Suzy Says

The saga of the car has been long and spendiferous over the past month.

First, I took it to Mike the mechanic, who made the transmission run better. Miss Scarlett, like me, needs a little time to get going in the morning, but she’s always up to speed by the time I reach the next driveway down the Ridge, and I can live with that.

However, there was a sort of shuddering going on when I braked downhill, a not uncommon occurrence on the curvaceous roads around here. So I brought it to another place to check the alignment (Mike doesn’t have the car lifting thing or the specialized tools to do this kind of thing).

They told me that I needed to have two things fixed before I could have the alignment done. I checked with the boys, and they also couldn’t fix it for me, having a Mike-esque lack of expensive and specialized tools. So the fixing, along with the alignment, cost about $300.

I still noticed the shuddering, so I brought it back in again. It appears that there had been some miscommunication and the mechanic hadn’t understood what I meant, possibly because I don’t speak Car. He investigated, and this time, it turned out that I needed the rear brakes replaced and something done to the rotors. Cost: $400.

Since brakes are important and the boys can’t measure and sand down rotors, or whatever it is that had to be done, I said OK. Goodbye, paycheck. It was nice almost knowing you. And that was before I replaced the two front tires, which were 7 years old (150 in tire years). Cost: about $200.

A few days later, I heard a high-pitched squeeing noise in the car, even over the Ramones. I stopped in at the mechanic’s and asked him to listen to it. He said he thought it was a leak in a vacuum hose and not critical, so I left a rambling message for my brother, asking if he could fix it on Thursday.

The infamous belt incident happened on Wednesday. The consensus of opinion between the boys and Megan is that any mechanic should have known what that noise was. I certainly will if I ever hear it again, which I hope I never do.

On the other hand, it only cost about $70 in parts for Rob to fix it. Working on my second thousand dollars of the month, baby! At this rate, I’m going to need a “Car” category for this blog.

Well, today did not go exactly as planned.

I left the house at the dark and starry hour of 6:30. By the time I got to the store, the sky was brightening, and even at that hour, the ocean was blue. The ocean was also feeling particularly frisky and beautiful today, and it was so hard not to stop and just watch it for a while, especially at Van Damme beach, which may well be my favorite view around here.

As I pulled into the parking lot at the pool, I suddenly couldn’t steer. The steering wheel was locked, and an ominous red battery sign was lit up on the dashboard. Uh oh.

Fortunately for me, I meet Megan on Wednesday mornings for aquafit, and she was already there waiting for me. I was so glad to see her! She managed to maneuver Miss Scarlett into a parked position across two spots. Then we noticed a strange smell, and smoke curling from the left side of the hood. Never a good sign.

Closer inspection showed that the belt had come off its moorings, and had melted slightly in its unmoored state. I grabbed the towel I keep in the back seat to mop the morning fog from the windows – this time, to extinguish the smoldering belt goo on the hood roof.

Megan called Jonathan and woke him up, and then called Rob and woke him up. We decided that the best thing was for me to go home with Megan, and Rob would take Megan’s car back in to town to fix my car. On our way home, Megan and I bought a replacement belt.

When we got there, Rob was drinking coffee and waking up. Undoubtedly he was once again considering the “for worse” part of his wedding vows twenty years ago and remembering several in law jokes that now had an alarming ring of truth.

Megan went to bed, Rob went to fix my car, and I went home to get some work done. Clyde decided to welcome me home by climbing up inside the painting again, this time bringing it down on my unsuspecting head. Surprisingly, no-one was damaged, though Clyde broke the wire holding the painting in place and now it’s leaning against the stairs. He wisely disappeared for several hours after that.

Rob just called and said that he replaced the belt and whatever went wrong was the simplest thing it could be under the circumstances. When Megan goes to work tonight, she’ll drop me off to get Miss Scarlett. Hopefully, we will get home in one piece.

The patient

On Saturday night, I was watching “The Hoodlum” (with Lawrence Tierney, on a brief hiatus from jail, and his real-life brother, Edward) with Clyde cuddled up to me. Clyde’s cuddling style is to stare at me, then jump on my lap, climb up my body, and collapse with his head on my shoulder, giving a big sigh before starting to purr.

