Home again -- and a fire

Well, this was going to be a lovely post about our lovely vacation -- and it still will be, in part. But I also need to write about what's going on right now. A fire. Yesterday afternoon, around  2 or 3 pm, a fire started up in Bear Canyon, near the headwaters of Bear Creek (which runs through our park and past the kids' old elementary school). It looks like everything is going to be OK -- it's terribly dry, but the winds aren't super high. But we were actually told to evacuate yesterday. This is what I could see from my backyard.

In the process, I learned something about myself. Apparently, I am one of those people who ignores evacuation orders, who makes excuses, who "does their own research," who, bottom line, is a problem for emergency personnel. 

I did not think I was that kind of person. It's a big surprise to find out that I am.

Now, I've got to say, it was confusing. For hours they were posting conflicting maps of the evacuation area and saying conflicting things. That's another thing I learned yesterday: in the midst of a crisis, information coming in may be somewhat screwed up, and you do have to rely in part on your own judgement. And around 11 pm they posted this nice map, which shows that we are in the "All Clear."

Still. 

I did get out the cat carriers and the suitcases and I packed everyone's clothes and whatnot. I made several interesting decisions about what to take. I pulled a photo of Rocket Boy's parents off the wall and stuck it in my bag, thinking as I did so that he probably has no electronic copies of any of his family's pictures and no one else in his family would have much of anything. I spent several minutes thinking about which books to take. I concluded that most were replaceable (not sure that's true), so I just packed some library books and recent acquisitions that I haven't read yet. 

I pulled out our wedding album and my trip-around-the-world album, but I left the other photo albums in the bookcase. I probably should think about that a little more. There are a lot of irreplaceable photos in those. 

I didn't pack the glass stein that belonged to the twins' great-grandfather. But I did include the small book of important documents from Rocket Boy's family, including his father's false papers from when he was a spy for the U.S. Army after the war.

I packed all my little earrings, but none of my animal pin collection. I probably would have regretted that later. I simply forgot about them.

I'm writing as though the danger is over, and I hope it is, but we don't know for sure.

So, instead of just sitting around being nervous, let's remember our nice trip to Nebraska. We left on Tuesday morning, around 10:30 am, and took Highway 52 east to Highway 76, which merges with I-80 just across the Nebraska border. We ate lunch at the Home Plate restaurant in Fort Morgan, where we had eaten once before, when we went to that town to visit Philip K. Dick's grave. I recommend that restaurant -- not expensive, just down-home good cooking. You can tell all the locals go there.

We reached our first hotel, in Kearney, around 6:45 pm. It was a Ramada by Wyndham, and I was a little doubtful about it. The reviews on TripAdvisor were pretty bad. But it had a two queen suite with sofabed, and that's what we need these days to stay in a room with the twins. Unfortunately, when we checked in, they told us they had no more rooms of that type. Instead, they gave us a king bed suite and added a rollaway bed "for no extra charge." I'm pretty sure they did charge us extra, but oh well.

The hotel was amazingly terrible, so much so that I'm sure we'll never forget it. First of all, there was almost no one there. I don't see how they could possibly have run out of queen bed suites, unless they only have one or two. More likely, those rooms were dirty or full of bugs (as shown in some of the TripAdvisor reviews). We wandered around the hotel as if it was ours alone. I'm sure it wasn't safe -- the back door remained unlocked through the night, and the doors to some rooms were ajar. We could have spread out into multiple rooms and no one would ever have known. We swam in this lovely pool, but it was quite cold and very dirty, both inside and out. The hot tub, when we finally found it the next day, had been closed due to a health violation. That fancy structure next to the pool is the Elephant Eye bar, but it was closed too.

The king bed, at least, was comfortable and I slept well (the kids did less well on the sofa and rollaway bed). Before we went to bed we watched a show we found called "Pure Nebraska," on the MeTV channel. On Pure Nebraska's Facebook page it says, "We celebrate rural life and the state's number one industry: agriculture." After that we watched the news, and then at 11:30 pm, "The Twilight Zone" came on, so of course we couldn't miss that. Teen B, however, fell asleep after the opening credits, and snored sweetly all through it. 

