elainegrey

We arrived in NC May 27th 2016, so have entered the tenth year here. And maybe chapter 4? The first two and a half years we were here were about clearing the overgrown property, getting a fenced area for the pets and the "orchard."  Let's call that Chapter 1. Mom had her stroke in Dec of 2018. We still had some trees to plant in the orchard, but between Dec of 2018 and Mom's death June 1 of 2022, Mom's health and Grandmámá's health and care were constant concerns. I had a trip to Europe in there, and COVID certainly affected all those concerns for health fragile persons. I'm thinking of that as Chapter 2.

With Mom's passing i became focused on my health: i had just discovered the ADHD diagnoses of family members and realized it applied to me. A year later I had had my nose reshaped so i could breath through it, envisioning more energy from better breathing. I had a hard time recovering energy after the surgery. I finally pulled myself out of what i supposed to be depression, and then i was covered with spots. And so very tired. If this were fiction, the lethargy after surgery would be foreshadowing for the ITP diagnosis, and i can't imagine why ITP isn't the explanation for that low energy sense i had that year. Perhaps this third chapter ends with loosing two of our companions for the cross country move. It ends with Christine's sister becoming a widow,  promising some change in her relationship with Christine. Part of Christine's desire to move here had to do with her relationship with Diana: i wonder how it will change. I hope it's a positive change.

I realize how different our experience of the political world was when we left California. NC's anti-trans "bathroom bill" was proposed or passed  on the same day we closed on the house. Trump's position as presumptive nominee occurred  as we were driving across country. I read the Doonesbury comics that are re-running George W era strips and feel horror at my nostalgic feelings for Rumsfeld.

My work world has changed in the third chapter: colleagues i was working with before we moved have left, including leadership changes that are beginning to reshape my work life. I hope i have the privilege of keeping my job until i want to leave. Were the world to continue as it has during my working life, i would retire in six years.

I am not optimistic. I think of the huge weight that sat on me in ... 1990? 1989? ... when i watched computer and climate scientists present their models of how climate would be in fifty years and the  dreary and dim prospects they presented. Every presentation essentially ended with a list of aspects they didn't have included or that we didn't know that might make the impact less drastic. I walked away realizing i'd be in my early 70s. I did consider switching fields. I talked to someone doing acid rain research whose advice was that if you wanted to save the environment we needed advocacy and public opinion changed, not more research. He had apparently "gotten into trouble" by trying to advocate for change politically. His advocacy was used to turn against his research, implying it wasn't impartial. He was depressed and probably not a good person for me to turn to, but there it is.

I did not foresee the disaster of politics or the possibility of a tech change like generative and agentic AI.  (OK the promise of "Agentic AI", something that could be a personal assistant has been promised by speculative fiction for ages.)

It seems like a new chapter. I dunno. One foot in front of the other.

The day after my reposting of Quaker House's post, which referenced an "imaginary insurrection," i read Electoral Vote's review (with historical and legal context on presidential rights). The section headed "...And in Court" notes the call up of the Marines was not under the insurrection act. A muted "yay" at that.

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Senate/Maps/Jun10.html#item-1

At the end of the month, my third nephew D-- is headed to "New Student Indoctrination" for his Navy ROTC scholarship to Fancy Pants Connecticut College. I believe it was a struggle to choose between that and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. I know the current administration was on my brother's mind the whole time, even if it is D--'s decision.  D-- spent one week last summer at the Academy's Summer Seminar and in the spring attended a "Candidate Visit Weekend."

When i think of the political context of those visits vs this summer... it's been a very long five months. I will get to chat with my brother on Sunday morning and will find out how the pictures of the Marines bivouacing in LA hit him.

--== ∞ ==--

Doe and rabbit in the front yard this morning. Saw the hawk (as well as a doe and rabbit) on Tuesday evening.

--== ∞ ==--

( Death and dying reflections )

Good news: No emergency medical visit for 7 days! Carrie's been to the vet twice after coming home. Healing well.  We're getting better at bandaging the open wounds. Carrie is off fentanyl, so she's gotten better this weekend at getting out of the muzzle and pulling the pads out of the bandage. So, i need to up my skills at wrapping.  I do wonder how long we need to keep bandaging. Two open wounds are each about a square inch, another is about four square inches. I think it will take a while.

 Sister in law D thinks she will be a widow in a week. Saturday morning i sent B a close up of an  elderflower cyme, all snowy petals wet from the rain with prominent creamy stamens. Later, checking the rain gauge, i saw that the white cala lily had bloomed and the flowers lay on the ground. I picked the two, dislodging the tiniest of snails, and then added a few lizard tail (Saururus cernuus) and an orange hummingbird mint (Agastache Poquito Orange) to make this morning's bouquet.  Elderberries are just beginning to ripen.

Other good news: i'd bought a bottle to deliver very targeted drops of herbicide to noxious plants (wild briers that have multiplied around the fig tree and on the other berm, honeysuckle twining on fences and out of control, trees on the septic field, poison ivy) and could not find it. I finally ordered a replacement, months after it should have been in use. And then i found it. And i was able to cancel the order in time. Yay.