Both he and Roscoe like to be rubbed under their chin. But this time, something was wrong. There was a huge bump. I felt the other side of his chin. Bump-free. Uh oh. However, it didn’t seem to hurt him and he was acting normally.

In the morning, Megan investigated and said it was an abscess. By then, Clyde had scratched at it and it was wet and much ickier-looking. Being the excellent sister she is, she also called Dr. Karen on the dot of 9:00 on Monday morning, when I was arriving at the jobette. She not only got him an appointment at 11:00, but also caught him and took him there.

I am proud to say that by all accounts, my brave little Clyde did not complain or fuss while having his chin shaved and getting an antibiotic shot. Dr. Karen was impressed with his courage and cuteness. Apparently both were remarked on often. My little guy weighs 8.7 pounds!

I am supposed to keep him in today as well as yesterday. When I came home yesterday, Clyde was sleeping on the bathmat and Audrey was sleeping nearby on a (white) towel she had pulled off the holder just for this purpose. Roscoe, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

The house was like an oven, since all the doors were closed except the sliding glass ones in the living room. Rob installed a found screen in that one last summer, so that was open. I had to put the fan on in the sleeping loft, which becomes unbearable if it’s over 60 degrees outside and the balcony door isn’t open. Naturally this is the warmest part of the year, and it was the warmest day we’ve had in a while.

Clyde was pretty sleepy all evening. Today he seems like his old self and I’m not sure if I can make him stay in all day on such a lovely, sunny day. Stay tuned!

A beautiful day for a fair

First things first: happy birthday to Rob! He stopped by this morning and when I wished him happy birthday, he looked surprised. I hugged him and told him I was glad he was born. He took a couple of things to repair and vanished after he hugged me back.

We’ll have a birthday barbecue next weekend. This one was busy! As I write, Star is at her second Canine Good Citizenship class (she did great last week). And yesterday, Megan and I went swimming (more about that later) before we went to the county fair.

A quick review of my blog shows that I haven’t been since 2008, so it was about time. As you can see above, it was a beautiful day. Megan found a secret parking space, and off we went.

It was hard to decide what to do first, so we had some garlic fries while we walked around and scoped out the possibilities. We made a mental note of the sno cone truck for later:

They really are the most refreshing drink you can eat. Though, disappointingly, they did not have blue raspberry. Even though everyone knows that blue is the best flavor for anything frozen (other than margaritas).

Sno cone in hand, we went to admire the livestock and the kids who handle them. This little dappled cow with its freckled girl was my favorite:

Did you know? Cows are covered with a sort of pomade at these shows, which makes them look all shiny and pretty, but makes your hands instantly filthy and kind of gross. Worth it, though. Also, there were hand-washing stations everywhere.

I resisted the temptation to run my hands through these sheep’s curly fleece:

And I kind of had a crush on this handsome boy:

Ever wondered how to shear a sheep? Now’s your chance to learn how:

It was strange being in the building with all the fleece and hand-spun yarn and beautiful scarves and things without our Erica*. And not seeing any of her work entered for prizes (and winning them). But I got over it long enough to buy a hat, which turned out to have been made by a woman who lives about two miles away. She spun the wool herself, knitted it, adorned it with a unique abalone button, and voilà:

It was hard to believe I’d ever need that hat on a sunny day in the 80s, but I bet I will be glad I got it in a couple of months. And I got to meet a new neighbor!

Some apple (and cider) tasting later:

we were admiring quilts:

flower arrangements:

and some of the biggest pumpkins I’ve ever seen:

The day flew by. Suddenly, it was time to head home, full of fair food and happy memories. Until next year…

*We had a great chat today. They are definitely coming for Christmas. And Jessica loves her new school.

So I have kept up with aquafit, even though the year has clearly turned its face resolutely toward winter and it’s now dark when I leave the house at 6:30 am.

The splendid pool where aquafit takes place has been struggling to stay open, so they have slowly decreased the water temperature to about 79 degrees in the interests of saving money. It was 84 when I first started going, and I can tell you that you feel the loss of every one of those degrees early on a foggy morning. Although I would find 84 on the warm side in the air, in the water is another matter.

