"You've got mail"

Remember when e-mail was new?  The AOL voice announcing each e-mail sounded happy--like "Guess what present I have for you!" You've!  Got! Mail!" 

My friend Linda in Cape Cod said, "I love writing letters.  If we start doing e-mail we won't write letters anymore."

It didn't take long to prove her right.  We got on board with e-mail, so convenient, virtually free and delivered instantly. Now, texts have replaced e-mails, quick notes with emojis to reflect tone, mood, approval, enthusiasm, and affection.

Younger text-ers use shorthand, like idk for "I don't know." If they are feeling generous, they respond with one word: "Cool!" Or a heart emoji.

Now that I am on a "mailing list," I spend several minutes every day deleting emails informing me that I have won a Dyson vacuum cleaner, a drill from Lowe's, a trip to Costa Rica, a cure for erectile dysfunction, or a $500 shopping spree--you name it. Then a few minutes deleting all the requests for reviews from stores--ten questions for a bag of Reese's seems disproportionate. 

What was once a screen room for conversations among friends has become a jungle of strangers. If there were a voice announcing all these emails, it would be dour: "You've got junk to clean up in Aisle 7."

Thursday

After the first of four MRIs this morning, Freda and I checked out El Catrin Restaurant and Bar, the new and highly rated eatery in the space of a former favorite, Adelantes. Completely transformed in this iteration, it's a modern interior with grays and blues, worlds away from the multicolored folk artsy restaurant we enjoyed for  decades.  

Freda's entree was disappointing, chilaquiles with no eggs.  My eggs rancheros were good.  Ceviche was tasty but a tad too spicy for my taste. The food gets rave reviews, but based on just one visit, our review is mixed, wait and see.  

Just as I was leaving for my tests, the front door wouldn't unlock and it took Edward most of the day to fix it.  I had to leave Luci in the house with the back door unlocked so I could get back in and, of course, was worried that someone would see her cute little face in the window and break in to get her.  This did not happen--though Jan suggested that perhaps a band of dog thieves might break down the door and Luci would have to fight them off. 

I stopped by UPS on the way to return a rug.  I wasn't able to wrap it by myself, so I took the wrap and the rug and the nice guys at UPS wrapped it and sent it right back for me.  "But where's Luci?" they all asked--attesting to my frequency of returning items (along with my sidekick). 

Luci was so despondent about having been left home alone most of the day that she didn't even get into her walk with Freda--usually her favorite thing. Freda said she kept tugging at her leash and trying to get back home.  Jan thinks it's possible Luci might need a tad of therapy.  

We saw a papillon pup at El Catrin.  Inside.  With a service dog vest. His coloring was just like Luci's, but he had a wide face and her tail swooped upwards, very shy her owners said. 

So I did a search on this breed and found one that looked quite a bit like Luci:

This one's face is almost exactly Luci's but she's way shaggier.  Her ears are similar but bigger, and in this case, both stand up--while Luci has an upper and a downer. 

Luci also get votes for Welsh Corgi, and there is some resemblance, though Corgi's weigh about 37 pounds, Luci 10.

Long haired dachshund? Shelty?  Collie?

I'm going with long-haired dachshund mixed with papillon with a great aunt Corgi and a Collie cousin. 

What to Watch Instead of News

The news makes me crazy--so I'm  taking a break from it.  We see so many men and women strutting (and doing and saying insane things) to garner power and position. 

By contrast, I have watched two extraordinary documentaries that I can promise will give you the exact opposite. 

One is a lively conversation between Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.  Two bald aging men talk about joy and happiness, constantly reaching across their chairs to touch the other.  It's on Netflix:

Mission: Joy. Finding Happiness in Troubled Times.  

Another is an episode of POV (Point of View) on PBS.  A teacher and photographer returns to Appalachia where she taught children to make pictures and tell the stories of their lives in the 1970s.  Former students tell her how much she changed their lives by teaching them photography when they were young. 

Portraits and Dreams

In both of these documentaries, no one seeks position or power.  And yet, by doing what they love and believe in, they are powerful.  

January 16th

 Elena is Eleven!

Luci began the day with finding her prey--or vice versa.  I heard a terrible screeching from Luci while I was tossing clothes in the dryer. Jan heard it, too, and came running.  Luci's fine, but when we went to Helotes to celebrate Elena's birthday, she wasn't in an adventurous mood, even more clingy than usual. 

