Summer begins

OK, here we are. It is summer. That is, school is over (middle school is over forever more), May is almost over, and Rocket Boy has just left to drive back to St. Louis, where he will spend the month of June. Of course, summer doesn't officially begin for three more weeks, plus it's rather gloomy and rainy today, but nevertheless it's summer.

We did all make it to the twins' "Continuation Ceremony," though I was worried there for a while. We were past the quarantine period, so we just masked up -- as did many of the other parents and some of the students -- not our students, though -- and I sat through the hour-long ceremony thinking, "I'm spreading covid far and wide, far and wide, far and wide, I'm spreading covid far and wide, how many will I give it to today?" (to the tune of "Buffalo Gals").

It was just like every graduation ever -- some kids won awards and received huge cheers, while others (including ours) received only modest cheers. I was fascinated by the outfits. Some girls (including one who lives down the street) wore skintight satin gowns with high heels. Some kids wore wild color and pattern combinations. Some, like ours, wore their hoodies. Some of the boys were taller than the very tall principal. Some didn't appear to have grown yet at all. One of the counselors, who spoke before the certificates were awarded, mentioned that several members of this class went through gender changes during the past three years, and I was interested to note how many names called out were different from the names printed on the program.

After the ceremony there was a party for the graduates, and Rocket Boy and I went out to a nice late lunch at the Southside Walnut Cafe. A while after we got home came the first call, from Teen B: "Can you pick me up? I'm bored." So Rocket Boy drove over to the school to get him, even though it was early. While he was gone, another call came in, from Teen A: "Mom? Um, I got in trouble and I have to stay late and I missed the bus. Can you come get me in a little while?"

It turned out that Teen A and some friends had ditched school and gone to play "wall ball" at the tennis courts at the East Boulder Rec Center. A teacher assigned to look for wandering kids had found them there and marched them back to school. As punishment, they had to come back the next day "to help clean."

I was amused by this, but decided it was important, even though it was the last day of school, the last day of middle school ever, and next year they will be at an open campus and can come and go at will. For one last day the school was responsible for them, and I appreciated how careful the school was with my babies, especially given what happened to those 19 students in Uvalde two days before.

I had to bring Teen A back to the school at 9 am the next morning, and he spent an hour pulling weeds in the front of the school with the four other boys who were also being punished. Then he called to ask if we'd bring him his wallet (Rocket Boy did), and spent the next six hours or so hanging out with his friends, doing who knows what. It's OK -- it's summer vacation now.

***

Covid is almost over for us, at least technically. Today is the last day we're officially supposed to wear masks. Teen B stopped wearing his several days ago, and I'm not sure Teen A ever wore one. Rocket Boy wore one occasionally the last few days. I'm trying to wear one everywhere I go. But I can see that this is how covid is spreading. If vaccinated, tested, mask-believing liberals in liberal communities don't wear their masks when they're supposed to, well...

I think I'm the only one of us still having symptoms, which means it's probably a good thing I'm still wearing my mask. I've had a headache off and on the last couple of days, my nose is still running a little, and I feel tired, more tired than during the worst of the illness. I took the kids to see "The Bob's Burgers Movie" yesterday (with my mask on) and actually fell asleep during it (I'm not sure whether that was the movie's fault or mine). Then later, when Rocket Boy and Teen B were watching a Peter Sellers movie at home, I went in our room and lay down, slept just a little until I was awakened by an Amber Alert on my phone. On the plus side, however, my sense of taste and smell are returning (though not quite normal yet).

It's hard to tease apart how I'm feeling, though, because there are three things competing for my attention right now:

1. Covid
2. Rocket Boy leaving today and going back to St. Louis for a month
3. The massacre in Uvalde (and the one in Buffalo before it)
   

And when I say "competing for my attention," I mean they're all making me feel bad. I don't know which one has the upper hand. 

I've been really grouchy the last few days, almost bit Rocket Boy's head off a couple of times, and again, what's the cause: his imminent departure, the horror of Uvalde, or am I just not feeling well? Don't know.

Or all of the above, maybe it's that.

For a while we thought Teen B would go with Rocket Boy to St. Louis, to spend a couple of weeks as we'd planned last year. Teen B couldn't seem to make up his mind, went back and forth about it. Even yesterday, even at bedtime, he was still talking about it. I didn't really get involved except to answer his questions. I did all the laundry (I usually do it on Sunday), so he would have clean clothes if he decided to go. Finally this morning I asked him again if he wanted to go and he said, "Of course not." So Rocket Boy packed up and drove off on his own.

I had realized that I was going to miss Teen B a lot if he went with RB, but then I thought how much RB must miss us all when he's alone in St. Louis. So when RB drove off, I felt sad for me, because I hate having him go, and sad for him, because he was leaving alone. Oh, so much sadness when nothing's really wrong! But there's always that fear, that sense that we might not see each other again. Anything could happen. We're human, after all.

***

Well, he's gone, and so I'm going to try to make the best of it. I have some plans for June. It's the last month of the quarter and I've already read my Presidential biography for the quarter (Chester Arthur). So I thought I'd give myself a couple of special assignments to work on.

1. First, I'm going to try to finish my middle-grade mystery novel, which has started to hang over my head in an unpleasant way. It was supposed to be fun, not something to worry about. I think if I schedule an hour of work on it a day, I could get a draft finished by the end of the month -- especially if I get interested in it again and spend longer on it some of the days. (If this doesn't work and I don't manage to finish it, maybe that means it's no longer fun and I should set it aside and try something else.)
   