I love the teacher and the class, though. Many of the ladies are vintage and they are all delightful. In the locker room, we discuss the latest plays and art shows in San Francisco, as well as the (usually lamentable) performance of the Giants the night before. One of the ladies has a relative who works at the gym where the Giants’ beloved catcher, Buster Posey* is rehabbing from the terrible injury which has sidelined him for most of the year (and which I think was the beginning of the end for the team this year). She says that Buster is as charming in real life as he seems to be on TV, and is hoping that he’ll be back next year. Let’s hope so.

Megan has started meeting me at the Wednesday class, after her long night shift, and she told me that when I was in Napa, everybody missed me. It was nice to hear. Along with the exercise, I love the company of my sister and the Pool Ladies, there in their jewelry with smiles and an encouraging word early in the morning.

About halfway through, one of the ladies calls out our imaginary breakfast after our workout: a big burrito and a Margarita! Nachos and a beer! Her husband just gave her a yellow Porsche convertible to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. That’s the kind of girl she is.

*Surely one of the best names in sports.

Mugshot

Megan was getting ready for work when she discovered that she couldn’t find her handbag.

In all fairness, it must be said that she is a little careless of it at times. Mostly it lives on the backseat floor of her car, just as her keys live in the ignition, except when she’s at work. How else would you know where they are? And when it’s sunny, she often leaves the car doors open so the car doesn’t get too hot inside.

We knew she had her bag when we were buying the last-minute items for our brother’s belated birthday barbecue, but we couldn’t remember seeing it after that. She and Rob scoured their house-ette and the car while I called the store.

No luck. Megan was late for work, so she had to leave after borrowing some money for lunch – when you work a 12 hour shift, you have to eat twice while at work, so planning is necessary, especially in a place where everything is closed overnight.

After she left, Rob was watering the garden when he stumbled over something.

It was Megan’s wallet.

Then he came across the little pouch with her hairbrush, etc., in it. Eventually he found the bag and the rest of its contents, including a now-empty treat bag. We had taken Star to Big River and used the treats in a training session, and Megan had left them in her bag when we got back to the car.

We know it wasn’t Star, because she was in the house. Remembering the sunny day and the open car doors, Megan realized that Schatzi had taken the bag from the car and brought it into the garden to eat the treats. Whenever you give her a treat, she always takes it back there to enjoy it.

So there you have it. You can teach an old dog new tricks. She can sneak out of your brother’s house at the dead of night and go home, or jump out of an upstairs window without hurting herself, or help herself to your handbag in the back of a car.

It takes a Schatzi!

And in the “never a dull moment” department…

My brother woke me up at 1:00 am on Saturday night. Oddly, when the phone rings late at night, I still instinctively think “Mom”. Once I wake up a little more, I think “Rob”. In this case, it was Jonathan, who got a fire call for our address, making sure I was OK. I was, and so were Rob and Megan.

It was Mark, our neighbor and landlord. He had suffered an epileptic seizure and was unconscious. By the time Jonathan called me, Megan was already at the scene and EMS was on its way. Not for the first time, I was impressed by how quick and how good our little volunteer fire department and our little hospital’s EMS staff is.

They took Mark to the hospital, and he was home in time to celebrate his younger daughter’s birthday yesterday. He has a lot of tests ahead of him, and can’t drive for six months. Apparently it is unusual for someone over 40 to start having seizures, and lately he’s had migraines and very strong memories of his childhood – he feels like he is reliving certain moments. Apparently this is also not a good sign.

He seemed fine when I spoke with him yesterday, so I hope the doctors soon figure out what is wrong and can fix it quickly.

Last night, we belatedly celebrated Jonathan’s birthday with a barbecue in the chilly fog. His friend Carrie was visiting from the city, with her daughter Miranda, and Lichen was there, too. He cut my hair while there was still enough light. Yay! We had a wide variety of sausages, grilled zucchini, pesto salad made from basil Jonathan grew and pie made from huckleberries Carrie and Miranda picked around the property. It was nice to sit by the fire as darkness fell, laughing and reminiscing.

Ready for fun. Or trouble. Whatever comes first.

I really thought I’d get more blogging material out of the trip to Napa. I guess that’s what happens when you plan a trip around an event, rather than a place. No wonder I’ve never done it that way before.

