All better now?

My surgery is over and done with! I have been worrying about it since April? March? Ever since I found out that I had high calcium and what that means. And now it is July 25th and the surgery is completed. What a relief. I have a beautiful incision in my neck, longer than I expected it to be (maybe a resident made a mistake) and I will have the scar from that for the rest of my life. People will look at me and assume I had thyroid surgery.

The best thing about it, of course, was that my sister Nonny flew out to help me. I don't honestly see how I could have done it without her. People from my book group had volunteered to help if I needed help, but I feel as though only a family member could really have done this. She flew in Thursday evening and took the bus from the airport to our house, so I didn't have to do that drive. The kids and I were so happy to see her! We hadn't seen her in three years.

She took my car to her hotel and brought it back the next morning at 4:40 am, so that we could make it to the Anschutz Outpatient Pavilion by 5:30 am. At least there was almost no traffic at that hour. We went up to the pre-op check-in, only to learn that we were in the wrong place. So we walked down an enormous hallway to the right place, only to learn that Nonny was supposed to have gotten a wristband downstairs when we came in. At this point I was wondering why I thought it was so necessary to have the surgery done at Anschutz, since they seemed to be all mixed up, but things got better. Nonny went down and got her wristband, I got checked in, and pretty soon they called my name. 

We followed a nurse to a little cubicle where another nurse took over and started asking questions. We were amused by the fact that her name was the same as our oldest sister -- where was our second oldest sister, we wondered. Nonny even asked one of the nurses if her middle name might be Barbara. The nurse looked startled, so we explained. That nurse's name was actually Esther, which was the name of one of our aunts, so we decided that was good enough. Still, I kept my eyes open for a Barbara.

Much research on successful surgical outcomes has been done since the last time I went under the knife, so some of the pre-op procedures were new to me. For instance, the day before surgery I was supposed to take a shower using a brand-new bar of antibacterial soap, dry myself in a freshly-washed towel, and then sleep in freshly-washed nightwear between freshly-washed sheets. Then, the morning of the surgery I was supposed to take ANOTHER shower (OK to use the same bar of soap) and dry myself on ANOTHER freshly-washed towel. I did my best to follow these rules, but I have to admit that I used the same towel for both showers, and my brand-new soap wasn't antibacterial -- it was peppermint Castile soap from Trader Joe's. Also, Teen B and Mr. Merlino lay around on the bed after I'd washed all the sheets and pillowcases, so that probably cancelled that out too. But I tried.

Once in the cubicle, I had to take off all my clothes and wipe myself off with gigantic wipes. Nonny helped with my back. Then I had to put on a gown and special socks. Even though I was wearing almost nothing, I felt hot and sweaty -- from nervousness and the wipes, I think; also, it was quite warm in there. Also, I'm fat and I feel the heat. Finally I stuck my feet out from under the blanket and that helped. The nurse wanted me to take off my wedding ring, but I didn't think I could get it off, so she just put a lot of tape on it, for some reason. She also painted the insides of my nostrils with iodine.

I was visited by a large number of people, because this is a teaching hospital. Another nurse came in to put an IV in my left hand. The anesthesiologist and two anesthesiology residents all visited, as did my surgeon and some residents who would be assisting him. Nonny thought my surgeon seemed nice. I was amused by how young everyone seemed -- except the surgeon, who is just about our age, I figure (he graduated from college in 1983, whereas I graduated in 1982 and Nonny in 1984). 

Finally the nurse whose middle name wasn't Barbara wheeled my bed off to surgery. I was just slightly embarrassed when we entered the operating room, because there were about 10 young people in there, all wearing green scrubs, and for a moment I thought they must be disappointed to see old fat me. I was of course the star attraction, the reason for them being there that day, but it didn't feel that way. Just an old lady. However, they were very nice and immediately started doing things, getting me to scooch over from the bed to the table, putting my hair in a cap, wrapping things around my legs. Then the anesthesiologist said it was time to push the button...

...and I woke up in recovery with a big smile on my face. Seriously, I was so happy when I started waking up. I felt soooo good. Euphoric. I've never felt like that when coming out of surgery. I don't know what they gave me, but it was some good stuff. I told the recovery room nurse (who was also not named Barbara), "I feel really good," and she laughed. She brought Nonny in to see me, and they both were amused by my smile.

Of course, after a little bit I had to sit up and get dressed, so that was sad, though the nurse did give me some water and delicious apple juice which made me happy all over again. Then she pushed me in a wheelchair down to where Nonny had brought the car, and then poor, sleep-deprived Nonny drove me back to Boulder while I tried not to doze off (I got a good nap later). 

It's a little weird to think about the surgery. They told me ahead of time that I would have two other IVs put in -- one in my right hand and one in a foot. In fact, when Nonny and I examined me later, I had holes in both feet, so either I had an IV in each one, or one didn't work out so they tried the other. My right hand has lots of blood under the skin, so I think they were sloppier with that IV than the one they put in while I was awake. I also knew I would be intubated -- my throat is still just a little sore from that. We're not sure whether or not I had a catheter. But it's weird to think about my body being completely knocked out and all those green-clad medical personnel doing things to it -- putting in breathing tubes and IVs, cutting a slit in my throat. You really have to trust your surgeon to want to put yourself through that, make yourself so vulnerable.