2. Second, I'm going to sign up with the Fly Lady and see if that helps me get the house cleaner. When Rocket Boy is here I'm always more aware of how messy the house is, and somehow this visit the house seemed even worse than usual (maybe because it is). He often does some cleaning while he's here, but getting covid meant that he didn't have the energy. The two of us worked together to keep the kitchen from falling apart -- and that was all we could do. So I thought it was time to give the Fly Lady a shot. I first heard about her more than 15 years ago. It seems like it's time. If I don't like her, I don't have to do it for more than a month, but I'm going to try to stick with it for one full month.
   

Other than that, I have some medical appointments coming up -- which I might have to reschedule, due to lingering covid. I just sent my doctor a message asking about that. We're all going to get our hair cut on June 11th, just made the appointments. And what else? I have a zoom call with friends on, I think, the 18th. An old friend is coming to town for a visit around the 23rd or 24th. I'd like to get the boys involved in something other than video games. Volunteer work? An exercise class? I don't know. They, on the other hand, would be happy to play video games -- and not do anything else -- All Summer Long. Who will win this battle? We shall see.

Reading post: "Child's Play" via In the Shade of Spring Leaves

Trying to block out the terrible news this week, I have managed to finish my fourth selection for the 2022 Classics Challenge: Child's Play by Higuchi Ichiyo, published in 1895-96. After reading works from Japan's Heian Period (794-1185 -- The Tale of Genji), the feudal era (1185-1600 -- The Tale of the Heike), and the Edo Period (1600-1868 -- Narrow Road to the Interior), we move on to the Meiji era (1868-1912). It's a little complicated, though. 

For category #1 of the Challenge, I needed to read a "19th century classic," and you'd think that wouldn't be hard to find, because so many of the books we think of as "classics" were published in the 19th century. But I'm reading Japanese literature this year. In the 1800s, Japanese literature was not in a good place. Apparently there is almost nothing from that time that's worth reading now. By the 1800s, Japanese fiction consisted mainly of genraku, or frivolous writing meant only for entertainment, as if American literature today consisted entirely of romance novels. 

In 1868, the Meiji era began, and Japan began to open up to the West and Western ideas. By the late 19th century, classics of Western literature were frantically being translated into Japanese. Some young Japanese writers were trying to write in more of a modern, Western style, but they weren't doing it very well. One who did manage it, however, was Higuchi Ichiyo, a woman who published very briefly, from 1892 to 1896. (She died in 1896, at the terribly young age of 24, of tuberculosis.) She, with a minimal education and so little money that she and her mother and sister were almost starving, managed to write stories and novellas that were better than anything the young men of the time were producing. She is still highly thought of today, in Japan. I decided that I wanted to read a novel by Ichiyo.

But she didn't write anything long enough to be called a "novel." She wrote roughly 21 short stories, a couple of which were maybe long enough to be called novellas. Only 5 or so of the last 10 are rated truly excellent. The story/novella that is considered her masterpiece is "Takekurabe" which has been translated variously as "Child's Play," "Growing Up," and "Comparing Heights" (the last is the most literal translation). The translation I read is only 34 pages -- we wouldn't call it a novella today. But Ichiyo and "Child's Play" are the best that 19th century Japan has to offer, so that's what I'm counting for the Challenge.

I couldn't find a translation of "Child's Play" on its own. Instead, I found In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life of Higuchi Ichiyo with Nine of her Best Short Stories by Robert Lyons Danly. This is a revision of Danly's dissertation (he was a professor of Japanese language and culture at the University of Michigan and died fairly young himself, at age 50, from a brain tumor). As the title suggests, it consists of a biography of Ichiyo and translations of nine of her stories (including, of course, "Child's Play"), plus a collection of photos (of Ichiyo, other writers of the time, and scenes from Japanese life in the 1890s). In addition to tracing Ichiyo's short, simple life, Danly analyzes her stories and helps place them in the context of Japanese literature as a whole. Ichiyo also kept a journal, and Danly quotes from it extensively. 

I kept flipping around in the book -- I would read Danly's description of how Ichiyo came to write a story, his analysis of the story, and perhaps some relevant journal entries, and then enjoy the story itself. It was a good way to read Ichiyo, but perhaps not the best way to read a book -- rather distracting. The photos are in their own section in between the biography and the stories, and I kept turning back to them as well. And then there are the extensive notes -- I would have preferred footnotes (I'm still dipping into them). I hate to say it, but this is a book that might work better electronically, so that you can click back and forth among all the different parts easily.

OK, so, "Child's Play." As I noted above, this is considered Ichiyo's masterpiece, and I ended up reading it last, after I'd finished all the other stories and the complete biography. I was expecting not to be too impressed by it, or to like one of the other stories better. And so, I was really taken by surprise by how affecting it is. It is a very slight story, almost no plot at all. A group of "children" -- they're actually what we would call young teenagers, but maybe Meiji Japan didn't have the concept of teenager -- play, fight, and suddenly grow a little older and colder. That's it. That's all it is. But the last couple of pages both froze and broke my heart. 

You can't help thinking, wow, what would Ichiyo have written if she had lived, even just a few more years? What if she'd died at 34, not 24? But this is all we've got, so there you are.

One of the great things about the book, In the Shade of Spring Leaves, is that it brings you about as close to Ichiyo's thought process as it's possible to get. You learn about her family, the death of her oldest brother, and the disappointment associated with her second brother. Ichiyo (whose real name was Natsuko) was recognized as the family genius early on, and her father tried to give her as much education as possible, but her uneducated mother insisted on pulling her out of school. Natsuko/Ichiyo eventually was allowed to go to a poetry school, and at some point even her mother recognized that her success was going to come from intellectual pursuits. But nothing came easy. Her father died, leaving Natsuko/Ichiyo and her mother and sister to muddle along as best they could, which wasn't well. Finally they sold almost everything they owned (furniture, kimonos) in order to start a small paper goods shop in the "pleasure district" where the courtesans worked and lived. The shop was a failure, but its location gave Ichiyo the experience that she used to write her greatest stories, including "Child's Play."

