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.