Nonny stayed one more day, helping. She made a blueberry pie (behold the last slice, gone now, of course), cleaned the litter boxes, ran the dishwasher and put the dishes away, and swept the floor. Then she caught the 5:38 pm bus to the airport on Saturday, so now I am on my own (well, with the twins, but it's the same thing, practically). It was absolutely wonderful to have her here, just so special.

Last night I felt like I was getting a UTI, and I still feel like that today, but it's weird, so maybe something else is going on. Nothing's ever simple, right? But I think as long as I don't take an opioid painkiller tonight, I'll be able to drive tomorrow -- to the grocery store to get cranberry juice? To urgent care? I don't know, we'll see. Nonny thinks I might be having bladder spasms due to hypocalcemia, so I'm going to take an extra dose of calcium tonight. I'm already taking six pills a day, but you can go up to eight if you're having weird symptoms.

According to my discharge instructions, I should take 7-10 days off work after this surgery, but since my job is running the household and taking care of the twins, that's not going to happen. But I do plan to take things easy this week. I feel like I already might be mentally better, but we'll have to see about the physical side. Little by little, I hope things get better.

Another summer week

This was our last full week with Rocket Boy, so I'm feeling kind of down. He flies back to St. Louis on Tuesday. But there are good reasons why he needs to go back now. He needs to get started on his lymphedema treatment there, though I wish he were doing it here. He did finally go to his doctor here (he has primary care physicians in both St. Louis and Boulder), who wants him to talk to a vascular surgeon in Denver. Well, maybe sometime in the future.

In any case, I've got a full week ahead, with my surgery on Friday, my sister arriving Thursday, Rocket Boy to take to the airport on Tuesday, and all the last minute things to do on Monday before he leaves, plus shopping and cleaning on Wednesday and Thursday. Ugh, it just sounds like a week to survive. I'm tired, thinking about it. After my surgery, though, I should start to feel less tired. That's the goal, anyway, or the promise, or the hope. But just in case it takes me a while to recover, I feel like I need to have the cupboards full of easy to make food. I don't know, I don't know.

So this past week was better than that, I guess. We kicked off the week with a short vacation. We drove to the cabin on Sunday, stopping off at the Cutthroat Cafe in Bailey for lunch, as usual, and spent a couple of hours puttering around. Rocket Boy put up another shelf, as he likes to do. 

Sometimes when I can't sleep I think about all the things that are stowed at the cabin that I will have to remove if RB predeceases me and I decide to sell. I lie in bed and try to figure out how I would do it: rent a U-haul? Pay someone in Alma to empty the place and drive the stuff to Boulder? And then what do I do with the stuff? Rent a storage locker for it? Or maybe I could go up and just get the stuff I want (old toys, photos), and then sell the property with the rest of the stuff in it? I seriously have wasted many late night hours worrying about this. The cabin is not my friend.

Then we drove on to Salida, where we spent the night in a reasonably nice hotel (Salida Inn & Monarch Suites, something like that). It had a pool and hot tub, which we made use of, and our room had THREE queen beds! I've never seen a hotel room with three queen beds. It was perfect for our needs -- I mean, one queen and two singles would have been perfect too, but the point was, THREE beds! Nobody even had to sleep on a pull-out sofa.

The downside of our hotel was that Teen A managed to fall down the concrete stairs and hurt his ankle. It was totally his fault -- he was trying to get ahead of slow, fat me, and lost his balance. But it was scary to watch him tumble. Fortunately his ankle wasn't badly hurt, and we didn't have to go to Urgent Care.

We didn't actually have a very good time in Salida. I think it was a combination of lingering covid-related problems, too many people trying to have fun and not enough people working, the twins' lack of interest in what RB and I were interested in, and the icky sky. Both Sunday and Monday, in Boulder and Alma and Salida and Canon City and Colorado Springs and Denver, the sky was hazy -- from smoke from fires in Oregon and such. I really missed the beautiful blue Colorado skies.

We had a terrible time finding a place to eat on Sunday night, but finally had OK pizza at the Moonlight Pizza & Brewpub. The next morning we ate a decent breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and went looking for the road to the Salida crater, site of a memorable hike that RB and I took together about a year before we were married. But we hadn't done our research and we couldn't find it. We finally just went to a lovely park beside the Arkansas River and hung out there for a while. This was totally fine with the kids, who did not want to hike anywhere anyway.

Then we had planned to swim at the hot springs pool, where we had swum before -- and had the pool mostly to ourselves. But that was probably on a weekend. This time when we went it was Monday morning and the pool was closed for swim lessons! Oh well...

We gave up on Salida and started driving toward Canon City, where we planned to have lunch. Rocket Boy wanted to eat at Mr. Ed's, site of a memorable dinner we ate with his dad, the first time I met his dad. But it has flaky hours and was closed (even though the sign giving the hours said it should be open). Whatever. We went to Village Inn instead, which made me happy. After vi, we went to Walmart, because Teen B had broken a wire on his braces and we hadn't brought any wax with us. The Safeway in Salida didn't have wax, but the Walmart in Canon City did.