I made the chocolate sheet cake; Elena decorated it, and all the Texas family came.  Will made brisket and potato salad, Bonnie rice and beans.  

On Saturday, she'll have her second party, this one with her "twenty friends" from school.  

Saturday

Saturdays are about as close as you can get to being a kid again. Today was entirely fun from start to finish: 

An unexpected morning call from a friend who moved away years ago.

A surprise porch visit from Freda after she went to the opera on screen.

A driveway visit with Jan and Harvey, swapping news and thrift store finds and seeing Harvey's new Mercedes. 

Three thrift shops and one bag of beautiful bargains: six new Vietri soup bowls and a little pitcher, each piece five dollars.  (The online retail prices ranged from $50 to $95 each!) 

The weather was perfect, so I spray painted two sun-faded plastic chairs a bright cherry red while the clothes were washing.  

The yard was looking forlorn after all the frozen plants were cut back to the roots, so I watered all the roots just like Joy told me.  Also, following her suggestion, I put the hose on the base of the pecan tree for two hours of slow drip. 

I just closed out the day by watching a two hour class teaching us how to make a complex Chinese thread book.  The outside is one big folded box; the inside is a series of increasingly smaller boxes, all made of paper.  (Did you know that paper was invented by the Chinese around AD 150?)

Historically, Chinese women made these multi-folded books to carry their sewing needles, threads, and patterns.  When they visited friends to sew together, they could fold up all their supplies in these beautiful paper books. 

I will attempt one tomorrow after I make a birthday cake for Elena who turns 11 on Monday!

My dog, Luci

Luci and I don't have, you know, heart to heart conversations. We don't philosophize, strategize, or hypothesize.  

I can ignore her and do my own thing for hours.  She could, likewise, ignore me if she chose.  But she rarely chooses that option.  She's what dog people call a velcro dog--her very favorite thing (except walking with Freda) is watching my every move and attaching herself to my lap.  Should you come to visit, or vice versa, she will unexpectedly land in your lap like a furry little bumblebee. 

Yesterday, I went to Demo's for lunch.  She met two new humans--both women with hair the color of her reddish coat.  I sat outside eating my messy delicious gyro and she sat at my feet while the women took turns petting her.  Then we went to the thrift shop to donate a few bags and poke around.  The thing about canine best friends is that they like doing whatever their humans do.  Just say the word "go" and they want to do it, whatever it is.  

Luci is, I have to say, (and not because I trained her ) the most well-behaved dog I've ever met.  She is by nature quiet and calm and smart. When I first got her, she destroyed a phone case and a pocket book. I told her not to do that anymore and she quit. 

She loves to give and receive attention.  Jan says she's a working dog, and her job is loving everybody.  

While she may tug at the leash and whimper a bit when she sees another dog, it's fine with her to swap sniffs and licks and then walk on. 

It may verge on insanity (some might say it more than verges) how much I love this  little mutt.  Folks often suggest I get a DNA test and find out what she's a mix of--Shelty?  Corgi? Collie?, but Luci and I don't care. I suspect she's got some angel in her blood line.  

What's that, up ahead, at the end of the tunnel?

Thanks to a very fine orthopedic doctor who specializes in feet and ankles (Dr. Shumaila Sarfani) I'm starting to see a twinkling spray of light at the end of the tunnel.  

Airossti, it turns out, started here in Texas, not yet a recognized procedure for those who live in other states.  Practitioners, chiropractors all, I believe, are trained to manipulate soft tissue to get rid of scar tissue and adhesions.  My primary doc prescribed four sessions and I talked to several people who got great results, so leaving no stone unturned, I tried it.  It may have helped moderately, may have set me back--I'm not sure--but it wasn't the magic bullet I'd hoped for. 

Dr. Sarfani suggested physical therapy at Stratton instead, so I returned to Joe Eliot there, the therapist who completely reversed my sciatica in the summer and fall.  Having been to several PTs after  knee surgery, I consider Joe the best of them all, hands down, no contest! 

He asked me if any of my doctors had diagnosed neuropathy.  "Just my mom," I said.

"Your mom???  How old is your mom?" (I mean, really, who my age has a mother who does internet medicine?)

"Ninety seven," I told him.  "But she's obsessed with my finding a solution and sent me links to articles about it." 

"Wow!" he said.  "Good for her!"

"So do I have that?" I asked.