The next morning we went down to breakfast, but the room was dark and there was no one around. It wasn't even 9 am yet, so we couldn't have missed it. We asked the maid and she said she would ask someone, but no one ever showed up to ask. We finally found coffee, milk, and cold cereal, and had that -- it's all I would have wanted anyway, but the kids were disappointed, so we stopped at a Starbucks later.

As we drove away from the hotel, we saw two police cars in the parking lot. The officers were talking to some women who looked like hotel guests. They seemed very upset. Who knows what that was about.

Our goal that day, Wednesday, was to see some sandhill cranes. I had a brochure which listed some viewing spots. I hadn't arranged an early-morning tour like we did with my mother 19 years ago because I knew the twins wouldn't appreciate it. So we just drove along rural roads, looking at the cranes in the field. Oh, but I'm forgetting something! First we went to Fort Kearny, thinking there might be something interesting there, but it was closed. On the way there I realized we were almost out of gas. Rocket Boy's car is a hybrid, but it doesn't go forever. So I nervously drove back into town, to a gas station. There, Rocket Boy couldn't find his wallet! So he called the Starbucks to see if he'd left it there, and we drove back there to check it out for ourselves. I was horrified: if he'd lost his wallet, he couldn't get back to St. Louis, because he couldn't pay for gas or a hotel room. I wondered at what point I should call our credit union to report his card missing.

Then, as we were just about ready to give up, Rocket Boy noticed that his sunglasses were on the car's dashboard. Then what was in his shirt pocket? Oh, the wallet!

So, that took some time. But eventually we returned to the rural roads and the cranes. I really enjoyed seeing them in the fields, as did Rocket Boy. The twins were less interested, but who cares about them. We eventually made our way to the Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary, where to our great surprise we were required to wear masks! It was like suddenly stepping into California. I had brought a package of masks with me on the trip, but Teen B was unhappy that he hadn't brought his own favorite mask from home. Teen A stayed in the car. Teen B and I explored the gift shop happily, and eventually bought him a crane t-shirt and me some postcards, which I later forgot to mail.

After the Audubon Center, we went back to Kearney and had a late lunch at a Culver's -- I'm sure there was some local place that we should have eaten at, but oh well. Then we drove to Wood River and explored the small cemetery there, looking for my great-grandparents. I should note that we had terrible weather that day -- very cold and with a dreadful north wind. I walked up and down the rows -- it's a small rural cemetery, but still, that was a lot of walking. There is a directory in the center of the cemetery, but it took a while to make sense of it. Finally I figured out roughly where the graves had to be, walked over there -- and there they were. My grandfather, his first wife, his second wife (her sister), and two of their children. A bleak headstone, a bleak graveyard, that cold north wind blowing. It was memorable.

Then we drove on to Grand Island and checked in to our next hotel, a Best Western Plus. It was as boring a hotel as I've ever seen, but it was clean and well-run. After the Ramada in Kearney, we were glad to embrace boredom. We lay down on our beds for a short rest and then drove back to Wood River to have dinner with the relatives -- my father's cousin's widow Virginia and her younger son (who is a farmer) and his wife. My mother and Rocket Boy and I had eaten with them 19 years ago, and I remembered how they prepared an enormous meal for us, like a Thanksgiving dinner. 

This time it was much simpler (Virginia is now 95!) and yet still very lovely -- three kinds of pizza, sliced strawberries, and a vegetable plate, water to drink, and ice cream for dessert. Just perfect. We made the twins leave their stupid phones in the car, which I think was the right thing to do, but it made them fidgety and generally badly behaved. Teen A pulled all the pepperoni off his pizza (he likes plain cheese best), then put his leftovers on my plate, and then started putting napkins on my water glass and other nonsense, while I tried to ignore him. I was having such a good time chatting with the relatives that I wanted to wave a wand and have the twins disappear. At one point, Rocket Boy took them outside to run around, and I used the time to explain about the ADHD and dyslexia and all that, so they understood. It's OK. Five years ago, if we'd come for a visit then, the twins would have been crawling under the table, hitting each other, and screaming. 

