Summer ends

We went to the cabin today, on the last day of summer, because when Rocket Boy came up a few weeks ago, he couldn't get the door to lock (he got it unlocked, just couldn't lock it up when he left). Even though I always think it wouldn't matter if the cabin went up in flames, I decided I didn't want to leave it unlocked until next July. Plus, this was supposed to be a good leaf peeping weekend, possibly the best this year. The twins didn't want to join us, so we went alone.

On the way up we saw yellow, orange, red, and completely green aspen. Very mixed. We also saw hundreds of cars and trucks full of people who had come to look at the fall color. Highway 287 in the opposite direction from us was clogged -- worse than I've ever seen it -- and this was at 2:30 in the afternoon! Apparently everyone had come up very early, or maybe the day before, and now they were headed home. Crazy.

When we got to the cabin it was gloriously yellow -- every aspen had turned (and of course they are really all one organism). On the way there I kept saying things like, "I wonder if ours will have turned." And then I would think, "ours"? Do we own those aspen? I mean, technically yes, we could legally cut them all down, for instance, but the concept of owning trees has started to seem odd to me. I do say, referring to our Boulder property, "our honey locust," "our maple," etc. But even those I feel like we're mostly caring for, rather than owning them. I would not cut them down without a good reason, though I am working on cutting down the junipers -- but that's for a good reason, for fire safety. The aspen at the cabin do not seem to belong to us at all, they belong to themselves.

We walked down to the beaver ponds, of course, and on the way down we discovered something interesting: a new road! Carved by an Xcel Energy truck, probably, when they came to trim the trees that were too close to the power lines. We have electricity at the cabin -- I pay $8.14 per month for it, currently -- and so there are power lines on the property, and so Xcel has to keep the trees off the power lines. We've seen where they've cut the trees before, but this was the first time they've ever cut a road!

So that was weird. But it did make it easier to get to the beaver ponds, and really, what could we do? Complain to Xcel? (How dare you drive on our property to keep the power lines from setting off a forest fire?!) I don't think that would really get us anywhere. No, I think we just have to deal with the fact that we now have a road on our 12 and a half acres of wilderness (sort of).

The beaver ponds looked lovely and healthy as always, with a new dam I hadn't seen before. If the beavers can live with this new road, we can too.

It turned out that the door locked just fine this time around, with all the different keys. Rocket Boy had brought three different sets with him this time, and they all worked. And there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been inside the cabin during the almost-three-weeks that it was unlocked. So. We're fine for now.

*** 

This past week was a busy one. Monday I got bloodwork done, after waiting almost two hours while fasting. Apparently the lab is having staffing problems, and I should have made an appointment. I tried to be REALLY nice to the phlebotomist, when I finally got in to see her, because I figured they must be so stressed. Rocket Boy needs bloodwork done too, so we made him an actual appointment for this coming week.

Tuesday, I got my hair cut. It had gotten so long and straggly and icky that I told my hairdresser to cut it all off. "Shoulder length," I told her. She looked nervous, but she did it, and it is so cute. I've never liked having my hair this short before, but this time, somehow, it seems fun. The kids don't like it. "You look like Barbara," said Teen B, accusingly. "Is that a bad thing?" I asked. "You don't look like you." This is a kid who does not like change. "It'll grow," I told him. And it will. But I may not let it grow quite as long as before. I'll see.

Wednesday, Teen A got his hair cut. He doesn't have morning classes on Wednesday, so we made him a morning appointment, and he drove himself to it (I gave him the money) while I took Teen B to school (Rocket Boy had a job interview, so he couldn't do it). Then Wednesday night my book group came. I made an apple cake for them, which I served with whipped cream (the book, The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, took place in a middle or eastern European country, so that seemed like a good thing to have). They liked my hair a lot (they all wear their hair the same way).