"Child's Play" is only obliquely about prostitutes. The only one mentioned by name is Omaki, the sister of major character Midori, and we don't actually meet Omaki. But she is important. She is the reason Midori always has a lot of spending money and her parents treat Midori like a princess (Danly's phrase is "as though she were a Strasbourg goose being fattened for pate") because they expect her to follow in her sister's footsteps. Midori hangs around with the boys and girls in a sort of childish gang, and some of them are in love with her, including a boy from a rival gang, Nobu. Another boy, Shota, perhaps has vague dreams of marrying her. But one day Midori starts acting differently. She no longer wants to hang out. She has already dropped out of school. The story ends before anything definite happens, but the future is as clear as if Ichiyo had laid it all out in a report. 

The beauty of the story is clearer for being read after Ichiyo's early stories, which are less subtle. You watch as she becomes a better writer before your eyes. In the Shade of Spring Leaves is an impressive book and has probably done a lot since its 1981 publication to keep Ichiyo in English-speakers' eyes. It's worth reading, and Ichiyo herself is so worth reading. I'm very happy to have found her.

Quite a week

It's been quite a week. First, some outstanding medical news. Then, a freak late-May snowstorm. Finally, some unwelcome medical news. Does that cover it? I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh, the awards ceremony!

1. Outstanding Medical News 

On Tuesday, I saw my cardiologist for the follow-up after my cardiac catheterization last month. He told me that he thinks it's not true that I have a 50% blockage in one artery. He showed me the films that were taken of my procedure. He pointed out what the other cardiologist had thought was a blockage, and showed me that nothing was being "blocked" -- the blood was flowing through the artery completely normally. He thinks the "blockage" is actually something called a myocardial bridge, where a bit of the artery grows into the heart muscle and then out again. These are usually harmless. Sometimes they can cause chest pain, and there are treatments available. But basically I do not show the slightest sign of any plaque. My arteries appear to be completely clear. "How old are you?" he asked. "61? Given how your arteries look now, I don't think there's any chance you're going to have trouble with heart disease in the future."

"You do not have coronary artery disease."

Then he apologized for having put me through all this -- but my gosh, there was nothing to apologize for. How many people, at age 61, are given a clean bill of health like that? I now know that I'm almost certainly not going to die of heart disease, unless I develop congestive heart failure later on, which could happen to anybody. But I'm not going to have a heart attack caused by blocked arteries. Throughout this process, the multiple stress tests, people have kept telling me that my heart looks good, sounds good, beats strongly, all of that. And now I know that I have no plaque.

There are a lot of other things one can die from. And one or more of them will eventually take me down. But it isn't going to be coronary artery disease.

Maybe it will be covid (see below).

2. Awards Ceremony

On Wednesday, there was a ceremony at the kids' school where Teen B was scheduled to receive an award from one of his teachers. Wednesday is late start day (school starts at 9:45 instead of 8:45), so they held the ceremony before classes, at 8:30. But before that, Rocket Boy needed to take his car to the shop and Teen B and I needed to pick him up there. We left our house at 7:45. Rocket Boy drove his car to the garage, and Teen B and I drove to -- a different garage, where he takes his other car, because that's where I thought he was going. I actually drove PAST that shop and had to go around the block. We finally drove up to the shop and parked, but there was no sign of Rocket Boy, even though he'd left home first. 

So I called him. No answer. Then he called back -- "Where are you?" "I'm at Paul's," I said (Paul is the owner of the garage). "No, you're not, I'm at Paul's," Rocket Boy said. After a certain amount of arguing, we determined that I was in the wrong place and that I needed to be a few miles further east on Arapahoe, at Paul's new shop, where I've never been. So, Teen B and I drove there and picked up Rocket Boy. 

But then we had to get to the middle school. I knew there was construction at one end of the street it's on, so I went a different way -- Rocket Boy told me not to go that way -- I followed his instructions instead of what I knew was right...

Let's just say, it was a good thing I'd allowed lots of extra time. Rocket Boy was properly apologetic for misdirecting me, and he used his phone to find me another route. We were in our seats at the middle school auditorium by 8:20, plenty of time. Whew.

(I should perhaps note that the night before I had a dream where I was so busy playing computer solitaire that I forgot to go to the awards ceremony. So I was clearly anxious about something going wrong. Just the wrong something.)

We didn't know ahead of time why Teen B had been chosen for an award, nor which teacher had chosen him, and we'd been trying to guess -- his math teacher? his music teacher? We were wrong -- it was his science teacher, and the award was for "figuring out my system and getting perfect grades on tests." What was slightly mysterious about this was that we'd had a meeting with this same teacher a month or two previously about Teen A, and the teacher had praised Teen A for the same thing he was now praising Teen B for. We wondered whether he'd gotten the boys mixed up. It hasn't happened in a while, but it used to when they were younger. 

After the award ceremony we stood around with 100 or so other parents and kids, chatting, until it occurred to both of us that maybe we didn't want to be around so many other people when covid is spreading like wildfire. So we went outside and then home.

3. Freak Late-May Snowstorm

Thursday morning, after the twins had gone to school, Rocket Boy told me that he wasn't feeling well, that he had a cold. "I'm going to get a covid test," he told me. So that afternoon, after his online conference ended, I drove him out to Stazio for a test. I was already feeling a little weird myself and probably should have gotten tested too, but I skipped it. We drove home again -- it was terribly windy -- and then I had to drive to the kids' school to pick up Teen B, after which I drove him to his orthodontia appointment. An hour later I drove Rocket Boy out to east Arapahoe to pick up his car from the shop, and after dinner I drove to Trader Joe's to stock up. After which, I admitted that I was definitely sick too, this sort of weird swirling feeling running through my body. And Teen B wasn't feeling great either.