Back at the hotel, we swam for a long time in the fabulous pool -- just the right temperature -- with breaks to enjoy the fabulous hot tub. And then we ran upstairs to catch the last of "Pure Nebraska," the news, and of course "The Twilight Zone." Once again, Teen B fell asleep and missed it, and the rest of us fell asleep to the sound of his gentle snores.

Thursday morning we had a very nice breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and headed for the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer. I couldn't remember whether I'd been there before. The weather was supposed to be better that day, but it wasn't really. The wind had died down quite a bit, so that helped, but it was still cold and gloomy (Teen B was slightly sorry he'd decided to wear shorts and flip flops, but only slightly). I remembered that when I went to Nebraska with my mother for Spring Break back in 1977 it was so hot I thought I would die from the humidity, and it also snowed. This time we had cold and wind. All those things can happen in Colorado during Spring Break, too, of course, except the humidity.

We didn't have time to do the Stuhr Museum justice, only went to two buildings, but I did really enjoy the exhibit of crane art in the main building. Apparently every year they ask a different Nebraska artist to make art relating to the sandhill cranes. My favorite was the picture of the cranes flying, on the right. I thought about buying it, but it was over $1000, and anyway, we have nowhere to put a new picture. Still, I liked it a lot.

Rocket Boy was scheduled to have a conference call for work at 1 pm, and it was close to 12 when we left the museum, so we decided to stop somewhere along the way to Lincoln to have lunch. We ended up in York, Nebraska, where my parents eloped back in 1943. I wanted to look for the church where they were married, but couldn't find it online and in the end, we didn't have time. We ate at an Applebee's inside a hotel, Rocket Boy's call was cancelled at the last minute but he did talk to a colleague for a while during lunch, and by 1:30 or so we were back on the road, headed for Lincoln.

I had been texting my cousin Kathy, who lives in Lincoln, to let her know our progress. When we finally got to Lincoln, we drove first to my father's parents' house, which is really the heart of Lincoln for me. That's where we always stayed when we went to visit. The neighborhood has gone downhill over the years, but the house looked better on this visit than it did the last time I saw it -- 30+ years ago? Someone's looking after it. 

There was a Starbucks a few blocks away, so we went there next, and I texted Kathy. She met us there in about 15 minutes and it was so wonderful to see her. We chatted for a while and then drove over to the cemetery to look at our grandparents' graves. Her dad is buried there too. After quite a bit of walking we found the graves. Then she left to go back to work, and Rocket Boy and I spent a lot more time looking for my other grandparents' graves, finally locating them. Then we headed for our hotel, another Best Western Plus, identical to Wednesday's hotel. We relaxed for a little bit and then drove to a Cracker Barrel nearby where we had arranged to meet Kathy and her husband for dinner.

Before the trip, I had reminded Rocket Boy and the twins not to talk politics while we were in Nebraska (or for that matter, eastern Colorado). I really didn't know what my relatives' political leanings were, but Nebraska is a pretty red state, so better safe than sorry. I wanted to interact with them outside of politics. In Wood River we managed this successfully and had a wonderful time. With the Lincoln relatives, what a relief to discover that they were pro-mask and pro-vaccine. We spent some time around the table at the Cracker Barrel talking about anti-vaxxers and how stupid and destructive they are.

We didn't bring up Trump, though -- not there, not anywhere. The waitress might have been a Trumper. You can't be too careful.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and had one more glorious swim, one more viewing of "Pure Nebraska," and one more "Twilight Zone." This time, Teen B stayed awake for it. In fact, we were all still awake at midnight, so we all did the new Wordle, even Teen A, who always says that's a stupid game for Boomers. We were all laughing and having a wonderful time. 

