So much to do, so little time!

I did a quick repaint of a bathroom cabinet this morning.  Getting on the floor was easy; getting up took a while.  I'm very happy that we live in an age when rusty parts can be replaced.  

Then I checked out Pinterest.  My feed is filled with quilts. dogs, craft techniques, and Bohemian decor.  There's even a category called Granny Boho, or something like that.  There is no way in the world I, or anyone else alive, can accomplish all the ideas or follow all the inspirations Pinterest brings onto her screen, but ideas are crucial to keeping us alive for as long as we can be.  

Ideas are hopes for the future and I have plenty of them--no one wants to leave until all the projects are finished, even though for most of us that would take three or four lifetimes.  As long as I have an ongoing project or an idea for a new one, wonderful friends and family, and my sweet puppy, all is well in the world.  

Now, off to Napsville until Nathan comes for a visit and we go to Elena's dance recital.  Will will be here at the crack of dawn tomorrow and my knee installation happens at 9:00.  

Here we go.....

I've been x-rayed and tested and CKG-ed and cat scanned and found ready for a knee exchange on Monday.  Today we're making arrangements for Day to fly out the next day or the next, though we still don't know for sure when I'll be dismissed, probably Wednesday.

Will and Bonnie are taking care of Luci and me until I get home, then Day will be here to cook and shop and boss me around to do exercises for a better recovery. 

I haven't seen my girl since Christmas 2019, so you can imagine how excited I am!  I told her yesterday I planned knee surgery just to get to see her.  

Kate loaned me her walker and introduced me to Ted's Oriental market yesterday.  They have everything you need for Asian cooking--woks and rock sugar and noodles and bubbly tea--so we felt like we were on a field trip.  Sadly a sign of the times, a security guard was posted at the door. 

I don't sleep at nights much--what with making lists and checking things off, so I'm hoping to finish up all my pre-op assignments today.  

A fun Sunday playdate with Janet and Val

Janet has three SNIPSA rescue dogs and three cats.  Today, she brought over the newest addition to the family, a sweet little brown dog named Val.  Luci and Val got on famously and played themselves silly.

Both took turns jumping on Janet's lap, then mine, then Janet's, then they chased each other around, then back to laps.  

I've noticed something about dogs: No matter how much you might hate your regular dry kibble, it becomes extremely desirable when another dog wants it. 

When Luci has only plain kibble in her bowl, she holds her head up high and crunches each bite loudly looking at me with a pitiful look on her face.

But when Val took liberties with her bowl, she inched up to it and began eating it as if it were steak.

Primary-Colored Blocks of Fact

I've been thinking lately about how friendships can fracture when my expectations collide with yours, or vice versa.  Often we don't even have the vocabulary for saying what the difference is.  Instead, we stew over (or I do) the seemingly un-crossable gulf between the actions of another and my own. 

A friend and I were talking about opinions this week, how we're less likely to express our opinions than we used to be.  Right after that, another person said something so wrong-headed that I picked it apart in my mind for a day or two.   I'm still as likely to rankled as ever, but I don't hold on to it as long.  I can't even remember now what it was about! 

Maria Popova, creator of Brainpickings, should win a major award for her site.  Not only does she bring a cosmos of brilliant writers together around a topic every week, but she herself is an amazing writer.  Here's how she begins the one for today:

To understand anything... is to restructure our existing knowledge, shifting and broadening our prior frames of reference to accommodate a new awareness. And yet we have a habit of confusing our knowledge — which is always limited and incomplete: a model of the cathedral of reality, built from primary-colored blocks of fact — with the actuality of things; we have a habit of mistaking the model for the thing itself, mistaking our partial awareness for a totality of understanding. Thoreau recognized this when he contemplated our blinding preconceptions and lamented that “we hear and apprehend only what we already half know.”

She later quotes Aldous Huxley on the difference between knowledge and understanding:

"Knowledge is acquired when we succeed in fitting a new experience into the system of concepts based upon our old experiences. Understanding comes when we liberate ourselves from the old and so make possible a direct, unmediated contact with the new, the mystery, moment by moment, of our existence."

and

"Understanding is not conceptual, and therefore cannot be passed on. It is an immediate experience, and immediate experience can only be talked about (very inadequately), never shared. Nobody can actually feel another’s pain or grief, another’s love or joy or hunger. And similarly nobody can experience another’s understanding of a given event or situation… We must always remember that knowledge of understanding is not the same thing as the understanding, which is the raw material of that knowledge. It is as different from understanding as the doctor’s prescription for penicillin is different from penicillin."

Documentaries about boundless human spirit and love

I'm drawn lately to stories of real people overcoming odds and doing remarkable things, stories of people loving each other enough to help them overcome odds and do remarkable things.

Two extraordinary documentaries:

Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements (HBO)

It's Not Yet Dark (Amazon)

This little creature that sleeps in her bed in my bed has already learned what to do when her human says, "Get in your bed."  

She goes into the bed where she curls up like a fawn and the bed-from-Amazon I stuffed yesterday fits just right, wrapping around her.  When I move or get up for a drink, she lifts her head and looks at me: are we going anywhere or is this still the night-time when we sleep?  