The kids had been scheduled to go (with the whole 8th grade) to Elitch Gardens amusement park in Denver on Friday, but the trip was cancelled at the last minute due to the prediction of heavy snow. Actually, Elitch's closed itself for the day, so that was that. It seemed so fitting that after the nonstop craziness of the last two-plus years, something should go wrong right at the end, too.

Teen B stayed home from school Friday, and I cancelled my appointment to get my hair cut. Around 10:30, he and I drove out to Stazio for our own tests, even though I was feeling like crap and probably shouldn't have been driving. We went home to rest, at which point the light rain that had been falling all morning started to change to snow. I had planted three containers full of flowers two days before -- purple flowers in one, pink snapdragons and fuchsias in another, and yellow marigolds and a cherry tomato plant in a third. "They're all going to freeze!" We put plastic over the marigold pot, and later more over the others. But I couldn't do anything about the irises that were blooming, or the onions, or our late lilac that was just coming into bud.

I felt so out of it that afternoon that I forgot to pick up Teen A from the bus stop after school. The snow was coming down heavily at that point. I left too late and went down the wrong street and missed him entirely. Of course I'd forgotten to bring my phone. Finally I drove home again, to find him already there. "OK, that's it," I said. "I'm not driving again!" For dinner we had Trader Joe's cheese blintzes and some leftover melon. Nobody was very hungry.

I don't know how much snow we got -- for some reason they haven't posted snowfall totals on the weather service website. I saw one report that estimated 6 inches. It could have been that. It was such heavy, wet snow, that it seems like it would be hard to measure. But it's melting fast. And how wonderful to have all that moisture. I read that we got 1.2 inches (converting the snow into rain). And more rain is due this coming week.

Oh, and on either Friday or Saturday -- can't remember now -- we were sitting in the desk room and I suddenly saw a male Western Tanager on the lilac bush! If you don't know what a Western Tanager looks like, google it, because it is one of the prettiest birds in north America. And I've certainly never seen one in my yard! I think the snowstorm blew a lot of birds off course.

4. Unwelcome Medical News

Saturday we all felt awful. I slept late, and Rocket Boy fed the cats. "If this isn't covid, it must be the flu," I said. I was congested and kept coughing and sneezing. My temperature was 99.5 (it's normally around 97). Teen B and Rocket Boy had headaches. We all had occasional chills and body aches. I couldn't concentrate enough to read. Rocket Boy kept checking the website for Mako Medical, the testing company, but it just showed his results from the last time he was tested there, back in 2021. Finally he got a message from some app that tells you whether you've been in contact with anyone who has covid. It said, "Would you like to share your positive test result with the public?" He did, and soon I got a message from the app telling me I'd been in contact with someone who tested positive. Sigh.

About half an hour later, his positive test result showed up on the Mako site. It was red, instead of the green we're so used to: "Positive SARS-CoV-2." We gazed at it. Wow.

This morning Teen A's results came through (he was tested at school on Friday). Positive -- first time we've ever seen that result from the school testing, and he's been tested every week for the past year. Then I got the same notice Rocket Boy got yesterday, about did I want to share my positive result with the public. I said sure. Finally my results and Teen B's showed up on the Mako site. Positive, positive. 

I'm wondering if the cats have it too?

Teen A is furious about his positive result. The kickball tournament is tomorrow and he's on a team. "I'm not missing it!" he told me. "I'm going to school!" "No, you're not," I said. Maybe he'll get himself up early tomorrow and run off to the bus without me knowing it. What would I do in that case? Call the school and tell them to pull him out of class?

And of course this coming week is the last week of school and graduation is Thursday. And we all have covid. I'm thinking I could get the boys rapid tests on Tuesday or Wednesday, see if they still register as positive. Teen B probably will, but maybe Teen A won't? if he's had it for a while? I don't know.

I have a feeling Rocket Boy and I are going to miss graduation.

So now we're dealing with all the difficulties associated with quarantine -- wouldn't you think we'd have figured this out by now, two years into the pandemic? But we haven't. The twins were very upset that we couldn't do our usual Sunday morning Starbucks run. I tried and tried to figure out how to have it delivered, but couldn't do it. Websites need to have easy versions for people who have covid-brain.

Rocket Boy ended up driving to a Starbucks in Louisville that has a drive through. I had library books that I needed to return and holds to pick up before they expired. He handled that too, even though he really shouldn't have gone inside the building. At least he was quick, wore a mask, and used the self-serve checkout machines. (The librarians will now get that little message on their phones: you may have been exposed to someone with covid!) And I have a prescription refill that I need to pick up. I probably should call the pharmacy and ask how to handle that. 

We need food, too. Just out of curiosity, I googled "what to eat when you have covid," and got predictable answers: "Vegetables! Lentils! Stay away from sugar!" It's like, oh, come on. Who wants to eat vegetables when you're sick? And for that matter, who feels up to cooking when you're sick? What we really need (ok, want) are baked goods. Blueberry muffins. A pie. Ice cream and popsicles would be good too. I probably need to find out more about this InstaCart thing that people use.

We got take-out Chinese last night. It was a rather odd order: three noodle dishes, plus sesame tofu. All vegetarian. I often get one chicken dish, but the thought of meat grossed me out. Each of us had a small plateful and then we were done. No one was hungry. So that will probably be dinner for a few more nights, if we can stomach it. Thinking about it doesn't make me feel good.

Also, we're almost out of cold medicine. I took my last dose last night. I guess it's not necessary, just makes you feel a little better. We tried to find out whether we could get those antiviral pills, but Urgent Care refused to dispense them. It's fine. We're probably going to be OK.

But I am really sorry that we'll miss graduation. Just one more goofy thing about the kids' middle school experience.

Update: We didn't miss graduation! More about that next Sunday.