Joe is careful not to diagnose--that's not his wheelhouse.  To get an accurate diagnosis, he said, I'd need to see a neurologist who would use needles in the feet to make such a diagnosis. 

But here's the good news: it doesn't matter.  Physical therapy addresses what is, regardless of what we call it or what caused it--whether arthritis or neuropathy or trauma.  So now I'm doing exercises daily and seeing Joe twice a week for six weeks. 

Dr. Sarfani also recommended never going barefoot. The new Hokas are very light and flexible shoes with good arch support.  While I prefer barefoot to any shoe on any market, I have to admit that wearing these shoes has helped. 

I'll get an MRI on the 19th--but her initial diagnosis is nerve damage over arthritis lurking in the feet. Instead of meds to mask the pain, as I've been taking for months, she prescribed Meloxicam and Gabapentin.  One is an anti-inflammatory, the other talks to nerves. 

I hope this is my last post relating to my feet! I'm sharing these details to  provide some encouragement to those of you who may be going down one road after another, looking for answers.  It's depressing to spend weeks or months going seemingly nowhere. It feels like traveling in the dark with no map, running into one dead end after another.  But if we persist, we can be so lucky when a friend leads to a new doctor with fresh eyes who introduces a new GPS system.

My goal this weekend is to move back into the casita and see if I can stir up some long-dormant creative energies. 

I'll know all is well on the day when I lose track of time, immersed in a handmade book or collage again.  Hope restored, I can see that day on the horizon.

Solitaire

I play a lot of solitaire on my phone, usually in the bathroom or while catching up with news of the U.S. Circus. 

Solitaire is kind of like cleaning house, putting cards in the right places, watching them snap away like dust mites.  Even if I don't win, it's satisfying to throw that red nine under that black ten.  Or the red Jack under the black Queen. 

When I first started playing this version of Solitaire, I lost a lot more than I won.  I never watched a You Tube video to improve my strategy--I prefer to figure out things on my own when I can-- but have discovered some moves that now give me more wins, my best score 111 moves.  

Sometimes a game seems hopeless, as the stack of usable cards grows smaller.  Then, out of the blue, a card appears that's a game changer.  Regardless of number of moves (my average for wins is 125), I love it when the momentum changes and I win a seemingly hopeless game. 

Solitaire is also kind of like my three months of trying to find a solution for foot pain.  Three prescriptions for steroids helped, but now that move is no longer an option due to possible side effects of taking too many steroids. The Airrosti doc suggested foot baths in ice; the chiropractor said "Oh no, ice is bad!"  The pain management doc gave me pain pills; the podiatrist tried to sell me $500 orthotics; reflexology and massage helped, but only for a few hours. 

Last week Lorraine  gave me the contact information for an orthopedist who specializes in feet.  I saw her yesterday and she restored my hope in a solution.  She's ordered an MRI, prescribed 3 Gabapentin a day for nerve pain, suggested Hoka or Brooks shoes, no orthotics, told me never to go barefoot or wear sandals, and insisted on physical therapy instead of Airrosti.  This is the game changer--I have hope again for happy feet even if it takes a while. 

Apparently, when one has a "crush accident,"  as I had three months ago, it exacerbates arthritis already lurking in the feet.  "When we get older," she said, "Most of us have some arthritis in the feet." 

So I'm happy today, hopeful for the first time in months!  After our naps, Jan and I are going shoe shopping! 

1/4/23

 