I should note that this was a fantastic family vacation. I don't think the kids got that much out of the official "activities": cranes, museums, cemeteries, family visits. They did seem mildly interested -- though puzzled -- to meet a lot of relatives they'd never heard of and see the houses of people long dead (at one point Teen B asked me, "Do my grandparents have houses?" I said, "Yes, we live in one of them!"). Mostly they just complained. But the evenings! The swimming, the funny Nebraska television shows, doing Wordle together. We all got along so well and had so much fun. I kept thinking, this might be as good as it gets. Next year or the year after they may turn into obnoxious teenagers who won't even speak to their parents. Treasure this time, I kept telling myself. I don't think I got mad at anyone the whole trip, I was so focused on appreciating every moment.

The next morning, Friday, we had another good hotel breakfast, checked out one more time, and then drove to south Lincoln to see my other grandparents' old house. It was a pretty crummy house when my mother lived there as a child, but it must have been upgraded through the years. It looked great and well-loved. It even had a St. Patrick's Day-themed cover on the mailbox (the inhabitants must switch it out for different holidays). There was a welcome sign on the door. The maple tree my mother planted around 1928 is still hanging in there almost 100 years later. She always wished it would grow tall enough to cover the lawn with leaves. I'll bet it does that now.

You can see from the photo that the sun finally came out that day, and it was a little warmer. After 55th Street, I decided we should go to Morrill Hall, the University of Nebraska natural history museum, since I have good memories of that. I vividly remembered a model I saw there in 1977, of a giant prehistoric rhinoceros called a baluchithere, but sadly it was gone. I asked the person at the front desk about it, and she said she'd seen pictures of it, but didn't know what had happened to it. I later discovered online that it had been removed back in 1992 because it was from Asia and the museum had decided to focus more on fossils from Nebraska. I had a postcard of the baluchithere on the wall of my dorm room in college. I probably still have it somewhere.

Morrill Hall was as delightful as ever, even without the baluchithere, and we spent an hour or so viewing the four floors of exhibits. Finally, around 12, we left. We stopped at a Scooter's coffee shop for a snack and then drove on to the Omaha airport, where Rocket Boy left us off. The boys and I had a bit more lunch while waiting for our plane, and then flew back to Denver. The plane was full and we were in the very last row on the right. Unfortunately, the plane was about 20 minutes late, so we ended up missing the bus back to Boulder and had to wait another hour for the next one. But it all worked out, we got home, and the cats were happy to see us. 

And the next day there was a fire. But I just heard the latest press briefing on it, and it is now 35% contained and did not grow at all today. We have one more day of fire weather and then it will snow. They said we'll be seeing (and smelling, breathing) smoke probably all this coming week. I can live with that. But I'm going to wait until Tuesday to unpack our suitcases.

Better

I am feeling better. I still hate my braces to distraction, am horrified by what I've done. But the pain has subsided (the cold went away and my sinuses are mostly recovered). It's still very uncomfortable to eat, especially chewing. You know how if you're holding a bunch of coins in your hand and you punch someone, the impact is much greater? Well, I think that's how it is with my teeth. All my teeth have metal on them now, so when I bite down, the impact of tooth on tooth is much worse than previously. 

Also, one of the things the orthodontist is trying to do (I think) is reorient how I bite. He showed me how my bite has gotten weirder and weirder over time, as my mouth has adjusted to accommodate the funny things my teeth were doing. Basically, I've been biting sideways. Now, with that front tooth gone and the metal on, my bite is adjusting, but now when I bite down, I bite down on teeth that aren't used to being bitten down on. 

It feels better just to drink tea all day long, skip the food. But then I get so hungry. We went out to Chili's for dinner last night and I ordered a bowl of potato soup, because that's easy to eat. They delivered it early, long before anyone else's entrees came. I ate it while it was warm and then there was nothing left and I was so hungry. When the others' food came, I ended up eating a bunch of the kids' french fries (which they don't like), dipping them into the honey-mustard sauce that Teen A rejected in favor of ranch. Soft french fries dipped in a sauce will dissolve in your mouth pretty well, not much chewing required.

So my meal was (1) potato soup, (2) french-fried potatoes, (3) honey-mustard sauce, oh and (4) a Sprite, because I thought I'd had too much caffeine already that day and should skip the iced tea. What a great meal for a diabetic!