After Walmart, we headed back to Boulder, but it's a long drive, and we did make a few more stops. One stop was special. On the drive between Canon City and Colorado Springs, close to the Springs, there is a sign for the May Natural History Museum (with a statue of a giant bug) that we had seen dozens of times but never stopped for. This time we stopped, because Rocket Boy said it was a bucket list item for him. That freaked me out slightly -- he seemed to be acknowledging that he doesn't have all the time in the world left. But of course he's right. I was imagining us going back to Salida and Canon City someday without the twins, but when would that be, really?

Anyway, the museum shares a building with an RV campsite (both owned by the May family), and when we were there, everyone else there was trying to get a campsite. But we paid a (rather high) fee to go to the museum. First we watched a video in this funky little room.

Then we went on into the actual museum. And although it's kind of hokey and jury-rigged, it's also very cool. It consists of many large glass cases full of butterflies, spiders, or just plain bugs. They are all part of the collection of the museum's founder, James May. I was going to put a photo of a spider case here, but I don't want to scare anyone. The bug cases were just as scary, with gigantic insects collected in places like Borneo and Thailand. No insects should be allowed to be as big as the ones in those cases. But the butterflies, of course, were beautiful. 

Then we drove home to Boulder, and it was awful, but Rocket Boy drove that part (I had done all the other driving, but I was tired). At one point we both estimated what time we would get home: I guessed 7:15 and he guessed 6:40. And we got home at 6:41. That man, I swear. Sometimes it seems like he has no sense of time, and then this.

I don't remember what we did the rest of the week -- recuperated, worked, cleaned, shopped, cooked, all that stuff. I took Teen B to an emergency orthodontia appointment on Tuesday, while RB and Teen A got their hair cut. RB took the kids to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on Friday night (I begged off, too tired), and swimming on Saturday afternoon (I begged off again). Today we mostly cleaned (RB finally worked on the files, making it possible for me to continue after he leaves), I got my pre-surgery Covid test, and tomorrow he's promised the boys a trip to play mini golf. And then that's it -- he flies back Tuesday, and his flight leaves at 11 am, so we'll have to be up and out the door early, by 8 am probably. Lovely, rush hour traffic. 

Well, it's been a pretty good visit and I'm glad he's going back to have his lymphedema treatment. And I wish he wasn't going back. I wish he could stay longer, and I wish he could come back in the fall and stay a long time. If wishes were horses...

Reading post: The Illiterate Digest

I have finished my sixth book for the Classics Challenge: The Illiterate Digest by Will Rogers (Cherokee), published in 1924. It's not a novel -- it's Rogers' first collection of the weekly columns he wrote under that title for the McNaught Syndicate beginning in 1922. In my opinion, this fulfills category #10, "A humorous or satirical classic." It may not be exactly what the manager of the Challenge was thinking of, but it's the only "classic" (i.e., at least 50 years old) work by a Native American that I could find that was funny. 

And, oh, it is funny. I'm not sure I can explain why it is funny, though. I kept reading bits of it to Teen A and he was extremely under-impressed. For example, one piece is called "Warning to Jokers: Lay off the Prince," and it is about the Prince of Wales repeatedly falling off his horse while playing polo and getting ribbed about it in the press. (This is the future King Edward VIII of England, who was Prince of Wales from 1910 until 1936, and King for only a short time after that, of course.) Will Rogers, who started out as a cowboy and was a very accomplished rider and roper, also enjoyed playing polo and sometimes fell off his horse too:

...But what I want to know from some of these Newspaper Riders is what I am supposed to do in case the Horse falls.
     Are the Prince and I supposed to fall With the Horse, or are we supposed to stay up there in the air until he gets Up, and comes back up under us? Every fall that the Prince has had has been caused by a falling Horse, not by being thrown From one. In the future the Prince and I will personally pay in the papers for the extra two lines that will announce that "the Horse going down had something to do with our going off."

I know that doesn't seem particularly hilarious, but read in the context of the whole column, trust me, it's funny. I think his random capitalization is almost the funniest part of his writing. Supposedly he really wrote like this -- he didn't quite finish high school and I guess didn't pay a lot of attention in class, so his knowledge of formal English grammar was a little sketchy.

As soon as I started reading this, I knew I had to have some help understanding the context, so I turned to Will Rogers: A Biography, by Ben Yagoda, reading it along with Rogers' book. I finished The Illiterate Digest first, because it's so funny, but I eventually finished the biography too. The bio is very interesting and worth reading, even if you've never heard of Will Rogers. I'd heard of him, but I didn't know much about him. In the early 1930s he was one of the most famous people in this country. He was a vaudeville star, a Hollywood actor, a newspaper columnist, and a radio personality, but after he died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935, the country sort of forgot about him. It's the strangest thing.