I find it interesting that I blogged more often when I spent most of my time in Hooterville. You wouldn’t think that much happened around here.

Here’s a couple of things you missed:

I am slowly learning the wily ways of wildlife. One day, I was driving down the Ridge in a fog (inside and out), and suddenly, a young deer loomed in the mist. I stopped, and it ran into the woods. I waited, because there’s never just one, and sure enough, its buddy came prancing out, stared at me in the regulation manner, and then took off.

Megan one-upped me as usual by telling me about the time she was stopped in her car at Point Cabrillo Lighthouse* and a deer ran into her. Literally. The deer’s head plunged into the car’s open window, its huge black eye just inches away from Megan’s own. It’s hard to say who was more startled. The deer ran away in horror, leaving no sign of what happened other than fur stuck to the car door.

Recently, Megan and I were walking Star on the property when she flushed some quail. Both Star and Schatzi love to chase quail. I called out, “You’ll never catch one, Star!”, but she surprised us both by doing just that. I told Megan that I thought Star had a quail. She went into the bushes and flushed Star, who had a strange look on her face. One wing tip was sticking out of her mouth.

Megan told Star to drop it, and she did, opening her mouth. The quail beetled away like a wind-up toy, and Star cocked her head to one side, looking at Megan as if to say, “Not good?”

*When you come to visit, I’ll take you there. Great whale watching place, and the setting is amazing.

Almost as disappointing as the discovery that painkillers do not in fact kill pain is the discovery that cars do not get fixed and stay that way. Also more expensive and inconvenient.

When I first got Miss Scarlett back in Oaktown, she was already vintage, but her previous charioteer had practically ignored her, only putting about 5,000 miles a year on the odometer in 11 years. So I figured that with such light use – before we moved to Hooterville and both of us were consigned to eternal dirt roads and rutted, rough, curvy paved ones, that is – that the car would stay in pretty good shape.

As usual, I was wrong, and things and stuff seem to have gone wrong quite a lot this year. Thankfully the boys have come to my rescue on these occasions. But there are some things, requiring specialized and pricy equipment, that they can’t do. Hence my maiden voyage into the world of Hooterville area mechanics.

Up first was the only transmission place in town. The transmission is slow to engage, though it’s usually fine by the time I get to the next driveway down the Ridge. The Transmission Guy did a test drive and then informed me that in order to figure out what was wrong, he’d have to pull it apart for a labor charge of $700, not including the actual fixing after pulling it apart.

Also? A new transmission is $2,500.

The whole car cost $3,500.

A survey of friends turned up Mike the Mechanic. He gave me directions to his place, north of the Big Town. When I got there, it was a metal shed behind some stores. Hmmm.

I asked in the store, and they said, yes, that’s Mike’s place. So I left the keys and the car there and hoped for the best.

Mike called me and said that he’d like to change the transmission fluid and filter and pour in some goop that would make the pumps work better. He figured this would cost between $120 and $160, so after conferring with the boys, I said OK.

When he called me to say it was ready and doing better, I asked how late he’d be there, since Megan was going to drop me off after we went to aquafit that evening. He said to just put the money in the cast-iron frog on his porch.

Small town.

It turned out that Mike was there, so we actually got to meet him and give him the money in person. It was $120. So far, Miss Scarlett seems to be doing fine as far as the transmission goes.

There is still the front end shimmy to deal with. The diagnostics place said that there were a couple of things that needed to be fixed before the alignment could take place. I brought the estimate ($407!) to my brother, who said that he could fix the two things and then I could have the alignment done for a mere $60.

Hopefully that will end the saga of car repairs for the rest of the year, though I have to buy two new tires to replace the two 8 year olds before the winter rains start…

One of my favorite pictures of my favorite person

One of the problems with flying in the face of convention and WordPress by freeing myself from the tyranny of the post title is that using the date really makes you think about the date. Especially when it’s the Evil Eighteenth, aka the most dreaded day of the year.

Here it is again, and this year marks the tenth anniversary of my father’s death. I can hardly believe it’s been an entire decade since his life ended and mine changed forever.