I feel like I should talk to a dietician. What could a mostly vegetarian diabetic with braces eat? Because I'm running out of ideas here.

One other annoyance: the braces are definitely affecting my speech -- one of the things I was trying to improve by wearing them! I just can't speak clearly with a mouthful of metal. It's hard to read aloud to the kids. Also, I tend to spray saliva when I speak. It's lovely.

I've stopped trying to hide behind a mask, as masks are really vanishing from stores here, and instead am focusing on good dental hygiene, trying to keep the bits of food out of my braces so I don't look Even Worse when I open my mouth.

***

So, in other news, we are getting ready for our trip to Nebraska! We have hotel reservations, flight reservations back, and a cat-sitter. Today I did massive amounts of laundry and tried to think of other things that need doing. I am excited because I've managed to connect with a cousin I haven't seen in 30 years or so, and we'll be getting together with her in Lincoln. And we're having dinner one night with the widow of a cousin of my father and her son and daughter-in-law, in Wood River.

This is going to be a fun trip. For me, anyway. Twins, hmm. We'll have to think of fun things for them to do too.

It's nice to be taking a trip. I feel like I've been at home for a long time. And since we all just got sick, maybe we can avoid catching something new on the trip. I don't suppose it works that way.

This afternoon we took a quick trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, primarily to see an IMAX film called "Wings Over Water" which was about three types of migratory birds, including sandhill cranes. I thought it would be a good introduction to the cranes for the kids. I don't think they were very thrilled by the movie, but I don't expect them to be thrilled by any aspect of the trip, certainly not the bird part.

I think I'll stop here. No pictures. I'll have pictures next week. For now, it's time for bed.

Discomfort and good cheer

I was going to call this post "agony and ecstasy" but I realized that would be way over the top. I'm not in agony, I'm experiencing some discomfort. And having Rocket Boy home doesn't really lead to ecstasy, but something more along the lines of good cheer. 

It is really nice to have him home.

And I'm really miserable, though I have hope that things will improve.

Why am I miserable? Well, as I mentioned last week, on March 2nd I had a front tooth pulled and the nerve was irritated as a result. I've still got pain from that. Then, on March 10th, I had a full set of braces put on, top and bottom teeth, every single tooth except the two back bottom ones. Also on Thursday, I came down with Teen B's cold, which I didn't realize he was coming down with last Sunday, but which he's been dealing with all week. We all have the cold now. (It's not Covid -- I took Teen B to Centaurus for a test and it was negative. I'm going to assume that's true for all of us, since we so clearly got this from him.)

And of course, having a cold makes your teeth hurt ANYWAY, because of their proximity to your sinuses, which are all inflamed and unhappy. My teeth hurt when I'm just sitting around, but they REALLY hurt when I try to bite down on anything, like, say, cereal that's been sitting in milk for half an hour in order to get it really soggy. Ouch!

My main solution to this problem is not to eat, and my second best solution is not to chew my food when I do eat. But one of the things they tell you to do when you have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, as I do, is to chew all your food very thoroughly. So every time I swallow some not well-chewed food I think, sorry, irritable bowel.

I'm trying not to take a lot of painkillers, but it is hard. I think I've weaned myself off ibuprofen now, especially after reading that taking it could interfere with bone regrowth. I'm trying to take Tylenol only twice a day, but that is hard. I woke up around 4:30 am yesterday, in pain, so I took some Tylenol. Then I took some more 10 hours later (at 2:30), and more 8 hours after that, at 10:30, before bed. It is hard to take only two doses per day when you wake up at 4:30. Today I managed to hold off taking it until 9 am (new time), and I plan not to take any more until 9 pm or so. Eventually I want to get it down to one dose per day, and then none.

I have already lost a few pounds since having that tooth pulled. At some point I'm sure my body will figure out how to stop losing weight, probably by lowering my metabolism. Right now I'm trying to enjoy the weight loss, because there is not much else to enjoy.