On Thursday I saw my doctor for my half-year check-up. Even though I weighed 5 pounds more on her scale than I had on mine that morning, I was down about 15 pounds from March, so she was very happy with that. She was also pleased with my A1c, which had gone down to 6.2 (it was 6.4 in March). That's still high, but it's a pretty good number for a diabetic. My fasting glucose level was 107, still high (it's supposed to be below 100), but lower than it has been for a while (it was 113 in March). My total cholesterol is now 117, still very low, but my HDL -- the good kind -- is now 44, which puts it in the normal range! My HDL has been too low for as long as we've been testing it -- I've never had it in the normal range. (Of course, they'd like it to be about 90, but we won't worry about that. Normal is good enough.) This has got to be Mounjaro's doing. I'm very pleased.

She had me get a pneumonia shot -- I've had it before, but she said the guidance has changed, and now everybody has to get this new shot. She also told me that since we all had Covid in August, we should wait three months to get the next booster. So I figure I'll get flu in October and Covid in November (the vaccines, not the illnesses).  

Speaking of Mounjaro, tonight I take my first shot of 7.5 mg since I think April. I'm excited to go down a level, but also worried. We're going into fall and holiday season, traditional weight gain time. Will I still have enough appetite suppression? My doctor scolded me about not getting enough protein, so I promised to be more vigilant about that.

It's hard, though. Thursday night I made soup (garlic corn chowder) and tossed in a can of chickpeas to beef up the protein a little. It was OK. Friday I made pasta with sweet potatoes and threw in a lot of extra cheese, but it still probably didn't measure up. Saturday night we ate out at Cracker Barrel, mainly to see if the recent brouhaha over the logo had affected anything. It was one of the worst restaurant experiences I've ever had. Not THE worst, because I've had some doozies, but bad. It took 45 minutes after we were seated (at a very prominent, visible table) for a waiter to show up. When our food finally came (we were starving) mine was inedible. I had ordered chicken tenders, in an attempt to get more protein, and they were like shoe leather. I managed to choke down one, after several attempts, and I ate my sides (green beans and cinnamon apples) and a biscuit and a corn muffin and I drank a glass of milk, so I didn't go hungry. But not a high protein meal, lol. We have now officially crossed Cracker Barrel off our list of possible restaurants. Never again.

Today of course we had lunch at the Cutthroat Cafe in Bailey and I had a delicious club sandwich -- but of course, could only eat half of it. I'm thinking I should just buy some protein powder and throw it in everything. Increasing protein the natural way seems impossible.

***

So, it was a weird week for the Constitution, especially the first Amendment, with Jimmy Kimmel being canceled for daring to criticize MAGA and our dear leader. He didn't even say anything bad about C.K. Today was C.K.'s funeral and NPR said "tens of thousands" of people were going to be there. That will probably get them all revved up to be mean and nasty again this week. On the other hand, people I cannot stand (Tucker Carlson, Ted Cruz) actually spoke up and told the right not to censor free speech. So that was interesting. Plus, we're apparently heading into a government shutdown in about 10 days. Oh joy.

Someone was saying the MAGA people think of C.K. as their version of Martin Luther King. So are we going to have a new national holiday in honor of him? I wouldn't mind, actually. The more holidays the better, and nobody will force me to actually celebrate it (at least I don't think they will). I wish his birthday were in March, April, or August, because we don't have any federal holidays in those months, but it's in October, almost the same day as Columbus/Indigenous People's Day. So that won't work. We'll see what happens. 

For me, personally, it was a pretty good week, at least in terms of getting my personal stuff done. I managed to do some writing on, I think, four of the five weekdays, and I managed to break through a minor block and have lots of ideas for what to write this week. Pruning went less well, but I did manage to do it on two or three days, and I had lots to put out for compost pickup. I also did a lot of reading and took a few walks. So all that was good. 

On the way home tonight we drove over Guanella Pass (11,670 feet). The aspen were not as beautiful there as at the cabin, but it was still a beautiful drive. 

At one point, on our way down the other side, we encountered a female Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, just walking down the middle of the road. We stopped, as did the cars behind us. She looked really pissed off as she trotted past us. I hope she made it off the road at some point without being hit. I was hoping for a moose sighting, but a sheep was even better. We always look for sheep and almost never see one.

And we didn't hit her. And we got home safely. And tomorrow begins another week and a brand-new season -- fall.