Many of the columns in The Illiterate Digest concern politics, and since I'm only up to U. S. Grant in my reading of presidential bios, I had to keep referring to Wikipedia to keep these presidents (and their challengers) straight. He refers to Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), Warren G. Harding (1921-1923), and Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929), as well as those who challenged Coolidge for office. Rogers wrote several columns about the Democratic convention of 1924, so there's a lot about Al Smith and William McAdoo and John Davis. He also wrote about Henry Ford and William Jennings Bryan and other notables of that time period. Even though much of it made no sense to me, it was still funny.

Given my Challenge theme this year, I was interested in how Rogers' Cherokee heritage plays into his writing. The Yagoda biography was helpful here, too. Rogers was about 1/4 Cherokee (both his parents were as well) and grew up on a ranch in Oklahoma -- Indian Territory, actually. Like most of the other young people in the area, Rogers didn't make much of being Cherokee, unlike his closest friend Charley McClellan who wore his hair in a long braid and learned traditional dances. But it was indubitably a part of him, and was one reason his future wife dragged her feet about marrying him. In The Illiterate Digest, Rogers refers to his background a few times. One of his most famous quotes was "My ancestors didn't come over in the Mayflower, but we was there to meet the boat," but there are other little throwaway bits like this one:

Now I am also not to be outdone by an ex-Prime Minister donating my receipts from my Prolific Tongue to a needy charity. The total share of this goes to the civilization of three young heathens, Rogers by name, and part Cherokee Indians by breeding.

He refers to his kids in another column as "our little Tribe," but also as "my Private Herd," which is a reference to cattle, not Indians.

The Rogers family, like many Cherokees, believed in assimilation into white culture, but that didn't save them when the whites decided they wanted their land. The story of Will Rogers' ancestors is very similar to that of John Rollin Ridge's family (his Joaquin Murieta I read in April). The difference is that Ridge was born in 1827 and Rogers was born in 1879 (a year before my grandfather, which helps me place him in time). Fifty-two years makes a difference, and the Trail of Tears was long over by the time Will came along. But his parents were older -- he was the last child born to his family -- and his paternal grandfather died in the same conflict that Ridge's father and grandfather died in. So Will Rogers grew up knowing all the stories of his heritage and it did affect how he saw the world. In addition, when he was 18, Congress abolished tribal law and required that all the land in Indian territory be divided equally among tribal members. This meant, among other things, that Will's father could no longer control the large territory on which he raised cattle, so the family's lifestyle changed again, shall we say.

Will Rogers didn't try to hide his Cherokee heritage and at times embraced it. But it's complicated. Mostly-white Cherokees like him often looked down on full-blooded Cherokees, and other Indians as well. But part of his shtick as a writer and speaker was that he liked everyone. Yagoda, his biographer, argues that Rogers' ability to get along with (almost) everybody was related to the Cherokees' role as peacemakers, negotiators. Rogers, though probably more of a Democrat than a Republican, never officially took sides or joined a party, and he saw good and bad in all political figures, making it easier to tell jokes about everyone.

Incidentally, many Cherokees owned slaves before the Civil War, and Rogers got into a lot of trouble in the 1930s for using the N-word in a radio broadcast. Though he was friendly with various Black people, he doesn't seem to have had any conception of how hard their lives were.

Then there's the whole cowboy thing. The idea of "Cowboys and Indians" sets up these two groups as different, but Rogers was both. He was a working cowboy briefly as a young man, and then for the rest of his life played one on stage. Later in life when he was a wealthy movie star he bought a ranch in (what is now) Pacific Palisades, where he kept many horses (it's now Will Rogers State Historic Park).

Anyway, this isn't a review of the biography or Will Rogers' life, it's a review of The Illiterate Digest, so I'll go back to that (even though I highly recommend the biography). It's uneven, or perhaps I should say that columns which might have seemed very funny and interesting back in 1923 or so don't necessarily play the same way in 2021. Still, some of the political ones are funny.

One column I greatly enjoyed was "How to Tell a Butler, and Other Etiquette," which is mostly a lot of jokes about how Will isn't very knowledgeable about Etiquette with a capital E, as espoused by Emily Post. Etiquette is an easy target, of course, but still the piece is funny. A bit of background: Two friends of Will's wife are coming over for dinner and he has to introduce them to each other. Emily Post apparently said that when introducing people, you should use an inflection that sounds like "Are you there?" for the more prominent person and an inflection that sounds like "Is it raining?" for the less prominent person (which makes no sense to me, but don't worry about it).