I googled "adult braces second thoughts" and found a site with posts from old people (in their 40s, even) who had just gotten braces and were miserable. It was very comforting. Other people wrote in and told them not to give up, it would get better and it would be worth it in the end. I particularly liked their "tickers" at the bottom of their posts, which said things like, "12 years since braces put on" and "10 years since braces came off!" On another site, a person called Emily, who got braces at the practically senile age of 30, said she tried to keep thinking about Future Emily, who would appreciate the straight teeth.

So I am trying to think about Future Flicker, age 63 or so, who will be so so happy that she got her teeth straightened. I'll look good (well, better) in pictures taken at the twins' high school graduation. I'll be able to eat apples and carrots. I'll be able to bite my fingernails again (though maybe two years without being able to will finally train me not to). Also, every time I start thinking that 63 is so old that I'll basically be dead by the time the braces come off, I think about how my older sister is 72 and going strong. Unless something awful happens, I will NOT be dead at 63. It is worth doing this. It is. It is.

***

What else happened this week? On Wednesday the twins turned 14! That was a nice day. Teen B had to stay home for the second day in a row because of his cold, so I had to hide in the bedroom to wrap presents and then Teen B helped me decorate the living room, because there was no way to do that in secret. I had some "garlands" of gold and silver stars that were terribly hard to work with. He objected to the birthday balloons I'd purchased, so I only blew up five of them, out of a package of 20. It was OK -- blowing up balloons made my mouth hurt.

I didn't spend much money on presents, but I got an assortment of balls that we can take with us when we walk to the park or school to play basketball, and some candy and whatnot, the new "Hilo" book for Teen B, some wireless earbuds for Teen A. I forget what else. Oh, there was something else, but I won't mention it here. A little too personal!

Rocket Boy and I had gotten two cakes at Safeway -- a chocolate one for Teen B and a white one for Teen A -- and those were greatly enjoyed. The white one is already gone and there's just a little of the chocolate one left. Cake is pretty easy to eat with braces on, because it's soft and dissolves in your mouth pretty well. Unfortunately it also gets stuck in your braces, so you have to brush and floss your teeth immediately afterwards, but I find that I have to do that no matter what I eat. Eating is really terrible now -- in addition to the pain, I can feel all the little bits of food making their way under all the individual braces. However, drinking is OK, and I find myself drinking some sort of liquid (tea, milk, water) almost continuously. I also rinse my mouth with salt water quite often and I'm doing nasal cleanses with salt water too, since I'm sick.

God, this has been an awful eleven days (since I had the tooth pulled). I keep telling myself, things will get better. If I could just stop coughing, I think I could handle the tooth pain better.

Oh, I'm forgetting two other things we did this week. On Tuesday night, Rocket Boy and I took Teen B to the choir/orchestra concert at the middle school. I didn't think he should go, since he was sick and hadn't gone to school that day. But he really wanted to. So we made him wear a mask, and gave him a cough drop to suck on, and sat a couple of rows away from everyone else. Hopefully we didn't pass on his germs. 

Then on Thursday night, Rocket Boy and I went to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the high school that the twins are not going to go to. We went because our next-door neighbor's son was in it and we wanted to see him. And it was a fabulous production, so excellent. Our neighbor's son did really well, too. Such a clear speaking voice, and he knew his lines perfectly. I was so glad we'd gone that night (wearing masks), because by Friday I was in no shape to be going to any plays. I've stayed home since then, even skipped today's Starbucks run. Rocket Boy is less sick than me, for once, so he handled that.

So now we have one more week before Spring Break, and it's another busy one. Teen B's band concert is Tuesday night, and I'm going to try hard to get rid of this cold (especially the cough) by then. Teen B stayed home from school from Tuesday through Friday last week (Teen A also stayed home on Friday), so he needs to go back tomorrow. Teen A may need to stay home one more day. Both kids see the orthodontist on Wednesday and the eye doctor on Thursday, and Teen A has a haircut on Saturday morning. Oh, and my book group was supposed to come here on Monday, but I changed it to a Zoom meeting. We always partially zoom, because one of our members now lives in Philadelphia, so it's easy to make the whole thing a zoom if need be. I told them I'll host in April instead. Way too much illness around here to have people over.

