Deja Vu

It has been a tough week for me.  I spent all of Tuesday in the emergency room with daughter "Cate", not her real name.

Cate, who is a single parent of a teen, went to the ER with severe pain.  They diagnosed a kidney stone pretty quickly.  When she heard the word "stint",  that's when she decided that she needed her mother and called me.  And indeed, she absolutely did need an adult advocate with her, as she was heavily medicated for the pain and probably not entirely lucid all the time.  There was much to remember and absorb.

When I arrived,  the nurse was filling me in.  I absolutely could not believe my ears.  I was stunned.  Twenty years ago, husband Gerry ended up in the ER with severe pain and a kidney stone in his left kidney.  In the process of doing tests, they discovered a mass in his right kidney, which resulted in surgery and the removal of that kidney.

So I learned that Cate had a kidney stone in her left kidney, and in the process, they discovered a mass on her right kidney.  It was the eeriest thing!  It felt to me like a Mega Deja Vu !  It was unbelievable to me, and somewhat traumatic.

Over the course of the day, a lot of tests were done, and Cate ended up in the Operating Room getting the stint, which keeps the flow going from the kidney to the bladder.  When I asked the doctor about the mass on the right kidney, at first he seemed very concerned.

After the procedure,  he studied the tests more closely, and when Cate's surgery was over, he came to see me in the waiting room and said that he actually is confident that it is benign.  They will keep track of it over time and see what it does.

The nurse for the day heard Cate and I discussing some concerns about health insurance.  Cate does have health insurance at the moment, but she is in the midst of a major life transition, which involves leaving her job, getting married, selling her house and moving. There will be a period of uncertainty regarding health insurance.

The nurse told us of many instances of people who had been brought to the ER  (presumably by someone else),  but because they did not have health insurance, and did not want to incur huge debt, opted to refuse all treatment, even an aspirin.  Several of those  had chest pains, or in one instance, a heart attack happening at the moment.  That nurse was wishing that in America all citizens had access to medical care.   It is very sad indeed that health is a for-profit enterprise.   It is hard for me to imagine anyone bearing the pain of a kidney stone without at least drug intervention.

Cate is doing well and having her stint removed tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I picked up some kind of virus while at the hospital, and now have one miserable head and chest cold and cough.
I am looking forward to a better day.

I am going to Mississippi soon and so hoping that at least it will be warmer there!

Locked Out

My domestic chore for the day was to thoroughly mop the kitchen and dining area floors.  This I chose to do before I took my shower and got dressed, therefore, I was still in my pajamas.   Since the bottom of the pajamas were getting wet, I removed those.

Part of my floor mopping strategy is to use old towels to dry the floor afterward, to make sure to get up any dirty water or dirt left behind.

When I was finished with this chore, I started throwing the dirty towels in the washing machine, then added a dirty mop head that was removable, and a couple of other cleaning aides.   I thought, I might as well throw in my underwear as well, as I was about to take a shower.   Then when putting the mop back in the closet, I noticed a dust mop cover that I could also throw into the washer.  In that process,  some gravely dirt fell onto my clean wood floor.  I took an old towel to wipe that up, and then and opened the door to the garage to shake it loose so that I could put that rag in the washer as well.

The door closed behind me! Not that I want to conjure this image, but I was locked out and indecent!  That has never happened to me before---at least the naked part!    I have locked myself out many times, and therefore keep a house key in a special place in the garage. Never have I been so grateful to find a key in its proper place.   If for any reason, someone had not put it back in its proper place,  I would have spent the next 8 hours stuck there, until Gerry got home.  Climbing in a window with a naked bottom was not really an option!

New Furnace

(not really our furnace, but similar)

When we got home from church on Sunday, I was already cold, because it was a damp and cold day outside.  I was looking forward to our warm house.  As soon as I entered, I could tell that the house was not warm.  The inside temperature read 58 degrees, and dropping.  It appeared that our furnace had died.

Given that it was going down to zero that night, we felt we had no choice but to call an emergency furnace service, one we had used before, which was out of the Tully area.  The service man quoted a most outrageous price, and we agreed.

I started putting on layer after layer, not something I usually have to do.  Gerry, the skier,  is the expert in layers.  We turned the oven on low and left the door open.  I turned on a small electrical  heater we have on hand.  No matter what I did, I could not get my feet warm.  They had already been cold all morning, and now I could not get them to warm up at all.  I got the bright idea that I would put my two pair of socks in the oven to warm them up, and then put the socks back on.   Soon, there was the smell of something burning.  My socks, obviously made out of some fake acrylic, melted.  {My fireman son-in-law was not pleased to hear this stupidity, according to my daughter}.  I do suppose it could have been worse.