     So, when they arrived I was remembering my opening Chapter of my Etiquette on Introductions. When the first one come I was all right; I didn't have to introduce her to anyone. I just opened our front door in answer to the Bell which didn't work. But I was peeping through the Curtains, and as I opened the door to let her in 2 of our Dogs and 4 Cats come in.
     Well, while I was shooing them out, apologizing, and trying to make her believe it was unusual for them to do such a thing, now there I was! This Emily Post wrote 700 pages on Etiquette, but not a line on what to do in an emergency to remove Dogs and Cats and still be Nonchalant.
     The second Lady arrived just as this Dog and Cat Pound of ours was emptying. She was the new Prescription Store Owner's Wife and was to get the "Are you there?" inflection. Her name was (I will call her Smith, but that was not her name). She don't want it to get out that she knows us.
     Well, I had studied that Book thoroughly but those animals entering our Parlor had kinder upset me. So I said, "Mrs. Smith, Are you there? I want you to meet Mrs. Jones. Is it raining?"
     Well, these Women looked at me like I was crazy. It was a silly thing to say. Mrs. Smith was there of course, or I couldn't have introduced her, and asking Mrs. Jones if it was raining was most uncalled for, because I had just looked out myself and, besides, any one that ever lived in California knows it won't rain again till next year.

OK, you probably thought that wasn't very funny, but I just howled over this column. The illustration helps. Oh well, humor is subjective. I enjoyed the book; you might not. So be it.

Post-note: Will Rogers appeared in roughly 36 silent movies and 21 talkies, so I really wanted to see one of them. The Video Station would have had an assortment, but the Video Station closed four years ago, so forget that. The Boulder library doesn't own any of his films, but the Longmont library has a few, so I borrowed "Life Begins at 40" and watched it tonight. I loved it! and I especially loved him in it. He's so appealing on film. He doesn't act like an actor -- in most of his scenes he's looking down, not forward. You find yourself waiting and hoping that he'll look up.

So now I want to see more Will Rogers films, preferably not on YouTube, but we'll have to see. It will be a project.

Summer ramblings

I'm going to write a post a day earlier than I usually do, because we're going out of town for a short jaunt tomorrow and won't be back until Monday night. Then there are all sorts of things happening Tuesday, and what with one thing and another, I think it's better to write a short post now.

I did not have that great of a birthday (twins chose that day to have several really bitter fights, I had to go on a boring Home Depot run with Rocket Boy), but it got better as the day went on. I had nice talks with both sisters, my cake (once I finally found the energy to assemble it) was yummy, my sister Barbara's present turned out to be extremely interesting from a family history standpoint, and cards kept coming during the week. I got more cards this year than I usually do -- most of my friends, like me, have kind of stopped sending them. But this year some people must have felt in the mood. 

Thursday was my parathyroid scan, and I think my nervousness about it seeped into the rest of the week, including the birthday. It turned out to be quite an undertaking, as I had feared, but I survived it. I have been trying to be nicer to other people -- this has been going on for a while, but since it is mostly trying, not succeeding, I continue to think about it. The night before, I thought about all the people I would encounter that day (receptionists, technicians, other patients, etc.) and how I could make their lives easier and more pleasant -- or more difficult and unpleasant. It was my choice. So, with each person I spoke to, I tried to make my voice cheerful, even humorous. I tried to be polite, saying thank you a lot. I tried not to be a problem. 

Interestingly, there were some results from this, or sort of. The first technician I worked with asked me if I could be pregnant (before having me swallow radioactive iodine capsules), then said, "I'm sorry, you look so young." I laughed and said, "No, that ship has sailed," and we both laughed together. Later, I was brushing my hair in the restroom and a woman next to me at the sinks asked me if that was my natural color. Startled, I said, "Well, I don't dye it, if that's what you mean, but it isn't much like its original color." "It's just so beautiful," she said. I kind of knew what she meant -- I have such a mix of colors in my hair right now: blond and brown, silver and white and gold, that it is pretty, in the right light. (In the wrong light, it's dull and grayish.) I thanked her, still a little discombobulated. How long has it been since someone said something like that to you?

Actually, a weird young man on the bus, maybe five years ago, said to me, "You have pretty hair," but I think that was a little different.

I was a little unhappy with my third technician, the one who did the actual scans. He had a heavy accent (I think Russian), and I had a little trouble understanding him. I really would have preferred an older woman, someone who might have said reassuring things to me. But I thought to myself, probably other patients don't like him either, because he's a man and has a strong Russian accent. He's probably expecting me not to like him. I should try to be nice. So I did, and by the end of our time together, we were on good terms. I thanked him profusely and he thanked me back.

The results of the scan were good: I have one bad parathyroid gland and the others are asleep (as they should be, since the bad one keeps pumping out parathyroid hormone and causing too much calcium to be dumped into my blood). Nothing else bad showed up: no thyroid cancer, no lung cancer, no cancerous lymph nodes. It was a great relief to have everything look fine. And because they know where the bad parathyroid is, the surgery should be straightforward. My sense of dread about the whole thing is greatly lessened. Of course, it was already lessened because my little sister is going to fly out to help me! I am so excited about that. I haven't seen her in three years. She can see the gigantic twins. I feel very happy every time I think about her visit.

The events of the last few months -- the shootings, Rocket Boy's hospital stay, and my surgery -- have put me in mind of my own mortality, as you might imagine. Yesterday I made a quick trip to the Bookworm to get the book for the Book Group and while I was there I noticed they had a few copies of Roz Chast's book about her parents' aging and deaths, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? A Memoir. I had it in the back of my mind to get it at the library, but since the Bookworm had it, might as well give them some money. I brought it home and started reading it, and I read the whole thing straight through -- well, there was a break where I made dinner, we ate dinner, and we took a walk. But then I finished it. It's very good, sad but interesting. 