I'm still not sure what's happening for Spring Break. We've talked about going to Nebraska to see the sandhill cranes, but we haven't done anything to make that happen, due to illness and general misery. If we do it, we'll probably drive Rocket Boy's car, and then the kids and I will fly back to Denver from Omaha and he'll continue on to St. Louis. But none of this is scheduled yet -- no flights have been purchased, no cat sitters arranged. Still, it's just Nebraska, after all. We can probably do everything at the last minute. I'll know more next Sunday.

Another snowy day

Another Sunday, another snowy day. It's a very pretty snowy day, actually, just the right amount of snow. I'm going to guess we've gotten maybe 3 or 4 inches so far, nothing drastic. We might get a couple more by the time the snow stops tonight. It's in the 20s right now -- cold, but not frigid. And I just saw two magpies fly past my window. They were in the backyard earlier this week (well, two magpies were, I don't know if they were the same two). I was just thinking I don't see magpies as often as I used to. It would be lovely if these two would settle down and make a nest nearby -- perhaps even in one of our trees.

We did our usual Starbucks run this morning, despite the snow. Our one concession to it was going around 11:30 instead of 10. The boys got hot chocolate instead of their usual weird drinks. Teen A drank his quickly and munched down his ham & cheese croissant in the car, so that he was all done by the time I dropped him off at the library (to play on the computers in the Teen Lounge). He'll walk home in a couple of hours.

I can feel OK about the snow because we had some great melting this past week. Here is our lawn on Wednesday morning, after several warm days. Lovely big patches of lawn are visible and the street is almost clear of ice. It's so hard to deal with snow when the piles don't disappear, you just pile more and more snow on top of them. I know this doesn't look very attractive, but it made me so happy!

This was my week of medical/dental appointments, and what a week it was. Monday was the easy day -- I just went to the eye doctor and learned that my vision had not changed at all since last year and my eyes show no signs of damage due to diabetes. That was a nice appointment. 

Things went downhill from there.

Tuesday was my "stress echo" test. It wasn't all bad. I thought the whole procedure was quite interesting and I loved seeing and hearing my heart on the ultrasound. Such a hardworking heart! More than 61 years beating away. Hearts are such amazing devices.

But then I had to get up on the treadmill and I totally failed. Maybe I should have gone to the rec center and practiced walking on a treadmill to prepare. I wasn't sure whether I'd ever been on a treadmill in my life (maybe once?), and the experience was quite novel. I am a walker, of course, but I walk on level ground for the most part, and when I do go uphill, it isn't moving. When the treadmill started, I very quickly almost fell down, because it got ahead of me. Then I did all right for 20 seconds or so, and then it started to get ahead of me again. I wasn't aware of breathing too heavily, but the technician stopped the test at that point "due to patient safety with speed and grade," according to the report that was posted to the website the next day. Also according to the report, I have "Class IV functional capacity," which is the lowest level, and I am at "intermediate risk for future cardiovascular events."

So now I don't know what to think. From other sections of the report, it appears that my heart is in great shape, no blockages, nothing wrong at all. Sweet, lovely heart! But then there's that Class IV functional capacity. Does that just mean I'm out of shape? Is it from being fat? I've searched and searched the web and I can't figure it out. This is the official definition: 

Class IV Functional Capacity: Patients with cardiac disease resulting in inability to carry on any physical activity without discomfort. Symptoms of heart failure or the anginal syndrome may be present even at rest. If any physical activity is undertaken, discomfort is increased.

That sounds bad, right? But what is my cardiac disease, if my heart has no blockages or anything else wrong? While consulting Dr. Google, I learned that in addition to functional capacity, there is also something called Objective Assessment, which I think is based on what they see on the echocardiogram. If I'm reading my report correctly, I think I would be in Class A: "No objective evidence of cardiovascular disease." But I'm not sure about that, and it doesn't actually say that on the report. What does all this mean? I guess I will have to wait until April 4th to find out, because that is when I see the cardiologist again. It's a great worry, and yet I don't know whether I should be worried or not. Maybe I will just be told to embark on some big exercise program.

