungles - Chapter One (The Great Ear Plug Disasters)

2006-12-11T10:07:00.000-08:00

Harley, Queen of the Bungle

So Harley just LOVES the taste of ear wax. I shudder as I type those words, but I'm being honest here.

We discovered this perverse bent of hers when she was about a year old. We were living in a little house at the top of the ridge in Kensington, CA at the time of this Great Discovery. See, the only way I can sleep in the same room (much less the same bed) with David is if I wear those squishy ear plugs - otherwise, his snoring wakes me up and I end up sleeping on the couch or in the guest bedroom. (An aside: I used to work for a company that manufactured one brand of those squishy ear plugs, and at one time I had dozens and dozens of 'em, given to me by the Human Resources director when I was visiting the office in Indianapolis.)

Anyway, back to Harley's story.

I would put the ear plugs on the little bookcase next to my bed when I woke in the morning (yeah, I re-used them; I couldn't afford to use 'em once and throw them away now that I had to pay for them!), and I'd notice, every once in a while, that one would disappear during the day. I assumed that the cats had knocked one off the shelf and used it as a tiny soccer ball, and figured I'd find it when I vacuumed under the bed, so I promptly forgot about it.

Until a sunny morning when I was home from work, sitting at the dining table and drinking a mug of Peet's coffee, when I noticed that Harley had just puked. When I knelt down to clean up the mess, I saw a disgusting-looking, brown lump in the middle of it all, which I found the courage to pick up and examine. After a minute or two, I realized it was -- an ear plug, no longer bright yellow, but still recognizable. Blecchh!

Over the next few hours, Harley relieved herself of eight more ear plugs in various spots around the house. "What the F***??!!", I thought. "How many of these has she eaten?! Did she eat them one at a time, or did she save them for a huge feast? AARRGGHH!"

The next evening, I realized that Harley was sick. She wasn't eating or drinking and she was extremely lethargic. I managed to convince David that we needed to get her to a vet (of course, the only vet's office open at night was the Emergency Vet Clinic on University Ave. in Berkeley, where they charged the proverbial arm-and-leg for their services) NOW!! They put her on an IV drip because she was badly dehydrated, and did X-rays - X-rays that showed THREE MORE EAR PLUGS (two in her stomach and one in her intestines) for a total of one dozen ear plugs she'd ingested that never passed through her digestive system.

$800 later (and one stolen truck, but that's another story), Harley returned home, free of ear plugs. From that point on, I stored my ear plugs in a little wooden box on the night table next to the bed, and Harley returned to eating kibble.

Until Ear Plug Disaster Number Two, of course...

Harley, Queen of the Bungle

2006-12-10T09:06:00.000-08:00

Here's Harley, in her favorite spot on the living room sofa. Note the checkerboard face.

Two cats share our home at the moment. I wrote a little about Sam the other day; here's a glimpse into Harley.

We found both cats at the Berkeley/East Bay Humane shelter, a righteous, no-kill animal shelter in west Berkeley. We'd waited to get them until Zack arrived for the summer, so all three of them would have several months to bond and get to know each other. David zero'd in on Sam, who was in a cage with several of his siblings, obviously just bursting with desire to be petted and cuddled. In stark contrast, Harley was in a cage by herself, lying in that Kliban Cat meatloaf pose, with her back towards the rest of the room. "That's my cat!", I thought, and I was right. After a brief drama that involved getting our landlord's permission to adopt the two cats, and a last-minute sprint back to the shelter before it closed for the weekend, both kitties arrived in our home.

A few months later, when we were back at the shelter for a check-up, we mentioned something about Harley's less-than-effusive personality. "Yeah", the vet's assistant replied, "torties have attitude!"

Eleven years later, I still think about that description, which is absolutely right-on. Harley has attitude!

We named her "Harley" for two reasons. She has almost-perfect checkerboard markings on her face (kind of like a harlequin) and, when she was a tiny kitten, she purred so loud, she sounded like a Harley-Davidson revving up to take off down the freeway. She still produces one helluva purr when she's feeling happy.

Harley has the softest coat of any cat I've ever petted (and that's a LOT of cats!). Touching her is such a lovely experience, especially when she's relaxed and allows the contact to continue after a moment or two. A lot of the time, as soon as you start to pet her, she'll move around and start licking your hand as if to say "Hey! I get to control this process, not you! Get it?". She'll let you pet her, but on her terms, not yours!

This morning, I woke to find her nestled up against my hip, sound asleep. For about five minutes, I lay there stroking her soft fur and scratching under her chin, until she came to consciousness enough to turn around and lick my fingers, re-establishing supremacy in the process.