The service man came out on Sunday and did manage to get the furnace going again, and reported that both heat exchangers were cracked and we would need another furnace.  His bill for that service call was about the equivalent of the gross national product of a small country.

Today we had a new furnace installed---different company.  These folks were great!  We really appreciated them, and will be doing our business with them from now on. We have a programmable thermostat.  That will work just fine until it comes to regulating the air conditioner,  about which we have very different opinions and needs.

I was telling a friend about my cold feet and melting my socks.  She suggested that I probably could get some foot warmers at Wal-Mart.

The funny thing about that is,  Gerry has a whole box of those downstairs.  Too bad I didn't think of that myself!

The Creative Process

There is a distinct mystery about writing,  about the creative process.  You cannot entirely explain exactly where it comes from, control the speed or the flow, or precisely describe the process.

When I wrote the novel, In Its Time, I knew how it began.  I had that scene in my mind. But I did not know at all how it was going to end.  The ending unfolded, one tiny bit at a time.  I was often surprised at how it all developed.

I am currently writing a sequel to that book.  The writing process is the reverse.  I know exactly how it ends, and have known the ending of the sequel long before writing a single word.

It is the rest of the story that has to come into being, has to be imagined, has to emerge.  I may write just a little that will move the story along.   Then I have no idea where it is supposed to go next.  I have to wait for an inspiration.  As I try to envision all the things that might happen as this story moves toward its ending,  I eventually make an outline of the chapters.  Then at least, I know what year it is, which character is being featured, what the story line is as each scene comes to life.

I don't think there is a fast way to do this.  I think it is simply a long and slow process.  It is all about waiting for the next idea or insight or inspiration.   Sometimes it is about writing one sentence, and then going and doing something else, or writing a paragraph, and walking away for a few days.  Sometimes my mind is working on it when I wake up.  Other times it is completely blank.

There is a lot of mystery in the writing process.  It requires patience.  And waiting.   And hard work.

But I do think one can get addicted to the creative process.  It is strangely satisfying.

Poetry for Kids

I had been thinking that I needed some kind of "volunteer" [community outreach] activity to add to my other social and family and church activities.

At church a couple of weeks ago,  the there was an announcement that they were looking for volunteers in the elementary school,  though there were no specifics as to what the nature of that would be,  so I attended an information session to see what I could learn.

It actually turned out to be quite different from what I had imagined. (Ihad imagined reading to children, or having them read to me). But the school has a different need.   There are some kids that need extra help with the Core Curriculum material  (a new venture).   The teachers do that.  Those students who do not need extra help have nothing to do during that end of the day block of time.  Those in charge of this "outreach idea"  (along with the principal)  decided that maybe adults could share any special interest, or talent, or skill they might have.   Hmmmmm???.  I wasn't so sure about that,  but figured there ought to be something that I can do.  The first thing I thought of was poetry for kids,  or a Poetry Club, or whatever we choose to call ourselves.  The principal said there are some students who are definitely interested.

I visited the school the other day, was assigned my space (the cafeteria), and found my way through the security hurdles and the sign in process.  I have put together some lesson plans, and am hoping for the best. It has been a long long time since I have had this kind of a classroom experience  (if ever!!).  My first professional endeavor so many years ago was as a high school and/or a junior high school English teacher.  (though I was the director of a pre-school once).

I will begin this Poetry venture in March and go through the end of May.   I saw the youngsters while I was in the school.  They do seem like such little people, young, small, innocent.  The ones I will be working with will be between 8 and 11 years old.   I will admit that since I was there, the thought has crossed my mind that I do want to locate a closet somewhere for hiding the kids, should a gunman appear.  So sad that we live in that kind of a world!

Hopefully, we will all have fun with poetry!

Winter Zoo

Our entertainment for Saturday was a visit to the Bronx zoo.   We discovered pretty quickly that we did not have much competition along the walkways.  Few other brave souls were walking around the zoo areas in 25 degree temperature.

We were also surprised to discover that Long Island and the Bronx have more snow on the ground than we do here in upstate.

Thankfully, many of the animals that we did see were in indoor buildings.  There were no visible animals outside in the snowy areas.  I do wonder where many of the animals might be housed for the winter, or if indeed they still live there.   Or it may be that some of the buildings are closed for the winter, or our tickets did not get them into certain areas.  We did not see any in the cat family----no lions or tigers,  no foxes or baboons,  no elephants.

We saw lots of reptiles in the reptile house,  and lots of birds in the Bird World.  We did see crocodiles and alligators and turtles and also seals.  The largest animals we saw were giraffes.

It is a vast place, and we were on our feet walking for three hours, some of it uphill. My calf muscles are sore today! I discovered that three hours on my feet is about my limit!   The walking and the cold made me quite exhausted by the end of the day!

A Mongoose

A Parrot 

Now that we have done the Bronx Zoo, we can check that off of our list.