Sequentially:

I left work early on Friday. ADHD rejection sensitivity probably is amplifying feelings about a meeting. I was just too emotional and so very very tired.  After an afternoon of reading, a visit with my Dad, and more reading, we watched the documentary about Ocean's Gate, the Titan submarine ... hubris, and the guy who ran Ocean's Gate sounds just like the exec director who is involved in my distressed feelings.

I did get a good bit done in the yard on Saturday, flame weeding while it was wet. Moved woodchips a short way to mulch an area at the end of the sidewalk that has been annoying to mow. Then i planted some annuals (coleus and lantana), some Trimezia gracilis ... babies? propagules? , and transplanted a chrysanthemum that survived the winter and has started blooming.   The lemongrass is in real soil for the first time in years, and i hope it multiplies. Finally, the native plants i bought are all in the new heavily mulched bed around the front yard apple tree.

Christine's been telling her siblings that "Carrie is avenged." I found a coiled copperhead in the woodchip pile when working yesterday, and killed it. I don't feel good about it but i would do it again.  There are brush piles in the woods and that's for them. But this was a little too close.

I then went on to have an ocular migraine and then a bad headache. Today has been less outside. I picked sochan and mint, spending time thinking about where i was putting my hands. I've got several Talenti gelato containers full of blanched sochan in the freezer, mint and bee balm on the dehydrator, and elderberry flowers hanging by the water heater. I imagine gifts of mint-elderflower tea.

I also made whipped cream cheese with the lavender syrup and pulverized dehydrated mulberries from last year. Very purple, not over sweet, and only mildly flavored.

I haven't seen the hawk this past week, and wonder if the smelly snake repellents have repelled the hawk. Instead, i've seen a rabbit almost every morning.

  I am avoiding feelings and reading and reading and reading. It;s been a fight not to go to the book and finish this.

I'm hoping the universe is done with sending us to the emergency room for a while. Carrie has spent the night at the veterinary hospital because she was bit  on her front left ankle by a presumed copperhead yesterday morning between 9 and 10 am -- probably more like 9:45?  And she's probably going to be OK, but there will probably be a long rehab of some sort with skin and tissue damage on that leg.

I am suspicious that maybe Carrie didn't see the snake? And that's how her foot was bit? Marlowe is so tiny, so Christine has insisted on keeping her in, but i don't know that that's actually going to help unless we plan to keep her in forever. Once Carrie is home and we need to let her out in the back yard, Marlowe is going to dash out.  However Christine's got to work through her anxiety and i need to let her take the lead on this.

I think the best we can do is the snake repellent (that Christine had distributed before she left to spend the afternoon with B--) and trying to keep the weeds down.

I'm off to meet my sister and dad to drink coffee in memory of my mom at the hospice where she died, and get my sister's weed burner/flame thrower.  Mine had it's final failure when the control knob fell off somewhere in the yard yesterday as i burnt it all -- well as much as i could of the stilt grass, particularly at the fence line.  I didn't burn it all : i kept noticing poison ivy and worrying that i was going to send myself to the emergency room by burning then inhaling the urushiol. I am not that sensitive to poison ivy. I occasionaly get blisters that i suspect are from blowback from fragmented leaves in the weed whacker, but i know i've brushed by intact plants and had no reaction.

In the past week I've watched a hawk survey my garden and other parts of the front yard for prey, and have clearly seen it carry off two snakes. I assumed it was mainly getting DeKay's brown snakes: it's welcome to all the copperheads it and its brood can eat.

(While on the topic of pests: Christine's found two ticks - before they could attach - but so far my pants-in-socks seems to have discouraged any interest in me.)

We said goodbye to Edward around 12:20 yesterday, a month and a few hours after saying goodbye to Luigi.  There was a cloud that was rainbow colored in the sky, a nacreous cloud (except May?! and 35° latitude?!) that greeted us as we reached the vet, that offered a bit of marvel to go with the grief.

The medication to allow Edward to breathe more easily failed and the prognosis became even more complicated. No prognosis had him leaving the cage where he was receiving supplemental oxygen, so we said good bye to him there.

We're shattered, and i have so much at work to focus on the next few days. A week and a half before i can safely see my dad.... No spots, so we're thankful for that. (I think Christine worries the stress of waking to Luigi's condition triggered the last flare of my condition.)

--== ∞ ==--

Meanwhile, B-- (Christine's sister's husband) is now using supplemental oxygen.  D-- and B-- lost their two grey cats Atty and Scout to some seizure condition in late 2024 and this spring. We know additional grief is on the horizon.

So we will go through the change in our lives because forward through time is the only way i know.

--== ∞ ==--

I'd started working in the yard just before, the vet called. And then while Christine showered before we went to the vet, i put a few plants in the ground in the yesterday:

Better boy buried deeply in the eastern side of the back of the circle garden; a bigger Early girl to the west, and between them a "Sweet banana" pepper and a sweet basil. Last year a Matt's wild cherry tomato swarmed that whole area. I would have expected seedlings but maybe the winter weeds then pinestraw mulch was too thick.