Harley is beautiful, haughty, and not very bright. And I love her to pieces.

Cat rituals

2006-12-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

David and Sam, engaged in The Ritual

If you're a cat lover, and have lived with cats at any time in your life, you know what I'm talking about, 'cause cats LOVE rituals. Okay, so I'm anthropomorphizing just a teensy bit here, but I get to do that 'cause this is my blog, right?

Take Sam, our big, sweet black-panther-of-a-cat.

When I'm finally awake, teeth brushed, meds and vitamins taken, coffee set to brew, Sam somehow knows that it's time for his Morning Ritual. I stoop down and pick him up (no mean feat, since he's a big and very solid cat). He puts his big ol' paws on my shoulder, rubs up against my face, and starts PURRING. He's very clear on exactly where I should concentrate my scratching, and will crane his neck in the appropriate direction, giving me all the information I need to give him exactly what he wants. From time to time, he'll turn and look at me, and give me a few swipes of his tongue on and around my lips, and then go back to the real business of the moment - getting lots of scratches and scritches and strokes. At some point, one or the other of us will tire of the position, and we'll disengage.

If for some reason I don't respond to his morning yowling immediately, he will follow me around the house until I do what he wants. And once the Morning Ritual has been completed, he's off to lie on the little bookcase that sits in the middle of the bay window looking over the back yard, intent on watching the comings and goings of the birds and squirrels (and perhaps reminiscing about his days as a valiant Back Yard Hunter?).

We just completed The Morning Ritual, this time while I was sitting in my chair at the desk. I'm pretty sure he'll be in his bird-watching spot when I go out to the sunroom to exercise, but he'll barely acknowledge my presence at that point. The Ritual will have quieted his need for contact, at least for a while.

Talent

2006-12-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

I've never really had artistic talent.

My son is a very talented comic artist. He started drawing when he was three years old. Whenever we went out, we took a bunch of markers and crayons and paper with us, so Zack could draw while we waited for our food at a restaurant, or visited friends who didn't have kids of their own. He drew everywhere, on paper place mats, all over his notebooks - everywhere. His passion for drawing is matched by his talent, and he's on his way to a career in comic art.

Yep, the guy has talent.

My husband is another very talented guy. His first career was painting houses - not just any houses, but upscale homes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of his work has been featured in "Fine Homebuilding" magazine, and you can still see some of the work he did on several of the Victorian mansions in San Francisco. He does incredible stuff with color, and the walls of our home in Portland, as well as our home in California, are proof of his creativity and talent.

A couple of years ago, he got into woodworking, after building a bench in memory of his father. A year or so ago, he made me special box for storing bills, with lovely, dovetail joints (made of wood left over from an old sofa!). His skills keep improving with every project he takes on.

A few days ago, I suggested that he make a new cutting board for the kitchen (the kind that slides in between the counter and a drawer) because the existing one was looking really ragged. My thought was that he'd measure the board, cut a piece of rock maple or oak, and make a simple replacement.

No way. That's not how really talented people do stuff. Instead, he made the gorgeous board pictured above, a mix of rock maple, oak, walnut and padauk (an African wood that's almost red in color). It's a shame to hide the cutting board under the counter, but that's where it will live.

The man definitely has Talent. Lots and lots of talent.

A Two-Cat Night

2006-12-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

Kitties sleeping in warmer climes

(Not unlike a three-dog night, I s'pose.)

It's been pretty cold in Portland for the past week or so (lows in the low 30's) and both cats end up snuggled in bed with us. This isn't new behavior for Harley, who spends 99.9% of her time sleeping (the rest is spent eating), but Sam usually chooses to hang out somewhere else in the house rather than bunk in with the three of us. Not lately, though, when the combined warmth of two humans and another furred creature is too tempting, even for an independent guy like Sam.

So I wake now, wedged between two hefty cats, which makes hauling myself out of bed a wee bit difficult (it's hard enough to get my legs moving after a night of MS-enduced muscle spasms and pain), but figuring out how to wriggle them out without disturbing the cats makes it damned near impossible.

Yeah, I know - why not disturb the cats? Because, as the pillow someone gave us as a gift recently says "Dogs have owners, cats have staff."

And that's the truth. We live to serve - to empty litter boxes and fill water dishes, to scratch ears and bellies - and to try never to disturb their rest.

Much as I love having their soft, furry bodies snuggled up with me when I sleep, I'd sure like it a lot more if they'd MOVE when I wake up!

Birds?

2006-12-01T09:43:00.000-08:00

The black sunflower seed, squirrel-proof feeders, with a few finches stopping for a quick snack.