I still remember my sister’s voice when I picked up the phone early that morning – evening for her; she had already lived through a day of horror by then – sounding small and stricken.

I still remember my brother grabbing my hand painfully hard with his work-roughened one as we headed to the airport together, his blue eyes, so like Dad’s, gazing tear-filled into the horizon as he said, “Let’s do it.”

I still remember wanting to run down the street screaming outside Dad’s funeral,and how seeing the resplendent Indian wedding across the street – something he would have loved, he who loved beauty (and India) so much -somehow gave me the strength to go in there.

I still remember my sister and I holding hands across Dad’s coffin before it vanished into the flames, the pallbearers holding their top hats over their hearts and bowing.

But I also remember waiting for him to come home from working at the lab when I was a little girl, the familiar chemical smell of his white lab coat as he swept me up into his arms asking, “How is my pixie today?”

And I remember riding on his shoulders through the woods in springtime, while Dad called the birds and they answered him. He knew all their names. And he could make clouds disappear, mostly on days with a breeze in the air…

And I remember coming icy-cold out of the chilly summer waters of the Atlantic and lying down on his sun-warmed back as he read the New York Times on a beach in Maine.

He never complained.

He was the best father and friend a girl could ever have. I was lucky to have him. Though the grief is the price of the love, it has also given me the strength to get through this first decade without him, as I’m sure it will in the decades to come. As time passes, I spend more time thinking of the happy memories of my father and less time thinking of the sadness of losing him. I think that would make him happy.

I love you, Dad. Always.

Another thing I never told you about the Surgical Mystery Tour in San Francisco was that I lost my address book. I still have no idea where. But it’s gone.

As people often say in these situations, it was old and the time had come. But it had also been given to me by my father, who has been gone for ten years this month. A decade!

It was from the National Gallery in London, blue and patterned with Raphael’s drawings of clouds. It was held together by a rubber band at this point in its long life, and it was full of Post-Its and scribbles and dead people.

I delayed getting a new one, since I wouldn’t be able to write Dad’s name in it, or my stepmother’s, for that matter, and the thought made me sad. I guess it’s always hard to face the truth, or reality, or whatever you want to call the unpleasant facts of life. And I am an excellent procrastinator.

But the time has come, the Walrus said, for you to email me your addresses and phone numbers, so I can send you Christmas cards and random postcards, as inspired by the lovely and creative Lisa*. It’s sjpeakall AT gmail DOT com. Don’t forget the J!

To further complicate this address book revamp, I just got my own post office box last week. Sharing one with the sibs was getting too crowded, and stressing out our ever-crabby postmistress**. So I got my own, a bigger one, too, with a wet bar and a pool. And it’s even in the same neighborhood.

My new PO box is 128 instead of 61. Everything else is the same. Make a note, and try not to lose it!

*I use it for a bookmark, so it makes me smile every day.

**But we bonded during the PO box rental experience, because she had her dog there, which I recognized as a pit bull mix. We happily talked about what great dogs they are as I filled out the paperwork, and I told her that my sister does pit bull rescue and activism, so hopefully she’ll get some of the new and improved attitude, too!

The cause of all the trouble. Seen here in the surprise snowfall in February.

As I mentioned, my hard-working and long-suffering brother was not able to attend the social event of the season, aka Erica’s and Jessica’s farewell barbecue, which also marked the first time in months that I hadn’t pulled up to his place only be told that there was something tragically wrong with my car.

But I was not to escape so easily…

When Megan, Rob, and I went to see the Harry Potter movie last week, we took my car, partly because it has more room than their Saturn, and we had two propane tanks to fill and Star with us, and partly because their trunk has been on strike for a couple of years, and we were getting two households’ worth of groceries.

Needless to say, I let Megan drive (Rob is still on restricted driving), and she noticed that Miss Scarlett’s brakes are not all they should be – not something a girl wants to hear when she drives serpentine local roads three days a week or more.

I don’t think I ever told you that when we were in San Francisco for Rob’s surgery, we drove some of the steepest hills in the city, with a post-surgical Rob in the car. My brother inspected the brake fluid after we got home and found it was low, apparently something that should never happen. This discovery left Miss Scarlett marooned at his house until I could buy and apply brake fluid.