Carmen (Red Italian frying pepper) east most, and the second of the four "Sweet banana" peppers in the east middle bed; the last two  "Sweet banana" peppers in the west middle bed, and one between the two tomatoes.

The Thai basil in the east front bed  close to the peony where sage thrived before.

I also pulled some seeds out from my collection - Zinna, marigold, sunflowers. I have struggled to grow sunflowers here but will try again, i guess. I mixed a bunch of collected marigold seed heads in the soil near the tomatoes - who knows when i collected those.  I should probably soak some of the hyacinth beans and plant them so when all the poppies die back i have something to replace them.  It failed last time i tried but i will try again. If i get my seedling kit going soon, i should start some more basil.

I'm leaning towards planting the  rosemary where i had it before but i don't know why that big plant died last year. I suspect humidity from all the stilt grass and Bears foot (Smallanthus uvedalia), then drought. But i wonder if the Smallanthus uvedalia had anything to do with it beyond the shade and captured humidity.

So his breathing was worrisome, Christine sent a video to our vet who suggested we take him to the 24 hr vet. We are now in Durham where we have been told he has fluid buildup around his lungs, either from congestive heart failure or cancer. We will have them attempt to remove the fluid to provide relief and be tested for signals of cancer. Also a blood test to determine heat failure.

Then I think we will take him home. There is an at home euthanasia vet to call when the time comes. There's still a chance it's just infection but the vet didn't seem to think that the likely result.

Today's platelet count consistent with last week's well within normal reading; hematologist suggests waiting two weeks for the next draw.

Today's therapy was useful. We've been discussing a cycle of how a certain amount of "anxiety" or "urgency" is motivational -- it produces a boost of energy to address things. At a certain point, though, there's a tip: maybe the task/project becomes intimidating and instead one is boosted into something else:  maybe it's proximate work (and one can steer back to the goal). Maybe other irrelevant work to distraction. And then the overshoot of energy can lead to frustration, that becomes paralysis, and then depression.

We talked a little about my feelings about my aspiration/goals (handwave at yard, point at gap in woods for shed), and why i think i should be more productive than i am.

I acknowledged that it's not just this health issue that has kept me from making headway: so many things in life can derail my sense of forward momentum, whether travel or family visits or work crisis/project or Trees Falling On Fences. And i know that i cycle between balance and feeling like all the threads are being pulled through my fingers, burning raw spots. Just. Keep. Going. Some of the times i have been very productive have also not been balanced, too, and relationships and other things were neglected.

We talked about the tiny little bit of progress i made on the shed, the reasons the shed is important, and then M-- was able to poke at one of the stuck pieces.

Developing a relationship with a contractor is intimidating because of the need for trust, but also because of the question of the person working closely with us and needing to be accepting of us. The trust is more than merely will they do the work: it's also, will we be comfortable with them working here, will we feel like we can address challenges, etc. There's something deeply emotional and challenging for me in this relationship bit.

Speaking of relationships: i feel like i am connecting more with M--, too, and that she's hearing more and mapping my state of being. I like having the cycle as a framework for examining frustrations.

I don't know if it's the ITP or the antibiotics, but i've been exhausted. I have two more antibitotics to take. The clot area is still a little hard, with a little ache, maybe a little warm.... Much better than a week ago!

I'm not allowed to complain about late frosts. There are figs bigger than my thumb on the fig tree. I don't know if the heavy pruning i did encouraged formation or what. I assume these are breba (early) crop and not the main crop.

The blueberries are bowed under berry weight. Apples on Aunt Rachel and one on Grimes Golden. So many persimmon buds.  And mulberry season is almost here.  So many coriander flowers promise homegrown coriander for my breakfast bread. Breadseed poppies getting ready to blossom.

So funny i almost burst into tears:

https://theonion.com/rfk-jr-starts-national-registry-of-introverts-who-sometimes-get-social-anxiety/

Where "funny" means overwhelmed with a sense of how unreal real is, and horror of other people.

--== ∞ ==--

Friday afternoon and yesterday i had to leave Earth, so i got a digital edition of  The Deed of Paksenarrion and went off to another land. (Not sure why it's not "deeds," plural.) There's a part of the story where the main character Pak, after having risen to a high point in everyone's estimation of her character and abilities, undergoes torture and is broken. The character spirals into poverty and despair -- and i wonder how much time Moon has spent with wounded veterans. The insight and compassion of the story into suffering and then the time and (seeming to me) realistic route of healing  still brings me to tears.

In normal times i would wonder how this country could not create a well resourced network to provide healing and support to the many who served and gave up so much in that service. In these times...

--== ∞ ==--

Watched The Accountant, which came out in 2016 and that makes my head hurt. I don't know how the sequel reflects the politics of autism at this time, but ... something makes me think of mandelbrot sets. (And i wrestle my brain back.) Anyhow, it was a fun diversion... Thursday night, maybe? I forget.

--== ∞ ==--

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