Roz Chast didn't have a very good relationship with her parents, so in that way the book didn't match my own experience. Also, my father died at age 67, so only my mother was left to grow old and need to move into Assisted Living. And she had plenty of money from the sale of the house, and she was only 83 when she moved, and my sisters did all the work, and she died before she began to need really extensive care, so many of the horrors in Chast's book didn't ring bells for me. 

Instead, I viewed the book in terms of me and Rocket Boy, our demises, and how the twins will have to deal with all that, assuming they're old enough by then.

After Chast's parents finally move into Assisted Living, she goes through their old apartment, where they lived for several decades. Most of the book is told through her own cartoons, but in this section she includes photographs of the mess. I was struck by the pictures of what she or her parents called their "work stations."

They looked quite a lot like some of the messes, the current messes, in our house. 

If things look like this now, what will they look like in 10 years? In 20 years? In 30 years, if we live that long?

I've got to work on the files. And the piles. I am a naturally messy person, constantly bringing more books and papers (and toys!) into the house, and Rocket Boy is not really that much better, but there is mess and then there is DISASTROUS MESS, which is what we have now. And it could get a lot worse.

I guess I don't have much else to share. The scan day (which lasted from 8:30 am, when I left the house, to 3:47 pm, when I drove back onto the driveway) took up most of my mental energy this week. Tomorrow morning we are taking off for the cabin, and then we are going to drive on to Salida to spend the night in an actual hotel. Monday we might go for a hike to the crater near there, for old time's sake (we're not telling the twins that ahead of time, since they hate hikes), or we might just go on to Canon City and see the old haunts. Rocket Boy and the twins were there in March, of course, during Spring Break, but there was snow on the ground then. Now it is just hot. Hot hot hot. 

Speaking of hot, it is currently 126 in Death Valley, supposed to get to 130. It is 117 in Ridgecrest. It's only 82 here (though it was hotter the last few days). I have no business complaining.

4th of July weekend

Hey, happy birthday to me (almost)! I was on the phone with a medical "scheduler" on Thursday, and of course he could see my birthdate, since that's one way they ask you to identify yourself. "By the way, happy early birthday," he said. He sounded like a nice guy, but I can't talk to any phone person without thinking about my few weeks of working the phones at the IRS and how horrible it was. Maybe not everyone hates it as much as I did.

So, yes, tomorrow is my birthday and I will be 61. Not a very interesting age, nothing special happens at 61, and that is fine with me. Next year I will be 62, which is the earliest you can start taking social security, so I'll have to think about that (I don't think I'll do it, but I could). A few years after that comes Exciting 65, Medicare age, and two years after that is when I probably will start taking social security payments. And a few years after that comes 70. Oh yes, the sixties are a fun decade, I can see that already. I'm good with being 61. Nice, uncomplicated age.

Thinking of being 61 reminds me of the memorial service I went to this week, for a local police officer who was killed in the line of duty. He was only 51. He'll never get to be all these ages I'm looking ahead to. 

I can't write about the service, even though it was televised and streamed (but edited). I will just say this: it was the most amazing memorial service I've ever attended, and as I noted in last week's post, it was #25 for me. His friends and family did an incredible job of bringing back to life an incredible man. I only knew him slightly, but I went away from the service feeling like I knew him very well. And I cried buckets, as did everyone around me. At the end of the service I watched the hundreds of police officers march out of the church and I thought many of them looked mean, angry. Why couldn't they all try to be more like Officer Beesley, I thought. It took me a few days before it occurred to me that they were trying not to cry. A mean face can be a face that is holding back tears. Or fear.

Rocket Boy is here with us now, visiting for three weeks. I wish it were longer. He is scheduled to start lymphedema treatment back in St. Louis on July 20th, which is the day he flies back -- so he'll miss one day, but it goes on for six weeks, so no big deal. I don't want him to go back, I want him to stay here and find a way to do lymphedema treatment around here. But I seem to be powerless to make that happen. He's got his own ideas about how to do things, and I think I have to let him follow that.

Part of the reason I want him to stay longer is selfish. I'm scheduled for parathyroid surgery on July 23rd, and I want him to be here to take care of me, drive me to Aurora, wait for me, drive me back. But instead I'll ask a friend to do it. It's a pretty straightforward surgery, I should be fine to go straight home afterwards, resume normal activities immediately, etc. But I want someone to look after me! Oh, well. 

I have to drive myself to Aurora this Thursday for the pre-surgery scan, where they try to figure out which parathyroid gland has gone bad. I will be injected with a radioactive tracer and then I have to sit around for hours, be scanned for a long time, and then sit around for another hour before another scan. I actually have three separate appointments that day, at 10 am, 12:30 pm, and 2:15 pm. Anyway, it'll be a long day, and I figure it's not necessary for anyone to sit around waiting for me for hours and hours, so I'll drive myself. I'm basically OK with that, although I hate driving to Aurora. Then, on July 19th, I'll need to get a Covid test, and I can do that on my own, of course. July 20th I'll drive Rocket Boy to the airport -- I can do that, too. But that July 23rd appointment, hmm, I can't take myself. I wish he would be here to drive me. Oh, well. Pity party over, for now.