Sunday drive

Rocket Boy wanted to go somewhere this weekend, so we planned the outing for today, and then we had to decide where to go. We considered Paint Mines Interpretive Park near Colorado Springs, which is a long drive but very fun when you get there. Then there's always the cabin. The twins don't like going there, but the South Park rec center pool is open until 4:30 pm on Sundays.

We've been trying to find an electrician to rewire the rental house, but most of the ones in the area are so booked up they don't even return calls. On Saturday we were given another name, called, and he said he could come by between 6 and 7 pm -- oops, today. So we had to think of an outing closer to home (we usually don't get back from the cabin until 9 or 10 pm).

"How about Idaho Springs?" Rocket Boy suggested. I don't love Idaho Springs. When I think of Idaho Springs I think of...

1. No place to park.
2. That 24-hour diner we used to stop at 20 years ago that is now an auto parts store.
3. That restaurant on the edge of town that we've stopped at many times -- the Wildfire? Wildflower? -- and had many forgettable meals, problems with the twins misbehaving (that's part of my memory of most restaurants), and once when we stopped there at the beginning of a driving trip to California, I realized I'd left my phone charger at home.
4. The ice cream/candy store that is always crowded and expensive.
5. The main street of town crammed full of people walking slowly, sweating, carrying crying children, looking like they came there to have fun, but they aren't having any.
   
6. A decent public restroom, but you can't get to it because there's no place to park.
   

But it's relatively close to Boulder, maybe an hour's drive, and RB suggested a picnic along the way. I hate picnics, or rather, I hate assembling picnics. I'm OK with eating picnics that other people prepare. Rocket Boy volunteered to make hardboiled eggs, which are our picnic go-to, so I said sure, let's do it.

I didn't sleep well Saturday night, beginning with nausea (probably caused by the fish & chips I ordered at Murphy's Tap House -- I really should stop eating fish & chips, but I love it so much). Or maybe it began with all the bad news yesterday. Another grocery store shooting. Ten people killed. A young man, a loner who nobody liked much, with a lot of guns. I didn't dream anything bad, not that I can remember anyway. I had a dream about riding my bike to a book group meeting, along a lush green street I'd never seen before in Boulder. Sillers kept meowing and waking me up. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, around 8:30, I felt like a zombie. 

But all I had to do (after breakfast and feeding the cats) was put on my shoes and come along. I could do that.

As we were backing out of our driveway (much later than planned), Rocket Boy suddenly hit the brake, hard. "Whoa!" he said. "Look what I almost hit." I looked. "Over there," RB said, pointing. It was an animal of some sort. A large -- bird? "Is that a turkey?" I asked. Indeed, it was a wild turkey. We had a deer behind our back fence a few days ago, and bobcats, mountain lions, and bears are not unknown in our neighborhood. But I've never seen a turkey. And it was alone, separated from the rest of its flock. As we watched, people walking and biking by stopped too, pointing, and getting out their phones to take pictures. "Well, if we'd left when I'd planned, we wouldn't have seen it," Rocket Boy said.

We took 93 to US 6 and from there to Central City and the park that's there, above the city. We've never been there when there was more than one other car -- usually none -- but I guess things have changed. There were at least 8 cars there! It was a little girl's birthday party, and the shelter where we usually sit was full of people and balloons and food. In addition, there were a few people fishing in the lake. So, OK. We pulled a picnic table under a bush for some shade -- except that the bush didn't have any leaves yet, so I got a little sunburned -- and got out our picnic. While we ate, the party continued, but eventually broke up. But more people came: a mom and grandma and two kids, a car full of teenagers, and more fishermen. I wonder if this is the new normal for that park? We will have to come back later in the summer and see. I'm curious now.

The teenagers were interesting. There was a white girl with long blond hair, the lower half dyed turquoise, and three Black kids, one about the girl's age (16 or 17) and two younger, maybe in middle school, or one middle schooler and one late elementary schooler. The older teens climbed up the curly slide to the little covered area at the top and told the younger kids to leave them alone, that they would buy them ice cream or whatever they wanted from Carl's Jr if they would Just Leave Them Alone. I figured the younger kids were the older boy's younger brothers. 

Rocket Boy had gone for a walk around the little lake, so the twins and I sat at our picnic table and listened. We were fascinated, wondering what the teenagers were doing at the top of the slide that required solitude. Kissing? Taking drugs? It seemed that their options were limited.

One reason why this was so interesting to us was that there was some drama at the twins' middle school this week. A girl in their class was reported missing on Wednesday and found on Thursday, but the story gets more involved by the day. It turned out she was hiding at the home of a (rather unattractive, if his mug shot is any indication) 51-year-old man that she'd apparently been seeing for a while, after meeting him online. Her mom had taken out some sort of restraining order against the man. Her friends all knew about it and had been helping her with the relationship. 

Rocket Boy keeps saying the girl sounds like a flake, but I think she sounds like a completely normal 14-year-old, and as evidence I offer: all her friends. 

Her mother must be losing her mind.

When I was 14, I was not involved with any older men, but believe you me, if there had been any around, I would have been interested. My friends and I were mostly experimenting with alcohol and drugs that year -- my friends also tried cigarettes, but I drew the line there. The boys in our grade were too immature to do anything dangerous with, but seriously, if I'd had access to any older men, Roe v. Wade (which had been decided just a few years before) would have been very important to me. 

One sweet aspect of the story is that we actually saw the girl the night before she disappeared. That was the night of the pops concert -- band, orchestra, and choir. She was in the choir and had a brief solo. She did very well. Clearly, she wanted to be in that concert, wanted to sing her solo. Once that was over, she was ready to run away with a creepy old man.