Hello Friends, If you're reading these words you’ve arrived at the threshold of another year. You may be doing so in a swift, blissful sprint across the dateline or laboriously dragging your bruised and battered self through the last agonizing seconds of the past twelve months. Whether you greet today with elation or despair, you’re here now and the question is: What are you going to do with this next trip around the sun? I may not know you but I know a few things about you: Right now your mind is likely in some manner of reset mode as you ponder all the things you’d like to change along with the calendar. You’re probably carefully mulling over a laundry list of personal alterations, career endeavors, and daily practices you aspire to incorporate into this newborn moment in history. Today you’re making plans and declaring intentions and diligently power-washing the slate clean of thick layers of painful regrets, poor decisions, and missed opportunities. You’re finding a rising hope in the road ahead and in the possibility of restoration it holds for you. Yet I also know that, sadly, despite the great virtue of your intentions—unless you’re very careful, this year you could end up wasting much of the time you’re given Some of this will happen as a result of poor planning and busyness and the invariable interruptions of life. It will happen with rather frivolous pursuits: daily extended trips down social media rabbit holes, unplanned overnight binge watching excursions, marathon commute gridlock sessions, and an endless number of runs to the store for that one recipe item you’ve forgotten—again. You’ll also waste time in weightier, yet still largely fruitless matters too: replaying past mistakes you’re powerless to alter or dreading coming personal calamity that may never materialize; paralyzed with worry and weighed down with fear. Yet, more than how you handle life’s occupational hazards of time management and head navigation, I feel burdened to caution you against one single, brutally wasteful endeavor this coming year. I want to help you stop pretending. So many of us fritter away our days wrongly believing we need to edit ourselves; that to be truly accepted or loved or welcomed we can’t be our truest true and so we all learn to be something less. We each grow accustomed to concealing the parts of us we believe others can’t face or won’t tolerate, and as a result most of us feel as perpetual imposters; like we aren’t ever fully known by anyone. We become masters at this masquerade; necessary experts at deception and slight-of-hand, unaware that in doing so we conspire in our own alienation from the world. To some degree we all live in hiding. Friends, you and I can’t afford to waste any more daylight this way. We can’t squander another fleeting moment being anything less than the most honest version of ourselves we can muster. I’m inviting you into a year of unpretending; into a courageous season where you discard the masks and the pretense and the elaborate facades you’ve spent so much time erecting in an effort to receive what you already deserve. The things you believe, the stuff that matters to you, the cries of your heart, the stuff that terrifies you, the burdens you feel, the people you love, and the struggles you face—they’re all okay to share. Some really beautiful things happen when you’re as real as you can be: You find you’re no less of a mess than anyone else. You stop worrying you’ll be found out or exposed. You feel the lightness that comes with being fully known. You worry less about pleasing people with an edited version of yourself. You discover the peace that comes when you can say everything. You stop apologizing for things that do not require it. You find out that there’s really nothing to fear. Yes, friends, this year does indeed hold all the promise and the possibility you’d like to believe it does but it also holds the ever-present temptation to be something less than the most authentic version of yourself as you walk into it all. Refuse to do that. May you find freedom in these new days. May this open calendar make you brave. May this be the year of your unpretending. Be encouraged. John

January 1, 2023

Whenever I open the back door after dark, Luci's posture transforms from docile to full-on attack mode, tightening her muscles,  head low to spring into action. As the door swings open, she runs like the wind to a corner of the yard where once upon a time she saw a wild, vicious, dangerous intruder.  

I have never seen this intruder, nor have I ever seen Luci as predator, but she is certain such a creature exists exactly where she last spotted him, two years ago. Full of focus and confidence, she runs, intent on ridding her plot of this menace.

But what if she caught it?  What would she do?  Unlike myself and most humans, she doesn't think ahead or strategize; she acts on canine wildness embedded in her DNA.

To what enterprise do you want to give your full and fearless focus in this new year? 

One of the best things about dogs is their hopefulness, never dimmed by experience to the contrary.  

While she has rarely had a bite of juicy steak, she always hopes for a meaty and delicious edible Nirvana.  As the day wears on, with nothing fragrant or succulent on the horizon, she resorts to her kibble.  But she doesn't eat it with her head down as she would my dinner leftovers or a juicy bone.  She holds her head up and chomps noisily, deliberately, casting a bored and reproachful look at her feeder.  Is this the best you can do?  Really?

Luci doesn't have to obey a demand to get her favorite treat--salmon jerky from Trader Joe's.  Immediately upon getting one,  salivating at the sound of the treat bag, she runs--as if I might chase her down for it.  She goes under the table, places both paws  protectively around her treat, and scarfs it down.  Then she looks up hopefully:  Do I get another one?

We humans might learn a thing or two from dogs: Be persistent, and when you get what you hope for, protect it.

What do you hope for in 2023?

Luci is the sort of dog who sleeps so close to me there's not space enough between us for a post-it note.  If a part of my body hurts, she senses it and goes there, all ten pounds of her, her little engine firing on all cylinders, my canine heating pad.  

But, if I accidentally push a knee or elbow against her in my sleep, she growls a muted version of the howl of her ancestors, a gentle reminder that  I should move back into my space and stop disturbing her sleep with random movements. 

Everyone hurts at times.  

How do we best find where it hurts and do our best to make it better?   And how do we protect our own spaces from random pokes?