In the daytime, she never growls and seldom barks, but during sleep she sometimes makes a gentle growling sound.  She is dreaming maybe of being bigger, braver, scarier?  Some intruder bounds into her dreams and she vanquishes it.

I went for a pedicure today.  She wedged herself between the two legs of my lap and sat there watching.  People talked about her, asked her name.  When they said "Luci," she looked at them: "You mean me? Me? That's me, Luci!"  

We humans use so many words, yet a wordless puppy commands everyone's attention. I keep thinking of the radiant face of the baby in the Apple Store, laughing out loud just looking at her, and the old man on a cane who reached his hand down to pet her but couldn't bend that low.  Usually Luci jumps on the legs of anyone who greets her as he did, but she sensed that he was fragile.  Instead of jumping, she licked his shoes.  

"My dogs would never sit still like that," says a big macho man getting a pedicure. "They would be barking and running around everywhere." 

She shows that calm side to strangers, but I know there's a race-dog under the calm demeanor and that no one in the room could catch her if she showed them that side of her.

Today, I have talked to people who have taken our their phones and shown me: A German Shepherd, a Husky mix, three rescued mutts, one of whom was dressed up like a mail carrier for a postal worker's retirement party.  When Luci sniffs their shoes, they say--every one of them, "She smells my dog" and then I ask them about their dogs and they tell me all about them just as I'm telling you about Luci.  Even the workers at the Apple Store and UPS, where I shipped back my old computer, say, "Oh, Hello, Puppy!" or "What a sweetie!" 

These past 15 months have had an impact on all of us humans and we're still not entirely sure what the new rules of the road are.  Is it because of our months of isolation that we're so drawn to animals (who don't know a thing about COVID)  who don't hesitate to greet us and give us a lick or a jump or a wag of affection?  

No more technical difficulties

 I hope my knee is as easy to resolve as my tech issues!  Surgery is a week from Monday and I have spent the morning at the Apple Store getting my new tiny iPhone and Mac Air set up.  

The mall allows dogs--who knew?  So Luci is now worn out from meeting new friends and she's napping in her new red bed.  One baby in her daddy's back pack laughed the entire time she looked at Luci, and I just about every child at the mall asked to pet her.  What's to not like in shopping with a people magnet like Luci?

If they let me stay in the hospital for three days, Luci will be having a sleepover at Will's--with Nathan and Elena both happy to dog sit.  

I just got these Mother's Day pictures from Jocelyn--and Carlene matches her garden! 

12 days to go

Until I get my first knee replaced.  May 24th Will's taking me in for what could be hours or a couple of days, and I'm pretty sure they will stay here at my house as needed.  The next 11 days will be pretty much consumed by physical therapy and doctor's pre-op appointments and a COVID test--even had to get a dental check up today to rule out gum infections, which I did already.

This computer is such a pain to use at the moment (erasing strings of nnnnnn's) so I'll keep it short.  Anndn now one of my favorite times of the day, a nap with Sweet Luci!

A new Apple on its way

The Apple Store is open for shopping and repairs--though you have to pop online to make an appointment for either or both.  So I went in for repairs yesterday, a fun outing after not being in mall for so long.  It turns out my four years of Apple Care is expiring in a few days and they offered me $550 for a trade in, so I decided to sell them back this Apple of the Plentiful N's and buy a simpler Apple Air with a new keyboard technology so the repeated sticking of keys is not likely to happen.  No bells and whistles, just a solid and lighter machine. 

I've always been a big fan of Apple products, but this computer has been a bit of a lemon from this start.  So in a few days I will have a new Air and I won't have to erase a string of n's on every line.  Even as I'm writing this, I have to stop and erase several strings of N's on each line. 

I tend to watch movies and snack at the same time so crumbs find their way into the land beneath the letters. I've done this with all my laptops, but this keyboard must be particularly open to food data drifting around the room.

The geniuses at the Apple Store will transfer all my data when the new one arrives.  

A string of N's.

 I'm mailing my laptop to Apple for one more repair as soon as they send me a box.  When I type N, it gives me a string of N's; also my email onnnly works on the phone.  

So until I get my computer back, if anyone wants to get it touch, please call or use text.  

I had a wonderful Mother's Day and hope you all did, too!

All writers and readers will enjoy the documentary on Amy Tan--PBS

Mother's Day Weekend.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers, grandmothers, and children of mothers!

Carlene and I had a fun early Mother's Day visit by phone today--and she'll be going to church, then visiting with Bob and Jocelyn tomorrow.  Sight unseen, except in pictures, she's adopted Luci as her grand-puppy so I put her on speaker so Luci could be in on the party.

Tomorrow I'll talk to Day and Tom in the morning, then go out to Will and Bonnie's for an afternoon anon dinner celebration.

I've spent the week in Sweden, totally captivated by "The Restaurant" on Sundance.  It spans more than 20 years in the life of a Swedish family who owns a restaurant in Stockholm.  

