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