Rocket Boy came back from his walk, so we packed up the lunch things and left the teenagers to their misbehavior. We took the "Oh-my-God" road down to Idaho Springs, which I could have lived without, but the scenery was pretty. Once we got to Idaho Springs, we drove to Indian Hot Springs, because Rocket Boy had been promising the kids that we would go swimming. The cost was $21 per person and we only had time to stay maybe 90 minutes. The kids didn't think it looked like much fun, so we decided "another time."

Then we proceeded to downtown Idaho Springs, but of course there was no place to park. They charge for parking now, which I think is a good development -- it must bring in a lot of money, which I'm sure the town can use -- but the parking lots were still 100% full. Finally, Rocket Boy dropped us off near the very nice public bathroom and went off to find a place by himself. Maybe 15 minutes later he was back, and we went off to the ice cream/candy store, which is now just an ice cream store. Oh, I guess they had fudge too. 

While we were in line, Rocket Boy's phone rang. It was the electrician. His wife wanted to do something today and he wondered if he could come over Monday afternoon instead. Of course, Rocket Boy said yes. We all got ice cream and sat down to enjoy it. When we finished, we walked across the street and went to a European pastry shop that I had noticed, where we bought some rolls and such. Then we drove home, getting home around 5pm. 

And since then I've been alternating between writing this blog and reading about the grocery store shooting in Buffalo. It sounds so much like our shooting 14 months ago. The only real difference is that yesterday's shooting was racially motivated, as so many shootings are these days. The Boulder shooting has never really been explained, because the shooter still isn't considered mentally competent to stand trial. They're pumping him full of drugs at the mental hospital in Pueblo, trying to make him "competent." I gave up a long time ago expecting an explanation for what he did, but it probably wasn't racial.

There is another difference between the shootings, though, that I read about later. The grocery store in Buffalo is in a former food desert -- and now that it will be closed for a while, that neighborhood will go back to being a food desert. I always had lots of other places I could shop in Boulder, while we waited 11 months for them to re-do our store.

Rocket Boy made dinner and we finished a little while ago and then went for a walk. The lunar eclipse is halfway along. Maybe tomorrow I'll finally plant my flowers.

Only 9 days of school left, only 9 days of middle school. Then we move on to something completely different.

Reading post: Narrow Road to the Interior

I have (finally!) read my third book for the 2022 Classics Challenge: Basho's Narrow Road to the Interior, sometimes translated as Narrow Road to the Deep North or Narrow Road to Oku. Yes, the library finally came up with the book. It describes a journey, on foot, taken by the famous haiku poet Matsuo Basho in 1689, and it was published in 1702, a few years after Basho's death in 1694. I chose this book to fulfill category #11, "Classic set in a place you'd like to visit."

The first book I read for this year's Challenge, The Tale of Genji, dates from Japan's Heian Period (794-1185), and my second book, The Tale of the Heike, came into being during the feudal era (1185-1600). We have now jumped forward into the Edo Period (also called the Early Modern Period) of Japanese history and literature (1600-1868).

In a previous post, talking about the book of poetry by Kimiko Hahn entitled The Narrow Road to the Interior, I observed that it could be a good title for almost any book of poetry. In the introduction to his version of Basho's work, translator Sam Hamill explains the title (Oku-no-hosomichi):

Oku means "within" and "farthest" or "dead-end place"; it also means "interior" both in the sense of interior country and spiritual interior. No is a possessive and is prepositional. Hosomichi means "path" or "trail" or "narrow road." Oku-no-hosomichi can then be taken to mean both a narrow road through the country's mountainous interior lying between Miyagino and Matsushima, and the metaphoric narrow trail leading into one's spiritual center.

It's a tiny book. Only 97 pages, but some of those pages are illustrations and several are less than half filled with text. Even the filled pages are tiny -- the book is only 4.25" x 5". So, you see, it all works out -- The Tale of Genji was 1155 pages, The Tale of the Heike was 710, and now we have a little book that might be, oh, I don't know, 25 pages if printed on normal-sized sheets?

But it's not really a quick read. I read many of the little pages over and over, trying to understand them. Many of them include a haiku, or sometimes several poems, from different authors. For instance, in the little section devoted to his visit to Hiraizumi, in the far north, he includes four poems: two by Tu Fu (a Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty), one by Basho himself, and one by Sora, his companion on the journey -- as if to give different people's opinions of what they saw.

One of my favorite sections -- they're so short, "section" doesn't seem like the right word, but "page" isn't the right word either, because sometimes they're two or three pages -- is the one about chestnut trees. I think they are in Sukagawa at this point. It's page 22 in this edition.

In the shade of a huge chestnut at the edge of town, a monk made his hermitage a refuge from the world. Saigyo's poem about gathering chestnuts deep in the mountains refers to such a place. I wrote on a slip of paper: The Chinese character for chestnut means "west tree," alluding to the Western Paradise of Amida Buddha; the priest Gyoki, all his life, used chestnut for his walking stick and for the posts of his home.
               Near the eaves
               the chestnut blooms:
               almost no one sees.

That's the whole thing, the whole page, the whole "section." It includes so many things: an actual chestnut tree, a bit of history about it, a reference to a poem by Saigyo (a Japanese poet from the late Heian era), a note Basho writes to himself about the chestnut's religious connection, a bit of history about a priest, and finally a curious little poem.

Not all the sections are so perfect; some are quite pedestrian -- oh, I shouldn't use that word, because they're mainly walking, Basho and Sora, so it's a silly pun. But this section is kind of pedestrian too. It's not beautiful, except the haiku. At the same time, it's lovely.

The book ends quietly. His companion Sora becomes ill and has to go stay with relatives, so Basho continues on without him for a while longer. They meet up again at Ogaki and gather together with friends, I guess to celebrate the journey. I was a little confused, because they aren't actually home yet -- Ogaki is a long way from Edo. 

After all the trouble I went through to get this book from the library, I'm thinking I might like to own it after all, or possibly an edition that has more of Basho's poems included. I could order it straight from Shambhala Press, wouldn't have to deal with Amazon at all.