I tried not to think about what could have happened in the city. And I’ve been checking all the fluids every two weeks ever since. I even have an oil change lined up for this afternoon.

After I get home, I’ll take the car over to my brother’s, Rob following in the truck. I’ll leave the car at Jonathan’s place, and then drive home with Rob in the truck. Jonathan will then install the $169 worth of brake parts which I bought yesterday on my way to work, list in hand. I could even answer the questions they asked at the car parts store. Admittedly, only the make and number of doors, but still!

I’m so lucky to have the boys around to fix things. I can’t imagine what a mechanic would have charged for fixing my brakes.

Well, actually, I can.

Well, Erica and Jessica are settled in their new (to them), century-old house, merrily ordering delivery dinners. Jessica has already made friends with the kids on her block. It makes me happy to know she’s going to grow up like Ramona the Pest, in a happy neighborhood with lots of kids and adventures to be had on her very own Klickitat Street.

Besides the farewell barbecue for the Dynamic Duo, it’s been hard for us to fit in seeing the new Harry Potter movie, even though we’ve been looking forward to it since Part I ended. Typically, we fit it in between errands on Friday. Rob tagged along, though in the way of many men when confronted with extended periods of shopping, he tended to bail on us when we were actually in the store.

We went to Safeway before the movie, loading up Miss Scarlett’s trunk while Star patiently waited in the backseat. She also had to wait in the car during the movie, but I think that dogs would rather wait in the parking lot than at home, since being in the car means a) being with the people; and 2) the possibility of fun. Also, Star hasn’t read the books.

Our timing was perfect, though: we arrived in the theater just as the last trailer ended, and the opening credits started just as we took our seats. I noticed that there were only two other people in the theater besides the three of us, and that was almost certainly a unique experience among viewers of this movie.

I enjoyed the movie very much, despite the darkness noted by critics. The one thing I really didn’t like was the epilogue, which I also disliked in the book. I think the three friends should have been left at the end of their victorious battle, on the brink of adulthood with all the rest of lives before them, rather than having their dull domesticity spelled out for us.

But that’s just me.

After the movie, we emerged blinking into the sunshine to take Star for a walk in a nearby field. Then we finished our errands, came home, and unloaded the car. Back to reality. It was nice to have that little break from the real world. That’s the magic of movies – and books.

On Saturday, we had a farewell barbecue for Erica and Jessica. I’ll have you know that saying goodbye to us was important enough to delay their departure. Despite living in the middle of nowhere – or on the edge of it – it was the only day that week that all three of us could get together. We are surprisingly busy despite living in obscurity*.

Or so we thought. Though we had the proceedings at our brother’s place, he ended up getting stuck at work and still hadn’t appeared by the time E & J drove off into the darkness. He only missed them by a few minutes and was really sorry, but it couldn’t be helped. Being a grown-up: not all it’s cracked up to be.**

Lu and L were there, though, and Lu brought her dogs, Marco and Harlow, who played with their friend Star. I was afraid it would be hard for L to see all the dogs bouncing around happily when dear Padawan is gone, but he was his usual sweet-spirited self. He is even talking about getting another dog, which is good.

I was sad to say goodbye. Even though they are now gracing Portland with their fabulousness, it doesn’t quite seem real to me. I held Jessica on my lap a lot that evening, talking as always, but also resting my cheek on her bright hair or holding her hand and thinking of how I wouldn’t see her grow up and how she won’t be part of my everyday life any more. It was hard not to cry as I hugged them goodbye.

But they’ve promised to come back for Christmas, and we’ve talked about Jessica coming for a couple of weeks next summer. Megan is already saying that it’s really only a ten hour drive, not twelve, and we could make it in one day…

*Another of life’s mysteries is how we all work all the time, but never have any money.

**Jessica observed that I’m “not a real grown-up. You’re more like…an old kid.”

Rob is recovering well from his scary surgery. The hole cut into his throat so they could rummage around in his spine has completely healed, though he still has to wear the giant collar at all times and is not allowed to drive or do much of anything, which is driving him crazy. He has done little things, like mending the case of my grandparents’ fish set (the velvet piece holding up the serving pieces had come unglued), but you can tell he’s dying to actually do something.