In addition to my nightly binges of food, romance, family tensions, and personal demons, I've started two days a week in physical therapy to prepare for eventual knee surgery.  They call it pre-hab and say that it helps later in rehab.  

Overall, except for the knees, I feel pretty great and am enjoying getting back to the new normal of post-vaccines.  And looking forward to a flight to Georgia with Luci soon and Day's family coming to visit in July.  

I hope you all have a beautiful day tomorrow!

I worried....

 Lorraine sent Jan and me this poem this morning--thought it might be apropos for some of us in 2021:

Jackson's first college dwelling--besides home for his freshman year

 Jackson, 19, Marcus 16 this month, and Day and Tom

Jackson and his three housemates have been friends and lacrosse players together throughout their school years.  

another good series

 "The Restaurant"--3 seasons beginning in 1945 at the end of the war--in Stockholm. 

If you don't have the Sundance Channel, get a free week and see if you like it and join for about 6 dollars a month after that.

Carma's 1st Birthday, Luci's 2nd--May 1st.

So Jan decided to make May 1st Carma's birthday, so I jumped on board and made it Luci's 2nd. Forevermore, these two girls will share their birthdays--though we actually have no idea when or where they were born.  Neither has a pedigree. 

If Luci had a puppy book--which she sort of does in this blog--I would note her accomplishments at two years old like this.....

She knows these sentences:

"You stay, I'll be right back."

"Come." (though she doesn't always do it)

"Dance." (she dances on her hind feet for a few steps)

"Hop in." 

"No bite.  No.  Stop."

"Good girl."

"I love you."

"Let's go outside." 

"Wait." 

"Go get your ball." 

She does not, however, understand "Sit."  That's a hard one for her, but we're working on it with bites of bacon. 

Whenever I say "Sit," she either dances or puts her front paws on the ground with her bum in the air.  

Moments on a rainy Saturday

1. 

I never thought I had a monopoly on polka dots, but until this morning I hadn't met anyone else who puts circles on their walls and furniture.  

Improvised Life introduced me to an artist who sponged green polka dots all over her walls.  

polka dots

"A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can’t stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement…Polka-dots are a way to infinity...."

2. 

Another way to infinity might be traveling to the moon--as Astronaut Michael Collins did.  This morning I listened to a short interview with Michael Collins who died this week at 90.  Scott Simons (my favorite host on NPR) played a bit of his interview with Collins when he was 88--on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

The great thing about Weekend Edition is Scott Simon and his kindness in talking to people and asking questions that, in this case, brought out the poetry in Collins' speech.  Another thing is that you can listen online if you miss it in the morning. 

Was he ever lonely?  Not at all; he was engrossed not so much in what the moon looked like but "beholding our own blue home in the dark of the solar system. Earth was the whole show--tiny against a black velvet background."  He loved the "bright colors of white clouds and the blue of waters, the smear of rust we call continents." 

3. 

Luci and I walked into the Dollar Tree in a downpour. To a dog and a small child, the Dollar Tree is as good as a museum.

People pet you there if you are a small dog.  They say they like your one stand up ear and your one droopy ear.  They scratch you on your head.

So we were walking down the dog aisle.  Luci spied a ball wrapped in net.  She grabbed it and held her head high as she carried it to the check out line.  She had found herself a treasure!  (She didn't have a dollar so I paid.) 

4.

Day could never stand for me to sing or hum, "Sunrise Sunset."  

"When did you grow to be a beauty?  

When did you grow to be so strong?  

Wasn't it yesterday that you were small?"

So today they are all in Richmond signing a lease for Jackson's first house--where he will live with friends in the fall as a student.

She texted me and Nana: "I'm so nervous I feel like throwing up." 

If my trip had gone according to plan, I'd have been there today, in Richmond, seeing my first grandson looking at his first college home.  Day and I would have been crying together, maybe Tom and Marcus too, as they are tender-hearted men.  

It's probably for the best that they have this day to themselves.  It's hard enough without a grandmother along for the ride, even if she is refrains from singing "Sunrise, Sunset..."

5.

And now, with a downpour outside, Luci and I are ready for a nap.  

After murder mysteries, mono printing

 Today's been a fun Friday.....

Starting with Kate and me going to a thrift shop and "feeling like we were in Las Vegas," Kate said--on a winning streak, then having Chinese noodles, one entree enough for two plus enough take home for dinners.  

We both found treasures. I bought 4 pair of pants, a big white pasta bowl, and five white china dishes, grand total $35.  

Then I cleaned the house a little bit and enjoyed the rain and loved seeing the baby plants seem to double in size with two days of rain. Everything green looks happy!

Closing out the day, after watching some murder mysteries, I returned to two of my favorite You Tube mono printing artists, Jane Davies and Jennifer Nieuwenhof.  And here it is almost three in the morning and I'm so tempted to go to the casita and try out some new techniques, like making stamps and masks out of hot glue and sticky-back foam.  

I ordered a pet carrier from Amazon after reading Janet's story about ferrying a little lab puppy to Seattle and seeing how she carried the puppy in a airline approved carrier.  When it comes, I'll see if Luci will go into it and let me carry her around the house.  If she does, she gets to go on the next flight.