Mom's day

I looked back at last week's post, my plans for a lovely pink month full of flowers. Things are going pretty well with that. Seriously, they are.

The most important thing I did this week was to message my cardiologist about the beta blocker. The drug was making me crazier and crazier, to the point where I was worried about my ability to hang on to reality. I felt more and more anxious, couldn't stop playing games on my phone. I was craving chocolate and other sweets all day long. And I just felt so sad! In my message, I briefly described the problem and asked if I could stop taking metoprolol. A nurse responded, telling me to hang on until my appointment on the 18th. Great, I thought. I'll probably be in a mental hospital by then. I called the pharmacy and asked them to refill the prescription. But then another message arrived, from another nurse: the doctor says yes, you can stop taking the beta blocker. Hallelujah! I called the pharmacy back and cancelled the refill, and then waited for the evening, when I could NOT take metoprolol. I took four pills (not five!) with joy.

By the next morning I already felt better. And I felt better and better the next couple of days. My energy gradually came back. The anxiety, in particular, vanished. I was able to put down my phone. I stopped stuffing my face with sweets. And I felt happier, which is quite something considering all the awful news about abortion rights, family stuff I won't discuss here, and of course Ukraine. My blood pressure has gone up a little, which was to be expected, but the Losartan that I'm still taking is keeping it more or less in the normal range.

Also, I can once again do Wordle and Quordle! I don't know if that is related to the beta blocker (it could be), or if the drugs they gave me for the cardiac cath finally wore off. Anyway, the part of my brain that does word problems seems to be functioning normally again. 

I planned to take a walk every day this week and I managed it four days out of seven, which is good considering a couple of days were cold and rainy and I didn't want to go out. But then it warmed up. One evening, Teen B and I actually walked over to the school to play basketball, like we did so often last summer/fall. The night sky was lovely. Today we are planning to take a hike with Rocket Boy.

It's very weird to know that the drug affected me so much -- especially since there have been these studies supposedly showing that beta blockers do NOT cause depression and anxiety. I know my own brain and I know what metoprolol did to me. Beta blockers such as metoprolol are lipophilic, so they cross the blood-brain barrier. Here is a comment I found in an article:

For decades, beta-adrenergic blocking agents have been known to cause adverse CNS [central nervous system] effects including psychiatric syndromes, bizarre and vivid dreams, sleep disturbances, delirium, psychosis and visual hallucinations.

I don't think my dreams were extra vivid while taking the drug, and I didn't hallucinate, but "psychiatric syndromes" (I'm guessing they meant "symptoms"?) might describe what I experienced, and "psychosis" would have been next. I will have to tell my regular doctor and the cardiologist that beta blockers are not good drugs for me, or if I have to take them, probably I should be on one that is more hydrophilic. It's already in my chart that I can't take phentermine, because it made me suicidal, and I had trouble with lisinopril because of anxiety.

It embarrasses me to have this problem, this extreme sensitivity to mental health side effects of medication. Like my psyche is very fragile, or easily disturbed. But anyway. No more beta blocker. On with my life.

***

Rocket Boy arrived home last night, bringing armloads of chocolate for Mother's Day -- just after I stopped being so interested in sweets. Actually, that doesn't matter. It's the thought that makes me happy, his eagerness to give me something I would like, even if he doesn't get it right. There's nothing I'd rather have -- I don't want jewelry or electronics or gift cards or bouquets of flowers, though I hope we will go shopping for flowers to PLANT later today. So he might as well bring chocolate. In the old days he used to be stingy with chocolate because he thought it would make me fat. Now he doesn't worry about it, and I appreciate that. Makes me feel accepted and loved.

He's going to stay for three weeks, leave Memorial Day weekend (possibly taking a twin with him, we'll see). As always, it's so nice to have him here! I always think the cats don't think it's so wonderful, because they can't sleep with me on the bed at night (no room). But they are currently both sound asleep on his suitcases, which we had to cover with a blanket because the first thing they did when he carried his suitcases inside and set them up on the card table was to lie on them and shed a whole lot of hairs. I removed the hairs with tape and we put down this blanket -- and they both settled down for a nap. So I think they too like having him here, or at least they acknowledge that he's part of the family and thus needs to be covered with cat hairs.

I made dinner last night (cornbread, beans, salad, and watermelon) and we ate as soon as RB arrived, around 7 pm. This morning we did our usual Sunday morning Starbucks run, and we'll eat out somewhere tonight -- I don't care where. Just so long as I don't have to cook, I'm good (we ended up going back to Village Inn).

I didn't do a lot of cooking this week. Another book group friend brought us a whole pan of veggie lasagna on Monday, and we ate that for a few days. It was yummy. Other than that we mostly had sandwiches for dinner. One night we went to Subway. One night we went to McDonald's. Bad mom. Very bad mom. 

I did do one bit of cooking though, or baking actually. Friday would have been my sweet mother's 100th birthday, so that day I made sugar cookies, in springtime shapes (butterfly, hummingbird, bunny, etc.). I think she would have been pleased. They're almost all gone already. I hadn't baked in a long time, and the twins were excited.

***

The twins have only three weeks of middle school left! Less than that -- two weeks and four days, and the last day (May 26th) is just graduation and a party, plus there's another day in there when they go to Elitch's, and another day they'll be visiting the Boulder Technical Education Center, which Teen A is interested in (it's a place to learn job skills, so you can get a good job after high school without worrying about college). 

Teen B's last concert of the year is Tuesday night. The last day to turn in late homework and projects is this Friday, so I think we'll be spending a lot of time doing make-up work together this week. It will be nice to have Rocket Boy here to help with all that, instead of having to do it over the phone.