We are having a nice 4th of July so far. First, Rocket Boy and Teen A cleaned out the gutters. Those lovely gutters we got last summer -- we kind of forgot that gutters need to be cleaned. The last few rainstorms we've had, it was clear that the gutters were blocked. So RB went on the roof and raked off all the branches and leaves, and then he and Teen A spent a long time digging the gunk out of the gutters and washing them clean. Teen A actually did a lot of the work. It was kind of amazing to me, watching him. "Mom," he said to me from his roof perch, "It smells like ASS up here." I sniffed and realized he was right -- the stuff from the gutters smelled like cow poop. It also looked like cow poop when it came through the gutters, like a cow had diarrhea all over our lawn.

"And I smell like ass too," he went on. "I'm covered with all this nonsense." So sweet. My big 13 year old handyman, who just lost another tooth last night. He's been losing teeth the last few months, as though his mouth suddenly realized that his body is maturing and it's really past time to dump the rest of the baby teeth.

Teen B was not interested in going on the roof, though he did turn the water on and off a few times for Teen A. Things were definitely safer with only one twin on the roof -- it meant that Teen A could focus on the job, not on teasing his brother. "Be careful!" I yelled to Teen A. "I don't want to have to go to the Emergency Room on the 4th of July!"

Now we are just hanging out, waiting for it to be later so we can barbecue the salmon. We're having a very simple meal: salmon, potato salad, garlic bread. Marshmallows to roast, though I suspect Teen B should only have unroasted ones, with his braces. And a strawberry whipped cream angel food cake, although that's supposed to be my birthday cake, so I really should assemble it tomorrow, not today. I just don't care that much this year, though -- it's OK to have my cake a day early. 

I have two cards and a package to open tomorrow, plus I assume RB and the twins will give me a card. His present to me was a hanging basket (I chose a fuchsia called "Pink Marshmallow") and he's going to set up some more flower boxes on the porch railings. Fuchsias don't live through the winter out here, you have to plant new ones each spring. That seems terribly wrong to me, having grown up with long-lived fuchsias in northern California, but I guess it's just how things are.

Here are some of my Barbies having a 4th of July barbecue. This is the Asian family that I've been putting together. The guy in the pink shirt is the dad, and he's flanked by his gloomy 15-year-old son and his cheerful 10-year-old daughter. The three women on the left are sisters: the oldest, on the far left, is an actress and singer in Denver, and a waitress on the side; the middle one, in red overalls, is the mom of the family on the right; and the youngest, with the dogs, is a veterinarian (she really is -- she's "Pet Vet Barbie"). The older and younger sisters are unmarried, so they come to the middle sister's house in Boulder for major holidays. It's sort of interesting what Mattel thinks makes a doll look "Asian," and there's a lot of discussion about it on various blogs and websites.

I said I'd do a goals round-up this Sunday, but I don't want to do a detailed one. It's a new quarter and we're halfway through the year. I will read a biography of Ulysses S. Grant this quarter, probably this month, and work along on some of the other goals -- the files, the sewing machine, some home improvement projects, writing. We need to do something about how hot it is at the rental house. This month continues to be a health month for me, but once the surgery is over I should start feeling better. I sure hope so. And I sure hope Rocket Boy gets some relief from his problems. There's an ache in my gut about him -- will things be OK? I don't know, just have to keep going. Happy Independence Day!

Reading post: Cogewea, the Half-Blood

I have finished my fifth book for the Classics Challenge: Cogewea, the Half-Blood by Mourning Dove (aka Humishuma, of the Okanogan and Colville tribes), first published in 1927 but written earlier, said to be the first or second novel written by a Native American woman (Wynema: A Child of the Forest by Sophia Alice Callahan, published in 1891 may be the first). This fulfills category #3, "A classic by a woman author." It is a romance, a meditation on the fate of American Indians at the time, and a portrayal of the difficulties of being what is called in the novel a "breed" -- among other things.

The trouble with reading "classics" in English by lightly-educated people writing their first novels, especially if English isn't their first language, is that the books aren't very good. This is my third "classic" by a Native American and they've all been disappointing. Cogewea is perhaps the worst of the three. But again, as with Pokagon's Ogimawkwe Mitigwaki, the book has compensations. There are very good passages, especially when the old grandmother tells stories. Then there are awkward, embarrassing passages.

But also as with Pokagon's novel, we've got the problem of a text that has been messed with by a white person and no way to know who wrote what or whose fault the problems are. [But see post-note below.]

Mourning Dove, who was born in 1887 in Idaho, was a member of the Okanogan tribe on her father's side (he was also at least half white, maybe all white) and the Colville tribe on her mother's side. She did not have much education, but she had a great longing to write, and was encouraged to do so by one Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, a writer and academic who homesteaded in Washington state beginning in 1903. Mourning Dove worked as a migrant farmworker and wrote in the evenings, in her tent, after working 10-hour days. She finished a draft of this novel in 1914 and she and McWhorter worked on it together until 1916. But when it was finally published, 11 years later, she wrote to McWhorter, 

"...I am surprised at the changes that you made... I felt like it was some one elses book and not mine at all..." 