Our bird feeders (there are three in the back yard at the moment, plus a hummingbird feeder) have turned the space into a kind of mini-zoo. And I, who used to hate birds, find myself fascinated and
entranced by the endless variety of our feathered visitors. Sam, the larger of our two cats, now on permanent house-arrest after too many visits to the vet, spends much of his day stretched out atop a small book shelf, watching the birds as they swoop by (I assume he wants to lunge through the window and grab a couple of them, but I've learned that trying to read minds, whether human or feline, is an exercise in futility).

Last spring, we bought a squirrel-proof bird feeder that closes off when the squirrel's weight pulls on it (this after watching most of the black sunflower seeds disappear into the squirrels' bellies for a month or so), and we added a second a couple of weeks ago. The feeders empty every three or four days, so we're now buying the largest bags of black sunflower and thistle seeds we can find, in an attempt to keep up with the birds' winter appetites. If someone had told me, even fifteen years ago, that I'd want to entice birds to visit my home, I would've laughed 'til I couldn't breathe. But, as is so often true in my life, that particular 'never' (as in "I'll NEVER like birds!") has proven to be incorrect, and I love seeing a new species perched on one of the railings on the back deck, so I can grab one of the half dozen bird books stored on a shelf under Sam's perch, and try to figure out what new variety of bird has discovered the Rancho Dleepow Lunch Stand and Bird Sanctuary. This morning, we saw a northern flicker out there, along with the usual house/purple finches, chickadees, and junkos. The Annas hummingbirds are sticking around, and will, I hope, continue to visit all winter. We get an occasional visit from a pair of raucous jays, who chase the smaller birds away while they peck at the seeds that have fallen onto the flower beds, but they don't linger long, and the others return fairly quickly.

My dislike of birds can be traced to my childhood, living in a big city, where the predominant bird population was pigeons (or, as I call them, 'flying rats'). Pigeons were EVERYWHERE in the city, as was pigeon poop. Flocks of pigeons would swoop down to grab at a fallen bit of hot dog bun some careless pedestrian dropped on the sidewalk, making it both difficult and unpleasant to navigate past that spot. I won't bother to go into graphic detail about pigeon droppings, other than to say "BLECCHH!". It wasn't until I got sick and stopped working that I began to see the beauty and variety of the bird life in our back yard in California, and I've been given the opportunity to see (and appreciate) an even wider range of bird species since we moved into our new home in Portland.

So, I'm now (gasp) a bit of a bird watcher myself. Who knew?

BRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

2006-11-29T19:29:00.000-08:00

Hoo, boy. Winter has definitely arrived in Portland. Snow. Temps in the low 20's. Black ice. All of the above.

The little pond in our back yard was frozen over this morning, and the bucket I use to carry weeds up to the green waste container (filled with water by last week's rains) is now a bucket of ice. We're working to keep the bird feeders filled with black sunflower seeds, so the birds have enough food to keep them going until it warms up a bit.

I feel little abashed when I write this, but I am almost completely unused to this kind of cold weather. Even after fifteen years in New England, where winter started at the end of October and didn't end until May some years, my body acclimated itself to Northern California about five years after I moved out there, and it hasn't gotten used to this cold weather yet - not by a long shot. Luckily, I saved a bunch of sweaters and gloves and wool scarves, even after the move to California, so I have a decent supply of those garments, but I no longer have a really warm jacket. I'm not going anywhere near stores or malls until after the holidays, so I hope the temperatures moderate enough that I won't be in desperate need until early in January.

In the meantime, I'm sure grateful for central heat!

Can someone be grateful...

2006-11-26T10:34:00.001-08:00

...when that someone is sick?

Well, duh! Of course I can be grateful, even on days when my right leg seems to have a strange and unhelpful mind of its own, or when I'm too tired to do more than empty the dishwasher and check my email before stumbling into the bedroom for yet another nap.

I remember someone saying this to me, years and years ago, and thinking how obvious and inane it was - "The most important thing you choose in your life is your attitude." Obvious? Sure. Inane? Not on your life, it ain't!

Here's the thing. I could choose to focus on all the negative stuff in my life (and believe me, that's my default mindset). I could focus on how much I miss my work, or how much I miss my friends in the Bay Area, or how much I miss being able to wake in the morning, throw on a pair of running shoes and sweats and walk a mile in fifteen or twenty minutes. Hell, I could focus on how much I miss being able to drive across town, spend an hour with a friend, and be sure I'd have the energy to stay awake and drive back home!

But if that was where I focused my attention, I'd be dead, either literally or figuratively. And dammit, I refuse to let this illness control my attitude, even though it seems to have control over my body!