Now we come to Wednesday. Wednesday was tooth-pulling day, in preparation for getting braces next week. My appointment was at 3 pm, at my regular dentist's. They numbed me up extensively and then started to pull. And pull. And pull. And finally the tooth popped out. They let me take it home. It's so weird looking!

And so am I! It never occurred to me how strange I would look without one of my front teeth. I look like a homeless person, a meth addict. I've started wearing a mask again in public, even though we no longer have a mask mandate, so as not to frighten people. Missing teeth among the (housed) Boulder populace are unusual.

And then the pain started. When I called the dentist, on Friday, to tell him how much pain I was still in, he told me I probably don't have what is called "dry socket," where the clotting process is interrupted and the nerve is exposed. But clearly (he said) the nerve has suffered some abuse, probably from the difficulty he had pulling out the tooth. I'm now (four days after the procedure) taking the whole thing more seriously, alternating ibuprofen and acetaminophen, taking the painkillers BEFORE the pain gets a foothold, trying not to touch my chin on that side, etc. I'm very tired all the time. I can barely eat anything. I certainly can't bite down on anything. I have become aware that it will be years before I can eat an apple normally again. So weird.

But none of this is for any bad reason. Having the tooth pulled is the first step toward having straight teeth, functional teeth, teeth that can bite right down on a juicy apple or a crisp carrot without one tooth going further behind the other and perhaps chipping off a little bit when it hits another tooth in the wrong place. I'm a lucky person to be able to afford to do this. Keep thinking that.

Of course, if I die of a cardiovascular event before I get through the orthodontia, this may not have been such a good idea. I'm trying not to dwell on that possibility. After all, anyone could die at any time.

Here is what our lawn looked like yesterday, Saturday morning, as the storm started. It began as rain/sleet, which is why the pavement is wet but there's no new whiteness. This view really made me happy. More than half of the lawn was uncovered before the new snow started last night. Only tiny patches of ice remained in the street. Both driveways were completely uncovered. Teen B and I took a nice walk Friday night and I didn't have to worry about ice at all -- except in just a couple of places. So nice to be able to walk freely.

And now here's what our lawn looked like this morning, just a day later. Oh well. It's very pretty. You honestly can't complain about picture-postcard snow like this.

Rocket Boy is on his way home as I write. I don't know what time he left this morning -- undoubtedly later than he meant to -- but I know he's on the road now (he sent us all a text with photos of him crossing the Missouri River). If all goes well, he should be here Monday afternoon or early evening. I'm soooooooo looking forward to his visit. He hasn't been home in two months, since early January, and I've had all this medical stuff to deal with, and all this snow, and the TWINS -- who of course I love dearly, but sometimes it all gets to be a bit too much for me to cope with. I really need my partner by my side.

We have several things scheduled this coming week -- the twins' birthday, of course, and Teen A's annual IEP meeting, and the choir/orchestra concert at their school, and my BRACES (hopefully I'll be healed enough to be able to survive that). I'm also hoping to get some cleaning done tomorrow before Rocket Boy arrives, but I'm not optimistic about it. The pain, the tiredness -- it's hard to get anything done right now. I feel guilty and then I think, Class IV functional capacity! and I try to go easy on myself. I'll do what I can.

Yesterday would have been my father's 100th birthday, had he not died of heart disease at the very young age of 67 (Rocket Boy's age). I could not think how to celebrate it, but then my older sister mentioned that she had swept the floor in his honor. He was an outstanding floor-sweeper, took great pleasure in it. "Get out of my dirt!" he would holler at me or my little sister if we dared to walk down the hallway when he was at work. He was also very good at cleaning the kitchen. So I decided I would clean my kitchen to a fare-thee-well (my mother's description of how my father did it) and then sweep the floor.

It got late, I was tired. I did clean the kitchen, but not really to a fare-thee-well. I was too tired to sweep the floor. But I might try again later today.