There's no way to know what all McWhorter did to the book. You can guess that he is responsible for the formal analysis of the abuse of Indian rights that Cogewea (the heroine) subjects Densmore (her false lover) to in Chapter XVI, right after Densmore has told her he loves her. That is probably the worst chapter in the book: the information Cogewea dispenses is true, but it's such an inappropriate place to dump it. But what else did McWhorter do? And what did Mourning Dove actually write? No way to know.

The basic story of Cogewea, the Half-Blood is simple. Cogewea, a young woman who is half white and half Okanogan, lives on a ranch in Montana owned by her older sister's (white) husband. The ranch foreman, another half-breed named Jim LaGrinder, is in love with Cogewea but she views him only as a friend. One day, an Easterner, Alfred Densmore, is hired to work on the ranch, and Cogewea becomes interested in him. He finds her attractive and decides to seduce her in order to steal her land and money (he thinks she has more than she does). This set-up is established by page 87, but it is drawn out for another 198 pages. Toward the end, the book starts to get exciting, as Densmore is revealed to be even more evil than we suspected. At last Cogewea comes to her senses and marries Jim, and of course it turns out that she's actually very wealthy and presumably they live happily ever after.

Cogewea is an interesting heroine, or would be if the book were better written. She is willful, independent, and an excellent horseback rider. She has some education and wants more out of life than what it seems to be offering her. We can assume she is something like her creator, whose dreams obviously extended beyond being a migrant farmworker. Cogewea's dissatisfaction with life is probably what makes her so susceptible to Densmore's lies, but her strength of character helps save her.

There is a great deal of discussion throughout the novel about Indian rights or lack thereof, how Indians are abused by whites and have been from the start. But it's all talk until the very end, when we see what power the evil Densmore has and what danger Cogewea allowed herself to get into. She makes no attempt to get back at him, and forbids the ranch hands to try anything, knowing that they can do nothing -- and trying to do something may backfire on them. That hit home with me, in a way that all the general talk did not. Thus the power of fiction over nonfiction is demonstrated. 

Despite the clear portrayal of Indians (often referred to as Americans, or original Americans) as "good guys" and whites as "bad guys," Cogewea and the others seem resigned to the idea that the whites are winning and there is nothing they can do about it. This point is made over and over. Even though the old traditional grandmother is shown to be enormously wise and good, she is described as one of the last of a dying race. This all recalls Pokagon's point of view as well. I wonder at what point the books I'm reading will stop viewing Native Americans that way. It will be something to watch for.

Post-note
I have to add something to this, because I've now read a scholarly article by one Martha L. Viehmann ("My People...My Kind": Mourning Dove's Cogewea, the Half-blood as a Narrative of Mixed Descent) and it's helped me to think about the book a little more clearly. Viehmann states unequivocally that the stories and romance were written by Mourning Dove, while Lucullus McWhorter added in all the policy bits that so badly interrupt the narrative. Viehmann is more charitable than I am:

A notable difference between Mourning Dove and McWhorter is that she has strong faith in the power of stories (or fiction) to sway readers to her point of view, whereas he places his faith in the power of historical facts. Where Mourning Dove included dramatic vignettes of western life and incorporated Okanogan folktales into the novel, McWhorter added footnotes and arguments against the Indian Bureau.... In the novel proper, his inserted arguments can jolt the reader. [I'll say!]

Viehmann also discusses at length the issue alluded to by the subtitle, "the Half-blood." I kind of ignored that aspect of the novel, but it is important. Cogewea is to some extent at home in both worlds, Indian and white, but not completely accepted by either. But she is especially not accepted by the whites. In one important section, she rides in both the "squaws' race" and the "ladies' race" and wins both, but she is only given the prize in the squaws' race. The white man managing the races is horrified at the idea of her acting white, even though she is half white. Cogewea feels a bond with other Indians, not so much with whites, and of course many of the white characters are bad people (Densmore and her own father, especially). Since most of the Native American writers I'm reading have some white ancestry, this issue will undoubtedly come up again. It reminds me of the theme of "passing" in Black literature.

The article was originally published in Early Native American Writing: New Critical Essays, edited by Helen Jaskoski, 1996, and reprinted in the volume I got from the Longmont public library, Native-American Writers, edited by Harold Bloom, 1998. The latter volume says Viehmann is "currently adjunct professor of English at the University of Denver," but that was back in 1998. She received her PhD in American Studies at Yale in 1994, so her Cogewea article is obviously part of her dissertation. More recently she seems to have taught writing at Northern Kentucky University (there are "rate my professor" reviews from 10-15 years ago). Now she appears to be active in Black Lives Matter marches and such.  She seems to be about my age, yet another would-be academic who didn't make it. I suspect I'd like her. We'd certainly have things to talk about.