So here's my Gratitude List, a few days after Thanksgiving, but heartfelt and true nontheless.

I am grateful for:

David - my caring, supportive, smart and multi-talented husband, whose quiet, strong presence gives me strength

Zack - who has grown into exactly the kind of man I hoped he would. Beside his amazing artistic talent, and his quirky sense of humor, his capacity for love and affection seems boundless.

Emily, Zack's sweetie - a lovely and talented young woman who seems to appreciate all of those qualities in him, as well, and who has made him very happy.

Families. My birth family, now down to my sister, her grown children and grandchildren. I love them! My family-in-law, including nephews and nieces and grand-nephews-and-nieces, all of whom are smart, interesting, talented and caring folks. And my family-of-choice, those amazing and wonderful friends whose presence in my life is a gift beyond words. I can't imagine my life without all of you, dear friends and family!

All of my 'teachers' - the friends and colleagues who have taught me more about how to live than any book or class could have done.

Sam and Harley - our beloved kitties, who allow us to be their staff!

And, in a strange way, I'm grateful for MS, because nothing else could have slowed my frantic pace enough to allow me the gift of being in the moment - of watching birds swoop from the trees to the bird feeders and back again, while I marvel. Or seeing a ruby-throated hummingbird, hovering and swaying as it drinks from the feeder on the back deck. Or spending time snuggling with Sam, our big, black kitty, who comes into the kitchen while I make the coffee, and yowls his desire to be picked up and petted. Before MS, I was much too focused on the next task - whether it was driving to work, or, when I was home, the emails I had to answer, or the proposals I had to write. Now, my 'task' is to get through the day, to accomplish a few, small chores or errands, and to try and be mindful of my physical limitations, but this gives me a LOT of time to simply SEE, which isn't a bad thing at all.

The Perfect Day for a Wedding

2006-11-17T12:28:00.000-08:00

Our phone rang on Monday afternoon; it was our friend Mike, calling to ask if we were free this morning for a couple of hours. I said we were, and he dropped a small bombshell by asking if we'd join him and Stephanie, at the Multnomah County Courthouse to witness their marriage. We adore Mike and Stephanie. They're both incredibly smart and witty, with exactly the kind of wicked sense of humor we love, and we count ourselves as lucky to have such terrific friends living close by in Portland.

They started dating in 1980, and have been engaged for at least five years. Six months ago today, they moved into a gorgeous, old house in the Laurelhurst district of Portland, which is chock-full of his political and her baseball-related memorabilia. I guess getting married was a logical next-step, and they decided to do it today so they could announce the marriage to Steph's family in person at Thanksgiving.

We live a very informal lifestyle, to say the least. Most days, I shlep around in leggings and some kind of loose top, usually barefoot and always sans makeup. So it was a wee bit scary to contemplate pulling together something to wear to a wedding with three day's advance notice, to say the least. I unearthed an outfit I bought in 1998, and have only worn once (!), an intact pair of pantyhose that were hiding at the very back of my sock drawer, and a pair of shoes that could at least pretend to be 'dressy'. So I managed to pull it off, although that's about as dressed up as I can get; thank goodness we only had to go out for breakfast, not attend a black-tie affair after the ceremony.

David and I were married under the Rotunda at San Francisco City Hall, and I've decided I really like the low-key feel of a small, civil ceremony. I've done the Big Wedding (200 guests at Wedding Number One) and it is so much easier and less stressful this way.

There was a humungous, long line at the Courthouse (I guess a lot of stuff happens on Fridays), so we snuck in through a handicapped entrance around the corner from the main doors, feeling smug and smart at not having to stand in line for a long wait. Unfortunately, David was carrying his Swiss Army knife and we had a gift bag containing a box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne (no weapons or alcohol allowed in the courthouse), so he had to race back to the parking lot to stash the contraband in our car before being allowed into the courthouse. He went back to the handicapped entrance to find that the guard who let me in initially had gone off duty (of course) so he had to return to the line and inch his way back into the courthouse. We hung out in the judge's chambers, watching Stephanie conduct business on her Blackberry, telling silly stories about all kinds of stuff, and getting cell-phone updates from David as he worked his way towards the front doors of the courthouse. Luckily, the judge's 9:30 appointment was postponed, so we were able to wait for David to arrive before the ceremony began.

It was a lovely ceremony, short but warm and charming, and one of the administrative staff took a group photo (well, three group photos, actually, with each of the three digital cameras available) before we trooped out for breakfast.

After some of the worst wind-and-rainstorms I've ever experienced, the day turned out to be just gorgeous - blue skies, cool breezes and lots of bright sunshine.

A fitting - and perfect - day for a wedding!