I’m not sure how much he will actually be able to/allowed to do after he gets the all-clear from the surgeon sometime in September, though. I guess we’ll see. As I write I’m waiting for him to come over so I can drive him and Star to my brother’s place for a walk.

Speaking of walking…A has finally been released from rehab! She was staying there during the week and allowed home on weekends. When she finally came home for good, her husband C had filled the house with flowers and they had a huge party.

A still has no feeling in her feet and her ankles don’t really work. She says that if anyone pushed her chest, she’d fall right over. She is walking with the help of canes, but has plans to attend a family reunion later this month and the wedding of a friend in Albania in September.

She started back to work part-time this week, for the first time this YEAR. She has been in the hospital or rehab center for more than six months. Incredible.

Fortunately, there is a government-funded program that allows disabled people to take a free taxi to work and back. There’s no way A could take public transit in London in the shape she’s in. Apart from the balance/walking issues, she tires very easily. I think her body is recovering from its long ordeal and it will take a while before she feels like her former self again.

Although it didn’t happen to me – just like Rob’s surgery – both events affected me deeply. I still feel grateful every day that I can walk and breathe.

Rob is doing pretty well. He admits to his pain being about a 5 on a scale of 10, which means it’s probably more like a 7. It’s bad enough for him to actually be taking the pain meds he brought home from the hospital. He usually shuns them like the plague. The anesthesiologist, looking at his chart before the operation, said that he had done “a remarkable job of avoiding opiates”. But having your throat slashed open and people rooting around in your spine for a few hours can be attitude changing.

I have to admit that just seeing him walk over to my house, while it makes me nervous, also makes me glad that he’s not paralyzed or worse. We were lucky that Megan did so much research and found such an excellent surgical team.

In about 6 weeks, Rob will go back and they’ll check him out. Hopefully he’ll get the all-clear to do more than Nothing, which he is not good at doing.

While Rob’s been doing Nothing, I’ve been trying to catch up on my jobs. It’s been hard and I’ve been more tired than I’ve been since the long vigil at Mom’s bedside. I guess hospital time will do that to you.

Tomorrow is Megan and Rob’s 20th wedding anniversary. We have a lot to celebrate.

Sleeping shop cat in the Castro

While we were away, Jonathan was on pet patrol. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than he thought.

Early one morning, he woke up freezing, only to discover that his door was wide open. Star was sleeping peacefully, but Schatzi had apparently pushed the door open and escaped.

It’s hard to find a deaf dog in the pre-dawn country darkness. He eventually found her shivering in her own backyard. She happily hopped into his car, and he added a long training leash to the backseat before taking her back to his place. Schatzi spent the rest of the day on the long, long leash if she was outside, or not, if she was inside.

That evening, she asked to go out and pee. As soon as she was out, she made a break for it. Jonathan clapped to get her to come back while scrambling into his shoes to chase her. By then, she had a good lead, and by the time he got in the car to go after her, she vanished.

He spent all night looking for her to no avail. Finally, he called Megan in hysterics early in the morning to tell her that Schatzi was lost. It takes a lot to make him cry, but we all know how Megan adores her dogs. It must have been one of the worst nights of his life.

Megan told Jonathan not to worry, and he kept looking for Schatzi. Eventually, he found her sleeping in her garden as if nothing had happened. He shut her in the house anyway, since we were coming back that day. Checking on her later, he found her in the garden again. He was sure that the doors were closed, but checked them again, just in case.

They were.

This time he just left her outside, since we were due home in a couple of hours.

Guess how she got out?

She went upstairs, climbed up on a chest and through the window which is open for Harriet and Ramona, Megan and Rob’s cats. Then, like the cats, she jumped to the ground from the porch roof outside the window. With her fragile old bones. There’s a good idea.

She did make it, though she needed extra pain meds that night. Nothing like an old dog who can learn new tricks, is there? Maybe we should re-name her Houdini!

Evening in the Haight

I can tell I’m back home because I’m sneezing my head off. It was nice having a break from my allergies. Apparently cement sidewalks, skyscrapers, and Victorians are hypoallergenic. Who knew?

I also managed to sleep through an earthquake, centered about a mile from beautiful downtown Charlottesville. It was a relatively petite one, at 2.9 on the Richter scale.