We did go for that hike, by the way -- Rocket Boy wanted to do the Bobolink Trail, but I wanted something different, so I searched up "boulder wildflower hikes" and found a recommendation for the Shanahan Ridge trail. Only saw a couple of yellow wildflowers, but the trail runs very close to houses at the start and we saw this pretty flowering tree that must be a volunteer from a tree in someone's yard. We hiked for about half an hour, then turned around and hiked back -- there's a loop you can do, but it's 4 or 5 miles, and that's a bit much for me. 

And on the way home we stopped at the flower stand at Table Mesa and bought some annuals (linaria, lobelia, verbena, violets, and marigolds) which I'll probably plant tomorrow. Just the beginning, of course -- I plan to buy many more. But you have to start somewhere.

Welcome to May

It's May 1st, and that means we're one third of the way through the year. I thought today might be a good day to revisit my New Year's resolutions and think about how they're going.

Turns out, that wasn't a good idea. I looked at my resolutions this morning and realized I haven't done any of them! Nothing! Well, I've started doing the reading ones, but that's about it. I haven't made any progress on the home improvement projects, nor the goals related to the rental house. I haven't been walking or lifting weights. I haven't taken the kids to do any fun activities, we haven't been cooking together, we haven't gone to any movies. I didn't get the taxes done early. I haven't gotten a part-time job. I haven't even been giving away money. Just nothing.

Well, OK, I've been preoccupied with health-related stuff. The braces, then the heart. And we had a lot of snow. I can't think of any other excuses.

So, going on the premise that there's no time like the present and you've got to start somewhere, I decided that May 1st would be a good day to start going for walks again. And so I took a walk. I walked for 21 minutes in the early afternoon (from 1:22 to 1:43, to be exact). My first walk in two months. I didn't drop dead from exhaustion, I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke. It was very pleasant (the photos are from the walk). We're supposed to get rain starting tonight, so I don't know if I'll walk again tomorrow. Maybe in the afternoon. But I made a new mini-resolution to try to take a short walk every day from now on. (Every day is an easier plan than 3 times a week or whatever -- simpler.)

As for the rest of the resolutions, I don't know. It's not too late -- there are 8 months left in the year. Maybe I could choose one each week to focus on (it could be the same one for a few weeks if it takes me a while to get it done, as it undoubtedly will). I think this week I'll try to work on some of the piles of files that I've been ignoring for a few months now. Rocket Boy is coming back next weekend, for Mother's Day and the rest of the twins' school year, and it would be nice to have some piles of files removed from the floor before he arrives.

There, done. That's not so scary. Maybe after Rocket Boy gets here, he and I could talk about the home improvement projects. Like the backyard. Or the kitchen floor. The hole in the floor has gotten so big that Sillers has trouble lying on it. For some reason, she likes to lie on it, keep it covered up for us, but it's outgrowing her. One of these days, someone is going to step right through that hole into the basement.

I think I am pretty much all recovered from the heart procedure. The bruise on my arm has almost completely vanished and the nausea is improving. Sometimes when I lie down to sleep at night, my heart thumps around weirdly, and at other times I have mild chest pain, which I think is related to the procedure -- my heart and arteries are still a little annoyed about the whole thing. Or, alternatively, I could be having a lot of little heart attacks. I don't think so, though.

One thing I'm still dealing with is depression and irritability, which I think is from the beta blocker, the metropolol. I'm going to ask my cardiologist if I can stop taking that, and if he says no, I have some thoughts to express on quality of life vs. quantity of life. That is, if I have to feel like this for the rest of my life, it's not really worth extending it, is it?

Oh, and there's one other thing, and I don't know if it's a lingering effect of the drugs they gave me during the procedure, or another side effect of metropolol -- but I can't do Wordle and Quordle! That is, I can do them, but they're really hard and not nearly as fun as previously. I find myself staring at the screen of my phone, trying desperately to think of a word, and I just can't come up with one. I've failed at Wordle twice in the past week, and failed at Quordle three times. I certainly hope this isn't a permanent change.

One of my resolutions (that I haven't been keeping) was to have a theme for each month, so that all the months would be fun, not just the fall. I definitely missed April -- I feel as though I missed April altogether -- but now it is May, and I think I can do this for May.

May's theme is, without question, flowers, and the color of May is pink (and purple, for the lilacs). I don't usually buy or plant any flowers until Mother's Day, but Mother's Day is early this year, on account of today being the first Sunday of May, so next weekend I am definitely going to buy some flowers! It's not too early, either, due to climate change. I'm quite sure we're done with snow, and if we happen to have a freak May snowstorm (the way we used to), I can always put tarps over the flowers.

I had my orthodontia appointment this week and I got pink bands. And tonight we had Subway, and I got two cookies, the raspberry cheesecake variety (which is partly pink).

I am not normally a fan of the color pink, but for one month, I can be. I only have one or two pink shirts, but I'll wear them. I wonder if I could bake something pink. I haven't been baking -- haven't felt up to it. Maybe I'll start to feel up to it. Or if not, maybe I can find something pink at the store. Pink-frosted cookies, or something. I did buy strawberries -- maybe I can do something with them.

I think that's all I have to talk about this week. Nothing special happened. My book group met via Zoom. I was very, very lazy, and I didn't accomplish much. I didn't cook -- we had sandwiches a couple of nights, and one night ramen. My friend from the book group brought over the dinner she was going to bring when Rocket Boy was here: manicotti and sauce. I baked it and it was delicious. One night I made a Dutch Baby -- that was fun, if not really dinner food. 

On Friday morning I threw away a LOT of food, because it was compost pickup day. Some of the food hadn't gone bad, but it was things I had tried to eat during the week and failed, due to the nausea, so I just needed to get them out of the house. This week I can start fresh, no more nausea (I think). The twins only have 19 days left of middle school -- how scary is that? We'll try to have a good month together. With lots of pink and flowers.