Welcome home!

We left the hospital sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 yesterday morning. Dates and times became blurred this week. Somehow it seemed like we had been there a week after the first day, and the time between Rob being wheeled away and getting the call to the recovery room seemed interminable.

Originally, they said he would be moved to a regular ward from the neurology danger ward (I can’t remember its real name, but it’s one step down from intensive care. In Hospital World, being downgraded means you’re doing better), but a bed never opened up, so they released him from there. Just like the last time, when we arrived to pick him up, he was fully dressed and waiting. There was more waiting to be done, though: getting pain meds, getting paperwork, etc.

Waiting is something that does not get easier with practice.

But finally we were on the road, heading though the silvery wisps of fog on the Golden Gate Bridge to the oppressive heat of Santa Rosa and Cloverdale. Hooterville had never looked as lovely as it did in yesterday’s late afternoon sun.

So far, Rob is doing well. I saw him today and he said the pain was less than it was before the surgery. Now the hard part: making him sit around and do nothing for the next 6-8 weeks. He actually asked Megan to stop at the hardware store on our way home so he could buy some mesh for the beehive.

He seemed both surprised and disappointed at our immediate veto.

It’s going to be a long summer.

Victorian with Bougainvillea

Usually, I don’t enjoy being woken up by the phone. But when it’s my sister, saying Rob is being released from the hospital today, I do.

We’re not sure exactly when, so we’ll pack up Miss Scarlett (who has remained ticket-free while semi-illegally parked at our friend Clayton’s place all week), and head up to the hospital and wait. That’s why they have waiting rooms, right?

When we saw Rob yesterday, he was bright and chipper, able to walk around the floor and eat by himself. One of the things they worry about post-op is his ability to swallow after shoving a giant tube down his throat during the surgery, and he’s fortunately fine. He said his pain was actually less than it was last time, so everything seemed pretty good.

It did kind of amaze me that this was less than 24 hours after having his spine operated on, though. I guess science and Rob are an unbeatable combination.

Sonoma barn*

I’m coming to you from the waiting room at UCSF. As hospitals go, it’s pretty nice. There’s a huge flat screen TV in the waiting room, as well as comfortably upholstered chairs and remarkably tasteful carpet. It doesn’t even have that hospital smell we all know and hate.

A little kid just left the waiting room with his mother. He turned at the door and called out to the rest of us, “Bye! Have a nice day!”

As I write, Rob is out of surgery. Megan ran out of here as soon as the receptionist called her name. She is reactivating Rob’s insulin pump, which was turned off during the long surgery. At least we know he made it through the operation, though I haven’t seen him yet. I can’t wait to see him and make sure he can move his hands and feet and is otherwise OK.

I’m really glad I was able to go with Megan and keep her company during the whole ordeal. She is strong and brave, but it’s been so hard.

When we arrived at the hospital yesterday after a long, hot drive for the pre-op festivities, they told us we didn’t have an appointment that day. They said that the appointment was for 2:00 today, or hours after Rob’s surgery was scheduled. They did fit him in though. The person who scheduled the appointment (or not) told us to be here at 10:00 this morning. The hospital computer said 11:00. So we got here at 10:00, just in case.

Around 11:00, we went with Rob to the pre-op area, where he changed into the gown, answered a zillion questions, filled out forms, and met his surgical team. They all seemed great, and I really felt that our precious Rob was in good hands. Despite the stress and worry, I couldn’t help noticing how cute the nurses were, which may well make me the most shallow person on earth.

Around quarter to twelve, they wheeled him away, always a horrifying moment. We went with him as far as we could, and watched him vanish around the corner.

We decided to go out and walk around the Haight – sitting around the hospital seemed unbearable. Then we came back, had a surprisingly good and inexpensive lunch at the hospital cafeteria, and checked in with the receptionist to see how Rob was doing. He was almost out of surgery then.

So now I just have to wait for Megan to come back and get me, and I’ll go and give Rob a careful kiss and see with my own eyes that he’s all right. Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, emails, texts, and calls. They mean so much.

*I’ve always wanted to get a picture of this barn outside Cloverdale – this was the best I could do.